This Week in Retro

Saturday morning wouldn't be the same without your bowl full of retro goodness. This week our stories cover the end of the Dolphin on Steam, the FMV classic The 7th Guest remake, and Doom running on Teletext! The usual tangents are taken and another TWIR cat makes an appearance.  All this and the Community Question Of The Week. We are sponsored by the awesome Pixel Addict! A magazine that magicall...

We are joined by Rees from ctrl-alt-rees this week to chat about some of the stories that you have suggested for us on our Reddit page. The WinXP activation process can now be completed without the need to go online thanks to a new process. A shop that shut its doors for 30 odd years reopens with all its old tech stock intact an up for sale. Mc Donald's customers in China have been able to buy a M...

We are back to chat about going to the pub to game using both their kit and your own. We then move on to looking at some new, old-school, handheld PC devices. Finishing with a story about how the Miami F1GP was captured to floppy disk! All this and the Community Question Of The Week. We are sponsored by Pixel Addict magazine. The latest issue is on its way and it takes a look at how people are pre...

Jason from Mr Lurch's Things joins us once again for this longer than usual chat about retro gaming, old tech and more. Microprose has reacquired the Falcon series of flight sims. Classic game Mercenary has been given a modern makeover which doesn't spoil its wireframe looks. Finally, we think back to those tabletop games as found in the Argos catalogue of old. Could LCD gaming hope to come close...

How do you recreate images made on such an early build of an art package that there was no save function? The answer is found within one of the stories we cover This Week In Retro! We also have a couple of cool tech builds to look at.  One allows a Pi to simulate an ISA card and the other is a tiny 486DX machine with genuine retro parts and neat 3D printed mini tower case, and we do mean mini! All...

Talking retro computers and more this week we are joined by Gareth from Pixel Addict magazine (he assures us he isn't here to oversee the sponsorship slot).  We'll be taking a look at an Atari 800XL recreation, talking about how your mind was an essential part of the gaming experience and wondering what Atari are going to do with the very many old games they bought the rights to. All of that and t...

We are once again joined by Mark Fixes Stuff, as last time he was on he missed out on a chat with Neil. This week's stories are: WinAmp returns transformed, but is it for the better? Did you know that you could run an ISA soundcard through your PC's TPM port? Sarah Green asks some 80's kids what they think of some ZX Spectrum games. We are kindly sponsored by Pixel Addict, the six weekly digital c...

We are joined by Amstrad streamer Xyphoe (Al) this week to talk about the mobile/cell phone hitting 50 years old, to ponder if the PS3 really is retro and to remember our old navigation buddy Autoroute.  All this and more plus the Community Question Of The Week! Thank you to our poor sponsor Pixel Addict. We apologise for the ongoing shambles that is your sponsorship slot. Actually, we did a prett...

The Internet Archive is being sued, is it really the end of Moore's Law and the brand new ZX Spectrum which recreates the entire box fresh experience.  All this and our community question of the week, will your answer be read out? We are sponsored (incredibly) by Pixel Addict magazine. The digital culture magazine which covers all sorts of retro computing topics as well new stuff for those retro m...

No Dave this week, if you find him wandering please point him in the direction of home.  This means that it is down to Neil and Chris to muse this week's topics. Microsoft's Encarta is having a big birthday, what are your memories of the multimedia encyclopedia? John Romero receives a lifetime achievement award, which is nice.  Do you miss Deluxe Paint? It was THE go to art package for many people...

The gang is all back this week to chat about if selling old tech to fund new tech is a good idea. They also check out a modded version of the original Elite which removes the flicker seen in some versions. Finally, have you heard of the Chinese 8-bit computer called the SB2000? If you stay tuned you will have! All this and our Community Question Of The Week. We are kindly sponsored by Pixel Addict...

Neil is back and Chris has a week off, but we are joined by Shelby from Tech Tangent. He joins us to talk about how the floppy disk may not be on its way out, a free book about the history of the PC and a video about an NES portable. All this along with our Community Question Of The Week. You can see what Tech Tangents has to offer here: https://www.youtube.com/@TechTangents 00:00 - Show Opening 1...

Mean Machine Dean joins us this week to check out (and be bamboozled by) how colour graphics are achievable on the Vectrex. We also find out why the team at the National Video Game Museum were locked out and there is a long discussion about piracy on the Amiga/ST as a Dominik Diamond documentary surfaces. All this along with Chris's Alfa update and the Community Question Of The Week. 00:00 - Show...

Joined by special guest The Brent from ARG Presents we talk about the potential negative side of nostalgia from retro collection. We check out a blending of two classic Star Trek games, can you take a 1978 text adventure and give it the user interface of a game from the 90s? Yeah, turns out you can. Finally, it seems that SEGA has issued a cease and desist against the publishers of a Megadrive/Gen...

Brace yourselves for the revival of that old school argument. Which is better, the Amiga or the Atari ST? Please don't throw your half eaten sandwiches or peanut our tie knots so we can't undo them. We are simply looking at a proposed book which has a crowd funder running.  In safer territory we also look at the awesome and unofficial sequel titled Golden Axe Returns! Have you even stumbled across...

We have another guest this week, Clint from LGR. He joins us to talk about how a specific version of Doom has been tweaked to provide a multi screen experience (you will need 4 PCs though!). We check out the Windows 95/98 emulator called PCem which should allow modern machines to accurately emulate old hardware, great for old school gaming. The Orpheus 2 soundcard has now gone on sale and we look...

We have a special guest this week from Germany. Ian joins us to talk all things 3dfx VooDoo. We also think about some claims from Lord Alan Sugar that his products were better than Apple's. Could he be right? Finally we talk about RPGs and the rewrite of Thalion's Ambermoon. We are kindly sponsored by Pixel Addict Magazine, the monthly digital culture magazine. Available from WHSmith in the UK and...

After a recent article about RISC OS & The Acorn Archimedes we take some time to talk about what we thought of the Archimedes. Was it really in the same league as the Amiga? Arcade1up are re-releasing their Star Wars arcade cabinet. Are you tempted? Finally, we find that it is possible to run Wolfenstein on the 8088 CPU thanks to a new port that runs just fine using CGA graphics. All this and our...

Can you build an old computer using only brand new parts? Turns out you can! How about about shiny new C64? The ants are back causing trouble in the desert again in It Returned To The Desert, a follow up to the classic Cinemaware game. US Customs ruined a WATA graded game, trashing its apparent value. We also have your answers to our Community Question Of The Week! We are sponsored by Pixel Addict...

This is your weekly Retro Computing round-up and this week we look at the three new consoles from Atari, might they tempt you to dip into their back catalogue of games? How do you find a retro destination in your area? There is now a website which will show you what is where: retro shops, museums, clubs and even podcast and magazines. We also look at the big box release of Return To Monkey Island....

For the first show of 2023 we are joined by a special guest, Mark Fixes Stuff. We talk about how a game engine (in this case Doom) can be used to recreate logical operations. We look at a report of the 8 most expensive video games you probably never want to play. Finally we say a goodbye to PC Mag in its printed form.  All that plus other chat and the Community Question Of The Week. 00:00 - Show O...

This is the 2nd collection of out-takes from 2022. Normal service will resume next week. You might enjoy this episode more if you watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/6Vn28r9ZBmc 🏆Your monthly support helps us keep the retro news flowing! https://www.patreon.com/thisweekinretro ☕Or just buy us a coffee! https://ko-fi.com/thisweekinretro 🕸 TWiR Sub Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/thisweekinretro/...

This is the first of our 2 shows where we share some of the silly bits and things that didn't make the show since episode 50 (see episode 50 for some of the older out-takes https://youtu.be/mOEX6kDC5-Q?t=1326 ).  Back next week with more! You may enjoy this more if you watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/thVplIfMHRo 🏆Your monthly support helps us keep the retro news flowing! https://www.patreon.co...

For the last (proper) episode of 2022 we have a special guest joining us to talk about some old photos depicting arcades of the past, how some people have been collecting computers before it was the thing it is now and about the recently found (high quality) footage of Michael Jackson for the SEGA game Scramble Training. All this and the reveal of the three wrapped retro gifts. We are sponsored by...

This week we look at R Type which has just been ported to the Sega Megadrive/Genesis, this sparks discussion on our favourite shooters. Then we check out the fantastic stand alone Atari Jaguar emulator which is 100% compatible with all Jag titles. Finally, Dave (the Amiga's biggest fan boy) points out how smart an EATX Amiga 2000 motherboard is. Finally we have our community Question of the Week w...