Mars Mumbles

Life on Mars? Yearly Check-in

marsman@dragonwolves.com (Marsman) — Sun, 29 Oct 2006 22:59:00 +0000

Well, a year ago - I announced that I'd be taking a podcast hiatus. Little did I expect it would be a year long one. The move I spoke of back then has turned into two, approaching number three. Real Life 2.1 is now at version 5 due to the contant crashes of the previous versions. Not at all what I wanted but as Mick sings "You can't always get what you want.."

I had hoped sometime to get back to this and at least try to do something with the show, but here we are a year later and still no cast. I still want to do the online gaming show - I just need to find a time my guests and I can set aside and get it done. Beyond that is the vast open expanse of topics to do and guests to find in order to break up the monotony of my "mumbles". On that, however, there is a possible light on the horizon.

Recently I learned about a new service called "Talkshoe" which is a Talkcast/Podcast system that provides a no-login streaming listen-only audio feed, and for registered users, a directed/threaded text chat, and access to a commercial grade voice bridge that allows callers to conference live - and record/stream simultaneously. Registration is free and allows both participation in shows, or the ability to host your own show.

So why is this any different that tossing a bunch of people on teamspeak and doing a regular shoutcast/podcast? While you can get quite a few people on teamspeak with a good server, there is a limit - plus Teamspeak has a ton of lag.

Since this service uses a telephone number as its access, you open it to home phones, cell phones, and VoIP with free programs such as Skype and SJPhone allow computer users to dial telephone numbers at zero cost. Also a commercial grade telecommunications bridge could handle hundreds to thousands of callers at once with very little lag! It's a major change to how this has traditionally been done by the average internet talk shows and opens a huge potential base of both listeners and show hosts.

So I've gone ahead and created a Mars Mumbles Talkshoe show. You can click on the Talkshoe button in the left column to get to the show page. I can't promise how active that show will be but I'll do my best to make at least a few episodes.

And I'll see if I can get it all done before Oct 29th 2007 too. ;)

Sony Online Entertainment Releases Planetside Reserves

marsman@dragonwolves.com (Marsman) — Sun, 26 Mar 2006 16:29:07 +0000

SOE has released the Planetside Reserves promotion. Planetside is a MMO First Person Shooter, and the Reserves program allows new users to create an account for the game for free, with certain limitations to Battle Rank and Command Rank. Apologies for posting the story twice, but the official link just came up now with a new URL for download.

Check out additional information at http://www.planetside-universe.com Planetside's #1 fansite!

read more | digg story

PlanetSide Buddy Key exchange

marsman@dragonwolves.com (Marsman) — Mon, 06 Feb 2006 17:59:00 +0000

Members can now share their 10 day Buddy Keys with this Key exchange program for Sony's PlanetSide - a 100% Player vs. Player MMO Shooter. Try Planetside Today!

read more digg story

Podcast Hiatus

marsman@dragonwolves.com (Marsman) — Sat, 29 Oct 2005 16:30:00 +0000

Well I know I said I'd have a Podcast up for this week, but Real Life 2.1 has kicked my butt. My work hours just haven't let me get the time I need to coordinate with my guests for the show and I really didn't want to just toss something together solo.

In addition to all this, I'm moving at the end of this week so that's going to kill any chance of getting a show out for next week as well since my machine may not even be setup in time.

So I'm declaring a short Podcast Hiatus and hope to be back with the first guest show two week from now. By then, I should have the new digs all setup and ready to get down to some serious podcasting and get back on a regular schedule.

Sorry for those expecting a podcast this week but that darn Real Life 2.1 with the expansion pack is a killer. Take care all and see ya in a couple of weeks.

No PodCast this Week

marsman@dragonwolves.com (Marsman) — Sat, 22 Oct 2005 16:00:00 +0000

I've decided to take a week off from the podcasts for a couple of reasons. One is that I just started a new job and started out with a six day stretch which left me with very little time to work on the cast. Second is that the format is going to expand on the next cast to include guest(s) which is going to take some addition technical demands - which will take some additional time to configure.

So due to these factors, I felt taking a week off would be better the trying to jam something together at the last minute and compromise the quality of the show. So no cast this week - hope to be back this Saturday with a fresh new cast for your listening enjoyment.

See ya then!

Episode 3 - The Road: Final Part

marsman@dragonwolves.com (Marsman) — Sat, 15 Oct 2005 15:51:00 +0000

Welcome to Episode 3 and the final part of "The Road", a personal look at the "Road of Computer Technology" as I've seen it over the last 30 years. In this episode, I look at the last days of the 8-bit personal computers, my very first IBM XT PC, Telephone BBS's, Early Internet, "Packet Racket" - Digital Communications over Amateur Radio and more.

Dungeons of Daggorath PC Port Web Site:
http://mspencer.net/daggorath/dodpcp.html
Game Intro Movie (IE required):
http://www.members.dragonwolves.com/marsman/nsv/

Software we used for R.A.C.U.G.
(Rockland Area Computer Users Group) BBS

Amateur Radio "Packet" Terminal Node Controller (TNC)

A "stack" of TNC's like you would see at a repeater site.

Maine Packet Radio Map ('96): http://marsman.members.dragonwolves.com/96MAP.TXT

Next Week: Subject TBD, but will most likely will be the first show with guest(s).

See ya then!

Podcast: Episode 3 - The Road: Final Part

http://marsman.members.dragonwolves.com/Mars_Mumbles_Episode_3.mp3

Running Time: 34:04

PodCast! Episode 1 - The Road

marsman@dragonwolves.com (Marsman) — Sat, 01 Oct 2005 04:00:00 +0000

Well here we are. The very first podcast. "The Road" is about my experiences growing up in an age when computers, as we know them, were born. In this show, I recall my first experience with a computer and what it was like back in the late seventies.

To the left here is a picture of an ASR-33 Teletype which is where I spend a fair amount of my high school years sitting behind. Running at a blistering 110 baud, it's a far cry from computing today but at the time it was quite advanced considering the state of computers at that peroid.

Missing from the picture is the acoustic coupler used to connect the phone that we used to dial up the Digital PDP-10 mainframe down at Bowdin College in Brunswick, Maine.

Here is picture of a stand-alone one. Ours was was attached to the right side of the teletype.

Here is another picture of an ASR-33 Teletype.

Quite the Beast eh?

Pictured below is a couple of pictures of what this thing was connected to...

A Digital Equipment Corporation PDP-10 MainFrame.

Sure glad they aren't this big today!

Next Week: Part Two of "The Road" where I'll talk a little about life after high school, my experiences in the Military and my very first personal computer.

See ya then!

PodCast: Epidode 1 - The Road

http://marsman.members.dragonwolves.com/Mars_Mumbles_Episode_1.mp3

Running Time: 25:29

Episode 2 - The Road: Part 2

marsman@dragonwolves.com (Marsman) — Sat, 08 Oct 2005 16:00:00 +0000

We're back with Part 2 of The Road - a personal look at the road of technology as I've seen it over the last 30 years of being around computers.

This week takes a look at my experience in the military and my very first personal computer.

While today's military is far more current technology wise, back when I was in, the computer explosion hadn't quite begun and the military was a little behind.

Here is an IBM 360/30 (NASA used these to put man on the moon). You can see a couple of disk drives on the right with some tape units behind them. The main computer is the large box to the left with a teletype sitting in front.

Below is another picture of the main computer.

I couldn't find any pictures of the Honeywell H16 that I used in the Air National Guard, but it was a single box that looks similar to the IBM pictured here.

Below are pictures of a collator, sorter and a keypunch machine that initially makes the punch cards.

Take my word for it: Be glad we are done with the punch card days!

Here's what got everything started: The Tandy Radio Shack Model I (and II, III, and IV).

And the star of the show: The TRS-80 Color Computer Model I

Here a Floppy Drive and the Controller Pack along with an RS-232 Serial Interface Pack.

Here are some other pictures of Color Computer and some of the accessories available including the original CoCo 1 package with game packs, 1200 baud modem, the multi-pack expansion, a CoCo Mouse, a speech pack, and a CoCo 3 system which had a number of improvements such as 128k expandable to 512k, composite monitor out - 80 char capability and more.

You can see more at http://parse.com/~ddunfield/museum/coco/index.htm

Next Week: The first PC, Phone BBS's, Ham Radio and "Packet Racket" (Early Wireless), Internet, and Multi-Player Gaming.

See ya then!

Podcast: Episode 2 - The Road: Part 2

http://marsman.members.dragonwolves.com/Mars_Mumbles_Episode_2.mp3

Running Time: 37:21

Podcast Coming Soon!

marsman@dragonwolves.com (Marsman) — Wed, 28 Sep 2005 19:50:00 +0000

The very first PodCast will debut on October 1st 2005

What's this podcast about?

You never know :)

We'll be talking about a variety of subjects which could include Casting, Gaming, Clans, Computers, Technology, Programming, Sci-Fi, Musicians, Amateur Radio, and more.

My first cast is kinda a personal history since I'm an old fart... :)

The series "The Road" will be a general recallection of how I've observed the Road of Technology progress in the last thirty years or so. See ya on the 1st.

Life on Mars - Yearly Mumble now?

marsman@dragonwolves.com (Marsman) — Wed, 21 Sep 2005 05:51:00 +0000

Yes there is life here on Mars. Talk about slacking huh - no posts since almost a year ago even.

Well lots of things have changed. PSU is now gone the way of the dinosaur. Was a great run and I think we did the game of PlanetSide justice as a fan site. We did a lot of very innovative things with AGN as well but it just didn't feel the same when Sporkfire left. In fact PSU lost a lot of steam about the time when SmokeJumper left. I think we all saw the writing on the wall that Planetside's time has come and gone. PSU hung around into the beginning of this year but slowly died a quiet death. I stand and salute the PS dev team, Hamma and the PSU staff, and all the fans which made the heart and soul of PSU and the PS community.

Clan Draconus Lupus continues on and is thriving with World of Warcraft as well as BattleField 2, firmly established as a multi-gaming clan of solid friends who will be playing online games together for many years to come. WoW has been an amazing game so far and attracted an enormously diverse player base. WoW allows for user created addons, one of the more popular collection/compilation is 'Cosmos'. I had been originally assigned as Tactical Assests Officer in CDL back in the Tribes 2day as that game also had a staggering amount of available scripts which sometime can be difficult to manage. As part of those duties, I began to hang out on the Cosmos developers areas and eventually became a "Cosmos Community Helper" helping post in the forums to answer users questions. So from the gaming aspect, that's what keeps me busy.

My personal life has been a rollercoaster ride.

My latest amusement has been with the recent craze of podcasting. The old TechTV folks, Leo, Patrick, Kevin, Alex, and others are all producing shows on the net often distributed by podcasts. http://www.thisweekintech.com is Leo Laport's project and strangle reminds me of AGN's Community Night from it's general format. Shoutcaster have been doing this stuff for years now. It's funny how this is now something "new". Kinda gives me the urge to put something "on the air" from the podcasting side. Who knows - perhaps? I'm pretty sure Hamma gets the urge to dust off the mic as well. We'll see what turns up.

Enough mumbles for now .. podcasting.. hummm :)

Monthly Mumble

marsman@dragonwolves.com (Marsman) — Fri, 15 Oct 2004 05:01:28 +0000

Well I'm getting better... only let a month go by this time. Lets see where did I leave off, oh yeah - just finished my marathon video editing session. Well I jumped right back into it and did the PS News Video from the old school days of of PS back when it was in St. Louis. Kinda cool to look back and see how it all began. Never did get back to the blog - obviously, lol.

And now it's October - these last few weeks have gone by way too fast. The leaves are starting to turn up here and the temps have been noticably colder. Maine winters absolutely suck and the older I get, the more I hate them. PSU is now 2 years old and AGN is about to celebrate a year of Ask the Devs - hard to believe its been that long. It's been a great run and we all are so proud to have been a part of the community experience.

I've been fairly busy with computer work the last couple of weeks - although Murphy has been a house guest a little too often - has left me with "Anti-Midas" syndrom (You know, where everything you touch turns to $hl+, rather than gold?) - worked on a friends machine which had been royally screwed up and after I'd put a bunch of time into it pulling out virus's and spyware, I'd deceided it was just easier to rebuild it, and had set it aside. Pulled it out, plugged it in - went to turn it on and the MB blew up on the stupid thing. So that was depressing. My sons machine hasn't been in the best of health either and an aquaintence of his was going to sell him a 100gb HD - went to install that and it first of all had a boot sector virus on it - went to delete the partition and sudden his machine shuts down like it's was in suspend mode - Power supply blew up - Hard Drive turns out to be fubar as well - will write but fails to read properly. After screwing with that for a few hours, finally it starts failing the S.M.A.R.T. test so it's a doorstop. Better to find out "before" the new OS gets installed on it I guess, but still. So XP with an intergrated sp2 was overlaid on his existing drive and after a good couple of days of updates, installs, defrags, tuning, etc... he is back in business and a happy camper again. Also completely rebuilt another friends machine - 233 Mhz PIII - like watching paint dry for that - and a "real" customers machine (another damn 233 Mhz pos) in that time span as well, so I've spent a lot of time "watching the wheels go round and round" (thanks John L.). New MB should be in any day now for my other friend (John - who I've mentioned im my blog a few posts back) so he should be back in business soon. He's doing much better these days and seems much more like his old self. Still has his moments of course (who wouldn't) but I'm happy to see him in better spirits.

Wife has been sick with bronchitus - which sucks. She's slowly on the mend but such things take time. Hopefully she'll be past this soon.

Finally finished Doom3 - Hell was hell, and about 1/3 of the way through, I finally broke down and resorted to the cheat codes just to get through the story line (which is much more the reason I play such things anyway) and I'm glad I did as seeing what I had to face beyond the point I was at, I'd have never finished it. I like to be able to make progress even if it's only a little progress and it was obvious to me that I'd have never made it much further. Storyline was good and despite that I cheated in the end, I thought I did well to get as far as I'd got.

T:V is out (Tribes:Vengenge for the unknowing) - After being in beta, and playing the multi-player demos - I'm in no rush to go out and get it - in fact I doubt I'll be picking it up until it drops price in several months. I understand they did a great job in the single player and I commend them for that, but... this is TRIBES and multiplayer is where it's at and IMO that part is very weak. They didn't even get a decent observer hud in the game, nor did they provide a dedicated server .exe - which it utterly rediculous consider that hosting servers aren;t going to be stuffing CD's into the racks. Thus there is a serious lack of retail version servers to play on - rather makes the whole shoutcasting and teamplay part a joke. Most people who were into T1 and T2 agree - it's "ok" but not what those original versions were all about and it's left most veteran players cold. Too bad, but not totally unexpected.

Played the Evil Genious Demo - that was fun. Demo was a little too "StarCrafty" for my taste but I understand the full version doesn't zerg the enemy quite as much as the demo does. That being the case, I may have to look into that.

My dog is once again shedding yet another 50 pounds of fur. Seems like we finally just got her clear of her winter coat and looking decent again instead of a stuffed toy with 9/10's of the stuffing hanging out everywhere. Now there are clumps showing all over her and seems like six inches of fur on the floor everyday - little balls of it slowly floating acrost the floor like miniture tumbleweeds. She's a great dog, but husky, wolf, sheppard is a bad mix for hair - lol. Wouldn't give her up for anything though - smart as a whip - even talks. All our animals are mouthy and wierd. We just seem to pick em.

Well I'm running out of things to mumble about - you'd think I'd have more after a month? Life in Maine just plain isn't very exciting ya know, so I suppose I'm lucky to have written this much in one sitting. I'll see if I can cut down the time interval to my next posting to less that a month - perhaps martyr won't even have to guilt me into posting something. :p

The rumors of my demise from here...

marsman@dragonwolves.com (Marsman) — Wed, 15 Sep 2004 05:33:09 +0000

Wow - some serious slacking on this one. As promised martyr, here I am. Well June huh..ok lets see - July sucked - nuf said. August was a rollar-coaster but was no doubt an awesome time was had at PSUMA. It was such a great feeling for Hamma and I to look at a PSU community we always hoped we'd have but never really expected. This community continues to blow us away time and time again with their support.
Upon arriving home, I basically crawled into a gopher hole with food, coffee, and a video editor and stayed there until the video was released today. I have emerged from my hole and upon seeing my shadow, I have declared at least six more months of PSU. :)
My work was interupted by a good friend who need a hand with a system upgrade, and a most happy and joyous event of Hamma and Jennyboo's wedding. I can't begin to express how honored I felt to be included in such a special occation. Was a beautiful event and I wish them both many years of happiness together.
Well it's been a busy day.. I'll mumble some more tomorrow when my thoughts are clearer but had to despell the rumors and make an entry here of some kind.

Sunday Slacking

marsman@dragonwolves.com (Marsman) — Sun, 20 Jun 2004 17:14:50 +0000

Well, it was a little cool in Main yesterday - 57° A little better today at 63, but could stand a little more solar energy. Hell I'm not complaining after winters up here.
Hamma Time was a lot of fun last night. Hamma always does a good show and it's fun to hang out as a listener. Noted last night on the show that I'm about the worlds worst slacker on blogging. Thus I feel guilty and well, here I am - haha. Hamma just reminded me the race in on - good thing to chill and watch today. Will really try to be a little more consistant on the blog here. Later...

Tuesday Trepidations

marsman@dragonwolves.com (Marsman) — Wed, 16 Jun 2004 05:36:45 +0000

Well, it was an amazing day. As much as I would have liked to attend the Planetside-Universe Mobilization Alpha, it appeared it just wasn't meant to be this year. Apparently the incredible PSU community had other plans and stepped up to the plate and hit a grand slam. As a result, Hamma, Jen, and I will be there in full force! I can't begin to express my gratitude to all those who helped make this possible. Just truly overwhelmed and I am greatly honored to be a part of this amazing community event. When Hamma told me a long time ago he's like to start a fan site for this game Planetside (What Side?) I don't think either of us expected it would lead to something like this. Most fan site fail within a short time. We've seen our share of PS fan sites alone come and go. It really is a remarable community we have at PSU and I look forward to meeting many of them in person. Viva La PSUMA! See ya all in Orlando!

Monday Mumbles

marsman@dragonwolves.com (Marsman) — Mon, 07 Jun 2004 17:32:26 +0000

Well a fairly nice day in the state of Maine today. Got an IM from an old friend I hadn't heard from in quite a few years. She's out in AZ now I guess. We've missed each other a couple of times on the IM - gonna see if we can get 'live' tonight and talk rather than pass messages. Real nice to hear from her again. Da Interweb is a wundaful thing eh?
Last week of school for my son CrawlingKane up here. 2 down - 2 to go. I'm very proud that he is going to hang in ther ein finish school. He's getting geared up for summer work at a resteraunt my brother-in-law works at (also the place I'm playing music at too). As most typical teenagers do, he walking around here planning how to spend his money before he even has it, hehe.
Lots of summertime plans in the air between this event and that event. Lots of coordination, planning, and preperations going on by everyone. Should be quite the year for such things. My hat is off to all those people who work tirelessly to make it all happen. Few realize the hours that go into these things in the planning stage.
Oh did I mention I'm going to be a Grampa for the second time now? My middle son's wife is expecting. How time marches on.
Been watching a lot of the 60 year specials for D-Day. Learned lots of intersting stuff I didn't know before. Perhaps I did once and didn't pay attention - funny how things don't mean a lot to you when you are young, suddenly become interesting as you get older. I find myself facinated with the details now and amazed at the courage and bravery of those who threw themselves in the face of almost certain death for the cause. The challanges were overwhelming. Great stuff to watch (well at least for me lol)
Ok enuf mumbles for a Monday I guess. Onward into the rest of this day and see what awaits. Till next time...