Monthly Archives: March 2013

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BB-61 Iowa Broadsides Shoot

Just in case you’ve never seen such a thing:

http://www.ochog.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/01-uss-iowa-broadside-us-navy.jpg

Unfortunately, the last 4 battleships were decommissioned several years ago. A very good friend of mine was on BB-61 when the turret was blown up. Thankfully, he survived. I think this might still have some deterrent value, even in today’s world.

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Shock Trials CVN-71

For those who might not know, the Navy tried to blow up (or at least break the keel of) our ship.

Yes, you can feel the deck drop out from under you, and yes, this is not a pleasant experience. On the positive side, this is one tough son-of-a-bitch ship. Incoming missiles? No problem. 6500 men, all working towards the same goal.  BTW, can you imagine the feeling as bulkheads are blown out of place, as rivets are snapped when several hundred tons of TNT are exploded 500 ft from your ship?

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/aa/USS_Theodor_Roosevelt_shock_test.jpg

This is the ship that I was stationed on for 4 years, the USS Theodore Roosevelt, CNV-71. This is not a mock-up image or an artist’s concept, but the real thing. Unlike President Wilson from so many years ago, we weren’t “too proud to fight.”

Not sure if other carriers went through this… it’s one hell of an experience.

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Xubuntu 12.10 and SheepShaver

[This will probably be a running post as I figure out how to make things better]

Out of the box, the Non-SDL version of SheepShaver seems to function okay on Xubuntu 12.10 after a couple of changes:

  • Initially, I was receiving failures based on libesd. The first thing I had to do was install libesd0 (sudo apt-get install libesd0).
  • Edit the /etc/sysctl.conf file (as super user) and add vm.mmap_min_addr = 0 to the end of the file; this corrects memory errors when running as non-root account. This change will automatically be loaded everytime the system reboots.
  • To activate the above change in the current session, use the command sudo sysctl -w vm.mmap_min_addr=0. This isn’t carried between reboots so you’ll need to do the first step as well.
  • Since OSS sound (/dev/dsp and /dev/mixer) are no longer used by Ubuntu and its variations, a wrapper must be used to get sound. I installed the alsa-oss package, but found that it didn’t provide proper volume control. However, I then found that there is a wrapper already installed, so if you run the command padsp ./SheepShaver (or whatever your path/command is) you should find that you have complete sound support.
  • In the GUI for SheepShaver configuration, prior to clicking Start, go to the Serial/Network page and enter slirp for the Ethernet interface. While some networking functionality won’t work with this type of connection, for the most part you should be able to use this for web browsing, downloading, etc. After you start the OS, you should be able to go to the Control Panel for TCP/IP and see that DHCP has assigned addresses in the 10.0.2.x range for DNS and IP address. If not, I’d recommend you check the remainder of your configuration as this seems to be automatic on the newest version of SheepShaver running with Xubuntu 12.10.
  • One final hint: Experienced Linux users will often run these types of programs from the Terminal until everything is stable as nearly all programs will report errors, etc., to the command line, even if they don’t necessarily show an error on the X screen. Once you have all errors, faults, whatever corrected, then setup a script that will start the program, including the wrapper for sound.

At this point, I have an operation OS9 machine running in SheepShaver. Those looking for a good tutorial and assistance on setting up the ROM image, disk image, etc., should check out the Redundant Robot site which can be found through any good search engine.

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Permanent pairing of mouse with Xubuntu 12.10

In the event you cannot get Xubuntu 12.10 to pair with your Bluetooth mouse after each reboot, try clicking on the Bluetooth icon in the Panel and then click Devices. Select the mouse you want to pair with each time, right-click and click Trust. This should cause your system to automatically pair with the mouse each time the system boots (or the mouse gets new batteries).