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Software Tools / Re: Experiences, thoughts and rants about using Linux as a newbie after Windows
« Last post by vtsteam on February 24, 2026, 06:59:32 PM »
Yup I use Seamonkey, downloaded from Seamonkey/Mozilla as a tarball, and it is quite portable and self contained. It's a suite of browser, mail, and html authoring software -- actually the distant grandchild of Netscape.

I like it particularly because of the way all settings are granular and in the preferences menu -- old fashioned style. I pair that with NoScript and disallow scripts generally, allowing them only temporarily as needed on a particular webpage. You quickly learn which ones are needed and which ones are not.

Lately some sites have been making it difficult to use, (Cloudflare, for one) but I have workarounds for that, or just avoid those sites in general.
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Project Logs / Re: Electronic Leadscrew for the New Lathe
« Last post by vtsteam on February 24, 2026, 06:48:51 PM »
Quote from: beeshed on February 24, 2026, 04:12:49 PM
Congratulations - had to go back a few years to catch up. Are you still using Forth? Must be the last person to use it. Look up Jupiter Ace from 1981 - the only computer made with Forth rather than Basic as its native language.

Hi beeshed, thanks kindly!  :beer:

Yup still using FORTH. For me it's particularly well suited as a control language in an embedded system -- which is how it started out, controlling radio telescopes. Invented by Charles Moore. As far as I know, I'm not the only one still using it:

https://www.forth.com/resources/forth-apps/

But if I am, I'm glad to be keeping it alive!  :lol:

My mind just works that way for programming. I like the fact that FORTH let's you make up your own language, and I like the fact that it is very compact and very fast (necessary for this application), and I like the fact that it is both an interpreter and compiler, making debugging and trying changes super easy. And I like the fact that you can write in assembler in it if you really need fast and compact operations.

I wouldn't want to write a word processor in it, or a video editor, but for control programs, I can't think of anything that I'd rather use. Arduino's native Wiring language, was hundreds of times slower -- in fact impractical for this usage.

Viva FORTH!
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Project Logs / Re: Electronic Leadscrew for the New Lathe
« Last post by vtsteam on February 24, 2026, 06:33:39 PM »
Well Art, sounds interesting -- I hope you'll keep us posted on those projects!  :beer:
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Project Logs / Re: Electronic Leadscrew for the New Lathe
« Last post by beeshed on February 24, 2026, 04:12:49 PM »
Congratulations - had to go back a few years to catch up. Are you still using Forth? Must be the last person to use it. Look up Jupiter Ace from 1981 - the only computer made with Forth rather than Basic as its native language.
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Software Tools / Re: Experiences, thoughts and rants about using Linux as a newbie after Windows
« Last post by sorveltaja on February 24, 2026, 02:15:25 PM »
So I replaced Mint Mate with Debian: https://cdimage.debian.org/debian-cd/current/amd64/iso-cd/debian-13.3.0-amd64-netinst.iso

It really doesn't appear to be that different from server-based one, that I tried earlier; about the same amount of basic apps installed out of the box. 

What comes to appimages, although they include all dependency files, they may not work, if required version of fuse-related components aren't already installed.

On the other hand, another form of portable apps is to use either zipped or tarball (.tar.bz2) versions, if available. They don't seem to require mounting, or any extra system components to be installed, to be able to work.

An example in this case is Waterfox: https://cdn.waterfox.com/waterfox/releases/6.6.8/Linux_x86_64/waterfox-6.6.8.tar.bz2

To use it, first that file needs to be extracted. In file manager --> right-click --> extract here. Resulting folder is 'waterfox'.
In that folder is a file 'waterfox-bin', which is the actual executable. If it doesn't launch by double clicking, make sure that it has permission to do so, by right-clicking it --> permissions --> Allow executing file as program.

Another example is Mercury browser. which is a fork of Firefox: https://github.com/Alex313031/Mercury/releases

I've used it as a secondary web browser since I started using Linux almost a year ago. It has never required anything extra system components to be installed either; it just works. Unfortunately it's bit outdated, but nevertheless, it has worked well for me.
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Project Logs / Re: Electronic Leadscrew for the New Lathe
« Last post by Country Bubba on February 24, 2026, 06:56:08 AM »
On the top of the list is to make an electric coil winder. I want to make several coils for another project down the road and it will need several cols of possibly hundreds of turns and produce reasonably consistent magnetic results. That project will possibly require other nano projects to be determined as I go along. 
As another hobby is 3D printing, it allows me to go off into the weeds of possibilities and who knows where I will end up? :doh: :Doh:
Anything to keep my mind active as the body can't do what we used to 40-50 years ago.

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Member Videos / Re: My week this week, my workshop videos!
« Last post by hermetic on February 23, 2026, 11:31:48 AM »
Hi Folks,

I have finished my annual hibernation and ventured back to the windswept wastes of Langtoft! Two little jobs, and back on the D type replica, workshop is lovely warm and tidy, so unless it snows, and as we come to the end of February thatis less likely, I will be posting videos again, weekly if I can get enough together, Hope you enjoy this weeks bag!
Phil, in cold windy East Yorkshire!
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Project Logs / Re: Electronic Leadscrew for the New Lathe
« Last post by vtsteam on February 23, 2026, 09:55:05 AM »
Thanks Art! :beer:

What kind of projects do you have in mind?
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Project Logs / Re: Electronic Leadscrew for the New Lathe
« Last post by Country Bubba on February 23, 2026, 06:22:34 AM »
Thank you for this information. I have not heard that before and have some projects coming up using the nano.  Will have to keep this in mind! 
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Project Logs / Re: Electronic Leadscrew for the New Lathe
« Last post by vtsteam on February 22, 2026, 08:13:24 PM »
Discovered a little problem today with the Arduino Nano. One of the switches that set the thread pitch wasn't actually working. The six switches I have are labeled A through F. The F switch was the problematic one. I hadn't noticed this earlier since it is mainly used for the last threads in my lookup table -- the coarsest metric threads, and I hadn't tested those yet.

The way things are supposed to work -- pushing any switch to "on" basically grounds it's connected pin in the Arduino. Specifically, my switch F grounds pin D13 on the little computer. But my program wasn't seeing that happening when I flipped the switch.

After doing some electrical testing and not finding anything wrong with the wiring, or the switch, I searched the web for "Pin D13", and sure enough, there were several user issues about a Nano's pin D13 as problematic for input!  Apparently, this a known  issue.  :bang:

The reason, it turns out, is that on the nano this pin is attached to a resistor in series with a LED that is connected to ground. The function of that LED is so people can program these boards to run simple programs that flash it as a demonstration -- in fact the most basic program almost everyone starts with when they get one of these boards is called "Blinky" and it blinks that LED.

To do this the Blinky program converts Pin D13 into an output pin. This pin can either be programmed as an input or an output type. I am using it as an input. Unfortunately, the connection to a resistor and LED and then to ground makes it unresponsive as an input, though supposedly you can add a pullup resistor to +5V and get it to work that way. Recommended is a fairly small resistor since the LED is sinking a lot of current (relatively). But no actual value is given.

I tried a 10K and when that din't work, a 4.7K pullup but nothing changed. Finally I got mad at this road blocking #&%! circuitry and applied my soldering iron to the LED's series resistor -- a tiny surface mount speck, and just flicked it off of the board!   :zap:

SUCCESS! Testing again, switch F now works, and I can select all of the metric pitches that I've programmed in.  :thumbup:
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