It's weird but currently I draw most of my programming satisfaction from using
(and enhancing) App::sqldisplay.
It is a simplistic app that allows me to write and display SQL queries against
a spreadsheet.
I mostly use it to do the accounting for the Perl club. But doing that made
doing the books much more fun actually.
Here I edit a cell in the spreadsheet, and the SQL query in the browser
automatically updates and highlights the changed rows:
Also, I've now started exploring
HTMX
for that, and it works surprisingly well for the use case I have, removing
20+ lines of code in favour of 1 line of configuration and small Perl-side
code changes.
The one thing I don't like about HTMX is that for every component of your page
that you want to update individually, you need to create an HTTP accessible
endpoint. But for push notifications, you can just push the new HTML instead,
which is good enough.
But "even" with this hobby project, I see feature creep, as just today I thought
about exporting the collection of queries as an Excel sheet. And the UI now has
tabs, just like an Excel sheet and I wonder if I should keep an Excel
sheet/spreadsheet for data entry or just (also) write my own editing UI. But
writing an editing UI is makework for little gain. I would
want it to have mostly Excel-like UI, keyboard bindings and autofill.
Revision 2026 - Compo - PC 64K Intro
2nd place, Squidopus Famelica, a very nice story-driven 64K intro:
And third place - what is it with the Amiga balls ?
Descent by Hork
If 64K is too large, the 8K intros pack more music than a 4K intro.
LIA - Aenigma
I like (watching) live shader programming as a form of interactive programming. These showdowns
aren't that great for displaying the craft IMO because there is no interaction with the music. But obviously
the results still are quite impressive. The live shader programming mildly is what 4K PC intros are
nowadays anyway, except that the 4K PC intros are not created in front of a live audience.
This is my quest to using my Google Pixel 9 Pro Android phone as thin client in a docking station, with GrapheneOS build 2026032001, Android 16.
Using the phone as thin client requires an USB-C 3.x connector with "DP alternate mode" or "HDMI mode" to output a display signal
over the USB-C cable. It also requires a higher quality of USB-C cable that connects all the wires. Some cheap (and not-so-cheap) cables don't connect all the pins and thus will not work.
Experience
With the 2026032001 build, you plug the phone into the docking station, select the display mode to extend the screen to the external display, and it just works. The mouse and keyboard input work anyway,
and the phone asks you whether to connect the screen as a secondary display or to mirror the phone screen to the external display.
Display setup
The mouse cursor can now move between the desktop display and the phone display.
You can even arrange the location of the phone relative to the large screen.
Adding an off-brand magnetic cable connector ("Magsafe") still lets the video
work. I prefer this in situations where I expect to disconnect / reconnect the
phone often. This was a "USB4 40 Gbps USB-C Magnetic Adapter" from
Amazon or AliExpress.
As I wiped my old Samsung S10, I can't really compare the experience with
Samsung Dex, but for mild desktop working, using Android Desktop Mode is OK
as long as you have a mouse and keyboard connected. I couldn't find a way
to make the phone screen act as touchpad for the external screen.
Configuring the DPI for your external screen
My display is a small display with a lot of pixels and I suspect it reports some
ridiculous DPI to Android. On my display, the controls, fonts and buttons were
rather large, crowding out the content. You get a slider in the settings that
changes some display parameter. I pulled the slider for the external display
all to the left, which made the display on the external screen mildly less
grotesque. The phone screen remained as-is, so that setting seems to be
per-display.
The display is a 4K display with 11" diagonal, so the controls and fonts
are rather large:
Weird stuff
Home 4K display is supplied at 1920x1080 , but Android displays everything as
if it were a 1280x800 display. This maybe is due to the display being a 4K 11"
display which I use for videoconferencing.
Launching apps on the home display does not work. It works on the display at
work. Maybe this is also due to the ridiculously low resolution / large icons.
Even with the changed DPI settings, I was unable to properly launch an
application via the task bar on the external screen.
Drawbacks
On my Google Pixel 9 Pro, it makes a difference with one USB-C to USB-C cable
whether it is plugged in upside down. I now have to shop Amazon to find a
trusted Known Good USB-C USB-C cable that supports alternate mode. The USB-C
cable that came with my docking station works in both orientations.
I've ordered a bunch of USB-C cables from Amazon and will try them out,
expecting the cheap ones to fail.
I always thought Teenage Engineering were expensive toys, with their (super
shiny) OP-1 and OP-XY , but the EP-40 series seems comparably cheap at € 400.
Of course, I wouldn't do much more with an EP-40 over an OP-1, but at €400
compared to €1200 , the expense is lower. Not buying either is still cheaper
and my rule of not buying a toy unless I have a concrete plan on when I'm going
to use it and what I'm going to do with it is still a money-saving rule.
