This Week In Retro 2022-11-18

Welcome to the first This Week in Retro sum up.

Just to set up a baseline: this is a collection of news and links that I’ve seen recently, there is no guarantee it’s complete, you haven’t seen it elsewhere, and really all from this week when published. Nevertheless, if you would rather not follow too many sources, or – to the contrary – you already do follow too many and might have missed something, treat this as an opportunity to double-check all the cool stuff!

… and since it’s the first one, the news doesn’t even have to be all from this week 😉

Retro Annual 2022 & 2023

If you like zines, and their annual book editions, this one is for you! Retro Annual 2022 & 2023 + Retro Format and Eight Bit is a Kickstarter campaign ending in 3 weeks (2022-12-11) giving you an option to subscribe to up to 4 publications! It started late October and is already over 400% funded, so risk of failure is infinitesimal.

Another #Commodore64 lookalike!

Speaking of crowdfunding campaigns… After a success on Kickstarter, the Commodore 64X is now on Indiegogo.
What you’re getting here is a C64 “breadbin”-shaped computer that’s either

• a super silent, passively-cooled PC with Intel J6412, 4-8 GiB of RAM, and 4K output, or
• a full gaming PC with Intel i5 CPU, GTX 1650, 8-64 GiB of RAM, or
• a base for your own making, compatible with RPi CM, or any Mini-ITX board.
  Just to add confusion, one of the versions is named “Ultimate”, but has nothing to do with the Ultimate64.
  Why mention it as a retro? Where’s the Commodore 64 spirit, then? Well, just in case. (badum tss).

I want this, but about a monitor

Here you go! You can also buy a IPS monitor in a retro CRT-like case CheckMate 1089s and 1087s.
It comes with analog inputs! So, you can really connect your good old C64… or good Ultimate64… or a #C64XUltimate… you name it, and don’t bleed your eyes out because of the flicker.

Father of the 8-bit era dies

Fred Brooks, the man who made the byte 8-bit, died this Friday, 2022-11-18.

Frederick Phillips Brooks Jr. (April 19, 1931 – November 17, 2022) was an American computer architect, software engineer, and computer scientist, best known for managing the development of IBM‘s System/360 family of computers and the OS/360 software support package, then later writing candidly about the process in his seminal book The Mythical Man-Month.

Federate my toot

A new mastodon has been launched! Or, you know, 200 of them.

One of them is “ours”, and the name is 8bit.red. With the hope that the cool and 8-bit themed hostname looks nice, we believe the retro folks who want it in their user handles will feel at home. As a bonus, the initial theme uses a VGA font for more nostalgia, and more updates are coming.