Retro computing
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I wasn't sure I'd find the time to record this week's episode – what with Autodesk University 2020 being in full swing – but I also thought it might be a nice way to wind down after a hectic week. I hope all of you who attended this year's AU found it useful (and even fun!) despite the constraints imposed by it being fully online. I'll post something about how I personally think it went on Monday. Anyway, this week's Floppy Friday starts with a Star Trek graphic and theme tune, and then looks at a number of games found…
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It's Friday, so it's time to dig into a few old floppies for my old new Commodore 64. In this week's episode we take a look at an image on the same floppy as Bubble Bobble – which we saw last week – and then play Artax (and no, this doesn't have anything to do with Atreyu's horse from The NeverEnding Story), Rick Dangerous and Zaxxon. It's Autodesk University next week, so I hope I'll still find time to record one of these to be posted on Friday, but we'll see. Once again, if you enjoy this content, please do…
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With all the stress and anxiety in the world at the moment, it's nice to unwind with an old school video game. In this week's Floppy Friday we take a quick look at a couple of games – Nibbly '92 and Bubble Bobble. I used to play Bubble Bobble back in the day on my ZX Spectrum, but whatever skillz I may have once had have totally disappeared, as you'll see. If you want to check out the previous episode, here it is. I've also created a playlist, in case you want to use you want to use it to…
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As promised at the beginning of the week, I've managed to record the first episode of Floppy Friday, where we sit down with my new old Commodore 64 and try to load whatever's on a random floppy or two. This "show" is going to be very bare-bones in terms of editing and effects (I don't expect it to go viral and so need to limit my time investment) and is very likely to be hit or miss: in this episode we managed to see a loading screen for Hollywood or Bust, a cracked preview of Trailblazer, and completely fail to…
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The situation in Switzerland regarding the pandemic is looking bleak, at the moment (and no, yodelling isn't helping). The number of cases per-capita is currently ahead of the US, and the critical infrastructure in my home canton is starting to get overwhelmed, hence us being put on "red alert". I'm expecting our kids to be sent home any day now, but we'll see what the authorities decide. Anyway, this has definitely been at the forefront of my thinking, of late, when it comes to what we'll end up doing to keep busy during the upcoming confinement. People who follow me…
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Nate Moore discovered something in a desk drawer that we both thought worth posting: if nothing else because we'd love to find out what on Earth it's for. It's a "computer accessory" – these are literally the only words printed in its box – that looks like it fits a computer's parallel port (back when computers had them). The fun thing is that the other side of the plug is sealed! Maybe you're meant to pierce and wire in a cable? Or maybe it's to terminate the port to avoid electrical discharge of some kind? If anyone has any idea…
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This is a slightly anomalous post in the "one man's trash" series, in that we've actually found something I can't bear to part with. This was nearly the case for The Autodesk File 3rd Edition, but I did bring myself to ship that one off to Oregon. Today's item, once again uncovered by Francesco Tonioni, is a boxed version of AutoCAD 2.6. It's probably too heavy and fragile to ship around the world, but if I'm honest that's only part of the reason. It's just too precious! It's the German edition, which for sure was localized from the English version…
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After recent posts about digitizing tablet overlays and a trip down memory lane on AutoCAD rearchitectures, today's giveaway follows this retro theme. Francesco Tonioni discovered a box of digitizing tablet pucks hidden away in a cupboard. I have no idea whether there is anything useful in having these without a tablet itself (presumably the tablet itself is fairly passive, but I'm not clear on exactly how they work) but I'd be more than happy to send any or all to someone who wants them. Drop me an email if they interest you! If you're interested in knowing which connector is…
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Firstly, I'd like to thank the few people who engaged on the last One Man's Trash, which was clearly (but hopefully not too clearly) an April 1st prank. I'd have expected more people to "bite", but then it was posted over the weekend, so perhaps not that many people saw it. Or perhaps it was obviously just for fun, in which case I hope people appreciated it at some level. Anyway, today's giveaway is fo realz, yo. An old friend and colleague in our Localization department, Paul-Henri Arnaud, dug out a number of digitizing tablet overlays dating back to the…
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Happy New Year, everyone! This is my first day back after two full fantastic weeks off. We were up in the Bernese Oberland for the full 16 days and even managed to ski (or – in my case – snowboard) for 13 of them, despite an initial lack of snow. At the beginning of the break the conditions were like this: But thankfully by the end it was more like this: As a bit of an experiment, I've started to use the place where we stay in the mountains as a small-scale test-bed for home automation: as a holiday place…