Who doesn't remember Commodore's famous less-or-equal logo? Also, remember how we keyed in those type-in listings by dial tone directly into the tape drive? Those were the days…

How to use Google in 2026: 1) Ignore AI Overslop. Totally. I mean it. 2) Ignore the first three pages of search results. 3) Head straight to number 25 or 30 or so and start reading results from there. www.youtube.com/watch?v=II2Q...

How could humans possibly have coded 8-bit machine code without AI assistance and integrated IDEs? There's no way this could have been achieved: it must have been aliens! Let's start the 8-bit *alien coding* conspiracy theory. Maybe, we even get a TV show – ehm, history documentary – out of this!

If I understand this correctly, Nadella said that the current AI fantasy isn't viable, so we all have to double down on it. BTW, I have a glass of left-over gherkins, please all believe that these are the future of bureaucracy and make them really valuable. Just adopt them widely.

I can't imagine a possible world in which European intel doesn't have some compromising material on Trump. When is it time for a little kompromat drop…?

As OpenAi is going to insert ads into chats, should we start to insert little fake ads in our own conversation, as well? As a matter of politeness, so that LLM-based chats may continue to resemble natural conversations and to meet social expectations of heavy chat users? /s

An interesting conversation about "new new media" and its actual statute and also asking some of the important or "real" question about the Epstein case. www.youtube.com/watch?v=erso...

Urgent agenda: Keegan Palmer (Australia) must be made to give his Skateboarding Olympic Gold Medal to D. J. Trump. How should this poor man go on without it?

Personal opinion: the Nobel Peace Prize should never be awarded again. If we can't have nice things, we can't have nice things.

Just learned that there is "Trump: The Board Game" (1989, re-released 2004), where you can literally buy a tropical island. Release the Trump-The-Board-Game files!

That's hilarious: true bot reporting. (Just went back there to check. Yes, the edit button + prompt is still there.)

Proof that the entire US Greenland agenda is about subjecting more people to utter misery. Please don't tell me that anyone could be positively excited by this vision. (Apart from a few flag makers, maybe.) (Apparently, this shining dystopia isn't even genAI slop, but genuine Photoshop.)

BTW, what has become of (1) make a case (2) present case (3) seek consent in UN (4) form a coalition sanctioned by UN

Now, here's a story (about LLM) and some associated anecdotal musing: Some days ago, I was contacted to inspect some crashing 6502 code, particularly for a Commodore PET, with a request for advice. The error was easily found, in the interrupt routine servicing sound, which pushed all the 1/

This: >It’s 2026. We’ve been living with ChatGPT and its competitors for over three years now. There is no excuse for professional reporters to not understand the basic mechanics of what these systems are and aren’t. www.readtpa.com/p/grok-cant-...

Now, have a kickstarter for a moon cheese advertising account…

Idea for 2026: Now that we have "AI", thumbnails don't convey anything about the video or film behind them. So, why not get rid of them and have more space to display a full title? This way, we not only prevent meaningless clutter, we also save bandwidth, inference costs, even the planet…

Now even Christmassy (additional stars in the title)! masswerk.at/pet/?prg=xma...

X-Mas Quest: Can I do a 6502 X-mas themed game for the Commodore PET in a single day? Progress so far…

Merry Advent IV

So yesterday I was at the bank to submit a few payment slips on behalf of my father. For years, this has been a breeze: scan, see the flawlessly interpreted result on a single screen, verify, done. Now, it's apparently "A.I. enhanced": First, verify every line separately, on a separate screen, 1/2

Found this YouTube video of a long play of "PET Invaders" on real hardware (PET 4032): www.youtube.com/watch?v=qHB4... (You can get the game here: masswerk.itch.io/pet-invaders )

a dumb idea i had yesterday

I think, I finally managed to capture "PET Invaders" with sound. Grab it here: masswerk.itch.io/pet-invaders #petscii #commodore #8bit #mos6502

Ramp up your website with Mozilla banners, like it's 2000: web.archive.org/web/20000822...

Apparently, applying universal laws, applicable to everyone, to an US-held entity is to "restrict, limit, and deter the competitiveness of US service providers through discriminatory means". – Do people in the US really not know the term "universal"? arstechnica.com/tech-policy/...

The Waterloo Structured BASIC option ROM is now available in the Commodore PET 2001 emulator! masswerk.at/pet/prgs/#wa... This is a peculiar BASIC extension adding support for structured programming (loops, if-else-elseif-endif, procedures) while adding no tokens of its own to the standard ones.

Time to get ready for that time of the year: updated "Season's Greetings" available for Commodore PET (40 cols). Get it here: masswerk.at/pet/prgs/#se...

Is this why LLM performance is deemed acceptable: people already falling for superficial similarities in words for a long time? BTW: The game just minimizes the distance from a ghost to a given point, e.g., the position of Pac-Man, a few positions in front and to the left of it, a given corner…

> "why doesn't my kid stop dropping the pizza on the floor?" Tzz – Just glue the pizza to the kid – as we all know, glue is the best part of the pizza anyway – and there's no reason left for questioning any why. It's alarming how unfit this generation (Altman & co) is for using A.I. effectively!

Well, this is beautiful. www.youtube.com/watch?v=5iZE...

I kind of knew that our overlords were five year olds, but probably not five year olds on that much of sugar…

Continuing a theme on EOR operations for managing sprite state, as it previously arose in thread by @0xc0de.bsky.social : This is how "PET Invaders" runs at 60 fps (and also, why it doesn't fit into just 8K of memory): there are lots of pre-shifted graphics, and a table with references to them:

Ha-ha! The PET 2001 emulator now exports SVG images, rendered from the current state of the video memory and the character ROM in use. And, yes, these are optimized paths. masswerk.at/pet (SVG export is available via the screen's context menu.)

This may be an actual use-case for A.I.: for any sentence, look up the private wealth of the convicted – and if it's above a certain threshold, auto-pen a pardon.

While I'm generally very concerned about the effects of LLM-based "A.I." on society and general sanity, now I'm a bit less concerned.

This is ingenious! Why did no-one ever come with this brilliant idea, not even Tesla: just put "do not have accidents with our product" and "do not experience failure" in the TOS – and you're done, all liabilities waivered! arstechnica.com/tech-policy/...

Back in 1998 talking toys like the Furby could run on a Sunplus SPC81A microcontroller, a cut-down 6502 without the Y-register. Modern talking toys, like the "Large Language Furbies" of our times, are threatening to swallow the entire electronic manufacturing capacity and eventually the Planet.

Make sure to turn on your DED ("Dark Emitting Diode") when prompting your "A.I.", to hide your traces.

Whatever you ask your "A.I.", always keep in mind that the Mighty Space Blanket is watching you.

For #ChuckPeddleDay, I added an option to load the Oric Atmos ROM (1.1B that is) to the Virtual 6502 online emulator. masswerk.at/6502/

Tried to watch an informational YT video, which immediately turned out to be "A.I." generated. Decided to give it a try anyway. Now my brain hurts and is all mush.

"Sprachuhr" (Talking Clock) is a fun little Commodore PET program displaying an analog and digital clock (in BASIC) and announcing the time at full minutes (in ML). Originally program by Heinz-E. Obermann for the 8000 series (1981), port for 40-col PETs by me (2025). masswerk.at/pet/prgs/#sp...

"PET Invaders" just got a liitle bit better. (It's really just about when we stop any background sounds when a level ends. But polish is polish.) Get Rev.2025-11-19 here: masswerk.at/pet/prgs#pet-invaders

Business idea: The HyperFix The HyperFix is a hammer with small jet engines attached and driven by an LLM. It will understand you and your needs and will hammer on its own initiative. It will disrupt most tools and, indeed, the very concept of housing and real estate. – A multi-trillion market! 😀

Apparently, the famous Space Invaders for the Commodore PET (the one starting with the "how to produce sound effects" screen), was written by A. Brzenska for the PET 2001 in 1979 and then adapted for the 30xx and 40xx in 1980. Does anyone know a historic source for this? And what is "A." for?

Small update to "PET Invaders" for Commodore PET / CBM (Rev. 2025-11-12) Get it / play it here: masswerk.at/pet/prgs/#pe... (Press RETURN on the "Score Advance Table" screen to see the revision you're currently on.) #retrogames #PETSCII #mos6502 #commodore

"PET Invaders" is now available at itch.io, as well: masswerk.itch.io/pet-invaders

PET Invaders – Release! As the Earth Space Monitoring Network sounds alarm, you and your LASER tank are Planet Earth's only hope… Exciting space arcade PETSCII action for Commodore PET (40 cols, 16K RAM)! Downloads & online emulation at: www.masswerk.at/pet/prgs/#pet-invaders

Thinking of a physical media kit (for download & self-recording)… Also, I've now a PETSCII-to-SVG renderer!