Blog updates

_posts/2015-06-01-debugging-the-ibm-vga-rom.md

@@ -1,4 +1,9 @@
-Debugging the IBM VGA ROM
+---
+layout: post
+title:  Debugging the IBM VGA ROM
+date:   2015-06-01 11:00:00
+categories: video
+permalink: /blog/2015/06/01/
 ---
 
 The IBM VGA ("Video Graphics Array") standard was introduced as part of the IBM PS/2 line of computers;

_posts/2015-06-05-the-strange-case-of-the-ega-graphics-scroll-bug.md

@@ -1,4 +1,9 @@
-The Strange Case of the EGA Graphics Scroll Bug 
+---
+layout: post
+title:  The Strange Case of the EGA Graphics Scroll Bug
+date:   2015-06-05 11:00:00
+categories: video
+permalink: /blog/2015/06/05/
 ---
 
 I was playing with different video modes using this [IBM PC AT w/EGA](/devices/pc/machine/5170/ega/640kb/rev1/),

_posts/2015-07-17-windows-95.md

@@ -1,4 +1,9 @@
-Windows 95
+---
+layout: post
+title:  Windows 95
+date:   2015-07-17 11:00:00
+categories: windows-95
+permalink: /blog/2015/07/17/
 ---
 
 This week (July 14, 2015) was the 20th anniversary of Windows 95 RTM ("Release To Manufacturing").  So I decided to

_posts/2015-09-21-windows-95-in-your-web-browser.md

@@ -1,4 +1,13 @@
-Windows 95 In Your Web Browser
+---
+layout: post
+title:  Windows 95 In Your Web Browser
+date:   2015-09-21 11:00:00
+categories: windows-95 80386
+permalink: /blog/2015/09/21/
+machines:
+  - type: pc-dbg
+    id: deskpro386
+    config: /devices/pc/machine/compaq/deskpro386/vga/4096kb/machine.xml
 ---
 
 Today, the last serious bug preventing a successful boot of Windows 95 was fixed.  I won't bore you with
@@ -21,7 +30,7 @@ to be resolved, but booting has been achieved.
 
 The adventure continues.
 
-[Embedded DeskPro 386](/devices/pc/machine/compaq/deskpro386/vga/4096kb/machine.xml "PCjs:deskpro386")
+{% include machine.html id="deskpro386" %}
 
 *[@jeffpar](http://twitter.com/jeffpar)*  
 *September 21, 2015*

_posts/2015-10-27-windows-95-and-early-80386-cpus.md

@@ -1,4 +1,9 @@
-Windows 95 and Early 80386 CPUs
+---
+layout: post
+title:  Windows 95 and Early 80386 CPUs
+date:   2015-10-27 11:00:00
+categories: windows-95 80386
+permalink: /blog/2015/10/27/
 ---
 
 Every time Windows 95 starts up, its real-mode loader performs the following CPU identification test:

_posts/2015-12-07-welcome-to-jekyll.markdown

@@ -1,25 +0,0 @@
----
-layout: post
-title:  "Welcome to Jekyll!"
-date:   2015-12-07 13:10:41
-categories: jekyll update
----
-You’ll find this post in your `_posts` directory. Go ahead and edit it and re-build the site to see your changes. You can rebuild the site in many different ways, but the most common way is to run `jekyll serve --watch`, which launches a web server and auto-regenerates your site when a file is updated.
-
-To add new posts, simply add a file in the `_posts` directory that follows the convention `YYYY-MM-DD-name-of-post.ext` and includes the necessary front matter. Take a look at the source for this post to get an idea about how it works.
-
-Jekyll also offers powerful support for code snippets:
-
-{% highlight ruby %}
-def print_hi(name)
-  puts "Hi, #{name}"
-end
-print_hi('Tom')
-#=> prints 'Hi, Tom' to STDOUT.
-{% endhighlight %}
-
-Check out the [Jekyll docs][jekyll] for more info on how to get the most out of Jekyll. File all bugs/feature requests at [Jekyll’s GitHub repo][jekyll-gh]. If you have questions, you can ask them on [Jekyll’s dedicated Help repository][jekyll-help].
-
-[jekyll]:      http://jekyllrb.com
-[jekyll-gh]:   https://github.com/jekyll/jekyll
-[jekyll-help]: https://github.com/jekyll/jekyll-help

_posts/2015-12-10-rebuilding-the-pcjs-website.md

@@ -0,0 +1,76 @@
+---
+layout: post
+title:  Rebuilding the PCjs Website
+date:   2015-12-10 11:03:00
+categories: blog
+---
+
+It's been nice using Node.js to power the PCjs website, using Amazon's Elastic Beanstalk service, but that combination
+has also been a source of some frustrations:
+
+* When someone posts an article or a tweet linking to a PCjs page, the website bogs down, and while Amazon's Elastic
+Beanstalk service makes it easy to automatically scale up, each new instance automatically multiplies my expenses as well,
+which hover around $34/month for a single instance.  With assorted S3 and transfer charges, my average monthly bill is
+over $55/month.  That's a bit much for a site that generates zero revenue.
+
+* Once or twice a year, when I'm attempting to either update the server or upgrade my Node configuration, the update
+or upgrade will fail, and Amazon's web console provides virtually no details about why it failed.  Iget an error message
+like "**ERROR: Failed to deploy application**" and that is it.  Literally.
+
+Granted, there are some "simple" things I could do to improve performance, like adding an **nginx** proxy server to
+the configuration, but that feels like a band-aid solution, and as a software developer, the time spent fiddling with
+web server issues is time I'd much rather spend writing code.
+
+Since PCjs is designed to do all its work in the user's web browser, and since the website can be completely built out
+as a set of static web pages, I've decided to stop using Node to power www.pcjs.org.  I'm in the process of migrating
+the website to [GitHub Pages](https://pages.github.com/), and using [Jekyll](https://help.github.com/articles/using-jekyll-with-pages/)
+to convert all my existing Markdown files to static HTML pages.
+
+This new approach is *very* similar to what the PCjs custom Node modules did: every time time someone visited a folder
+on the website that did not yet contain an "index.html", the PCjs Node server would create one, either by converting the
+README.md file in that folder to HTML or generating a default HTML document.  The PCjs Markdown-to-HTML converter also
+contained some special logic that made it easy to embed PCjs machines on a page.
+
+Thanks to GitHub Pages, all of that now happens ahead of time: whenever I update the PCjs "gh-pages" branch on GitHub,
+Jekyll automatically runs through the entire site and rebuilds a complete set of web pages.
+
+The Node web server would automatically embed PCjs machines on web pages by looking for special Markdown links, such as;
+
+	[Embedded IBM PC](machine.xml "PCjs:ibm5150")
+
+After migrating to GitHub Pages and Jekyll, that markup must now be written as:
+
+{% raw %}
+	{% include machine.html id="ibm5150" %}
+{% endraw %}
+
+and the following "Front Matter" (YAML) must appear at the top of the Markdown file:
+
+	---
+	...
+	machines:
+	  - type: pc
+	    id: ibm5150
+	---
+
+Basically, the YAML at the top of the file lists all the machines that the page intends to use, and then
+{% raw %}`{% include ... %}`{% endraw %} is inserted in the text at the point where a machine should be embedded.
+
+The `machine.html` include accepts only one parameter: the `id` of a machine listed at the top of the file.
+
+The `machines` element at the top of the file must specify a `type` and `id` at a minimum.  `type` must be one of
+the following values, depending on whether you want an IBM PC or Challenger 1P, with or without a debugger:
+
+- pc
+- pc-dbg
+- c1p
+- c1p-dbg
+
+and `id` can be any identifier you want to use to embed the machine.  You may also use `config` to specify a machine XML
+configuration file if not using the default `machine.xml`, `template` to specify an alternate XSL template file if not
+using the default `components.xsl` file, and `state` to specify a JSON-encoded machine state file if the machine
+requires a predefined state.
+
+I will continue to include a Node web server with the PCjs project, but it remains to be seen whether I'll update the
+Node components to parse the new Jekyll "Front Matter" that's been added to all the Markdown files, or whether I'll leave
+leave the Node support as-is on the old "master" branch, and make the "gh-pages" the new default branch.

tests/pc/vga/README.md

@@ -1,3 +1,9 @@
+---
+layout: page
+title: VGA Tests
+permalink: /tests/pc/vga/
+---
+
 VGA Tests
 ---