Unstuck in time...

Got a week off coming up - and about a year's worth of projects to fill it. ;)

- Creating "jay" - a libpurple web services server/client. Three pieces - libpurple client, json http connector, and finally a client. The latter two pieces might be extensible to work with other things... at the same time.

( ^ - that's probably the most practical project...)

- Getting back into the electronics thing... hopefully figuring out how to solder surface-mount components in truly ghetto fashion... on tape*! Search on "elm-chan uew" for my inspiration there.

- Tinkering with a bunch of old random stuff. Like a Pentium MMX toshiba... if I can find a caddy for it.

- Extending from Jay - a simple Linux web-browser-based UI system, ala ChromeOS but hopefully lighter weight. I was helping out a friend shopping for a computer - there's so much *crap* in a consumer Windows system that's utterly distracting for noobs.

(side-note: how long until Apple replaces the MacBook non-pro with an iOS-Book...? Or will iPad gain better mouse+keyboard support and become the new... iBook?)

- Looking at state machine languages (and way back to HP's ASM work) and figuring out an acceptably simple language (i.e. no characters that aren't on a standard keyboard!)

- Retrocomputing hacking (or: fun with expansion ports, buffers, and modern chips...) For instance on the Atari 8-bit front - SIO2PC, SIO2USB, etc are amazingly overpriced, considering it's just a 5V serial system that a simple microcontroller could deal with.

So basically I'm just unstuck in time... past, present, future... it's all good. I just need to do something meaningful.

(* - 3M 5419 Polymide - per 3M it can go up to 500F safely...)