evank
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Everything posted by evank
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Gooooooaaaaaaaaaaaaallllllllllllllllllllll! -
Alex L. was very helpful to me when I discovered this stuff in 2016. Nice guy!
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I use a tiny slotted screwdriver. It's safer than a blade.
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Aaaah .... December holidays, then. I'm off from work the last week of this year and first week of 2025. I will try to plan something.
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Nothing. I'm mostly into classic rock and 1980s music. I am a Springsteen fanatic. But when I build my Lego technical creations (lots of moving parts and plenty of code to write), I like it quiet, so I can really focus on the mechanical engineering.
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I started in this with a Laser 128, which I still have, but my current project uses a real //e because it requires more than two cards. I still need to update the 9771 scan on the Internet Archive. It's missing the last two pages, with the BASIC code! I have the physical booklet right here. We should all have a Zoom meetup over the winter holidays. Timing would be a challenge: US, Germany, New Zealand, etc.
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Keeping the torch alive: the only correct way to use an Interface A is with a real Apple II, BBC Micro, Commodore 64, or IBM PC. :)
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I would be happy to put the Lego Lines for DOS disk image into the Archive.org Vintage Lego Robotics folder, if someone sends me a fresh copy of the disk.
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I'm in possession of a Blocko card! It works. I'll have a video review within a week or two.
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Yes it has a serial card. I use it for connecting to a PC and running the ADTPro (Apple Disk Transfer) client/server application. This is for moving disk images between the retro and modern computers.
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[MOC] Realistic 4-Speed Gearboxes
evank replied to paave's topic in LEGO Technic, Mindstorms, Model Team and Scale Modeling
That's not quite accurate. On a real transmission, the selector is what your hand grabs, and shift forks are the pieces that move a gear onto its spline. I don't know if, in Lego, it's all one piece. But there is a technical difference if you were to build a realistic transmission model. You can see mine (it's nearly life-size) at the 3:30 mark of the video here: -
@Toastie, that's a good summary. Here's an update for everyone about the new Blocko card. I have been in contact with the inventor and the company selling it. They are mailing me a card to evaluate. It's already in the mail and should arrive later this week. I will make a Youtube video about it.
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I have a NA (95 M Edition). I used to have an NB2 (04) in the Mazdaspeed turbo version. Good stuff!
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@maehw - Welcome to the fun of connecting Lego to 8-bit computers. I do not yet have a P2000 update. Yes, I routinely have stuff available for sale. I'll send you a private message. I heard about Blocko last week. Hoping to get one soon for testing.
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I don't have time right now to read the whole thread :) but I agree with the OP's comment that modern technical sets have lost their edge. On the plus side, they still teach builders about how mechanical systems work, especially ones such as transmissions and suspensions -- just like I learned so from set 8860 in my childhood. But looks-wise, they're terrible in my opinion. I also hate the app lock-in. I'm much happier building my own creations from the 1970s-1980s parts. :) That is why I founded the "Square Pistons" group on Facebook.
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I need as much Lego 80s-90s store stuff as posibble
evank replied to Bricky Brickster's topic in General LEGO Discussion
I have so many happy childhood memories of Toys R Us, and also of a smaller toy store chain called KayBee, here in New Jersey in the 1980s. My favorite Lego back then -- and still today -- were the "Expert Builder" (pre-technic) sets. As mentioned, those boxes let you see inside and were so tempting! I loved car stuff. For birthdays/Chanukah, over a couple of years in the early/mid-80s, I got the 8860 auto chassis, 8847 dragster, and 8858 engines. These all made me very happy, until I became a teenager and was "too old" for Lego. Got back into it in my 40s! -
Applesoft is my favorite, as you know :) but I'm also happy to code on a Commodore 64 or with IBM PC-BASIC.
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>> It is all Evan’s (@evank) fault, so don’t blame, me when I keep opening these weird threads You're welcome! >> I am happy to share any further QBASIC (or whatever BASIC dialect you speak ) programs I come up with . Just give me a note How may we PEEK and POKE it from good old, line-numbered BASIC?
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You used the speech synth module? LOL that's awesomely brilliant. I will update my website.
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It's complicated. One point of view is, it's theft. People profited from other people's work without permission. As someone who creates content for a living, I understand this perspective. (Although my employer is a state university, so everything I create at work is owned by the taxpayers.) Another point of view is, once you put something on a non-firewalled web page, then it's public. Advocates would claim 'fair use'. Still another perspective is, technology advancements stop for nobody, so the world needed to know what generative AI can do, just like animal cloning etc. My prediction is it'll end up like streaming media: programs like Napster showed us the possibilities, and then grown-ups entered the picture and made it legal and respectable. OpenAI (and all the others) will strike licensing deals for training data, and then they'll probably insert advertisements and/or subscriptions so they can pay for the licenses. Otherwise, all the generative AI services will start using synthetic (AI-generated) data, which according to researchers isn't nearly as good as human-created data. We might end up with two-tiered systems. Free services give you ads and/or results based on only synthetic data. Paid services give you the good stuff. By 2034, to quote Springsteen, "Someday we'll look back on this, and it will all seem funny."
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Who said anything about depending on it heavily? I'm the one who said it's just another tool, like every other technology tool that we already have. LOL!
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This is the original poster: they just joined June 25, this is their only post, and they're certainly not a young blonde woman named Kerry Ball: https://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?/profile/207202-kerryball/. Here in our little Lego world, we've been pranked. I don't know if the account owner is a real person or a bot, but clearly it's not legitimate. That being said, the discussion is fascinating!
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It sounds like you don't know how to disagree without insulting someone. I am not "suckered by" AI. It is a modern tool that's here to stay. People can learn to use it, or lose their jobs to those who will. I choose the former.
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By saying "those with actual talent do not want or need generative AI," you're insulting me and my team. And by saying that anything created with the help of AI is "a cheap, dubiously-ethical shortcut," you're just being incredibly closed-minded. Word processors didn't destroy writing, CAD didn't destroy drafting, and Photoshop didn't destroy art.
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Smart and informed reasons: it saves a lot of time, and sometimes it gives us ideas that we hadn't otherwise considered (for example, there was recently news in computer science that AI figured out a better sort algorithm, after decades of people thinking that we humans already knew the best ways and that we were at a roadblock). Investors? I work for a public, non-profit university. It sounds like you have long made up your mind with an arrogant opinion that humans, or at least you, are perfect and that technology can't help. You will be very disappointed when you inevitably hear someone at Lego say in the news, "We love AI, it helps us generate awesome new ideas!" As I said, I'm a professional writer. I have about 25 years of experience. AI is not a "creative dead end". It's opening all kinds of new horizons for my team, and more teams at smart, informed organizations around the world. I would fully expect Lego to be one of them.