Rob Schmitt

No wonder! I'm no expert, but I think it's easier if you go downhill.

I’ve been a sole developer for 30 years. The hardest part has never been the code. It’s having no one to talk things through with. I can sit stuck between three perfectly reasonable approaches, unable to commit to any of them. 1/

A synthwave city scape

TIL there's a word for feeling nostalgic about a time you never experienced: "anemoia." And it got me thinking about synthwave.

PicoIDE CD-ROM IDE ATAPI Emulator

DOS YouTube legend PhilsComputerLab has a pre-release PicoIDE and put it through its paces in optical disc emulation mode in his latest video: youtu.be/KNv3sf-rCAM

They said Twitter was an echo chamber. It is now

If Gotye Made 'Somebody I Used To Know' in 1985 Synthwave Miami YouTube video by VinylByte

Case in point, here's a synthwave remix of "Somebody That I Used to Know" that I just discovered and it's absolutely sensational: www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dmls...

So it's nostalgia for an 80s that mostly existed in the margins and in fiction. A curated fantasy, not a documentary. Doesn't make it any less enjoyable though.

Synthwave isn't a recreation of the 80s. It's a romanticized version built from very specific things: Blade Runner, Miami Vice, Tron, John Carpenter soundtracks. The most cinematic, neon-soaked bits, cranked up to eleven.

The real 80s was Phil Collins, Whitney Houston, hair metal, and early hip-hop. The heavy analog synth sound that synthwave draws from was mostly confined to film scores and a handful of electronic acts.

Synthwave gives me a massive hit of 80s nostalgia. But I was actually around in the 80s, and honestly? The 80s didn't sound like this.

A synthwave city scape

TIL there's a word for feeling nostalgic about a time you never experienced: "anemoia." And it got me thinking about synthwave.

And we just accepted it as a small price to pay for living in the future.

Took me very long to find a ZX-81 locally that was affordable AND in the box. And I'm all about the box. Unfortunately this one is not in the best condition, so I will keep looking. My ZX Spectrum box looks like it came out of the factory yesterday.

That’s £112 in today’s money!

Thanks for sharing! This too was my gateway drug into a life of software development. My fond memories came later with different machines, but this one started it all.

That does not compute!

I'll thank it for my first experience of BASIC, and given I'm still coding to this day almost 40 years later, that's quite significant.

I think I got mine too late in the day, when the Spectrum had already been around for some time. I'd saved up birthday and Christmas money and I couldn't stretch to the Spectrum, so settled for this one. I tried to like it, but it was just too basic.

Not quite my first love, but certainly my first computer.

I'm really surprised by how SMALL the ZX-81 is. It's tiny! Been a very long time since I've seen one in person.

A boxed Sinclair ZX-81

Sinclair ZX-81 size comparison with adult male hand.

I once again own the first computer I ever owned. Very happy to have this for the collection even though I never loved this thing. In fact, I hated it. I was so envious of my friends with Spectrums.

My pleasure, and I’m sorry to let you down.

How is it that Nigel Farage looks exactly like a Spitting Image puppet of Nigel Farage?

I always knew the mercator projection spelled trouble.

Just tried to buy this not realising you were in the US. Bah.

Everything old is new again

Since sending the closure email, so many people have got in touch. I had no idea the site meant so much to them. Reading their stories has been genuinely lovely.

15 years ago I launched Darkadia, a little hobby app for tracking your game collection. Thousands of others have found it useful since. Sadly, it's shutting down — here's why.

blog.darkadia.com/post/8050931...

Anyway, at least I get to hear it play the Leisure Suit Larry theme tune.

I shouldn’t disappointed, but I bought a cheap and faulty Roland MT-32 recently and turns out it works perfectly! My repair plans have been foiled.