I don’t think I’ve ever shed tears for a website that’s going offline before, but it was pretty emotional for me. As a lover of retro games, playing these older masterpieces is going to be a bit harder, and with a lot more friction. Tomorrow is the last day Myrient will be online. Myrient was a one-man show. I’m absolutely amazed what Alexey has built over the past few years. Every single archival…
As a Linux cult survivor, I still found myself hit by Stockholm syndrome reminiscing over a deep hole left by an operating system that relinquished control to myself only. However, I developed disillusionment from the constant maintenance and upkeep of a desktop that was just too unstable. The frequent distro hopping, struggles to run anything that isn’t in the package repositories, and another…
Tonight, I found myself having an actual conversation with ChatGPT. I can't say it understood me that well, but when it came to core issues, it nailed the gist expertly. That didn't bother me though, because LLMs are a fun experiment and grudgingly admit that they have some pragmatic uses as well. The debate about AI can start here but I'll halt it because the rant belongs somewhere else. What hit…
December has been a crazy month for me as I painstakingly undertook probably the most ambitious project for TopRoms yet. I know you’ve been secretly dying to see this addition to your beloved collection and I’d like to announce this massive edition of TopRoms. A set of games from a generation that brought forward some of the most definite classics in gaming history. An era that put four gaming…
I know many of you have been waiting for this but the time has finally come for a new TopRoms release. I was hoping to release something like this earlier, but some of may know that life happened. However, we can put that aside for now and announce this exciting edition. What's New: - A Super Famicom collection for some of the most amazing Japanese RPGs patched and translated into English by fans.…
When I picture a typical land party, I imagine a bunch of passionate geek gamers bringing in their massive desktop weapons or laptop desktop replacements. Machines with powerful GPUs enough to run NASA spacecraft and cost as much as one. An AI-generated image of a LAN Party on the Highway However, what if your peers only have modest machines with an integrated GPU? Essentially, a 'normal' laptop.…
We've all seen reviews of Sonic Origins stating that it was a mediocre disappointment. The Plus expansion was supposed to address our concerns but many of us are still unhappy. Sonic Origins was supposed to be definitive version of the classic series but Sega clearly didn't put enough passion to make it one. Rather than get angry and emotional, I present what could have been added to Origins to…
After dumping my ThinkPad P16 for a refund, I felt like I was going to have to give up on the laptop world. It seems that the issue of portability always leads to a story of compromise. I never purchased the best laptop, but rather felt like I was picking the least worst one. My new machine is still a tale of sacrifices but at least the papercuts don't hurt as much this time. I had to teach myself…
I didn't expect the topic of AI to be so polarizing since last year. There are fears that it will replace many of us and some literally saying that it will take over the world. A dystopian future where your automotive accident insurance claim will be evaluated by a computer rather than a human adjuster. Personally, I didn't feel worried. When Stable Diffusion was finally available to the public, I…
Last week, I got a refund for my Lenovo ThinkPad P16 Gen 1. On paper, it sounded like a dream machine, with insane specifications ready to tackle any computing task. It was also a good way to flex your choice of 128 GB of RAM which I actually did use. You’d think spending thousands of dollars on a machine would grant you a premium experience, this post will make you think again about that.…
I really didn't expect that I'd get so much responses and support after posting March's rant. My inbox got flooded with emails quite quickly and I'm going to have to respond to each one of you. I kind of cried a bit. I appriciate so much what you have sent me, it means a lot. It's nice to know that outside of my circle, that other people care about me. Thank you! Things are looking up at this…
I have to apologize for the recent silence and lack of progress in my various projects. My mind hasn't been wired properly for a while now and going to difficult and troubling times. I mentioned before that I'm bipolar schizoaffective and borderline but my symptoms have reached their peak in somewhat recent times. I was promised that my illness would be a prodrome to grow bigger and bigger and…
I’m currently hard at work expanding and assembling the TopRoms collection to include even more goodies. The collection is getting quite large, but stay reassured that only quality content will make it to the package. Here’s a taste of what’s coming up next: Japan only releases that are translated into English. This will be very time consuming because the Japan region has been the recipient of a…
It’s been almost 10 years since the FreeBASE idea was initiated. However, it was a massive failure due to realizing that we were competing in the wrong field and honestly being afraid of our shadow. The biggest problem that I didn’t understand back in my university days is that good ideas don’t make good products. I mean, how great of a proposition is it? A game and media console that would play…
Helen Marnie is a somewhat obscure artist known for her dark and sombre music with the iconic track The Hunter among others like Hearts On Fire , Wolves and Lost Maps with a slightly macabre held melody in addition to lyrics that cause a downturn in the morale of the listener. However, this kind of music reveals a kind of depression that exposes a more realistic outlook on life rather than the…
So you want to get onto the blogging train? Thinking what lies ahead is a replacement for your boring office job? We all have strong delusions that easy money is just around the corner as a side gig. However, anything that starts as fun becomes a job when you get onto the treadmill. My blog started around April 2017, having no idea what to expect. My only real goal was expressing myself and…
This was a really difficult decision to make fearing the stigma behind mental challenges and disorders. Revealing my condition will definitely make me more vulnerable in my personal and professional lives. However, if we want to change the perspective of the general populace giving them more insight. More and more people need to express what it’s like to suffer in silence. What my inside perceives…
Looks like we’ve been having quite some downtime with issues for the TopRoms download. Mega has provided to a hassle but torrents as well. My seedbox provider has accidentally brought down my instance and lost all my data. So I’m currently working on migrating to another provider so the torrent is brought back to life again. I really apologize for the inconvenience. I’ll also make sure that…
TopRoms has received a massive expansion with a huge selection of new systems. I spent a good chunk of the past few weeks working on the upgrade of the collection. Over 20 new systems have been added into the collection. There has been more addition to existing systems, including forgotten ROMs for Pokémon games on GBA. At this point, the collection has compilations for 45 systems. Most of the new…
A new torrent file was added to the TopRoms page . You may point your client to the directory of your existing download. Files that you already have will be skipped. The collection now includes a curated set of TurboGrafx-CD games. This was a very time consuming endeavour due to the large amount of high-quality games for the system. Unlike the Sega-CD, the TurboGrafx-CD didn’t fall into the same…