A gamer successfully sued Microsoft for telling him to rebuy his Xbox games after his account was hacked

In 1982, a maths teacher in Birmingham set up a company to make educational software, staffed by his former students. Five years later, one of their games hit #1 in the UK sales chart. This is the odd story of how they got from A to B. New post on Run for Gold: www.superchartisland.com/run-for-gold

Episode 3! Much is discussed. Getting hacked 90s VR GTA6 Physical media Piracy Sexy Wolfmen POE2 Retroid Pocket 6 Cyberpunk 2077 Blasphemous 2 Your sweaty hosts: Rich @escapingirl.bsky.social @therossbell.bsky.social and me!

I was trying to think of a kinder, more diplomatic way of saying this, but basically this. People who refuse to accept that 2006 games are now retro because the era doesn’t feel nostalgic need to examine why the era doesn’t feel nostalgic *to them.*

We really do. My philosophy is that you shouldn't just take game graphics as the sole measure of if something is 'retro'. The vision behind it, the media that supported it, the ads, magazines, the culture, everything around is important too as historical delineations. Its overall 'vibe'.

“In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.” I've always loved the title screen graphic for Beam Software and Melbourne House's 1982 ZX Spectrum adaptation of The Hobbit, drawn by Kent Rees. Evokes the feel of the first edition cover of the novel.

The soccer tournament continues, so for this #RandomGameSaturday I commemorate when the tournament people first paid attention to videogames. FIFA International Soccer for the #Amiga - no DLC, no microtransactions and a sticker price of £9.99 (though that's probably second hand).

If you see this post an archer

Hi everyone it’s #RandomGameSaturday time again. This week it’s my only boxed SNES game Metal Marines. If you’ve never played it I highly recommend buying, borrowing or emulating it & give it a go.

📣 Happy to say that Pre-Orders for Issue 6 are NOW LIVE! 📣 Go reserve your copy now! 👇👇👇 shop.apwot.com

Seen in '98: The members of what would be christened unofficially and overseas as 'Team Silent' and known internally at KCET as Development 7. Naoko Sato, the lady at the front in the ripped blue jeans, cut her teeth doing unit design for one of my favourite Konami games: Vandal Hearts.

We are thrilled to announce @tnmoc! The legendary Colossus has officially been recognised with an IEEE Milestone honour. Brilliant news for UK tech heritage! https://www.tnmoc.org/news-releases #ComputingHistory #Colossus #IEEEMilestone #TNMoC #TechHeritage #UKTech

The first ad for It’s a Superpower?? is now live! This is the first ever sitcom made by & for autistic people - please share far & wide. Search for It’s a Superpower?? on your favourite podcast platform to make sure you’re subscribed & to hear the full-length ad! 📷 @frasergeesin.bsky.social

Museum Notice 📢 Please note that the Centre for Computing History will be closed next Weds 15th and Thurs 16th July. This is due to electrical work being carried out in our main gallery. Thank you for your understanding, these works will mean brand new controlled lighting in our gallery! 💡

How did a developer that started as a war game specialist end up making a game about a cycling race? Why did the game climb to UK #1 months after the real life race finished? And what does all that have to do with the price of milk? New post on Milk Race: www.superchartisland.com/milk-race

40 years ago, ZZAP! published this Mercenary map. It mightn't look like much, but this was the first "proper" map of an actual 3D game world - a 15 x 15 grid that contained buildings, structures, and underground complexes. In 1986, this was astonishing, cutting-edge stuff!

A look at the way some UK software houses tapped into the imagination of Douglas Adams. whereweretheynow.blogspot.com/2026/07/the-...

Played Taboo today boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/1111

✨ We are HIRING! ✨ Events and Development Manager Salary: £32,000-35,000 / Full Time Location: Cambridge For full job spec see here - www.computinghistory.org.uk/news/77276/W... Application Deadline: 9:30am, 27 July 2026

Sony? Pah! Commodore was making a mess of things WAY before Sony was: youtu.be/eyqZbohfQB0

Todays pick for #RandomGameSaturday is - Simcity DS, a decent port of the game with some quirky disaster mechanics thrown in that not everyone liked

ZX History - July 1986: SU interviews Sir Clive in-depth in the aftermath of the Amstrad buyout. New machines were discussed - the LC3 was a scrapped NES-equivalent, but was canned in favour of QL development. Sir Clive appears to regret (1/3)

Normal (for me) service has been resumed, but on a different channel! Expect a mix of repair videos like this and the usual making videos all in one place. Saves you extra clicks.

There's still a soccer tournament going on, so sticking with that theme for #RandomGameSaturday with International Football (or Soccer, depending on where you're from) for #C64. This was the first arcade Association Football game I played that was recognisable as football (i.e. not a Pong variant).

Considering that the UK video games market is worth £8.7 billion, there's a surprising lack of really big consumer shows. Are these kinds of events simply outdated in the post-COVID world of digital showcases, or is there a deeper problem? www.gamesindustry.biz/where-did-al...

And as I remember OPMUK describing Lara once, legs like a supermodel and the lung capacity of a whale. 😅 A prime example of Lara Croft's pop culture ubiquity and the rise of mainstream media acceptance of video games as something they need to keep an eye on too. 📖 The Face, June 1997

Sega's mission: make history easier to play, also publish more Sonic 1 and 2 carts?! Also: Pentium-friendly KolibriOS and an Amiga 1200 upgraded beyond belief. Plus the best real-world locations to simulate in-game, more Commodore Callback chat, and a special 40th birthday! youtu.be/KoFj-4bluaQ

New Video: youtu.be/A7MTtPQvj0Q Brian 'Biscuit' Watson explores 4 decades of his life as a game dev! Special thanks to @mdf200.bsky.social for helping to organise this one!

Is the pace of operating system upgrades increasing? Or are we just too old to conform? (You already know the answer.) Sega and Amiga features plus more operating system discourse, and more, when This Week in Retro 275 arrives Saturday!

Official Evercade Physical Game Sharing Instructional Video

How do Turing's 1936 ideas connect to smartphones? Find out at the TNMOC/@LondonMath Soc Conference! Featuring Prof. Julia Knight on computable structure theory. 📅 16–18 Sept 2026 📍 Bletchley Park Part of #Computable90. Get your 3-day pass now! 🎟️👇 eventbrite.co.uk/e/1837259555789

Show me a cool physical game

Repost with a game which features the developer's names on the box art. This is GFL Championship Football from Gamestar, an Activision subsidiary, another company that started with an 'honour the game developer' ethos.

It’ll likely be a year before I can say anything more detailed, but this week I had a meeting with a studio to pitch a game and it got the green light. I get to make my thing!

Please watch this truly fabulous video featuring Chris Turner as he talks about his time at Acorn Computers. The origins of BBC MICRO I/O memory page names FRED, JIM and SHEILA are also revealed. www.youtube.com/watch?v=itGd...

I was wondering why this meme had "compute" instead of "computer" so I clicked through the layers and eventually traced it to a typo made by popular science fiction author Harry Turtledove

Date yourself with a snap of your first ever compute. This is my family's VIC-20 in 1982, when that Arfon Expansion was fully loaded we were rocking a whole 22.5K available to BASIC! If you look carefully you can see the cassette for my Mum's favourite game, Blitz, in the racks on the wall.

Cool! Can you tell I spent a long time avoiding this place because I thought it was something to do with Sky TV 😀 kojira.github.io/bluesky-lice...

I made memory from scratch and I may have gone a bit overboard. Ok 64 bits overboard… Enjoy the new video! youtu.be/IOtf85sHRlg

Attention retrogamers: Summer is saved! Download the FREE digital edition of my 10-game C64 compilation WOW! THAT'S WHAT I CALL SHOOT'EM UPS (compatible with C64 emulators and consoles): www.patreon.com/ARYngve/post... #c64 #retrogames #retrogaming #games #indiegames #gaming #gamedev #retro

Continuing with the soccer theme my #RandomGameSaturday this week is Track Suit Manager from Goliath Games for the C64. I did not have this back in the day but I picked it up last week when I saw the case also contained a tape of save games and the previous owner's handwritten notes.

"What now lies ahead in the ULTIMA saga can only be pure speculation!" Can Lord British reclaim Ultima? Can Chris tell the difference between reality and sims? Will new IDEs for C64 Ultimate, ST, Amiga, Mac, and DOS uncork new apps and games? Plus Commodore phone takes and more! youtu.be/zEiSTyUyLaI

Synthesized Day 1 is fully underway! So many sounds and cables but amazing to chat with the exhibitors about their synths. From home brews, Cheetah keyboards, LinnDrum, Rolands, and MIDIs plus lots more!! We’re here all weekend so pop down and have a play 🎹🎶

A look at the planned C64 Ultimate Game Engine (a dev system for the enhanced FPGA model of the Commodore 64) prompts the questions: will users accept C64 Ultimate-only titles? And how's that been going for the Spectrum Next (assuming that yours has shipped, that is)? All this and more Saturday!

Join Chris and a whole selection of your favourite video makers on our joint official Discord.

The first Motorsport Manager was a lot of fun, I think I might install it this weekend and win another world championship 😀

It's not a drama post! Just an update on a brand new direction for the More Fun Corporation (not a corporation). The next 12 months will be very interesting!

If you watch one thing today make it this. Absolutely phenomenal debunking of the idea that social media and cell phones are causing a youth mental health crisis, and who that false narrative ultimately serves

What are your LAN memories?

40 years ago, US Gold was peddling this double Epyx Summer Games bundle. Containing both the first and second games, it featured 16 superb events that favored skill over joystick waggling. A truly fabulous collection of Olympic-inspired events that really couldn't be beat.