L Break Into Program
@breakintoprogram.co.uk
Blog: http://www.breakintoprogram.co.uk
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/BreakIntoProgram
Ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/breakintoprogram
Software developer & electronics dabbler. Restoring & programming vintage computers from Acorn Atom to ZX81.
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/BreakIntoProgram
Ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/breakintoprogram
Software developer & electronics dabbler. Restoring & programming vintage computers from Acorn Atom to ZX81.
Literally just nodding off and figured out a neat way to save a load of time when rotating the model points. Note to self, only need to index LUT once.
November 24, 2025 at 12:19 AM
Literally just nodding off and figured out a neat way to save a load of time when rotating the model points. Note to self, only need to index LUT once.
Discovered what the original bug was. To do a signed divide, I first get the sign (XOR the high bytes). I can then use that to determine the sign of the result. I then get the absolute value of the dividend and divider, do an unsigned divide, pop flags, and negate if result should be negative...
November 23, 2025 at 7:51 PM
Discovered what the original bug was. To do a signed divide, I first get the sign (XOR the high bytes). I can then use that to determine the sign of the result. I then get the absolute value of the dividend and divider, do an unsigned divide, pop flags, and negate if result should be negative...
Feels like a coding kind of day today. Going to split my maths routines into two files, low and high level. Need to convert my stars and world ordering routines to assembler.
November 23, 2025 at 10:56 AM
Feels like a coding kind of day today. Going to split my maths routines into two files, low and high level. Need to convert my stars and world ordering routines to assembler.
Righto, you know the drill…
November 23, 2025 at 10:07 AM
Righto, you know the drill…
Manchester was incredibly busy. Enjoyed walking round the cathedral area. Not been in Sinclair's Oyster Bar for donkeys years. Had a quick walk round the Christmas markets and a sneaky mulled wine, then onto the art fair at Manchester Central. Really enjoyed that.
Manchester Art Fair | Contemporary Art Fair UK 2025
Join Manchester Art Fair 21–23 November 2025 At Manchester Central. Discover Contemporary Art From 170+ Exhibitors. Book Tickets Today.
www.manchesterartfair.co.uk
November 22, 2025 at 6:53 PM
Manchester was incredibly busy. Enjoyed walking round the cathedral area. Not been in Sinclair's Oyster Bar for donkeys years. Had a quick walk round the Christmas markets and a sneaky mulled wine, then onto the art fair at Manchester Central. Really enjoyed that.
Up with the birds this morning, walking down to the local sports club for a church breakfast. Full English and good banter. Going to grab a coffee and see where the rest of the day takes me.
November 22, 2025 at 10:00 AM
Up with the birds this morning, walking down to the local sports club for a church breakfast. Full English and good banter. Going to grab a coffee and see where the rest of the day takes me.
Reposted by L Break Into Program
Hey, I bet you didn't hear that Zork 1, 2, and 3 were open-sourced today!
…Oh, you have heard. Yeah. Way ahead of me. :)
Here's my comments, and some details that you might not have seen.
blog.zarfhome.com/2025/11/zork...
…Oh, you have heard. Yeah. Way ahead of me. :)
Here's my comments, and some details that you might not have seen.
blog.zarfhome.com/2025/11/zork...
Zork is now open source
Two years ago, I wrote: Microsoft-the-company does not care about Infocom. But a lot of people in Microsoft must care. Microsoft is heavily populated by greying GenX nerds just like me. Folks who grew...
blog.zarfhome.com
November 21, 2025 at 3:19 AM
Hey, I bet you didn't hear that Zork 1, 2, and 3 were open-sourced today!
…Oh, you have heard. Yeah. Way ahead of me. :)
Here's my comments, and some details that you might not have seen.
blog.zarfhome.com/2025/11/zork...
…Oh, you have heard. Yeah. Way ahead of me. :)
Here's my comments, and some details that you might not have seen.
blog.zarfhome.com/2025/11/zork...
Enjoyed doing some Z80 coding last night. Not had much chance to do any this month. Been so busy job hunting and preparing for RetroFest.
November 21, 2025 at 8:43 AM
Enjoyed doing some Z80 coding last night. Not had much chance to do any this month. Been so busy job hunting and preparing for RetroFest.
Started optimising some of the maths in the Next 3D engine this evening. First, writing a fast 16-bit divide routine using the multiply by reciprocal method and a small look up table.
November 20, 2025 at 11:15 PM
Started optimising some of the maths in the Next 3D engine this evening. First, writing a fast 16-bit divide routine using the multiply by reciprocal method and a small look up table.
Need to service the Einstein keyboard this afternoon. A couple of the keys are a bit spongey. Probably just gunked up. Then I can pack it up as I don’t need it for a while.
November 20, 2025 at 10:57 AM
Need to service the Einstein keyboard this afternoon. A couple of the keys are a bit spongey. Probably just gunked up. Then I can pack it up as I don’t need it for a while.
Wait, what?
Stargate Announcement | Prime Video
YouTube video by Prime Video
youtu.be
November 19, 2025 at 10:32 PM
Wait, what?
The Elonex laptop I've been posting about today has a 40MB hard drive. And it uses CHS addressing, not LBA. My biggest fear is that at some point it will suffer a failure. As the BIOS doesn't support LBA, I'm probably going to be stuffed. Are there any modern CHS IDE drive hardware solutions around?
Cylinder-head-sector - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
November 18, 2025 at 9:27 PM
The Elonex laptop I've been posting about today has a 40MB hard drive. And it uses CHS addressing, not LBA. My biggest fear is that at some point it will suffer a failure. As the BIOS doesn't support LBA, I'm probably going to be stuffed. Are there any modern CHS IDE drive hardware solutions around?
Took Mrs B a couple of hours to drive a couple of miles tonight because the A555 airport link road was closed due to flooding. Again. Of course locals would have told you that it'd be a daft idea to build a bypass round there. But what would we know.
November 18, 2025 at 9:18 PM
Took Mrs B a couple of hours to drive a couple of miles tonight because the A555 airport link road was closed due to flooding. Again. Of course locals would have told you that it'd be a daft idea to build a bypass round there. But what would we know.
An interesting rabbit hole to fall down this afternoon...
How quake.exe got its TCP/IP stack - Fabien Sanglard
fabiensanglard.net/quake_chunne...
fabiensanglard.net/quake_chunne...
November 18, 2025 at 7:04 PM
An interesting rabbit hole to fall down this afternoon...
Righto, I should be preparing for an interview tomorrow. I hope they ask questions about fitting 3.5" drives in 34 year old laptops, because if they do, I'll nail it.
November 18, 2025 at 5:05 PM
Righto, I should be preparing for an interview tomorrow. I hope they ask questions about fitting 3.5" drives in 34 year old laptops, because if they do, I'll nail it.
Huh. File Explorer in Windows 3.1 doesn’t seem to be Y2K compliant.
November 18, 2025 at 4:40 PM
Huh. File Explorer in Windows 3.1 doesn’t seem to be Y2K compliant.
Fitting the BIOS CMOS battery to the Elonex. It was designed for the BBC Master. This is a bit of a bodge, but it’ll do. Will secure wires with some Kapton tape and a couple of dabs of hot glue.
November 18, 2025 at 1:56 PM
Fitting the BIOS CMOS battery to the Elonex. It was designed for the BBC Master. This is a bit of a bodge, but it’ll do. Will secure wires with some Kapton tape and a couple of dabs of hot glue.
Woke up this morning to discover another good-un has shuffled off this mortal coil. An absolute legend in all respects. Very sad news.
Rebecca Heineman - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
November 18, 2025 at 11:15 AM
Woke up this morning to discover another good-un has shuffled off this mortal coil. An absolute legend in all respects. Very sad news.
Was up till the early hours this morning finishing that coding test. It was one of those that looked like a shoo-in but was quite nuanced when you got into it. My head wasn't in the right space on Monday after RetroFest, so went for a swim. It clicked late afternoon thankfully.
November 18, 2025 at 11:05 AM
Was up till the early hours this morning finishing that coding test. It was one of those that looked like a shoo-in but was quite nuanced when you got into it. My head wasn't in the right space on Monday after RetroFest, so went for a swim. It clicked late afternoon thankfully.
Just finished writing some Java to solve a word puzzle. My original code worked fine for a 4x4 word grid, but anything bigger than that and it was taking forever. Managed to refactor it so that even the worst case runs in a couple of hundred milliseconds....
November 18, 2025 at 10:43 AM
Just finished writing some Java to solve a word puzzle. My original code worked fine for a 4x4 word grid, but anything bigger than that and it was taking forever. Managed to refactor it so that even the worst case runs in a couple of hundred milliseconds....
Back home now after a wonderful weekend at the @computinghistory.org.uk exhibiting at RetroFest 2025. Thank you again to all the museum staff who looked after us, and @shortcircuit.org.uk for organising it. Here’s to next year!
November 16, 2025 at 10:07 PM
Back home now after a wonderful weekend at the @computinghistory.org.uk exhibiting at RetroFest 2025. Thank you again to all the museum staff who looked after us, and @shortcircuit.org.uk for organising it. Here’s to next year!
Busy day today, some good conversations had about how games development has changed in 40 years. Lots of interest in the Spectrum Next. No pictures sadly, will hopefully have more time for that tomorrow.
November 15, 2025 at 5:40 PM
Busy day today, some good conversations had about how games development has changed in 40 years. Lots of interest in the Spectrum Next. No pictures sadly, will hopefully have more time for that tomorrow.
Getting coffeed up before RetroFest
November 15, 2025 at 8:54 AM
Getting coffeed up before RetroFest
Journey down to Cambridge was slow but steady. All set up now, ready for the weekend. Thankfully everything survived.
November 14, 2025 at 6:07 PM
Journey down to Cambridge was slow but steady. All set up now, ready for the weekend. Thankfully everything survived.
Signed.
Sign the Petition
Ensure BBC refrains from compensating Donald Trump
c.org
November 13, 2025 at 6:49 PM
Signed.