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o:
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ate: Wed, 12 Oct 2022 01:07:33 +0000
ubject: New Beginnings
fter coming back to Zaibatsu after a rather extended haitus I had the
ost brilliant realization that I could simply phlog in the phorm of an
mail. Of course the ridiculously wonderful part about that is because
RFC(2)822][1] specifies that Things Should Be Text, and in gopher
hings Are Also Text, one could actually quite easily just curl this
hlog into their maildir or append it to their mbox file and just read
t in their favorite mail client.
have a pretty strong desire to just go back and re-work my previous
hlogging into this format. I would be pretty delighted by that.
nyway, lots of things have been happening to this Sundog over the
ourse of the last several months, but probably the most interesting and
xciting and relevant to nearby folks is that I acquired some new old
echnology, namely the AlphaSmart Neo2. I actually managed to find a lot
f 4 of them on eBay for ~the price of 1, which is a pretty substantial
iscount!
hey had some battery acid damage, but all of them are in at least
ort-of working order. I'm composing this message on one.
f you don't feel like heading to Wikipedia or one of the more
nternet-y things, here's a description of them. They were designed as
ord processors for educational use, when $2k/computer was par for the
ourse for a computer lab, and not something that schools would be wont
o spend for all of their students. At closer to $200/per, the Neo (and
redecessors/antecedents) were substantially cheaper. Designed by former
pple engineers, they had the incredibly clever design feature of being
ble to plug into a computer and appear as a regular keyboard. By
licking the "send" button, the Neo2 will begin transmitting characters
s if they were typed by a (particularly slow) typist. At a rate of
bout 7 chars per second, they're not going to win any typing awards,
ut the functionality is ubiquitous. Especially on the Neo2, which
imply uses USB. I haven't tried hooking up via adapters and USB-C yet,
ut I expect it would work just fine.
nyway, they are equipped with a very basic LCD screen that offers 4
ines of text, at about 400 characters per screen. They have a full
ized tenkeyless keyboard, but where the function keys would normally
ppear is a row of keys:
on/off, file 1-8, print, spell check, find, clear file, home, end, applets, …
he escape key is found near the arrow keys, next to the delete key. The
yping bumps are large and satisfyingly easy to acquire. The entire unit
s curve-ish, and an uninspiring shade that I would call "90's computer
ight black". I mean, it's not really grey, but more of that almost
luish, but definitely "black" color. I think the case is ABS, I forget
rom when I opened it up.
ou have at your disposal 8 different files that can be toggled via the
ile keys - it takes about 2 seconds to load each file, regardless of
ize. Each file has the capacity for ~50,000 characters, which is quite
easonable. I'm currently at 3,000 characters and nearly 600 words, so I
ould write about ~8,000 words. Ctrl+w actually provides word/char
ounts and estimated remaining capacity for the file, which is kind of
mazing. But the best part of all? It's powered by 3 AA batteries. To
ll estimates you should get over 70 hours or something. I know that my
attery meter (shown when the Neo2 boots up) hasn't depleted at all and
've been writing more or less daily for about 2 weeks now. It's pretty
eckin' impressive.
've definitely written more lately than I have in a while, largely
ecause how trivial it is to actually write. Press the button, and then
'm writing. Maybe 2 presses if I need to change the file or something.
n other "new"-s, I had been on mastodon.technology in my public
ersona, but it's shutting down so I've needed to find a new space. I've
etitioned for refugee status at fosstodon, so we'll see if that one
appens.
think the final thing that I have to mention - I'm *pretty* sure that
t some point in the past, soldierpunk attempted to email me about
ranting shell access to Zaibatsu, and I attempted to respond in the
ffirmative, but... I believe things were lost in the ether, and then I
nded out losing my maildir on acci/purpose. So if I was not simply
reaming such an offer, and this comes to the attention of soldierpunk,
*would* welcome shell access. If not, feel free to disregard this
essage.
ive well, sundogs.
[email protected]
1]: https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc2822.txt
