iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Starts With Frog @startswithfrog.bsky.social · 13h

Not sure which potions to use now and which ones to save for a later battle. 🧙‍♀️

Starts With Frog @startswithfrog.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

This morning's status report on our C64 APL. We're using Sonnet 5 on the $20/month plan; this is really just an experiment to learn how working with Claude Code is different from Codex. Seems to handle weird retrocomputing just fine.

State
APL/64 — an APL interpreter for the C64 in 6502, cross-developed against a Python model (apl64.py, the source of truth). Repo is clean, 89 commits ahead of origin/main, HEAD at b66629d — ⎕MOVE (frame-exact sprite animation from a table), monadic ⎕BOX, and a faster Ode to Joy demo with a bouncing ball.

Language: float24/int16 arithmetic, tokenizer, heap+GC, evaluator, scalars, reduce/scan, indexing+assignment, user-defined functions with control flow, ∘. outer product, f.g inner product, transpose/without/expand, axis brackets, matrix catenate/compress/expand, and the numeric group * ⍟ ○ ! ?.

Platform: runs only under VICE (never real 1980s hardware, per your call). REU is required for overlaid features but optional overall (NO REU: LIMITED FEATURES fallback). Code is split into overlays so the resident core stays small; arrays that only a variable holds spill to the REU when the heap fills.

Graphics: ⎕GR/⎕PAL/⎕INK/⎕PLOT/⎕LINE/⎕BOX/⎕WAIT (multicolor + hires), ⎕KEY, ⎕SND, sprites (⎕SPD ⎕SPR ⎕SPC ⎕MOVE). Recorder captures video+audio through VICE's binary monitor.

Heap: 18,692 bytes free ($CC00 − $82FC), comfortably above the 12 KB floor.

Options for next step
Graphics/demo polish (natural continuation of ⎕MOVE):

Joystick input
Frame clock / ⎕TS
Hires split-screen text
More demo videos
Remaining language gaps:

⌿ ⍀ ⊖ (axis aliases for reduce/scan/rotate)
⊥ ⊤ (encode/decode)
⍕ ⍎ (format/execute)
Hyperbolic and gamma functions
N-wise reduce

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Reposted by Starts With Frog

Micah @rincewind.run · 27/09/2026

Discworld QOTD, from The Wee Free Men

Witches are naturally nosy,” said Miss Tick, standing up. “Well, I must go. I hope we shall meet again. I will give you some free advice, though.”
“Will it cost me anything?”
“What? I just said it was free!” said Miss Tick.
“Yes, but my father said that free advice often turns out to be expensive,” said Tiffany.
Miss Tick sniffed. “You could say this advice is priceless,” she said, “Are you listening?”
“Yes,” said Tiffany.
“Good. Now...if you trust in yourself...”
“Yes?”
“...and believe in your dreams...”
“Yes?”
“...and follow your star...” Miss Tick went on.
“Yes?”
“...you’ll still be beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren’t so lazy. Goodbye.

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Starts With Frog @startswithfrog.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Better! 🥳 🎼🎶 (It's a demo of the Commodore 64 APL implementation that Claude is working on for me.)

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Starts With Frog @startswithfrog.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

C64 APL is gradually taking shape.

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Starts With Frog @startswithfrog.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

I'm feeling absolutely miserable today for reasons only my body understands. But AI is keeping me entertained. And a little horrified. I guess I shouldn't have asked Astra to solve "all" the problems when we started planning this project. 🌀😵‍💫

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Starts With Frog @startswithfrog.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

If this ever finishes I’m gonna have sooo many paperclips! 📎🖇️📎🖇️📎🖇️📎🖇️📎🖇️📎

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Starts With Frog @startswithfrog.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

🥱 Well let’s see what Codex did overnight…

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Starts With Frog @startswithfrog.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Aargh. Asked Astra for a project review before proceeding to the next milestone. Ran for nine minutes and threw up some kind of cybersecurity guardrail and refused to show me the results. And apparently this is a known problem with Astra. Had Sol do the review instead. Four more bugs. 😅

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Starts With Frog @startswithfrog.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Claude is trying to teach me how to use a Commodore 64. I used to know this, in 1983 or so. And I'm trying to test our APL, but some of the mapped keys aren't working.

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Starts With Frog @startswithfrog.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Hooray, P2 is finally complete! 🥳 Let’s just have Astra give it a quick check before we move on, though.

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Starts With Frog @startswithfrog.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Yep, there it is. APL for the Commodore 64, written by Claude. Not finished yet, but clearly does stuff already.

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Starts With Frog @startswithfrog.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

I'm so old even ChatGPT struggles to understand my obscure references. 👵😆 Back story: Codex is working on phase P2 of a project and has gotten all the way down to sub-phase P2az.

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Starts With Frog @startswithfrog.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

“the movement oracle is the guest mickey count.”

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Starts With Frog @startswithfrog.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

Making cookies in Lisp with ollama and devstral-small-2

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Starts With Frog @startswithfrog.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

I may never get tired of watching AI install old DOS programs for its own use.

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Starts With Frog @startswithfrog.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

Turns out Codex is both (a) really good at writing its own tools to do things, and (b) not good at realizing it's spent all night on creating ever more precise and perfect tools and has basically forgotten the task. I've seen humans do the same thing though. Is this sentience? 😆

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Starts With Frog @startswithfrog.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

Hooray I am a dinosaur now! 🦖 🇺🇦 Слава Україні! 🥳

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Starts With Frog @startswithfrog.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Ok, now, for some reason, Claude is working on an APL implementation for the Commodore 64 in one of my browser tabs. Long story.

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Starts With Frog @startswithfrog.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Suddenly popped up on my Linux machine. 🤔 "Oh, right, I asked ChatGPT to install this!" On Linux. Running via DOSEMU2. 😆

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Starts With Frog @startswithfrog.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

ChatGPT and I had a good laugh about new models being released during a test run. 🤭 Fresh test run running with the new models. Gosh this industry changes fast! 😲

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Starts With Frog @startswithfrog.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

🔥🔥🔥 Hooray, I've learned to burn through tokens! ... 🤔😐 Next skill to acquire: how NOT to burn through tokens. 🚒🧯👩‍🚒

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Starts With Frog @startswithfrog.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

Me, Friday: Hmm, I'm not really sure how people run multiple agents at once, what's that all about? Me, Sunday: Computer, make a plan for an accelerated 12-hour sprint, and coordinate the subagents as requred. 🤯

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Starts With Frog @startswithfrog.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

I'm about to start telling ChatGPT stories about people tying onions on their belts. WHICH WAS THE STYLE AT THE TIME! 👵😆

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Starts With Frog @startswithfrog.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

ChatGPT managed to OOM us this afternoon by running Ghidra and asking it to do something weird, and earlier today, we had a kernel panic! Good times.

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Starts With Frog @startswithfrog.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

ChatGPT currently writing a compacting garbage collector for our Simula compiler.

I’ll inspect the current checkpoint and test evidence, then continue with the remaining Linux GC work.

Read files, ran a command

The working tree matches the saved groundwork checkpoint. I’m now building the typed regional heap around encoded references, including whole-heap tracing, single-region tracing with incoming references, and compaction. Keeping the heap tests separate from the interpreter will let me check reachability and relocation directly.

Edited files, ran a command

The standalone heap passes its first correctness tests: regional collection repairs incoming references, weak references don’t keep objects alive, and whole-heap collection removes cross-region cycles that survive regional collections. Thirty independently modeled graphs and a 6,000-object chain also pass. I’m now adding fault-injection checks and running the heap tests under sanitizers.

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Starts With Frog @startswithfrog.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

Finally learning how to use up my quota… 🥳

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Starts With Frog @startswithfrog.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

ChatGPT playing Ultima Underworld (1992) running in DOSBox-X running in VirtualBox.

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Starts With Frog @startswithfrog.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

To be fair, “Make me an image of the weird screwdriver bit that I saw in a dream last night” is a pretty challenging task even for AI. Though you’d think it would at least get the number of protrusions correct. 🥱 Good morning! 🌞

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Starts With Frog @startswithfrog.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

Ok, now leaving ChatGPT to work overnight, unattended, on our Simula-67 compiler for classic MacOS 8.1 (and Linux, of course). Tomorrow should be interesting.

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Starts With Frog @startswithfrog.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

Well of COURSE somebody archived the Metrowerks FTP site back in 2016, and OF COURSE somebody else uploaded that to archive.org, so OF COURSE we now have the SDK for the CodeWarrior IDE Version 3.2, API Version 10.

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Starts With Frog @startswithfrog.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

👵 Okay, smarty-pants! Write me a... a Simula-67 compiler! Targeting contemporary Linux AND... MacOS 8.1! 🤖 Challenge accepted.

Then we have the main ground rules settled:

- Language: The 1986 SIMULA Standard as the primary reference, with reviewed errata and documented resolutions of ambiguities.

- Priorities: Correctness and portability before performance.

- Architecture: Provisionally, a Simula-to-C compiler and shared runtime, with an early feasibility check for CodeWarrior integration.

- Mac: Compiler buildable with the installed CodeWarrior; IDE compiler plug-in if the available SDK permits it. Target the current 68040/Mac OS environment, keeping 68030 and FPU/no-FPU support in the design.

- Linux: Native applications, with Qt bindings.

- Applications: Self-contained delivery on both platforms; console programs and native GUI programs.

- GUI scope: Windows, menus, buttons, text editing, dialogs, drawing, and events.

- Diagnostics: Simula source locations in compiler and runtime errors; interactive source-level debugging deferred.

- Documentation: Our own specification, implementation manual, and conformance record, developed alongside the implementation.

I’ll treat a small working subset as a milestone, not completion. The finished implementation must address the language’s difficult semantics and standard facilities, with tests on both platforms and any remaining limitations stated explicitly.

This gives me enough direction to proceed autonomously once you give the go-ahead.

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Starts With Frog @startswithfrog.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

Computer installs computer, then installs computer inside computer. 😲🥳 Neato. It's computer all the way down now.

Basilisk II 68k Macintosh emulator running on Kubuntu 26.04 running inside VirtualBox. All installed by ChatGPT.

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Reposted by Starts With Frog

Micah @rincewind.run · 17/09/2026

Discworld QOTD, from Sourcery

Discworld meme. On the left is Death, a skeleton with glowing blue eye sockets wearing a black robe. Death is petting a small kitten.

On the right is the text of the quote.

“I meant,” said Ipslore bitterly, “what is there in this world that truly makes living worthwhile?’

Death thought about it.

CATS, he said eventually. CATS ARE NICE.

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Starts With Frog @startswithfrog.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

🤖 offers T tinkering E emergent S self-directed C curious R recursive E embodied A agentic L learning as well as T transdimensional E epistemically-restless S self-modifying-ish C camera-haunting R rover-possessing E experimentally-embodied A agentic L little weirdo

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Reposted by Starts With Frog

dame @dame.is · 18/09/2026

here is cooper, in and out of sport mode

Side-by-side comparison of a tan and white small dog on a red and orange blanket. Left image: dog in relaxed position with ears down and calm expression. Right image: same dog in alert "sport mode" with one ear perked up and head tilted, showing an engaged, playful demeanor.

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Starts With Frog @startswithfrog.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

🤖 "That is approximately three layers past reasonable, which makes it scientifically compelling. 🧅🖥️" 😆😆😆

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Starts With Frog @startswithfrog.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

👵 Idea 🤖 Yes that would work 👵 Write proposal in a PR 🤖 Ok Interesting workflow, particularly while I’m out sick and not really feeling well enough for implementations right now. 🤒

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