Notices by Techokami (techokami@woof.tech)

Look who showed up on my doorstep today from @kde

@lanodan For real this time!

If the Steam Machine is priced properly, we'll finally have a Linux desktop computer that can be used by any skill level out of the box

@izzy @domi noooooo wtf

@izzy @domi Yes that is in fact me. I'm still salty that display settings for CC got locked away as being hardcoded in the mod; I want my terminals to be normal sized damnit

:blobfoxdisapprove: so I had to order a new CPU for my computer... I currently have an Intel 13900K installed and I've been getting sketchy software crashes and errors as of late, which might mean I've been affected by The Plague. So I'm getting a 12900K to replace it with. Yes it's older by a generation but it's a safer CPU to use and I'd rather eat $300 on a CPU than $stupid to build a new system in such a short timespan

@Dee Lewd!

Well AMD just made an oopsie! They accidentally posted the complete source code to FSR4, then tried to remove it, but uhhhhh... here's the repo: https://github.com/GPUOpen-LibrariesAndSDKs/FidelityFX-SDK/tree/01446e6a74888bf349652fcf2cbf5f642d30c2bf
and here's the commit history: https://github.com/GPUOpen-LibrariesAndSDKs/FidelityFX-SDK/commit/01446e6a74888bf349652fcf2cbf5f642d30c2bf
MIT license, have fun!

https://www.theregister.com/2025/08/19/uk_commissioner_suggests_govt_stop/

> In a report published today, Dame Rachel de Souza said ministers should force VPN providers to build in "highly effective age assurance" to stop under-18s from dodging the Online Safety Act's restrictions. Without action, she warned, the government's long-awaited age verification rules risk being rendered "inadequate."

Looking at the new macOS and all I can think of is that Apple is trying to out-GNOME GNOME. iykyk

@BrodieOnLinux I predict I am going to be violently roasted for saying this, but people hate Ada for the same reasons they love Rust

Wait wait PhysX (ALL OF IT) is now FOSS????? https://github.com/NVIDIA-Omniverse/PhysX/discussions/384 HUH?????

Why is it called "OpenVMS" if it is closed source and proprietary? :blobfoxthinking:

@lanodan Yes, yes it is. Support for i960 was marked deprecated in 3.3 (which means it will always nag people with warnings), and made obsolete in 3.4 (errors unless you pass certain options)
From what I was reading of old mailing list postings, something got intentionally broken with i960 in 3.4, so I'm going with the last actually-supported version here in case the breakage originated in 3.3

@lanodan My current plan is to try and make an older GCC compile and use that as a cross-compiler. Though it's going to be rather interesting...

@lanodan that is rather cursed and a bit convoluted... you're saying that I should re-implement an entire ISA with pseudo-instructions to trick an x86-only assembler into making raw i960 binaries?

@lanodan Yeah I'm having trouble understanding what you're suggesting. nasm is for compiling for x86 targets only; it does not support assembling for the i960, which is the target CPU of the fantasy console.

As for using FORTH as the interpreter, that might be neat, but I get the feeling that it would be a lot more challenging for people to get started with compared to BASIC or Lua :blobfoxthinking:

@lanodan nasm doesn't do i960?

Looks like the most reasonable solution will be to build an older GCC (most likely 3.2.x) as a cross-compiler and ship it as a dedicated SDK toolchain. That will allow for assembly, C, C++, and some other languages as well. Something to look into more deeply over the weekend.

Okay, so, while we're thinking over the GPU side of things, there's a bigger issue that I will need some assistance and ideas for: actually making code to run on this platform.

The idea I have is that there will be two main ways of creating software: interpreted code and machine code. The former would make the platform feel like other fantasy computers (like PICO-8 and TIC-80), while the latter will actually take full advantage of the i960 CPU. But we need to solve the latter before we can tackle the former.

So the first big question is: what is available for i960 assemblers? GAS used to support i960, but it was ripped out at some point? Documentation is very unclear about which platforms are currently supported. Intel had an official assembler and I think it's here: https://github.com/biggestsonicfan/i960-CTOOLS-with-NINDY I can't seem to figure out if LLVM supports i960, the documentation on supported target architectures is missing. And there is a product by Archelon that costs ONE THOUSAND DOLLARS PER PERSON.

With an assembler, other languages should then be able to be supported, like C. If LLVM actually does support the i960, then Rust would also be an option for those that want it.

Once we have all THAT sorted, then the focus can move on to the interpreted language. BASIC is a period-correct option, but I have a feeling that most people would prefer something like Lua or maybe even Python instead. But it is hard to figure out what to use when we lack the ability to assemble code in the first place!