As some may have noticed a few weeks ago my website went down sometime around the 3rd week of December where visiting lameguy64.net would load the Irix Network website instead to a point that it actually convinced some people that the domain name of my website had expired, even though that would be until January 29 of next year.

This breakage was caused when Raion (who runs the Irix Network and also provides hosting for me ever since I lost the ability to do so myself due to ISP changes) performed a major ABI update on my host to address a security issue which not only broke the configuration in said host but also the routing of my website's IP- taking anyone who tries to visit lameguy64.net to the Irix Network website instead. To make things even better I also contracted pneumonia around this time as well, so that was fun having to not only fix the host but also dealing with illness at the same time. Fortunately I'm already cured from said illness as of the writing of this post and at least I didn't contract the Made in China flu.

It took a few frustrating days to troubleshoot the strange MySQL issues I was having in trying to get my website going (with solutions I've found on the Internet rooting for Linux based systems not helping, as the host runs FreeBSD) to a point that I've arranged to move my website over to a different host provided by Ed Neil (who most notably donated me a 12MHz 286 this year all the way from the UK) in case I couldn't get Raion's host to work. Eventually Raion brought up a solution that did work so I stuck on his host in the end, though my website was on Ed's host for a day as a sanity check to make sure the functions my php pages were using haven't become deprecated in newer php versions.

But anyway, my website's now fully operational including the SVN repos except the FTP which I'll see about setting up at a later time. Haven't really posted in a long while since my last post as there wasn't really anything of interest that occurred during that period. Part of me feels like I've just run out of steam and I haven't been as energetic with working on projects as I used to for some reason and I had to scale back my upcoming video project to account for that, which I'll be working on next year. My drawing abilities are also severely waning that I should start drawing more regularly just to maintain that ability. I guess this is one of those slow years where not much really happens which isn't helped by the Made in China pandemic making everything so bloody dreary and miserable.

Because it's been taking me too fucking forever to get around making a proper page about my ill fated Scarlet Engine, of which, I made a demonstration video of a few years ago, I'll put up a link to the original code repository the project was developed with as a news post in the meantime. It has become horribly long overdue by this point and I've been meaning to put the repository up for people to use as code references regarding writing low-level graphics routines on the PlayStation, something of a rarity in the homebrew scene in general. Just remember to login using the usual public credentials this website is using. If you're not familiar to the bizarre conventions of this crummy website the hint lies on the FTP part of the website.

I actually gave away the link to the original repo on my Dickord server at some point, but that server is no more now as Lameguy64 is not allowed to form a community of any kind. This also means the message board thing I was working on briefly earlier this year is pretty much canned. I imagine it would be easily exploitable anyway.

http://lameguy64.net/svn/scarlet-old/

I recommend messing around with revision 63 as I believe that was the revision the demo video I made was built with. As this predates PSn00bSDK by a long shot it must be compiled with PsyQ or the Programmers Tool SDK which I believe people don't seem to mind using. If you use any bits of code that you found useful from the repo I would appreciate if you give credit where it is due... Unless you wish to be an asshole which I don't really mind either way. I need more research before I delve into a project like this again.

As my last two attempts at livestreaming have failed due to bad Internet bandwidth, the last one of which I wasn't able to begin as the upload rate was too piss poor to stream with, like I was getting sub 1mbit/s upload rate which is reflected on YouTube's streaming interface. I won't be doing any livestreams for awhile as chances are it'll just get botched by poor upload rates the next time I try again and I don't think it'll improve anytime soon, given ISPs around here don't really change anything about their service when the demand for Internet starts to surpass the capacity of their infrastructure.

I really should get going with that old computers video I've been meaning to make in the meantime, but I've been rather busy with programming related projects at this time of year it seems, as I tend to prioritize such projects over everything else especially the FartMaker music system and a brand new iteration of my PSn00bDEBUG that'll interface with GDB. I also need to do a few improvements on my website, namely a better hardware collections page that'll work with a database so I can easily add and update entries without having to log into the admin prompt just to edit the collection page manually, the main reason why I haven't really kept it up to date.

As for that home-grown message board thing I was gonna implement on my website, I may end up not bothering with it as I just remembered a rule I placed upon myself that I'm not supposed to be running my own community half-way through the creation of the message board system and decided against finishing it. Not only that but the amount of ass-backwards filtering (ie. convert obfuscated/hidden swear words to proper swear words) I want to implement reaches a point where I have to start using deep learning or AI crap which are beyond my level to make it work reliably. I also think it may bring more trouble than good as it has 'annoying' things like archiving post edits that are always visible to all users and automatic image archiving to make sure a linked image remains online for as long as the message board stays up.

I've also heard recently that Google Chrome and I imagine other browsers would follow suit where the browser would refuse to download from non https sites, and undoubtedly at some point in the near future outright refuse to load non https websites. My answer to this is I won't cave in and add https on my website, instead, I'm going to start putting things such as binary builds of my major projects exclusively on my website in retaliation. It also helps that I like the idea of making my stuff harder to access for newcomers, as quite frankly, I don't think my stuff is worth anyone's time.

With the message board thing scrapped, I'm tempted to just create another Discord server, but make it such that there's only one empty text channel that nobody can post on just to troll people with.

Well, that camera setback I mentioned in my last post? Well that's been sorted out fortunately, just two weeks ago actually. Didn't have to dismantle the TRV820 too much to get to the mode select dial and dowse it with alcohol to clean the contacts inside it.The dial itself was a fused together piece of plastic that is not easy to take apart non-destructively, but there was a small opening big enough to feed alcohol into... A bit crude but it did the job. As for the video project itself I've been working mostly with the script and narration and filmed most of the clips I need, though I'll have to film a couple more clips and gameplay footage as the script I've written demands, as well as some hardware changes being done to the systems I'm covering mid-production. Should consider doing scripts and narration first before filming and capturing as its the most exhaustive part to do I found.

I can't help but notice how I don't really seem to feel as adept at making videos as I was just a few years ago, either my video projects were just simpler in nature at the time, which is most apparent in my last PSn00bSDK video which I was able to make in just a few weeks and just on time before the year's end, or maybe its the effect from getting older as doing certain things in video making gets quite tiring and I don't always feel like working on a video every day these days. I generally avoid working on such projects when I don't feel like it as the end result would most often be shit and I'd feel shit as well as a result. I guess this is to be expected as you get older and its a good thing I'm not being a stupid YouTube partner as I can take the time to get a video out.

Lately some marginal progress has been done to my Random Magical Girl project, namely the FartMaker music system which I need to get going first as its essentially the heart of the project much like the Touhou games I'm trying to do a western influenced rip-off of more or less. I've gotten note playback with chords to work last month and now I'm in the process of implementing the text interface for managing a whole song, such as multiple tracks and editing instrument patches. The photos below shows what these interfaces look like more or less.





Whilst I seem to be more of a MIDI guy with my CZ-5000 these days I still wanna dick around with 4op OPL3 FM synthesis and this FartMaker system should allow me to do just that, especially as Adlib Tracker II's 4op support is quite awkward to use and I can't really work with trackers anymore.

As for other DOS development related stuff goes I've given DJGPP a shot. And well I can see some potential with it, trouble is I find it to be a bit awkward to use compared to OpenWatcom. For one the gcc compiler wouldn't work under a Windows 95 Dosbox as it complains about no DPMI memory available, and another is there doesn't seem to be much in the way of remote debugging support other than doing it through a painfully slow serial connection. I could work with just having access to the GDB console through serial but that doesn't appear to be supported. I do like how CWSDPMI starts instantly even on a 386DX-40, whereas DOS/4GW would take a few seconds before the program actually starts on a system that slow.

But anyway, I guess that's all I have to say for now... And to be honest I wonder if anyone actually reads these posts...

If you've watched enough of one of my recent Wind Waker streams, you might've noticed that the camcorder I was using (Sony DCR-TRV820) as a webcam in such streams tends to exhibit some erratic behavior due to the mode select switch getting iffy... Well, that has gone a bit out of hand whilst I was in the middle of filming things for a new video and I can no longer use it to film things reliably as the iffy mode selection causes the camera to stop recording. What's worse is that my VX1000 seems to have developed some dislodged optics that makes it impossible to focus on anything, which it seems to have developed gradually as it was exhibiting some signs of it when I did that CZ-5000 stream earlier this year, so I can't fall back to using that camera again either. I don't know if its an optical issue it has developed or the driving electronics for the CCDs have gone daft, and is somewhat misaligned electronically for the lack of a better word.

I will try to get around fixing the mode select dial on the TRV820 as it seems to be a very common failure point of HandyCams from its time period, but taking apart these camcorders are not going to be fun as they're often packed to the brim with flat flex hell, and it'll be game over if any of those ribbons get broken by accident. The only other option I can think of is to obtain a FHD capable camcorder earlier than planned, which is going to cost me quite a lot and it'll also take quite some time for the thing to get here. Don't know if I can ever fix the VX1000 myself unfortunately.

I've just finished implementing a bunch of long overdue changes that allows my website to be navigable on really old web browsers, namely the navigation bar falls back to a simpler and more compatible table arranged list of links on IE 5.5 and older, as well as simplifying the format of the news blog for even older browsers. This is contrary to those other 'retro' community sites that usually don't even load at all on said browsers... You definitely can't do this level of compatibility with Wordpress that's for sure. I've also fixed incorrect timestamps as my stupid news blog thing expects the default MySQL timezone to be Asia/Manila. Fortunately, because the dates set on the posts are UTC, all posts since the first one have correct dates once it's been adjusted to my timezone as it gets displayed.

Personally, I think a true old computing website must be fully usable on very old browsers, if you fail that then its ain't a true old computing website in my book. The only thing I've yet to fix is to implement on-the-fly image resizing and conversion for browsers that don't support newer image formats such as PNG, or run/appear like crap when made to display high resolution images. I'll get around to fixing this at some point, as well as updating my hardware collection and about pages... Part of me is tempted to make a simple message board system from scratch for this site that would actually be accessible to browsers as old as IE3 all the way up to your modern day smartazz phone, with a BBS style telnet interface for even older systems with modem emulators. This may or may not actually happen, depending on how much I want to constraint myself from building my own community, as I've been told not to.

Well, not much has changed as the stupid Made in China flu is still on-going. Been doing a bit of music stuff trying to get that 'Raspberry Unwise' theme I started work on in one of my livestreams done as of late. I plan to aim for getting the musical side of the magical girl project done early this year, namely the FartMaker music system which has been showing some promise after I fixed the wiered stack and memory corruption issues I had when trying to implement timer routines into it (hint: make sure you compile with SS != DS) as well as figured out the correct logic for running the tick counter regardless of the system timer rate for playing back musical sequences using MIDI terms for controlling the playback speed.

I've also looked further into what would be the best way to distribute PSn00bSDK in a pre-built, ready to use package and settled with using .deb packages for Debian based systems and pacman packages for Windows systems with Msys2 installed. The package would not only include PSn00bSDK and its libraries already pre-built and ready to use, but also include other useful tools to further complement the package such as TIMedit, img2tim, mcomms/liteload, n00bROM and mkpsxiso. Currently I'm still figuring out how to build a deb package and once I figure it out, I'd still need to test it for awhile to make sure it'll work on a fresh system. If things go according to plan I may be able to get a deb package out before the end of this month.

I'm also doing some gradual improvements of my website and I still intend to make it friendlier with older web browsers, namely adding a fallback so the drop-down navigation bar will be replaced with a more conventional navigation bar on browsers that can't render the drop-down bar properly. I've also made my PS1 tutorial series a lot easier to access, as you'll no longer have to log into its SVN repo to view it anymore.

Anyway, I suppose that's all I have to say for now.