Blogging and Journalling

Having stalled on my handwritten journaling some time ago and and after an aborted attempt to use Apple's Journal app (it only runs on the iPhone, and even with a Bluetooth keyboard I found it clumsy), I started using Day One back in October.

I'm finding it a nice environment to write in and having a predefined structure works well as opposed to creating something similar in the Notes app or with text files.

What I'm hoping to do is distill what I've been journaling about into regular posts about what I've been up to for this blog, rather than trying to write public posts in real time.

Travel

Having had to abandon a planned trip to Poland in November, we went to Iceland for a couple of days just before Christmas to attend a concert being put on by Daði Freyr.

The concert, mostly of Christmas songs (and mainly in Icelandic), was fun. We met an internet acquaintance of Lauras and it was nice to be back in Iceland. There wasn't a lot of daylight as our trip coincided with the shortest day of the year, and it was striking even compared with the short days we get in Scotland at this time of year.

We spent a very relaxing afternoon at the Sky Lagoon spa.

Retrocomputing

A big month for the Spectrum Next project with the release of new firmware for the machine that enables multi-core support for the KS2 ("Issue 4") model that I have. Cores are what runs on the FPGA to implement different types of machine, and this firmware release includes one for the Sinclair QL and I've also tried an implementation of the BBC Micro. I'm curious to try writing something myself - a simple homebrew machine that can run CP/M feels like it wouldn't be hard to acheive.

I've been spending more time on SDF, including having a play with their TOPS-20 system, and I've been experimenting a bit with OpenVMS having received a hobbyist license from VMS Software to run it on x86_64 hardware. Sadly they no longer offer licenses for Alpha systems as I'd have liked to try it on my UP1000 at some point. It's interesting looking back on these systems with the perspective of what came after them.

I've acquired the parts I need to attach my Viewdata terminal to an ESP-01 wifi adapter, but haven't started working on it yet.

Television

I've been watching the recent adaptation of Frederick Forsyth's The Day of the Jackal. I'm only a few episodes in but finding it enjoyable so far and liking how they've moved the action from the 1960s of the book to a contemporary setting.

Movies

Saw Paddington in Peru with Laura at the Falkirk Cineworld. It's not up to the high bar that Paddington 2 set, but an entertaining way to spend an hour and a half.