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Here's another $99 box of joy. Utilite (rubbish name, innit?) is a teeny-weeny computer based around a quad-core ARM CPU that is touting itself as being ready for the full desktop experience, courtesy of the ARM iteration of Ubuntu Linux.



I quite like the look of it, I must say, although it may be my inner pointless junk-amassing neurosis that is triggering my interest here. I would quite like to get a cheap one, jam a little SSD in it and set it up to dual-boot Ubuntu and Android, but why? I really don't know.

http://www.engadget.com/2013/07/15/meet-utilite-a-99-quad-core-arm-based-pc-running-ubuntu/

Yet another mini PC - this one is seen as a competitor to the Raspberry Pi, running from an 800MHz CPU with Android 2.3 installed, costing just $50.

It also sports the world's shortest web URL (probably not true, but still).

http://apc.io/

I also find that it's always useful to compare a computer board to a banana, so imagine how pleased I was to find this photo on the site:

Adapteva managed to successfully get Kickstarter funding for this project a little while ago. It looks like an interesting development - still the best way to get the lowdown on it is to have a look at the video on Adapteva's website:

http://www.adapteva.com/

It's another cheap computing platform for enthusiasts - it's targeting the Raspberry Pi crowd here I guess. The draw here is the multicore nature of the boards: the $99 board, the Epiphany III, features 16 RISC cores each operating at a clock speed of up to 1GHz each, while the more expensive ($199 IIRC) Epiphany IV has a 64-core setup.

So. More powerful than a Wii U, and nowhere near as expensive. [/troll]

[Yoomp!]

First retro thingy I went to was at the rugby club in Leamington Spa some years ago. I went with an Atari 800XL in my backpack, along with a CF card reader I'd recently bought from a very amenable Polish chap who still trades on eBay now. Found a telly to plug it into up there and it had a steady trickle of visitors all day. I'd heard that the day before, Archer McLean had been there and was asking whether someone had brought a copy of Dropzone for the A8. Had I been there that day, I may well have ended up meeting the great man and see him play Dropzone on my Atari. As it was I had to be content with Frank Gasking (I think) hammering Blue Max and Shaun Scott (I'm sure!) bashing away at Zybex!

Anyway, I digress. The thread of A8 magnificence. I didn't own one as a youngster so I'm still something of a dabbler, but here are a few of my faves to get us started:

Yoomp! A great game, unavailable on any platform and potentially quite difficult to port at any kind of speed on other machines. Very, very compulsive.

Rainbow Walker An unusual and very colourful arcade game - hard to believe, from the screenshots, that it hails from 1983. Still, I suppose the A8 was a mature platform by that time.

Dropzone Of course

Alley Cat Another very original arcade game with loads of colour and variety.

Recently I tried to get into Necromancer, which I've heard good things about, but it's not the kind of game that makes a lot of sense if you just dive into it. Anyone else played it?

The recently released conversion of Space Harrier is a really impressive effort - it's got the speed and definition, but some of the colour schemes are a bit dowdy. A fantastic achievement though.

Hi all.

I like your site - it has a nice structure to it, little sections for computers, consoles, handhelds, non-programming activities ... all nicely organised.

Anyway, like many of you no doubt my computing/gaming days go back to the early 80s when we got hold of a C64 very early on in the machine's lifetime. Also my next door neighbour had an Atari 2600. He used to get enormous scores on Frostbite, and only later on in my life was I able to get anywhere near his scores.

Also used to love programming on the Beebs at school. Never any machine code stuff, just dabbling in BASIC, but it kept me out of mischief at lunchtime.

Then went on to Amiga and PC, but never owned a console until about 5 years ago, probably because I inherited a bit of a puritanical notion from my parents that pure games machines were a waste of time. Well, they are - and an excellent way of doing so!

Anyway, looking forward to joining in on the site, see y'all out there.