Over the past week I’ve been working on two different tech-related projects. The first of which was, I’ve been working on setting up a BBS. It’s telnet, not dial-up based, and it’s pretty much working although there’s still lots of little tweaks I need to do to it. The other was, last night my CFFA3000 arrived. It’s a new card that allows Apple II .DSK files to be run via a USB stick on real Apple II hardware.
While working on both projects I have run into technical issues. The BBS software I picked has limited documentation available, and the CFFA3000 card seems to work on some of my Apple computers, but not on others. Yes, I have a stack of Apple II computers lying around — doesn’t everybody?
Point is, the roadblocks I’ve run into have worked a part of my brain that doesn’t get much use these days. These days, “figuring something out” basically translates to “figuring out the right Google query to get you the information.” With both of these projects I’ve had to use a little brain power to actually get things working. It’s frustrating not to have all the answers in front of you or at your disposal online, but the challenge has been a little fun too.
I’ll write more about these two projects over the weekend.
It’s good to use the little grey cells once in a while. Keeps them in good working order!
Half the time, when I encounter a problem at work, the problem is obscure enough the Google search does not work. So I end up doing the equivalent of banging my head against the wall by trying out weird configurations and other things. sometimes that works and I’m hailed as a genius. I just say it’s dumb luck.