“For anyone who has an itch to scratch in software, this is a golden age”

Patrick Lidstone

Following on from their successful debut in September and unlike a rock band contemplating their “second difficult album”^* the second gathering of the NDTC signalled full steam ahead at the Puffing Billy showcasing an inspiring stash of projects.

Making their debut and joining Neil and Chris were Rob and Maggie the Cockapoo from Taddiport, Patrick and Reggie the black Labrador from Bradworthy and Andy from Milton Damerel. It was a little fresh outside but the autumn sunshine kept things comfortable and with very few other customers we were able to arrange a few tables together to accommodate all.

Household Resilience & Tech

Conversation started with a discussion about household resilience following storm Austen during which Neil had experienced a 24 hour power-cut. An amazing amount of ideas came to the fore including the use of EV batteries as a back-up power source, commercial portable “power stations”, how to hack domestic solar installations, central heating systems and how to use the Octopus energy API with Google Home Assistant.

All of this prompted me to think how well prepared the Bolton household is for WTSHF and I shall certainly be putting some of the basic measures in place to ensure that we can at least power the telly for 30 minutes a day and keep up with what’s happening in Coronation Street over a pot noodle and a nice cup of tea.

Maker-Space Initiative

Conversation then turned to maker-spaces, looking back at how the previous maker-space in Barnstaple operated and why it had to close and what a future maker-space initiative might look like. It’s certainly a topic worth exploring further so I’ll put together a survey to get everyone’s perspective on this.

Showcase: Nixie Clocks

Neil then presented us with a selection of his self built Nixie clocks. He explained how the clocks make use of Soviet era vacuum tubes and that inside each glass tube, stacked metal filaments shaped as numerals (0–9) are energised via a driver module controlled by a programmable device. The design includes use of a step-up inverter to provide the high voltage required to power the valves from a low voltage source. I think this is an excellent example of a project that combines vintage and modern technology in an accessible way and with broad appeal. Nixie clock kits are available at https://pvelectronics.co.uk/

Showcase: OS Experiments

Just as the excitement was subsiding Patrick cranked it up to 11 with a truly mind boggling selection of his latest OS experiments.

I will hand over to Patrick to explain more:

“OS experiments I’ve been working on recently – a desktop OS with browser, and a modern interpretation of the Psion Series 5 partly based on the open source Symbian SDK (mainly the UI part, EIKON), running on ESP32-P4 boards. Both had Claude running as an ‘intern’ to do the actual coding against my detailed design view.

The browser has been a real labour of love, taking a couple of months of nurturing, and weighing in at 125k LoC (lines of code). Perhaps surprisingly, the most challenging part of the laptop OS was the audio side of things – the timing has to be so precise and there’s resampling/rate conversion going on all over the place.

I’ve heard it said that in the 80’s it used to be possible to understand the entirety of your computer (Spectrum, Beeb, Commodore), and that was now a thing of the past. I don’t think it is – the whole process has given some really interesting insights into how modern hardware hangs together, it’s an eclectic mix of embedded processing – it seems like every peripheral is yet another CPU – and high end multicore CPUs.

I feel I have a much better appreciation of what’s going on under the covers having got this far, the ultimate goal is a desktop I can use everyday for general purpose computing and that feels within reach now. Perhaps syncing wirelessly to my ‘new’ PDA?

For anyone who has an itch to scratch in software, this is a golden age – Claude can help you do what would have previously taken months and months or large teams, whilst you choose how you want the lego bricks re-arranged.

I’m expanding the plans to own a whole data centre – with network storage, routers and telephony OS experiments also well underway.”

Next Social & Wrap-up

Finally, thanks to all who came along on Saturday and to everyone who managed to read this newsletter to the end! Please come and join us at the Puffing Billy for more ramble chats and edge of the seat excitement on Saturday 28 November @2.00pm.

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^* “Difficult second albums” example: The Stone Roses (Second Coming, 1994): Delayed by five years due to a bitter legal battle with their record label, the band returned with a heavy, blues-rock-inflected second album that divided fans and preceded an immediate breakup.