The MOS 6502 8-bit MPU designed by Western Design Center, Inc..
It looks about the same, but much has changed behind the scenes. What started out as a pure text file is now a properly marked up document with suitable semantics. E.g, the instruction details where formerly just a run of preformatted text, but are now a definition list. Each entry has its own summary paragraph, a synopsis, a flags-table and the instruction table proper with all the address modes. All tables come with proper headers, where appropriate also with scopes for columns, rows, and even groups. Many tables have changed to definition lists and there’s additional ARIA annotation available. (Some more broad scale information has been included before, but as an addition to this, all the new bits are labeled properly to tell what these are.)
And, since you can’t beat simple things, thanks to the wonders of CSS it still looks like a simple run of text.
The PET 2001 online emulator just received its first sponsored update, by this advancing to version 1.4. And this update is all about Copy & Paste integration. — TLDR version; have a look at the respective section in the online help, accessible via the “Help” button on top of the emulator’s page.
A few notes on the system update process in Apple’s Big Sur (macOS 11)
The joys of Apple’s system update process.
Over several years — that is, the last decade — we have seen the principal mindset directing the user facing aspects of application and system design shifting from the concept of usability towards UX (user experience). As we’re almost there, it may be worth confronting these two apparently synonymous concepts of design guidelines and directions, here on the example of Apple’s Big Sur system update process.
Another view at Minard’s famous flow map, AKA “the greatest infographic of all times”
Remapping Minard’s map.
Much has been said about Charles Joseph Minard’s famous flow map titled “Carte Figurative des pertes succesives en hommes de l’Armée Française dans la campagne de Russie 1812-1813” (Paris, 1869) and it is universally praised for its comprehensive depiction of an impressive variety of quantitative data, hence there shouldn’t be much left to add to this. However, as indicated in a previous post, “Observing Minard Observing Napoléon – Observations on textual strategy in infographics by the example of the ‘Greatest Infographic of All Times’.” (2018), Minard’s map may not be what it seems to be at first glance. While we concentrated in this first post mainly on the aesthetic choices and what is actually shown and not shown in the chart and the general context of that sheet, both in presentation and history, we are here going to have a closer look at the very choice of presentation, namely the choice of a flow map and the implications thereof.
Text to Speech in JS, and a curious bug. Also, Safari desktop compatibility.
A curious bug, believed mitigated long ago, crept up again in meSpeak.js (an open source TTS for the Web in JavaScript maintained by me). On each 80th call, the internal eSpeak engine would crash on a round-off by one error. However, that error message never seemed right, as the abort message indicated a size of more than 1.8 GB for a relatively small and static internal file. Also, this didn’t happen on all browsers. A workaround was eventually found, where we would intercept this error, restart the engine, reload all relevant internal files and start over automatically.
However, this stopped working and the bug rose its head of rare, but questionable beauty once again. It doesn’t happen on all browsers, but, for me, it happens at least in current versions of Firefox. Even more, it seems to be a real Heisenbug, since the script exits on an “out of memory” exception on varying points depending on the specific version of the code. In the minimized production version, the code makes it to several debug messages before the final exit, in the unminimized test version, however, it exits on a different point, which renders intercepting that specific error a somewhat impractical endeavor. Also, the exception dosen’t depend on the length of the utterances spoken (thus suggesting that the “out of memory” exception isn’t caused by memory allocation of the actual code, but the result of cascading failures internal to the JS engine), it just happens on each 80th call of the method “speak()”, which triggers a run of the internal eSpeak engine. Which, on the other hand, provides a suitable point of access to an otherwise somewhat cryptic and inaccessible failure mode, namely, simply keeping track of the number of calls and automatically restarting the engine on every 80th call. (Mind that this may cause a small delay, but it’s still better than the script stalling on an uncatchable exception.)
Shout-out to Trent Murgatroyd for reporting the fault and testing!
This had actually been addressed in version 2.0.6, as of a few days ago (2020-04-17), already. But there was another issue, which had passed my radar, namely, the Safari desktop browser muting Web Audio on default. This is now addressed similar to how mobile devices are handled, by attempting to unlock audio on the first mousedown event occuring in the window. (Unlocking requires a direct user interaction. Hence, meSpeak.js must listen for a global user event. However, it neither blocks or consumes the event in any way, nor does it extract any data.) Additionally to this, meSpeak.js now also attempts to resume the audio-context on every call of the method “speak()” prior to playing any audio, in case it’s found in suspended state. (Again, this will be of any effect only, if the call was issued from code triggered by a user event. On the other hand, it doesn’t hurt trying.)
Proudly announcing version 1.1 of the PET 2001 online emulator.
Yet another PET 2001 related title illustration.
Version 1.1 of the PET 2001 online emulator features a totally revamped mounting and loading mechanism for files. For users this means full access to disk directories and LOADing programs from inside BASIC. For all the nerdy details and some hilarious insights into Commodore IEEE file loading (like, “Where on Earth — uhm, in memory — is the BASIC scondary device address?”) follow the link:
