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October 2019

Netbooting a SPARCstation 10 with a Raspberry Pi
2019-10-12

In which we have a shiny new SPARCstation 10, but do not have a CD-ROM or floppy drive, so we set up a local network and let the Raspberry Pi play a crucial server role with lots of old Internet protocols for maximum bootstrapping fun.

The 'rpt' command, UNIX program design (and introducing 'fea')
2019-10-18

Lazy command-line tooling from a time where I didn't learn about "vidir". But hey, I still don't use vidir, so "rpt" and "fea" might be tools that you could add to your toolbox as well.

Building a USB adapter for SUN Type 5 keyboards
2019-10-21

The SPARCstation came with a keyboard, and I got another spare SUN keyboard as well, so let's create a USB adapter so that the keyboard can be used as USB HID with more modern machines.

November 2019

git-story: Show Git activity for the last 52 weeks
2019-11-01

A small script I use to quickly get an overview of what happened in the last 52 weeks (that's like, a year!) in a Git repository, just by parsing and visualizing the commit log dates. Wonderful!

NEXTSTEP 3.3 on a SPARCstation 10
2019-11-07

With the newly-acquired SCSI2SD v6 adapter, it's time to put it to good use and revise the SPARCstation 10 with some 90s UNIX system: NEXTSTEP 3.3. We will run into our good old Z shell, install developer tools and use the venerable vi, version 3.7.

AppImage vs Snapcraft vs Flatpak
2019-11-19

The good thing with Linux is that there are so many things to choose from. The bad thing with Linux is that there are so many things to choose from. Case in point: Packaging a GUI app. We conveniently leave out DEB and RPM here. Choices!

December 2019

Replacing a missing CRT TV Remote Control with an Arduino
2019-12-30

Fixing the default 16:9 aspect ratio setting on an old Philips CRT TV by recycling an IR led from another broken TV remote and hooking it up to an Arduino.