Wednesday, July 5, 2023

Real...ぴゅう太 : A Tomy Tutor Tribute Sticker

I love the Tomy Tutor. I didn't have one as a kid, but I have several now. I was the point-person for a group buy on AtariAge to get a few multicarts sent from Europe. To commemorate this exciting event, I created a custom sticker featuring Sara Purcell the ever-wonderful star spokesperson for the Tomy Tutor. I have several extras. If you are interested in one for your collection, let me know (thomas#r#p#adney[at]gmail.com) get rid of the #). $2.00 each.

Want to learn more about the Tomy Tutor? Check out these links:

Cameron Kaiser's "Little Orphan: Tomy Tutor" https://www.floodgap.com/retrobits/tomy/

AtariAge Tomy Tutor Form (Subset of the TI99/4a forums): https://forums.atariage.com/forum/345-tomy-tutor-cc40-992-998-cortex-990-mini/

Tuesday, July 4, 2023

Don Lancaster

I heard that Don Lancaster passed away on June 7th in Mesa. Strangely, I had been leafing through one of his books a few days before --The TV Typewriter Cookbook--thinking about a long-term project. I was looking for his site and I couldn't remember the URL so the search came back with the news. There have been a fair number of posts about Don Lancaster; all in the last few days. From the comments you begin to understand that hobbyists and enthusiasts loved his cookbooks. These texts opened up CMOS, and TTL, and hardware design to a huge audience of tinkerers and makers. It's easy to see that he was a formative teacher and mentor for a generation of hackers.

Polymaths walk among us resisting the urge to specialize. Don Lancaster's passions included day hikes, blogging, prehistoric desert canal systems, Post Script, and more. I've always found him to be an interesting character and one of the charming desert weirdos that make a home in this harsh landscape.

Check out Don's website