Giving the Amiga a clean!

So yesterday, I decided to give the Amiga 500 a clean.  I tend to use my A1200 more for general use, so this has been the first time I've fired up the A500 in quite a long time.  Glad the GVP A530 is working fine and the hard drive still contains lots of graphics, music (and very basic 3D renders and objects) I created in the mid-1990s.  Ahhh, the memories.

The case wasn't too yellow, so no need for retrobrite, however, I was able to blow out a considerable amount of dust, dirt, and lint from under the keys and on the motherboard.

Musical Kayleigh

My daughter Kayleigh is really getting into writing music on the keyboard lately, especially now that she is doing music at her new school. Here's a couple of her masterpieces, including a lovely rendition of Harry Potter. She picks it up so quickly!

Techie Post - Nested If in Excel for converting month to a number

This post is more of a reminder for me, but may help someone else in a similar situation.  Every year in August when I need to create the new user accounts for the students starting in September at school, I need the student date of births to be in the format DDMMYY so that my custom powershell script can create the accounts in Active Directory

Sounds simple, but alas our School Information Management System exports the data in a weird format, so I am always having to modify and fix the exported data in excel before I can import the completed csv file.

Most can be accomplished using the excellent left, mid and right formulas, but the date (more specifically, the month) always causes me issues.

So, where I a have a cell where the month is "Jan", or "Feb", I need it to be "01" for Jan, "02" for Feb and so on.

So.... assuming cell F2 is the cell with the month in it, the following nested If formula will do the job

=IF(F2="Jan","01",IF(F2="Feb","02",IF(F2="Mar","03",IF(F2="Apr","04",IF(F2="May","05",IF(F2="Jun","06",IF(F2="Jul","07",IF(F2="Aug","08",IF(F2="Sep","09",IF(F2="Oct","10",IF(F2="Nov","11",IF(F2="Dec","12",))))))))))))

Once I have the month as a number, I can easily combine the 3 numbers making up the day, month and year (ddmmyy) in to a cell for my script to accept.

I'm sure there's a better way of doing it, but hey ho...  This does the job for now.

Game Covers - Crazy Comets (Commodore 64)

The Universe is out of control, contracting into chaos.  Matter becomes energy in a cataclysmic chain reaction of the disorder.  Comets of fire cascade through the heavens - messengers of imminent doom.

Your mission: to restore order to the Universe by destroying chaos wherever it appears.

Your chances of survival: NIL.

...  and you thought the Apocalypse was gonna be bad!!!!

Crazy Comets - The Cover

Crazy Comets - The Inlay

Crazy Comets - The Tape

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Game Covers - Knightmare (Commodore 64)

Welcome to the game....

This is the Time to end Time
This is the Time out of Mind
This is the Game out of Time
And the game to blow your Mind!

Knightmare - The Cover

Knightmare - The Inlay

Knightmare - The Tape

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Game Covers - Dan Dare Pilot of the Future (Commodore 64)

One of the most famous comic strip heroes ever comes vividly to life in this superb arcade adventure.

With your faithful companions, you must defeat the Mekon and save the Earth.

"Dan Dare is a super cool game which deserves all the credit it gets!"  COMPUTER & VIDEO GAMES

"Dan Dare deserves an immediate Number One Spot".  PCW

Dan Dare - The Cover

Dan Dare - The Inlay

Dan Dare - The Tape

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