A Fine Time at the Maritime Museum

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So much for cute polar bears

We had a fine time at Hull Maritime Museum yesterday. We booked tickets (you can do this on line and it costs nothing) and were there bright and early when it opened. There’s a lot of stuff here,

The history of Hull and the sea is well told, with thought provoking presentations about the life of a trawlerman (tough and dangerous) and the efforts it took to make fishing safer. For me the best bit was seeing what they had done with the rooms. The plasterwork and decoration was amazing.

The view from the museum is pretty good too, as is the café. If you live in Hull you should go. If you don’t live in Hull, come to Hull and then go.

Toll Memories

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The Control Centre back in the day

One of my (few) claims to fame is that I wrote some of the software that used to manage toll collection on the Humber Bridge. Ian wrote the control room software, Siemens programmed the toll booths and I wrote the management interface.

This is my bit

It was great fun. It ran for quite a few years and only failed once, when someone testing the uninterruptable power supply sent a DC spike to all the devices and blew up the power supplies for the network routers. I had to go in and move some wires around to get it going again.

The rest of the time it just worked, registering tolls, indicating when the number of axles detected on a vehicle didn’t match the class the booth operator had entered and producing summary data. We closed it down a few years ago.

I was reminded of this when I paid for some crossings today. I had to download and use an app, of course. You can pay for you crossings in advance, which is nice, but you don’t know whether the crossings you paid for have registered properly until two days after the crossing, which is one day after the deadline for paying for the crossing. Which seems a bit odd to me. I’ll just have to hope that the people who built the new system are as good at their jobs as Ian and I were all those years ago.

Perfect Father's Day

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I’m planning on getting all three

Had a really good day today. The weather was just the right temperature for a barbeque. I got a book I’ve been after for ages. I got to do some Lego, got a super-interesting book about the 6502 microprocessor (among other things). I also got to play with a camera, go for a walk and run a film off and then come home and develop it. Good times.

Day of success

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Today has been a good day.

Can you tell which is the broken one?

A while back I broke one of my Apple Newton eMate devices just by opening it and closing it. A hinge fitting broke in a way that caused it to pierce the ribbon cable that links the display to the main board. I’d give you more details, but I don’t want to talk about it at the moment.

Anyhoo, I ordered a replacement cable and last week it arrived in a huge box. At first I was sure the box was empty, but eventually I found the cable nestling in the middle of a big wad of padding. After spending a chunk of yesterday totally failing to fit the darned thing I thought I’d have another go this morning. It’s a bit fiddly. You have to wrap the cable around one of the hinges in exactly the right way, otherwise I’d have been ordering another replacement. Once I’d got the cable in place the rest of the device went together without incident and I now have 3 fully working Newton eMate devices. The next thing to do is complete upgrading the rechargeable batteries with ones that, er, recharge,

And then, just to build on my success I finally got Forza Horizon 6 working on my PC. I’m not sure what I did. Actually I am sure what I did. What I’m not sure of is why it worked. I plugged the PC into a different monitor. Forza sprang into life on the alternative screen and looked super. So I plugged the original monitor back in and it kept working. And off I went.

The game is fantastic. It follows the previous game pattern pretty closely, but you can now crash through scenery in a much more impressive way. I can’t find a Nissan Cube but they do have this really cute little van.

Freezer Cowed

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Last night we discovered a big chunk of ice in our fridge freezer. You might think that this is the right place for it to be, but it was not. It had formed around the drain tray and along the bottom and was stopping condensed water from making its usual way out of the back of the fridge. Instead the water was pooling in front of the fridge. No fun.

After a bit of chipping and scraping we got rid of the ice and discovered that a little drain hole was blocked. Attempts to clear it with warm water and 3D printer filament failed so I ordered a kit of freezer drain hole unblocking tools (it’s a thing apparently).

Then later in the evening I discovered that the hole had unblocked itself. I’d obviously scared it into submission. So I consider the kit as six pounds fifty pence well spent.

Golf with Trackballs

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You roll the ball to direct your shot. Not always successfully as it turns out

Today we spent a very happy morning at a retro games popup event in Leeds. Amongst lots of arcade machines, consoles and even a BBC Micro they had a copy of the Golden Tee Arcade Classic Golf game. I must have missed this first time around. You use a trackball to direct your shots and it all works rather splendidly (within the limitations of the 1989 vintage graphics). I managed to play an entire round (unfortunately the scores are not available) and it was super fun.

Update: I’ve since discovered that the game I played is a re-issue in a new cabinet. You can buy them for home use. After a lot of internal wrestling, and measuring up space in rooms I’ve decided to go for the Nintendo Switch version instead though.

Slow Forza

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I’ve been trying to pay the latest Forza Horizon 6 on my PC. It has not gone well. Seven frames a second is not conducive to good car handling. I’m going to have to do some digging. At the moment the primary suspect is my slightly elderly monitor. Or perhaps the cable.

The game does look very good though. Just not when played as a slide show.