Nostalgia Nerd

Studio Tour

Following on from my Patreon exclusive tour at the end of 2018, I thought it was time to do a proper, and updated tour of my studio space, as well as peeking into Ashen's and Did You Know Gaming's offices.

As you may tell, it has certainly become a "tad" more congested. But I kinda like it like this. It's comfy and warming to my soul.

Die Hard on the Commodore 64

Evening all,

As the festival of Christmas dawns, I would like to, firstly, present this last minute video for your perusal, but more importantly, thank you for all your support this year. It's been a good year for the channel, and I feel even better things lay in wait next year. 2020 will be the year, when I finally make videos about all the shit laying around the office... and there's a lot of shit to film.

Of course, it wouldn't be possible without your support, so from the bott...

When the Government Took on Microsoft

OK folks, it's documentary time. This time, I felt like refreshing my senses on the Antitrust suit the US Government brought against Microsoft in the late '90s. At the time, I remember hearing about it every week, and seeing the impact of it filter through to Windows '98 and even XP. So let's delve down this vast rabbit hole.

Linked above is the version for Patrons. If you want to make comments on the public release, you can do so at  2019-12-17 17:14:01 +0000 UTC View Post

MAILBAG Time

YES. It's time for me to catch up on the past 6+ months of post.

Thank you to all who send items in.

Apparently however, a couple of packages seem to be missing. So either they got lost in the post(?) or they're lost in the depths of my office... which is possible, although unlikely. But if I find anything else, I'll do that separately.

Enjoy!

Hugo's Christmas!

What started as the annual advent video, quickly turned into a dive into Hugo the Troll and his impact on our television viewing habits.

So, this then, is a kind of mash up video, featuring some history before delving into Hugo's Christmas CD.

Subsequent advent videos will be going up on my extra channel imminently.

Creating Membership Packs Live Hangout

Just creating some membership packs. Feel free to join.

Basic 8 Give away Live Stream, etc

Hello.

Here's a quick stream

The Game Wizard

I've always been curious about LCD handheld games, and ones that came with actual cartridges almost blow my tiny mind. The Game Wizard is a really interesting one, in that it started in 1991, but didn't become an interchangeable format until a few years later.

I had to source these ones from eBay, and grab them when I saw them. There are lots more in the series, but I felt 3 was enough to demonstrate their (lack of) ability.

Note: You can also download the full video without adver...

What Critics Said at the Time

FINALLY. After hours of slogging, and tedious timeline placement, my Mega Drive mini video is (hopefully) finished. Rather than looking at the console entirely, I thought I'd look at exactly what critics thought of the games, back when they were released.

After all, the past is far more interesting.

Many thanks to all those who lent their amazing voice talents for this episode.

Voices Required

'Allo 'allo

I've got 14 different characters worth of monologue that I need voices for, during my upcoming Mega Drive Mini video.

They will comprise of comments about games said by reviewers.

So if you have the ability to record your voice and can get me some audio asap (before Wednesday ideally), then choose one of the names below and I will reply with your lines (the numbers beside each name is how many different blurbs of dialogue each character has. Each blurb is about 2...

BASIC8 Give-away

Following on from the Atari VCS Coding course give-away, I mentioned I had some copies of Tony Wang's BASIC8 to give away for Steam.

This looks like an amazing BASIC programming environment. I'm planning on doing a review soon.

But if you'd like to win one of 4 Steam keys, then, same as before, simply drop a comment below. Saying anything from "GIVE ME A BLOODY KEY" to a simple "Yes" will suffice.

Draw will probably be sometime next week.

Ta!

Atari 2600 Coding Live Draw

It's DRAW TIME

Looking at a Famicom Titler

I've had Quang's Famicom Titler knocking around the office for a while now, but he wanted it back, so after visiting the new Norwich arcade, we set it up and tried to make sense of it all.

Essentially, it's a Famicom with a Genlock capabilities, and it CAN be used in some pretty cool ways.

A Quick Note on Sponsorship

So I just wanted to update you folks, regarding my latest video... the one about hacked websites in the 90s.

No matter what I do. What I censor out, Youtube refuses to monetise it. I've even beeped out words like "horny" to see if it helps, but to no avail. 

So I've made the tough decision to instead, bring a sponsor on board for that particular video. It's something I've considered for a while, as it seems to work well on many other channels, but I wanted a) for there to be ...

Atari 2600 Assembly Course Giveaway

Evening folks!

I've managed to wangle 5 free codes for an Atari VCS/2600 6502 Assembly course on pikuma.com. Well, actually I wangled 10, but I'm giving  5 exclusively to you.

 https://courses.pikuma.com/courses/atari2600 

Rather than first come first served, I think the best way to distribute these is randomly. So if you're interested in getting involved with some Atari VCS A...

Norwich Retro Arcade

I spent this morning at the new Retro Arcade in Norwich's Castle Mall, with Ashens and Did You Know Gaming. It's due to open at the end of this month (28th September), and it's looking pretty sweeeet.

£10 for all day access to these fine machines, including Special Criminal Investigation, which is clearly one of the best games of all time, after Chase HQ.

The lower floor is set to have a crap tonne of games consoles and computers, including things like the Acorn Electron and Neo ...

Discord Link

For those who are experiencing Discord link issues. Here's one to get you on board.

Feel free to Msg me when you're on and I'll set your "membership" to the correct level.

'90s Website Hacks

Now here's a video that I wasn't anticipating to make, but after some investigating and uncovering of some resources relating to old website hacks, I present a video packed to the brim with the finest in 90s hackery.

The hacks are pretty interesting and amusing, but I just enjoy looking at the simplicity of old websites if I'm honest. 

>>Now comes with 10% extra Monica Lewinsky hacks.

The Original ROM Ripper

Good evenin' folks. I hope you've had an utterly splendid week.

Allow me to present this weeks video on the Super Magic Drive. A little unit developed by Front Fareast Industrial, which allows Mega Drive ROMs to be ripped to disk, and for disk ROMs to be played on the Mega Drive.

It's got a load of other features too, and is really an interesting little device.

I also dug up a legal case with the Magic Drive at its core, which I found rather interesting.

I present all ...

Welcome to the Beenz Economy

I was flicking through my recently acquired stack of "Computer Active!" magazines the other week when I stumbled across a news article on "Beenz.com", and I thought to myself, hmmm, now that sounds familiar.

Multiple rabbit holes followed, leading to a lot of research and investigation into this somewhat forgotten internet startup of late 90s. That research led to a script, which seemingly led to a video.

It's a video I didn't expect to make, but yet, here we are.

So join me...

Virtuality

So, after much questioning, research, road trips, testing, playing, tweaking, slogging, Dosas from an excellent Indian restaurant in Leicester and many, many hours of editing, here is THE STORY OF VIRTUALITY.

This is a topic I've been absolutely fascinated in since the 90s, and those massive headsets are still very much my first thought when someone mutters the word "Virtual Reality".

It was mind blowing using these machines again earlier this month (and even more mind blowing wor...

Galaga 1/4 Scale

Those little quarter scale cabinets are back, this time Galaga gets the treatment.

Armed with a prototype, I test it out, whilst providing some light background information about the game in question.

Also, Budweiser.

Retro Computer Museum

Octav1us and I went for a little trip to the Retro Computer Museum in Leicester yesterday, and found MANY WONDERS of tantalising necessity.  

It's not a big place, but the amount of trust and openness confided onto visitors is incredible. They have SO many things packed into this space, all of which you can pick up, inspect, drool over, play, that it's quite mind blowing.

I haven't decided whether to do a dedicated video on it yet, but if it's something you'd like to see, DO ...

Computer Active!

Who remembers the computer magazine Computer Active!? It started in 1998 and impressively has kept running until today. 

An old boy was planning on throwing all of these out, but thanks to a certain freebie giving site I managed to save them from the clutches of the bin men.

Any ideas what I should do with them? I'm going to flick through them for interesting articles and use them for content on relevant videos, but do you want to see a dedicated video about them?

Maybe...

Before Sonic there was...

Yep, a little critter named Spiky Harold.

I'm going to investigate the ZX Spectrum version and report my findings.

Won't you join me?

Sega Mega Drive Time Capsule

Alright folks, so here it is, the unboxing of that brand spanking new Mega Drive.

It's a thing of absolute beauty.

Although, now I've opened it up, I feel a bit sad that it's untouched status has been impaired.

I don't open up the case in this video, but if you'd like to see that, let me know.

Stranger Things 3: The Game

I was browsing Steam the other day, when this popped up. I didn't even realise there was a Stranger Things game, but here we are, an isometric adventure, tied to the current season.

Better find out what it's like... but on the Nintendo Switch no less.

Silicon Graphics Iris Indigo

So what do you fine people think I should do with this?

Fire it up? Test its Indigo Mite? 

Tell its back story?

A bit of both?

It was originally used by a friend of my Dad's for work at the Imperial College in the 90s and early 00s, so I haven't tested it yet. But it came with a massive hard disk expansion unit and many other boxes I need to peruse. 

Such POWER.

Tennis Evolution

I am on FIRE. I mean, I probably literally am to be moving this fast. TWO topical videos in less than a week? Clearly I'm going to have to take the next year off to get over the exertion.  

I actually intended to do this video last year, but never got round to it, so only one year late (pretty good for me), I present my view on the evolution of tennis video games, starting with Tennis for Two and ending with our present day selection.

P.S. Video end credits will be updated fo...

Nuclear Power Plant Games

I sometimes at least try to be relevant. Given HBO's Chernobyl mini series was only released a few weeks back, this almost counts.

I wanted to make a video about Nuclear Reactor simulators in some form, so I gathered together a few games from the 80s which fitted the bill and played them. They're actually all pretty decent games/simulators, which was a refreshing change.

I also roped in Scott Manley to do a quick overview of reactor workings and glued it all together to make this ...