Bone Dry

Found an AMD Wraith Prism and a Cooler Master 120mm case fan for $8.50 at a thrift store. Replaced my Wraith Stealth with the Prism and some Arctic Silver 5, and saw a 30° drop - the factory thermal compound had pretty much dried-out 😅

Calculator stuff: 

• DOOM89 - Neat, but no thanks.
• TI-84 Plus CE games, though - Wow!
• Canon FC-43S - Metric conversions!
• Casio fx-20 - Lower-case zeroes!
• Random Hudson's Bay-branded databank 🤷

Game stuff:

• Replayed Psychonauts 2, and it's still  is capital-A art.
• Zombie Vikings is alright.
• Thank You Bus Driver is surprisingly fun.
• Derelikt Demo is fine.
• 100%'d Death's Door.
• Finished Dragon Hopper; onto Zero Racers.
• AlbertoBen's sega-vr-disasm/30fps-patch branch of matiaszanolli's Virtua Racing experiment - frame interpolation looks like it works, albeit inconsistently and with choppy audio plus crashes. 

Built a Windows XP computer for a friend from spare parts:

• Core 2 Duo E6750
• ASUS P5K-E/WIFI-AP
• 4GB DDR2 RAM (dual channel)
• 512MB Radeon HD 3870 
• 250GB 7200RPM SATA HDD
• LG IDE DVD+/-RW
• Integrated Audio, Ethernet, and Wi-Fi
• Windows XP Home SP3 (activated)
• New CMOS battery

...And told him not to connect it to the Internet.

Also re-did a new TV deployment for a pool hall; the cable company just kinda split some coax and dropped some boxes here and there, so I consolidated the boxes behind the bar, split the HDMI signal to two TVs from each, and ran HDMI-to-CAT6 extenders through the ceiling where necessary.

4:3 LG LCD TV with the bad composite and S-Video inputs is also having an audio output issue... It's from 2008, has a nice panel and a really nice form factor, plus it's all black and uses a generic power cable... Probably gonna take it apart and see if I can re-cap it myself; back to the 2007, remote-only Insignia in the meantime. I also have a bigger Samsung, but it's having display issues; also have an older LG, but its display just isn't as nice.

 ...And then I bought a Playdate; will be back with Season 1 impressions soon, but Ratcheteer, Zipper, and Casual Birder are immediate standouts.

...And then I dropped my Mondaine off for repair; not sure if it'd ever been serviced in its ~30 years.

...And then my FZ-1 3DO came back from its full re-cap!

So... DisplayHDR 400?

JagDoomEX on real hardware: Built the latest release ( dosemu2 on Ubuntu on WSL 2 on Windows 11 ◔_◔ ) and it's neat! Pro Controller support is nice, but performance with music isn't great yet. JagDoomEvolved, however, feels... Incremental? Unnecessary? More like a personal mod than an upgrade? Like, at least Rafael Silva's Dracula X Saturn patch actually fixes some stuff in Meduza Team's work; JagDoomEvolved isn't clear on any actual fixes and just seems to change option conventions based on personal preferences. I'm curious to hear a demonstration of the "audio filtering" differences, as well as empirical evidence of performance increases from the static HUD; the 'changelog' is so poorly-written that it's tricky to discern what's actually new and what's carried-over from EX... I also tried it on real hardware, and nothing really stood-out to me. That all did get me using my Skunkboard again; turned-out I hadn't updated the BIOS in forever. Also helped me diagnose the video issue with my 3DO - it was the input on the TV; even routing audio through the controller and using a different TV, however, still resulted in the system just kinda suddenly dying after a while.

Was on Holiday recently, and ended-up playing some games on NSO:

• Banjo Kazooie - Never been my kind of collect-a-thon, but did finally get into it and I understand it now - I was too old for a babysitter in 1998. Impressive scope, but a janky camera and frustrating controls waste so much time. Tooie immediately feels better, but I wanna wrap-up the first one first.
• Shining Force  - Never did finish it back in the '90s; gets kinda cheap toward the end and grinding is pretty awful, but there's a lot of character and plenty of ways to play. Like Banjo, looking forward to the sequel.
• Super Mario 64 - 103 stars; skipped 14 of the 100-coin stars, and all three of the red-coin stars on the Bowser levels.

MOTU micro express (original parallel) for $6 - never needed more than one MIDI input, but for that price? Why not.

So Switch 2 got that price increase a while back, and it's still cheaper than everything but the 512GB Series S. It got new Donkey Kong, Hyrule Warriors, Kirby Air Riders, Mario Kart, Mario Tennis, Pokopia, Splatoon, Star Fox, and Yoshi; plus enhanced ports of a bunch of great Switch games, portable ports of a bunch of great PS4 games, and backwards-compatibility that improves upon a staggeringly vast Switch library; plus exclusive NSO features like GameCube emulation. There's a bump in resolution and refresh rates over the previous generation, plus VRR and HDR - it's just too bad that the current VRR implementation in portable mode is reportedly pretty inconsistent between various titles, VRR in docked mode is currently Japan-only (and only works with Switch 2 Welcome Tour), and HDR in portable mode isn't really true HDR (420 nits). So I'm still waiting to see if they do any kind of display upgrade before taking the plunge myself.

Happy Birthday to Me!

Dreams is lovely; had to make space though, so Destiny went.

Finally sat down with Transistor, loved it, and I've 100%-ed it since. Was always into the aesthetic, but kept stalling on the gameplay - not really sure why though. Pyre's next, but also temped to go back to Bastion... Hades eventually.

Final build:

• $13 Dell Optiplex 5050 mini-tower (i5-6500/8GB dual-channel DDR4/2x256GB SSDs)
• $40 4GB Radeon RX 560 (2nd-best AMD card compatible w/the 240W Dell?)
• $7 Wooting 60HE
• $2 Logitech G203
• $2 Bluetooth adapter
• Windows 11 (M.2) + EndeavourOS (SATA)

Finally dug-into Nintendo 64DD stuff:

• Mario Artist: Polygon Studio - Go Go Park is fun, Sound Bomber is WarioWare, and Jikken World is surprisingly deep.
• F-Zero X Expansion Kit is nice to have, but haven't spent enough time with the original to really appreciate it yet.

SEGA CD support and SNES savestates on Pocket are huge additions. BIOS 2.21X doesn't seem to behave with the SEGA CD core, so I've been playing with 2.11X

Panorama Cotton for Switch was on sale, so I own that now.

DOOM: The Dark Ages | Revelations is great; way more in there to do than I expected since the Master Key stuff isn't just a re-tread. Not sure if I'll ever beat Xal'Goroth the Imprisoned or the Master Arenas, but I'm alright with that.

Dragon Hopper and Zero Racers were released on my birthday! They work on original Virtual Boys, too! Both are really good, and seem to push the hardware further than a lot of what we saw in the '90s.

Dawn of the Machine is great; reminiscent of Arcane Dimensions, but Arcane Dimensions remains one of the best video games ever created.

https://github.com/matiaszanolli/sega-vr-disasm/tree/60fps_project#current-state-july-2026 - So I was right: It doesn't work yet, but he's still working on it.

My FZ-1 3DO needs to be repaired - started with quiet audio through the rear outputs, then a dim display output, then just kinda stopped spinning discs. Hopefully just a re-cap.

Found cheap copies of Karateka for 7800 and Space Fury for ColecoVision.

Calculators; mostly just gonna use the first three for games:

• TI-83 Plus for $5 - need a data cable though.
• TI-84 Plus CE for $7 - was able to downgrade to 5.3.0
• TI-89 Titanium for $20
• HP 10bII+ for $4 - nice buttons. 

I love my automatic Mondaine, but it needs a service and I'd been looking for the right solar option anyway. Went with a Tissot PRC 100 Solar - black dial; steel case (that seems to attract light scratches pretty easily :/ ); interchangeable black leather strap, black rubber strap, and steel Milanais bracelet - because everything else solar is some combination of ugly, huge, overcomplicated, and too expensive... Until the 36mm Timex Expedition Field Post Solar comes-out at the end of the year - which now appears to be sold-out!

I'd like you to meet Mr. Pokeylope

Speaking of achievements, finally 100%'d Psychonauts on Steam... Never did show Mr. Pokeylope to all of the campers before.

Not exactly useful, but still a neat curiosity: Found a 2MB Compaq Matrox MGA Millennium + 2MB WRAM expansion module + Quadrant Cinemaster C Rev 1.2C for $7 at a thrift store; neglected to grab the video cable for the MPEG-2 card from the pile though because the store was closing and they were rushing us out :/ Went back the next day, and the cable was gone - but I did find two gray/purple SN30 Retro Set controllers and a Razer Tartarus Chroma for ~$11 - the former needed a firmware update and the latter needed a thorough cleaning, but all three work great! Too bad about that Synapse software though... Ew. Also found an original, $200 Wooting 60HE keyboard for $7 at a different thrift store - it needed a cleaning and a keycap, plus one of the LEDs doesn't do blue very well; but otherwise works perfectly... Now if only I liked 60% keyboards :/ Oh, and a Casio EV-510 for $5 - always wanted something like that, and this one works great with its 3.5mm AV input.

Upgraded to Android 17, and... Time for GrapheneOS? Getting closer.

EndeavourOS + NVIDIA 10-series + NVIDIA drivers + Steam on the OptiPlex was simple enough, but still annoying; and performance lags behind Windows 11. Round two with i3 was unnecessary - still don't need tiling in my life; back to Xfce. Keeping an eye out for a really cheap RX 560 or 6400 someday, but dual-booting from two SSDs for now. Windows 11 on the 2014 X1 Carbon was getting painful, so Endeavour's on there now too. Also playing with lighter options on the HP - Archcraft is ~12GB smaller than Endeavour out of the box, but the default polybar configuration is a little janky on the 1366x768 display and managing Plank can be a bit of a chore.

DOOM: The Dark Ages | Revelations gets awkward once the spear shows up... More buttons, parry timing adjustments... Keyboard gymnastics... In DOOM :( Feels kinda like Eternal again, and that's just not what I'm here for. Also, in order to use the Tartarus, at least two keys need to be re-mapped... More gymnastics. It's all basically an extended tutorial though, so I'm still really enjoying the DLC.

AMOK on Saturn is still so good; gotta get the PC version running again, and I'd really like to see how far along the 32X version was.

Decent prices at a couple of local stores on:

• AH-3 Thunderstrike (SCD) - Didn't realise it was different from the Amiga and DOS versions - thanks, Core!
• Battlecorps (SCD) - More Core! I just really like this one; very of-its-time.
• Soulstar (SCD) - The best of Core? Always so expensive; saved ~$100 off the usual prices though.
• Real Pinball (3DO) - More exclusives! 
• VR Stalker (3DO) - Another exclusive; also, an American Laser Games title that doesn't use a lightgun.
• Dreams (PS4) - A few things I'd like to try-out on there while we still can.
• Foamstars (PS5) - Free Splatoon from Square? Sure, why not.

Underachiever?

Small computers have always been more expensive compared to full desktops, and the latest Steam Machine is a welcome departure from the trend; beyond that, I know nobody likes hearing "It's not for you", but that argument's always been worth exploring and it feels appropriate here - the new Steam Machine's not going to replace enthusiasts' gaming PCs, custom-built or otherwise; it's not going to replace phones or consoles for casual players; it's not going to replace anything - it's going to offer a turn-key baseline for people who want to enter the PC video game realm. There'll be overlap with all of the above, but there's a specific niche that provides a telling perspective when considered alongside Steam Deck hardware sales numbers in context with console hardware sales numbers. Underserved users get attention and Steam makes its cost back on each unit, while Steam Store penetration and sales dictate the project's sustainability.

Finally sat-down with the System Shock remake, and I am grateful or it. I played the original in the '90s, and it was just so rough. I love the new aesthetic and I only cooled a little on the experience during the last few sections (gameplay changes drastically, and some of the backtracking becomes a chore), but was still satisfied by the end... I just wish any of the Epic Games Achievements had triggered :/

Got Sonic Superstars for just under $13 CDN, and it feels awful - like Sonic 4 all over again... And people liked this? Sonic fans are weird.

Found Desert Falcon for 7800, as well as Pole Position and Star Castle for Vectrex at a game stall in a weird local mall - they supposedly also had a copy of Fortress of Narzod at some point, but may have sold it; need to go back with a proper list and more cash, regardless.

Took four months, but I found a use for it!

I keep running into minor post-update issues with Arch on old hardware and on WSL. Switched WSL over to Debian; not sure about the Core 2 Quad yet, but I did find a Dell OptiPlex 5050:

• Core i5 6500
• 2x4GB 2400MT/s DDR4 (@ 2133MT/s)
• 250GB PCIe Gen3 x4 NVMe M.2 SSD
• 250GB SATA 6Gb/s SSD
• Windows 11 Pro

...For $12.99 at a thrift store! That half-height 2GB GeForce GT 1030 I found in February fits in there perfectly, the SATA SSD'll go somewhere else, and it's all really quiet. Cheapest you're gonna find all of that is ~$300.

Forza Horizon 5 is great, but I still prefer Need for Speed in terms of control and feel. Also, a bunch of top-tier cars were free or gifted right away (I guess I am joining a few years late) so I kinda didn't have to try at all, and just focused on signs and stories.

Anyway, watches: Timex for everyone, Casio for nerds, Swatch for dorks, solar for aficionados, automatic for connoisseurs, spring drive for the fancypants, and then anything else over ~$1000 is either an investment, a flex, or a mistake. Seriously, get a Timex or a Casio that suits you, and you're set; Swatch is a fashion statement; just about every brand makes really nice solar options; mod a cheap Seiko into whatever you like, if you must. Personally? I have an old automatic Mondaine Swiss Railways watch, a gold-tone Bulova Computron, a Seiko 5Y66-0AA0, a Mistura Juno Wood, a Casio EFA-124, a Fossil FS-4234, and an assortment of digital and analog quartz Timexes. Would love a Milgauss or a Sky-Dewller; would be more than happy with some of the current Presage models.

Minimal

Deals:

• 67%-off Powerstar Golf
• 65%-off Forza Horizon 5 Premium 
• 88%-off Destiny 2: Legacy Collection (2025)
• Amiga A520 for $40
• Found an Orico 4-bay, USB 3.0, SATA drive enclosure + RAID controller for $8 - appears to be an older 9548U3? Needs a power adapter.

Normal price:

• Doctor Lautrec and the Forgotten Knights (3DS) - Underappreciated, still cheap.
• Hyrule Warriors: Definitive Edition (Switch) - Didn't notice it was PAL though :/
• Headhunter (DC) - Has aged surprisingly well!

Dreamcast games that North America should've gotten because minimal localisation required:

• Aqua GT
• Capcom vs. SNK 2
• Cool Cool Toon
• Cosmic Smash
• Evil Twin
• Fighting Vipers 2
• Headhunter
• Ikaruga
• Rainbow Cotton
• Rez
• Shenmue II

...Nothing there that would've saved the platform, and playing imports has always been trivial, and they ended-up on XBOX and PlayStation and Nintendo and Windows anyway; but it's still just kinda sad.

Also, PocketDoom rewrite (SC-55 samples on GUS!) and Saturn DOOM Fix Patch v0.3!