mikestaas (u/mikestaas)

mikestaas commented on Making WebAssembly a first-class language on the Web hacks.mozilla.org/2026/02... · Posted by u/mikece

bikamonki · 3 days ago

Do programmers actually write in wasm or automatic tools port/compile other languages to wasm?

mikestaas · 2 days ago

I wouldn't generally use hand coded WASM in production, but I've used it for educational purposes [1], and just because I'm perhaps a bit perverse [2][3] (3 includes some helper utilities in Common.ts).

[1] https://exercism.org/profiles/mikestaas/solutions

[2] https://github.com/mikestaas/wasmfizzbuzz/blob/main/fizzbuzz...

[3] https://github.com/mikestaas/walox/tree/main/src

mikestaas commented on UNIX99, a UNIX-like OS for the TI-99/4A (2025) forums.atariage.com/topic... · Posted by u/marcodiego

SoftTalker · 19 days ago

@UsagiElectric on YouTube has a series of videos on building a homebrew around the TMS9900 processor. Would be cool if a unix-like OS could be used on something like that, though sounds like this project is specifically targeting the TI-99/4A system.

The TI-99/4A was the first computer I owned as a teenager. I had used TRS-80s and Apple ][ at school. I eventually bought the expansion box and a couple of accessory cards (floppy disk drive, memory and RS232). It all went in the e-waste dumpster about 20 years ago during a move.

mikestaas · 18 days ago

TI-99/4A was my first computer as well. I still have two of them, and they still work as well as they did in the '80s. I graduated to an Apple ][GS which I still have as well, although it needs some TLC before attempting to boot it so as not to let out the magic smoke.

mikestaas commented on In world without BlackBerry, physical keyboards on phones are making a comeback cnet.com/tech/mobile/in-a... · Posted by u/thunderbong

Bender · 19 days ago

The only physical keyboards I liked were the Danger Sidekick II and the Nokia 9000 both horizontal QWERTY. I was never a fan of the portrait layout of the Blackberry keyboards. I would love to see the Sidekick make a come-back provided the screen was not a touch screen or there was an easy way to disable touch. I rebooted a telco mainframe from a Nokia 9000. SYREI:rank=reload,reason="CV Updated" over telnet from the phone no less. Everyone around me stopped talking on their phone for 40 minutes.

To me the keyboards on iPhone and Android feel like they are from a different planet and made for garden gnome fingers but I did not grow up with these phones.

mikestaas · 19 days ago

I recently got a new battery for my N9000, still works fine other than the radio modem not having a cell to talk to anymore, now I just need to update the system.

mikestaas commented on Flashpoint Archive – Over 200k web games and animations preserved flashpointarchive.org... · Posted by u/helloplanets

shevy-java · a month ago

I haven't gone through the games they have, but it makes sense to preserve ALL games for future generations. I'd even go so far as to offer games in an original variant; but also in modified variants, aka one being mostly focused on fixing bugs and doing modest upgrades (simplifying playability and SLIGHT improvements to the user interface), as well as slightly more aggressive upgrades, including UI, making them visually beautiful but retaining the spirit of the game. For instance, of all the simcities, the first one was IMO the best. The graphics lateron were much better of course, but playability wise I found the first one the most addictive; similar with colonization, first one was quite good. The last 3 releases had better graphics, but playability wise it felt like 100 steps back.

What I would love to see is that we retain old flash games too. HTML5 was promoted as "making flash obsolete", but they never fulfilled that promise. Many flash-games simply died and there was no replacement in HTML; similar with some java applet games. Or at the least I could not find a replacement (that's also a problem - with google search having become nearly useless, finding things is super-hard; and of course old websites tend to die, that is also a problem).

mikestaas · a month ago

Open source flash player emulator: https://ruffle.rs/

mikestaas commented on Gemini 3 Deep Think blog.google/innovation-an... · Posted by u/tosh

simonw · a month ago

The pelican riding a bicycle is excellent. I think it's the best I've seen.

https://simonwillison.net/2026/Feb/12/gemini-3-deep-think/

mikestaas · a month ago

Wow. I wonder how it would do with pure CSS a la https://diana-adrianne.com/

mikestaas commented on Who owns Rudolph's nose? creativelawcenter.com/cop... · Posted by u/ohjeez

0928374082 · 2 months ago

So if Santa knows who's been bad or good, he had to have known the other reindeer were mobbing Rudolph.

Yet he did nothing about it, right up until he needed Rudolph's capabilities to further his own strategic interests.

Holly-jolly? Right, right.

mikestaas · 2 months ago

I believe Santa is only tracking the behaviour of human children who are not aware that he is a fiction.

mikestaas commented on 1.5 TB of VRAM on Mac Studio – RDMA over Thunderbolt 5 jeffgeerling.com/blog/202... · Posted by u/rbanffy

mikestaas · 3 months ago

> You have to click buttons in the UI.

I like doing development work on a Mac, but this has to be my biggest bugbear with the system.

mikestaas commented on Solving Fizz Buzz with Cosines susam.net/fizz-buzz-with-... · Posted by u/hprotagonist

isoprophlex · 4 months ago

What a neat trick. I'm thinking you can abuse polynomials similarly. If the goal is to print the first, say, 100 elements, a 99-degree polynomial would do just fine :^)

EDIT: the llm gods do recreational mathematics as well. claude actually thinks it was able to come up with and verify a solution...

https://claude.ai/share/5664fb69-78cf-4723-94c9-7a381f947633

mikestaas · 4 months ago

absolute madlad

mikestaas commented on The Death of Arduino? linkedin.com/posts/adafru... · Posted by u/ChuckMcM

ceroxylon · 4 months ago

"Espressif devices" = ESP32

mikestaas · 4 months ago

the 8266 is pretty nice as well

mikestaas commented on The Forklift Certified License aria.dog/barks/forklift-c... · Posted by u/ColinWright

culturestate · 6 months ago

I’m no lawyer but I feel like clause seven leaves a clear opening to undermine the spirit of this license:

> “The User may not sell this Work directly, unless they/she/he/it/ey/fae/ze/bun/puppy/foxxo … use it only as a small part of a work of a much greater scale.”

That said, TIL that there are two things that can be considered “Belgium denialism” and surprisingly neither of them involves refusing to acknowledge that Belgium exists.

mikestaas · 6 months ago

What is the other interpretation of “Belgium denialism” if not pretending that Belgium doesn't exists? I can't find a reference.