What's up seasoned detectives! There's a new Tex Murphy book from Aaron Conners! 'Tex Murphy and the Steakhouse Stakeout: An Interactive Adventure' is a choose your own adventure book with 70 possible outcomes. Get it on Amazon (links in comments). Available as paperback or ebook.

What bothers me the most about ai-generated art is how it reflects the apathy of our current society. Images that are either blatantly wrong or utter nonsense are deemed "ok" for use by a creator -- but then the majority of consumers either don't notice or don't care.

Can't imagine GTA without Vette!, just as I can't imagine anyone could ignore this excellent piece on it: 'Vette!, Silicon Dreams on the Streets of San Francisco'. Read it here ⇢ retro365.blog/2025/04/29/v...

Med Systems published a catalog of four "adventure blobber" games from 1980 to 1982, made outside the regular arc of adventure game history. Recently, I found a fifth game. It is not in any catalog or advertisement. It is a ghost from time that shouldn't exist. bluerenga.blog/2025/11/12/m...

Did you know that from 1991 to 1995, more than 200 demos were featured on national French TV in the show named "Micro Kid's"? Here's an anthology! peertube.fenarinarsa.com/w/24nDZWh5Er... #demoscene

25 years ago, a simple Half-Life mod changed online gaming forever. 💣 Counter-Strike redefined team play, and tactical shooters — and it’s still shaping the scene today. What’s your earliest CS memory? LAN party? 56k modem lag? 📂 https://www.mobygames.com/game/2726/half-life-counter-strike

Interesting assertion in this essay on postjournalism that the switch from an advertiser- to reader-funded model locked the New York Times and other traditional news outlets in ideological filter bubbles that suppress balanced views and amplify extremist ones. andrey4mir.substack.com/p/postjourna...

We preserve games because memory fades faster than media. Every upload keeps history alive. 💾

hey y'all! my questionnaire on player experience in historical videogames is now LIVE! if you play videogames about the past, we want to hear from you! edu.nl/7w3yn

I've officially released my real-mode emulator CPU test suite for the Intel 80386. github.com/singlestepte... #retrocomputing #emulation

One of the advantages of cataloging your software collection is that you can plot distributions like this. Many people are surprised when they see how early my collection skews. Well, I started collecting early, and find+archive stuff that hasn't been archived yet. And that's mostly early titles.

I think folks often forget about the tools #YouTube gives users to maximize their viewing experience. Keyboard shortcuts, speed watching tools, Watch Later... but most users don't know about them. Check out @oldskool.org's new video on how to get the most out of YT! www.youtube.com/watch?v=B1yH...

A somber reminder to not spend 12 hours on a video (2 hours prep, 8 hours recording and editing, 2 hours on thumbnail) when there's no real way to market the content. < 300 views.

I used to watch/research up to 10 hours of video on YouTube every single day -- but I spent less than 10 hours doing it. I just released a video where I document all of my YouTube viewing speedhacks I've figured out over the years: youtu.be/B1yHK_nEKaM

New video in the works. 8 hours of editing (and counting) for a subject I've been wanting to make a video on for a few years now. Protip: Learn Premiere shortcuts. It is much faster to cut/insert/overwrite/ripple/etc with the keyboard. You can go minutes at a time without having to touch the mouse.

Returning to VCF Midwest two years later on LGR! youtu.be/FTKnv4LoAjY And wow has it changed. It feels like an almost entirely different show! 66,000 square feet of vintage computers, retro hardware, software, and old school goodness of all kinds. Here's what the show was like (for me) in 2025!

A huge thank you to @museumjoe.bsky.social and @ronscompvids.bsky.social for having the ShadyTel crew, including myself, on Retro Repair Roundup last night! We spent 2 hrs talking telco and how the phone network comes together at a VCF. What a great time! www.youtube.com/watch?v=jN19...

DOS gamers: What qualifies as an FMV game? 1️⃣ Any FMV shown at any point 2️⃣ interactive FMV choices as primary game mechanic 📊 Show results

MTV is shutting down its music channels across Europe by December 2025 as the network shifts focus to reality TV.

It's #monday ⚡🎵 Demovibes vol. 16 : The Memory of the Shadow (mixtapes from #Amiga & PC demoscene) Demovibes is a collection of mixtapes made with the finest #demoscene #music - Mixed by Willbe💿

You know, for a place that's all about creativity and counter-culture, it's shocking how many people in the demoscene just willingly cave in and defend the use of GenAI, one of the most corporate "tools" that anyone could've ever came up with.

I spent all day helping other people when I needed to help myself. Now it's late at night, and I should be in bed, but I'm so resentful I didn't get to do anything for myself that I'm staying awake out of spite. And knowing I'm going to be utterly wrecked tomorrow makes me angrier. I need a break.

I've decoded the NEC V20's group decode PLA. This PLA takes an 8-bit opcode (and two mode signals) as inputs and produces 14 status outputs that control operation of the CPU. These status signals will hopefully explain some gaps in functionality that the microcode doesn't cover. #retrocomputing

Well, visuals were amazing; no surprise, given that Disney bankrolled both ILM and Weta for the VFX. Other than that, Tron: Ares was a near total misfire. Casting was all wrong. Soundtrack had bizarre emotional intent in some scenes. Writing full of "As You Know" exposition. What a disappointment.

So this #SHOT2025 panel has nearly wrapped up. But if you want to read more about historical issues surrounding multimedia and the preservation of born-digital collections, check out this piece on #DigiPres at @theul.bsky.social. (Thanks for bringing this to my attention, @rhiggitt.bsky.social!)

@adobe.com's Premiere Pro 25.5 release delivered faster editing/timeline performance by rescheduling and moving most foreground ops to the background. This works well for those storing footage on flash devices. Still editing off of spinning rust? Performance is WAY WORSE now. Ask me how I know!

VCF Midwest 20 Videos #VCFMW20 #VCFMidwest #RetroComputing #VintageComputers #ComputerHistory #SchaumburgIL #RetroTech theoasisbbs.com/vcf-midwest-...

Going to PGX this weekend? We just got the time on @inversephase.bsky.social's panel, "The Computer Art Underground". It will be in Panel 2 at 1pm on Saturday! If you haven't picked up a badge yet, you can get 10% off with BLOOP2025 at pittsburghgamingexpo.com/buy-badges #pittsburgh #PGH #PGX2025

One of the very best write-ups of any demoscene effect I've ever read: cobbpg.github.io/articles/nuf... Bit-banged multiplexing taken to its extreme.

Those unaware of history are doomed to repeat it. The Weimar Republic's fall was fueled by rigid ideological communities, mass polarization, and normalized political violence. Cultural life was politicized, leaving no neutral space which fractured discourse and prevented compromise among factions.

@dosnostalgic.bsky.social Is the world ready for a return of The DOS Nostalgia podcast? I say yes!

I expect US national consensus to completely break down over the next decade due to algorithmic media and AI generating pocket realities. I’ve been warning this since 2017, and it’s already happening Things will get crazy before we find antidotes. Radical changes in how we collectively govern ahead

While I wait for #VCFMW video proxy generation, thought I would touch actual vintage hardware for a change. With the help of @necroware.bsky.social nwX287 RTC module, one of my Dell 316sx's has functional CMOS again. Found 2 more 1mb simms and an old version of memtest86 to verify the configuration.

I find it strange that copyright holders will bend over backwards scanning their film material at 4K, but won't take the same care with their interlaced analog video material, producing 30p blurry output from interlaced input. Can most consumers not tell the difference between 30 FPS and 60 FPS?

Prediction: Tron: Ares will be utter crap. By moving outside the computer, the screenwriters missed the point of what made the Tron properties special. But I'm still going to see it. Why? My son Sam wants to see it, so I'm happy to take him. And, I can still say I saw all Tron films in the theater.

Yet another modular control surface solution for streamers. That's fairly terrible recycling of the Sound Blaster brand.

Checked out my TRON 4K UHD disc. Holy crap, it's the most amazing transfer of that film ever! They (re)scanned it at 4k, and the results are so good, you can now discern the source resolution for the CG scenes -- even individual source pixels are sometimes visible. Breathes new life into the film.

Super disappointed that Disney did not even try to fix the jank de-aged Flynn in the 4k UHD release of TRON: Legacy. It looks just as terrible amd wonky as it did in the theater. That said, everything else looks fantastic. The grade, dynamic range, and image quality are stunning.

Back from #VCFMW! Kudos to the organizers; always a great time! Loved meeting (up with) everyone! Thanks to - @matt.godbolt.org - sleeping spot! - @oldskool.org - the original impetus to go as @inversephase.bsky.social 8y ago - @jeriellsworth.bsky.social - signing our DTV - all who donated to us!

If you're a fan of the movie Sneakers, the late Robert Redford (RIP) or just geeky things, you can ssh into [email protected] and watch the movie in glorious 24-bit colour ANSI :) Enjoy!

Had a great time at VCF Midwest 20! youtu.be/649syNgfvSA

...and now my video projects backup destination is full. I won't edit without backups, so now I get to spend a day increasing my backup capacity. Better safe than sorry!

VCFMW is a wrap! Had a great time and met a lot of cool people (Except for Jeff, Jeff wasn’t cool at all, he knows what he did) doing cool things. Our OS/2 museum was a hit and we got a lot of donations to help our mission. See you next year!

3 TB of #VCFMW 2025 presentation footage copying over. This may take a while to edit and upload.

Very glad to see that someone is doing the important work of aligning AI alignment. alignmentalignment.ai

Performing final equipment check for #VCFMW 2025

Inventorying, formatting, verifying, and organizing all of the media required for this year's #VCFMW

I get mad at longtime YouTubers (12+ years) with good subs (>200k) whining that YouTube is "biased" against them when getting <10k views per video--but haven't changed their packaging since they started. YouTube has changed! If you're serious about your channel, don't keep coasting; do the homework!