In honour of the Spectrum's 44th birthday, please observe a moment of silence. Then five minutes of screeching. Then a loading error. Then rewind the tape and try again. This is the authentic experience.

Pro level laptops and desktops with user upgradable RAM and SSDs.

Look what they’ve done to my beautiful boy.

I’ll never forget listening to The Case of Charles Dexter Ward on my way home on New Year’s Day 2020 in preparation for Whisperer in Darkness. It really gripped me as I sped through the winter gloom. Lost count of the how many times I’ve listened since! Glad they’re back!

We all know it’s cheese.

Sadly, we’ve hit a new low of YouTube ads. Now when I get an advert, now I have an annoying little link for the same advertiser pop up in the bottom left hand corner of the screen that I have to dismiss. Who on Earth, except the bean counters, would think trashing your UI this way is a good idea?

There’s a lot being said about Julian Glover turning 91 today and his body of film and TV work. Rightly so. But he was also on radio, certainly here in the UK. For me, his Hober Mallow in the BBC adaptation of Foundation is the definitive. Not the poundshop Han Solo of the Apple TV adaptation.

What’s the perfect gif for your Bluesky persona?

This. So much this.

Just read the sad news that Commodore engineer Hedley Davis has died. I always remembered his name courtesy of The Deathbed Vigil. The silly “Memorial Disk Drive” summed up what it was like to work in IT in the 80s & 90s. Passionate people who really gave a monkeys about what they were making. RIP

Hello and welcome to my unboxing video

The reboot we may not want, but the one we deserve.

That said, now in a Bone Temple twist, I can’t unsee Hacker as Sir Lord Jimmy Crystal and Bernard as Spike.

Twelve months from now I believe my family and I will have made a fortune and not still be selling stuff from the back of a yellow Regal.

Orange Album cover. Got to give Very some love. Especially the first iteration that I never bought when I had the chance and have regretted ever since. BUT I did love the “further listening” release.

Never understood the Fraser’s group strategy for Game, and by the looks of it neither did anyone else. The one near me closed and was replaced by a sign in a nearby Sports Direct flogging gift cards. To call it a token effort would be overselling it.

Cut my teeth on HP-UX in the 1990s. It ran my first interactive websites. I both loved and loathed it in equal measure. I feel hit right in the feels <insert image of William Shatner here>.

Plugging this new ChinnyVision video that has already caused 3 subscribers to rage quit. youtu.be/MK-JTCye7MY

How did I, of all people, not realise this? That’s tonight’s movie sorted out. And @princecharlescinema.com, I’m going to keep putting it on your movie suggestions chalkboard until you show it!

If you see this, post a record cover with a motor vehicle on it.

The Comcast board are going to be upset when they find out The Adventurer didn’t get a second series.

If you’re looking for something to watch this Halloween, you could do worse than the psychological sci-fi horror Beyond The Black Rainbow. Slow, brooding, psychedelic, beautifully shot, wonderfully scored; it’s the aftermath - when 1960s mind expansion turns bad and becomes far more sinister.

This shouldn’t work with Brian Donlevy as a Quatermass who seems to be on the verge of pulling a machine gun out of a violin case in every scene, but it does.

Absolutely this. Recommendation algorithms turn creativity into a production line; an algorithm doesn’t have quality control or worry about burn-out. It exists only to recommend material to push more advertising. A recommendation algorithm is middling servant and a terrible master!

Bet the 2026 Xmas special will start with Billie Piper walking up and walking into the console room. We’ll see Tennant turn round, towel in hand from just having a shower and say “Morning”, then we’re into the credits, forgetting that anything after the 2005 Christmas special ever happened…

They think that’s Michael Elphick? MICHEL ELPHICK?

September 30th / October 1st

"James Bond will return in 'In Her Majesty's Secret Tea Set' oh no hold on that's not it 'On His Majesty's Flying Carpet', oh hold on that's not right either. Who writes these titles?"

Vardy’s on fire. Defence? Terrified.

A new episode of World of Telly is available now wherever you get your podcasts. This week we travel back to 1960 as we explore The Strange World of Gurney Slade. The video version of this podcast will be released later this weekend.

Any list without The Adventurer on it should not be taken seriously.

As an exercise in nostalgia for Gen-X with spare cash? Fair enough & good luck! After the comments re:New Commodore reintroducing Amiga as a viable mainstream alternative, this demonstrates clearly the uphill battle that a modern Amiga would have gaining critical mass in today’s computing landscape

I’m looking forwards to mine. My phone is full of videos of my cat, including our magnum opus: him running up and down the garden like a lunatic after butterflies (spoiler, they fly too high and he never catches them). Just a matter of time before I get the call, isn’t it?

Running AfG on Gopher for the last week has been quite a surprise. Slowly getting the articles we already have ready migrated over there. Must say I find exploring Gopher space to be quite lovely; the lo-fi-ness of that world is a respite from the web as we have today.

Literally lived off these a few years ago when I was working abroad. No, I will not be taking questions.

No. You spent your holiday building a Gopher server (at last) and converting articles to a readable format so you can put something live before the end of August.

Run program: Sentionauts, from Beyond The Black Rainbow.

My first laptop, a TI Extensa 600CD, expected me to write 28 floppies on first boot to create reinstall media. A TI Extensa 600 *CD*. Yes, it had a built in CD drive - a major selling point. Why TI didn’t put a Win 95CD in the box like everyone else, I don’t know. Yeah I do. Cost. It’s always cost

Two movies nobody would believe are by the same director:

I was going to do something with Powder as I found a CD of theirs recently. Had forgotten they existed and only twigged today the band’s name was probably an “edgy” 90s drug reference. Went completely over my head as at the time I assumed it was to do with washing powder. Can’t diminish it further.

Leatherette. Brett Anderson and Mat Osman, please forgive me.

Seeing odd responses to the Commodore news. Thing is, it was a forward looking company. That's why people loved it. You just need to look at Jack Tramiel's history to know why he said he lived in the future. Definitely love your Amiga, VIC20 or C64; but Commodore itself was never about nostalgia.

Excellent point! “Wasn’t it wonderful when we were kids and all you had to worry about was eating crisps and playing your Commodore 64?” Well no. I had a bedtime. I couldn’t afford games. We didn’t have a VCR or CD. I love retro, but hate when it becomes a fetishisation of a past that never was.

“I had to go to the cellar to find it” “That’s the PR dept.” “With a torch” “The lights had probably gone” “So had the stairs” “But you found the press release?” “Yes, it was in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying ‘Beware of the Leopard!”

Oh, there is a press release. Just not in Commodore’s website? That’s odd.

I’m seeing posts in Reddit that Commodore has changed hands. I can’t confirm because it looks like the announcement is paywalled.

Would it be cynical to think that someone starts announcing new products when there is money for trademarks apparently sloshing around?

I’m surprised at how many people I know are using ChatGPT for information discovery because “it’s easy” and aren’t really bothered on accuracy, as long as it sounds plausible. “Sir Clive made the C64+3 in 1981 you say? Close enough. Publish!”

It was inevitable wasn’t it? How depressingly familiar. And they’ve not even bought the trademarks yet. commodore.inc/press-releas...

After all the Irn Bru talk yesterday, I was drawn like a moth to the flame yet again…