Thoughts, stories and ideas.
Wondering if this is how people felt back in 1968, when humans first went around the Moon—because watching it happen again today, 58 years later, it certainly feels like the first time. The last time anyone was out there was Apollo 17, in December 1972. RetroFun.PL is
I'm alive! And RetroFun.PL has finally left WordPress. If you've been reading this blog (both of you — hi!), you might have noticed it went quiet for a while. That's because I've been stuck in migration purgatory for what felt like
Move over, AMD vs. Intel : there’s a classic rivalry in the computing world that arguably laid the groundwork for modern personal computing and gaming. When reading a short list of examples of modern 8-bit computers that was recently published on RetroFun.PL, you might notice that
Just days after I posted an article listing at least 5 brand new computers based on the Z80 CPU , I see this toot: The notification Z84C00 is the only CPU listed in the Classic products -> Z80 category of Zilog’s homepage. If this is true, this would
While the site is dedicated to the 8-bit era, it is worth noting that not all 8-bit computers are old. The 8-bit computer segment is still alive and well today, with new 8-bit computers being developed and released. I can’t stress this enough: when I say “new
Once, almost at the very beginning of this website’s existence, I shared a link to the Pico8 project, an “imaginary game console” characterized by pixelated graphics combined with modern programming methods, attracting talented creators who write incredibly “cute” and eye-candy games and toys. Recently,
Hey everyone 🙂 I want to share how much I appreciate that since I posted articles on mastodon , and one of them was shared on HN, there are regular visitors who find the content interesting. <3 To be even more transparent about it, I will share some data on
Background In the previous post , I’ve acknowledged that Pascal emerged in the 70s, and Turbo Pascal existed even back in the 80s, which in theory should change programmers’ life quality if compared to BASIC (this is an important assumption). But it’s also important to remember
Update 2024-04-01 : I’ve just learned, day after publishing this, that Niklaus Wirth, the creator of Pascal, has died on January 1st 🙁 + added a link to a post about Turbo Pascal UI + updated the section about reasons to pass return values via registers + clarification that the BASIC variant
Everything was fine until BASIC entered the picture. Edsger Dijkstra in a hallucination of 2023’s AI Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication. Leonardo Da Vinci It is practically impossible to teach good programming to students that have had a prior exposure to BASIC: as potential programmers they are mentally
Atari continues to aggressively acquire everything related to sustaining their legend. We recently wrote about the acquisition of AtariAge , and now resources have expanded with another company – the creators of remakes of classic Atari games, collections of remasters and the like – Digital Eclipse. This studio was behind the
Two weeks ago the first version ( v1.0.0 ) of the BIOS for systems based on the Intel 8088 processor was tagged on GitHub! [ 8088_bios on GitHub ]. What does this mean in practice? 8088 : The Intel 8088 is an version of the Intel 8086, from which the 286 and
First a digression! While the Polish word “hydraulik” clearly derives from the Greek hydro- for things related to water, have you ever wondered why in English it’s “plumber”? It comes from the person working with lead, Lat. plumbum , because ancient Roman aqueducts were made
AtariAge , an online community and store for retro gaming enthusiasts, has been acquired by Atari . The founder of AtariAge, Al Yarusso, has also become a full-time employee of Atari. The move is seen as a way for Atari to expand its retro-related intellectual property and hardware and software offerings. Yarusso
The second part about MEGA 65 is going slowly, but it’s going. I need to finally record the most important materials, but my retro desk is exceptionally cluttered (mostly with long-standing equipment ;-)). Is anyone waiting…? ;x