@colin_mcmillen@piaille.fr

Colin McMillen @colin_mcmillen@piaille.fr

· 2w ago

I figured out what annoys me SO MUCH with the flood of "I made a thing" posts in the #retrocomputing community and it's evidently LLM vibe-coded. It's about the same as if hundreds of people arrived in some woodworking forum, proudly posting "I built a bookshelf" with pictures of an IKEA Billy, or "I cooked lasagna" with pictures of a microwaved defrozen industrial crap labelled "Lasagna" on a recipes website. I don't mean to gatekeep, but maybe if you're not interested in getting good at something as a hobby, just don't pretend you're good at something?

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Colin McMillen @colin_mcmillen@piaille.fr

· 3w ago

Demain, je serai au #Geekardon, à Pau. Si vous êtes dans le coin, ça me fera bien plaisir de vous rencontrer et de discuter un peu ! Vous pourrez en profiter pour vous faire tirer le portrait et repartir avec la photo imprimée sur papier tracteur. #RetroComputing #AppleII

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Colin McMillen @colin_mcmillen@piaille.fr

· 3mo ago

Replying to

@Mara@hachyderm.io I need the reference of this machine 😍 Edit: OK, it's an xTool F2 Ultra UV. Now that I have the reference of this machine, it's €4000 I need.

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Colin McMillen @colin_mcmillen@piaille.fr

· 3mo ago

Replying to

@virgile_rendt@piaille.fr Tu sais ça me rappelle cette étude qui disait "c'est prouvé, 2h de jeu vidéo par jour peut occasionner des troubles musculo-squelettiques". 8h de travail par contre ? naaaaaa, t'inquiète frère

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Colin McMillen @colin_mcmillen@piaille.fr

· 7mo ago

Replying to

@NanoRaptor@bitbang.social looks good in green too 🤩

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Colin McMillen @colin_mcmillen@piaille.fr

· 6mo ago

Replying to

Side effects of #MLL coding include amassing expertise, and pride in your work.

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Colin McMillen @colin_mcmillen@piaille.fr

· 5mo ago

I might have to clean up my "lab" at some point. This is getting out of hand.
#RetroComputing

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Colin McMillen @colin_mcmillen@piaille.fr

· 5mo ago

Apparently currently at #vcfeast, my #AppleII community fellow Jonathan Adar is displaying his Apple IIgs with #QuicktakeForAppleII !
This is making me very happy and proud 😊
#RetroComputing

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Colin McMillen @colin_mcmillen@piaille.fr

· 4mo ago

Replying to

@EUCommission@ec.social-network.europa.eu too little, too slow, too late. We should already be at net zero if climate agreements didn't get stomped on in the name of capitalism every year since I was a child.

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Colin McMillen @colin_mcmillen@piaille.fr

· 5mo ago

Replying to

The box in action:

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Colin McMillen @colin_mcmillen@piaille.fr

· 5mo ago

I am apparently very much back to my bullshit. #RetroComputing #AppleII #SixForty

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Colin McMillen @colin_mcmillen@piaille.fr

· 5mo ago

"Voilà, ça c'est fait"
This set of adapters allows connecting anything Apple II to anything Apple II
https://www.colino.net/wordpress/shop/apple-ii-hardware/apple-ii-versatile-serial-cable/

#RetroComputing #AppleII

colino.net

Apple II versatile serial cable

Finding the right serial cable for an Apple II can be daunting. The //c has DIN-5 connectors, the IIe has DB-25, the //c+ and IIgs have Mini-DIN-8. In addition to that, the Super Serial Cards can be configured in modem or printer mode. This set of cables and adapters allows one to make sure the […]

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Colin McMillen @colin_mcmillen@piaille.fr

· 6mo ago

#BurgerDisk news:
A new option for the BurgerDisk, two new devices, partnering with @MuseumJoe@oldbytes.space, and sourcing unobtainium connectors thanks to very kind people from the Fediverse.
https://www.colino.net/wordpress/archives/2026/03/28/burgerdisk-news/

colino.net

BurgerDisk news

A new option for the BurgerDisk, two new devices, USA distribution, and sourcing unobtainium connectors thanks to very kind people.

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Colin McMillen @colin_mcmillen@piaille.fr

· 5mo ago

Replying to

@jacqueline BTW I recently made a very small Kickstarter which ended up with me having to assemble and ship 41 of my devices, and I thought of you folks a number of times. That was hundreds for you if I'm not mistaken. That must have been EXHAUSTING.

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Colin McMillen @colin_mcmillen@piaille.fr

· 2mo ago

Good. Because it would be quite sad if we lost #Voyager1, almost one day-light away from us, to global warming. https://spacenews.com/nasa-and-esa-facilities-avoid-major-damage-from-wildfires-in-spain/

NASA and ESA facilities avoid major damage from wildfires in Spain

SpaceNews

NASA and ESA facilities avoid major damage from wildfires in Spain

Key ground stations in Spain operated by NASA and the European Space Agency have avoided serious damage from major wildfires in the country.

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Colin McMillen @colin_mcmillen@piaille.fr

· 5mo ago

10% off my daisy chainable Apple II Smartport hard drives for the weekend! (The occasion is the Apple //c's birthday, the computer that made me love computing).
Coupon HAPPY42 on https://colino.net/wordpress/shop/
#RetroComputing #AppleII

colino.net

Colin’s Apple II shop – colin@colino.net

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Colin McMillen @colin_mcmillen@piaille.fr

· 4mo ago

Bonjour, Le père de mon beau-fils cherche un petit appart à #Toulouse assez urgemment de préférence sur la ligne B ou proche de Jules Julien. Ses circonstances ne sont pas idéales pour une agence (il est en CDD, temps partiel, dossier CAF en cours mais ça traîne). Il a du coup un petit budget (400-500€). Merci pour la magie, Masto ❤️

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Colin McMillen @colin_mcmillen@piaille.fr

· 6mo ago

Yay! This time I read the datasheet correctly and I have made a functional SD card module that *has* level shifters instead of feeding 5v to the card like the Aliexpress things do.
#pcb #retrocomputing

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Colin McMillen @colin_mcmillen@piaille.fr

· 5mo ago

Replying to

@jacqueline Oh my god. 🫠

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Colin McMillen @colin_mcmillen@piaille.fr

· 3mo ago

Replying to

CANICULE ÉVITEZ LES HEURES CHAUDES

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Colin McMillen @colin_mcmillen@piaille.fr

· 5mo ago

#6502 asm:
- CLI : Clear Interrupt Disable (enables interrupts)
- SEI : Set Interrupt Disable (disables interrupts)

#AVR asm:
- CLI : Global Interrupt Disable
- SEI : Global Interrupt Enable

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Colin McMillen @colin_mcmillen@piaille.fr

· 6mo ago

Still searching for DB19 connectors. Anyone in #Estonia willing to proxy some to me? I seem to have found a few on an Estonian e-commerce website, but they don't ship international. I pay for everything of course, including your time.
#RetroComputing

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Colin McMillen @colin_mcmillen@piaille.fr

· 2mo ago

Replying to

transphobia, uspol

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Colin McMillen @colin_mcmillen@piaille.fr

· 6mo ago

Replying to

@dauphin1 Because it enables fascism. https://blog.bgcarlisle.com/2025/05/16/a-plausible-scalable-and-slightly-wrong-black-box-why-large-language-models-are-a-fascist-technology-that-cannot-be-redeemed/

blog.bgcarlisle.com

A plausible, scalable and slightly wrong black box: why large language models are a fascist technology that cannot be redeemed – The Grey Literature

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Colin McMillen @colin_mcmillen@piaille.fr

· 6mo ago

Replying to

@brauner I love that they got an actual code review 😅

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Colin McMillen @colin_mcmillen@piaille.fr

· 6mo ago

Replying to

@polpo A very good example of "what seems illegal but isn't"

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Colin McMillen @colin_mcmillen@piaille.fr

· 5mo ago

Replying to

@phlash@mastodon.me.uk ha that's not a psu, it's the monitor! That's where there was room.

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Colin McMillen @colin_mcmillen@piaille.fr

· 6mo ago

Replying to

@eff I have read the post thoroughly, searching for the reason you leave, and I've tried, but I really can't find any other reason that this?

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Colin McMillen @colin_mcmillen@piaille.fr

· 7mo ago

Replying to

@Btb Yeah, the SoftSP is not open-source, neither the hardware nor the firmware. Gerbers and binaries are available, but these are outputs, not sources. @hkz

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Colin McMillen @colin_mcmillen@piaille.fr

· 5mo ago

Replying to

@oscherler I think people in crowdfundings are people who really want the project to live, and are OK to pay more than the final price would be. Fun fact, I now sourced 450 pairs of connectors that were the main pain point of my project, so I could lower the price, and I had... six orders since 😅

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Colin McMillen @colin_mcmillen@piaille.fr

· 6mo ago

Replying to

@benroyce Because @eff have taken the stance, multiple times, of "absolute free speech", have vocally been defending neo-nazis' "right" to being platformed, and I find that despicable.

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Colin McMillen @colin_mcmillen@piaille.fr

· 6mo ago

Replying to

@Silver@piaille.fr Elle est magnifique ♥️

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Colin McMillen @colin_mcmillen@piaille.fr

· 6mo ago

Replying to

@rina that might be the hardest part in 2026, yes 🥲

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Colin McMillen @colin_mcmillen@piaille.fr

· 6mo ago

Replying to

@me_ I got the male ones from him but still have difficulties sourcing the female ones at a correct price. Need them for my Apple II daisy chainable hard disk

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Colin McMillen @colin_mcmillen@piaille.fr

· 6mo ago

Replying to

@jacqueline is this a curiosity question or are the Tangara team preparing something I might love? Maximum 250€, and I keep them for as long as I can. It bothers me every time, too, the new features excitement has been replaced by dread long ago.

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Colin McMillen @colin_mcmillen@piaille.fr

· 8mo ago

Replying to

@hkz well, apparently the sdfat lib I use handles it, I should be good. Will verify, though

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Colin McMillen @colin_mcmillen@piaille.fr

· 8mo ago

Replying to

@hkz @Btb Hah well that's funny I missed this conversation from a week ago, because I spent the day debugging BurgerDisk with SoftSP and raging at the closed-source, opaque development process of this thing. And then I arrived at your repo, Brad, built v6a, and it fixes issues in v6. I don't know whether reverse-engineering assembled code is clean-room enough to make an open-source firmware, but I sure would like the answer to be yes.

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Colin McMillen @colin_mcmillen@piaille.fr

· 8mo ago

Replying to

@hkz wait, SD cards have to be kept alive??

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Colin McMillen @colin_mcmillen@piaille.fr

· 9mo ago

Replying to

@ut3usw@mastodon.radio That is impressive work, congrats

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Colin McMillen @colin_mcmillen@piaille.fr

· 10mo ago

Replying to

@peertube@framapiaf.org Woztubes, the Apple II Peertube client, will be ready https://github.com/colinleroy/a2tools/commit/5cb3b38770ed1d30cc7a79557d0bd7fc9136ef51

GitHub

Update for Peertube 8 API · colinleroy/a2tools@5cb3b38

Stuff I write for my Apple //c. Contribute to colinleroy/a2tools development by creating an account on GitHub.

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Colin McMillen @colin_mcmillen@piaille.fr

· 5mo ago

Replying to

@oscherler I hadn't the slightest idea. That's why I thought crowdfunding would be best: I set a really low goal (4 or 5 units) so it would *very probably* get funded, and I put limits on the number of "rewards" possible (to 50). Once it reached about 25 backers, I considered it safe to order a 50 pcb batch and assorted hardware.

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Colin McMillen @colin_mcmillen@piaille.fr

· 2mo ago

Replying to

@camilleleboulanger@corneill.es Le fait que ce soit un des discours de Musk devrait leur mettre la puce à l'oreille.

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Colin McMillen @colin_mcmillen@piaille.fr

· 5mo ago

Replying to

@hunger@floss.social @uecker@mastodon.social @lcamtuf@infosec.exchange that's the thing: C is not better at handling TOCTOU than Rust. Rust is not better at that than C either. It's programmer error, and the thing is: rewrites tend to throw years of experience and bugfixes out of the window.

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Colin McMillen @colin_mcmillen@piaille.fr

· 6mo ago

Replying to

@troed Thanks! I was aware. I'm trying to avoid that kind of price so I can make my device much cheaper to people :-)

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Colin McMillen @colin_mcmillen@piaille.fr

· 7mo ago

Replying to

@WiteWulf Please show us the insides!

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Colin McMillen @colin_mcmillen@piaille.fr

· 5mo ago

Replying to

@chris@mastodon.mit.edu You miss half the experience if you do it in time! where's the stink and the magic smoke !?

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Colin McMillen @colin_mcmillen@piaille.fr

· 8mo ago

Replying to

@ivor@social.ivor.org @jon_ellis@chaos.social @jwz@mastodon.social you can check nothing on this field

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