Thanks!

How have you been doing, Marco? How are your computer projects coming along?

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x86?  We ain't got no x86.  We don't NEED no stinking x86!

Thanks for asking! Well I might consider myself lucky, because my donor lung is doing very well, no rejections, no infections etc. so far. However the underlying illness is taking its toll, but not threatening at this moment.


Indeed several projects, mostly 65xxx related.

At this point MARC-3 is up and running. I have had my first board made in China, which was a success.

Currently I’m restoring a Commodore 64 and repairing a vintage (1978) HAMEG oscilloscope. After powering the scope up for the first time since a couple of years, the power supply of the Y-amplifier failed.

So being a little more healthy is fun!

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Marco

Whoopee! The three doctors who have been watching over me all signed off on me being able to drive again. I'll tell you: after nearly four months of not driving it felt really strange to be behind the wheel again. Needless to say, my wife is relieved.

There is one disconcerting thing, though. I was issued a temporary handicap placard to allow me to park in handicap spaces when out-and-about. I don't feel handicapped, but I also can't walk very far before pooping out. So I guess it's a good thing.

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x86?  We ain't got no x86.  We don't NEED no stinking x86!

What is that topmost board with the ribbon cable connected to the right edge?

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x86?  We ain't got no x86.  We don't NEED no stinking x86!

Great to read you're able to drive again! I hope things will keep going in that direction.


It's the FPGA replacement of the TMS9918A, the F18A. The CPU can read and write without any delays to and from it.

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Marco

That's awesome news. Glad to see you are recovering well.



I think I know how you feel. I've read through this entire thread and I can truly say that we've lost some good people and others have had life kick them in the pants more than once.

My recent hospital stay of three days and learning I have type 2 diabetes has put things in perspective for me. While diabetes is not in the same ballpark as some of the other conditions I've read on here, it was a wake up call for me. I never thought I would be a "diabetic" or "old" (I'm 45). My grandmother had diabetes and, as a child, I would watch her take her insulin and think that she must really be sick and helpless (after all, sick people are helpless, right??). Before my hospital stay, I lost over 30 lbs in about a month, had a blood sugar of almost 700 and was severely dehydrated. I thought I was just "sick". I went to the doctor and the lab broke my A1C blood sample. So another two weeks went by not knowing how high my sugar was.

So after taking it again, and my doctor calling me off hours and telling me to get to the hospital now or else I could go into a coma...well, that was a kick in the pants for me. Being in that bed was depressing. In the past, I was the one who VISITED people in the hospital....it wasn't supposed to be the other way around.

I've altered my diet quite a bit. No more sugary foods/drinks in excess. My sugar has averaged about 95 over the last month or so (remember, it was well over 600!).

I'm going back for more blood work this week because they are little concerned about my liver (as am I). I'm hoping it hasn't been damaged too much.

Next step is to exercise more and try to bring down my cholesterol and blood pressure.

But I won't lie, it's not easy having diabetes. It's amazing just how much sugar I was consuming. Grape Nuts cereal (about the most bland cereal you can imagine) has always been a favorite of mine. But you will not believe the amount of carbs in that stuff! Carbs, as you know, basically turn to sugar. It's depressing walking down the grocery aisle or looking at a menu of the things I *CAN'T* have. Almost everything is loaded with carbs and sugar. Unless you go vegan...lol.

I'm being a little dramatic here...there are, of course, healthy foods I can eat. But when you're told you cannot have a Dr. Pepper....guess what I want more than anything right now?? A Dr. Pepper!

Ugh...sucks getting old.

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Cat; the other white meat.

I was diagnosed as type 2 in January 2016 when I was 51 and this year started taking Metformin tablets which seem to have got my sugar levels under control. I was never one for sugary drinks but I have a weakness for chocolate. I should exercise more but after a long day at my desk I'm not often in the mood for it.

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Andrew Jacobs
6502 & PIC Stuff - http://www.obelisk.me.uk/
Cross-Platform 6502/65C02/65816 Macro Assembler - http://www.obelisk.me.uk/dev65/
Open Source Projects - https://github.com/andrew-jacobs

Sodas are my weakness. I'm embarrassed to admit how many I used to consume per day.

Now, I drink the "Zero" versions of them. I know diet drinks can be just as bad. But it's helping me at least by not putting sugar in my system.

In the past, I would eat a "healthy" meal like meat, potatoes, peas and corn. I was always raised to eat veggies. But I never knew how many carbs I was consuming. Now I have to make sure that if I have corn, then that is my only carb I'm allowed for that meal.

Fortunately, I love to eat. So I don't mind eating other veggies. Now I need to work on cutting out red meat (at least no more than 1-2 times per month).

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Cat; the other white meat.

Salsalate, Fenofibrate, Lisinopril, Hydroxyzine, Glipizide, Metformin ... I take them all religiously, because I want to live to a ripe old age and my doctor says I need them. The problem for me, of course, is that I am hopelessly addicted to sweets, so I often find myself cheating and trying to use the prescriptions as a crutch. At least I don't have any alcohol or illegal drug problems, and I quit smoking last New Years Eve. One hurdle at a time ...

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Got a kilobyte lying fallow in your 65xx's memory map? Sprinkle some VTL02C on it and see how it grows on you!

Mike B. (about me) (learning how to github)

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x86?  We ain't got no x86.  We don't NEED no stinking x86!

Yes, getting old isn't much fun... my folks are in their late 80's and my Aunt just passed away last month at 94. I've been watching it all unfold... hopefully you get to keep some quality of life as the years add up.

I just hit 61 earlier this month... still on zero meds and don't need glasses (yet), so I'm more fortunate than many. I've been an avid cyclist most of my life and even earlier this year was getting out for 3 rides a week with an average of 30 to 40 miles each ride. Oddly, I prefer the summer heat for riding versus winter time (South Florida).

Now that I'm fully retired and in a relationship for 6 months, we're traveling back and forth between Athens (GA) and Boynton, so with less cycling, weight has kicked up as well as the usual elevated BP, etc. Needless to say, time to get as serious on the bike (again) as I am on the relationship (she's worth it however).

On the good side (of retirement) I'm getting to some of my other projects and making good progress with them. The list is large and varied... 65xx goodies, vacuum tube audio gear, 3D printing and some robotic CNC stuff, some upgrades to the cars, picking up the trumpets again and updates around the (Boynton) house for a start... and there's much more.

So many cool projects, so little precious time... ugh.

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Regards, KM
https://github.com/floobydust

I managed to break myself of these years ago. Frankly, just got sick of it, and was just drinking water.

When I got married, they came back with my wife. She drank sodas, so I picked it back up.

Mind, not in excess, but still, soda for lunch, soda for dinner kind of thing.

We're off of them now, have been for some time. I basically can't drink them any more, just too sweet for me.

I now rate my restaurants by the quality of Iced Tea that they serve. Sodas are pretty reliable in terms of quality from a fountain, but iced tea -- boy, that is hit and miss. Plus many have stopped serving plain black tea, and I simply can't drink the fruity kind at all. The aromatics give me a headache.

But the real find, for us, is the "essenced" sparkling water. Lemon "flavored", Lime, etc. No sugar, just water with a twist, of sorts.

This market has EXPLODED out here. The number of varieties and flavors is off the charts. Which is frustrating as the store will stop carrying the brand/flavor I like and replace it with something else. And, despite what it says on the can, the waters are certainly different. I've become quite the bubbly scented water snob.

But I've found them a really excellent product in lieu of soda.

It depends one what one is doing as they age. In my case, I "shifted gears," so to speak, and learned to accommodate the effects of being geriatric. That meant being more particular about what I am eating, making sure blisters don't form on my gluteal region from sitting on it too much and not getting into a lather over the aspects of aging that I can't control.

According to the cardio-pipefitter who did my CABG last January, I'm good for 18-20 years before the rebuilt plumbing will finally go kaput. If that's true, I'll be at least 90 when I check out for good. That's old enough in my book.


I've never been much of a soda drinker. Drinking that stuff is too much like going to the local petroleum refinery for a beverage.

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x86?  We ain't got no x86.  We don't NEED no stinking x86!

I have recently become quite fond of the Crystal Geyser Sparkling Spring Water products, especially the Lime flavor. I don't have to hide them or fret over them disappearing, because no one at home or at work seems to like them nearly as much as I do.

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Got a kilobyte lying fallow in your 65xx's memory map? Sprinkle some VTL02C on it and see how it grows on you!

Mike B. (about me) (learning how to github)

On July 18 I was fitted with a pacemaker in an effort to control chronic bradychardia, which has dogged me ever since my open heart surgery last January. My pulse has dipped to as low as 46 beats per minute, causing me to nearly faint several times. Efforts to reverse the bradychardia with exercise and medicine have failed, leading my cardiologist to recommend the pacemaker implantation.

The implantation is general surgery and is followed by a one or two day stay in the hospital—I stayed one day. On the day after the surgery, I was visited by a representative from the pacemaker manufacturer, who tested the device and made initial adjustments to pulse rate and such. Followups at the cardiologist's office are required to "fine-tune" the device.

The pacemaker is of the three-wire type, one lead to pace the heart as needed, a second lead to read back the heart's electrical activity, and a third lead to act as common. The pacemaker not only paces the heart as needed, it records heart activity, which data can be uploaded to an external "base station." The base station, in turn, is able to upload the data to a monitoring center for review by a cardiologist. There is a push button on the base station that I can use to initiate the upload if I become aware of some sort of irregularity. That way, the doctor will see exactly what my heart was doing when it started acting up.

The particular pacemaker I have is made by Boston Scientific (ironically, Boston Scientific is located over 1000 miles from Boston) and has a useful life of 8-10 years, depending on how often it has to pace the heart and phone home to the monitoring center. I don't know if it has a 65C02 core in it, but given its capabilities and longevity, it wouldn't surprise me if it did.

It is possible for the cardiologist to program the pacemaker with a computer, as well as control it in real time, by placing a "wand" (antenna) by my chest. Manual control is how the pacemaker is tested for correct operation. It's a bit disconcerting to be sitting in the doctor's office and have him speed up or slow down my heart by moving his finger around on a touch-screen.

Sp far, I'm seeing some improvement with the pacemaker in operation—my pulse is more normal and I have more energy. This doesn't mean I'm up to speed, though. It'll be a while before I'll be ready to join the other athletes at the Summer Olympics.

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x86?  We ain't got no x86.  We don't NEED no stinking x86!