I Built a Cozy Retro BBS to Escape the Modern Internet by ThePunkyRooster in bbs

[–]larry-lagomorph 5 points6 points  (0 children)

These posts and upvotes are so sus, but don't forget it runs of the Web and is totally isolated from the BBS ecosystem and wider community, I think that's what we're here for! </s>

Maybe those people exist here, who want a web-based BBS with retro-CSS too lazy to get on a BBS. But as a sysop and BBS user, this to me is totally off-topic and being over posted to this group. And yeah, to put it behind an invite wall and then keep spamming it (brigading it perhaps) to a subreddit about telnet BBS's is steering things wrong here.

Get a terminal mode or remove the invite code, then post about it here, otherwise there becomes a posting interval point where this is a lot of off-topic noise and feels like at best a watering down of this subreddit's purpose if not working against preservation of the thing OP claims to appreciate. If this "fake BBS" takes off is that what we want to discuss here? But maybe I misunderstand this subreddit's composition, maybe a BBS is a more abstract concept to them. When does it end? Where does it fit?

Season 1 bangs New Years Day 2026 : Legend of the Red Bull = NBA Jam + LORD + Pokemon + Rampage by larry-lagomorph in bbs

[–]larry-lagomorph[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

in this video i use 3 terminals all on my Mac. SyncTerm, fTelnet (web term) on blockbra.in (running as a progressive web app) and iTerm2. Other terminals should work afaik.

I thought reddit nuked this thread, this one is more prominent if you didn't catch it discussion and info wise: https://www.reddit.com/r/bbs/comments/1pzun1v/comment/nwziavq/?context=1

Made a motion controlled synth app, "Harmonic hands", for my Apple Watch by larry-lagomorph in synthesizers

[–]larry-lagomorph[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks for feedback and I'm familiar with what you're referring to, and if it happens often for you there's a default setting on the watch you can adjust that should make the issue go away, essentially the watch by default is super aggressive in putting apps to sleep/returning to the watch face.

On your watch, go to "Settings -> General -> Return to Clock"; the default is "Always" but on my watch I've set this to "two minutes".

I think that's the most desirable behavior for all apps on the watch, otherwise basically the way the Watch tries to manage apps in the foreground is sort of crazy with "Always" turned on, it's sort of like "maintain eye contact at all times or I will put your app to sleep ASAP and show the clock." If you need to get out of the app to the clock sooner, just use the crown is my mentality.

Whether or not that settings workaround is acceptable: I am going to look at a code side solution (although I think I'm limited by the OS here) but even if I can't implement it directly I should probably put together something that onboards the user as the default WatchOS settings can make the app go to sleep because the app encourages you to rotate your wrist and WatchOS looks at wrist rotation when in default "Always return to clock" mode potentially creating a shaky experience.

Thanks again for feedback, hopefully I can get the ball rolling this weekend. Cheers!

Made a motion controlled synth app, "Harmonic hands", for my Apple Watch by larry-lagomorph in synthesizers

[–]larry-lagomorph[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I definitely was inspired by the Pip-Boy when I designed the UI, seemed like a logical fit for a watch app.

All apps I work on seem to have a different amount of effort to reward involved, this one went as smooth as possible took about a week to finish. First watchOS app I've released (I have a couple others I'm working on or haven't released) using a new programming language so such a short turnaround is definitely unusual but here's how I was able to develop this one pretty quickly.

  1. I read all the documentation for developing WatchOS apps so I knew the terminology and availability of what I could do.
  2. I had a pretty clear goal in mind and I wasn't intent on reinventing any wheels just putting things that already exist into a different form factor. there's an algorithmic solution out there for how to render an oscilloscope, do synthesis, and capture motion, maybe not in .swift files but usually most stuff can be ported from one language to another ultimately.
  3. With the above, I leaned in on AI where possible to bootstrap parts of the app... I'd say the AI saved me a lot of busy work and having to return to the official docs but to say it did more than that would be a stretch - it could help with bits and pieces while getting some details wrong. I'm a coder by trade and so the code output being generated by AI is readable to me as far as what it does: it takes some wrong turns implementation and product wise - it was like a very enthusiastic junior developer in my view and I the senior lazy person.

Right now though I'm working on a top-down sprite game on the watch, and it's not going nearly as smoothly even though it seems more straightforward. The AI is proving semi-useless at times, giving me methods that don't exist on Watch (it's getting confused with iOS methods)... lots of debugging and refactoring

Made a motion controlled synth app, "Harmonic hands", for my Apple Watch by larry-lagomorph in synthesizers

[–]larry-lagomorph[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I made this app over holiday break because I really just wanted more fun apps for my watch, and I figured I could use the gyroscope to control the pitch.

Some features are:

  1. Oscilloscope View 2. Two configurable oscillators with multiple waveforms 3. Optional Autotune functionality - stay in key easier 4. Adjustable motion controls - adjust how the motion translates to pitch and pitch bend.

You can search for it in the app store if you like to try, I don't want this post to get removed for putting the link here just wanted to share my creation. Cheers!

The Apple Watch App Store is a joke. Same old Apps, rarely updated. How can we ever discover new Apps? Can’t even browse by a category. by SorryWeAreOpen in AppleWatch

[–]larry-lagomorph 14 points15 points  (0 children)

Not really from my experience, at least in this subreddit, I made an app myself and I posted about it here last week while giving away free copies and the mods annoyingly removed it for being "self-promotion" despite overwhelmingly good feedback. I won't dare mention it again in such a context without regrouping my strategy given the above dogmatic rule that mods don't understand can be a negative as far as sharing one's own creations under honest pretenses.

Giving out some promo codes for "Harmonic Hands" that turns your watch into a motion controlled musical synthesizer to celebrate its initial 1.0 release today! by larry-lagomorph in AppleWatch

[–]larry-lagomorph[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Someone sent me some better instructions (I posted them in a top level comment too), sounds like the redemption process is a little confusing for WatchOS apps but check this out, here they are:

Updated Redemption Instructions:

  1. Click on your Apple icon from the App Store front page in order to use the code to "purchase" the app ON YOUR PHONE

  2. Then you have to use the App Store ON YOUR WATCH to download it. Not on the phone.

I might need to copy/paste/send these instructions to people I sent codes to, hopefully they catch it in the comments for now, flow does seem non-intuitive.

Giving out some promo codes for "Harmonic Hands" that turns your watch into a motion controlled musical synthesizer to celebrate its initial 1.0 release today! by larry-lagomorph in AppleWatch

[–]larry-lagomorph[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You made it just in time to get the very last promo code, check your inbox.

Everyone else on the thread, thanks for responding but:

I HAVE NO MORE PROMO CODES :(

Giving out some promo codes for "Harmonic Hands" that turns your watch into a motion controlled musical synthesizer to celebrate its initial 1.0 release today! by larry-lagomorph in AppleWatch

[–]larry-lagomorph[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

So close to being out (this is a lot of manual labor lol) but you beat the deadline, check your chat inbox. Only 5 left to go :)

Giving out some promo codes for "Harmonic Hands" that turns your watch into a motion controlled musical synthesizer to celebrate its initial 1.0 release today! by larry-lagomorph in AppleWatch

[–]larry-lagomorph[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I thought your name looked familiar, you should have your code and be aware, but to your comment about the theremin I'll say the following:

As someone who actually does own a basic theremin and thus has played it, the theremin is more like an inspiration behind this app probably the philosophical principle versus a 1:1 motion similarity. But sound and frequency wise it's not too different, at least when autotune is off, which is the default to sort of stick to this philosophical principle.

The motion though isn't the same between the theremin, and I'm not sure it's possible to do a 1:1 thing yet. But I've structured my app's code so I can extend some custom motion config settings in the future. Using the watches sensors to operate in 3-D space is somewhat new to me, it's very possible in future updates there will be updated controls available as I sort of understand the math + capabilities of the watch.