𝙒𝙤𝙧𝙙 𝙤𝙛 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝘿𝙖𝙮📖 'Kakistocracy'

I've made a decision. I don't think I can future proof the T60. The board won't support an x64 CPU. Sad. So we go all in on retro. That means DOS 6.22, Windows XP, and Debian x86. DOS won't have sound but. Whatever. That's fine. It'll be a retro production setup instead. Borland C++ anyone?

This is already seeing roll outs in a few states and the word has to get out. Parenting needs to be up to the parents. And social media company's need to be held to certain reasonable standards. But this? This law is astroturfing in the worst possible way. And can wind up ruining computing.

Best girl.

Well. That's what a Midwest windstorm is like. Uh. Yeah. First time I've seen winds like that in 20 years. Not the worst experience but certainly intense.

Right. Okay. Fed up. This weekend: Arch Linux VM w/XFCE. It's time. Get it up and running. Screenshot the VM. QEMU w/VNC access to host the Dos6.22/Win3.11 box. Like. I'm spinning wheels and seeing so much weird info. Sticking to what I can verify. And that's QEMU on Linux.

I kind of wish I hadn't felt so ashamed in high school of my want to grow up to be a comedy writer. Even telling my parents I wanted to major in English elicited consternation and derisement. ... I mean computers are find and all but... It's not always fun?

Sometimes I wonder what it would take to sit down and figure out a way to semi-modernize a browser for Windows 3.11 along with the TCP/IP stack. Because I think that would be neat. But I've never been much of a programmer. Blegh. I need a more engaging work environment.

Gotta love dealing with clients who waited to go ahead with new system builds, who are expressing outrage at the price increases from when they received the original quote in November. Look. It's not my fault data centers are sucking up inventory. I warned you. Now that workstation is $750+ quote.

Debian, apparently, no longer supports the 486 instructions set. Which means running it on QEMU is going to be problematic. However, x86box (which I've used extensively), allows for VNC connections. So now I have to see if I can get it working on my Pi. And... Hope it's... Stable. And workable.

Friend of mine wants me to help him look into BBS software. Namely as a replacement for his discord server. Which I think is kinda neat.

I will never understand why some people need to show up drunk to a place of business. I just don't get it. I don't. I know life sucks but.... I mean come on. Honestly?

Shit sucks. So I'm gonna share a song that always makes me feel better. It just works and I'm all here for it. #PositiveVibes

It would be nice to deport him & his family since he has done it to so many people including people who have been born in this country.

Hit on an idea for a fully remote, retro work environment. My Pi3b+ server, hosting QEMU to emulate a 486 environment, running Dos 6.22 & Windows 3.11. It allows for VNC across platforms with basic network emulation that can access my NAS. Why? Because it's simple, direct, accessible & classic!

This is one man holding the government hostage. At what point is the GOP going to wake up and realize this man is a fraud? Or at least openly admit what they whisper to each other? It's nothing short of a declaration of war, from the playground bully, against the people of the United States.

I don't care what any clock or individual or whatever says: My body knows it's 7am. And therefore it should be. Eugh.

Well so much for the weekend. Too much client stuff, not enough free time and DST on top of it like fuck God why. ... But I did get a 486 VM built that's honestly stable and functional. So. Yay? ... I need a life.

Theres a lady here, very nice, with her grandson. And he's having a blast showing off his little knock off game boy. He's having fun. Being cool. This kid is awesome. ... I want the world to be good to this kid. He deserves it.

Okay. So. I pulled the service manual for the T60 and the T60p. One of these is going to be doing what I want. I simply wish I had a better bench for system breakdowns. Ah well... On the other side, i... Need to find the missing T60p parts.... Which are, I think, scattered...?

Read up on the T60 last night. Did the BIOS update to 1.19. However. I have to see if the motherboard is a Revision 3 model. Otherwise the CPU upgrade is a no go. So I pulled out the T60p that I believe works? It was missing parts when I salvaged it. I just wanted that 4:3 screen goodness. -_-

Every day is a constant reminder that I need to find a better job. I hate this economy. I hate this shit-uation. I hate feeling stuck. I hate having to do what I can unmedicated which is battle uphill constantly. I. Hate. My life. And it's my fault. I mean it is right? To hell with my genetics.

Being told by a bot account trying to shovel me to an onlyfans that preferring animated women is a sin, seems somehow immensely hilarious to me. I hope it was worth wasting your time over. Lol

Nope. None of that has a thing to do with patriotism.

Well I'll be danged. Looks like the T60 CPU gets delivered today. Guess I'll have to do that bios update tonight, then tomorrow I can proceed to (again) rebuild the T60. Yay DOS config scripting. I'll get some pics up when I get it going.

I really need to read The King in Yellow.

So. Hey. Microsoft. Uh. You really wanna help people move off your OS? Cause this makes it seem like you want to spit in the eye of your user base. Which is fine. I'll probably be rebuilding my main desktop with Fedora this year anyways.... tech4gamers.com/windows-12-r...

Current mid-term goal: Try and find an electronics shop that can fix my CRT... ... I hate seeing it just sitting there. It deserves to be used... ... I hate this economy.

I've made a decision. I am going to take another crack at MS-Dos on the T60. With one difference: I have ordered an Intel T7200 Core 2 Duo 64 bit processor. Now. This processor should still have the 16 bit instruction set. So not only will this cover it, but future proof it with Fedora 64 bit.

People today talking about their Switch 2's and I'm sitting here like...

So it would appear this weekend I need to take everything down in the office in hopes of finding the floppy drive for my Versa. I hope? That I still have it? Maybe burning a bootable utils CD rom would be better. I at least have those. I need to get out the label maker and catalog/sort my stuff...

... I hate it when I have a 5 minute night. You know where you close your eyes, then look at the clock and it feels like only five minutes have passed but it's two minutes before your alarm goes off? Blegggggh.

I was talking about my vintage laptops at work. Someone asked why would I bother with "outdated garbage". ... Because it still works, has no monetization or forced online gameplay, may have active modding communities, no loot boxes yet some rng, and no threat of age verification bullshit.

Waking to gentle snow. Quiet falling morning hush. A moment of calm.

Found my old NEC Versa 6000. Now this little Pentium 133 laptop? Has DOS level and Windows 98 drivers with 48 megs of memory and a Pentium 133. The original 4gh hard drive is in the process of dying. So I dug out a 4 gig CF Card. And that's having issues due to the need of special software >>next

CONGRESS declares war. NOT President tRumpstein.

Well no DOS drivers for the Toshiba. But that's okay. Also big WOO to WindowsUpdateRestored.com Ugh. God. That's so good. So so goooooos. Right in the nostalgias. ;_;

Well I've got XP Pro running on the T60 (as it originally was). Which is... Fine. I can DosBox-X it. It's not the same as running on pure hardware. However! The Toshiba drive is failing. I have a 32gb CF card and adapter. That means DOS and W3.11 on a Pebtium 3 with Windows 98! So. Yay?

Progress! DOS 6.22 is on the T60, thanks to the Toshiba and a CF card, and the dd command. I couldn't even get the CF card to mount in Workstation. I had to use ACTUAL FLOPPY DISKS. But that's fine. Either way, the next step is the DOS drivers, Win 3.11 (obvs), then Office 4.5.

Oh boy. A 2.75 day weekend. This means I can finish building out the ThinkPad T60 with help from my Toshiba Tecra (since it has a working floppy drive and USB ports). Then it's back to working on the NFS issue on the RetroPie. And then start plotting out a network rebuild. S'fun stuff!

I have been digging through 20+ year old flash game and media archives. .... No wonder adobe killed flash. YouTube doesn't hold a candle to ANY OF THIS. Not even TikTok. This level of creativity is all passion project mayhem and I adore it.

I may have a three day weekend coming up. Which means hopefully finalizing the T60 for Vanilla DOS mode and multiboot. Then either catalogue my hardware and parts (so much) or figure out why my DNS server has stopped updating/forwarding to internal FQDN's. Which isn't super terrible but annoying.

Welp. I ordered a pack of CD-Rs which arrived this morning. Which is a little crazy to think about. I haven't needed or really used them in ages but I needed something quick for some of this older software. Honestly, I need to look into one of those SD card CDrom virtualizers. Sigh.

Nailed it