#oneaday Day 365: A year of this

Yes, it appears I have been doing this nonsense (again) for a whole year. And with it, I feel a curious sense of… well, not a lot at all, really. The world, both online and offline, has changed a great deal since the first time I did a daily blogging project, and the purpose of this blog has, by extension — and not necessarily deliberately — changed somewhat, too.

When I started doing #oneaday first time around, it was an attempt to be part of a community. The people who kicked off the "challenge", as it were, were people who I wanted to get to know a bit better, mostly from in and around the games press. Unfortunately, that never really happened, as most of them dropped out pretty early, and some of them actually got rather abusive towards the entire #oneaday project at various points. So that was unfortunate.

I persisted, though. There were other people who decided to get involved that I did enjoy reading the posts of. Several people who I got to know through their posts, and enjoyed interacting with through their comments sections. Out of all of them, I'm not sure any of them even still have their blogs that they started back in the 2010s — I know I've been looking for several of them, and they're just not there any more. I hope they're doing well; it saddens me a little to think that they'd take something they'd created and just cast it aside for one reason or another, but I also understand that today, you often can't be too careful about your "Internet footprint" lest something that seemed innocuous at the time ends up getting dug up to be used against you maliciously.

That's not all, though. There are also a number of people from the anime, manga and video game enthusiast communities who I got to know a few years after I stopped doing #oneaday on a regular basis, and most of them have abandoned their blogs, too. There are a few still knocking around, to be sure, but a lot of the ones I most enjoyed reading and chatting in the comments sections of are simply no longer online at all. Again, that's a real shame; I miss those people, and since our only real point of contact was our blogs, chances are I won't hear from them ever again.

I've spoken before elsewhere about how viewing figures for personal websites are in the absolute toilet these days. I'm lucky to break double figures in views on this site these days, whereas ten years ago I'd maybe get a couple of hundred. Not particularly impressive compared to a commercial site, no, but considering all I do here is waffle on about whatever pops into my head on a given day, I thought it was quite a noteworthy achievement. MoeGamer, as a site with a tighter focus, still gets a decent number of views per day, but most of them are confined to just a few pages and articles, many of which I wrote several years ago and thus successfully acquired the SEO juice for.

As I've also said before, this blog has never been "for" anyone other than myself. I write here because I enjoy writing, because I've always enjoyed keeping a journal, and because I find it a valuable means of expressing myself. The fact that hardly anyone is reading it any more is a shame, sure, but getting people to read this site has never been a priority. If it was, I'd be sharing posts every day on social media, and I just can't be arsed with that.

You see, a post "gaining traction", as Internet vernacular has it, is a bit of a double-edged sword. Yes, it's nice to see people reading your stuff, but it also means that you're likely to run into that particular type of person online who does nothing other than arbitrarily disagree with everything you write. In many instances, one gets the impression that they don't even particularly care what they're arguing about — just that they're arguing. And when something you post online gets viewing figures outside of the circles it normally moves in, you get an exponentially greater number of people like this. And it can be exhausting.

So that's why I'm not too bothered about no-one reading this except me. I derive value from this site from being able to look back at my entries from various different times, and see how I was dealing with particular situations. I enjoy looking back over this semi-permanent record of my own memories, both good and bad. And I feel like I occasionally learn something from reflecting on things that I wrote in the past — both things that I'm proud of, and things that I regret. All of those things helped make me the person I am today, and they're all here on this one site, as a complete reference guide to Pete.

So yeah. I've been doing this daily for the second time, for a year. And I have no intention of stopping just yet. If you happen to be following along, thanks for being a member of an increasingly exclusive club. If you're new here, hi, if you have any questions chances are many of them have been answered at some point in the last three thousand posts. And if you're one of those lapsed bloggers I mentioned earlier, do say hi — it would be great to hear from some of you.

Want to read my thoughts on various video games, visual novels and other popular culture things? Stop by MoeGamer.net, my site for all things fun where I am generally a lot more cheerful. And if you fancy watching some vids on classic games, drop by my YouTube channel.

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#oneaday Day 364: I should probably play Undertale

I've never played Undertale. More impressively, I have somehow not been spoiled on Undertale as yet, but I'm feeling increasingly like I should probably play it. I do own a copy, after all, and now its follow-up Deltarune is out on Switch 2, I feel like the risk of inadvertently stumbling across spoilers in the wild is about to take a sudden spike back up.

I don't really have a good reason for not having played Undertale. It's not that I don't want to play it, it's just never been a particularly high priority for me. Part of that is down to the "reverse hype" thing, where so many people are playing it and making memes about it that I just want it to go away in order to appreciate it on its own merits. In fact, I think that's probably most of the reason I haven't played it as yet. Which is arguably a bit silly, because as I have seen with a number of other games in the past — Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 and Mario Kart World being the most recent ones — it's sometimes fun to feel like you're part of the "current" conversation.

I'm still in the process of weaning myself off the habit of only playing one game at a time. While it definitely pays to devote yourself to something lengthy like Xenoblade Chronicles X (which I'm closing in on 90 hours of) it also certainly doesn't hurt to play some other things in the meantime, too.

The way I've found most helpful of thinking about it is in terms of TV shows: back in the prime of serialised TV shows in the late '90s, you'd watch maybe five or six ongoing shows all at the same time and still be able to keep them all straight in your head, even with a gap of a week in between each episode. While that's not how most people enjoy TV shows today, it absolutely is still possible to watch and enjoy multiple TV shows simultaneously (well, not simultaneously, but you know what I mean) without feeling like you've "abandoned" one in favour of another. And the same should be — is — true for games, too.

Very few games have such an intense structure that they demand your undivided attention for hundreds of hours; in the case of Xenoblade Chronicles X, for example, the main story is split into discrete chapters, and in between each chapter there are a bunch of "side" missions (which are actually also very important to fleshing out the overall setting and narrative) that can be tackled a bit at a time. With that structure, it's easy to find a natural stopping point — on the micro level, after completing a single mission; on a more macro level, after completing a story chapter, or clearing up all the accessible missions between story chapters — and then go do something else for a bit.

So y'know what? This weekend I might just start Undertale. I believe it's not particularly long, either, so it might be a nice palate-cleanser, and then I can play Deltarune and be part of the conversation over that. Maybe.

In fact, I will make that a commitment. Tomorrow I will start Undertale. I have no real commitments for the weekend, so I'll sit down with it, give it some time and see what I think. As I say, I know pretty much nothing about it at all, so I am very interested to finally give it some time.

For now, though, bed. Or maybe a Mario Kart race or two before that…

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#oneaday Day 363: It's Switch Twoursday

Come on, Nintendo, "Switch 2sday" was right there and you blew it. Sega had this shit sorted back in the '90s… although given the trajectory they took shortly afterwards, probably best not to take too many cues from them on the hardware front.

Anyway. Yes! It is the Nintendo Switch 2 launch day and I have been fortunate enough to get one on launch day. I ordered from Argos when pre-orders first went up, and I was half-expecting my order to be cancelled. But no! It arrived mid-afternoon today, so I went through the whole "transfer" process from my original Switch, and I've been happily enjoying Mario Kart World and Ridge Racer this evening.

I'm going to write something more substantial about both of those games over on MoeGamer at some point in the very near future, so I thought today I'd talk a little about my initial experiences with the Switch 2 in general.

Overall, my impressions have been very positive. Outside of the thing refusing to connect to my Wi-Fi on one side of my study (a problem that is by no means exclusive to the Switch 2), everything has gone pretty much as smoothly as you would ever want.

If you're upgrading from an original Switch, there's a straightforward transfer process you can run. This involves putting the two consoles physically close to one another, presumably so they can establish a direct wireless connection between one another, and then triggering the transfer process from both ends, perhaps with a login or two along the way depending on how you have your accounts set up. It even asked for the microSD card from the original Switch to transfer over captured screenshots and videos.

When it was finished (about 15-20 minutes later), all of my saves, settings and account details had been transferred over to the Switch 2, and the Switch 2 made a start on redownloading all the digital software I had on my original Switch. This was fine for my purposes, though those who have larger digital libraries may have run into issues, since the largest microSD Express card you can get for Switch 2 (and it will only take microSD Express, except for the aforementioned screenshot library transfer process) is 256GB. OG Switch, meanwhile, would happily take 512GB or more.

The auto-download thing was fine, but for some reason it did stop partway through and didn't resume. I assume this is because I started doing something that talked to online — that's what generally happened with downloads on the original Switch — but I would have expected it to start downloading again afterwards. This didn't happen. Not a huge issue, since I can easily manually redownload anything I want to put back on the system, because the icons for those pieces of software are there, but it would have been nice for that to be fully automated.

One of the biggest upgrades is to the eShop. No longer a slow, annoying mess to navigate, the Switch 2's eShop seems perfectly functional, and it already has some hentai shovelware games ready to go. So the curation issue isn't exactly solved, but the painful user experience side of things is, at least, fixed now.

I briefly fired up the new Gamecube app you get with a Nintendo Switch Online subscription, and boy, those games sure do look lovely all HD-ified. I'm looking forward to having a play with Soul Calibur II and F-Zero GX in particular; I'm in no hurry to replay Wind Waker, meanwhile, since I played the Wii U version a few years back and while I enjoyed it, I also don't have much desire to play it again just yet.

Handheld, the screen looks lovely. While not OLED, it's bright, large and smooth. Games look great on it. I haven't tried any original Switch titles on it as yet, but Switch 2 stuff looked pin-sharp and super-slick. It's also a bit bigger than the original Switch, meaning it'll probably be more comfortable to play more complex games in handheld mode than the original Switch was. I will likely still keep it connected to the TV for the vast majority of the time, but I feel more inclined to play handheld with that lovely screen than I do the original Switch. No shade on those who primarily played OG Switch handheld; I just preferred the TV experience by quite a considerable margin.

Thus far, then, I'm happy with my purchase. I still have plenty of concerns about things like Game Key Cards, software prices and suchlike, but we'll see how things pan out long-term. I do find myself wondering if Nintendo will be able to capture the same lightning in a bottle that the original Switch was — historically speaking, they've tended to follow an astronomical success (Game Boy, SNES, Wii) with anything from middling-to-solid commercial performance (N64, Gamecube) to catastrophic failure (Virtual Boy, Wii U), so it will be interesting to see where Switch 2 falls on that spectrum… or if it will continue a run of good luck for the company.

Anyway, it doesn't really matter. I have one, I like it and I'm looking forward to playing with it some more. So I'm going to do just that before I head to bed. Mario Kart World calls me!

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#oneaday Day 362: Switching to a new era

Switch 2 is officially out tomorrow. Some folks have been getting theirs today. Mine looks on track to arrive tomorrow, so I should be able to get some time in with Mario Kart World and Arcade Archives 2: Ridge Racer tomorrow evening. Doubtless I will have things to say about both of those.

Today I just wanted to offer a tip of the cap to the original Switch. It's not a "farewell", because the Switch 2 will (hopefully) allow me to continue to enjoy all the original Switch's games, and if not, well, I still have that original Switch.

I love the Switch. I actually don't use its main tentpole function of being a handheld all that much, but I do take advantage of its easily portable nature quite frequently. It's much easier to bundle a Switch case and dock into a suitcase than it is a PlayStation 5, after all, so when I travel, the Switch typically comes with me.

I've also amassed an enormous collection of Switch games — 405, to be exact, if my collection database is to be believed, plus a number of digital-only games. That's more than any other single system in my collection — PS2 comes close with 282, but Switch has definitely been the front-runner for a long time. I would often buy multiplatform games on Switch by preference, even if they weren't the "best" version in terms of graphics and performance; even though I didn't play the games handheld all that much, that aforementioned portability factor remains a great thing.

Plus there's the fact that the Switch plays host to a ton of games that I wanted to play! In particular, it took up the mantle from the PlayStation Vita in terms of anime-inspired RPGs and visual novels, and some clever publishers even found a means of getting full-on sexually explicit games onto a console for the first time. A Nintendo console, at that.

I'm not just talking about lewd games, though. Tons of great Japanese games came — are still coming — to the original Switch, and there are loads on my shelves that I haven't gotten to just yet. The thriving limited-print scene, which I know is divisive, has been particularly strong on Switch for those who want packaged versions of indie games — and best of all for collectors, most of those releases are truly complete on cart in terms of DLC and patches.

Sure, Switch has had its annoyances, most notably Joy-Con drift. I also had a drifting stick on my Pro Controller for a bit, but taking it apart and putting it back together again fixed that and it's been absolutely fine since. The eShop has long been a bit cack, though, both in terms of speed and the amount of AI-generated slop it's been subject to. Early reports would seem to indicate that Switch 2's eShop has taken care of the former issue, and the latter is something more endemic to the entire digital distribution scene, not a Nintendo-exclusive thing by any means.

I think Switch 2 is going to be a lot of fun. I also think it's going to see a few teething troubles, with the most notable being the Game Key Card situation. There are a lot of games that people want to play that are being released on these stupid things, and that concerns me. I do not want the Switch 2 to be a platform that forces me to go all-digital because I like collecting games. My quiet hope is that the early Game Key Card releases are such a flop that the publishers cheaping out by using them rather than proper cartridges will abandon them, Nintendo will quietly retire the practice before long and these games will get reissues on a proper cartridge. But I guess we'll have to wait and see on that. It feels like it might be unlikely, but stranger things have happened.

Anyway, I am looking forward to playing Mario Kart World and Ridge Racer tomorrow, and I, of course, still have to finish off Xenoblade Chronicles X — pity that one doesn't appear to have a "Switch 2 version" upgrade, as it could really benefit from the additional oomph! — so the future, for now, looks bright and enjoyable. And, tomorrow, there will be much racing!

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#oneaday Day 361: Hotel Echo Lima Papa

I don't really need help. I just couldn't think of a heading that I hadn't already used to say that yes, it is monthly hotel visit time again, as I am down to go into The Office for miscellaneous shenanigans tomorrow. Excitingly, we have a new office now, albeit in the same building, and I have no idea where it is, so that will be fun to sort out tomorrow morning.

Annoyingly, the lift at the hotel I normally stay at is broken again (or possibly still broken from last time) so I had to trudge up the stairs with case in tow to get to my room, reminding me quite how unfit I really am. I'm not dead, though, which 8s good, and due to there being no single rooms available for this stay, I'm actually in a double room tonight, so lots of room to sprawl.

Even better, the room has a bath, so I had a nice bath earlier, and I didn't flood the room this time so I could actually enjoy it. So I'll let the hotel off for the fact its lift hasn't been working on my last two visits.

It's a horrible lift anyway. One of those pokey little ones that's basically the size of a cupboard, and claims to be able to house four people but can barely contain one, particularly if the occupant is a larger individual like me. But, still, when it works, it does mean you don't have to climb the stairs, so I've never been too mad at it.

Anyway, I'm off to relax a bit before sleep. I don't really know what's going on tomorrow, but hopefully it shouldn't be too stressful. Then there's the long drive home. Joy.

That's something for Tomorrow Pete to worry about though. For now, Tonight Pete is going to enjoy the last days of the Nintendo Switch ahead of the follow-up arriving on Thursday!

#oneaday Day 360: Lacking in inspiration

After rather longer browsing through the "Random Post" option than I would like, I am no closer to determining what I might want to write about today. So, as ever in scenarios like this, I am just going to start typing and see what comes out. It might be coherent, it might be nonsense; it might be meaningful, it might just be a summary of what happened today. I don't know yet because I haven't written it yet; the only rule is that I'm not going to stop typing to think. No, think, always type.

I published my video on Kathy Rain 2: Soothsayer yesterday. It's done… all right, but this further cements my complete lack of understanding of what "works" on YouTube. Sometimes I'll post something that I feel is completely throwaway and it'll do very good numbers (obscenely good in the case of something like my Super Woden GP 2 video from a while back), then at other times I'll post something that actually had some meaning to me, and it'll struggle to break a hundred views. I think the most galling instance of this happening was back when I covered The Missing: J.J. Macfield and the Island of Memories, a thoroughly interesting game by SWERY65 that really got me thinking and learning some things. It was, in many ways, a very personal video, and it did absolute bobbins performance-wise. But I'm still glad I did it.

My Kathy Rain 2 video isn't exactly "personal" in the same way, but I did enjoy the game enough to want to share it with others, because it was a very good point-and-click adventure, and I hope it does well. But at the time of typing this, it hasn't broken a hundred views yet, and I feel like it's been tough to get people to pay attention to it on socials also.

There are times when this happens where I find myself wondering if I should bother keeping on with things like MoeGamer and my YouTube channel. They're both "work" in a sense, and I could probably have a lot more time to myself to enjoy things if I ditched both of them and just lived my life to enjoy myself.

But the trouble is, I really enjoy doing both of them, and neither of them have ever been about viewing figures. Sure, the occasional payout I get from YouTube is a nice little bit of pocket money (and nothing more) but I don't really do either videos or articles for the sake of making Number Go Up. I do them primarily as means of expressing myself about things that I am enthusiastic about, and to share that enthusiasm with others — particularly people I consider to be close friends.

Now, I've found out to my cost and frustration that there are some people I considered to be close friends who don't give a shit, and have never even tried to give a shit when I shared things with them. So I've just stopped trying with them, and instead I just concentrate on doing these things for my own enjoyment, and perhaps to share with people that I know will appreciate them.

Sure, it might be nice to be able to do YouTube as a living, but would it really? Would it really be nice to have one's income completely beholden to the fickle fates of The Algorithm and the massive variation one can see in viewing figures from one video to the next? Probably not. So that is not — and never has been, really — an angle that I'm pursuing.

Best thing is just to keep these things as hobbies, and if certain people happen to stumble across them and enjoy them, great. If not, at least I have something I can look at myself and be satisfied with — and be content in the knowledge that generative AI hasn't come anywhere near those things I've created, either.

Anyway, I have spent enough time randomly pondering absolute nonsense this evening, so I think it's time to go and unwind with some video games. I think some Castlevania: Lords of Shadow might be in order; I've been playing that a bit for the last week and really enjoying it. Patrick Stewart!

So that's what I'm off to do now. And all my self-imposed commitments are already taken care of well before midnight, too. Look at me, I'm growing.

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#oneaday Day 359: Commenter policy

I've had a few right weirdoes in the comments section of MoeGamer of late, and they are a prime example of why I adopt a fairly strict moderation policy: anyone who hasn't commented before has to have their first comment approved before any of their comments will appear on the site. If I don't approve that initial comment, the words they hammered into their crusty keyboard will not appear on the site.

I think by far the strangest so far was the one who started off talking about nostalgia, but then started banging on about the "globalist agenda" and how modern video games were all basically in service to this. By "globalist agenda", by the way, this person absolutely meant "the Jews", and as such their comment didn't get anywhere even a little bit close to being published on my site. I did mock it a bit on social media, though.

Today I had a guy who got really uppity about me writing about the Game Boy game The Sword of Hope and thinking that it was actually quite worthwhile and interesting. He absolutely could not fathom the idea of someone from well after a creative work had been published not judging it by the standards of its time. He also almost immediately started banging on about "censorship" due to the combination of my anti-spam filter and my aforementioned comments policy, so he did not get let through either.

I have a fairly flawless sense these days of when someone is going to be a pain in the arse in the comments. There's just a certain way that some people come across in text that lets you know they're a dickhead and probably a racist, and thus I have absolutely no hesitation in banishing them to the shadow realm when they happen to stagger into my comments section.

I do the same on YouTube; for all its faults, YouTube has one of the absolute best moderation tools in existence, which is the "Hide User From Channel" option. For the unfamiliar, what this does is effectively "shadowbanning" the commenter from your channel, so their comments don't appear under your videos and you don't get notifications about them… but to their eyes, they're still able to comment as normal. There's a perverse satisfaction in doing this, because you know some of these absolute cretins will be typing out long, obnoxious diatribes about whatever has offended their delicate sensibilities this week, and no-one will ever see them. Again, I have zero hesitation in doing this; if someone bursts into the comments section and the first thing they do is act like a twat, they're going straight in the sin bin.

Life is too short to deal with dickheads on the Internet. Of course, we'd all rather they didn't exist at all, but at least there are plenty of tools with which we can frustrate and repel them. Make good use of them; it's worth the effort.

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#oneaday Day 358: Retrofest 2025

Today I went out! All by myself and everything. Specifically, I went to Retrofest 2025, a new event held in sunny Swindon that promised a room full of sweaty old men and their peculiar computers, and delivered on that promise in spades. While the event was short on things to actually buy and come home with, it was thoroughly interesting to see some of the things people (and a few organisations) had chosen to exhibit from their personal collections.

I took a few photos from throughout the day. This isn't a comprehensive rundown of everything by any means, but I'll attempt to remember what everything was and tell you a bit about it. In no particular order:

Those who know me well will know that I have a major soft spot for Philips G7000 "Videopac Computer", a games console with a membrane keyboard. This is the "PS5 Pro" equivalent of that system: the G7400, which only came out in France to my knowledge. It runs all the G7000 games, including enhanced visuals for some of them, as well as more advanced titles specifically designed for it. That big grey lump on the back of it is a module that attempts to turn it into more of an actual computer, featuring additional RAM and Microsoft BASIC for programming.

Sadly, this wasn't up and running to play with, but it was a pleasure to actually see one.

Here's an Atari XE Games System, colloquially known as the XEGS. I've never actually seen one of these in the flesh. This was an attempt by Atari post-ST to revitalise the flagging 8-bit range by rejigging the 65XE computer into a games console with a detachable keyboard. Unlike the 5200 from several years earlier, the internals of the XEGS were identical to the Atari 8-bit home computers, so you could use pretty much any software and peripherals with it.

If this all sounds a bit like Atari didn't really know what they were doing at the time… you would be absolutely right. This thing is still cool, though. I like how the function keys look like those flying saucer sherbet sweeties.

I was really interested to see this, a device known as both the CreatiVision and the Dick Smith Wizzard. Those who follow my videos may recall I saw this device advertised in an early issue of Page 6 magazine and had never heard of it. I asked the owner, Quang from Asobi Tech, about it. Apparently it's an Italian system from a roughly similar era to the ColecoVision (as one might expect from the design). Its capabilities are also roughly similar — which in turn means that it has similar capabilities to the MSX standard — but it's not cross-compatible with either the ColecoVision or the MSX itself.

Its notable feature is the full keyboard that spans the two controllers. These can either be used as an individual set of buttons for two players (presumably with overlays available) or "docked" into the system for a full-width keyboard of sorts.

The system wasn't a success, but it somehow made it to Australia, which is where the Dick Smith branding came from. Dick Smith was basically Australia's Alan Sugar, and he loved putting his mug on everything he sold, and the "Wizzard" was no exception.

Here's a fully working Asteroids Deluxe cabinet, the middle-sized one that lacks the "floating" backdrop of its larger counterpart. I spent quite a lot of time playing this today, and it turns out I don't dislike Asteroids as much as I thought I did.

Part of it was down to playing with those lovely leaf-switched arcade buttons and hearing the sound booming out from the internal speakers. But I just found myself enjoying the game in general a lot more than I have in the past.

The owner of the Asteroids Deluxe cabinet, streamer Rage Against The Retro, also brought a selection of other systems, all playing Asteroids. On the left there is a Vectrex, and situated next to it is an Apple Macintosh Plus. There's an Amiga A600 just to the right, also.

It occurred to me when playing both the Asteroids Deluxe cabinet and the Vectrex that I'd never actually played games on an authentic vector monitor before. The effect (which absolutely does not come through on either photos or video) is stunning, particularly the piercing brightness of your shots. This is one thing that emulation absolutely cannot do complete justice to.

Here's two very tiny TVs, both hooked up to games systems. The bigger one was hooked up to the A600 from the previous image, while the teeny one was attached to a Spectrum. Both were playing variants of Asteroids; the Amiga had follow-up Blasteroids, while the Speccy was playing a decent recreation of the arcade original.

More Asteroids! This time we've got an Atari 7800 playing a recent(ish) port, plus there's the Spectrum running one of the tiny TVs. Note the custom arcade controls Rage had set up to mimic the arcade version's control panel.

Here's some interesting rarities. On the left, we have two variations of the COMX-35 computer, which was designed to be low-cost, but which seemingly failed to leave any impression on the industry whatsoever. At least part of that may be down to the fact that it used the distinctly non-standard RCA 1802 processor while most other home computers of the era were using either the Zilog Z80 or the MOS 6502. It also had a peculiar 35K of memory. But it did have a built-in joystick, making it a nice little games machine.

On the right, we have Bandai's RX-78 "Gundam" home computer. And yes, it was named after the giant robots in an attempt to make it more appealing. This completely failed, however, as the system disappeared quickly with only about 20 pieces of software available in total. It looks neat though!

Here's a closer look at the COMX-35, with its chiclet keys and its fun quasi-industrial design. The more I look at this thing, the more I like its overall aesthetic.

And the RX-78 up close, too. Note the BASIC cartridge plugged into the back, ready for 10 PRINT "FARTS" 20 GOTO 10 shenanigans, and the matching joystick to the right.

This beauty is a Commodore RX-64, a "luggable" version of the Commodore 64 with integrated keyboard, floppy disk drive and monitor. Unsurprisingly, this beast of a thing completely failed on the market due to the fact it weighs ten and a half kilos and cost over a thousand dollars in the mid '80s, when the C64 itself was less than half that price.

It is a lovely thing though, and Commodore enthusiasts seem to enjoy it a lot. I can see why — it's fun to have everything integrated, and despite a few differences in the OS ROMs, it's mostly fully compatible with disk-based Commodore 64 software. It can't load tapes, though, as it has no tape controller at all.

This may look out of place, but the show was at Swindon's "STEAM" railway museum, and this little display was part of a display on train sets run by digital controllers from the 1970s. I didn't look into this too closely, but as someone who occasionally had the opportunity to play with Hornby trains when I was little (my family had a nice collection stuffed up in the loft that occasionally came down for an outing), it was nice to see this.

Here's some prototype Acorn machines. Without these, you might not have a smartphone! Yes, that's right, the "A" in "ARM" was originally for "Acorn", though now it is for "Advanced". ARM processors first appeared in Acorn Archimedes machines, which were a generation beyond these initial prototypes; these things would have ultimately become the BBC Micro and the Electron.

This is a teletype machine! This was an incredible amount of tactile fun to type stuff on, and unlike a regular typewriter it would type things back at you! You could also run a program on it that would punch out a message on the roll of paper tape to the side. I don't really know what this was "for", as such, but it was very cool!

Here's a pre-production prototype of the Dragon 32, the computer that Americans know as the TRS-80. Well, there are a few differences, but they're pretty similar internally. I don't know much about this machine but it certainly has its fans on both sides of the pond.

This is a Commodore MAX. I don't really know what this is! Apparently this was a cousin to the Commodore 64 that was mostly sold in Japan. It has similar capabilities to the C64, but a lot less RAM and a really horrible membrane keyboard. It also lacks much of an internal OS on ROM at all, making it more of a games machine that can do a few computery things than a full-on home computer.

This is a Spectravideo device that allows you to program in BASIC on the Atari 2600. At least, it does if you can figure out how on Earth to actually type things on it, because it uses a weird keyword-based system where pressing a single key inputs a full command, similar to Sinclair's BASIC. This is another thing that I'd seen in a magazine in a video I'd made, but had no idea even existed until quite recently. A thoroughly interesting little thing, though!

Finally, here's probably the rarest thing at the show: a Mattel Aquarius II home computer. The Aquarius range was such a flop for Mattel that it was cancelled mere months after its release, and as such very few Aquarius II units made it out into the wild. We're talking like maybe 25 out there — and this is supposedly the only one known to be in full working order. It's owned by a chap who has been developing games for the system for a while — at this point, he has now made more games for the Aquarius range than were released for it in its original lifespan.

And that's that! It was a really fun day out, and I enjoyed it a lot. It was good to see some YouTuber friends, set a few high scores, have a play with some intriguing rarities and see what the retro enthusiast community in general was up to. Particular shout-out to this guy, who is doing near-arcade perfect ports to the BBC Micro, of all things. His Missile Command and Frogger were particularly stunning.

Anyway, now I am very tired so I am going to go and lie down. If you're in the Swindon area tomorrow, first of all, I'm sorry, and second of all, maybe try and pop in to Retrofest — I'm pretty sure there's still a few tickets available. You can find out more here.

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#oneaday Day 357: Shakespeare & Hathaway

So, dear reader, you may be wondering: after my frankly unnecessary agonising over whether or not I "should" start watching it, given all the other stuff on my media plate right now, I did, in fact, start watching Shakespeare & Hathaway: Private Investigators. And I'm enjoying it a lot!

For the unfamiliar, Shakespeare & Hathaway (as I shall refer to it hereafter) is a fairly light-hearted crime drama about the unlikely Stratford-upon-Avon-based duo of private detective Frank Hathaway and his partner in crime-solving, Lu Shakespeare. The pair are brought together during the first episode when there is a murder case at Lou's wedding, and they just sort of… stick together after that.

Shakespeare & Hathaway is not a show that concerns itself with small details, such as whether or not Lu would be allowed to work with Frank as an investigator with no experience or qualifications — a quick Google reveals that private investigator licenses are not actually required here in the UK, but they are strongly advised — but rather in simply providing a series of interesting crimes for the duo to solve. And in that, it succeeds pretty admirably.

As with most crime dramas, each episode focuses on a single case. And they're a varied bunch, to be sure. In one episode, the duo are investigating on behalf of an undertaker who has been given 24 hours to live by a pair of sinister hitmen. In another, they look into the case of a boy who has curious blackouts and is convinced that he is going to commit a murder. In another still, a gift shop owner turns up dead after an apparently botched break-in, but something just doesn't quite seem right.

One of the things I really like about the show is how it isn't afraid to be kind of "cartoony", particularly where its villains are concerned. This is a show where the villains don't exactly twirl their moustaches and do full-on evil laughs, but they honestly come pretty damn close on quite a few occasions.

Perhaps it's more accurate (and fitting) to say that the show is rather theatrical, given its setting and title — and the fact that Shakespeare and Hathaway's long-suffering assistant Sebastian is a RADA-trained (but out-of-work, natch) actor. And, yes, he is often convinced to perform (pun intended) undercover assignments that involve him dressing up in elaborate costumes and often playing "characters" that are very different from his rather mild-mannered but camp and sarcastic real persona. The highlight so far was a scene where he attended a cross-dressing bar and made such a convincing woman that he turned everyone's heads — and I suspect more than a few viewers might not have immediately clocked it was him until he opened his mouth, either.

Also, as you might expect given the Stratford setting, the show is riddled with Shakespearean references, both subtle and slap-you-in-the-face obvious. But Bard nerds will be happy.

The show's not going to win any grand awards or be remembered for years to come, I'm sure. But it is an eminently likeable piece of television, featuring a central cast who have good chemistry with one another. This isn't a show about said central cast going through high drama or amazing revelations — at least, it hasn't been yet — but I'm honestly fine with that. Frank is a pleasingly likeable, flawed everyman type — and I appreciate that he's a larger gentleman, played excellently by Mark Benton — while Lu is someone keen to prove her usefulness, yet endearingly ditzy. There's more than a touch of Daisy from Spaced about her in terms of personality and mannerisms.

I'm coming up on the end of the first series, and I've very much enjoyed it so far. If you're a fan of crime drama that doesn't get too grim, and which takes joy in theatrics and comedy, I would comfortably recommend it to anyone. It's not a demanding watch, but it is oddly compelling. And I'm looking forward to watching more!

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#oneaday Day 356: Bellyachin'

Well, I didn't finish Kathy Rain 2. I think I'm on the last "day" of it, though, so I should have it all wrapped up by the end of tomorrow evening, I reckon. I could have probably pushed through it tonight, but I hadn't written this, and I hadn't done stupid social media things that I do every day (the "#365games" tag on Bluesky) and I have had a stomachache all day, so I thought I should probably call it a night.

Of all the aches and pains it is possible for one to experience, few are worse than a lingering stomachache, because while something like an achey back or joints can be at least temporarily relieved by moving around a bit, a stomachache stubbornly sits there and demands your full attention, even when you have a lot of things to do. And I had a lot of things to do today, let me tell you.

It was the Evercade 5th Anniversary Showcase today, during which we revealed two more NEOGEO cartridges, two cartridges from Taito (surely a pleasant surprise for everyone who thought Taito stuff was forever confined to built-in games on specific pieces of hardware), and a single-game cartridge featuring the truly excellent Roguecraft DX, an enhanced and expanded version of a very good (and award-winning!) Amiga game that came out last year.

It was a good show all round, and I think most people were happy. There were the usual moaners and complainers, but I'm pretty much just tuning them out at this point, because 95% of them are moaning and complaining about things we haven't said, just working on doomsaying and assumptions. And when someone's being like that, it's frankly not worth getting involved.

I'm really excited about the stuff we've got coming up this year. It's a relief to have been able to let the cat out of the bag for some of it today, but there's even more coming later in the year that I think people are going to be even more excited and surprised by. Evercade has been going from strength to strength in terms of the quality licenses we've been able to agree each year, and this year in particular is a string of big names. I obviously can't tell you what the unrevealed ones are as yet, but if you're into your retro gaming, you'll be pleased to see them, I can tell you that.

I should probably stop typing before I say anything I shouldn't, and go and lie in bed groaning until this stomachache goes away. It is small consolation that Andie has also been suffering today, suggesting to me that something we both ate yesterday probably wasn't good, likely the burgers we had for dinner. That also, hopefully, means we'll both be feeling better tomorrow. But for now, I anticipate an uncomfortable night ahead, perhaps with a side of thunderous farting. Yes, I could definitely go for a thunderous fart or two right now.

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