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Category: Programming

UK National Lottery Results Checker splash screen showing Lotto balls, UK map and features including ticket checking, statistics and export options.

Nearly 30 Years Later… My Lottery Checker Lives Again

One thing that genuinely surprised me is just how portable it’s become.

It now runs on Windows 32-bit, Windows 64-bit, Windows ARM64, under Parallels on Apple Silicon Macs… and even under CrossOver on macOS.

When I started writing it, Apple still made beige Power Macs and “ARM” was something you found attached to your shoulder. The thought of running the same executable on an M4 Mac simply wasn’t a thing.
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Amstrad CPC computer displaying BASIC code for a music compiler, alongside printed code and musical notes, illustrating retro 8-bit sound programming.

Looking Back at a 1992 Amstrad CPC Music Encoder

A look back at a 1992 Locomotive BASIC utility I wrote while converting Money Matters from the BBC B to the Amstrad CPC. What began as a quick and dirty way to encode an arrangement of Fiddler on the Roof into three-channel sound turned into a small music compiler, using note parsing, CPC sound periods, and interrupt-driven playback to keep the menu music running smoothly in the background.

Claymation knight figure walking across a sculpted globe with continents below, representing a world-spanning take on the Knight’s Tour puzzle.

Knights Tour

A nostalgic dive into the classic Knight’s Tour puzzle — solved with Python, animated in ASCII, and backed by smart heuristics. From elegant algorithms to satisfying visualisations, watch logic come to life square by square.