You either love to hate CQM, or hate to love it. Regardless, this is really awesome and can help us understand and actually express the differences between CQM and a real OPL3.

The OPL Archive will be returning to VCF Midwest this year! I know it's a bit repetitive, but the Archive is my unique contribution back to the community - more than just some computers everyone's seen before on a table. Maybe I can find some ways to freshen the exhibit up this year?

I did have to pull these ISA boards from the machine (they were in it when I got it) - two Equinox Megaport 12CS twelve port serial cards. Apparently they are EISA compatible somehow? But !EQX1011.CFG is lost to the ages. Does anyone have it? (and some drivers?? Equinox's FTP was never backed up)

I like the splash screen. Professional yet kinda quaint and amateurish at the same time.

Wired up a new battery for the Benchmarq RTC chip over lunch. Now for EISA config!

Very easy swap, and it passed the smoke test! It's very obvious the case was designed for both boards. Now to deal with the stupid RTC chip.

Getting myself into trouble. I have a DECpc 466d2 MT. It's okay, but slowish for a 486DX2/66 and only has ISA slots. But now I have ended up with the motherboard from the 466d2... MTE! With EISA and VLB! I'm sure this swap will go just fine...

FMV games are an acquired taste (and generally not a taste I have acquired myself), but this marathon of a video really helped me respect what they were trying to do. Incredible deep dive into Digital Pictures.

Interesting Amiga 500 with an internal hard drive mount that hangs off the keyboard. It also has a DKB MegaChip for 2MB of ChipRAM. Nice!

I don't get all the hype, I've been a prompting engineer for 40 years!

Well that's, uh... cursed. codeberg.org/hails/wsl9x

Am I late to the #moonchild / #hoi trend? #picoCAD2

There's also a totally separate project called Wiintosh too, apparently. This one has 10.2-10.4 running on the Wii U. I tried it, and it's very impressive! And more useful cause the Wii U actually has RAM. github.com/Wiintosh/Wii...

For all us naive kids back in the day who were like "the Wii has a PowerPC, why can't I run Mac OS X on it??" ... we now stand corrected. github.com/bryankeller/...

Wow, the weather channel actually made a simulator for a retro-inspired Weather STAR 4000 and it works: (And no, this is NOT april fools) weather.com/retro/

It's PicoCAD2sday again! This week's machine... this one's for all you Brits in the audience... the ZX Spectrum. Sorry, I mean "Zed"-X Spectrum. ;) #picocad2 #zxspectrum #retrocomputing

Frustratingly, I found out that it gets stuck in reset if a second CPU is installed. No idea why - maybe socket damage? Big disappointment and I have no idea where to start on troubleshooting it. Nor do I want to sink money into a replacement board - Netburst isn't interesting enough.

Uncommon rescue this week. A Socket 604 board! Dual NetBurst Xeons to keep you warm at night. Unfortunately the case it came in is pretty trashed, so I need to find something else that can fit it and its very thick heatsink mounts.

I am exhausted and yet the self fulfillment doesn't stop. This is my 3rd model on #picocad2, the Apple 1! As some of you might know I absolutely love old computers and knowing how far we have come in computing history, and I am happy to likely be the first person to model this on Pico CAD 2(bonus⬇️)

It's "PicoCAD2-sday"! Here's another retro machine, the imposing and legendary Sharp X68000 SUPER. #picocad2 #x68000

I was so damn hyped for the GBA. My friend's mom worked at Kmart and was able to get one slightly before it officially came out. We were all crowded around a lamp trying to see the screen 😂 Kind of wish it had a few more years before death by shovelware. The DS really took the wind out of its sails.

I did a SPARCstation IPX as well. I mean, it's mostly just a (lunch)box, so nothing earth shattering. Maybe I'll just keep doing these low poly retro computer models? #picocad

A Macintosh Performa 600 made in #picocad to celebrate #MARCHintosh! This was the first computer I ever used. Also, real talk, PicoCAD is really fun to use. It's not going to be as full featured as Blender, obviously, but it's nice to finally find a 3D modeler that my smooth brain can handle.

Great job! You guys wore out my ImageWriter ribbon. This is the one that was installed in there when I got the thing a good 10+ years ago. I just put a fresh new one in, let's see how that one does! #MARCHintosh #GlobalTalk

#MARCHintosh #GlobalTalk Apparently my router box froze up at some point. Never had that happen in previous years. I'm also seeing a reasonably high number of "Packet Buffer Overflow" errors reported in the statistics, also something I didn't see before. Anyone have any thoughts?

I recently obtained an #AtariST cartridge that uses the obscure YM2423 (OPLL-X) chip - a variant of the standard YM2413 (OPLL) with different built-in instruments. I believe the software was previously undumped, so I have uploaded it to the Internet Archive. archive.org/details/fm-m...

Oh yeah, #MARCHintosh is back soon. I went ahead and fired up the ol' IIci and ImageWriter again, so Wafflenet on GlobalTalk is back in business for the month!

Happy 35th #Lemmings anniversary! Who'd have thought, 35 years later we'd still be talking about these little guys. #Amiga #MSDOS #AtariST #Commodore #Atari #DMADesign #Psygnosis #RETROGAMING #Lemmings35th Read about it's making here lemmings.info/lemmings-gam...

Okay, really impressed with NetBSD on here. The nouveau problem I had with the GeForce 3 actually doesn't happen on the FX5200 Ultra! This thing is just screaming along. The capture card even works out of the box! Now if only TDE built on NetBSD, I'd be right at home in early 2000s *nix bliss.

Well, this didn't last long. I updated the kernel and now the Nouveau kernel module locks up the whole machine on boot unless I disable modesetting (which of course means no X11). Happens on any kernel from 6.12.68 onwards. Maybe I'll try NetBSD for giggles?

So cool to hear John Chowning just won a Technical Grammy for his invention of FM synthesis in 1967!

The PicoIDE Crowd Supply campaign is now live! Back the project to be among the first to get yours! PicoIDE is an open IDE/ATAPI drive emulator for retro systems. www.crowdsupply.com/polpotronics...

Unnecessary use of military terms in computer hardware in order to attract edgy gamers was already in vogue in 2003.

Guess I haven't posted anything in a while. I'll just say it's because I've been waiting for this to compile. /s Wanted to see how x86 Linux is holding up since almost every distro dropped it. It lives! But there's also a lot that isn't necessarily broken - but also kinda doesn't work.

Looks like Stewart Cheifet (most famously known as the host of Computer Chronicles) passed away on December 28, 2025: obits.goldsteinsfuneral.com/stewart-chei...

Since 2012, Arthur O'Dwyer has had an updating web page called The Search for LONG0751 about a lost version of Adventure that was playable on Compuserve. It has long been one of the top early "missing" games. It is now found and playable: quuxplusone.github.io/blog/2025/12...

Looks like UT2004 is gonna get the OldUnreal treatment - Epic-endorsed community patching and a free installer. The OldUnreal versions of Unreal Gold and UT99 are very good, so this is great news! old.reddit.com/r/unrealtour...

I have a knowledge gap. I have this 168-pin RAM. It's FPM, not SDRAM, so I thought it was 5V RAM for a Power Mac 7500/8500/9500. But the chips (MT 4LC16M4A7) are 3.3V. Tanzania Mac clones/4400s used 168-pin 3.3V but shipped with EDO, not FPM as far as I can tell. What do these go in?

Are you ready for #PicoIDE? It seems to be telling me it's ready. Coming soon: ATAPI optical disc emulation and IDE hard drive emulation. picoide.com

A tease of something amazingly exciting... Mac OS 8 for CHRP PowerPC systems! 😳 I'm working to get this CD archived properly... (along with it's friends) 💿 Super thankful to the amazing people who helped make this happen. ❤️ Learn about CHRP here: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_... #CHRP

I finally looked this board over in more detail today. All I had to do was pull the old CMOS battery and it fired up. Lol.

Boy, this "waffles" controversy is sure making me feel insensitive due to my username and website being "Wafflenet" I'm with you, not them.

Went down a weird rabbit hole today. Was drawing out an OPL "family tree" for an expansion to the OPL Archive. Found this whole line of Yamaha "melody ICs" for alarms/clocks/chimes that use 2-op FM. I don't have hard evidence, but they sound like OPL derivatives to me. Neat! youtu.be/JSP0hTl42X0

This is also a fun way to test another cool VCFMW find. A boxed AV Famicom in excellent shape! It's a somewhat late one, too, manufactured in 1998 if I read the date codes correctly. Such a neat little console.

So the Vibra 16S doesn't seem to work at all... switched back to my CQM menace the 16C. It'll be fine, I mostly play later CD audio games with it. But the WinTV is awesome! I would've killed to have this as a kid. Excellent experience. You can even play games - no perceptible input lag to me!

That said, I'm reluctant to give up any cards to add that tuner. So of course I'm gonna pull stunts like pulling the bracket off the SATA card and sandwiching it in the "shared" PCI/ISA slot alongside the Vibra.

Upgrades for my uncomfortably maxed out childhood Gateway G6-450: a TV tuner and replacing the secondary DOS gaming sound card, a Vibra 16C, with the "one good Vibra" the Vibra 16S with real OPL3.

One of my top finds this year - a Power Computing PowerTower Pro 225. I don't like most "G2" Macs but I make an exception for clones cause they're unusual "stealth Macs". This is my first clone that isn't an underwhelming Tanzania based one. I have plenty of upgrades in mind!