Jamie and I are going to Alaska this fall and I'm hoping to do some writing while we are there. I imagine it will be a place where some inspiration might occur. I don't want to bring my regular laptop for many reasons, so I plan to bring something else instead.
Earlier this year I decided that I was going to bring something I built for this, and that something was The Beaver (even though I wasn't calling it that at the time). The trip is in August, and it's now mid-June. That leaves me roughly two months to have The Beaver ready.
Based on my current designs, that's not likely to happen.
That's OK, because realizing this deadline this morning, I'm immediately thrust into "what can I do in time" thinking, which for me makes it a lot easier to make decisions.
The first step is to think if there is something that exists that I could take with that would fulfill the role. I can't really think of anything, but the baseline of what I want is the SwyftCard-equipped Apple //e. I can't take the //e to Alaska but what if I could?
Emulation is certainly an option on this compressed timeline. I don't know off-hand what it would take to get an Apple //e emulator to emulate the SwyftCard, but if it hasn't already been done, it seems like something I could figure out.
That takes care of a lot of things but there's still a hardware problem to solve. If emulation is the way I'm going to go, any random piece of hardware could probably fit the bill, but again I don't want to take my laptop, and I'd prefer something more compact.
It's not incomprehensible to consider fabbing a piece of custom hardware using off-the-shelf modules. I even have a suitable keyboard (I think I can make the PLANCK I built for RAIN-PSP for this...). I'm pretty sure that I've seen Apple //e emulators for the ESP-32, so a "slab" consisting of the RAIN-PSP keyboard, a microcontroller running some keyboard firmware, an ESP-32 emulating an Apple //e + SwiftCard and some generic TFT display seems reasonable. Couple it with a regular USB power bank and I could even forgo the charging circuitry...
Another option would be to use my "Game Dad", a handheld Game Boy-like video game device that is used exclusively for emulation. I haven't tried emulating an Apple //e on it yet, but I know it works with a USB keyboard from trying one to program PICO-8 on the device. It might not be as integrated as a custom piece of hardware, but it's definitely closer to working, and might be fun to have along anyway.
If I go *that* route, here's what I need to do before August:
* Find a suitable USB keyboard for use with the SwyftCard
* Find an Apple //e emulator for the Game Dad
* Figure out how to get the //e emulator to emulate the SwyftCard
* Maybe design something to hold the Game Dad and keyboard together in a convenient way
I think that's about it.
Aside from meeting the needs for this particular trip, this would also give me a portable Swyft setup. On the surface this doesn't seem to make much progress toward realizing The Beaver, but it might. It will definitely get me more "yoke time" with Swyft, which will help me know more about what it's limits are and what will need to be expanded for The Beaver. It will also give me two Swyft machines to work with which will give me a stronger reason to get The Public Library working. Finally, this emulation approach could also be used to emulate The Cat, giving me a chance to both gain some experience with that Swyft-like system and also test interop between the SwyftCard and The Cat via The Public Library.
So it's real progress toward the goal as well.
I will have a little time to play this weekend so I might take a swing at that short list above and see how far I can get.
Jason J. Gullickson, 2026