Welcome to Nemesis.lonestar.org

Site last updated 3-Sep-2007

This web site is a slowly-growing collection of stuff that I think someone is interested in or someone has specifically asked for.

Google and Yahoo search engines do a pretty good job of indexing this site, but new material doesn't show up for six weeks or longer and changes have taken three months or more to appear at these search engines. You might want to bookmark this site so you can find it directly if checking for new material.

The content presented here takes a long time to research, write, test, format and make available. Enjoy, but please don't steal. This content isn't here just so that you can use it to pad your own web site, and most of the web pages here have copyright notices and use declarations. Please honor these rules and new material will continue to appear, plus the lawyers won't appear.
(Requests for use of material as supporting information for educational purposes are usually granted. Just follow the instructions on the page you wish to use and you should receive a reply within a few days.)

New for September 2007

ALDS, The Assembly Language Development System.

An initial release of the cross-development Z80 assembler and linker written in C that was used extensively by Tandy between 1981 and 1985. Originally written by Ron Light for use on a VAX 11/780, ports are provided so that these programs can be used on FreeBSD and other BSD-derived operating systems, as well as the TRS-80/Tandy computers with 68000 processors running XENIX.

COMPUTER SOFTWARE, PC/UNIX-COMPATIBLE AND TANDY, FREEBSD GCC, XENIX SYSTEM III "C"

Documents added most recently in July 2007

REFERENCE, A growing library of reference documents and tables.

There are now about 100 documents available covering about 60 topics, and so a top-level index and some sub-indexes are now present.

It is unlikely that this reference library will ever stop changing or stop growing. If I answer a question in USENET news groups these days, more and more frequently I write a web page and refer the person with the question to the page. If the people who are flooding USENET with binaries used a similar approach, USENET would be a lot more usable.

REFERENCE, NON-FICTION

Items for November 2003, Updates June 2007:

The Use and Misuse of Color in Web Pages

This is a series of discussions on how to use color effectively in web pages or other computer-generated displays, and how to avoid the mistakes commonly made by those unfamilar with the limitations of the video medium.

Some of the documents are based on conference papers that I presented in 1992 to software developers who were trying to write applications for the Tandy/Radio Shack VIS system (the original X-BOX, which ran DOS and Modular Windows) with a NTSC television display.

Modular Windows was the predecessor and code base for Windows CE. Modular Windows was so unsuccessful that the product is now expunged from the official Microsoft history.

TECHNICAL INFORMATION, UNDER DEVELOPMENT

Items for July 2003:

FreeBSD Driver for the Matsushita CD-ROM drive

This is a driver I wrote for FreeBSD for a set of CD-ROM drives that use the proprietary Matsuhita host interface. The CR-562 and CR-563 drives are supported. These drives were also known by several other OEM names. Documentation is also provided.

The driver was intended for inclusion in the FreeBSD 5.1 tree, but was not reviewed in time for inclusion. It works without change in FreeBSD 5.2 as well.

COMPUTER SOFTWARE, PC-COMPATIBLE ISA, FREEBSD 5.1 and FREEBSD 5.2, C LANGUAGE

Items for August, September and October 2002:

Spam is not something that you should just accept. Spam is something that you prevent.

You may not like getting spam, but your computer may actually be used by a spammer to send spam to you and others. Your behavior can also dictate how much spam you get. Here are things that users of the Internet can do to avoid being exploited by spammers and hackers.

Internet Providers also routinely fail to take simple measures that prevent their networks from being the source of spam or being a place that spammers can exploit to relay their messages and attempt to hide their true location. Here are things that Internet Providers should be doing to prevent their networks from being exploited, and if spam does arrive, to prevent that spam from reaching customer mailboxes.

TECHNICAL INFORMATION

Items for August 2002:

Spam, Spam, Spam, Make Money Fast and Spam(TM)

A lighter look at spam, if such a thing is actually possible.
Remember, Friends don't let friends spam. Or anyone else.

HUMOR, NON-FICTION

Originally published March 2002, latest updates July 2007:

The Fluorescent Lighting System

Almost everything you ever wanted to know about fluorescent lamps and fixtures of all sorts and sizes. Includes photographs and a troubleshooting chart that no building maintenance office should be without.

REFERENCE, NON-FICTION

New items for June 2001 & August 2001:

The AT Command Set, part of the REFERENCE library.

This has become a monster project, but four sections are essentially complete and are now available, providing a composite look at the AT Command set used in modems, with the unique and shared commands used by the major modem suppliers, all consolidated into one place. If you are working with modems, this material should be highly useful. Otherwise, it is probably really boring.

This is another work-in-progress, and the rest of the planned sections should appear sometime this decade.

REFERENCE, NON-FICTION

Items for September 2000:

PERIOD, searches and displays items from the Periodic Table of the Elements

PERIOD (aka PERIOD.BAS) also holds the distinction of being the very first application written specifically for the TRS-80 Model 100, the original laptop (or notebook) computer. The program was originally written in 1982, about nine months prior to the Model 100 being introduced to the general public.
A port of PERIOD to PC-DOS BASIC is also included.

COMPUTER SOFTWARE, TANDY, MODEL 100, BASIC ASCII
COMPUTER SOFTWARE, TANDY, MODEL 100, BASIC TAPE BACKUP AUDIO
COMPUTER SOFTWARE, GENERIC PC*, PC-DOS, PC-BASIC ASCII
* PC-DOS port requires CGA graphics or better.

Items for August 2000:

Utilizing 5.25" or 3.5" media on your Tandy/Radio Shack computer system

COMPUTER HARDWARE, TANDY, MODEL 4/4D/4P/II/12/16A/16B/6000
COMPUTER SOFTWARE, TANDY, MODEL 16A/16B/6000, XENIX BINARY

Items for April and June 2000:

LS-DOS 6.3.1 Restoration Project

A complete operating system and utility suite (with source code) for Z80 processors that was commercially sold in binary-only form for the Tandy/Radio Shack Model 4 series of computers in the 1980s. Now released to the public domain, this is the original source code, along with a reconstruction of the final version distributed by the developers.

COMPUTER SOFTWARE, TANDY, MODEL 4, TRSDOS 6/LS-DOS 6 Z80 ASSEMBLER

Items for February 2000:

Quick EDitor

A simple screen editor written in Z80 Assembly language with full source code. Works as shown in LS-DOS 6/TRSDOS 6 operating systems.

COMPUTER SOFTWARE, TANDY, MODEL 4, TRSDOS 6/LS-DOS 6 Z80 ASSEMBLER

Items for January 2000:

The Six Stages of Field Service Support(TM)

Computer not getting fixed? Find out why.

HUMOR, NON-FICTION

Quick and Dirty 8080 Assembler

This is a simple but functional 8080 Assembler, written in BASIC. Also included are 8080 assembler validation test files, and tables of 8080 and Z80 opcodes mnemonics.

COMPUTER SOFTWARE, TANDY, MODEL 4, TRSDOS 6/LS-DOS 6 BASIC

Items for November 1999:

Something special on the ground(TM)

Travel by Air can be fun, assuming you make it that far.

HUMOR, NON-FICTION

An idea on how lamp manufacturers can improve certain types of lamps.

PRODUCT PROPOSAL, SCIENCE FICTION

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