Back in the day I learned to program on school PDP-11 with a 6 teletypes and a CRT attached. I was still in computer club at the time, thinking the 8" floppies were pretty cool. To my despair, the poor thing died that Summer and, when I took my programming class, it was on an Atari 800. But the programs I wrote the previous year stuck with me. Printer Car harkens back to those days.
A retro blast from the past! The four chip Sinclair ZX81 was the first computer I owned and I thought it would be fun to build a LEGO version of it. The 2K of memory (in my US version) was pretty limited. An essential accessory was the 16K RAM which allowed you to fully use the screen and enjoy some fun, if blocky, games.
I haven’t added a new topic in awhile, but I ran into a bit of a problem lately. As an AFOL (Adult Fan of LEGO), I recently got back into building with real LEGO bricks. In doing so, I decided to start taking pictures of some of the sets of been building. Not content with building official sets, I started to build MOCs (My Own Creations) from both myself and others. I needed a place to share.
After finishing Tree Fall, I had an idea to turn it into a winter scene. I thought it would be easy to swap out a few parts with white ones, but my wife disagreed. She recommended some changes and, after some trial and error, I created Tree Winter!
Lately, I’ve been reflecting on my programming journey. It is hard to believe that it has been over nine years since I started writing my monthly articles. I’m nearing the end of my printouts, and thought I’d write about my ZX81 Dice Game.
Awhile back, I had an idea on a run for a little LEGO vignette. My vision included a small tree on a hill. Most often, my mind refocuses on my workout the vision fades. This time, the idea stuck and became reality as Tree Fall.
Having a healthy imagination and perchance for sci-fi, Spaceship is a bit of both. I assume I conjured up the idea as part of some playtime activity. Written in 1983, it was one of my earlier programs and lacked graphics. Yet, it was still a bit of fun.
I’ve been having a lot of fun in May, rendering images and trying out some new techniques when I can. I’ve also been trying to learn Blender, work on decorations for old models, and try out new sites. Although still learning, here are four of the renders I made during the middle of the month.
I have some sort of fascination with code breaking. A byproduct of all the spy movies I watched as a kid. A friend of my would make spy cases with Lego’s, and I had to build my own of course. I had a wallet with home made credentials and so on. Code Searcher is a bit of a homage to those golden age gadgets of the 60s and 70s.
As May kicked off, I got to work finishing the decorations for set 6444 Outback Airstrip. Because I had a few different decorations to finish, I got distracted. That distraction was with a much older LEGO Airplane. Both renders gave me a chance to revisit motion blur in Blender.