This Week in Retro

You've seen all the other brands say they're following Sony's digital-only lead while chuckling into a sleeve. Now it's TWiR's turn to respond as the doomsday clock for physical media moves nearer midnight. In other news we revisit the life and career of Psion PLC founder and innovator David Potter, and explore the many hazards of the modern online auction scene, plus a look at a short-lived 3DO r...

🛠 Check out PCBWay at https://pcbway.com/ for all your PCB needs! 🛠 Sega's mission to make its history more accessible, and give the world even more authentic Sonic cartridges, leads our coverage this week. We also look at the ultra-compact, resource-light KolibriOS (runs comfortably on a 30-year old Pentium!) and an Amiga 1200 that's been upgraded beyond belief. Plus your top picks for the best r...

Has Richard Garriott (Lord British) truly maxed out his Intelligence and Wisdom scores so that he can undo a 1992 transaction and reclaim Ultima? Can Chris tell the difference between reality and a simulation, or does it all end in air sickness? And will new code development environments for the C64 Ultimate, and for the Atari ST, Amiga, Macintosh, and other 16-bit platforms uncork a tsunami of ne...

🛠 Check out PCBWay at https://pcbway.com/ for all your PCB needs! 🛠 An exclusive reveal this week as ex-Melbourne House/BEAM Software developer Tony Smales shares an in-depth tour of the never-released Arcade Wizzard pinball game for Commodore 64! We also look at the definitive overview of the rise and fall of the Sega Dreamcast and explore home computer shopping in 1998.  00:00 - Show Opening 08:...

This week's guest Jason Timmons has quietly built up Vintage Computer Festival Midwest ( https://vcfmw.org/ ) into the world's largest annual retro computing event. He joins the crew to talk about the end the line for the revived Checkmate Amiga case, the surprising differences in teletext penetration in the United States vs. the United Kingdom, and a look at the "overrated?" Amiga 500 Batman Pack...

🛠 Check out PCBWay at https://pcbway.com/ for all your PCB needs! 🛠 Welcoming back guest Iain Lee ( www.iainlee.com )  after too long away, we revisit Nintendo's all-too-brief commitment to low-cost crowd-pleasing mini consoles, explore the surprising history of videoconferencing and remote collaboration for Microsoft NetMeeting's 30th anniversary, and find out what made an octogenarian game devel...

Exclusive hardware development news caps a retro kit roundup this week which includes news of a MiSTer handheld from Heber along with updates on the PicoCPC, PicoIDE, and PicoGUS projects. In other news we take a closer look at reimagined Atic Atac and Wolfenstein 3D, and explore the many wild and wonderful corners of operating systems in the Virtual OS Museum. 00:00 - Show Opening 03:54 - Give Us...

🛠 Check out PCBWay at https://pcbway.com/ for all your PCB needs! 🛠 If you've had a hard time getting arcade cabinet purchases past "The Accountant" (as Chris affectionately calls Nicky) a new transformable design from furniture to fun on Kickstarter may be the solution. In addition to the marital politics of arcade ownership, this unprecedented episode of This Week in Retro also takes on the inte...

We take on a Sega myth, an Amiga delay, and debate the merits of the latest games enshrined in the Hall of Fame at The Strong Museum of Play. We're joined this week by Jo Cook of the UK Amstrad Group, holding its inaugural live user event next month.  See https://www.ukag.org.uk/index.php/2026/01/08/more-info-on-the-june-uk-amstrad-group-meet for more information on the UKAG meet, and visit https:...

🛠 Check out PCBWay at https://pcbway.com/ for all your PCB needs! 🛠 Sports sim pioneer Kevin Toms (Football Star* Manager) is in the guest chair as we talk about the incredible staying power of 1982's blockbuster computer launches, the Commodore 64 and Sinclair ZX Spectrum, soon to be released in handheld format. We also look at the incredible R&D legacy of Xerox PARC, the impact of the BBC Co...

If you find joy in making or fixing, you're already a kindred spirit with our return guest Lee of the More Fun Making It and More Fun Fixing It YouTube channels. Lee shares tales of his latest retro event visits and upcoming charity effort (a custom throwback game console could be yours!) before we take on the top stories. The team takes on the state of the traditional arcade, the revival of an ea...

🛠 Check out PCBWay at https://pcbway.com/ for all your PCB needs! 🛠 Welcome Andrew Borman, Director of Digital Preservation at The Strong ( https://www.museumofplay.org/ ) for an in-depth look at the future of the iconic Neo-Geo game console, with brand-new hardware just around the corner. If Metal Slug and Super Baseball aren't your thing, we also cover Channel 9 Australia's endorsement of retro...

Bring big imaginations and big keyboards as we tackle the latest Retro eXo creation, a breakthrough in modern game development for the original Sony PlayStation, and breathe new life into those old digital video camcorders on the shelf. Chris shows off a holiday photo, there's a birthday... all this, and much more, in This Week in Retro episode 264! Visit https://www.addict.media/ for your copy of...

🛠 Check out PCBWay at https://pcbway.com/ for all your PCB needs! 🛠 Indie game dev legend Jeff Vogel of spiderwebsoftware.com joins us for a provocative hour of conversation about legendary Apple products, summer camp with Lord British, moonshots and other artifacts of the Space Race, and much more! 00:00 - Show Opening 08:20 - Fifty Years Of Apple Story Link: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ckg...

It's taken too long to get prominent retro podcaster and archivist  @KaySavetz  (ANTIC, Eaten By a Grue, Internet Archive, and more) on the show! On this bonus-sized episode Kay joins Dave and Jason as we take a deeper look at 1990s nostalgia and the loss of multi-format cover art giant Philip Castle, and chart the dramatic rise and hard fall of Iomega's Zip drives. And for the sake of equal time,...

🛠 Check out PCBWay at https://pcbway.com/ for all your PCB needs! 🛠 How did we allow this to happen?! Not the guest appearance by  @adriansdigitalbasement , but rather the proliferation of competing controller standards which has finally been solved (possibly) by a new multi-interface project for USB, Raspberry Pi, and MiSTeR devices. Plus the latest developments at the new Commodore International...

Our most popular guest returns as  @ReesRambles  joins us to discuss the latest news surrounding the Myrient mega-archive, the legacy of operating system pioneer Digital Research, and some long-overdue game ports including one from the Sinclair QL of all things. Is reviving Cinemaware titles the retro equivalent of jury duty? Are there enough good Atari Jaguar games to count on two hands? Find out...

🛠 Check out PCBWay at https://pcbway.com/ for all your PCB needs! 🛠 The legacy of Lucasfilm Games looms large this week. We take on the controversial conclusions surrounding the global "Adventure Game Aptitude Test," which challenged gamers to complete the classic Maniac Mansion in four hours with no context, no documentation, and no hints. In other news we look at the improved access to Lucasarts...

All the fun you can squeeze into 64k or less as we look at the international sensation that was Jet Set Willy and the explosion of open-world adventure gaming in 1984. There's even a fully-realised Quake-style FPS available for modern PCs that fits into just 64 kilobytes, or you can code up your own retro memory-resident marvels with the aid of the new Kwyll system or dozens of other open-source d...

🛠 Check out PCBWay at https://pcbway.com/ for all your PCB needs! 🛠 "Keep a copy of what's important to you." "Punish your children one day." With these bullet points (provided by special guest  @RonsCompVids ) in mind, we take a critical look at a Philips CD-i retrospective, discuss a substantial update to the Stop Killing Games movement, and dig into the fundamental right of physical media owner...

DJ Slope of  @slopesgameroom  is our guest for this week's dive into the history of shoot 'em up games of all shapes and sizes. In other departments we examine the claim that 1996 changed computing history forever and explore whether handheld retro tech can defeat the modern scourge of doomscrolling. Plus news in classic tech ranging from the Nabu to the CIDCO Mailstation, on Episode 256 of This W...

🛠 Check out PCBWay at https://pcbway.com/ for all your PCB needs! 🛠 We're gonna need a bigger byte to hold future episodes of This Week in Retro, but the end of the 8-bit era leads off with an exploration of the innovative SCUMM adventure game engine. Originally created by Lucasarts Games for Maniac Mansion, the system went on to be used in major franchises including Sam and Max and Indiana Jones,...

After years of uncertainty, the vast and historically significant Atari archives held by the late Curt Vendel have a new home at The Strong National Museum of Play. We hear from Atari chroniclers Kay Savetz and Martin Goldberg about the significance of this new installation and share behind-the-scenes photos. Game design pioneer Mike Singleton gets another day in the sun as a Midwinter remake emer...

🛠 Check out PCBWay at https://pcbway.com/ for all your PCB needs! 🛠 We celebrate the launch of PicoIDE, the all-in-one replacement for ATAPI CD-ROM and IDE hard drives by welcoming creator Ian Scott (polpo) to the show! Ian personally guides us through the underpinnings of PicoIDE, available for crowdfunding order now. Then we transition to tricky challenges in software preservation through the le...

Australia's rich history of technological innovation gets the spotlight this week as Chris explores The State of Electronics, a channel dedicated to computing Down Under. Jason looks through the history of Leader Board golf and a comprehensive analysis of the "sunset-and-grids" aesthetic which has come to symbolise the 1980s, poking fun at international interpretation of the iconic Trapper Keeper...