Notes

I had my US passport renewal form printed and filled out sitting on my desk for like half a year because I kept putting off getting another photo taken and printed at Walgreens or wherever.

Last month the State department announced they finally in 2024 have an online renewal system where you can fill out everything on a website, upload a frickin JPEG selfie that you take on your phone (okay they actually say no selfies, you gotta have someone else take it from farther away), pay the fees with a credit card, and then they e-mail you updates along the way. I just got an update saying they approved my JPEG and are sending me a new passport book in 6-8 weeks, huzzah!

https://www.state.gov/announcing-online-passport-renewal/

lol

https://freebsdfoundation.org/blog/why-laptop-support-why-now-freebsds-strategic-move-toward-broader-adoption/

I wonder how many things would have to be patched in System 6 to change its epoch to match Unix's, extending the system time and HFS dates another 64 years beyond 2040

I'm not sure why Apple decided to make a thing that came out in 1984 decide to start counting from 1900... I get the filesystem needing to be able to manage files that were theoretically created before it, but 84 years before it?

Version 1.2 of my BlueSCSI Wi-Fi Desk Accessory is out today:

https://jcs.org/bluescsi

It adds a dialog to be able to connect to a hidden SSID.

And version 2.1 of Wallops is out:

https://jcs.org/wallops

This update fixes some bugs in the big 2.0 release and also adds a bunch of features like UTF-8-to-MacRoman conversion, tab completion of nicks, keyboard shortcuts to switch to specific tabs, and the ability to switch servers without having to close the window and open a new one.

#VintageMacintosh

ReStuff is back! (in pog form)

https://restuff.jcs.org

No longer spawning a BasiliskII on my server, it's now spawning it in your browser thanks to @mihaip's awesome Infinite Mac software

#VintageMacintosh

Implemented tab completion in Wallops:

#VintageMacintosh

Wallops can hide its windows and run in the background to let you focus on more important applications, then uses the Notification Manager to blink the Apple menu icon when your nick is mentioned or messaged

But what if you're away from your Macintosh?

#VintageMacintosh

I've released version 2 of Wallops, my IRC client for classic Mac OS (System 6+)

https://jcs.org/wallops

It now supports multiple channels with tabs and other fancy things

#VintageMacintosh

I feel like any additions to irc.c must now come with equal-sized removals

Topo cruising around #vcfmw

Random photos from #vcfmw

#vcfmw already feels crowded and there aren't even any visitors yet

I will be at #VCFMW this weekend, curious to see how the new larger venue works out

cozy computins

I've put my PowerBook 1XX battery model on Printables if anyone wants to make their own battery and/or take over selling these

https://www.printables.com/model/974484-powerbook-1xx-battery

In case you were interested in this "tinySniffer" device being sold on @tindie because you can SSH to it and copy USB pcap files, its capture functionality requires an internet connection because it calls out to a server in China for authorization every time a session is run, and then uploads the pcap files to their website for (seemingly legitimate) remote access.

https://www.usb7.net/products/tinySniffer

I contacted the maker to ask about this requirement and was told it was for anti-piracy reasons 🙄 I asked for a refund because this requirement wasn't stated up front and the maker offered for me to keep the device with a partial refund.

https://hackaday.social/@tindie/112853680686483880

I was finally bothered enough by not being able to quickly see recent statuses of people that follow me on my solo server that I wrote something to fetch the recent statuses of all of them, sort them by date, and then dump out a static HTML timeline of them so I can browse them quickly and find people to follow back:

https://github.com/jcs/mastofollow

ouch

https://github-roast.pages.dev/

For some reason I thought only electrolytic capacitors made during the "capacitor plague" era fail early, but my garage door opener from 2008 died the other day and it just needed a replacement 35v 300uF capacitor on its logic board to bring it back to life. The bad cap didn't bulge or leak though.

Maybe we can try this on more than just trains...

"We couldn't make this software secure, so this update adds googly eyes to it"

"Sorry your meal was awful, but we hope these googly eyes drawn on the bill will make up for it"