These blog pages were a sort of trip diary over the years, in which I tried to keep notes on my experiences, just to remind myself of the wonder of exploring new places, rather than to let the world know where I am (or was). That is possibly the reason why I have become less “social” in the last few years, since I really do not like vanity portals like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and so forth.
Anyway, what better reason to write something again than a trip back to the US, a place where I left my heart a decade ago. Actually, thanks to Luisa, this trip was kind of an escape to New York City, so not really a "comeback," since I’ve never been here before, but an amazing opportunity to return to the States after visiting California.
During the first few hours here, our stay was severely affected by annoying rain, which prevented us from immediately visiting the iconic sites of this astounding city, but we will surely be there tomorrow.
Stay tuned...
]]>Anyway, a new post in the end, 5 years from my last one here. I will write again about retro-nerd-things and restorations I usually make during holidays, when I am far from everyday duties.
This year, also due to the home relocation we started months ago and which is still unfinished, I dedicated my time to fix and restore my first computer, yes the first one I have ever, ever had in my hands. All of my so long forgotten knowledge about it is deeply buried in the mist of my childhood memories, back to early 1984 if I am correct.
In that year Piaggio (my father then worked for them in a big bike dealership in Bologna) launched an ad campaign focused on a Commodore VIC-20 given away as a gift for customers purchasing a Vespa PX125. I can clearly remember those coloured boxes lying on the shelves, in the customer care area of BeMotor (the dealership’s name, today oriented in selling cars only).
Well, I had to insist a lot, really a lot, but finally I got my own box from that shelf, and yet without having to buy a Vespa to get it. The Commodore VIC-20 was an 8-bit home computer sold by Commodore Business Machines. The VIC-20 was announced in 1980, roughly three years after Commodore's first personal computer, the PET (Personal Electronic Transactor, much more oriented to the business market). The VIC-20 was the first micro-computer to sell one million units. Bruce M. Arnold reported it as "one of the first anti-spectatorial, non-esoteric computers by design...no longer relegated to hobbyist/enthusiasts or those with money, the computer Commodore developed was the computer of the future."
1984 was a tough year for me: my mum had severe surgery, I lost my granpa in November and I had to spend plenty of time alone, since my relatives had to solve those more important problems than looking after me. But I was not actually lonely: I could switch the crt TV set in the dining room on and, tuning it on the channel 36, the magic could happen! Now I have lost most of the wonder, since I know how the analogic frequency for the video signal works (591,25 Mhz by the way), but boy, back in 1984 it was awesome! A computer in my own TV! A pretty decent monitor was then a far and too expensive desire. After some tuning, anyway, the massive power adapter was the last thing to arrange aside of the breadbin computer before starting to type something on the brown keyboard.
Yash Terakura, who developed the VIC-1001 (the first VIC-20 released in Japan), later said: "With the computer-in-a-keyboard concept, there was no room for an internal power supply. This meant engineers had to design an external power supply. The power brick made the Vixen look less refined, which is why marketers rarely showed the computer with the cables and power supply in the same photograph. Heat was a major concern in the Vixen design.” Vixen was the codename invented by Robert Russell who was unenthusiastic about the word VIC, which "sounded like a plumber". Russell was one of the talented programmers, together with Bob Yannes, who also worked on the BASIC ROM of the VIC-20 prototype.
In his wonderful book “Commodore, a company on the edge”, Brian Bagnall mentions Yannes’ project, which came together in his home. “There’s a story going around about how I built the VIC-20 prototype in my garage”, Yannes reports in the book. “It wasn’t my garage, it was my bedroom. I didn’t have a garage.”
Bagnall quotes Yannes again when he affirms that “the final design of the VIC-20 was nothing like his prototype. If you look at the VIC-20, it is a PET”.
At the very beginning my Commodore experience was the out-of-the-box one. No ideas on how to use it, except for the handbook, probably one the best written computer manuals in history. But I could feel there was potential behind those buttons, and there was also history. In 1969, a large industrial manufacturing company called Allen-Bradley wanted to enter the new semiconductor business. It financed the creation of MOS Technology. For the first five years, MOS Technology supplied calculator chips and other semiconductor parts to the electronics industry. Then, on August 19, 1974, Chuck Peddle and his team of former Motorola employees (he was one of the Motorola 6800 fathers) began working on a revolution in microprocessor technology, later named 6502. The MOS 6502 was an innovative chip, which offered performance superior to that of the Motorola 6800 at a cost of $25 only (the 6800 was correspondingly expensive with its price of $200). Due to this, the 6502 was very successful and it was used in many 8-bit computers of the time such as the Apple I, the Apple II, the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), some Acorn Computers, the 8-bit Atari computers, some Oric BBC Micro-computers and, of course, the Commodore VIC-20.
Again, from the Bagnall’s book: “There should be no question in anyone’s mind that the primary architect behind the VIC-20 was Bill Seiler,” says Peddle. “We didn’t have to go back and invent all kinds of new things except for the I/O stuff. We were just basically putting it all together to make it work.” VIC chip in it,” he says. “It has the same I/O structure and the same processor, and the kernel code that was running in there was the PET operating system kernel.”
Peedle, a genius, often animatedly argued with Jack Tramiel, the Commodore founder and CEO, that the VIC-20 project was time wasting and the company should have been focused on the business market instead of home computing. When Chuck wanted to build an MSDOS machine with power, Tramiel fired him. He started Sirius Systems Technology and with his team won “Computer of the year” four times.
Actually, as written by Ian Matthews in a very interesting article, Chuck quitted Commodore twice in the late 1970’s. Each time he walked away from potentially millions of dollars in stock options and unpaid promises (like $1 for each PET). The first time, he went to work for Apple as what was billed to be their Lead Development Engineer. In an April 2006 interview with Commodore.ca, Bill Mensch explained “Chuck didn’t do well with structure… he clashed at Motorola and at Apple.” Apples culture was cold and regimented; not well suited for a man of action like Chuck and after a few months he returned to MOS/Commodore. The last time Chuck returned to Commodore, Tramiel set up an R&D facility in Moore Park, Los Gatos, California so he could lead a small group of R&D engineers.
So fascinating…
But let’s get back to my little old friend. In the gallery you can lurk on some pictures of how I managed to restore the little computer full of memories. While I still own all the manuals for my Amiga 500, no paper documents survived for my VIC. No power adapter and no RF tuner as well. Also some buttons were missing: I can remember one of them broken by my anger due to a too difficult 8-bit olympic ski videogame! But the other one, a grey function button, was lost in the darkness, whiloe the caps lock switch was stuck in a pressed position. The "Power" brown tag, around the red 5V led lamp (which I later discovered was burnt) was missing, and a massive amount of dust was everywhere, inside and outside of the micro-computer.
Only three small screws that I cleaned with sandpaper were keeping in touch the two halves of the case: a part of the yellow color of time, plastics were surprisingly in good shape. No dents and no missing corners. Some stains only and discolored portion of the upper part. I dismantled the keyboard, which deserved particular care after, paying attention to the wire ribbon and I separed the motherboard from the plastic case.
40 volumes peroxide cream (12%, yes, the one used by hairdressers) and a couple of sunny days (plenty of UV-rays for free) made the trick: the case was clean again and it recovered the original color, while the stains were removed by a gentle sandpaper whiping. I could find a suitable power adapter (the VIC-20 / 64's one is a weird thing spitting out 9V and 5V on two separate channels for the DIN plug) and I tried to revive the Vixen.
The 5mm, 5V red led lamp was gone, so I replaced it with a new, bright one, with a white clear lens but red in color. I could also pick up the missing keys from the Bay (not very cheap to be honest) and I replaced all of them, cleaning the whole keyboard after having all the keys in a dishwasher detergent for two days.
In my garage I could find a DIN and some RCA connectors, and following this diagram I could create my own cable to plug the VIC-20 back on a TV set, without having to rely on a RF tuning adapter. The power tag was find in Poland, while some isopropyl alcohol was used to clean the electronics.
I put all this together again and I plugged the homebrew DIN-RCA cable on a modern LCD TV set. Bam! The long forgotten cyan frame around 3.5 Kb of RAM devoted to the BASIC framework! I know that this could sound a little bit emotional from a grown man, but I was moved.
I bashfully typed LOAD, and the VIC, after 37 years, answered me again: PRESS PLAY ON TAPE...
Addendum
During this retrocomputing adventure I came accross a really interesting web site, hosting many resources on the VIC-20: it also offers access to the VIC-20 Registry. The site is designed and developed by Giacomo M. Vernoni, author of the book Commodore VIC 20: A Visual History. The registry is based on the serial number, and shows all the details of the registered VICs. Everyone, just like me, can add his or her VIC-20 to the registry by filling a form with all the information about the computer. Very cool initiative.
]]>My personal 1:8 Cray-1A was made laser cutting some plexiglass sheets after a careful drafting process of the main vertical framework, which originally hosted over 60 miles of wire with no segment longer than 3 inches, to minimize signal delays. Amazing! My Cray-1A is equipped with a Rasperry Pi 2 board (out of 12 possible parallel slots) running a customized Os: a dedicated I2C controller drives a 16x2 characters LCD blue display while wi-fi and bluetooth interfaces guarantee wireless connections.
"After a rare speech at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, in 1976, programmers in the audience had suddenly fallen silent when Cray offered to answer questions. He stood there for several minutes, waiting for their queries, but none came. When he left, the head of NCAR's computing division chided the programmers. 'Why didn't someone raise a hand?' After a tense moment, one programmer replied, 'How do you talk to God?'" (The Supermen, by C. J. Murray, J. Wiley & Sons, 1997).
I spent a couple of hours using CAD software to figure out the best way possible to assemble the pieces, with some over-engineering as usual. But I like the final achievement a lot! The 8-times smaller Cray is made of wood, plastic tiles painted in blue (thanks Giovanni!), little foam pillows covered in carefully sewn alcantara fabric (thanks Mom!), 3D printed joints and badges (thanks to Shapeways and to my 3D printer!), a lot of glue, some screws and five beautiful, soft rubber feet (thanks Luisa!).
The Cray-1 metallic badge replica was 3D printed with 29 micron layers, taking advantage of the "Frosted Ultra Detail" material by Shapeways, which offers very high detail and can be finished and painted. The Cray-1A mood was very improved by the badge.
While generally used for scientific projects, such as simulating the interaction of fluids, one of these bad boys helped render the CGI for the first Tron movie, released in 1982. But a Cray-1's raw computational power of 80 million floating-point operations per second (FLOPS) is laughable by today's standards; the graphics unit inside the iPhone 5s produces about 76.8 GFLOPS – nearly a thousand times more. And surely, the iPhone can render 3D graphics looking better than Tron's Lightcycle scene (source).
Just in case someone is inclined to replicate my 1:8 Cray-1A, drop me some lines and I will be more than glad to supply with my shop drawings for the wooden base (to be laser cut - 1 cm. thick), all the interior an exterior side panels in plexiglass (5 mm. thick, to be painted in reverse), the main framework in plexiglass (5 mm. thick, to be laser cut) and the cutting scheme for low panels and pillows. The 3D model of the iconic Cray-1 plate is also available as .STL file. Please PM me if you want them.
]]>As part of my job and research work, I'm always into the digital representation of the built environment, even when off-duty. It's mostly a state-of-mind attitude, I suppose. That's probably why I cannot behave like ordinary visitors especially when I am a tourist on holidays for the first time in Paris!
Dealing historically a lot with point clouds, I simply couldn't help taking pictures aimed at the 3D reconstruction of some amazing details I found at the Louvre museum and at the Sainte-Chapelle. Ok, ok... I couldn't bring my laser scanning equipment on holidays but, damn, my smartphone was with me! So, thanks to Luisa's patience, I spent a little time heavily photoshooting the Venus de Milo and a metope of the Parthenon, plus a very nice decoration placed at the Sainte-Chapelle first floor entrance.
Click on the images above to go straight to the point clouds or enjoy this little gallery:
Let's go straight to the final Episode!
So, this is the final look and feel of my Dinky Toys' Eagles! Both had their new paint job, with matte and glossy white color instead of the original acid green, to be more respectful towards the original TV series.Paper decals were applied together with some old dry transfer decals, in order to produce finishes and small details. I am pretty much satified with my results, with this couple of 43 years old toys now ready to be displayes again.
]]>Previously, on these pages, I presented some progresses in my Dinky Toys' Eagle restoration, with episode I and episode II. Today I found some spare time to complete the paint job, even if the quality of spray paintings I chose was not so good and the final result does not satisfy me completely.
However, this is how the story went...
The original Eagle had a windowless transporter pod, so I prepared some finishings using a trasparent sheet of plastic, painted in black in the rear side and striped with two white lines in the front. Some masking tape was useful when spraying. Then I cut the paper and I glued the new windows from the inside. Nice!
Landing gears for the transporter pod were 3D printed and painted in black, I'm pretty satisfied of the final result. The vertical engine nozzles were chromed using a particular spray, after a careful cleaning of the red original plastics. But even if the result is nice on bare metal (the landing gears came out very polished), plastics prepared with a light gray primer are very hard to manipulate even after several hours.
The main metal beam and the engines' tanks were painted using a polished, glossy white, while the rest of the starship's body was painted in matte white. I like the color and it is very similar to the actual TV series.
So I am satisfied enough with the final result of my 3 days long work, but it is now time for decals, but this will be described in the next, final episode of my restoration!
Jump to Episode IV!
]]>My restoration project keeps going, dismantling at first the old toy. Since I was a child I wondered why Dinky decided to paint these amazing die-cast models with such an infamous colors, mybe due to some marketing choices or some paint remainings from the Ufo Shado line. In fact in the early 1970's, Dinky Toys produced an Interceptor toy as well, which for some reason was painted green!
Let's dive into the second part of my chronicle...
It is fascinating how this little, amazing toy arrived to present day challenging time. When I was very young I was thrilled, somehow scared, by the Space 1999 TV series. Now I got myself a Blueray edition of the first season and I am mesmerized by those sci-fi so good produced episodes.
Time to remake the paintjob for my small Eagle, waiting for Alan Carter to fly it! So I spent the whole afternoon removing the scratched paint with some good gel chemical remover and preparing metal pieces with sand paper and a first hand of light grey primer.
The landing gears in the transporters pod are completely missing so I decided to 3D model some spares and printing them with my DaVinci 1.1 3D Printer. Here you can find a STL file for the landing gears whilehere you can find a sligtly modified engine nozzles' frame.
]]>Last months were particularly demanding, with a lot of work to be done, my academic research to be developed and a lot of BIM vocational training courses in which I taught. So I decided to take a little rest for my mind during the Easter break, in order to relax with some handcrafted diversions.
A couple of days ago I won, during an eBay auction, this amazing Space 1999's Eagle made in the early 70's by Dinky Toys / Meccano, in the United Kingdom. This toy was fabricated in plenty of different flavours over the years, using various colors and materials: there are five original existing versions of the Dinky's Eagles, in different packages.
This is the chronicle of my restoration...
My Eagle, a transporter one, seems to be the second release of the model no. 359, equipped with red exhausts and red side nozzles in very poor conditions.
Since I am not interested in a "philological restoration", following the Boito's meaning of the term where elements can be easily recognized as addictions in time, I planned to restore the paintjob of this model as much similar to the TV series as possible.
Toy Polloi made a great job, restoring a similiar model with this attitude: you can find three inspiring video tutorials here, here and here. I decided to follow a similar workflow, even though I preferred not to use caustic soda, since it seems to me too dangerous and aggressive for such an old model.
So, I started with a careful dissassembling of the model...
Jump to the Episode II!
]]>I learned that there's a way of saying in Japanese that is 井の中の蛙大海を知らず。 (I no naka no kawazu taikai wo shirazu); more or less it does mean literally that a frog in a well does not know the great sea. The meaning could be that people judge things by their own little experience, never knowing of the boundless world outside.
Here I came just like that frog, leaping out of the well to reach a wider place. For the first time, in Japan I experienced how different cultures can be amazing and how they should be respected and respectful of others. That is why I find completely unacceptable what happened in Beirut and Paris these days.
Today me and Luisa had a little break from the very condensed academic life in Keio, so the two of us decided to have a very little celebration of our seven years together in Akihabara, the "electric town", where I found plenty of interesting things.
Luisa is the reason a frog like me can be able to jump out of the well of ordinary life and I will never stop to consider her my unique generator of happiness. Now that she's gone to come back in Beirut, to her university, I feel a little bit sad here, alone in Tokyo.
Japanese culture, anyway, is a matter of balance: sometimes easily understandable, sometimes not. That's why I like to have jumped out, even if my world is a bit lonely now.
Tokyo is an amazing city and Japanese people are lovely. Despite I had a very little time to visit the city (my schedule at Keio is very tight), what I saw so far is very nice. Shibuya and Shinjuku were such an experience for me, with their chaotic scenario.
But what I liked most was the real "Small Tokyo", quoting Darko Radovic, since some very kind Keio's students took us to discover the places of the old town, comparing it to the newest one. Things I couldn't have experienced as a simple visitor.
Yesterday, during my first lecture at Keio, I discussed on how visual technology can be useful to capture reality of places: now that I'm involved more and more with these students' project areas, I consider it as an exciting challenge!