New Perspective On Old Games - This Week In Retro 270

Added: 2026-06-01

[00:00:01]Is that a mister in your pocket or Oh, never mind. All this and more coming up on this week in Retro.

[00:00:10]>> High resolution color graphics in this land of high technology.

[00:00:14]>> The revolution in technology that made the information age possible.

[00:00:17]>> Those kids are not afraid of computers.

[00:00:21]>> Give us a hand, mister. A proper Mr. handheld is coming. run almost every operating system >> from 2D to 3D and back. We take a deeper look at the 3D Attic Attack and the isometric Wolf 3D. And a sad day in printed circuit board CAD along with an IBM PC emulation breakthrough coming up on this week's show for the week of Saturday the 30th of May 2026.

[00:00:46]Up to-date news for out-of-date tech.

[00:00:48]>> How's the heart, Dave?

[00:00:51]>> Yeah, the heart is um Yeah, that was that was that was strange. Uh, last week I wasn't here because of my car problems, not because of heart problems.

[00:01:01]Um, my heart is um is fine as far as I know. Um, that was a bit strange. Um, someone misheard Jason's pronunciation of car.

[00:01:10]>> Well, the interesting thing was that the thing that followed it was me saying, "Yeah, you know, he's having car trouble, which is appropriate for a racing based podcast, but if you heard the the word racing, that still could be relevant. Like, oh, he's got a racing heart." So, apologies to any uh any discomfort caused. We uh we just, you know, tried to explain at the end of the show that Dave was taking a a very very very rare break indeed.

[00:01:33]>> How's the wife?

[00:01:34]>> I I did have a stab at you owning a Jag though in that context. But anyway, I guess Jaguar owners could have heart problems. Um yeah, no, no, the wife's fine. So, look, a lot of people had the similar same hobbies as we did back in the day and roller skating may have been one of those for quite a few listeners.

[00:01:52]So, bit of nostalgic and continuing to celebrate our 30 years of of blissful marriage, I took Nikki to the local roller disco, which is a lovely local place called the Roller Armor in the Perth Hills that used to be a roller disco and then closed down 20 years ago and then somebody's reopened it again as the same thing. So, quite a nice thing to do. Um, Nikki still has her original speed skates from the 80s and they were absolutely fine. Whereas my Bower blades from the 90s unfortunately disintegrated as I was trying to put my feet inside them. Literally, I've said it before, but these brittle plastics, it's not just a retro computer problem. It's a classic car problem. It's a anything made of plastic problem. Plastic is not the forever um forever technology that we thought it might be. And it doesn't last. So, yeah, >> I used some of the time I had off last week to do something I've been meaning to do for a while. I have an IBM PS2 model 3286, the great big desktop thing with a chunky big power switch. And I I bought and imported from the USA an Intel Aboveboard Plus great big massive full size thing. I'll give Duncan some pictures. Uh expansion card which takes two megabytes of RAM on it. Two megabytes. um 72 chips. So I spent uh last week that I would have been preparing for the show with a RAM tester testing 80 chips that I bought from AliExpress. All 80 worked. Put it in.

[00:03:21]Got it fixed and it's working. And my PS2 now has 2 megabytes of EMS memory. I was delighted. Absolutely delighted.

[00:03:30]Soon I'll be picking up a CRT for it and it'll be finished. I am over the moon with it. So thank you for the time off last week listeners. It went to a good cause.

[00:03:39]>> We can't beat 2 megs of EMS, so we better move on to even more impressive technologies.

[00:03:44]>> Still wouldn't run X-Wing, would it? No.

[00:03:47]>> No. It's a 286. I mean, couldn't run X-Wing anyway.

[00:03:50]>> True.

[00:03:50]>> It will run Ultima 6, though.

[00:03:52]>> Nice.

[00:03:54]>> The MRA project came onto the scene in 2017, and it didn't take long for it to catch attention. I found out about it from a retro collective video in 2019, and I ordered one the very same day that I watched it. Back then, the project relied on using a development board, a DE10 Nano, and then placing it onto a stack of other PCBs the same size to create a tentacled monster. It It wasn't pretty, but it was amazing. And in fact, it's still basically the same hardware, just cooked up differently onto different form factors. And the PCBs have evolved. And the new generation of Mister from people like Heber, not Heber, Heber, Heber, not Heber, not Heber, Heber, uh, the people who share the mill with Neil at the Retro Collective is on a single board, as is Takiudin's misters as well.

[00:04:48]They're neater, they are cleaner, they got a better signal from them, but they're essentially the same hardware.

[00:04:54]They kind of look like a TV set top box.

[00:04:56]They look like a console. And the project has also come on in leaps and bounds. Back in 2019, we were told that maybe we might get X, Y, and Zed. And we got the whole alphabet. It now emulates many arcade games, most of the important ones, just about any 8 or 16 bit system you can think of, be it a micro or a console, and much more. even things like the PlayStation. The unique selling point the USP of Mister is that uses FPGA field programmable gate arrays to do a kind of lower level of emulation um closer to what the original systems were. The hope being to recreate in this the transforming the silicon to the actual gates that existed in these old systems or at least as well as they can and it works. It feels better. It just feels right. But something else that Mister does that isn't really spoken about too much and it seems to be just kind of serendipity that's ended up this way is that it's nice and easy to use.

[00:05:51]At least for what I prefer in terms of a UI. It's not got that whole Pandora's box feeling. You know those those four million games in one type things where it's all these confusing memos menus and the UI doesn't make sense. Mr. Works, it's easy to navigate and things work great. Now, the news today submitted by Jason, thank you.

[00:06:13]>> Yeah, >> is a retro collective video uh where um Neil has sat down with Richard um from Heber, the company behind the multi system, the multi system 2, the control dock, the multi system arcade, and many other innovations are going to do a proper Mr. Handheld. It'll be the full hardware in a handheld device. Now, Neil had a video talking to Richard about it.

[00:06:36]Um, it's not the first time Rich has gone there. He'd actually two prototypes years and years ago. I actually held one and I can say it was it was quite beefy because it still had this DE10 Nano board inside it. And I think it was clear at the time it shouldn't have been a product which is why they didn't make it into a product. But I think Richards was doing this for his his own entertainment, his own amusement. But now they're going to be able to do it properly. They're going to make something neat. The screen will be driven directly by the mister which is quite unusual because normally what would happen is it would be translated to HDMI and then a board on the the the screen that was supplied would translate it back into the screen. So they're going to drive it direct from there which will hopefully reduce the latency down to the point where you don't feel it. And of course that's one of the big appeals with Mister that there's no latency on it unless unless you add latency to it with wireless controllers and flat screens. And I'm sure Richard must have been listening to me because the screen that he's currently looking at is a 1:1 ratio, 720 pixels x 720, which I've advocated for on here several times before because it's ideal for nothing. Nothing works perfect on it, but nothing is bad on it. Everything only has a small black bar at the side or a small black bar at the top. So, you can either stretch it out and it doesn't look stretched or you can just have the small minimal black bars. It's going to be the first um project from Heber uh for retro that's injected as well.

[00:08:09]Injection molded plastic this time around ra 3D printing. The 3D prints look amazing, but I think u I'm not sure how robust they are, and I think that's why you would want this to be uh injection molded if it's something you're going to be chucking in your your bag for going to work or in your pocket or on the couch and off the rest of it.

[00:08:26]So, I'm really impressed by this. Chris, what did you think?

[00:08:29]>> Yeah, I like the look of this project and the fact that they're engaging with the community at the design phase, I think, is a really cool thing. you know, making something that everybody's going to, you know, hopefully have have some kind of input in to end up with a with a nice handheld. Um, it's probably not for me. Only in the same way as a Steam Deck is not for me. The handhelds from Retro Games Limited are also not for me. I don't even own a Nintendo Switch. You know, handhelds are just not something I do. But it does look like an awesome project. Um, it's interesting that you're into into this one one ratio screen, Dave, because you're right.

[00:09:00]You're absolutely right in that >> I'm always right.

[00:09:04]It's the best. It's the best compromise.

[00:09:06]But you know what I hate about one one screens is when you first look at them, they feel like they should be 4x3 and then you realize they're not. And it just it does my head in that shape. A simple square when it's on a screen does my head in. It's just me.

[00:09:21]>> Jason, what do you think? I mean, I hear a lot of things in this video that show that they're still in the the noodling stages, you know, including the fact I I know Dave, you latched on to the the one to one screen because it's your kind of particular uh case that you advance.

[00:09:34]But, you know, he also was saying, well, we're looking at a lot of 4x3 screens, so I don't think anything in here is is set in stone. And the other, you know, just say it here, like battery life is obviously going to be key. Uh the thing that a generic ARMbased, you know, system on a chip emulation handheld has going for it is that it is very, very, very, very power efficient. And it's very power efficient. Not because anybody cares about the experience of a hand, you know, handful of people who want to buy retro handhelds. It's because these systems on a chip are what's used by the gazillion dollar international smartphone industry which is dedicated to solving the exact problem. Like FPGAAS are optimized for you're flying around in space and you've got access to a lot of solar power, you know, with no atmosphere in the way or you're in a thing with a nuclear reactor or whatever. Like it is not optimized for this is a thing you walk around with all day. So, it's going to be a wait and see, real world performance issue.

[00:10:23]>> I mean, this this what I'm holding in my hand is a is a POW Kitty RGB30. It's got a 11 one screen 720 squared. And I don't know if you can pick up there's a little green LED on it which indicates it's in sleep mode because all I need to do is press this button and it should resume and press this button and it goes back to sleep. So, I I could be I could be I don't know traveling somewhere and they say it's boarding time. hit the button, get on the plane, and then hit the button again and pausing and resuming and sleeping it. So, things like that.

[00:10:54]Yeah, it's important to get these things right. There'll be constraints that they can't do with these incredibly low power system of chip things. So, it'll be interesting to see how they do it, but they need to get it right. The hardware needs to be really good to use. It's not going to be enough of a selling point to say this is FPGA and then say, but don't worry about the mushy controls and the bad screen, all the rest of it. They need to get all those things right, otherwise there's no point in this device. And they're competing with they'll be competing with devices that are $60 or $70 that are already great to use once you battle through the terrible operating system they come loaded with.

[00:11:28]Um that they're great to use. So yeah.

[00:11:31]Um but I'm confident they'll get it right because they have got everything right so far. But there's more hardware stuff. It's been there's lots of stuff happening. Last year I said 2025 was the best time to be in retro. Turns out I was right at the time, but I'm now wrong because 2026 is even is a better year.

[00:11:47]This year we've got the Vectrex Mini coming, the the 1200, the sorry, the the A1200, the AES Plus, and of course this handheld mister. But there's more.

[00:11:59]Magical mic on the subreddit links to a time extension article which has found a trademark application implying that we might see an Atari 800 XL Mini. Um, will you have fully explored yours by the time this comes out, Jason?

[00:12:15]>> By the time this episode comes out, no.

[00:12:17]By the time Atari releases whatever they might do with a a revamped 800 XL trademark, possibly.

[00:12:22]>> That is a That's a little foreshadowing, but we'll come back to that.

[00:12:25]>> Yeah. And there's always this this this atmosphere that we're going to get an Amstrad CPC Mini, although that's possibly just because I'm a fan of Amstrad CPCs and maybe I'm seeing a mini that isn't there. Um, the Pico CPC project though, this is the Amstrad CPC Pico based expansion that does all you could hope for and more, is back on track. It had gone off track. It had stopped. Development had stopped, but now it's back on track and it looks as if they've got past a major problem and it's going to come out. So, I'm delighted with that. Paulo, the guy behind the Pico IDE project, which is the 3 and a half bay that emulates a CD ROM with a screen. um has just managed to get two devices working simultaneously. So, what this means is that you could have a CDROM emulator and a hard drive emulator from this one device, meaning that you could just chuck out all the IDE stuff in your old DOS PC and put this in. You can actually have two hard disks or two CDs as well if you if you want to. Um he said it was something he hoped to happen. And this is something he was talking about when he talked about the project, but it wasn't offered as a feature during the the crowdfunding because it wasn't ready. This is fantastic though. I mean, my Amigga 1200 in the Checkmate case is going to get a Pico ID and it's going to do the CD ROM and the hard disk emulation for me. It's amazing. The Pico Gus also from PPO, I gave an update a few weeks ago. So it now does the Gravis Ultra sound, the Sound Blaster 16, the Sound Blaster 2, the Adibb proper MPU 401 intelligent mode, Tandandy 3 voice, CMS Gla Blaster, Game Blaster, a joystick port, and even Panasonic CD ROM. And I have an exclusive reveal, genuinely exclusive. Nobody's been told about this. You're hearing it here for the first time. A brand new device has been created this week, the TF MVS. So this is the terrible fire MVS which is a flash cart for the Neo Geo MVS system.

[00:14:21]The prototype is now working. Steven Liry, my friend, just finished it recently. Um like days ago. He sent me pictures of it this morning. Um it's a super difficult project. Um so it's difficult to do, but it's been done well. It he he's got past the bits that are going to give him trouble. The rest is just a lot of work to get the whole thing done. Um, it's expected to be ready to use by the time the AES Plus is released. Steven says he will turn it into an AES connector from the MVS. And what you should end up with is a device that you insert an SD card with a single image on and it will then flash that image to the six different ROMs on there. That's why it's difficult to do.

[00:15:05]and it will work as a cart for the Neo Geo on the original ones or the new ones with the ASIC. Um, Steven is famous for making a terrible fire range of accelerators for the AmIGGA. And his goal there was to get the cost down right down to make it possible for people to have an 03 or an 06 at the lowest price in their AmIGGA. And he hopes to do the same with this. So, he hopes to get the price right down, but it will not at all be cheap. Um the ROMs are55 or six pound each he says so I don't know what it'll cost at the moment he showed me a prototype which a mess of wires Duncan will have the images there and you can see the board wires one of his prototype but I'm delighted to be able to tell people it's going to come Chris what you think >> No that's cool there's so much stuff you've just listed there I'm trying to think what I'm most excited about I think the IDE stuff is really cool cuz it's got so many applications and I'm already looking at the um sort of uh retro PCs that I've got now that and thinking oh that CD drive needs um pulling out and replacing or does it cuz you could do it with this and it's so much easier to just throw stuff on a USB. And part of the challenge that I always forget about is how do I get stuff from the PC I'm sitting at now which has USB ports and blah blah blah onto something like my 386 in the other room which doesn't even have a CD drive, let alone a USB port. So, this would make it a a good option to um transfer stuff from one system to another. I like it. Everything's really exciting. I I should also say the Pico mem has had an update as well. Um that's from Freddy V.

[00:16:37]It now has SD and USB direct disk access. So a network redirector uh driver allows full access to the SD and USB for DOS 3.2 and up. So again, that's another major step forward that. Uh yeah. Um Jason, >> well yeah, speaking of you know what what is 2026 the year of did not have 2026 being the year of Neo Geo on my bingo card. So this is interesting and um Dave do you do you want to give the 99.9% of the audience a refresh of what the Pico CPC is?

[00:17:11]>> So the Pico CPC is a device that goes into expansion port of an Amstrad CPC and it will give you flash drive access emulation hard disk emulation allow you to add ROMs and I believe as well it allow you to output the video to HDMI as well as other things. I mean, it's it's a kind of allin-one kind of thing. I don't know if it'll have eventually things like the Multipace 2 built in.

[00:17:34]Think of that as an action replay. Yeah.

[00:17:37]Um, for for me though, the big thing it that doesn't exist for the CPC is a a cheap pico based flash cart like so many other uh machines have. So, this is this is the big thing for the Pico CPC. So, I'm delighted to hear it's back on the table, but it does so much more. It's incredible. Now, listening to last week's episode, which I very much enjoyed. It's a long time since I've been a listener, not a guest. Sorry, not a host. I'm not a guest. I'm here whether you like it or not. You can't uninvite me. Um, I noted Jason having a go at the British Micro, something I'm sure he will never ever do again, but he mentioned a 9 foot wide Amstrad. And the good news is, Jason, that Richard has produced a Mr. handheld that can play Das. That's the triple screen arcade game. It's ridiculously wide. It's been called the wide boy. Of course, it's not a real product. Is that the thing that I thought was possibly designed by Santa Cruz cuz it literally looks like a skateboard. I've got to be honest. So, when that when that video dropped, right, I actually skipped to the end cuz I'm not really that into handhelds, like I said. So, I thought, uh, is this going to be, you know, something I'm going to enjoy watching? skip to near the end where Neil is playing in the car park with this skateboard size handheld M mister thing. Um it's like it's the size of an aircraft carrier or larger. Maybe a Amstrad CPC 464. Um and yeah, no, that's not the product they're they're working on. So, it's hilarious though.

[00:19:07]Absolutely hilarious.

[00:19:09]>> This week we are sponsored by no one.

[00:19:11]We've got no sponsors slot this week.

[00:19:14]>> Oh, nothing. How am I going to feed the cats?

[00:19:20]>> You'll You'll have to skip food.

[00:19:24]>> No sponsor slot.

[00:19:25]>> I could eat the cats. No spot. Don't eat the cats.

[00:19:30]>> Catch a kangaroo.

[00:19:32]>> Yeah, I could catch a kangaroo. What are you going to eat, Dave?

[00:19:35]>> Cat food.

[00:19:36]>> I probably survive a week without eating.

[00:19:39]>> Yeah, Jason.

[00:19:40]>> Enough calories packed away.

[00:19:43]>> Cheese.

[00:19:45]>> There. That's true. There is always there's always cheese somewhere down the road here in Wisconsin.

[00:19:50]>> You could drop us a line at twwir at this retro.com if you have a have anything anything to throw our way.

[00:19:59]>> Yeah, we'll shill anything. Shill anything.

[00:20:01]>> Going to rate drink the rest.

[00:20:02]>> That's true. D's very picky.

[00:20:04]>> Chris. Yeah. Yeah. Uh we will not shill anything. It needs to be something that uh Yeah. It needs to be something decent that our our audience will not be disgusted at again.

[00:20:17]So, thank you for indulging us in the sponsor slot on this week in retro.

[00:20:24]So, there's a common joke about the life cycle of gathering up a lot of a specific thing. You know, first you start out as an enthusiast. You are interested in a thing. You like to have that thing and you realize that having even more of that thing feels even better. Then that turns one into a collector. That is, you know, one reaches a point where it's not enough to just keep randomly amassing different examples of a thing. Wouldn't it be better if you attempted to have at least one example of every type of that thing and then one's collection grows and grows and where does one go from there?

[00:20:54]Why one transforms from collector to curator? That's right. That that collection hasn't just been in service of one person's pursuit. You've created a museum. There are no frivolous collectors here. Just serious museum curators.

[00:21:08]There's a fellow named Andrew Warington and he runs the Andrews OS lab YouTube channel and blog and he has been an operating system enthusiast since 2003 when he first switched from Windows to Linux. I there was a note last week's episode. I often say Linux. It's a long story that but I I'll try to remember Linux. Switched from Windows to Linux and he started thinking really deeply about both architecture and history of operating systems. And as he gathered up, you know, obscure instances of early Unix versions, other curiosities, he started building his own scripts to automate his growing collection. And over the past several years, he's realized that he's amassed a vast store of emulators, operating system images that could be worth sharing with others.

[00:21:47]So TLDDR in this story is there's a guy out there who's like EXO, but instead of making like a massive front-end launch collection of games from a particular genre or a particular year or whatever, he's created a massive front-end launcher for almost every conceivable operating system which can be run in an emulator or some virtualization environment on a modern computer. And this goes back to like some extremely primitive stuff from just a few years after the end of World War II to dozens of flavors of Unix, other very serious workstation operating systems to embedded systems, PDAs, tons and tons of other examples. This project is called the Virtual OS Museum. It amalgamates nearly 600 different operating systems in close to 2,000 different virtual environments to run those operating systems. And I mean, this is enormous and daunting and amazing all at the same time. Thank you to Giggus or Guus, whatever you prefer, for posting it to our subreddit.

[00:22:39]So, Andrew's journey got me thinking about my own, you know, journey of discovery with emulators and the ability to run alternative operating systems.

[00:22:46]You know, run a thing on the thing you're already using. Uh, which for me was the early 1990s on my first Omega 500. Uh, I remember a fairly terrible and slow uh PC emulation which ran entirely in software as well as the early version of the pioneering AAX Macintosh emulator. And because of the max high resolution but low color depth screen, you'd get weird results on the Amigga. Like, you know, your Mac screen would scroll vertically, but you could do stuff. And like Andrew, I was really hooked on this concept. And it was writing about emulators on the AmIGGA that got me started writing for AmIgga Report, which ultimately, you know, charted the course for the next, you know, 30 plus years of my professional writing career. When did you guys first become aware of emulators? And was there a thing that kind of made you commit to using them as more than a novelty, even if it was something that had weird drawbacks like Amex did?

[00:23:33]>> I've always thought it's possible that I have seen an emulator on a cover disc for ST format or the likes and just not paid much attention to it. I don't remember, but I think one day if I ever do go back through the cover, I might find something. But the first emulator that I remember is when I was playing a MUD uh online test adventure type thing um in the late 90s and someone was telling me about something called MG which is multi- gauntlet emulator.

[00:24:04]>> Yes.

[00:24:04]>> Yeah. So MGE I love Gauntlet in the arcade that the sound of it um I loved it in the arcade and NGE they told me about it and I was blown away. I could literally play Gauntlet on my computer properly, arcade, get the sound, all the rest of it, play both Gauntlet one and Gauntlet 2 and that that quickly turned into Mameim and I got into all those things there and that wasn't a novelty.

[00:24:30]Mameim was very capable of playing arcade games. I'm sure the accuracy wasn't there back then, but it didn't matter. It was absolutely absolutely phenomenal. was able to play 1943 properly on my computer. Um, and rage quit it. Um, and frustration at my lack of ability, all those things. Yeah. Absolutely amazing. At the end of the '90s, I've never not been into emulation since. Um, Amstrad, CPC, Atari, ST, all the rest of it. Never not been into emulation, but of course I got heavily into it in about kind of 2018. Yes, >> you're talking about rage quitting. Dave was reminding me of a mod I want to do to my main cab genuinely is put a kick panel in which is a uh power down button because sometimes I just want to kick the cabinet cuz I'm so frustrated with the game and then it will just turn off and I think that'd be a great way to exit the game if I'm really frustrated.

[00:25:25]Just kick it.

[00:25:26]>> I've got an idea. I've got I've got an idea for it. Make it a button and make it 50% of the time comes up and says, "No, Chris, you'll finish this. potato off.

[00:25:37]>> Could do that. But in terms of emulation, to be honest, again, like like Dave, I probably was aware of them back in the day, but never really had a use or no interest because at that time I'm just constantly upgrading for the next better thing, not wanting to play the games of the past. Um, but 2018 into 2019, um, that's when I bought the A500 Batman pack off eBay, but that was sent to my parents house in the UK and I had a year to wait and that's when one of my schoolmate Lee, he put me on to Win UAE.

[00:26:04]And so that's where it really started for me and he told me where I could get some ADFs and stuff like that. And then on YouTube I saw Dan Wood talking about Amigga Forever uh and I got a copy of that and never really looked back. I mean yes it's essentially running the same thing under under the hood but obviously you've got the ROMs and it's just a nice easy interface and I don't like tinkering. I just want to play.

[00:26:23]>> Omega Forever is fant it's Omega Forever is absolutely fantastic. It doesn't cost much.

[00:26:28]>> No, >> it's all there. It's all legal. It's all nice and easy to use. It's a fantastic package. There's I think there's Commodore Forever now for the Commodore 64. Is it C64?

[00:26:35]>> It comes part of the package. Yeah, C64 forever. And you get and you get Amigga Explorer so you can transfer files from your modern PC onto your AmIgga if you've got them linked up and all sorts of fancy cool things. Um, the only time I question the emulation though is it's always in terms of speed. Is it too fast? Is it too slow? an Alien Breed 3D2, for example, really stands out because it's very playable on an emulated A1200 with an 030 accelerator.

[00:27:01]But I now know with the actual hardware in that same configuration, it's not playable at all in full screen I'm talking about. So yeah, there are discrepancies, but they're not ones I care enough about. It's good enough to get the job done. Yeah.

[00:27:14]>> Are you maybe using cyber graphics, which your 1200 doesn't have?

[00:27:18]>> Oh, look at me talking like I still remember how Omega stuff works. You tell me. Yeah. Yeah. I I thought I ticked off all the extra bits, but whatever. Um what I also like as well though cuz cuz um that that Omega Forever comes with like this um uh OSX they call it. So it's just like an imaginary Amigga, but you can I use that to convert graphics from modern graphics formats, test them in the AmIGGA environment, and then dump them in an area on my hard drive, right, that my actual A1200 cassette, and then I can copy them across. And sure enough, they work on the actual Amigga as well.

[00:27:51]So, it's sort of a good middleware solution to test things before you actually transfer them across. Really nice.

[00:27:57]>> So, this virtual OS museum, it is distributed as a virtual machine that runs a very basic version of Debian. And there's a launcher that I will describe as crunchy. Uh it's very uh coder user experience, I will say. Uh I think the different ways to search and categorize in it will become clearer with with time and repetition. Uh but in general know that going in you know you you can browse things like by architecture by you know creator company by machine type a few other categories and you can download the virtual OS museum in two formats and I will get the easy joke out of the way now by prefacing this with in this economy because the full version is a 174 gigabyte archive. It's about 121 gigs zipped on your on your torrent. Uh this includes everything everything that Andrew has aggregated. It's all the operating systems the emulators to run them with boot ROMs already configured.

[00:28:45]uh in some cases there are some basic instructions so that you can you know get logged into the environment properly or you know know like okay you have to insert this disc image at this point you know so forth now look I I am not a high performance gamer uh I I'm I'm no Dave uh I don't have a uh a massive modern rig over here I do have some external storage I do have a NAS uh but when when we routinely do projects on the show which require me to give up 100 gigs over a weekend you just to talk about a story it's hard sometimes to want to give up all of that space and do mentioned it's expensive these days. So I went with the light version which occupies a mere 21 gigs of disk space and the idea behind light is it's all the stuff you need just for the launcher environment but it goes down to Android servers to pull down the emulators and the disk images that you need to run a specific environment when you ask for it. And this was where I ran into a little bit of trouble. Uh this is a newly released project, but uh at least on the two Macs that I was trying at home, the preconfigured virtual machine did not correctly make use of the shared network. So downloads were failing for reasons that I didn't completely understand. And it wasn't the kind of error message that said, "Hey, you dummy. I have no network connection. It made it look like, you know, maybe there were some overloaded servers or something like that." I did figure out that there was a simple settings change to use the virtual LAN. uh that fixed the issue, but I did lose a lot of time over the weekend thinking it might have been some other reason. Now again, as you may expect, these huge downloads are a lot easier to manage over torrent than just one big download session. But because he uses a standard Linux package manager to install the emulators and images, those installs depend on his server being available and not overwhelmed, which again I thought might have been the case because we were so early in this project. Um I sent over the the link to all of the the images and environments that are included. Was there anything there that grabbed your attention as like, "Oh, I've I've always wanted a chance to play with this, but I had no idea how to set it up."

[00:30:38]>> I wonder if I could end up playing PDP10 and associated things of that era games, things like the I'm not going to say Ultima again. Uh, precursors to that. I I did. I mean, I've just said it.

[00:30:53]>> You You just guilty. Guilty. um precursors to those and things like um Zork before it was Zork. Those kind of things appeal to me. Yeah. So that's that's where I would go. Having a time.

[00:31:06]>> Chris, anything jump up?

[00:31:07]>> Just scrolling through now. I noticed there's a real Spectrum down there.

[00:31:12]There's nothing Omigga, is there? No.

[00:31:14]>> Uh yeah, Aeros is in there in fact.

[00:31:15]>> Oh, Aeros. Okay. I had a play with Aros again when I first got into all of this.

[00:31:19]Um but I couldn't get my CD ROM working so I was frustrated with it. I was maybe maybe this isn't the way to play play your amigga or your Spectrum.

[00:31:27]Maybe there's more to it than this.

[00:31:29]>> No, no, I know just scrolling through, but yeah, there's not much jumping out for me for for me that I'm thinking, "Oh, yeah. I've always wanted to have a dabble with that." So, in all honesty, no. There you go.

[00:31:39]>> So, I I'm not just going to read out hundreds of disc images, but there are some standouts on this list. Uh he supports the earliest mainframes the Manchester baby test demo programs Mark1 scheme uh later mainframes in many computers like CTSS MVS VM370 TOPS 10 and tops 20 it multics uh there are workstations in Unix variants including uh Sunosx OSF1 AUX nextep plan 9 uh various BSDs of course lots of Linux distributions across the decades and yeah almost anything that was ever sold you know to the retail consumers also included And that goes from things like the Sharp MZ to the Commodore 64. And I was particularly intrigued by the inclusion of a mobile section. So there's emulation environments for, you know, Palm OS, you know, Epic/Sybian, Windows CE, the Newton, uh, very early Android and iOS versions. Now, again, I really want to drive home just how massive and amazing and amazingly massive this project is. And Warington says that this work has been going on for a full 22 years in counting. And looking at it, like I believe it. um is this a comfortable way to run a lot of these systems? I I mean he he has done the work of configuring the emulator for you or in cases like I said where it can't be set to auto boot properly like the the Appalisa emulator uh he tells you how to get started and in other cases like mainframes and so forth I mean either there is simply no hardware existing in the world anywhere for you to go play with but and if there is it is not in your house you know it is a way to experience a thing that in some cases you simply for for no amount of love nor money you could have. Now, all that said, to make this work consistently on basically whatever computer you throw at it, like I said, you know, War can put Workington put everything in this Debian virtual machine. Windows Max and and Linux host are all officially supported, but really anything that can boot this x8664 Debian image in whatever computer you've got can be made to work. So, on your home system, like especially, you know, mine, mine is a is a Mac Mini that runs on ARM. So the that environment is emulating an x8664 CPU and then in many many cases you're going to be emulating another CPU below that a Spark a 68000 possibly some other old you know 16 or 32-bit ARM chip you know underneath that. So speed is often lacking and virtual machines are not generally where you go for graphics performance powerhouse. So yeah to the idea of like is this going to be a comfortable way to run AmIGGA games the answer is almost certainly no. Even you know things like Spectrum games probably not. But that's not that's not what it's for. This experience fits the notion of it being a museum. You know, you don't necessarily expect a high performance perfect experience, but you do get to go see a fantastic 15ft marble statue. And being able to go to the museum saves you the trouble of figuring out how to get that 15t marble statue into your house, let alone maintain it properly against, you know, damage, dust, and decay and all the other things that go along with having a 15oot marble statue. Um, to do the research for this story, I tinkered briefly with the Apple Lisa emulator.

[00:34:39]Uh, I got absolutely nowhere looking at a 1951 Fantainframe emulator. Uh, played around just a tiny tiny bit with Sun Solaris. Uh, bounced around in the mid2000s OS project Simobi, which I'd never even heard of. Uh, I'm definitely looking at exploring some of the other oddball entries in the Apple tree, which no pun intended. Uh, and finding some more of those early commercial Unix variants. Uh and now the thing is like there's a significant difficulty curve to exploring a lot of these. A lot of these early operating systems are very tricky to use and you are not getting the big printed manuals with them. It is sometimes challenging to get off of the boot prompt but that is no fault of this project. So I know who this is for. Uh Aaron that sometimes comes on he usually comes on at Christmas time on the show runs a podcast lovely glass that runs a a podcast uh with his brother the Brent called ARG presents and they look at all sorts of systems you've never heard of and they go through all sorts of problems trying to get them to emulate.

[00:35:38]So this will be ideal for them to get into play all sorts of things that just you you wouldn't not not Commodore 64, not the Amstrad, far from the beaten track. So yeah, that'll be ideal for them. Now, I don't really want to set up a computer just to use the OS. I mean, I could tell you it's just about the games for me, but that's patiently not true. I mentioned at the start of the show that I spent a lot of time on PS2 getting the the massive memory card working. Well, what did I do afterwards? I spent hours tinkering in DOSs with memory. not because I needed to, because it it actually had plenty of conventional memory, but I wanted to have it just right. So, I now ended up with an XMS RAM disc, um, a colored command prompt, uh, an EMS disc cache that shrinks when needed, DOS key, ANC, mouse driver, a packet driver, all the sound stuff properly initialized and working, and after that, I had 618 kilob of conventional memory left. So, that was absolutely perfect on a 286. Um, so it turns out that I do like tinkering in the OS. And going back to what I mentioned about Atari ST magazines and PC magazines that cover this when you got to play with all those various different bits of software you never actually use. I do like tinkering. So this seems to be a project that I might do because it's easy enough to get into and it doesn't mean a big commitment like building all these things and it's just ready to go. So I like that. Um, and to link it back to the Mister thing, I heard about uh Richard from Hebrew was on another show, Pixel Cherry Ninja, and he was talking about the work that goes into these FPGA cores and the project, these cores, the Exo project, in fact, the open- source Pico project, they're all labors of love. I don't think anyone could possibly make a living from doing these. So, they're doing it for the good of humanity's culture. These are people's gifts to humanity, if you like.

[00:37:32]And it might sound a bit flowery me saying that, but it's true. I mean, the people doing this, it's it's an immense gift to to the culture. So, thank you very much for doing this.

[00:37:42]>> Just thinking, Dave, as you wrapping up there, it just shows what we had to put up with back in the day when when you said you got 618 kilobytes of conventional memory free. I was genuinely 618. I'm I was genuinely impressed with that number. People into modern computers would be like, "What are you talking about? 618 kilobytes whereas we're like, "Oh, that's that's a good number." Oh, yeah.

[00:38:06]Yeah. Well done. Well done. You >> anything now? Yeah.

[00:38:08]>> Oh, far out. Now, this this is a cool concept and um from my point of view, being somebody who doesn't like to be um having to tinker around with setting things up. I've never ever set up a virtual machine in my life and I was in it, right? Never needed to, never wanted to. So, it's just a good way of having everything set up for you. uh somebody else has done all the hard work and if you want to, you know, dip in and have a tinker with these old OSs, what a great way to do it. Yeah, it's cool.

[00:38:33]>> So, things that are not in the project include most pure game systems or arcade machines, certain types of ill-behaved emulators, and commercial operating systems uh that have been sold over the past 10 years. But despite the robust beginnings, there is still more to come because Andrew says he's not done scraping together operating systems to share in this format. As long as he can make them run on a modern system, they will be added later. To learn more, please head to virtual oossmuseum.org and plug in that external drive because you might need it.

[00:39:13]So, on to housekeeping now. And thank you very much to Jim long-standing member upgrading to an annual subscription. Thank you for the ongoing support and your confidence in it. And also like to welcome on board Simon.

[00:39:27]Thank you to our newest patron, Simon.

[00:39:29]There's a new patron video out now.

[00:39:31]Really enjoy doing it. I hope it came out nice in the edit, Chris. Um >> Yeah. And it's thanks to the patrons that we don't have to eat our cats, so that's good, too.

[00:39:41]>> Yeah. Yeah. Um this is our desert island or um flying bunker >> bunker exile um systems that we would have top five. It turned out quite well.

[00:39:56]Uh, if you'd like to see that, um, go to patreon.com/thisweek retro news and briefs.

[00:40:04]And thanks to Jacko, we learned that Autodesk has ended the sale and support for Eagle. Uh, PCB design product first launched in the late 1980s. They're cutting it off. You won't be able to use it unless you've got a cracked version.

[00:40:20]Um, you won't be able to use it at all.

[00:40:22]They're just killing it off, which is a real shame because lots and lots of people got used to it. And you know it's like when you're used to a piece of software, you don't want to learn a new one. If it works for you, it works.

[00:40:32]>> I look forward to the movement. Stop killing 38-year-old CAD systems. I'm going to go to the EU Parliament and everything. All right. Uh 386 microode has been fully reverse engineered and of course it runs Doom. Thanks to Route 42 for letting us know. A group of demo scene folks have opened the door to 100% cycle accurate emulation of the Intel 386 chip. And this is something that our colleague Jim Leonard talks about quite a bit that our idea of IBM PC emulation he is very quick to remind us is almost never real true cycle accurate IBM PC emulation. And things like these detailed 386 breakdowns are an important step along the lines to building better ones.

[00:41:11]>> So now you can run Doom Pool again. Um, I know I had one. A lovely memory has been shared by evil Edwin. His mom has sent him the receipt from his Omega 500 purchase, the cartoon pack in 1991 from Great Yama. That's really cool. And someone has spotted an Amigga question on the quiz show, The Chase. The question was, who used prop paint to create an image of Debbie Harry for the 1985 launch of the Omega 1000? I'll pause here for just a couple of seconds just to give you a chance to work out what the answer would be. Of course, the answer given was Andy Warhol.

[00:41:52]Did he really do it or was it all Was it all marketing?

[00:41:55]>> Oh, are you are you are a Warhol Debbie Harry portrait truther?

[00:42:00]>> I don't know. I don't know.

[00:42:01]>> Somehow I missed this. Wow. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know if I'm out of it. It just It seems me It seems like a publicity type thing.

[00:42:09]>> I don't know.

[00:42:12]>> Dude, have you not seen the thing?

[00:42:15]>> Have you not seen We have opened up a new We have opened up a new area of discourse.

[00:42:20]>> I will believe whatever Jason tells me, though.

[00:42:23]>> I I wasn't there. 8-year-old Jason was not at the at the launch, so I can't attest to it. I it just never occurred to me that this was a conspiracy theory that was out there that Andy Warhol did not like. Well, >> all right. Let us know in the comments.

[00:42:37]>> Thing is, all he did was right get a scan of a photo of her or a script or a video grab and then badly used the fill tool. That's all I saw happening.

[00:42:48]>> Oh no. Oh no.

[00:42:49]>> Warhol hairy truthing.

[00:42:51]>> That's all I You thought there was nothing new under the sun on this weekend retro, but here we go.

[00:42:56]>> It literally cancelled the whole screen.

[00:42:58]This is the end. This is my last show, folks. It's been great while it lasted.

[00:43:02]This is my last show.

[00:43:04]>> Meanwhile, there's a new Atari project to make a clone of an Atari, specifically an Atari ST, and it is based on the Motorola 68060 chip. Uh, this project is called the Raven. And for those who know Falcon hardware, uh, this motherboard looks a little more modern, but it is all in Raven black.

[00:43:24]>> Snake on a GPU. Bits Bits and Bolts has been modifying the S3 BIOS, starting off with fixing a brightness issue on black and then decided to stick a game of Snake in the BIOS.

[00:43:36]>> So, you can pay play a game on your on your graphics card like you always could, but you can play a game with your graphics card playing the game for you rather than the computer playing it through the graphics card.

[00:43:44]>> Yeah, that is pretty cool. Pointless, but cool.

[00:43:47]>> Immediately as the power comes on, that's a cool concept. And speaking of cool concepts that are maybe impractical, G7 VFY linked us to an interesting looking Apple 2 clone laptop. Uh the details of this are partially in Chinese, but this thing looks straight out of like 1993. It has both a real 6502 and a Z80 chip on board for CPM support. It has real uh Apple 2 external supports for things like, you know, real world floppy and printer hookups. I It may be new, but there's also some 2024 dates on there. I I'm I'm looking forward to hearing a little bit more about this and whether it is actually available. And if you've got comments on that, you have your own stories you'd like to submit, upvote, down vote, expand on our knowledge, please, by visiting reddit.com/r/isweek in retro.

[00:44:34]Two things I love are revisiting the really early games I remember and firsterson shooters. And oddly, those things are seldom one in the same, but they are now. Uh, and thanks to Jacko 6502 for sharing this, as well as it coming up in my feed as well. I have actually been able to play a game that covers both of these things. One of the very earliest games I recall playing on the Spectrum was one I didn't own, but I vividly remember playing it at my schoolmate Daniel's house on his Rubber Kid Spectrum 48K. And I absolutely loved it. And I really wanted a Spectrum so that I could play the same game in my own home. That game is a tick attack by Ultima. play the game. A game I'm still yet to complete as I get hopelessly lost, but I still love it regardless.

[00:45:19]Have you actually played the original guys or or even beaten it? Dave, I >> I just want to point out you said Ultima play the game there, not Ultimate Play the Game. I'm proud of you.

[00:45:28]>> Oh, sorry. Ultimate play the game. Did it come out sounding like Ultima? I meant ultimate play. I mean play the game Ultima.

[00:45:36]>> No, not play the game Ultima.

[00:45:39]My American forefathers fought the red coats to keep people like me from having to play games that look like Attic Attack on computers like the ZX Spectrum. So, no, >> he's done it again, Dave. I >> I'm I'm proud of Jason. Um I'm proud of you, Jason, for that bit of trolling. I I like a bit of that. Um >> that's very serious.

[00:46:00]>> Oh. Oh, they as for these games, the one similar one that I played lots of was Starquake, which is the same screen by screen layout. Uh, loads of them with a fixed number of respawning enemies on the screen, but a bit more going on to it. There's a bit more to a bit more explanation. There was codes to use for the teleporters, you specific objects to pick up, and the CPC version had fantastic title music and in-game music.

[00:46:27]I absolutely loved the game. I never got quite close to completing it cuz it was difficult. But I also don't think it's the same arcadey difficult as a tick attack is. Um it's there's a bit more to it. But in terms of collecting the right items and so that was where the difficult was as well as the arcadey stuff. I love Star Quake. I like these games but I I get what Jason's saying. I mean that this was this was a real arcade experience on your Spectrum that wasn't a a poor man's port of an arcade game. This was something made on the Spectrum from the ground up. So, I think you can appreciate for that. Even if you don't like playing them, Jason, >> it is crazy fast as well. Anyway, if you've not played it, it's a top- down game in which the screen refreshes every time you enter a new room through archers doors, locked doors, or by traversing stairs, or even falling down deep holes in the middle of the room.

[00:47:16]Ghosts and witches of all sorts of things, they spawn in to attack you, and you have to collect keys and other vital items to get through the game, like Dave mentioned. Um, and even though it's top down, the sprites are kind of face on, which isn't right. And the walls are sort of a pseudo 3D, as if you're looking down into a box from directly above. That's the best way I can describe it. And I think that's why developer Steven Carile Smith was able to quite easily adapt this game into a firsterson shooter available now for Windows, Linux, and Mac whilst almost perfectly maintaining the wonderful aesthetics of the Spectrum original. I know Jason will be very excited about that. Um, Steven, I've actually come across Steven's work before because he created a 3D version of Sabatur a few years back and I played that. Um, keeping in mind Sabatur was a sideon 2D platformer, so it doesn't really lend itself to being easily converted into 3D first person.

[00:48:13]However, with that project, Steven was given help by the game's original creator, Clive Townsend, who assisted with original map data and other elements to help put the player inside the game. This version of A Tick Attack, though, uh, it looks even better. Um, what I mean by that is it looks even closer to the original game, even though it's now in 3D. And I actually reached out to Steven and he let me know that he didn't have any special access to anything for making a tick attack 3D and no help from the original devs. The graphics were basically extracted from screenshots and everything else was created manually using maps and descriptions from various websites. And he said it didn't take him long to recreate the game map. To save time, he randomized the wall decorations rather than configure them accurately as to how they were in the original game. But he said the biggest challenge was there's essentially rooms that occupy the same space in the original with the point of entry determining which room is displayed if I've understood what he said correctly. And so that was a bit of a tricky thing to get around when you're doing it in in proper 3D. And he also states that he actually began this project three years ago, but the actual dev time itself hasn't taken that long.

[00:49:23]It's just, you know, other things on the go. I've played it because something like this I had to jump on and give it a go. I absolutely love it. Being inside a tick attack and being able to see into the next room from a first-person view and walk around is it's just absolute joy and I can see myself finishing this version before I go back to the original and complete that. So guys, what do you make of this? And what other early games have you ever wanted to jump inside of or beyond that? Even what if there was a VR version for the Quest or something like that? Is that something you play?

[00:49:55]Jason, >> I I I have to ask about this pronunciation thing because you keep saying a tick and and Dave and I are saying attic.

[00:50:03]>> Um, but and the game involves falling through a trap door, but then it does say the castle consists of five floors, including the >> attic >> and the cavern.

[00:50:13]>> It's both. It's a play in words. So, so it's supposed to be attic attack as well as a tech attack.

[00:50:21]>> Okay. I think we had this discussion a couple of years ago when we discussed the game again back then.

[00:50:27]>> I'm pretty sure people are reminded of this this vitally important game >> as far as like being put into an immersive VR type experience of a game.

[00:50:37]I I'm really just not that interested in VR. Um I remember, you know, it being intriguing, you know, in the age of go times, but nothing about the the VR revival has really spoken to me or convinced me that it's like going to be better rather than worse for my relationship with technology. But these these types of projects generally like yes it is it is very cool to take something out of the two 2D it's sort of 2D it's sort of 3D and and making it the the FPS like I I did I did get a good you know chuckle in a in a nice way out of seeing uh this adaptation and I think I think taking something that kind of inherently has a bit of wonky perspective and and putting it into a different mold like that is that is a really fun thing. you know, there's often challenges when things like platformers become 3D because part of the, you know, part of the the charm and the the boundaries, you know, can be the the two-dimensional two-dimensionality.

[00:51:26]Uh, so taking this out is is pretty cool. So, always always game to see uh these these types of adaptations.

[00:51:32]>> It's kind of like a bit of the opposite of what happened in the '9s when everything suddenly had to become 3D because you had to be 3D, whereas this has become 3D and it it works. It works really well. It's amazing how well it works. Um, I wouldn't have thought this would have been come out as well as it did. Um, it remind it reminds me a little bit of Nightmare. Um, which rose tint introspection was starting covering again. It's the the kids TV show where you wear the helmet and friends would guide them badly through a dungeon. But this this looks really good. This in fact this might be a better way of playing a tick attack than the actual original. But Chris, this is now an FPS.

[00:52:10]So, would you say that this sits maybe between Doom and the PC and any of the AmIGGA Doom attempts in terms of quality?

[00:52:19]>> Oh, I can be serious.

[00:52:22]>> I can mute your microphone.

[00:52:26]>> Anyway, I'm not even going to respond to that. All the links relevant to Steven's first person take on Attic Attack uh will be in the show notes, of course, as will the links to the work of YouTuber and streamer and developer Doss Gamer RT. He's the guy behind the isometric Wolf 3D game called I used to Wolf WF.

[00:52:50]Uh, this is now a fully downloadable version and features all the episodes and enemies of the original Wolfenstein 3D but in isome isometric. He details everything in his blog and he's taken in feedback along the way and the results are quite awesome. He's even even implemented and I forgot to turn this on when I tried it, but he's implemented a line of sight mode. So, when you toggle that on, you can't see anything that would be obstructed by a wall or a door or anything. And that includes extra rooms, uh, walls, enemies, pickups, everything. Um, so that's cool. I have played this and in short, I can say it's an interesting experience. You need the original Wolf 3D files for legal reasons, of course. There's an option within the launcher to download the shareware version, but for me, all the mirrors failed for that. So, what I did was I just bought the full version of Wolf 3D on GOG for $7 Australian, installed that, dumped the files from Iso Wolf in the same folder, and that seemed to work for me.

[00:53:51]It's very interesting to be taken out of first person and into isometric to play what was probably the first firsterson shooter I think I ever played. Um, it's fun. It's worth your time to give it a go if you've got the files for Wolf 3D.

[00:54:06]And let's appreciate that on one hand I'm c celebrating playing a top-own adventure game in 3D firsterson which changes it to being really a shooter rather than an adventure game and at the same time being taken out of a first person shooter into an isometric game which kind of turns that from being a shooter into being an adventure or feeling like an adventure game. Um what do you guys make of this? I mean, it's interesting to take this long circuitous route to reinvent the early9s Castle Wolfenstein and beyond Castle Wolfenstein. Uh, and and it did kind of say like, oh, you know, maybe I'd rather see a new iteration on those gameplay concepts rather than more kind of, you know, runand gun, you know, Wolf 3D, which, you know, kind of when when they gave that to us, we're like, this is the thing we've been craving. But we've had a lot of it since then. Now, honestly, it probably has been done. I know that there have been, you know, isometric sneakers uh that have, you know, come out in in recent years. Uh, but I can't think of any offhand. So, uh, interesting to get more more new classic Castle Wolfenstein.

[00:55:08]>> I thought this was quite unique feeling.

[00:55:11]And I might be an idiot here. Might be games I've just not seen, but I thought it I mean, it's Gauntlet, but isometric on the one hand, and that should be nothing remarkable, but it's weird. It looks like again like Attic Attack. Uh, I won't say the same pronunciation twice in a row. uh that it looks as if it's be good to play. I I like that there's no bullets. Shooting is instant, which usually isn't the case. And it it it it's it's kind of you can see it's come after uh 3D FPS shooters rather than before because it doesn't play the same way as the original cast Castle Wolfenstein uh on the Apple 2, which if anyone was not aware, that was um a kind of a platforming shooter game, not a 3D game at all. And many years later, Wolfenstein 3D came out inspired by it.

[00:56:03]Um, so yeah, I'm surprised how how how original it looked cuz when someone said, "I'm taking to take Wolfenstein 3D and turn it into a 2D game," I would have said, "Well, that'll be rubbish."

[00:56:14]But this looks this looks actually interesting and different. So, yeah, quite impressed by it. It it's weird because the reason why I think I'm going to get on better with 3D tick attack than the uh than the original is because in in 3D in first person the rooms make more sense to me whereas with Wolfenstein 3D it's the opposite. I'm being taken out but the isometric view is helping me understand the map better.

[00:56:34]Does that make any sense? It's weird cuz Yeah, but that's that's how I feel playing it. It's it's a really cool control mode as well because basically you use WD to control your player in ISO and you use the mouse to move your target over whoever you're shooting at.

[00:56:50]So you've still got that sort of full-on control even though you're in isometric.

[00:56:54]Again, all the links to all of these will be in the notes. Um, and with projects like this and the likes of Digital Foundry, who we mentioned a few weeks ago, he's now made a playable DOSS port of Gloom Deluxe and you can play it multiplayer in a browser as well. So, you don't even need a 386 or a 486 to install it on. And even my own son, Zach, who he should be ready with the release of his first game soon, which is a retrostyled pixel art card trading resource management game in space. So, shout out to Dopey Dragon Games.

[00:57:26]That's not That's not the sponsor slot, Dave. That's just me supporting my boy.

[00:57:30]Um, but yeah, I did do really wonder what's next.

[00:57:35]It's time now for our community question of the week. And last week's question was, "Suspending the laws of physics, you can fold any retro kit into any piece of furniture. What tech and furniture would you combine?" So, I'm told in good faith, we are out of contest mode.

[00:57:52]>> Yes.

[00:57:52]>> What's the top answer? I' I've seen the top answer and I'm going to say the top answer is the top answer. Dave, I think it's one for you to read out.

[00:58:00]>> We could actually stop it after the top answer because it's a brilliant answer.

[00:58:03]Happy coding. ZX. Hello. Alan says, "How about an armchair that turns into a 1980s Star Wars cockpit cabinet with the push of a button?" Yeah, >> fantastic.

[00:58:16]>> We don't need to go on.

[00:58:17]>> Brilliant idea.

[00:58:18]>> Thank you for joining us this week, everyone.

[00:58:23]>> Tech Made Easy UK. I want a Tomy Racing Turbo game retrofitted into my car. All the modern touch sensitive controls gone. Seven segment LCDs and LED bar graph modules and a toy-esque heads-up display overlaid on the road layout and other cars on the road. Nice one.

[00:58:37]>> Oh, that'd be nice. Jeff Mendoza says, >> "H, ballot box stuffing again."

[00:58:44]It says, "A folding CRT. Seeing as you're letting me suspend the laws of physics, I'm having a CRT which becomes much lighter when folded. Now I don't have to worry so much about getting a big screen out of the loft." Yeah, I think I think we'd all welcome that.

[00:58:58]Actually, >> Jacko's answer. You see that one? He says, "A couple of hinges, a saw, and bam, any Amstrad CPC could become a sun lounger." Very appropriate for the the heat wave that we have in the UK. It is 23° where I am. It It's It's I said to the guys before we started recording, it's literally Mad Max out there. It's that post-apocalyptic wasteland caused by 23° centigrade.

[00:59:28]>> See, I was a bit confused by Bjako's thing, but now I get it. So, he's saying you could fold it down so that it becomes only the size of a sun lounger.

[00:59:35]>> Yeah.

[00:59:36]>> Is that right? Okay. Yeah. Okay. It makes sense now.

[00:59:41]Any other standout ones, guys?

[00:59:44]>> There's lots of good answers.

[00:59:47]>> Give the Virtual Boy the 360° swivel chair it always deserved from Orthostelli. a comfy car seat into a Sega rally cab. Yeah, you could get those those proper bucket seats things and you could get those for I bet you someone did do it. I bet that was done.

[01:00:02]But yeah, loads of good answers. If you'd like to go and answer the questions that we're going to ask you in a moment or submit articles, then you would go to where would you go Chris?

[01:00:13]>> reddit.comrth this week in retro. And that's also where you can obviously submit stories that we choose to feature on the show.

[01:00:21]So this week's question is what Dave, >> what retro game would you like to see in 3D or what modern game would you like to see in retro 2D?

[01:00:32]In the theme of the Attic Attack, Attic Attack and the Wolfenstein 2D.

[01:00:41]>> Very cool. So, if Dave is with us next week, it's because he's fine. If Dave isn't with us next week, it is also because he's fine, >> right, Dave?

[01:00:51]>> I have no plans to have a heart attack this week.

[01:00:54]>> Okay, >> good.

[01:00:56]>> But your plans are changing. So, may or may not be with us with our with our fine fine returning guest.

[01:01:02]>> We we'll we'll see. We'll see you next week. Um, thank you very much for joining us this week. Um, we will see you next week. We have a great guest next week. really looking forward to the guest next week. Um, and I'm waving.

[01:01:15]>> Sure.

[01:01:16]>> I'm waving.

[01:01:18]>> Jason's waving. We're all waving.

[01:01:19]>> Fifth Saturday in May.

[01:01:21]>> Yeah. Uh, and we didn't do the introduction start. I'm Dave. Um, at the top of >> Yeah. No, I mentioned both of you guys by name. You And I think maybe you said Jason. We're good. We're good.

[01:01:29]>> You're the only one who does it. I don't do it. I forget about it.

[01:01:31]>> Probably said Dave.

[01:01:32]>> I know.

[01:01:33]>> There you go. Yeah.

[01:01:34]>> I'm Jason. That's Chris.

[01:01:35]>> Yeah.

[01:01:36]>> Dave's not here cuz he's >> I'm Duncan. Bye-bye. Bye.

[01:01:44]>> This week in Retro was written and presented by Chris from 005, Jason from the Retro Adventurers, and Dave. It was edited by me, Duncan Styles. The podcast version of the show is available for your favorite podcast app, including Apple Podcast and Spotify, and the video version is available on the This Week in Retro YouTube channel.

[01:02:06]Heat. Heat. N.

[01:02:16]Heat. Heat.

[01:02:56]Join our community subreddit at rstroke this weekend retro to suggest and vote on the stories we cover on the show.

[01:03:03]Please give us a like and subscribe to help us reach new viewers. If you enjoy our show and would like to support it, then please check out the link to our Patreon page in the show notes or description. Thank you for listening and we'll see you next time for more up-to-ate news for out of date tech.