Boxing Day

Christmas present from Russell chocolate sardines!

Dylan and Oscar liked their remote-control mini cars.

snow

It snowed today at 2pm.

Halloween

  

Planted daffodil bulbs.

Saundersfoot break

Just got back from a break in Saundersfoot.

Nice weather and trips to Narberth,St Davids, Solva,Tenby,Manorbier,Carms,Llandeilo,  Harverford West & Garnant.

Sad news!

So sad to hear that Uncle Evan Davies has died.

shopping

Went to Bath for some shopping. It looked better than last time, more shops old part of town done up a bit. I bought a fountain pen £4, it didn't unscrew, so went to Cribbs causeway and exchanged it. Alls  OK now!

pictures of old mountain road to Ammanford

Jade's 20th birthday lunch

Went to Cosomos trough restaurant down the bay for lunch with Jade and others.

Cardiff Bay

Very busy, food and wasps.

As we were going home Jade sent a text saying my mum ,Bethan and Colin & Fay were in a coffee shop. Had an apple juice with them. Noticed Connie Fisher and her boyfriend on the next table.

Eric's 70th Birthday

Went to the Angel at Salem near Llandeilo for Sunday Lunch birthday

Eric & Anita, Robert & Louise, and Lyndon & Susan.

Pesto

Made some pesto. Eric grew several basil pots in his greenhouse, from BBC free seeds.Basil,garlic, pine nuts,almonds,virgin olive oil and parmesan cheese.

Pea harvest Abergavenny

The weather has turned more chilly, with dark sky and quite windy. Today we went to Abergavenny to pick peas, broad beans, red currants and raspberries.

Kitchen sink

Eric and Chris put in a new kitchen sink, also boxed off the boiler pipes.

PYO strawberry fileds

Went to Hendrewennol fruit garden near Welsh St. Donats. The strawberries were a bit small, but there were lots of them. I think the very hot weather needs to break and a pour down to happen to fatten them up. England lost to Germany at football world cup 4-1. Sad that Wales lost 29-10 to New Zealand played in NZ.

Real-time clock program

Downloaded DJGPP 32bit C compiler GNU, used RHIDE old fashioned text mode IDE to update a program to show an on screen clock. It pokes the time into direct screen memory, keeping it simple, so it doesn't conflict with system stuff.

Nice hot Saturday!

//Simple Example of chaining interrupt handlers

//Adopted from Matthew Mastracci's code
//Lyndon Smith added poking screen memory with clock time

#include
#include
#include
#include
#include
#include

//macros by Shawn Hargreaves from the Allegro library for locking
//functions and variables.
#define LOCK_VARIABLE(x) _go32_dpmi_lock_data((void *)&x,(long)sizeof(x));
#define LOCK_FUNCTION(x) _go32_dpmi_lock_code(x,(long)sizeof(x));

//timer interrupt 8 is generated every 18.2 ms
#define TIMER 8
#define NORMAL 7
#define CLOCKOFFSET (80*3)+52

//global counter
int counter = 0;
int hour=0,minute=0,second =0,tens=0,units=0;
int CLOCKATTR=3,showclock=1;

char *daiclock = "lyndon smith testing clock interrupt";


//the new ISR, will be called automatically every 18.2 ms once installed


void TickHandler(void)
{
counter++;
if(counter==18)
{
counter=0;
if(showclock==1)
{
second++;
if(second==60) {minute++;second=0;}
tens=second/10;
units=second-(tens*10);
_farpokeb(_dos_ds, 0xB800*16+12+CLOCKOFFSET,'0'+tens);
_farpokeb(_dos_ds, 0xB800*16+12+CLOCKOFFSET+1,CLOCKATTR);
_farpokeb(_dos_ds, 0xB800*16+14+CLOCKOFFSET,'0'+units);
_farpokeb(_dos_ds, 0xB800*16+14+CLOCKOFFSET+1,CLOCKATTR);
_farpokeb(_dos_ds, 0xB800*16+10+CLOCKOFFSET,':');
_farpokeb(_dos_ds, 0xB800*16+10+CLOCKOFFSET+1,CLOCKATTR);
if(minute==60) {hour++;minute=0;}
tens=minute/10;
units=minute-(tens*10);
_farpokeb(_dos_ds, 0xB800*16+6+CLOCKOFFSET,'0'+tens);
_farpokeb(_dos_ds, 0xB800*16+6+CLOCKOFFSET+1,CLOCKATTR);
_farpokeb(_dos_ds, 0xB800*16+8+CLOCKOFFSET,'0'+units);
_farpokeb(_dos_ds, 0xB800*16+8+CLOCKOFFSET+1,CLOCKATTR);
_farpokeb(_dos_ds, 0xB800*16+4+CLOCKOFFSET,':');
_farpokeb(_dos_ds, 0xB800*16+4+CLOCKOFFSET+1,CLOCKATTR);
if(hour==99) hour=0;
tens=hour/10;
units=hour-(tens*10);
_farpokeb(_dos_ds, 0xB800*16+0+CLOCKOFFSET,'0'+tens);
_farpokeb(_dos_ds, 0xB800*16+0+CLOCKOFFSET+1,CLOCKATTR);
_farpokeb(_dos_ds, 0xB800*16+2+CLOCKOFFSET,'0'+units);
_farpokeb(_dos_ds, 0xB800*16+2+CLOCKOFFSET+1,CLOCKATTR);
}
}
}

void junk(void)
{
}


int main(void)
{
//structures to hold selector:offset info for the ISRs
_go32_dpmi_seginfo OldISR, NewISR;
int i,j,limit;

//lock the functions and variables
LOCK_FUNCTION(TickHandler);
LOCK_VARIABLE(counter);
LOCK_VARIABLE(second);
LOCK_VARIABLE(minute);
LOCK_VARIABLE(hour);
LOCK_VARIABLE(tens);
LOCK_VARIABLE(units);
LOCK_VARIABLE(CLOCKATTR);
LOCK_VARIABLE(showclock);

//load the address of the old timer ISR into the OldISR structure
_go32_dpmi_get_protected_mode_interrupt_vector(TIMER, &OldISR);

//point NewISR to the proper selector:offset for handler
//function
NewISR.pm_offset = (int)TickHandler;
NewISR.pm_selector = _go32_my_cs();

//chain the new ISR onto the old one so that first the old
//timer ISR
//will be called, then the new timer ISR
_go32_dpmi_chain_protected_mode_interrupt_vector(TIMER,&NewISR);

//notice no changes to counter in this loop- the interrupt changes it
clrscr();
gotoxy(13,7);printf("Lyndon's interrupt clock routine for DJGPP 32bit C");
i=9;
srand(time(0));
while (!kbhit())
{
i++;
if (i>20) i=9;
gotoxy(10,i);limit=1+rand() % 60;
for(j=0;j }

printf("Removing new ISR from the timer ISR chain\n");

//load the old timer ISR back without the new ISR chained on
_go32_dpmi_set_protected_mode_interrupt_vector(TIMER,&OldISR);

return 0;
}

HMS Scott docked

Visited Cardiff Bay, went to see HMS Scott. A very big ship,you could go on board and have a look around,if you wanted to climb up the many high gang way stairs. Kids could man the machine guns, you could hear the clicking from below.

Linux

I was asked to set up Windows XP on a DELL Latitude E5500 laptop ,after a user cleared their data off it.But the laptop kept freezing up, so I installed Xubuntu. It worked very well, Wifi and sound configured straight away! Played DVD and audio CD's OK.

Seaside

Another trip to the seaside. Had fish and chips, they taste better by the sea. Porthcawl was roasting hot. 

Susan wore her favourite sandals.

Heat Wave

Due to the hot weather we have been having home made pizzas. Cardiff City FC have the chance to get promoted to the Premier League! Cardiff Rugby in final of Amlin Cup. Pruned one tree in bottom right of garden. Chopped up into little bits and binned, don't want to mess up our rendering.

Completed second coat

Predicted heatwave this week says Lyn, will help dry out our newly painted render. I had a one day  holiday today. Took my laptop to Costas at Leckwith their coffee machine was being serviced and could only have tea,nice and quiet though had choice of all leather seats. Later went to both Coffee #1 in Roath. Theresa and her 2 sisters turned up @ Coffee shop, then bumped into Derek (night worker) who gave me his sick note (knee).

 

Coat 1

Our rendering was painted in "oatmeal" with oil base for extra long lasting cleanliness.

Rendering Cleaned

Look at the two pictures. One is render covered with green from trees, the other after a good clean from Lyn Price of Brynamman.

Mumbles

Went to Swansea Costa coffee shop, then popped down to the Mumbles. The weather was quite chilly, with a slight hint of rain. My raspberries and ice-cream was lush.

Re-install windows XP on laptop

Had a nasty malware problem on my Asus S6 laptop. After several RootKit and malware scanners failed to find anything wrong, the obvious Google redirection of searches, was too annoying. Security being a concern as I like to ebuy sometimes.

Luckily Asus have 2 recovery CDs and one Driver/Utilities CD which includes wireless setup.

Now I have a clean Windows XP system, just have to be patient re-installing all my favourite software. Thank goodness I've got backup DVDs.

Sunday shopping

It was raining, so we decided to go to Clifton /Bristol for some shopping yippee!

Susan enjoyed the White Stuff shop, as Cardiff shop is shut for refurbishment.

I liked the Costa coffee.

Combi-boiler

New combi-boiler installed by Huw and helper and Eric.

It only took them one day!

Porthcawl

 

Went to Porthcawl, after Coffee 1 @ Albany Rd

Walked along the beach.

Sunny weather all day long.

Funeral and Cake

Carol's mum funeral at Coychurch Crem.

I baked a cake.

Sunday

Susan's parents visited. We all went to Manor Way Toby Carvery.

Eric did some finishing touches to our bathroom. Fitting toilet roll holder and mirror cabinet and door stopper.Susan started to cut the grass.

Huw is coming next week to fix the combi boiler, more efficient and more power to shower.

New bathroom refurbishment

New shower/bathroom completed!.

Bathroom

Eric and Anita came to our house.

Susan and her mum went out for a walk around Cefn Onn park, then shopping and lunched at the Harvetser.

Eric ripped out all the tiles in our bathroom, including our bath and sink.

Digital Re-tune Wales

Retuned TV freeview has lost QUEST and Virgin 1 channels.

Cannot watch my favourite oldies Ironside,Monk and Star Trek.......

Job Reference

Christian Kingsley-Chase rang at work , asking for me to be a job reference for him.

I agreed.

Both front main beam bulbs/lights kaput, must fix them and it's raining all day.

Very happy with my new laptop battery, 5 - 7 hours remaining!

Went to Saundersfoot house for painting with Susan

via Cwmcerrig farm shopping.

Upgrade

Ordered 1 gig memory module and 6600 battery for my Asus S6F laptop

They came in the next day post on Saturday!