u/AntiquesForGeeks

Bit short notice, but may be of interest - 14:30 Eastern / 19:30 BST / 20:30 CET / 02:30 on the 12/08, Perth time (ouch!)

Dersch is part of a growing community of vintage computer collectors who are preserving the classic machines that helped launch the digital revolution. While Silicon Valley has since moved on to shaping the future of artificial intelligence, these hardware enthusiasts are intent on saving the Atari, Commodore and IBM machines that are ancestors to today’s laptops, wearable devices and smart phones.

Not sure if this question has been asked in the past; wondering what happened with things like Nuclear Reactors in the UK? I assume that there would have been efforts to shut them down so they did not turn critical through lack of maintenance.

But also wondering, what about the fuel? Would it have been abandoned? Thinking that some groups would have risked trying to get it, and that would be an interesting story in and of itself.

Then again, maybe there were groups of survivors who gravitated to the such sites because they offered power and potential safety from the uninflected…

Have been to this in the past, and was well worth a visit if you are in the area.

I really enjoyed watching this - and it certainly resonated with me as a developer right in the middle of the dot-com maelstrom.

Also reminds me of how far we’ve come from every developer rolling their own solution to the kind of standardisation that we have today. Not a complaint, not “it’s too easy now” just a reminder that the time when you had no choice but to get your hands dirty wasn’t so long ago.

I've been working on a project to bring together as much of the old Amiga PD library scene into a modern, searchable website. I'm please to launch this now at https://amigafreeware.downer.tech

Aminet has everything from the mid-90s onwards, but prior to this, free Amiga software was distributed by PD libraries and user groups, and many of these were building communities in the early Amiga days. Unfortunately the memory of these groups is fading, along with the software in them (there's some real gems in the early days of Amiga that Aminet doesn't really capture). Many of the libraries can be found on ISO CD-ROM compilations on archive.org, but these aren't easy to use - it's DMS files inside folders inside an ISO, with catalog data that's intended to run on an Amiga so can't be browsed on your PC or tablet/phone.

The Amiga Freeware Archive aims to bring all this history into an easy-to-use, searchable and consistent website. So far I've loaded it with a few of the best-known collections and several smaller collections from the earliest days of the Amiga, and I intend to source more material and make it available over the coming months.

The website is https://amigafreeware.downer.tech - please check it out, and I'm happy to get your feedback and recommendations on my DMs!

Richard.

Edit to add: thanks for all the positive comments so far! I forgot to mention in my description that the site is also designed to be functional when viewed on Amiga - it'll look very basic without CSS but should still be fully functional. Also in line with the rules here, I will disclose that AI was used in the development of the project - but I'm not a vibe coder, I'm a software engineer (since the Amiga days!) with an eye for quality, reliability and performance, and I will own and stand behind the code fully.

Hats off to the developer here - this looks good! Now, if only there was the chance of a physical release to compliment my copy of Jet Pac...

Not my taste, but I am sure some people out there will want one.

Folks bought that Apple sock thingy for iPhones after all.

Well, this is disappointing. Still, don't give up! Go again and go stronger!

From 2023, but popped up again (I wonder why?).

Link to the BBC World Service rather than BBC Sounds, where it is also available for UK residents.

Would like to see more controllers like the Retro Fighters Strike DC, but this is a good alternate.