26 Jul 2026 · Ned Batchelder's blog
My latest fun project is a BASIC interpreter called Acidica . Classic BASIC is an old-school language first developed in 1964 that saw an explosion of implementations on microcomputers in the ‘70s and ‘80s. It’s much more primitive than the Visual Basic that you might be familiar with. A simple BASIC program: 10 INPUT "What is your name" ; U$ 20 PRINT "Hello " ; U$ 30 INPUT "How many stars do you want" ; N 40 S$ = "" 50 FOR I = 1 TO N 60 S$ = S$ + "*" 70 NEXT I 80 PRINT S$ 90 INPUT "Do you…
14 Jul 2026 · Ned Batchelder's blog
My mother is 86, and she is declining. Things that used to be easy for her now seem completely foreign. She was a programmer, writing software before I could read, so it is very strange to see her like this. She no longer uses a computer. If I mention some photos I found online, she asks if there’s any way she can see them, as if she has never used the internet. This is a new reality for me, but is easier than a year or two ago when she still tried to be constantly online. As things got more c…
18 Jun 2026 · Ned Batchelder's blog
I saw this dodecahedron with an Islamic-inspired pattern designed by Taj Ragoo . As soon as I saw it, I knew I had to make one. I studied the pattern, wrote some Python, and made myself a PDF. I cut it out, folded it, glued it together, and now I have one of my own: I love that this elegantly combines two pure geometric forms: the Platonic dodecahedron (12 uniform pentagons), and an Islamic pattern using five-pointed stars. Looking closely, details emerge: Each face has ten small stars in a ring…
16 Jun 2026 · Ned Batchelder's blog
Perhaps because 64 is a power of two, and a square and a cube, but also for other reasons, it pops up in lots of places. Here are some of the things I’ve associated it with over the years: ¶ Crayola 64-crayon box : as a kid, this box seemed like the ultimate luxury, the Rolls-Royce of crayons. So many colors, and the box had a built-in sharpener. Advanced technology! ¶ A chess board has 64 squares, and is used as the setting for the age-old question about doubling: would you rather have one …