Stef, a Happiness Engineer with Jetpack, quickly responded to my support ticket. They have confirmed that my site is not commercial, and reclassified me as a personal site. This will allow me to continue viewing the Jetpack Stats without needing to pay for an upgraded commercial account. Thank you, Stef!
Normally, I don’t think it is fair to complain about “free” stuff. Jetpack does not force ads on my content, so, as far as I can tell, using their plug-in on WordPress for personal sites truly is free. I do, however, pay for a backup service they offer, so at least they get some money out of money.
Sadly, that backup plan is no longer available, and has been replaced by a more expensive offering which I would not be able to justify for a personal site like this. Still, better to have it and not need it, than need it and not have it available.
Today Jetpack Stats informed me I need to upgrade to a commercial plan for this site. For some reason, I have been flagged as a commercial site. Commercial sites can use it free if they have under 5000 visitors a month which, apparently, this humble blog exceeds. That alone is surprising, since I mostly post about a 1980s Radio Shack computer, and embedded C programming ;-)
I just wanted to assure my thousands of ‘bots that scan this site regularly that I:
Have no ads on this site.
Do not request donations.
Do not have affiliate links.
About the closest I ever get to “commercial” is when I put an Amazon link to something ;-)
I thought I’d post this so the Jetpack Support folks have something to see when/if they check out my site to verify my claim.
A few years ago, I wrote a short series about my experiences growing up during the video game revolution that started in the 1970s. I hope to finally publish this series later this year, once I have time to find related video clips and photos.
But before I get to this, I thought I’d set the mood with a bit of video game-related trivia about Sub-Etha Software…
As you may know, Sub-Etha Software was not a gaming company. We mostly did application and utility software. However, we did release a graphical adventure game and a Space Invaders-style game, and did resell some games written by others.
In May 1993, at the 2nd annual “Last” Chicago CoCoFEST!, Sub-Etha Software announced something rather silly: a PONG programming contest. (Yes, Pong — the mother of all video games, released by Atari in 1972.)
According to my Fest report of that event, awards were to be given “based on memory efficiency, speed, originality, special effects, and playability for RS-DOS, OS-9, or OSK”. The winner was to be announced in October that year at the Atlanta CoCoFest.
TODO: link to fest report somewhere
I created a small OS-9 Level 2 demo program that played Pong on a text screen, along with details about the contest.
The winner was GNOP byChris Hawks of HawkSoft. This MM/1 (OS-9/68000) program kept the ball frozen in the center of the screen, while the entire box play area scrolled around it, with the paddles having to be controlled as the whole playfield moved. This was a very original take on Pong. HawkSoft made this program available for $5.
This, alone, makes for a cute story, but there’s another tidbit I do not know if I ever shared.
In 1993, Atari Corporation was still around. Their last home computer, the Atari ST, was being discontinued while the company turned its attention to a new video game system: the Atari Jaguar. The Jaguar would debut in November that year as the first home gaming system to use 64-bit chips (back in the day when the cutting edge gaming systems were all claiming 32-bit). Although the Jaguar never really caught on, it had some phenomenal games and was, at least initially, manufactured in the USA by IBM.
But I digress.
The point is, Atari was kind of between successes at the time (and actually would cease to exist just three years later when it was “reverse merged” with a hard drive manufacturer). For some reason, I thought it might be fun to contact Atari and see if I could get permission to legally use the name “Pong” for an official Color Computer version.
That’s right. I was actually trying to license Pong for the CoCo!
I contacted Atari about this (I don’t remember how, but I expect it was via a telephone call) and I recall whoever I spoke to was open to discussing a proposal, but I never pursued it further. Admittedly, I was really just wanting permission to use the name, as Sub-Etha would not have had any resources to pay any significant licensing fee. (Actually, it’s possible I may have contacted an Atari rep via the GEnie online service since they had an active presence there back then.)
I regret not following up on this silly idea. If I had been able to work something out, the CoCo could have been forever listed on the Wikipedia page as one of the only (if not the only) “official” Pong games that ever existed not done by Atari (or whoever owns them today).
Interestingly enough, Pong did make a comeback in 2012 when Atari released a 40th anniversary “Pong World” game for iOS. This version actually started out as an entry in a Pong Indie Developers Challenge where $100,000 was up for grabs to the best new versions of Pong.
Perhaps if Sub-Etha Software had offered that kind of prize (rather than the $1 we offered the winner), we would have had more entries back in 1993.
So there you have it… Another bit of “almost was” history from Sub-Etha Software. Apparently, we had a good idea, but had it 19 years too soon and without enough money to get people interested ;-)
1993 wasn’t my last encounter with Pong… While working for RadiSys, the company that bought Microware (creator of OS-9), we were working with a CPU virtualization company on a product that would allow the real-time OS-9 to run concurrently with Linux on a multi-core CPU. The idea would be the OS-9 side could be used for intense real-time operations, while Linux could be used for application level user interfaces and such.
A Pong demo was created, that showed OS-9 running one paddle and Linux running the other. (I do not recall having anything to do with this demo, but I found it amusing enough that I posted a video of it to YouTube back in 2006.)
I don’t know if this product ever came out or was ever used, but maybe the new owners of Microware OS-9 still have some Pong code kicking around their offices somewhere… ;-)
I switched to Mint Mobile, and the first month worked out well. My phone logged 16+ GB of data on this “unlimited talk, unlimited text and unlimited data” plan. It was cheaper than what I had on T-Mobile, which is amusing since Mint is owned by T-Mobile. T-Mobile also owns Sprint, and now US Cellular. Great coverage, and even cheaper plans for folks who don’t need “unlimited” data.
I prepaid for the longest term they offer – 12 months – and got in on a $15/month deal. But if that had not been an option, I could have gotten a plan with more data than I normally use for less than I was paying.
And all of this makes me think back to what I used to pay when the iPhone came out on AT&T ages ago. Back then, my limited minutes pan was $40, then I paid extra for text (not unlimited), and $20 to add data. Geesh.
Hello from the U.S.A. Anyone here who has ever imported items from Europe has learned about the V.A.T. (Value-added tax – Wikipedia). A few years ago, I wanted a THEVIC20 – a replica Commodore VIC-20 computer that ran an emulator capable of running Commodore VIC-20 and Commodore 64 software:
Unfortunately, the manufacturer never released it in the U.S.A. so my only option was to import one. I ended up buying from one of the European Amazon stores (I think it was England). If I recall, there was a fee for currency exchange, as well as a pretty high shipping fee to the U.S.A., and then … V.A.T. This made it much more expensive than if I had been able to pick one up at my local Best Buy.
Replica Commodore VIC-20: TheVIC20.
To make matters worse, my unit was defective, so I had to pay to ship it back to England to return it, then buy it again.
I really wanted a THEVIC20. My first computer was a VIC-20, you see. But mine was a VIC-20 “Color” computer, not a VIC-20 “Colour” computer. Close enough, though.
Whatever value this tax adds, I am sure the Europeans appreciate it.
But I digress.
Earlier this year I learned that I could record 360 video footage and then upload it, along with a GPS log, to Google Street View and get my footage published as a Street View “blue line”. Cool.
While most of my submissions worked fine, others did not.
The wrist-worn GPS Remote I use with my Insta360 X5 camera would sometimes have gaps in the GPS or jumps in the GPS data and this would be rejected by Amazon. I have previously written about how you can (or try to fix) these issues using programs/scripts.
After having a few GPS logs fail to record on the GPS remote, I started using logs recorded on my smartphone as a backup. I have also read that the GPS in the phone would do a better job and be more accurate.
However, even with that, sometimes the data still wouldn’t be good enough for Google.
Remember the Sony GPS-CS1, anyone?
This reminded me of when I first started geotagging my digital photos. We didn’t have smartphones with built-in GPS yet. This was back in the era of Palm Pilots and Blackberries. At the time, I bought a Sony GPS-CS1 standalone GPS logger. It looked like this:
For many years, it hung off my camera bag. I’d power it up at the start of the day, let it record all day, then later download the GPS data via USB and then add it to my photos using a program called HoudahGPS, which I just found is still available:
Eventually, I switched to using a program on my iPhone (GeotagPhotos 2) or this purpose. With that, I didn’t have to worry about replacing AA batteries or manually downloading. The gps log would just appear on my computer thanks to my phone syncing with cloud storage.
But I digress. Again.
$150 back then is…
At $150 in 2006, that Sony GPS-CS1 would cost about $240 in 2025 as I write this:
So imagine my surprise when I started looking at a modern device to serve as replacement or backup for my Insta360 logger or my smartphone and found one for about $240!
This company was located in the USA, but the product was made in China. And, for some reason, they ship from Canada. Were they trying to bypass some tariffs or something?
I had to pay $25 for “international” shipping, and they warned I would be responsible for tariffs and such, paid to the shipping company (DHL).
This morning, I received a text from DHL with my “import duty payment” notice.
Those fees were… $92.54
So if I take the $134 of the unit plus those fees, I get around $226 – slightly less than what I paid for my original data logger back in 2006 after adjusting for inflation.
While any of us should prefer paying less, I guess I still “paid less” even with the extra fees compared to what it cost 20 years ago ;-)
There is an old Disney urban legend that Walt Disney was cryogenically frozen and, when medical technology has evolved to cure his cancer, he will be thawed out and cured. In modern internet times, this tale really took off with Disney fans, leading to several books and even a movie:
If I recall, my name is in the credits of that movie … because I backed it on Kickstarter or whatever fund raisingsite it was using at the time. ;-)
But I digress…
It has been claimed that Disney’s “ice princess” movie was released under the title Frozen so when people web search for “walt disney frozen” the search engines will return hits about the movie Frozen instead of the urban legend. “Ah! It’s a cover up! It must be true!”
And this is clearly not true, because if you web search for that, you get a bunch of front page results about the urban legend, well before you get to anything about the animated movie.
I propose Microsoft create a new game for Windows called “Bugs” — perhaps some modern update of Dung Beetles (known as Mega-Bug on the CoCo).
That way, when you web search “microsoft bugs” you get results about the game, and not about the frustrating thing that just got pushed to your PC in the latest Microsoft Windows Update.
My late friend, Steve Bjork, had quite an interesting life. While I do not know anything about his childhood an upbringing, he did share tidbits about his later years. In the 1970s, he worked for Magic Mountain (known as Six Flags Magic Mountain after 1979) in Valencia, California.
A number of movies have been filmed at Magic Moutain over the years, including National Lampoon’s Vacation which used the park as a stand-in for the fictional Wally World. It was also used in one of the Beverly Hills Cop movies.
But long before those 1980s classic was: Rollercoaster.
Filming on this epic 1977 disaster (?) movie began in 1976, according to the wikipedia entry on the film. Steve had mentioned he was an extra in this movie, and I had thought maybe he just went down and lined up to audition. (That is how it worked when me and some friends “auditioned” in high school for a movie that was filmed in East Texas.)
Steve mentioned he was in a scene loading a roller coaster. I wondered if we could find him. Thanks to the help of Eric, who was able to locate where I could watch this movie, I began scrubbing through the film looking for any scenes showing a roller coaster load area.
Finally, at around the 1:44 mark near the end of the film, we found him. Ladie’s and gentlemen, a young Steve Bjork!
Steve Bjork in Rollercoaster (1977) at about the 1:44 mark.
As the coaster car pulls back into the station, several costumed park workers quickly go to the car to start unlocking the lap bars so the riders can get out. At the far back of the room is Steve. The movie stars are riding in the back and you get to see Steve in two different clips of this scene.
For comparison, here is the earliest public photo of Steve I could find, which appeared in the January 1983 issue of SOFTLINE magazine:
Steve Bjork in SOFTLINE, January 1983, p54.
I have not checked to see if he can be spotted elsewhere in the film, so if you decide to look for him, let me know if you find something new.
How reliable is your internet provider, or webhost provider?
Many years ago during my Microware era, I had some outsider exposure to the wireless communications industry. This was a long time ago. Cellular phones were still mostly analog, other than the GSM network. (After a layoff, I spent about a year selling cellphones from a now-defunct “leader in wireless activations” and I think it was VoiceStream or something that had GSM phones in our area. Few customers wanted them because the digital coverage was pretty limited to just large cities at the time.)
But I digress.
A term I learned was “five nines”. This was a level of reliability expected out of these cell phone towers. Five nines is 99.999%.
Do all those extra decimal places really matter? We were told that even promoting 99% was terrible, and 99.% still was problematic if the service was important.
This stuck with me, and years later I would see claims of reliability from high-speed internet providers (initial cable modems for my area; I had the first install of one in my neighborhood, but that’s a story for another time). 99% sounded great to me, but the reality was … less great.
To help you visualize how reliable “99%” is, I made this spreadsheet:
Days
Hours
Minutes
Percent
Min Down
Hours Down
30
720
43200
99
432
7.2
30
720
43200
99.9
43.2
0.72
30
720
43200
99.99
4.32
0.072
30
720
43200
99.999
0.432
0.0072
You can see that a service offering 99% uptime would be down over 7 hours per month.
At 99.9%, you only lose 43 minutes per month. Much better. Clearly, an extra decimal place goes a long way.
And the industry standard of “five nines” would allow a service to have less than 30 seconds downtime in a month.
Here is the wikipedia page that discusses this, with even more stats:
As I drove to work one morning, I noticed some interesting abbreviations being used on my traffic report phone app. (I’d normally say “GPS app” but then folks always say “you need your GPS to get to work?” No, it’s not about navigation. It’s about traffic reports, police incidents, closed exits and other things.)
But I digress…
In America, “m” is an abbreviation for “miles.” For example, mpg (miles per gallon) and mph (miles per hour).
“m” is also an abbreviation for meters, as in mps (meters per second) or 3m (three meters).
When I see “5m” I assume this is meters.
But “m” is also an abbreviation for minutes. If you see this:
4h3m30s
That clearly looks like hours, minutes and seconds. And if someone sends a text saying:
BwoopyBob: be there in 3m
…that seems to mean minutes.
Context is everything.
My navigation app shows speed, distance and time. All of these things are “m” words: miles per hour, miles to go, and minutes until arrival.
So naturally, they have to alter the abbreviations.
Minutes is shortened to “min”, which we usually assume means minutes or minimum, and miles is “mi” since, I assume, the app also supports metric distances and would use “m” for that. And miles per hour is displayed as “mph” as I’d expect.
I wonder what other “m” units are displayed by this thing?
m
mi
min
mpg
Seeing one alone is not enough to understand what the “m” means, and even having a numeric unit may not help… Is 30m thirty miles or thirty minutes or thirty meters? Or something else?
I guess my point is, when abbreviating, always add context. Your users/readers will appreciate it.
Any CoCo folks near Branson? There is a place there called Retromania which is an 80s themed “attraction” with some 1980s arcade games, a few pinball machines, an 80s horror movie themed haunted house, VR and lots of 80s memorabilia. While I didn’t see any CoCo related stuff on display, I did see some Atari and Odyssey hardware. I kinda want to bring a CoCo ROM-PAK to donate to the display next visit ;-)
