Day 478

Taped The Masterson Inheritance. Went into town. Listened to decentish R4 play in the afternoon.

Day 477

New Viz today, up to recent standards I suppose. Did some successful C screen-poking experiments.

Day 476

Went to town in the afternoon to the library, got Peter 'Ego' Norton's m/c book.

Ran out of filters, searched, but had to use those cheap'n'nasty Rizla ones.

Lionel Nimrod very funny, especially the Rob. Smith clone joke.

Have done a third of the Great Abstinence today.

Day 475

Cashed my Giro, went into town. Bought the They Might Be Giants video - excellent.

Day 474

Smoked outside in the garden thinking about the Golden Age at uni and looking up at the evening sky.

Day 473

Went into town with Carl to sign on. Went to the library: the sound card chip is one of three YM types.

Improved the 3D maze. A rejection letter from GEC (after 2 months!)

Day 472

Wrote an m/c memory string search which goes through 1 MB in about 15 secs and a 3D maze program (functional with very good perspective).

Libs on 62% in Christchurch, set for 37% swing (still don't fully trust opinion polls despite Newbury).

Day 471

To Lakeside with M. Got the AdLib version of Populous which produced triffic music on my sound card, encouragingly enough.

40 days' abstinence completed so far.

Day 470

More sound card experiments. Went to the library, looked through manufacturers' chip catalogues to no avail.

No jobs in the weekly paper again. Tory scum survived a vote of confidence today, but let's hope it's the beginning of the end.

Day 469

More progress on sound card programming. Parents were away for Carl's graduation ceremony, so went round to their house to look in the loft for the old ZX81 sound card manual. Got distracted by finding The Phoenix and the Carpet, which I read all afternoon and evening.

Day 468

Went into town to the library, looked through chip catalogues to try and identify the sound card one. Carried on experimenting.

Out in the evening with M and J.

Day 467

Went to Southend to look at the sea view - you can see Kent too.

In the afternoon started experimenting with the sound card, writing various values to registers. After tea managed to produce the first sound. I need a good technical AdLib book desperately.

Day 466

Did some reading.

Day 465

Up early, programmed, read. Got my old Your Computers down from the loft for inspiration in the afternoon.

Day 464

Went round to my parents' and mowed the lawn.

Another week of abstinence completed.

Day 463

Be needing a new diary volume soon - been on this one for over a year now.

Day 462

Went to town in the morning to put £15 in the building society. Bought the Maplin catalogue from Smiths.

Day 461

Interesting hints about what could happen if the Government lose the Christchurch by-election in 2 weeks' time.

Day 460

Went out in the evening with M, S and the latter's American mate from the Bronx Angelo.

Day 459

Into town for a haircut. In the afternoon wrote a programme to type out a file on the printer at 196 lines to the page. The print is too small to read comfortably, but would be useful for indexes etc.

Day 458

In the evening washed my hair prior to getting it cut tomorrow - should I go before or after signing on?

Day 457

Repeat of The Masterson Inheritance at ten, a massive improvement on the old Loose Ends schedule hole.

S came round about 4.30pm, had a long talk. She gave me some good jobs advice.

Day 456

Watched the last episode of Eldorado in the evening - final words 'You can't trust anyone these days, can you?'

Day 455

Watched a triffic but depressing film Roger & Me about a General Motors factory closing down in Flint in Michigan.

Weather's gone off rather: cool, grey and windy. Wish I could get some kind of career direction (the vision thing!).

Day 454

Went into town to the Jobcentre and the library. Went round to M's about five to get my null-modem adaptor back.

Day 453

Well, two years since the end of uni, and so two years of unemployment. Maybe 1993-94 will be like the third year there - pulling through with hard work to an unsatisfactory but tolerable conclusion?

Day 452

Got the computer table in place. Three weeks' abstinence today. I feel quite good for it. Carl being back makes things less boring too.

Day 451

It's two years since graduation.

Parents offered me a computer table: realising this would entail rearranging my room, made a plan on graph paper and cut out bits of cardboard for the furniture.

Day 450

Unusually went to town in the morning. Everyone who served me in shops was unusually pleasant.

Round to my parents' in the afternoon to welcome Carl home.

Day 449

Moved my computer back here from my parents' house.

Day 448

Successfully wrote Pascal routines to do double-height, double-width and quadruple characters in graphics mode (8x8 or 8x14). Pretty good. Listened to the 3rd Test - England not doing so badly as last time.

M's talking about doing a computer M.Sc. up north in September.