iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Crashed @crashedfiesta.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

Torch Triple X emulator update. I've been working hard on the wrapper for the 'sh' terminal. Added 100 entry history per user, lines can now edited, exe and folders are identified by * and / respectively, prompt includes username & current folder. 😁 All that for a user base of 1 (maybe 2).

A picture of the Torch emulator running the open top desktop environment. A terminal window is open showing a directory listing of /use/guest. The prompt includes the username 'deskuser'.

021

Crashed @crashedfiesta.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

How big is big enough? Managed to make a 1gb Torch Triplex disk image. Not sure I can go much bigger with the filesystem limitations of the day... 😆

A screenshot of the Torch Triple X emulator. A terminal window is open and the command 'df -t' has been issued. The results indicate that /dev/disk0b has 512,000 blocks and so has around 256 megabytes available. This is the root partition. At /dev/disk0d there are 1559540 blocks available which is around 760 megabytes.

010

Crashed @crashedfiesta.bsky.social · 02/09/2026

FFS Google. I only asked 'who said that they were standing on the shoulders of giants?'. Apparently you think that Isaac Newton, who famously lived in the 1700's and died in 1727, sent a letter to his buddy in 1975. JFC.

A screenshot from Google and their 'amazing' AI overview that states that Isaac Newton used the phrase 'If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.' in a 1975 letter to his friend, Robert Hooke.

Isaac Newton died in 1727. Robert Hooke died in 1703.

000

Crashed @crashedfiesta.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

And for my next trick (or descent into insanity), a text based web browser on the Torch Triple X emulator. Ta-daa! It's barely more than a 'get html' function at the moment but I'm learning lots. And it's something to do as I wait for my new man cave (shed) to be installed..

A picture of a laptop screen showing a small window running the Torch Triple X emulator. The text in the terminal window is a text from a simple html page stored on the Linux laptop. The text of the html is shown in the window to the left of the emulator. Some of the source code for the very bare bones of a browser is visible to the right and underneath the emulator window.

141

Crashed @crashedfiesta.bsky.social · 25/07/2026

Got the network running properly on the Linux version of the Torch emulator. More a configuration issue than a code issue. But telehack.com works great. 😁

A picture of the Torch Triple X emulator connected to telehack.com and running zork.

030

Crashed @crashedfiesta.bsky.social · 18/07/2026

More fiddling with the Torch Emulator. Now it's just like the real thing! Well, booting up looks right now anyway. 😁 #torchtriplex #stillnotfixedtherealone

030

Crashed @crashedfiesta.bsky.social · 16/07/2026

What's that you say? The Torch Triple X emulator? Running on Windows? Why, yes. Yes it is. 😁 #torchtriplex #notfixedtherealoneyet

A picture of a screen showing a notepad++ and a bash type terminal running on Windows 11. The front window is smaller and is running the Torch Triple X emulator with the OpenTop desktop environment running.

190

Crashed @crashedfiesta.bsky.social · 07/06/2026

Am I the only one who finds this lack of attention to detail annoying? Or am I (as Mrs Crashed says) just a grumpy old man? #grammar

An extract from the BBC website that shows they don't know that the spelling of 'program' for computers is different to a 'programme' of events.

000

Crashed @crashedfiesta.bsky.social · 05/06/2026

Checkup on the Cifer to make sure he's still working before I pop him into storage for a little while. I hope the Retro Overlords will forgive my use of hot glue to stick the front panel in. I spent hours 3D printing it but got the lugs in the wrong place and I was desperate. Don't judge me.

A picture of the Cider Cub CP/M machine on a desk. The screen is displaying the CP/M Plus peripheral device manager.

A closeup of the Gotek panel I 3d printed in the Cifer. A line of hot glue is visible at the top. Don't judge me. It's only temporary...

020

Crashed @crashedfiesta.bsky.social · 02/06/2026

So. Good news and bad news. Good news - new limpet works and I managed to boot all the way in. Wa-hoo! 😁🥳 Bad news - my motherboard requires a startlingly big concave bend in it to work.... 😬 By chance I found if I wedged something under the right side it would boot. A weird mechanical bug....

The Torch Triple X showing a finished boot. Yay! The kernel window is shown in the middle and three icons are one the left hand side of the screen.

A picture of the recreated limpet board with its LED lit showing data being transferred.

A picture of the Torch Triple X terminal showing a directory listing of code files for uemacs.

A terrifying picture showing the Torch motherboard with a screwdriver underneath on the right side (protected from the board by a plastic sheets).

The end of the motherboard is wedged down on the right side by a large, heavy HP laptop, leaving the left side of the board dangling.

In this configuration, the Torch boots successfully, every time. Eek.

010

Crashed @crashedfiesta.bsky.social · 02/06/2026

First signs of life... ...but showing exactly the same symptoms as with the original Limpet. Bugger.

A picture of the Torch Triple X boot screen. The screen is showing dark blue with pale blue text. The first line reads "CARETAKER 1.3" and the next four lines describe an error preventing the Torch from booting.

A picture of the Torch Triple X having got a bit further in the boot process. A picture of a floppy drive and disk is in the bottom left hand corner which is the machine's way of asking for the key disk. This only happened because 8 forgot to plug the bloody SCSI cable into the OMTI controller ...

A picture of the disk utility that ran successfully on the disk image in the SD card of the BlueSCSI. It shows the portion start addresses for the four partitions on the drive.

A picture of the Torch Triple X motherboard removed from its case. The limpet board is visible on the left as a pale green circuit board.

220

Crashed @crashedfiesta.bsky.social · 02/06/2026

Torch Triplex Limpet board looks great. And I found the second error. I missed a whole track that should link all the write enable lines on the DRAM. Oops. Bodge wire installed but it still doesn't work. 🙁

A picture of the recreated limpet board with all chips and other components installed.

A picture of the limpet board installed in the Torch Triple X.

060

Crashed @crashedfiesta.bsky.social · 01/06/2026

I didn't spend far longer than necessary making sure the caps all face the same way. (Maybe I did.) 🙂

A picture of the reproduction Torch Limpet board with the DRAM capacitors installed. Every capacitor is facing the same way and soldered to the same angle and height.

000

Crashed @crashedfiesta.bsky.social · 31/05/2026

I might've caught the coding bug for vintage computers... After several hours I have managed to get 'vi' working on the Torch Triple X emulator. The stack is too small for when vi starts (something funky happens) so by making it bigger, vi then works. Nice. Next stop, proper floppy support.

A screenshot of the Torch Triple X emulator. It shows a text file called 'workingvi.txt' opened in a vi window. The file has 17 lines and 473 characters.

140

Crashed @crashedfiesta.bsky.social · 30/05/2026

Managed to hand one of these to @binarydinosaurs.co.uk as the only other person I know in the country with a Torch Triple X. 😁 One of the four left is about to start receiving capacitors and sockets.... 🙂 ...and I found the first error. Oops. Capacitor C45 has both legs against ground. Darnit.

A picture of a green circuit board labelled 'LIMPET BOARD'. It is a bare PCB reproduction of a Torch Triple X Limpet memory expansion board.

A closeup picture of a circuit board. A yellow capacitor in the centre of the picture. A cut is visible in the trace between the bottom pad of the capacitor and a thick track. This cut removes the short between ground and +5v lines.

220

Crashed @crashedfiesta.bsky.social · 30/05/2026

Had a great time at RetroFest 2026. 😁 #retrofest2026

0142

Crashed @crashedfiesta.bsky.social · 14/04/2026

It's official. My Torch Triple X is no more. There is some fault with the limpet board which I can't track down. All RAM is OK. All tracks are OK (or repaired). I suspect a failure of one of the PAL chips which did get quite warm. Ultimate unobtanium. Without it, the Torch won't boot. Arse. 😢

A picture of the Torch Triple X now non-functional due to a poorly limpet board. The top cover is not on and the mouse has been despondently placed inside.

100

Crashed @crashedfiesta.bsky.social · 11/04/2026

Annnd were back in the room. I have spent hours going over this bloody computer. Beeped out every trace on mobo and limpet. Nothing missing. Then I moved the black plastic down a bit on the new long pins to keep them more together. Booted first time. 🙄 That bloody connector... 🤬 But, yay! 😁

A picture of the Torch Triple X display having just booted. A kernel info window is showing in the middle of the screen with some icons to the left.

A picture of the Torch Triple X in 'hardware maintenance mode'. The centre section of the machine is lifted like the bonnet of a car and wedged open with a TV remote. My home made DRAM tester is on the right side of the keyboard.

130

Crashed @crashedfiesta.bsky.social · 09/04/2026

F*CK. F*CK. F*CK. F*CK. F*CK. Torch is dead. After battling intermittent RAM issues for months I think the Limpet board has died. My last resort is to de-socket the motherboard RAM and see if it's actually the sockets causing issues there. #bugger

A picture of the defunct Torch Triple X. The limpet board is propped on the open case with the keyboard in front. My tears decorate the carpet. 😢

140

Crashed @crashedfiesta.bsky.social · 08/04/2026

Couldn't work out why I couldn't mount the disk image on the Gotek once I'd formatted it. I am an idiot. Should've remembered that 'format' is low-level and I still needed to 'mkfs'. Doh! But now I can copy files and create disk images til the cows come home. Moo.

A picture of the Torch Triple X terminal window. It shows the commands formatting a floppy disk image and the creating a filesystem. Then there's a command to copy all the files from the directory with the uemacs source code to the Gotek for closet analysis on my Linux system.

Didn't get a picture but about six seconds after I took this, the system had a stream of fault traps followed by a 'double kernel panic', the screen went green, then white, then blank. I had a double panic myself and then turned it off and on again and it's been ok since.

010

Crashed @crashedfiesta.bsky.social · 06/04/2026

Uemacs porting efforts to the Torch are on hold due to a persistent RAM fault. I am removing the sockets I installed on the limpet and putting the chips directly on the board as they're a liability (the sockets). Things like this don't help though...

A picture of a DRAM chip from the Torch limpet board. Pin 2 is folded up which presumably happened when I was reseating the chips last time. This is why I'm ditching the sockets...

A picture showing the side of the Torch motherboard with the limpet board mounted to it. There are long gold pins connecting the limpet board at the top to the motherboard at the bottom. These pins replaced the original repair which consisted of several turned pin sockets. The issue with the limpet is NOT this connector.

000

Crashed @crashedfiesta.bsky.social · 04/04/2026

Found the cause of the memory issue In the Torch (more or less). I'd used multiple turned pin sockets stacked to create a connector to the limpet. But with the motherboard and limpet removed it was obvious I'd used one too many. With it removed, the Torch boots far more reliably...not 100% though.

A picture of a 20 pin turned pin ic socket on a desk.

A picture of the Torch Triple X with its centre section raised up like the bonnet of a car. It is held up by a white TV remote. The limpet board is on the bottom portion of the case to the left with a lit red LED showing the memory being accessed.

010

Crashed @crashedfiesta.bsky.social · 03/04/2026

It's extended round pins that fit into a turned pin socket. But the original top connector had two broken pins so I hacked it with a few turned pin sockets. Given the issues I'm working on a soldered version with a 3d printed block. 🙂

A picture of a 3d printed block in a similar shape to an IC socket but much taller. A series of holes are drilled in the configuration of a 20 pin ic.

110

Crashed @crashedfiesta.bsky.social · 03/04/2026

I struggled with vi on the Torch. There's only one thing to do. Compile uemacs on the Torch. In the process of modifying the code to K&R formats I've started to like vi, rendering this task pointless. But now I've started I need to to see if uemacs will work. Why do I do these things to myself?

A picture of an attempt to compile uemacs on the Torch Triple X. The file named fileio.c has generated a number of errors.

161

Crashed @crashedfiesta.bsky.social · 11/03/2026

I'm assuming that a 3A current inrush thingamajig shouldn't have a burn mark and a hole in it.... 😬

A picture of the inside of the Cifer power supply. A black disc like component is in the centre of the image but to left centre of the disk is whole about 1mm in diameter with a grey residue. I suspect this was the magic smoke generator.

000

Crashed @crashedfiesta.bsky.social · 11/03/2026

Ah. Well that was bad. While trying to power up the original HD in the Cifer there was a loud crack, a flash, and the familiar smell of magic smoke... Bugger. Also, Brown Alert. 😬

A picture of my properly dead Cifer computer. There are circuit boards on the desk and the Cifer is on its side. The offending hard disk that I think drew too much current to startup sits at the back of the desk looking smug.

110

Crashed @crashedfiesta.bsky.social · 04/03/2026

Trying to get this ancient SASI drive to read but not sure BlueSCSIv2 supports it in initiator mode. Rodime RO200 series (10Mb I think) with Xebec 1410 card. This is from the Cifer 1887 and may have a very early Unix on it. My other HD from it died. 😢 Anyone got any tips? #bluescsi

A picture of a Xebec 1410 controller card resting on top of a monster Rodime MFM hard disk.

A picture of a Rodime MFM hard disk. It's very gold with a black front. Surprisingly for a drive this age it still spins up and the light on the front declares "drive ready".

My 2nd (or 3rd?) blue SCSI. A blue circuit board with a black 50 way SCSI style connector on one side and a small green raspberry pi Pico about half way down. Brilliant piece of kit.

200

Crashed @crashedfiesta.bsky.social · 24/02/2026

Hmm. The retro gods have a sense of humour. I tested the Cifer ps and voltages were all ok. So I put the first main board in and, guess what... It now works again. 🤨🥳 Just need to re-flash the Gotek and get the other boards back in.

A picture of the Cifer on its side but switched on. The screen is displaying the correct bottom options and random text that was typed in to verify the keyboard still works.

A picture of the Cifer computer on its side but switched on. The screen is displaying random characters that have been typed to verify the keyboard.

A corrected picture of the Cifer on its side but switched on. The screen is displaying the correct bottom options and random text that was typed in to verify the keyboard still works.

000

Crashed @crashedfiesta.bsky.social · 08/02/2026

The Retro gods giveth, and the Retro gods taketh away. The Cifer is dead. I suspect the power supply. The Gotek wouldn't turn on, the screen stayed resolutely dark, and the power supply was making unexpected noises (no magic smoke though). Sad face. 😔

A picture of the back of the Cifer computer. The top cover has been removed showing the back of the dead hard disk and the CRT.

A picture of the back of the Cifer power supply. The case is black with a large yellow warning triangle showing dangerous voltages inside. The supply provides 1.1 amps (RMS) at 230v.a.c.

A picture of the low voltage side of the power supply. There are eight terminals for various voltages, ground and two not connected.

2180

Crashed @crashedfiesta.bsky.social · 07/02/2026

Another Torch Triple X success. Yay! My heath-robinson SCART lead now works properly. The picture quality is TERRIBLE but that's likely down to me using two CD4011s to combine HSync and VSync. But it's proper colour! Once I get some more time (2027 maybe?) I'll try and improve it.. #torchtriplex

A picture of the Torch Triple X OpenTop desktop system in colour. The kernel window is open and displaying the kernel version as 2.11 with 1 megabyte of memory available.

A picture of a small green circuit board. It has two integrated circuits and three cables emerging from the back. These are video in from the Torch, SCART out to the TV and USB power in which drives the chips on the circuit board.

120

Crashed @crashedfiesta.bsky.social · 06/02/2026

Oh. That was easy. I took the unix file from the original Torch XXX system (which is a later version) and copied it to the OpenTop image. Reboot. Run 'mknod' as per the pic and the Gotek is just there, ready to mount... Crikey. #torchtriplex

A picture of the OpenTop windowing system. A terminal window is open showing a series of commands that created a new node for the attached Gotek drive and then mounted the Gotek successfully.

020

Crashed @crashedfiesta.bsky.social · 09/01/2026

A picture of Harry, judging me for enjoying a tasty snack while failing to provide him with a tasty snack. #FeelGoodFriday

010

Crashed @crashedfiesta.bsky.social · 04/01/2026

The Torch has been granted special permission to enter the dwelling within Crashed Towers...

A picture of the Torch Triple X computer on a desk next to an old HP laptop. Both computers are displaying a terminal window.

3240

Crashed @crashedfiesta.bsky.social · 31/12/2025

Torch Triple X success! Sort of. Can't get the SCART connection to work - I just get a black screen. But then I wondered about monochrome composite. And, after a bit of research (not chatGPT) I cobbled together some resistors on my cobbled together Vsync generator and, boom. There you go. 😁

A picture of a TV on a very messy workbench showing the kernel window of the Torch Triple X as it boots up.

A picture of a TV showing the startup screen of the Torch Triple X as it starts to boot up.

A picture of a TV on a very messy workbench showing the startup screen of the Torch Triple X as it boots up.

120

Crashed @crashedfiesta.bsky.social · 21/12/2025

Working on a thing for the Torch. A Hsync and Vsync combiner circuit so I can use a SCART telly. Of course I don't have any CD4077s with the required XNOR gate and I'm too lazy to order any. But I do have CD4011s which are quad NAND gates. Five NAND gates make an XNOR gate. Yay! 😁

A picture of a small circuit board containing two 14 pin integrated circuits. A grey cable is connected to the right hand side of the board which is the main cable to link to the back of the Torch.

010

Crashed @crashedfiesta.bsky.social · 13/12/2025

The Torch TXXX plot thickens. A disk image I have allows the floppy drive to be mounted but it uses SCSI ID 1, LUN 2. In other words, the Gotek is accessible. So far, read only, but it proves it's possible. Hmmm....

A picture of a laptop screen showing a text file in the nano text editor.

The text file says that it is only present on a disk image on the Gotek floppy disk emulator.

A picture of the Torch Triple X monitor. It shows a terminal window with the results of a 'cat' command on the file 'sowasi.txt'.

The file contents are the same as the text in the Linux terminal, proving that the floppy disk image on the Gotek has been mounted on the Torch.

021

Crashed @crashedfiesta.bsky.social · 08/12/2025

Been toying with the Torch Tx floppy's. Finally accepted that without re-compiling Unix it's unlikely the Gotek will ever work other than for Key Disk duty. But I got a blank disk image that works great on the BlueSCSI. Had to remove files from an existing image which was mounted in Linux.

A picture of a laptop screen showing the contents of a text file. It says 'Hello. This is a file created on a Linux machine and copied to a blank floppy image for the Torch Triple X. I had to take a valid floppy image and delete all the files. This was originally the Limpet test disk from Adrian at Binary Dinosaurs.'

A picture of the Torch Triple X screen showing a shell window and the contents of a text file. It says 'Hello. This is a file created on a Linux machine and copied to a blank floppy image for the Torch Triple X. I had to take a valid floppy image and delete all the files. This was originally the Limpet test disk from Adrian at Binary Dinosaurs.'

This is the Linux command to mount the Torch floppy disk images. This works on valid format disks but not cpio archive created disks.

120

Crashed @crashedfiesta.bsky.social · 12/11/2025

Thought I'd have a go at building a SCART lead for the Torch Triple X. Turns out, it outputs separate Vsync and Hsync signals which need to be combined somehow... CD4077 as a hack perhaps? 🤔 Nothing is ever easy (which is why it's fun). 🙂

A picture of parts of an 8 pin din connector and a SCART connector. The SCART connector has red, green, blue, white and black wires coming out of the back. In the foreground is the end of a grey cable with smaller wires coming from the end of different colours.

010

Crashed @crashedfiesta.bsky.social · 31/10/2025

Special shout-out to those of us who couldn't give two squits about halloween. Here's a picture of a ladybird instead.

020

Crashed @crashedfiesta.bsky.social · 26/10/2025

So, I managed to work out how to use cpio without destroying my Linux installs. Did it on a virtual machine this time. 😁 That means I can extract all the files from the Torch Unix disks. Yay! They're all basically cpio archives so this doesn't work to get files out of the boot disk or limpet test.

A screenshot of a Linux terminal showing the listing of a set of files from one of the Torch Unix disks.

A screenshot of a Linux terminal showing the text of a file used to format a Torch floppy disk.

010

Crashed @crashedfiesta.bsky.social · 23/10/2025

I may have accidentally destroyed my Linux Mint install but at least I'm installing Unix now. 😁😁😁 (Well, I've installed two disks so far..) #torchtriplex

The Torch Triple X display showing the console output following completion of installing disk 2. Only 13 more to go...

140

Crashed @crashedfiesta.bsky.social · 22/10/2025

I went for it and tried the 'Remake Unix' option which worked. There's a fresh bare bones install on the SD card But I can't get the floppy to work either BlueSCSI or Gotek. Gotek does nothing. BlueSCSI accesses and gives an error: "Out of phase--get help." I feel like it's talking to my soul..

A picture of the Torch Triple X attempting to run an installation. It has stopped with the error message "out of phase get help".

220

Crashed @crashedfiesta.bsky.social · 21/10/2025

Well @binarydinosaurs.co.uk you wouldn't happen to have images of Unix disks 16, 17 and 18 would you? I might need them. 😁😁😁😁 Just on a hunch I copied your latest image to the BlueSCSI and the Gotek (just in case) and it ONLY WENT AND BLOODY BOOTED!! GET IN! 🥳

A picture of the Torch Triple X that booted from a floppy disk image. There are three icons on the screen. Root folder, Shell and, (best of all) RemakeUnix.

2192

Crashed @crashedfiesta.bsky.social · 20/10/2025

Hey @binarydinosaurs.co.uk we're taking baby steps. Managed to mount the limpet test disk on the bootable hard disk image. First time I've managed to mount anything in the floppy! And I found the limpet test program! 😁 It crashes in OpenTop though (not a big surprise there).

A picture of the Torch Triple X display. A shell window is open and the Limpet test program has been run and will shortly crash.

240

Crashed @crashedfiesta.bsky.social · 20/10/2025

Torch Triple X update. The disk images from @binarydinosaurs.co.uk load up to a point but both the 'boot' and 'limpettest' hang with the Gotek showing no track number higher than 77. I wonder if converting the 360rpm .scp files to 300rpm .img files has truncated them by a couple of tracks. 🤔

A picture of the Torch Triple X monitor showing a kernel boot window as it boots from the v1.32 Torch boot disk. The boot has stopped at this point showing the largest runnable process as 1675264.

A picture of the Torch Triple X screen booting from the limpet test disk. The boot has stopped at the message "mem = 714752".

100

Crashed @crashedfiesta.bsky.social · 19/10/2025

Sticking the SCPs through the Greaseweazle tools with the Torch Triple X diskdefs gives 300rpm and 10032 cell track length which matches the disk images I've done before. I can't test them now but first chance I get tomorrow I'll put them on the Gotek and see what happens. 😁

Converted .img file of the Torch Triple X Limpet test disk showing two sided disk with a speed of 300rpm in the HxC Floppy disk emulator software.

Original SCP file of the Torch Triple X Limpet test disk showing two sided disk with a speed of 360rpm in the HxC Floppy disk emulator software.

110