Bits

ai

Mars: War of Survival - or How The AI Invented a Game For Me

Recently I got access to the OpenAI services. Especially GPT-3 and DALL-E. Both awesome. As fun the whole AI generation is I think it can be also used as a serious tool. Here is a raw transcript of my interaction with AI - the famous GPT-3 model to write a

Game Development

How I Recreated Our Studio in Quake Deathmach Map

BONUS: TrenchBroom primer.

Embedded

Using and Restoring ESP8266 AT Firmware

> As much as I like super small hardware there is one thing I lke even more - abscure, small operating systems. Technicaly speakong AT is not an OS but for me it works as one. And beside curiosity it actlualy have it's purpouse. ESP-AT From the producer webpage [https://www.

Embedded

Plant Best Friend - ESP8266 Monitoring - Part 1

> I'm obsessed with the tiny microcomputer named ESP-01. It is based on ESP8266 SoC (System on Chip). For my second project, I decided to make a small and simple weather monitoring station for my plant's vital parameters. Temperature, humidity, and soil moisture. Here's the complete tutorial on how to make

Hardware

Steam Deck a Dream Machine - Expectations from Indie Game Developer

> Once in a while, I got super excited about some hardware or software. It's not happening often as it's hard to impress me. Over the time it was Fujifilm X100 (best camera to date), RTX cards (and the software it powers like Quake2RTX, Broadcaster, Canvas), affordable 3D printers, electric

Review

SQ12 Camera Mini Review

> Everyone is racing to have more pixels, better stabilisation and many other features. And I'm here with my little cube taken from the pocket and smiling :) Video version of my review recorded using SQ12Your New Little Friend Keep it in your pocket. As a key chain almost. Because the best

Software

My Developer PC Software List

> I needed to reinstall my Windows PC recently. And a first thing to do after is to get all the needed software on it. Over the years I get used to some applications that I can not live without. I also try to keep the list to absolute minimum. Less

AI Driven Concept Art - NVIDIA Canvas

NVIDIA unveiled today [https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/2021/06/23/studio-canvas-app/] awesome new tool named Canvas [https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/studio/canvas/]. All you need to have is RTX graphics card. The application is free. It uses GauGAN neural network to combine final image based on user input.

DOS Featured

Using MS-DOS and WordStar in 2021

It was a while since I last used Microsoft DOS. I have a warm memories from that era. I decided to time travel to those years and try to use DOS once again.

Embedded

FreeDos with QBASIC From a Single Floppy

> I remember that FreeDOS had a floppy boot disk. What if I could hack it for an embedded DOS OS and even fit QuickBASIC in? Finally run it on the EeePC in a true Cyberpunk style? It turns out it is possible and cooler than I thought! Customizing DOS is

FLOPPINUX In The Wild

> I'm very happy about the overall reception of my latest project. I received many questions and read a lot of cool old-time stories. I did not expect such wonderful reaction :) It was my first project/article that was shared on Hacker News and got to the front page! Hack-a-day write

Embedded

FLOPPINUX 0.2.2

> When I started this project I don't think that anyone will ever use it. To my surprise many people are interested with it. I'm happy about this and obligated to continue refining it. For this small update I did a slightly refactor of the code. I removed Nomad Diskmag content

GNU/Linux

How To Build 32-bit FLOPPINUX on a 64-bit Operating System

Thanks to the help of pappp [https://pappp.net/] I now have the updated instruction for 64-bit operating systems. It is little bit more complicated and I still recommend using VM or some old hardware. Follow my 32-bit tutorial [https://bits.p1x.in/floppinux-an-embedded-linux-on-a-single-floppy/] and just make changes listed below.

Raspberry Pi

Creating Sample Application on FLOPPINUX

> I created FLOPPINUX distribution for running one application in a KIOSK mode. The user should be unable to close the main application nor run any other software. I will show how I managed to do this using just shell scripts. My App I'm working on an old-school diskmag software. In

GNU/Linux

FLOPPINUX Update 0.2.1

> After finding the perfect spot between size and usability I was able to concentrate on the application side of the project. I updated the logo and typography. The OS boots fast and is configured in KIOSK mode. It can only run one application for the user. New logo and a

GNU/Linux

FROM THE ARCHIVE: Mapping for Quake II RTX (Linux)

THIS POST NEVER END UP BEING PUBLISHED. IT IS NOW OUTDATED AS CURRENT QUAKE II RTX IS MADE BY NVIDIA AND I DON'T KNOW WHO COMPATIBLE IT IS. BUT IT WOULD BE A SHAME TO KEEP THIS POST HIDDEN. SO HERE IT IS. Prolog This was first written a year

GNU/Linux Featured

Floppinux - An Embedded 🐧Linux on a Single 💾Floppy

Short story why I decided to make my own one floppy distribution. An extensive yet simple tutorial/workshop on how to make embedded Linux distribution under 1.44MB.

FPV

The story of my new FPV hobby

Introduction I always wanted to have a drone. But living in a big city makes it useless. I would not be able to fly in most places and they are relatively boring. Drones were also very expensive and fragile. Then the opportunity cames as I spend six weeks at Tenerife

Game Development

Godot Visual Shader: Cloudy Sky (GLES2)

Introduction One evening I was tinkering with my shaders. I was trying to make a tornado like effect. Then I changed the blending effect to add. Unfortunately I was having the camera pointed to the sky and sun. What I saw was an opportunity for a nice "clouds". This is

Game Development Featured

Raspberry Pi 4 as Perfect Indie Console

Since the first Raspberry Pi I dreamed of making indie arcade console from it. But also as a Godot enthusiast I wanted to use it. Running 2D games was kinda working but it was more like a hack (frt [https://github.com/efornara/frt]). Here comes the latest Pi. Forth

Web Server

NextCloud as Self-hosted Dream

I hear about NextCloud from lot of "linux guys" but never tried it. Before I know Docker it was too complicated to begin. Also I already use Syncthing. But a week ago just for curious I installed it on my server. It was a very good idea to do. Better

Hardware

RTX on

There was a time when 3D accelerators were new on the market. When Quake 2 with Voodoo shows what computers can do in real time. Those was very exciting times. Now 22 years later here we are with Quake 2 showing latest RTX capabilities. Welcome to the 2019! Quake II

GodotEngine

Godot Visual Shader: Simple Fire

Fire is very complicated and can be made by many techniques. I usually use particles but there is even simpler way using visual shader. For some small detail in the background it's perfect. Also it's super fast. It's the same idea I took with flag shader [https://bits.krzysztofjankowski.com/

Web Server

IBM Server Migration Part #9 - 162 Days Later

Solid as Rock Uptime right now is 51 days. There were a major power loss in the neighbourhood that last half a day. Few hours more than my UPS can stand. But it stand a lot of shorter power loses and power plugs failures. So it proof it is working

GodotEngine

Godot Visual Shader: Flag

The Problem I needed a simple animated flag material. It doesn't need to be a physic based. Just a simple "cartoon" like movement. It's easy to do and fast to calculate. Plain flat on left, shader applied on rightMaking a simple shader with a sin-wave and gradient to control it.