CoCo SDC and Strongware Case

Recently I went down memory highway and enjoyed a few clover leaves. My first two computers were a Timex Sinclair 1000 with a 16K memory expansion, and a Color Computer 2 by Tandy (Radio Shack).

Ebay is a wonderful place to purchase older technology, buyer beware of course. Of the two Timex computers I purchased one worked perfectly, the other has a bad video output and broken Mylar keyboard. The Color Computer 2 I purchased had a bit of mouse detritus in it and very stuck together keys. A bit of cleaning and it was ready for use.

One thing I wanted was a SD card reader/writer for the CoCo. Using cassette was an option, and using DriveWire was also an option. Floppies were not considered other than for nostalgic reasons.

After a bit of research I found where to purchase the CoCo SDC,  The Zippster Zone !
A couple of emails and less than a week later I had the CoCo SDC board in hand and a tip for the Strongware CoCo SDC Case. Thank you Ed!

Another week and I had the case in hand. ( Source Strongware)

Time to demonstrate...

The long nose pliers were used to hold the screws as I set them to hold the board in place. (Magnetic screwdriver on wish list).

With the 2GB card I am using there should be enough room for every program I ever had as a teen, plus most of the Color Computer software out there! If you are into retro computing these type of card adapters are available for Apples, CoCo/Dragon, Commodores, and I think I even saw some for Texas Instruments machines.

(For more details about operating the CoCo SDC please visit this page.)

Decorating Idea

Ebay is a wonderful place to find unusual decorations, especially for Halloween. For instance this morning while shopping for a store display a suggested purchase was an ornate old perfume bottle.

Wait, what is this mysterious glass jar? What does it contain? The adventurers pondered the consequences of touching the wizards collection of rare tinctures and potions.

The price is often what you would expect to pay at Wal-Mart, Target or Halloween shops but unlike the mass produced items de jour that everyone else is purchasing yours will seem unique. On top of that bonus is the fact that you may get an actual collectible out of the deal and of course helping to keep another person's business/hobby afloat (or maybe just help them clean out their storage space.)

Sneaker net to the rescue!

I have a very bad habit of starting new projects before finishing old ones. I am not sure if it attention deficit or just a thing about finishing projects. In any case, this weekend I ran into a wee bit of a dilemma which limited my ability to start new projects, or so I thought. Just because funds are not there does not mean I will not start a project...

I used to operate a site that was for role playing games such as GURPS or D&D. It was not much of a site, but at the time I had a loose dream and started to follow it. This project was side lined for several years, oh ok so this is not a new project after all! I started the site over again after rebuilding a LAMP server on my old laptop.

The server rebuild is still being worked on as I am not able to remote into it for some settings reason. Sneaker net to the rescue! As I dove head first into the project it became quickly apparent that I had lost many skill sets, learning curve was faster this time though. Then it was the realization that the site code was mostly gone, ah well, new code will be better in any case.

Now I am on a roll, slowly creating the pages and scripts that will be needed to accomplish the tasks.

Beads 2008

The same friend I mentioned yesterday handed me a contest entry about the same time, for Interweave's Beads 2008. I decided to enter a set of beads I had just designed for Thanksgiving.

I was surprised when they not only were chosen, but ended up as Editor's Choice!

That set was made of pewter that I then plated in copper. Here is a picture of a matching set I made into a bracelet.

A Change Of Use

A while back a friend of mine suggested I market my creations using my name instead of my current business name ( +Purple Dragon Gifts ) . I did not follow her advice until this week. As of today this blog is changing format from a semi-political essay and neat stuff I like blog into the publishing of myself as an artist blog.

My name is Greg Krynen and my artwork uses many mediums for expression. If part of being a professional means earning money then I have been a professional artist since about fourth grade. During that year of school I found a short piece of telephone trunk cabling on the side of the road. Upon looking at the wires I saw all of the different colored coatings and decided to start wire wrapping them into rings and such to give to my friends. Shortly thereafter I received requests from my male friends to custom make items for them so they could give them to their female friends. An entrepreneur was formed.

Since that time I have dabbled in silver work, aluminum casting, brass casting, machine tool operation, pewter casting, wood working, cement casting, welding, polymer clay, paper crafts, sewing, costuming and props, lapidary, ceramics and many other forms of artistic media expression. Heck, I have even tried my hand at visual arts through acting, film shooting, video shorts, print, and audio recordings. I will never claim to be a master but recognition has been bestowed upon me.

Regardless of the medium being worked with I often find myself creating jewelry pieces. Currently a few projects are leaning towards housewares and decor.

Some of my past work can be seen at https://picasaweb.google.com/117581393452618724394/PastArtwork and https://picasaweb.google.com/117581393452618724394/OOAKsold

You want miracles?

You want miracles? You live during a time where once in a lifetime heavenly movements are at hand, the infirm are not only kept alive but excel at living that life, the common man is able to go to the edge of space, there is light available non-stop, connections to anyone in the world in a mere moment of time, and you get to share it all with the ones you love and those you may not even know!

And that is the tiny tip of the iceberg.

Evaluating Education

I have been following the conversations Bill Gates has had this past week on the subject of education. One entry was about how to evaluate the quality of education.

I am not a fan of our current national and state systems of evaluation. I find that Student Learning Outcomes can be altered too easily allowing for a dumbing down of our educational system. Combined with standardized testing and No Child Left Behind this combination has actually left a larger percentage of students to be left behind upon graduation than at any other time in the US educational system.

As an educator I believe in teaching students to think, not regurgitate. Regurgitation is great for knowing some blips of information but it is almost useless when it comes to the day to grind of living life and advancing our endeavors. Does it matter that I can spout off what day an event happened? No it does not. What should matter is the understanding of the importance of that happening, the critical analysis of the situation.

I use Blackboard as an educator and use many of the question types built into it, not just the multiple choice type. Using the other question types, even if I have to go in and manual grade a test provides greater benefit for my students. Their minds are so used to looking at multiple choice (other wise known as multiple guess) that they truly have issues with any other form of question. I have worked with high school and community college students and many of them have learned top play a numbers game; if they do not know the answer they remove to the obvious wrong choices and guess from the remainder.

So how do we as educators evaluate the knowledge base of our students? In the past instructors were allowed to recommend the holding back of a student that was under performing. While this basically is a good idea education needs to be more proactive, if a student is starting to fall behind we need to get tutoring in place. Tutoring, one on one (or few) education is a great tool to help students. The delivery of the teaching materials is different in this scenario than the delivery in a group situation. It allows for more questions to be asked and answered in a style that matches the particular student.

Get rid of standardized tests. The tests are a useless metric to use for evaluating student success. Each person is an individual with topics they will do well in, exceed expectations in, or even perform poorly in (at least for a time). I will use myself as an example. Through grade school I was a top performer, challenged by my teachers and my parents to excel. Upon reaching high school I faltered, partly from rebellion partly from a change in the instructional style that I trouble grasping. In particular math was a troublesome subject for me. I failed algebra the first year, received a C- the second year, a B in geometry (which made sense to me where the numbers in algebra did not), then I completed high school by taking business math as I could not go beyond basic geometry. My brain at the time had difficulty with the subject.

That did not stop me however, all of my other subjects I did well to exceptional in, including the arts. After graduation I started college, then dropped out to enter the service. After my time in the service I graduated and started into management and eventually running my own service based business. Eventually I became bored with that line of work and decided to go back to school. Thanks to my job experience and a brain that had changed I was able, with some difficulty, to complete math through calculus and statistics with a B average.

Individuals can only be standardized at a low level, beyond that each will perform best at a subject they enjoy and have sub-performance in subject matter they do not enjoy. From early childhood education through high school I believe more teacher involvement and the use of tutors will provide more meaningful outcomes than our current evaluation systems.

Parents too should get in the mix much more than they do. Few parents evaluate their children, leaving it up to the schools instead. Expand your own knowledge as a parent, just because you had problems learning as a child does not mean that is true now. The kids are learning the same subjects you learned, it really has not advanced as much as some people might think. Talk with your children, ask them questions about the workd around them, challenge them to THINK.