I have been struggling to put into words my frustration with the open source community in failing to meet the present moment. In case you've missed the last three years: AI labs have strip-mined the internet, robbing creators of their work and selling it back to the public as a machine designed to crush labour. Thanks to their relentless lobbying of businesses and governments, there is immense…
If you're into retro computing, you probably know about Oregon Trail; a simulation of the hardships faced by a group of colonists in 1848 as they travel by covered wagon from Independence Missouri to the Willamette Valley in Oregon. The game was wildly successful in the US education market, with the various editions selling 65 million copies. What you probably don't know is the game's great untold…
Having wired networking is nice! The current iterations of Wi-Fi are admittedly very fast, but I feel a bit iffy trusting that the signal will always work at a good latency, when there's rogue slabs of concrete and surprise microwave sources to deal with. My house has fiber internet which terminates at the wireless router I keep under my TV. To enable mission-critical house activities (e.g.…
One day I decided I've had enough of computers and wanted to do literally anything else. Specifically, in that moment I wanted to print out some sewing patterns. Here is a 100mm test square I printed on my printer. Except it's only 94mm. 94mm!!! Not going to lie, searching the internet for useful information has become real bleak lately. There's plenty of advice floating around to "Open the PDF in…
A long time between updates! I've been distracted by working on ScummVM's Macromedia Director engine, but it's mostly bugfixing and I couldn't find a good focal point. So on a whim I made this! The previous video took maybe a week, this was a good test of writing/filming/editing in two days. In this video Scott takes apart "Ghost House" by Sega, and figures out how to remove the obnoxious screen…
I guess I'm a YouTuber now. Wonder how long I can fight this newfound urge to tase a dead rat. In this video Scott takes apart "Adventures of Lomax" by Psygnosis and reverse engineers the graphics data. This didn't require taking apart the code, and contains a step-by-step explanation of the black-box analysis process. A good introduction for anyone getting started in reversing games!
Last year I gave my first talk at DDD Perth 2018 ! It was about reverse engineering, how I think everyone interested should be encouraged to try it, and some useful tips for people starting out. Here is the slide deck. Apologies that the audio is a bit muffled; the microphone had a recording issue, so instead enjoy some lo-fi camcorder goodness. Thanks again to DDD for having me, and for going the…
DISCLAIMER: Cars can be dangerous. The electrical and mechanical systems of a car are not designed for this use case, and you run the risk of damaging them. This project worked fine for this particular vehicle, but could damage critical systems such as steering and braking in a different model. Do not attempt this with a vehicle that isn't yours, or a vehicle that would leave you with no…
Show Your Working is a brand new segment where I write up things I have attempted to fix in open source software. Sometimes it's interesting to debug a problem yourself from first principles, even if the codebase is huge and you don't know anything going in. I will try and explain my thought process as I venture out into the weeds armed only with a butter knife. The software If you haven't heard…
Show Your Working is a brand new segment where I write up things I have attempted to fix in open source software. Sometimes it's interesting to debug a problem yourself from first principles, even if the codebase is huge and you don't know anything going in. I will try and explain my thought process as I venture out into the weeds armed only with a butter knife. The software ScummVM is a heroic…
Show Your Working is a brand new segment where I write up things I have attempted to fix in open source software. Sometimes it's interesting to debug a problem yourself from first principles, even if the codebase is huge and you don't know anything going in. I will try and explain my thought process as I venture out into the weeds armed only with a butter knife. The software PulseAudio is the…
Hallå! Welcome to my first game devlog. I figured I'd start out talking about graphics, as they are a large source of anxiety for first-time developers. And not without reason! Everyone is a judgy bastard when it comes to how your low-budget game is presented. Oh sure, it's become easier for a solo developer to mask the familiar, rancid stench of programmer art with the equivalent of some…
Oh God. Oh God. I've been putting this one off, but the stuff has arrived. I can't back down now! A brief résumé of what happened in Part 1 : this great little KORG microKEY MIDI controller stopped powering up for reasons unknown. By wiring it up to a J-Link debug probe, we found that the CPU was still alive and kicking, yet somehow the computer was receiving garbled USB messages. As this keyboard…
Today I'm going to try and explain how digital audio works. Most people have a vague idea about how sound works. "Sound is a wave!", they might say. "Sound bounces off things!", adds another. "Sound increases as you get closer to the stacks!", relates one subject matter expert. "What?", asks someone else? "I SAID SOUND INCREASES AS YOU GET CLOSER TO THE STACKS!" "Sorry I couldn't hear you over my…
I love the KORG microKEY 37. It's an excellent entry-level MIDI controller that fits unobtrusively on your desk, great for impromptu jamming when you should be focused on something boring like "tax" or "finding a new house before eviction day". The keys feel pretty soft, as they use rubber domes instead of metal springs, but the velocity response is excellent. I highly recommend it, as it's one of…
I believe that one of the best ways of allowing creativity to overcome limited technical skill is to build upon stuff that already exists. Take game modding; just try and count the number of successful games that started out as a modification of an existing one. Would these developers have gotten anywhere as far with their idea if they couldn't build on an existing engine and assets, not to…
Let's tangent for a moment and talk about DVDs. The DVD standard was designed for the low-powered embedded hardware of the late 1990s. The copy protection is primitive, and the DVD format is public knowledge by now, making it easy to backup or format shift your DVD collection as is your God-given first sale right (unless you live in the US or anywhere that just signed a trade agreement). For…