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Childhood Computing
17 hours ago
- The author discovered computers at age 8 in 1992 when transferred to a new school with a computer lab in a small industrial town.
- Access to computers was limited to about two hours per month, using old IBM PC compatibles with monochrome monitors, no hard drives, and floppy disks.
- Logo programming was learned through pen and paper at home, with programs tested on graph paper before running them on actual computers.
- The author's first 'free and open source software' experience was sharing a Logo program that drew a house with animated dashed lines, copied via notebooks.
- Early computer games included Moon Bugs, Space Invaders, Bricks, Grand Prix Circuit, and Digger, which inspired the author to eventually write an Invaders-like game in 2022.
- The author fulfilled a childhood dream by creating 'Andromeda Invaders', a game with auto-play mode, decades after first being inspired by Space Invaders.
- Strong sensory memories persist from the computer lab: buzzing sounds, POST beeps, and a distinctive smell that still triggers vivid recollections.
The Forgotten Kiosk Concept That Physical Media Needs
17 hours ago
- Physical game retail struggles with supporting many platforms and outdated stock, despite disc formats being standardized for decades.
- The UK once had the EDOS (Electronic Distribution of Software) system in the early 1990s, allowing stores to duplicate games on demand across multiple formats (cassette, floppy, CD).
- EDOS was operated by Software on Demand Ltd and supported by over 20 game publishers and retailer John Menzies.
- The system duplicated and verified each copy at the point of sale to reduce returns, but failed financially due to losses of £311k in 1994.
- The concept was ahead of its time and could be revived today with modern storage like dual-layer Blu-ray discs.
C64 Online
4 days ago
- C64online.com is dedicated to preserving and serving Commodore 64 games, SID music, and applications through free online emulation.
- The site offers over 7000 retro games playable in a modern browser without any downloads or installations.
- Future plans include adding software libraries for Commodore 16, Plus/4, VIC-20, and PET.
- C64online.com is an independent, private initiative without organizational funding, inviting user support.
Atari 2600 TV Ads
5 days ago
- The author found a collection of old Atari 2600 TV ads on a Digital Press CD-ROM.
- The videos were in AVI format, didn't work well with QuickTime on Mac but played with VLC, and were converted to mp4 using ffmpeg.
- The ads are described as cheesy, with cringy jingles and low resolution.
- A list of featured Atari 2600 ads is provided, including games like Demon Attack, E.T., Pitfall!, and others.
- Comments from readers recall memories of specific ads, such as the Mario commercial and the difficulty of Demon Attack.
Mister - Recreates classic computers, video game consoles, and arcade machines
8 days ago
- MiSTer FPGA is an open-source project that recreates classic computers, consoles, and arcade machines on modern hardware.
- It enables software and game images to run as on original hardware while supporting peripherals like mice, keyboards, and game controllers.
- The system uses the DE10-Nano FPGA board and outputs to TV/monitor via HDMI, with expandability through add-on boards such as USB hub, SDRAM, and I/O boards.
- The project is actively developed with regular new cores, features, and bug fixes.
- Additional resources include documentation, a Discord server, X/Twitter account, forums, a GitHub Wiki, and a video guide.
The Brick Game, Through the Ages
9 days ago
- The 'talking' Brick Game 118-in-1, from a late 90s or early 2000s church fundraiser, features a menu that scrolls using Level, Speed, Mode, and Rotate buttons rather than directional keys, and Tetris is the primary game, playing Korobeiniki music.
- Inside the classic model, there is a thin PCB with an epoxy blob (chip-on-board) and separate button PCB with rubber contacts, typical of handheld consoles, and a capacitor/transistor for audio filtering.
- Modern Brick Games under $10 have a new design: larger screen, thinner body, single rubber controls, an up button, and a different menu (numbered game types, not lettered), with reimplemented software and perhaps different microcontroller cores.
- The new model combines controls and LCD on one PCB, has a perfectly round glossy epoxy blob, and is dated 2025.10.27, showing ongoing production and improvement.
- Despite cost-cutting (no packaging, worse screen, missing Korobeiniki), the Brick Game persists due to Tetris's enduring appeal and its role as an affordable gaming option for children without other access.
Linux on the Sega 32X. Who needs hardware synchronization primitives anyway?
15 days ago
- The author ports Linux to the Sega 32X as a way to improve board bringup skills, motivated by past experiences with Android 5.0 Lollipop on a MediaTek phone.
- The Sega 32X hardware features two SH2 CPUs and 256KB RAM, requiring creative solutions like using flash cart ROM as RAM and software synchronization for SMP support.
- Challenges include toolchain issues, memory constraints, lack of hardware synchronization primitives, and cache coherency, solved with Peterson's algorithm and 68000 as an interrupt router.
- The project successfully boots Linux with SMP support, a console display driver, and a minimal rootfs, despite performance limitations and extensive debugging.
AI Can't Recreate the Thrust Game (But It Can Help You Understand It)
18 days ago
- The author attempted to use Claude AI to recreate the classic 1986 game Thrust in the browser but found the initial result was 'slop' and not playable, lacking the authentic feel.
- Through a process of 'archaeology,' the author used Claude to interrogate disassembled 6502 assembly code, which helped generate detailed specifications for subsystems like physics and sound, leading to an accurate recreation.
- Key to matching the original game's feel was replicating its specific physics timing, including a gated update cadence (6 active slots per 16-tick window) and asymmetric drag, rather than just using the same constants.
- For authentic sound, the author emulated the BBC's SN76489 sound chip and MOS interface in an AudioWorklet, rather than sampling, ensuring precise timing and envelope shapes.
- Graphics and levels were extracted from the original source, using hard-coded sprites for ship rotation and the original's scanline-parity fill for terrain, while demo mode was replicated via timed keypress injection.
- The author concludes that while AI could not directly recreate Thrust, it was invaluable for deeply understanding the original systems, and the recreation process fostered appreciation for the original developers' achievements.
- The article also mentions the author's separate project: a turn-based 4X strategy game built from scratch with a custom WebGPU engine, eight civilizations, and an AI opponent, playable directly in the browser.
M64 Controller Review
19 days ago
- The M64 controller evokes strong childhood nostalgia, instantly feeling familiar to those who grew up with the N64.
- It features the original trident shape but with enhancements like an aluminum backplate, improving grip and premium feel.
- Key upgrades include a TMR thumbstick for durability, wider Z button, and full-size L/R shoulder buttons for better comfort.
- Offers both wired (with a longer, braided cable) and wireless options (with two battery pack choices).
- Compared to 8BitDo's Analogue 3D, the M64 is sturdier, more nostalgic, and has swappable parts, though it's pricier.
- Priced at $89.99, it's positioned as a premium controller for enthusiasts, with seamless connectivity for M64 and N64 consoles.
Composite Video on the NES: Why's it so wobbly?
23 days ago
- The NES composite video output produces a wobbly or shimmering effect due to its unique internal timing and signal generation.
- Unlike systems like the Apple II or Sega Master System, the NES lacks a separate RGB video encoder; its PPU directly generates composite video without intermediate steps.
- The NES uses a 21.47727 MHz oscillator, leading to 227.33 colorburst cycles per scanline, creating a three-line repeating pattern instead of the typical two-line pattern in other systems.
- Ricoh engineers implemented a 'missing dot' technique, alternating scanline lengths to reduce the three-frame pattern to two, mimicking systems with proper 227.5 cycles per scanline.
- The 'missing dot' effect is disabled when rendering is turned off, as seen in games like Battletoads, which exploit this for faster VRAM access.
Compression in the game Full Quiet
a month ago
- Retrotainment Games' Full Quiet utilizes multiple layers of compression to fit a large open world into a half-megabyte NES cartridge.
- Text compression is achieved using DTE (digram tree encoding), which replaces common 2-character sequences with single-byte references, reducing text data size by 38%.
- Color data is heavily compressed by reducing 24-bit colors to 6-bit, using palettes, and employing subpalettes to cut storage from 696 MB to around 19 MB across three dayparts.
- Graphics are organized into 8x8 pixel tiles, with shared tiles across mapsets and run-length encoding (PB8) further reducing tile data by 30.4% for unique tiles.
- Metatiles (combinations of tiles into larger blocks) and hierarchical compression reduce map data significantly, achieving 0.0278 bits per pixel and fitting the world into 51.4% of the ROM capacity.

Hasty Briefsbeta

retro gaming

Childhood Computing

The Forgotten Kiosk Concept That Physical Media Needs

C64 Online

Atari 2600 TV Ads

Mister - Recreates classic computers, video game consoles, and arcade machines

The Brick Game, Through the Ages

Linux on the Sega 32X. Who needs hardware synchronization primitives anyway?

AI Can't Recreate the Thrust Game (But It Can Help You Understand It)

M64 Controller Review

Composite Video on the NES: Why's it so wobbly?

Compression in the game Full Quiet