iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

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Ben Gilbert @realbengilbert.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

The President of the Unites States can call it whatever he likes, it'll still be slop

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Mark Pack @markpackuk.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

After all Labour's previous dalliances with PR for the Commons, let's hope they see this through - first past the post cannot cope with the modern state of politics.

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Richard Foord MP @richardfoordld.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Fracking should be subject to a complete ban in England and Wales. Richard Tice called fracked shale gas 'treasure', in a debate on banning fracking. He reminds me of a character from Stevenson's "Treasure Island".

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Rick @flipchartrick.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

The government, banks, utilities and similar services MUST make it easier for those with Power of Attorney to manage stuff online. I find I'm having to do a lot of stuff by phone. It's like being back in the 90s except without the 90s infrastructure to help.

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The Bear @bearlypolitics.co.uk · 28/09/2026

Well, well, well - if it isn’t the consequences of our own actions. It would appear that migrants are not, in fact, the fiscal drain we’ve been told they are by years if we go by the £4bn to £6.5bn shortfall that’s been caused by the precipitous drop in numbers under this government. Funny that.

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Tim Holyoake @timholyoake.uk · 27/09/2026

Finally back in Devon after the #RC2014 Assembly 2.0 yesterday. Thank you to Spencer & @tnmoc.bsky.social for hosting & organising, all the speakers & exhibitors, as well as everyone I talked with. I hope you had as much fun as I did and that the #PicoMZ was of interest! #RetroComputing #RetroGaming

My table at the RC2014 Assembly 2.0 at The National Museum of Computing, Bletchley Park, Saturday 26th September 2026. On the left is the Pico MZ running the game Painful Man. In the middle is an RC2014 configuration running CP/M. On the right is a real Sharp MZ-700, also running the Painful Man game.

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Tim Holyoake @timholyoake.uk · 27/09/2026

I'm old enough to remember when we called our poorly written code bugs, fixed them, and didn't attempt to shift blame onto the inanimate code for any problems we'd caused. The whole discourse around "rogue AI agents" is ridiculous.

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Best for Britain @bestforbritain.org · 26/09/2026

Josh Babarinde MP "So many of our businesses who used to have thriving trade with European Union countries, now just struggle." "There are so many barriers in place, so many bits of paperwork that you've got to navigate, so much red tape to try and cross."

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Liberal Democrats @libdems.org.uk · 25/09/2026

Protest is one thing. Intimidating volunteer lifeboat crews is another. These volunteers risk their lives to save others. Targeting them isn’t patriotic. It’s un-British. @joshbabarinde.bsky.social

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National Trust @nationaltrust.org.uk · 25/09/2026

Looking for someone to debate whether it's a castle or "technically a house" with...

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Tim Holyoake @timholyoake.uk · 25/09/2026

I would suggest Castle Drogo is technically a house ...

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Tim Holyoake @timholyoake.uk · 24/09/2026

Are *any* of our current 650 MPs fellows or members of the British Computer Society and/or Chartered IT Professionals? If so, I'd be very interested to know their views on #AI

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Tim Holyoake @timholyoake.uk · 24/09/2026

This isn't a criticism of the call for greater regulation. Far from it. You wouldn't regulate (for example) only new medicines. Likewise, we shouldn't only be regulating the current programming fad known as AI.

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Tim Holyoake @timholyoake.uk · 24/09/2026

By assigning 'intelligence' to a computer program, you start to let the people who are behind these programs off the hook. This is already happening - plenty of examples of "whoops, our AI decided to hack someone", used to deflect blame from the people who built the code in the first place.

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Tim Holyoake @timholyoake.uk · 24/09/2026

Yes, absolutely - and I did!

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Tim Holyoake @timholyoake.uk · 24/09/2026

So-called AI is an enormous societal problem for all kinds of reasons, but no computer program is super-intelligent or intelligent. Marking out a particular type of algorithmic approach in this way is counter-productive. It lets equally harmful approaches to automated decision making off the hook.

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Tim Holyoake @timholyoake.uk · 24/09/2026

I'd buy the MZ-700 over all of the other machines on that page (I have them all apart from the Dragon), & I'd take the Sharp pocket computer over the ZX81!

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Tim Holyoake @timholyoake.uk · 22/09/2026

New from me: Transplant +2,932: Devon Life. mcl.timholyoake.uk/2026/09/22/t... #MCL #Lymphoma #Cancer

mcl.timholyoake.uk

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The National Museum of Computing @tnmoc.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

🚨 ONLY 4 DAYS LEFT TO BOOK! 🚨 We’re thrilled to collaborate with Spencer - RC2014 Assembly v2.0 at TNMOC on Sat, Sept 26! 💻 Z80 & retro kit demos 🔌 Trader/exhibitor tables Full museum aceess 🎟️ Secure your slot: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/199255968365… #RetroComputing #RC2014

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Tim Holyoake @timholyoake.uk · 20/09/2026

#PicoMZ release 3.1.1 is now available. It fixes a couple of keyboard handling problems that were stopping some games from working properly. z80.timholyoake.uk/pico-mz-rele... #RetroComputing

z80.timholyoake.uk

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Tim Holyoake @timholyoake.uk · 20/09/2026

#PicoMZ release 3.1.1 is now available. It fixes a couple of keyboard handling problems that were stopping some games from working properly. z80.timholyoake.uk/pico-mz-rele... #RetroComputing

z80.timholyoake.uk

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Tim Holyoake @timholyoake.uk · 19/09/2026

I doubt it. Anything that relies on slipping in between vblank or vgate signals probably won't work! It's not impossible to fix, but it's way down the list of priorities 😉

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Tim Holyoake @timholyoake.uk · 19/09/2026

I see that someone has used #AI to create a Sharp MZ-700/MZ-80A emulator. Sigh. I can guarantee that my #PicoMZ emulator for the MZ-700, MZ-80K and MZ-80A is completely AI free, so all of the bugs are of my own devising 🤪

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Tim Holyoake @timholyoake.uk · 18/09/2026

I do like fixing bugs by removing code 🙂 #PicoMZ #RetroComputing

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archivetvmusings @archivetvmusings.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

The Two Ronnies (18th September 1976). Fork Candles (or 'Annie Finkhouse?') by Gerald Wiley.

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Tim Holyoake @timholyoake.uk · 18/09/2026

Thank you. I was thinking about experimenting with replacing the Z80 emulation on the Pico with a real Z80 when using the RC2014 VGA cards on an RCbus backbone at some point ...

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Tim Holyoake @timholyoake.uk · 17/09/2026

Just finished testing my dual #PicoMZ and Sharp MZ-700 setup for the #RC2014 assembly 2.0 next weekend. All bits required are now safely boxed so that I don't forget anything (famous last words). Looking forward to it - I hope to see some of you there?

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Luke Taylor MP @luketaylorld.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

So, over in the bad place, the village idiots have found a new community to target to shout at, the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community in Tilford. While I really don't want to give oxygen to these sad, angry losers, I want to show my support to the Ahmadis who I've worked closely with for years.

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Tim Holyoake @timholyoake.uk · 16/09/2026

Controversial opinion: The first series of Space:1999 was infinitely better than the second.

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Rewiring America @rewiringamerica.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

When farms embrace agrivoltaics, plants and people get shade, and power gets made. That’s a real win-win. Here’s how solar panels are powering this third-generation farmer’s land: www.theguardian.com/environment/...

theguardian.com

On a Colorado farm, solar panels bring shade for plants, power – and cash: in pictures

More than 3,000 solar panels power Jack’s Solar Garden, cool the land and help it turn a profit

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Tim Holyoake @timholyoake.uk · 15/09/2026

Castle early (queen's side in this instance) and try to dominate the centre of the board.

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Tim Holyoake @timholyoake.uk · 15/09/2026

One day I may be persuaded to tell all!

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Tim Holyoake @timholyoake.uk · 15/09/2026

It's sad things haven't improved (and got worse?) than when I was designing products to work with the Government Gateway 25 years ago. GDS have much to answer for, not least labelling all they deliver as beta. Even the DVLAs car tax service (which predates GDS) is still maddeningly labeled as such.

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Jonathan Calder @lordbonkers.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

"If you hear from the Government Digital Service, take my advice. Sell all your possessions, burn all your documents, change your name, and head for the hills. Preferably the Himalayas."

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Tim Holyoake @timholyoake.uk · 15/09/2026

Today I've been beating the #PicoMZ at Reversi and Chess 🥳 #RetroComputing #RetroGaming

A completed Reversi board. I beat the computer 55 to 9.

Checkmate. White wins against black in 16 moves after sacrificing a rook.

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Gregory Norminton @gregorynorminton.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

Yet another begging bowl email from the Labour Party this morning. ‘There is no pretending about the scale of what we’re up against.’ If only you guys had a massive majority in Parliament and could pass legislation to protect our democracy from ‘what we’re up against’.

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Sharpworks @sharpworks.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

A few screenshots for #Sharptember - This is the English language version of Tookato's excellent graphic adventure game "Ropoko" for the Sharp MZ-700, coming very soon now on physical cassette tape from Sharpworks :)

English language version of "Ropoko" for the Sharp MZ-700. Coming soon from Sharpworks.

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L Break Into Program @breakintoprogram.co.uk · 13/09/2026

This is a follow-up programme from "On the Move" part of the BBC's adult literacy campaign. The blueprint for this was used a few years later for the BBC Computer Literacy Project of which the BBC Micro played a pivotal role, along with Chris Serle and Ian McNaught-Davis.

clp.bbcrewind.co.uk

BBC Computer Literacy Project

The BBC Computer Literacy Project created the BBC Micro A and B home computers, and taught viewers how to program. Here is the history of the Computer Literacy Project.

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Joachim Froholt @jfroholt.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

A quick #sharptember post. Here's my MZ-80A at a small computer gathering in Bryne, Norway, earlier this year. Pretty much every other machine was a @commodoreofficial.bsky.social of some sort. :)

My Sharp MZ-80A next to a C64 and an Amiga running ... Death Rally?

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The Volatile Mermaid @ohnoshetwitnt.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

On 9/11 when the first plane hit I was driving home from the gym listening to Howard Stern on 92.3 K-Rock after doing 45 minutes on the elliptical in my Atlantic Blue Mustang for a Women’s Studies class at Rutgers. If I can remember that, he should be able to remember being a heroic first responder.

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Tim Holyoake @timholyoake.uk · 09/09/2026

I was at Stansted for a flight to Frankfurt. There were many people watching the news on the departure lounge TVs. It didn't seem to stop anyone from wanting to board. Our flight was delayed by two hours & was full. Travelling back from Frankfurt a few days later was far more difficult in many ways.

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Tim Holyoake @timholyoake.uk · 08/09/2026

I love how difficult they are to use. Either a mysterious poke into VRAM for a single character or (as I discovered earlier this week) a poke to hex address 5D to specify the colour followed immediately by a PRINT using the first character set. The Sharpsoft notes on the MZ-700 are a great help!

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Sharpworks @sharpworks.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

Just look at the lushness :D

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Tim Holyoake @timholyoake.uk · 08/09/2026

The 2nd character set on the MZ-700 says hi ...

The 512 characters in the Sharp MZ-700 ROM.

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Blood Cancer UK @bloodcanceruk.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

‼️ The signs and symptoms of blood cancer can be hard to recognise. 📢 This Blood Cancer Awareness Month, help us share them far and wide. If you have any symptoms you're worried about, book an appointment with your GP or call NHS 111.

Blood cancer signs and symptoms are listed in a handwritten font on a sketch of a piece of paper.
They are:
Bruising or bleeding.
Pain in bones or joints.
Stomach pain.
Frequent infection.
unexplained fever.
Unexplained weightloss.
Tiredness, Paleness.
Lumps or swelling.
Drenching night sweats.
Shortness of breath.
unexplained Rash.

Red doodles surround the symptoms.

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Steve Darling MP @stevedarlingmp.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

Local Government Reorganisation has been halted today, after disastrous proposals backed by Exeter and Plymouth Council and Torbay's Conservative Council. I spoke up in Parliament to demand that the unfeasible rump Devon proposal does not rear its ugly head again.

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