Orange Pi 5
Work in progress.
Raspberry Pi 4/400
August 31, 2022
My Raspberry Pi 4/400 console menu playlists on a 128gb microSD card includes over 12,000 unique titles to play spanning over 30 machine emulators, courtesy of RetroArch, CoinOps and Daphne. There is also an Arcade Tournament mode that can be fun for a retro gaming party.
Don't be deceived by its simple text layout. It can use both keyboard and joystick to operate. It runs a spectacular attract mode when sitting idle. A lot of multimedia and special screen effects have been carefully selected and configured to bring the player back in time.
Also pictured here is built-in PDF viewing of some favorite manuals, including my help documentation:
Raspberry Pi 3 B+
July 10, 2023
I want to bring a portable arcade machine to my 40th high school reunion next month as a small "blast from the past" attraction. Coupling my Pi 3 B+ with a UPerfect portable vertical monitor was my calling.
Instead of making a custom RetroArch OS myself, I found a suitable Pi OS image called Mr. Burns vertical arcade and simply configured its interface to restrict use to my 43 favorites made between 1978 - 1983:
Google Stadia
November 19, 2019
For nearly four decades, I have invested in the latest for home video gaming: Atari, Sega, and Sony. This year, I am a Google Stadia Founder.
But I still enjoy retrocomputing -- mostly games from the 1970s & 1980s arcade and home computer era -- using machine emulation.
I started learning BASIC on a WANG like this in high school. Bought my Commodore VIC 20 in February 1982, followed by its replacement Commodore 16, then Commodore 128. I was an Amiga PC user from 1988 - 1997 before succumbing to PC -- for Linux.
Commodore Amiga
June 10, 1988
It was my time to "grow up" off the past 6-years of home computing and enter the new age of personal computing with the slew of 16-bit computer makers and models hitting the streets. Sure, I was blown away like everyone else in 1985 with the Commodore Amiga 1000 "personal computer" introduction, but could neither afford it nor appease my appetite for home computer games, telecommunications and integrated CP/M option that came with my Commodore 128.
I would purchase the next model, Amiga 2000, with added memory on a SCSI card with an attached 47 megabyte Quantum hard drive. I also invested in the SAS/C compiler suite and got a "hot copy" of CygnusEd to write "real" software. It would all work out in spite of being "let go" from a company downsizing effort the following Friday -- the day before my 23rd birthday, ugh.
I remained with the Amiga line of computers (3000, 3000T, and 4000) until November 1997, well past Commodore's fateful May 1994 ending.
The Golden Age with 8-bit computing
February 12, 1982
I grew up with the start of the 8-bit era. After playing the Milton Bradley electronic board game, Dark Tower, for Christmas, I got hooked on BASIC programming when starting the second semester with a Computer Math class.
I spent the first four weeks handwriting a port of Dark Tower while saving up for a $400 Tandy Color computer. My high school buddy convinced me that the Commodore VIC 20 might be a better value at $300, and clearly it was. I would purchase one at Ann & Hope, then buy its Datasette tape drive for $79 the following week.
The Commodore joystick and an Omega Race game cartridge would follow, after all, I wanted not only to learn computers but also wanted to craft and play games.
The following year, I would get a 6-slot cartridge extension to plug-in the Machine Language Monitor cartridge with a 3K and 8K memory expander. 6502 machine code programming was my key to understanding how computers worked at the speed and level required to achieve my goals.
I would not get my first floppy drive until after I switched to the Commodore 16 for Christmas 1984. But, I had started my professional career as a computer programmer later that Spring and was able to get a complete Commodore 128 setup with an 80-column monitor, modem, printer and the quirky 1571 floppy drive.
