Mastodawn

kianryan ☑️🐙🏳️‍🌈

@kianryan@oldbytes.space

615 Followers

300 Following

5.6K Posts

TLDR; I sport, code, make stuff, and play adventure games.

Member of @leigh_hackspace

Blog	https://kianryan.co.uk
Twitch	@betsyandsamantha
Pronouns	He/Him

kianryan ☑️🐙🏳️‍🌈13h ago

Kevin McAleer 🤖 Robot Maker 14h ago

It’s a Makin’ kind of day today. Getting ready for OpenSauce 2025 #opensauce2025

kianryan ☑️🐙🏳️‍🌈13h ago

Esther Schindler 14h ago

Happy Monday

kianryan ☑️🐙🏳️‍🌈13h ago

Today, after N years of using Vim, I learnt I can use Ctl-Q for Visual mode block selection where Ctl-V doesn't work (Windows, I'm looking at you).

kianryan ☑️🐙🏳️‍🌈1d ago

#Ploopy #Adapt Trackball, @ploopy with AnyMod BTU upper housing and raised buttons, and palm rest from PurpleCatGirl. Replacement parts #3dprinted in PLA manufactured in the UK (~1km from the Hackspace) from 3DQF. Regal Purple and King Fisher Blue.

kianryan ☑️🐙🏳️‍🌈1d ago

Laser cut, hand stitched leather case for #tangara music player from material found at @leigh_hackspace.

kianryan ☑️🐙🏳️‍🌈1d ago

Erin Reed 2d ago

1. Today, 200,000 marched in Budapest Pride in defiance of a ban by Orbán's far-right government. It was led by the city's mayor Gergely Karácsony, who got around the law by making it an "official city gathering." He was warned of arrest. They marched anyway. Subscribe to support my journalism.

200,000 March In Budapest Prid...

200,000 March In Budapest Pride, Refusing To Capitulate To Anti-LGBTQ+ Law

The march can teach the world the power of organized solidarity in the wake of a global, anti-LGBTQ+ reactionary movement.

Erin In The Morning

kianryan ☑️🐙🏳️‍🌈2d ago

Johan Peitz 2d ago

Throwing a massive sale on Steam and itch! Get picoCAD as well as all my games for really cheap!

Steam https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/38093/Apskeppet_Mega_Bundle/
Itch https://itch.io/s/155911/summer-sale-2025

#pixelart #gamedev #screenshotSaturday

kianryan ☑️🐙🏳️‍🌈3d ago

Neil Brown 3d ago

# Statement on Online Safety fees and penalties

I have not get read Ofcom's latest #OnlineSafetyAct document in full, but, for people running small online services, there's some good news:

> Subject to the Secretary of State’s approval, for fees-related duties, we have decided to exempt providers of regulated services whose UK referable revenue is less than £10 million.

No notification nor payment.

https://www.ofcom.org.uk/siteassets/resources/documents/consultations/category-1-10-weeks/consultation-online-safety---fees-and-penalties/main-documents/statement-on-online-safety-fees-and-penalties.pdf?v=399290

kianryan ☑️🐙🏳️‍🌈3d ago

Today I'll be mostly breaking lots of tiny balls in, with slightly bigger balls, in turn with one big ball manipulated by my fingers, untill they're all buttery smooth.

What?

kianryan ☑️🐙🏳️‍🌈3d ago

Good morning

×

digituba 3d ago

Usborne are still offering free PDFs of their computer books from the 1980s

https://usborne.com/gb/books/computer-and-coding-books

#RetroGaming #VideoGames #Coding #80s #Commodore #ZXSpectrum #Apple #Acorn

Michael Horne 3d ago

@digituba Wow. I had that one!

digituba 3d ago

@recantha did you have fun typing in the programs? 🤓 Or did you end up with many errors like me?

Michael Horne 3d ago

@digituba Oh, errors out of my ears!

digituba 3d ago

Hugo Mills 3d ago

@recantha @digituba I think I *still have* that one. :)

C.S.Strowbridge 3d ago

@recantha @digituba

Same here. So much nostalgia.

🎬 John • A Film Nerd • 🎥3d ago

@digituba I loved the artwork in those books, I had Space and Battle games (I think it was).

Unfortunately, that raised my expectations to quite high levels and so when the typed in game was finally running, there's quite some disappointment. 😆

digituba 3d ago

@UKFilmNerd
I also remember 'finger' typing some of those and getting Syntax Error at line... it also took me a long time to get it to run and then, as you said, some disappointment 😅

The illustrations really made a difference; it's nice to see they are still printing illustrated books.

🎬 John • A Film Nerd • 🎥3d ago

@digituba I remember my dad typing in a huge listing for a ZX81 game about raiding an Aztec temple.

It contained bugs and I couldn't figure out how to end the game once inside.

So I entered my own line of code, god knows how the system accepted it. I studied the rest of the code and the ZX81 manual to get a basic understanding. Something like:

If Input$="D" then dig.

Funny enough, pushing D dig not dig for treasure! 😂

digituba 3d ago

@UKFilmNerd if only coding was that easy 😅

@digituba @UKFilmNerd

You seem to have invented "vibe coding" 40 years early 😉

J. Alan Henning 2d ago

@UKFilmNerd @digituba I’d already been trained for this disappointment by the promotional art on arcade machines!

@UKFilmNerd @digituba Some of the pictures in the Spacegames scarred me as a kid.

xinit ☕3d ago

@digituba
They seem to be forwarding it off by region. I get a Dutch 404 message. Will have to try with VPN.

digituba 2d ago

@xinit the files from that page download from Google Drive. Otherwise the same books appear to be on archive.org if you are still having trouble.

IT-Awareness, Fabian Lucchi

@digituba @janbeta Related, here is what I always see now (magazines, boxed games, etc). It was great anyway #games #retro #advertise #promises

WILLIAM B PECKHAM 3d ago

@digituba Actually, if you can find or build a machine with the right processor, some of these still work. They only need some slight tweaking or changes because it's unlikely that a basic interpreter today, for example, would be exactly the same as the basic interpreters that were in place in the 80s. And you're probably not going to find exactly the same video hardware, for example. But I ported lunar lander from the IBM 1130 over 2 CP/M and from there over to MS-DOS back in the day. I just can't believe that nobody could port over to anything that we've run now. That makes no sense. In fact, this sounds like fun.

digituba 2d ago

@wpeckham there are some great emulators that should work with these programs if you have the patience:
Fuse https://fuse-emulator.sourceforge.net/
Vice https://vice-emu.sourceforge.io/
BeebEm https://github.com/stardot/beebem-windows

Fuse - the Free Unix Spectrum Emulator

Judeau (EatTheRich)2d ago

@digituba Ow Wow!!! Thanks for sharing this excellent find!!!

I remember a few of these from when I was a kid. The artwork in some of them is so nostalgic and I can't wait to look through them again.

That's awesome that they're giving these away for free.

digituba 2d ago

@Judeau yeah the artwork in these books is really good. They still make illustrated books; I think it makes a huge difference; very engaging.

I might actually try some of the programs in an emulator some time 🤓

Judeau (EatTheRich)2d ago

@digituba You know, I don't think I've ever tried my hand at a type in program.

I have read through books like this over the years and attempted to decipher the code and learn how it works, but I don't think I've ever actually taken one of these from the page to the keyboard.

With today's news of Perifractic purchasing Commodore perhaps it's time I give this a shot too!

digituba 1d ago

@Judeau I heard rumours of that Commodore purchase, it is crazy!

I used to type BASIC games on my Commodore Plus/4, but spent almost all the time correcting Syntax Errors 😭 And when it did work the games were very primitive.

MattJohns 2d ago

@digituba Wow, thanks. I didn't have these but it's great to have a nostalgic look through. https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bxv0SsvibDMTcHNXalEtYkVtU00/view?pli=1&resourcekey=0-YtCcUG7ytBL-ls8gciJ7ig

machine-code-for-beginners.pdf

Google Docs

David Cohen 2d ago

@digituba Compared to the cover art the games themselves were disappointing.

digituba 1d ago

@davidbcohen after amazing cover art, we got screenshots for different versions of the game; this was the ZX Spectrum cassette inlay, but the screenshots were from the Amiga/Atari ST versions 🧐
I remember getting caught out by that quite a few times back then 😅

Chris_Swan 2d ago

@digituba Wonderful - I have a couple of these, plus one original paperback, bought in a jumble sale book stall ( where you find all of the best computing books!)

cognitively accessible math 2d ago

@digituba I taught middle school then and LOVED Usborne books.

digituba 2d ago

@geonz I think the illustrations made them so great 🤓

@digituba this is the first book I learned to program from, before my school even had computers. The nostalgia I’m feeling right now is off the charts

digituba 2d ago

@steve I think one of my teachers used one of these books to control a motor using a BBC Micro. He made a mini washing machine ☺️

@digituba The link is not working for me. Maybe it’s a region thing?

digituba 2d ago

@oscherler I think so, as some other people have the same issue; the books also appear to be at archive.org or you could try a VPN 👍