Brutkey

Nina Kalinina
@nina_kali_nina@tech.lgbt

This profile is not managed by Terraform.

Or, as my "professional" email signature says, "IT expert and mixed media artificer".

A late millennial, yet I grew up with a ZX Spectrum and used an i486 as my main PC well into 00s.

I have a degree in electrical engineering, majored in industrial and microelectronics, but somehow ended up building massively distributed computer systems. SCADA with sensors scattered across hundreds of miles, L7 balancing for millions of users, corporate video call infrastructure, helping to delete ~petabyte of data a day, and until recently keeping the lights on for a major cloud provider. I learned a lot during my long-ish career, and this knowledge makes me sad and keeps me up at night sometimes.

I never post here in a "working adult" capacity, and wouldn't dare to speak for my current or past employers. Instead, I engage in playful shitpost and creative exploration of technologies that have no commercial applications.

Feel free to DM me, I'll try to reply to all!


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Nina Kalinina
@nina_kali_nina@tech.lgbt

Looking for my threads about magnetic tapes, DIY floppies, typewriter-tty conversion?
Or pixelart or hacks or retro screenshots? I got a page with links there:

http://www.ninakalinina.com/links.htm

An electric typewriter connected to a laptop running a logic analyzer software
Nina Kalinina
@nina_kali_nina@tech.lgbt

=Intro thread=
Here’s a few things that I am doing. First: I scavenge electronics, like this Linux SBC from a TV. https://github.com/ninakali/chip_scavenger/blob/main/src/scavenge/008_tv/index.md

A computer board on top of a wooden table. A big metal power source behind it. Lots of wires connect things together
Nina Kalinina
@nina_kali_nina@tech.lgbt

Well, actually, I can't think of a way to do so... Maybe some other time.

Anyhow, I've uploaded the Caleid OS and the SIM3020 to the Internet Archive: https://archive.org/details/caladdin/Screenshot%202026-02-01%20at%2015.16.33.png

Grab a DosBox-X with PC-98 support and try it yourself~

Nina Kalinina
@nina_kali_nina@tech.lgbt

Caleid is a "Mobile Navigator", not a "Business navigator", so it has three built-in games.

The last file in the OS, the 300 KB blob CALEDATA.40, doesn't have any non-compressed bitmaps.

Can we run the OS in the simulator? It is shipped with it, after all. Hmm... Let's try! (cont)

An image extracted from the Caleid ROM. It shows 4 aces of different suits, and text "Congratulations!"
Nina Kalinina
@nina_kali_nina@tech.lgbt

What could be better than a calculator app? Well, of course, two calculator apps! Yes, Caleid has two built-in calculators: one is stand-alone and one is a pop-up calculator. Handy, eh?!

(cont)

A Calculator app, full-sized screenshot from Caleid ROM. Looks like a wide calculator with soft corners A pocket-size calculator with a vertical key layout from the Caleid ROM. It has buttons to copy the results of the calculation
Nina Kalinina
@nina_kali_nina@tech.lgbt

Some more built-in apps in the Caleid OS: "easy sheet" is a spreadsheet program with built-in templates (mortgage, currency converter, GOLF SCORE wtf) and the networking app (computer, electronic mail, FAX).

(cont)

A screenshot of Easy Sheet program showing different categories of spreadsheets, with cute pixel icons. The background is a photo of a paper spreadsheet and a calculator Connections application, showing three sub-categories of connection apps, on top of a heavily dithered photograph of some skyscrapers
Nina Kalinina
@nina_kali_nina@tech.lgbt

CALEDATA.30 stores a different part of the Casio Caleid OS - the applications. It also features the very same images we've seen in our BN-20 BIOS. I'm uploading them here upscaled and colour-corrected.

The "notes" application has lots of different categories of notes: cars, cards, CDs, books, films, and so on.

(cont)

Casio Caleid splash screen, extracted from ROM. Features a megapolis photo with twin towers Casio Caleid "See you again..." screen, extracted from ROM. Features a megapolis photo with twin towers Images of a fax and a vintage-looking PC extracted from the Casio Caleid ROM. A screenshot of "memos" app extracted from the Casio Caleid ROM, showing multiple note categories, from family and diary to cards, CDs, and business trips
Nina Kalinina
@nina_kali_nina@tech.lgbt

What is the most optimal way to make a monthly calendar program? Why, of course pre-render the calendar and store it is a bitmap in the ROM.

How ELSE are you going to use all this massive 2 megabyte ROM?

This operating system is something else.

(cont)

A bitmap of multiple monthly calendars extracted from Casio Caleid ROM
Nina Kalinina
@nina_kali_nina@tech.lgbt

The contrast correction UI is something we've seen already, in both Casio BN and Casio PV, but this list of on-screen keyboards (including handwriting recognition keyboard) is something I personally have not seen before in this product series.

(cont)

A bitmap for image contrast adjustment extracted from Casio Caleid OS ROM and colour-corrected A series of bitmaps extracted from Casio Caleid ROM, showing multiple on-screen keyboard layouts. Some of the bitmaps are not aligned properly
Nina Kalinina
@nina_kali_nina@tech.lgbt

I assumed that Caleid SDK didn't ship the full OS - because the SIM3020 immediately boots into the Add-In program - but it seems I am wrong. CALEDATA.20 file has the launcher, coming with the full-sized bitmaps. So pretty T_T

There are place-holders for the pop-up windows, too. What a curious little operating system.

(cont)

A bitmap image of the launcher for Casio Caleid OS extracted from Caleid ROM Bitmaps for the pop-up windows, as stored in the ROM (sometimes mis-aligned)
Nina Kalinina
@nina_kali_nina@tech.lgbt

Caleid.01 and .02 system files do not seem to feature anything interesting bitmap-wise at all, which is a major difference from how things are done on Casio BN-20 (that one was full of bitmaps). The Caleid SDK doesn't seem to ship with Caleid built-in software, either; there's no memo or spreadsheet in the OS files.

However, Caleid.03 and Caleid.04 system files hint that there is something called "LCD BIOS" and then there is a tool that asks the user to draw a kanji! Could it be that there's hand-written recognition tooling? In <256 KB of code? 🤔🤔

I'm also extremely curious whether Caleid had a kanji font bank. I guess I might find out soon enough.

(cont)

"LCD-BIOS Parameter error" -a monochrome bitmap extracted from the raw data A screenshot extracted from the ROM data. Text in Japanese asks to draw a kanji in the square box, and press "record" when it's done
Nina Kalinina
@nina_kali_nina@tech.lgbt

The sysbin/data folder has multiple files CALEDATA.xx. Files 01-18 are font files. There are 8-pixel wide extended ASCII fonts (including symbols for musical notations - Casio is a musical instrument company!), 8 pixel-wide kanji, 1 pixel-wide kanji and 24 pixel-wide kanji. Some of the fonts are very pretty.

(cont)

A sample of 16-pixel-wide kanji font file, showing two columns of kanji A sample of 24-pixel wide font file, a column of kanji a very densely packed 8 pixel-wide font with kanji
Nina Kalinina
@nina_kali_nina@tech.lgbt

Caleid.01 and .02 system files do not seem to feature anything interesting bitmap-wise at all, which is a major difference from how things are done on Casio BN-20 (that one was full of bitmaps). The Caleid SDK doesn't seem to ship with Caleid built-in software, either; there's no memo or spreadsheet in the OS files.

However, Caleid.03 and Caleid.04 system files hint that there is something called "LCD BIOS" and then there is a tool that asks the user to draw a kanji! Could it be that there's hand-written recognition tooling? In <256 KB of code? 🤔🤔

I'm also extremely curious whether Caleid had a kanji font bank. I guess I might find out soon enough.

(cont)

"LCD-BIOS Parameter error" -a monochrome bitmap extracted from the raw data A screenshot extracted from the ROM data. Text in Japanese asks to draw a kanji in the square box, and press "record" when it's done