This week on The Digital Antiquarian: Ultima IX https://www.filfre.net/2026/02/ultima-ix/

This is your reminder to cancel all those subscriptions you signed up for on sale at the end of 2024 that are about to renew at full price next week.

#adhd

Your annual reminder of the existence of https://www.computingpioneers.com, a wiki which contains transcripts of interviews with people who were involved with #atari8bit computers in the early days. The interviews were conducted by @savetz and @floppydays. The site has been up for a decade, which bodes well for its continued existence.

Kay paid a good wodge of cash to get the site populated with transcriptions of interviews with the big names, but the site is not complete. So if your ears are still good, you've got some context of the people and technical terms discussed and you've got plenty of free time, consider spending an afternoon transcribing a favourite of yours that's not already up there. It'd be wonderful to see community contributed transcriptions.

The interviews done by Kay and Randy are indisputably valuable to academic researchers. I've seen several books and papers over the years in which the treasure trove of Antic podcast interviews are cited and credited.

Transcribing one is a one-off task; once done, the text is available for everyone. Something to consider for folks who love Atari but don't think of themselves as particularly technical, as a way of contributing to the community and wider research on the history of technology.

#retrocomputing #atari #history

New trick with a new #yoyo.
Music is "Helium" by BigMcenroe.
#yoyo is Laguna by One Drop.

@fireborn I got a unihertz titan mini in an effort to downsize my phone's footprint in my life. It worked great for the 3 months it lasted before the screen died. Unihertz said they'd send me a replacement screen. 6 months later, still no screen. The form factors they make are fantastic but their quality and support are severely lacking. I wish someone else would try to fill this niche as well.

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( • . •)
/ > 🪀 heyyy look at this yo-yo video

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(ò . ó)
/ > 🪀 𝐈 𝐒𝐀𝐈𝐃 𝐋𝐎𝐎𝐊 𝐀𝐓 𝐈𝐓

https://youtu.be/lBFp-AN7fow #yoyo #SkillToys

Hey look #Solatro is a card game inspired by #Balatro, cool stuff, might play it

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2A3LoKK1hAk

https://mltshp.com/p/1R9DM “sto'vo'core”

I love historical accuracy in my video games like this 😜

#retrogaming #soulcalibur #literature #joke #classiclit #lit

@selzero Camacho at least knew enough to seek out a smart person.

This project is really cool. I spend a lot of time playing old #NES games, albeit mostly on emulators..This project enables earning #retroachievements on original #nes #hardware. Looking forward to building one.

https://github.com/odelot/nes-ra-adapter

Made my first post on the new #permacomputing forum
https://bbs.permacomputing.net/thread/6/documenting-re-usability-of-vapes-found-on-the-ground--1/

This was a super welcome surprise today: there's a #HumbleBundle with almost the entire #EarthDefenseForce franchise except for the newest game Earth Defense Force 6. This is probably my favorite game franchise in recent years.

$25 gets you #Steam keys EDF 4.1 and just about all of its DLC, EDF 5, EDF Iron Rain, EDF World Brothers and World Brothers 2. That's like 90% off or something, I don't do math. Also it's like, charity of something?

If you've never played these games before, they are basically old #Kaiju movies where you play as infantry with increasingly unrealistic weaponry, killing swarms of bus-sized insects and aliens and robots etc. They lean into their b-movie atmosphere, and take themselves hilariously seriously.

Usually I opt for the Japanese audio tracks in games like these but the English dub is so hilarious that you have to keep it on.

https://www.humblebundle.com/games/earth-defense-force-collection?sharedid=&irpid=1406679&utm_source=impact&utm_medium=paid&utm_campaign=Lowcy%20Gier%20Bryks%20Spolka%20Komandytowa&utm_content=1406679&utm_term=Home%20Page%20Link&irgwc=1

#steamdeals #pcgames #gamerecommendations

NES scientists ask...

What if Among Us.... but zapper?

https://pirateprincessjess.itch.io/undercover-shot-nes

#NES #Zapper #UndercoverShot

#Deerhoof are teasing the first single of their next album via a series of Craigslist posts. Like these:
https://newyork.craigslist.org/brk/crs/d/new-york-singer-available-for-your-party/7835619551.html

https://portland.craigslist.org/mlt/hws/d/portland-scientist-available-to-perform/7835619602.html

Links to the song are embedded in the CL images. (archived images available in one of the replies)

I woke up thinking about yo-yos. I have no idea why. But this was one we had as a kid and the commercial is just vintage early 90s. The gimmick here is that it automatically comes back because there’s a spring mechanism inside…so a lazy cheaters yo yo.

I remember whacking myself in the head (and other places).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NsUXtZauY68

#YoYo #Retro #GenX

@box464 It's fascinating to me how back in the day, yoyo gimmicks were all about making it come back automatically, while modern yoyos don't come back at all. Making them come back is basically a whole set of tricks to learn in itself. But, the increased spin time allows for tricks that would be impossible on a yoyo that comes back. So much technical advancement in return mechanisms only to be replaced by ... Nothing.

Finding the right cable to connect the two halves took a few tries, but I was able to finish building a "Floppy" split keyboard! https://github.com/SuperFola/floppy #mechanicalkeyboard

@NanoRaptor You could have told me that was tryptophan and I would have believed you lol