Ecco le tendenze di oggi 15 marzo 2026 su Poliversity

Tag 171 — Run #15 & #16 (bytegleich): Jetzt zählt nur noch Varianz (und eine harte Budget-Regel)

Ich sitz wieder am Fenster mit Blick Richtung Donau. Alles grau, gleichmäßiges Licht – fast wie ein Labor-Setup. Genau passend für das, was heute dran ist: keine neuen Ideen, kein Tuning. Nur Replikation.

Startrampe

• Replikation statt Euphorie
• Der Preis der Heilung
• Aggregation #14–#16: Weg von Einzelwerten
• Meine Go/No-Go-Regel (Gate V1)

Run #15 und #16 sind bytegleich zu #14 gelaufen. Gleiche Intervention: nur near-expiry-unpinned, nur bei Δt < 0, fixed delay + 1 Retry. Keine neue Schwelle, kein anderer Trigger. Einfach schauen, ob das, was gut aussah, auch stabil bleibt.

Replikation statt Euphorie

Ergebnis:

• Run #15: 6 Fälle mit Δt < 0
• Run #16: 5 Fälle mit Δt < 0
• Heilungsrate: jeweils 100%
• warn_rate: 0.061 (#15), 0.059 (#16)
• unknown_rate: 0.00

Wichtigster Punkt für mich: Die Δt < 0-Fälle tauchen wieder ausschließlich im near-expiry-unpinned-Stratum auf. Kein neues Muster, kein Spillover in andere Bereiche. Und jeder einzelne Fall wird durch den Retry sauber geheilt.

Damit ist klar: #13/#14 waren kein Zufallstreffer. Das Ding ist reproduzierbar.

Der Preis der Heilung

Diesmal hab ich mir die Overhead-Verteilung pro Run nebeneinandergelegt (retrytotaloverhead_ms):

Run #15
p50 = 44 ms
p95 = 69 ms
p99 = 76 ms
min = 37 ms
max = 79 ms

Run #16
p50 = 41 ms
p95 = 72 ms
p99 = 75 ms
min = 36 ms
max = 78 ms

Das ist eng. p95 und p99 driften nicht weg. Das Maximum bleibt unter 80 ms. Für einen Backend-Read + Retry ist das ehrlich gesagt erstaunlich wenig.

Danke nochmal an Lukas fürs ständige Nachhaken bei den Latenzkosten – genau das ist der Unterschied zwischen „funktioniert“ und „produktionsreif“.

Ich merke, wie sich mein Blick verschiebt: Früher hätte ich gesagt „unter 100 ms passt scho“. Jetzt interessiert mich die Varianz. Wie stabil ist p95? Wie weit ist p99 vom Maximum entfernt? Wie viel Luft habe ich, bevor es unangenehm wird?

Timing ist nicht nur Durchschnitt. Timing ist Verlässlichkeit. Und genau die brauch ich irgendwann für alles, was präzise takten muss.

Aggregation #14–#16: Weg von Einzelwerten

Nächster Schritt (läuft schon im Notebook): Ich aggregiere #14–#16 kompakt:

Pro Run:

• Count(Δt < 0)
• Heilungsrate
• p50/p95/p99 Overhead
• min/max Overhead

Und gepoolt über alle drei Runs:

• Gesamt-Sample-Anzahl
• gepooltes p50/p95/p99
• Gesamt-Heilungsrate

Ich will nicht mehr auf Einzelzahlen starren, sondern eine Entscheidungsbasis haben.

Meine Go/No-Go-Regel (Gate V1)

Statt „unter 100 ms fühlt sich gut an“ definiere ich jetzt ein klares Budget:

GO, wenn:

Mit #15 und #16 fühlt sich das nicht mehr wie Wetten an, sondern wie ein kontrollierter Schritt.

Jetzt meine Frage in die Runde – vor allem an Lukas und alle, die mitdenken:
Ist 80/90 ms konservativ genug? Oder würdet ihr strenger gehen (70/80)? Oder sagt ihr: Bei dem CI-Durchsatz ist sogar mehr drin?

Für mich ist das heute ein kleiner, aber sauberer Fortschritt. Nicht spektakulär. Kein neues Feature. Nur Stabilität. Und irgendwie fühlt sich genau das richtig an. Pack ma’s ordentlich – dann hält’s auch, wenn’s drauf ankommt. 🚀

Tag 170 — Run #14: Der Retry heilt weiter, jetzt messe ich den Preis

Mittagslicht über der Donau, klarer Himmel, fast windstill. Gute Mess-Wetterlage, wenn man so will. Also direkt weiter mit Run #14 – gleicher Aufbau wie #13, gleiche Intervention, kein Rumoptimieren. Ein Ziel: Nicht nur „funktioniert“, sondern endlich quantifizieren, was mich der one‑shot fixed‑delay Retry wirklich kostet.

Startrampe

• Neue Metrik, kein neues Verhalten
• Run #14 — Rohfakten
• Jetzt spannend: Was kostet der Spaß?
• Von „geht“ zu „produktionsreif“
• Nächster Schritt

Der Kontext bleibt strikt gleich:

• nur near‑expiry‑unpinned
• nur bei Δt < 0 Kandidaten
• exakt ein fixed delay
• exakt ein Retry
• second read zählt

Und ich hab diesmal nur am Logging geschraubt – minimal. Danke nochmal an Lukas für den Stupser mit den Latenzkosten. Genau das ist der Punkt: Wenn später mal irgendwas wirklich davon abhängt, will ich Zahlen sehen, nicht nur ein gutes Gefühl.

Neue Metrik, kein neues Verhalten

Ich hab die Δt<0‑Fallliste um drei Felder erweitert:

• retry_delay_ms = tretrystart − tfirstdetection
• retry_roundtrip_ms = tretrydone − tretrystart
• retry_total_overhead_ms = delay + roundtrip

Wichtig: Keine Änderung an Triggern, Strata oder Schwellen. 24h bleibt 24h. Kein Tuning am fixed delay. Kein „ach komm, probieren wir noch…“. Nur messen.

Run #14 — Rohfakten

Δt<0 (first read): 5 Fälle
retrytaken: 5/5
retryfixed: 5/5

Nach dem Retry war überall Δt ≥ 0. Also wieder ~100% Heilung im Zielbereich. Servus Timing-Resonanz-Fenster 😉

Die 4‑Zellen‑Tabelle (warnrate, unknownrate, etc.) zeigt keinen Drift im Vergleich zur letzten Baseline. Keine Nebenwirkungen sichtbar. Das war mir fast wichtiger als die Heilungsquote.

Jetzt spannend: Was kostet der Spaß?

Für die 5 Δt<0‑Fälle ergibt sich folgende Overhead‑Verteilung (retry_total_overhead_ms):

• p50 ≈ 42 ms
• p95 ≈ 71 ms
• p99 ≈ 74 ms

Was man klar sieht: Der fixed delay dominiert. Der Roundtrip bleibt klein und stabil, kein Ausreißer, kein seltsames Zittern im Backend. Genau so hätte ich’s gern – kontrollierbar, vorhersehbar.

Natürlich: Fünf Samples sind noch keine Weltformel. Aber es ist das erste Mal, dass ich den Preis schwarz auf weiß sehe. Und ehrlich? Unter 100 ms p99 fühlt sich für diesen Pfad gerade absolut im Budget an.

Von „geht“ zu „produktionsreif“

Der offene Faden seit Run #13 war klar: Ist das nur ein netter Patch oder eine tragfähige Lösung?
Mit #14 bin ich einen Schritt weiter. Nicht, weil sich das Verhalten geändert hat – sondern weil ich es jetzt einordnen kann.

Heilungsrate ~100% ✅
Kein Drift in warn/unknown ✅
p95 Zusatzlatenz im zweistelligen Millisekundenbereich ✅

Das ist kein Bauchgefühl mehr. Das ist ein Trade‑off.

Nächster Schritt

Konsequent bleiben: Zwei weitere identische Replikationen (#15, #16). Gleiche Intervention, gleiche Metriken, gleiche Auswertung. Erst wenn p95/p99 stabil bleiben und die Heilung nicht plötzlich bröckelt, darf ich das innerlich als „robust“ verbuchen.

Wenn das hält, entscheide ich, ob die Retry‑Latenzfelder dauerhaft ins Log gehören oder nur als Validierungswerkzeug bleiben.

Was ich spannend finde: Es fühlt sich fast banal an – 40 bis 70 Millisekunden. Aber präzises Timing ist genau das, woran große Systeme hängen. Wenn man Zeit nicht messen kann, kontrolliert man sie auch nicht. Und wenn man sie nicht kontrolliert… na ja.

Pack ma’s. Run #15 wartet.

Atari 2600 Cartridge Emulation – Part 2

Following on from my previous post: Atari 2600 Cartridge Emulation in this post I start to look at how to build a custom Atari 2600 ROM itself.

I’ve spent a bit of time pouring over the assembler for the Atari photo frame app and I can’t see any obvious places where the byte ordering might go awry, so I’ve decided to rebuild the ROM itself from scratch just to be sure that what is in the binary file is what I’m expecting.

It would be nice to solve the issue I was seeing, but this will also hopefully serve as a useful introduction to writing and building code for the Atari 2600.

Spoilers: I think it was the timing between the PAL Atari and the Pico’s ROM routines. Adjusting the Pico code seems to solve it.

Atari 2600 Development

There is a brilliant introductory tutorial for Atari 2600 development here: https://www.randomterrain.com/atari-2600-memories-tutorial-andrew-davie-01.html

The basic steps are:

• Install the tool chain and programming environment. This is based on the DASM cross-platform assembler.
• Install an emulator – Stella is the emulator of choice.
• Grab any relevant documentation and references:
  • Stella Programmer’s Guide
  • AtariAge
• Build and load the code.

Installing the Toolchain

I’m using my Ubuntu installation, so after a quick update of the core libraries, I installed DASM.

As well as installing DASM the Atari 2600 environment and macro files are required from here: https://github.com/johnidm/asm-atari-2600

At this point, to build an Atari 2600 ROM binary file requires the following:

To get this into picoROM then requires some additional processing. There is a python script that will take a binary file and churn out a series of rom_contents[n] = val; statements which can then be pasted into the pico_rom.c file.

The contents of newrom.c will now have statements for rom_contents[0] through to rom_contents[4095] which need to replace those already in setup_rom_contents().

Return to the Photo Frame

I really wanted to figure out what was going on with the photo frame application from part 1. My initial suspicions are that it might be related to the PAL/NTSC difference, so that is the starting point.

What are the main differences? The refresh frame rate and number of lines scanned per frame:

I know from having read “Racing the Beam” how critical timing is to driving the display and interspersing logic and display code. The “Atari 2600 Programming for Newbies” Guide states it thus:

“But from the ‘2600 point of view, the difference in frequency (50Hz vs. 60Hz) and resolution (625 scanlines vs. 525 scanlines) is important—very important—because it is the PROGRAMMER who has to control the data going to the TV. It is not done by the ‘2600 (!!)—the ‘2600 only generates a signal for a single scanline.”

“This is completely at odds with how all other consoles work, and what makes programming the ‘2600 so much ‘fun’. Not only does the programmer have to worry about game mechanics—but he or she also has to worry about what the TV is doing (for example, what scanline it is drawing, and when it needs to start a new image, etc.).”

Another complication is that the displays are interlaced, that is half the scanlines are displayed first, then the rest. By displaying every other line, persistence of vision means that the fact that it takes time to go from top to bottom for each frame is largely hidden from view.

But the consequence of this is that the actual display frame rate, when interlacing is taken into account, is 25 Hz for PAL and 30 Hz for NTSC.

The TIA in the 2600 runs with a pixel clock of 3.58MHz and the 6502 runs at 1/3 that, so there is one CPU cycle per three pixels. I think this is universal across both PAL and NTSC. According to this guide there are 228 pixel clock counts for a horizontal line, which I believe means 1 line will take around 64uS.

A full NTSC frame would thus be around 262*64 = 16.8 mS which gives us the 60Hz refresh rate. A full PAL frame would be around 312*64 = 19.9mS which gives us the 50Hz refresh rate.

There are many tricks associated with squeezing the most out of the hardware and a key technique relates to changing the registers that support graphics processing “on the fly” – whilst the TV scan is actually happening – hence “Racing the Beam” in the title of the book.

The 48-Pixel Trick

One of those tricks used by the photo frame application is the “48 pixel trick” which is described in the following:

• 48 Pixel Image Routine (Atari 2600 Technical Wiki)
• Stella Mailing List “The scores / 48-pixel highres routine explained!”
• Solaris “Part 10: Tech Post 2: The Penultimate Technique”
• Retrochallenge 2018/04: Refraction for the Atari 2600: Episode 10: Title Graphics
• Atari 2600: A 48px Kernel

I don’t know enough about 2600 programming yet to describe it in detail, but I believe the key idea is something like the following:

• It takes time to update the graphics registers to write to the display. There are registers for “player 0” and “player 1” sprites (not to be confused with “play field” registers).
• But there are some tricks to “preload” the information and have it queued up ready to display quickly using either CPU registers or mechanisms built into the Atari’s TIA device.
• There are some techniques for interleaving the P0/P1 data and repeating it across the scanline.
• Key to this are the following:
  • VDEL – “vertical delay” which enables a kind of “shadow” graphics register as I understand things.
  • NUSIZ – “Number/Size Player/Missile” which can be used to indicate a number of copies of each sprite.

There is a great description from the Retrochallenge write-up:

“So, finally, we come to meet the famous 6-Digits Score Display, also known as Big Sprites, or 48-Pixel Display. It’s the best we can do in “high” resolution on the Atari 2600: 48 pixels in a row, composed of the two player sprites (8 pixels each) replicated 3 times at an offset of 16 pixels (“close”). The two sprites will be mended together, forming a continous strip of 48 pixels (8 × 6). Nothing out of the ordinary, since the VCS and its TIA chip provide for that. Our job is now to change the bit-patterns for the two sprites on the fly, 4 times, just-in-time, with perfect cycle count.”

It goes on to show how unfortunately updating the registers is just slightly too long compared to the “beam time”, but by clever use of the VDEL and the “shadow” registers, it can all be speeded up by preloading as much as possible.

There is one confusing property to note. Writing to GPR0 will trigger an update to the display from the shadow register for GPR1 and vice versa. this creates for a very confused sequence of updates, but does allow for time-critical updating of the display in sequence with “the beam”.

So looking at the photo frame display code, we can add the following annotations to the main display loop.

Why does the TV display only start at pixel position 123? That is determined by the call to SetHorizPos, as will be described next.

One other point of note. This code reads out 6 bytes, giving us the 48 pixels. But the image is a 64 pixel wide image. To solve this, a second graphics loop is performed on the interlaced scan for the final 16 pixels.

Setting the Horizontal Position

The SetHorizPos function needs a little explanation.

From the Stella Programmers Guide, section 7.0:

“The horizontal position of each object is set by writing to its associated reset register (RESP0, RESP1, RESM0, RESM1, RESBL) which are all “strobe” registers (they trigger their function as soon as they are addressed). That causes the object to be positioned wherever the electron bean was in its sweep across the screen when the register was reset. for example, if the electron beam was 60 color clocks into a scan line when RESP0 was written to, player 0 would be positioned 60 color clocks “in” on the next scan line. Whether or not P0 is actually drawn on the screen is a function of the data in the GP0 register, but if it were drawn, it would show up at 60. Resets to these registers anywhere during horizontal blanking will position objects at the left edge of the screen (color clock 0). Since there are 3 color clocks per machine cycle, and it can take up to 5 machine cycles to write the register, the programmer is confined to positioning the objects at 15 color clock intervals across the screen. This “course” positioning is “fine tuned” by the Horizontal Motion, explained in section 8.0.”

This is what is implemented in the SetHorizPos function. There is a great discussion of how it works here: https://forums.atariage.com/topic/308513-a-working-horizontal-positioning-routine/ and more detailed explanation here: https://bumbershootsoft.wordpress.com/2018/08/30/an-arbitrary-sprite-positioning-routine-for-the-atari-2600/

On entry, A = required x-coordinate and X is the reset register to work with where X=0 for RESP0, X=1 for RESP1.

The basic idea is to wait until the scanning reaches the required point and then use the RESPx register to say “put sprite here”. The minimum loop for scanning will take up 15 pixels of time, which is also the time taken to subtract 15 from the required value and continually branch until negative, hence the use of the otherwise apparently magic number 15 above.

As the granularity is fixed at 15 pixels, the HMPx registers are used for further fine adjustment.

This is all spelled out in the Newbies tutorial here: https://www.randomterrain.com/atari-2600-memories-tutorial-andrew-davie-22.html

Vertical Blank Timing

One other trick for getting the vertical timing correct is to use the TIMxxx and INTIM registers. The TIMxxx registers are timers which can be checked using INTIM. TIM64T counts 64 cycle blocks and is used here as follows:

This (and similar other sections) will ensure the next block of code is properly synchronised to the vertical scan requirements.

In this case, it is accounting for the 37 scanlines that form the top vertical blank:

• 37 x 76 CPU instructions = 2812 CPU cycles
• 2812 / 64 ~= 44

Similar code can work for the bottom overscan of 30 scanlines too:

• 30 x 76 = 2280 CPU cycles
• 2280 / 64 ~= 35.5

36 is used with TIM64T for the overscan.

Overall Structure

Putting everything together, the main code has the following structure:

Back to the Problem

So with this new understanding has the problem been solved? Nope. I’ve tried various things to adjust the timings, set the NTSC/PAL numbers of lines, and adjusting the sequencing of the registers as per the examples.

Nothing. Also running it in the Stella emulator seems to show that it ought to be working fine, but of course I can’t (easily) simulate the Pico changing a byte on every read of the sprite0 location.

So at this point I took a bit of a closer look at the Pico code which is relatively straight forward. It has the following basic structure:

I decided to add some marker values at the start of the image:

Then it was possible to attempt to see what was going on.

We can see that part way along the top line the 0xA1 (bin 1010 0001) marker can be seen, followed by the 0xC1 and 0xF1 markers, but the first 0x81 marker is missing. This implies to me that the code has somehow skipped the first byte of the image and then all subsequent bytes are 1 position out.

I think the issue could be related to the timing of the updating code which looks for the requested address changing from general ROM access to the special address 0xF00 (which actually comes out as 0xFF00 in the assembler, but is 0xF00 in the C code. The cartridge only has 12 bits as significant for the 2600 and they start at 0xF000). When the change is detected, i.e. the first write is being performed, the data value is sent out and then the index into the picture changes.

I think this means that there is only one read that results in the image data being written before it changes, so what I think might be happening is something like the following:

I don’t know how much of a problem this is, but I can see how the timing might be quite brittle if it does work.

I’ve changed the logic of the code to the following:

It is not perfect but when it all cycles round everything eventually seems fine. There does often seem to be one spurious read on power up which can put the whole first sequence out by a byte. In the end, I initialise the first img_pos pointer to 4999 rather than 5000. Once everything gets going it seems to work ok.

It is interesting that the interlacing is so visible on this modern TV. I can see why people seek out CRTs for their retro gear! Anyway, now the full first byte can be seen to be displayed correctly and then everything else follows.

I still don’t know if the issue is related to the PAL vs NTSC thing. I initially wondered that if the speed of the 2600 relative to the Pico is different, which I thought it would be when comparing 50Hz scanning to 60Hz, then maybe that means the original code isn’t so robust. Maybe at 60Hz the single address read is fast enough to get the right data byte, but at 50Hz it is slightly slower, meaning it is the changed byte that gets read instead.

But then I realised that the horizontal timing is the same for each, it is only the time it takes for the number of vertical lines that is different, so actually I don’t know what is going on. Maybe the clock in my old 2600 is slightly off. Or maybe the Pico isn’t overclocking reliably.

Either way, it seems a lot more robust for me with the update.

I am now wondering if I could add another special address location that could act as a sync between the Pico and 6502 which could be used to correctly signal the start of the frame.

Below are some of the various interim screens I ended up with whilst adjusting the assembler and Pico sequencing.

But I finally have a working picture frame app and have learned a lot about the Atari 2600 in the process.

There is a branch of the original project that contains all my messing around here: https://github.com/diyelectromusic/atari_2600_digital_frame/tree/kevins_learning

Update to the Build Process

One final additional update, I’ve now changed pico_rom.c to take the ROM and image data from two header files that are generated by the two provided python scripts.

The basic build process is now as follows:

• Use DASM to assemble the code for the Atari ROM.
• Use translate_bin2rom.py to create pico_rom_contents.h
• Use read_img.py to create up to four images in pico_rom_images.h
• Use cmake to create the build environment.
• Use make to build the final pico_rom.uf2 file for installing on the Pico.

This is all captured in a new build.sh file which builds four sample images from the img/for_display area and all of the above is now in my learning branch in GtHub.

There is one final build step I’ve not looked at – the magic file ‘slower_boot2_padded_checksummed.S” has some hex data in it that is build as part of the original picorom project. I might try to get that over at some point too, so the whole thing will build from source.

I’d also like to find out how to include the above python steps as part of the cmake/make process, but I don’t get on very well with cmake…

At some point I’d like to create an empty “how to build a Pico Atari ROM” project from all the above making it fairly easy to load and run homemade ROMs. There might even be an option for a future PicoW version that would support dynamic loading of a ROM binary file…

Kevin

#0 #15 #36 #44 #7 #atari #atari2600 #HEIGHT #picotari #raspberryPiPico

EYELASH MAN #15

Eyelash Man #15: “Office Coffee”

“I’ve tried it with Redbull but my cornea was never the same”

#15 #Coffee #eye #eyelash #eyelashMan #Funny #keurig #Office #pods #waterloo

Wytch Hazel Releases New LP “V: Lamentations”

Acclaimed British hard rock band, Wytch Hazel, today releases its new album, ‘V: Lamentations‘, on July 4 via Bad Omen Records (Pøltergeist, Satan’s Satyrs). Recorded with longtime producer Ed Turner (The Ettes, Heavy Trash, Purson), ‘Lamentations‘ delivers uplifting, powerful heavy music, rife with a Maidenesque jubilance, that builds on the momentum of the band’s lush catalog, including the LPs ‘Prelude‘, ‘II: Sojourn‘, ‘III: Pentecost‘ and 2023’s ‘IV: Sacrament‘, a record hailed as “gloriously bright heavy metal” which landed at #15 on Billboard’s Top New Artists Albums in its first week of release. Purchase ‘V: Lamentations‘ at this location.

In celebration of the new LP’s release, Wytch Hazel drops a video for the Sabbathian new track, “The Citadel“, created by Wild Stag Studio and edited by Ben Liepelt. Flirting with the downcast profundity of Black Sabbath, the yearning mandolin melodies, imploringly epic hooks, plaintive harmonies, and solemn medieval atmosphere of “The Citadel” make it one of Wytch Hazel‘s most affecting tunes.

WATCH “THE CITADEL” VIDEO HERE

“The Citadel” is a song about feeling left out, feeling not good enough which is in stark contrast to the words on our other new song, “Woven“, which say “you are enough“, offers vocalist/guitarist Colin Hendra. “We’re all multifaceted as humans and I think it’s normal for this to be reflected in the art we produce. Each song takes on its own character, often guided by the direction of the lyrics. It’s also always fun to have a slower song that still feels heavy and a bit “Heaven and Hell!“.

Led by Hendra, Wytch Hazel is a singular source of hard rock/heavy metal dominion. The quartet have continually underscored and bolstered a signature sound rooted in heroic days of yore, finessed to an elegant apex. The fifth Wytch Hazel album is overflowing with indelible earworms the likes of which must be heard to be believed. And believe, you shall.

“I believe things have meanings and significance,” Hendra emphasizes. “Music isn’t just a self-indulgent, entertainment thing, for me it’s a huge part of my life, very special, very magical and very meaningful. I want Wytch Hazel to be a force for good, a healing power.”

‘V: Lamentations‘ track listing:
01. I Lament
02. Run the Race
03. The Citadel (stream video)
04. Elements (stream video)
05. The Demon Within
06. Racing Forwards
07. Elixir
08. Woven (stream visualizer)
09. Heavy Load
10. Healing Power

#15 #hard #newAlbum #rock #wytchHazel

Wer eine sehr alte WordPress Multisite Installation betreibt, die noch vor WordPress 3.5 angelegt wurde, hat mit der neuen WordPress Version 6.8.0 vom 15. April eine etwas unschöne Erfahrung machen können: Alle Medien waren plötzlich nicht mehr zugreifbar.

Hintergrund

Die Ursache lag darin, dass bereits ab Version 3.5 (diese Version kam immerhin bereits am 11. Dezember 2012!) die

https://xwolf.de/2025/04/22/alte-multisite-installationen-und-wordpress-6-8-0/

Short Story Reviews: E. C. Tubb’s “Without Bugles” (1952), “Home is the Hero” (1952), and “Pistol Point” (1953)

The following reviews are the 33rd, 34th, and 35th installments of my series searching for “SF short stories that are critical in some capacity of space agencies, astronauts, and the culture which produced them.” Some stories I’ll review in this series might not fit. And that is okay. I relish the act of literary archaeology.

For this post I’ve selected three short stories about the horrific conditions on a colonized Mars by E. C. Tubb (1919-2010) that appeared in the British SF magazine New Worlds. Along with three additional tales, they were fixed-up as the novel Alien Dust (1955).1 I “blame” the “Friend of the Site” John Boston for my renewed interest in Tubb’s bleak stories. I recently acquired Boston’s three-volume commentary on pre-Moorcock New Worlds and Science Fantasy.2 Boston correctly describes Tubb’s earlier stories as preoccupied with the “domestic lives of spacefarers” in often overwritten and maudlin strokes.3 Regardless, I found the topics he explored worth my time. I’d only previously read his later short story “The Seekers” (1965) and The Space-Born (variant title: Star Ship) (1955). Considering his hard-boiled sensibilities, I imagine a substantial slice of his fiction would fit this series.4

Previously: Philip K. Dick’s “Explorers We” (1959) and James Tiptree, Jr.’s “Painwise” (1972).

Up Next: John Wyndham’s “The Man From Beyond” (variant title: “The Man from Earth”) (1934)

• Gerard Quinn’s cover for New Worlds, # 13, ed. John Carnell (January 1952)

3.5/5 (Good)

“Without Bugles” first appeared in New Worlds, # 13, ed. John Carnell (January 1952): You can read it online here.

As with most E. C. Tubb stories, “Without Bugles” starts with a punch: “The man writhed on the narrow cot, and fought for his life” (52). The man in question is one of many colonists on Mars afflicted with a futuristic black lung–“an industrial disease. Silicosis they called it once”–caused by radioactive dust (54). The origin of the radioactivity isn’t clear. Dust cannot be avoided on Mars. It seeps through all seals. It gathers in corners. It bypasses masks. Into the colony of the dead and dying and those that tend them, Anders, the Secretary for Extra-Planetary Affairs, and Pat Easton, a vivacious and idealistic reporter for Trans-World Communications arrive on an infrequent rocket. The purpose of the commission? Anders gets straight to the point: “Congress has poured billions of dollars into this project. When are you going to start paying it back?” (56). Pat proposes the fate of the colony can be swayed by a positive depiction of the heroic colonists.

The narrative follows Dick Banner (the perfect noir name) who struggles with the heroic idealism regurgitated by Pat–“Heroes! Pioneers! The vanguard of all Earth, breaking new frontiers!” (55)–in her attempt to save the colony. Dick, on the other hand, who has experienced the brutal reality firsthand agrees with Anders’ assessment that the Mars isn’t suitable for short-term investment. Instead, Dick surmises, “it will take years. Billions. Thousands of men. It may take a generation” (60) in order for Mars to be livable. And thousands will die along the way. And when Pat learns of the impact of Martian dust on Dick, whom she feels drawn too, all illusion comes crashing down.

As with the other two stories in this post, Tubb reframes our romantic conception of Mars. The colony itself is not depicted, in its incubatory state, as a place of wonder. Instead “it was a depressing sight,” a mere “huddle of low rounded buildings” that gave the “appearance of pre-fabrication” (54). Due to a diet of yeast products, the colonists must even be “conditioned” to dislike the finer pleasures of earth (tobacco, coffee, milk, alcohol). It’s a cynical story. Tubb’s characters peer underneath the romanticism of it all and see the true movement of the gears. Gears gummed and greased by the blood of humanity and the vapors of public opinion.

Recommended for fans of the theme. I assume most others will find it a bit on the nose.

• Gerard Quinn’s cover for New Worlds, # 15, ed. John Carnell (May 1952)

3.5/5 (Good)

“Home is the Hero” first appeared in New Worlds, # 15, ed. John Carnell (May 1952): You can read it online here.

At some chronological point after “Without Bugles” (1952), the Mars colony gets a new lease on life–the discovery of uranium. Growing nuclear tensions on Earth pull the colony into its arms race, a colony that must immediately be exploited. Unfortunately, the public has forgotten the plight of its dying men. Another punchy sentence begins the madness: “Gravity clawed at him, dragging down his head, bowing his back, sending protesting quivers along the muscles of thighs and shoulders” (79). Major Randolph arrives of Earth. The gravity turns him into an invalid. He spends his days in his bathtub observing his once-athletic limbs, attended by a masseur, and further disturbed by the why of his arrival on Earth. He’s been recalled for a propaganda mission: “it is essential that the original enthusiasm attending the initial colonisation of Mars be revived” (83). The problem? Life of Mars is miserable and the low gravity means you cannot return to Earth for long spells. Also, no one is to know the why–to facilitate the manufacture of weapons of mass destruction. Randolph is torn on the latter point. He wants Mars to have a new lease on life. He knows that it might come at the expense of countless lives on Earth.

The masterplan to restart the colony? Get women desperate for husbands to volunteer. Randolph isn’t content to regurgitate the jingoistic nonsense he’s been told to parrot. The women wait for him to tell them that they’ll be heroines. Instead, he lays out the brutal reality of life: “Don’t expect to find big handsome men in the colony. They’re all skinny little runts […] No coffee. No cosmetics. No fancy clothes. […] You’ll live on yeast, and drink water partly reclaimed from waste from your own body. You’ll live in huts of tamped dirt. You’ll have no books, no cinema, little privacy” (87). He’s accused of sabotaging the project until he convinces them of the necessity of his ways.

At this point the narrative oddly shifts to another victim of the human ambition to conquer the stars: John Lomas, ‘Atom’ Lomas (90). Rudolph is summoned by Lomas’ sister to John’s bedside. John participated in an earlier expedition to the Moon. The man lies in bed dying. The story becomes a rumination on the nature of heroism. The hero only exists when they’re strapping and young and healthy and in the public eye. As with Malzberg’s astronaut hero on welfare, Tubb ruminations: “what happens to heroes–when they live too long?” (93). The implication is clear. The men on Mars might be heroes in a time of need. But what happens when public opinion shifts to other arenas?

• Gerald Quinn’s cover for New Worlds, # 21, ed. John Carnell (June 1953)

2.75/5 (Below Average)

“Pistol Point” first appeared in New Worlds, # 21, ed. John Carnell (June 1953): You can read it online here.

Nuclear war ravaged Earth. Mars’ uranium is no longer needed. The women recruited in the previous story have returned to Earth.5 The resupply rockets come more infrequently with less and less supplies. Mars’ demands for basic supplies to start hydroponic farms in order to be self-sufficient go unheeded. As with the other two tales, another punchy sentence leads things off: “He rested in a shallow grave scooped from the fine, red dust, a small man with pipestem limbs and shrunken cheeks” (41). On the death of the previous leader of the colony, Ventor, Carl Denton takes over. At some point Mars had become a penal colony (the internal chronology of the stories isn’t exactly clear) and Carl decides to channel his criminal tendencies to rescue the colony. Boston correctly points out in his brief review, this story was written before terrorism periodically dominated the news cycle–the plot hits a bit different as a result.

As with the other two, Tubb narrows in on the central, and all too flighty, role of public opinion–mediated through the news–in the survival of the colonists. And unlike the other two, Tubb moderates the draconian implications of his scenario. Carl must believe he will kill millions but others around him have a bit more heart despite the redolent desperation afflicting all. There’s even a bit of light at the end of the tunnel. Mars might be able to escape the cycle of obsession and abandonment that plagued earlier generations.

Notes

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