Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6zvMmtc8dKw
The Man Behind The (Cursed) Macs - A Chat With Action Retro
Introduction
In this video I sit down to chat all things YouTube and retro computing with Sean from Action Retro, one of my favourite YouTube channels. Since the channel started in early 2020, Action Retro has rapidly grown thanks to a relentless release schedule and consistently high quality, entertaining videos covering a variety of retro computing subjects. He’s also the man behind retro search engine FrogFind and 68k.news, a news site targeted at older computers.
Script
So I’m here with Sean from Action Retro an amazing channel that I’ve been a huge fan of for a very long time now, and he has just hit 100,000 subscribers, which is a really big milestone in any kind of YouTube channel - so I thought I would get him on and kind of pick his brain on all things YouTube and retro computing and all of that side of stuff.
So, How are you doing?
Nice. Pretty, pretty well. Can’t complain - just sitting down here in my very well organized basement.
Yes! I think this is a side of the the kind of the studio basement setup that we don’t get to see.
Yeah, I have a very similar area just over here, just out of shot. So you’re not the only one.
Yeah, this is kind of my workspace here - and I have my electronic drum set there - I don’t know if you can see it? And all my computer parts laid out. And then I have one sort of nice organized area that looks good on camera, and that’s about it.
Of course, because you are a fellow musician, aren’t you?
Yeah, yeah, yeah! I’ve got got some guitars right at hand…
Oh, nice.
Bass over here…
You play bass, right?
Yeah, yeah. So this picture behind me - the canvas on the wall behind me - is my old band Titan. That was like 10 years ago!
You played guitar in an emo band for a few years, didn’t you?
Yeah, yeah!
So I played guitar - I’m not very good! Yeah, I played rhythm guitar in an emo band maybe 15 years ago. Our claim to fame was one time we opened with The Starting Line, which was a mid level signed band - that was as far as my music career got.
Sounds familiar yeah, you remember OPM?
They had a song called Heaven is a Halfpipe. We supported them when they played in our local town and we played to about 15 people. That’s kind of our claim to fame as well. But yes, a whole lifetime ago. I think the crazy thing, the crazy thing about us and the one thing that’s kind of always drawn me to your channel is that we kind of, we have a lot in common, don’t we?
We kind of live these parallel lives, I think. Both, you know, being musicians and being in bands and being into retro computing stuff and having the YouTube channels - and obviously, you know, you recently built your new studio in your basement and that kind of inspired me to sort of - it gave me the kick that I needed to upgrade my own setup and…
Yeah, so what is the secret how - you started around the same time as me - I think you I think you started like early 2020.
I think the first video I ever uploaded was like November 2019, so literally the same time.
I’ve been watching your channel since literally since the very early days, but you’ve had this massive - I mean don’t get me wrong at all I’m very happy with the way my channel is doing as well, but yeah… Consistency, high quality, words that I would associate with Action Retro - madness, shenanigans…
How do you do it?
Yeah, I mean, I didn’t realize that we started that closely together actually.
Mm.
You know, it was just kind like a whim during lockdown.
Mm.
You know…
I had been watching a lot of YouTube like Dan Wood, I don’t know if you’re familiar with Dan Wood on YouTube?
I am!
I was obsessed with his channel for a while, watching him get his Amigas online and stuff. And yeah, I had like a few retro computers around our tiny, tiny Philadelphia apartment that my now wife, you know, was like:
“Don’t open those up in the house - who knows what’s inside!?”
“Who knows what kind of dust is in there?”
But yeah, I just kind of, after watching LGR, Dan Wood and stuff, I thought, you know, I wonder if I can document some of the silly things I’m doing with computers?
So yeah, just kind of on a whim, and arbitrarily thought maybe it would be a challenge to do a video per week - and I think that consistency is what YouTube looks for.
It’s interesting you mention silly things, because that’s kind of the thing that I associate with your channel, because there are so many channels like us that - or like mine, I guess - where we kind of talk about the history of stuff, and we fix stuff, and that’s kind of what we do.
But yours, it’s like:
“Let’s take this Mac from the mid 90s and shove a load of ridiculous upgrades in it and try and get it to play Minecraft, or watch YouTube on it”
Or something like that. Obviously, the “action” part of Action Retro, and I think that’s that’s kind of what sets you apart.
Yeah, thanks!
It’s funny, too, like, long before YouTube, I was just obsessed with doing that kind of stuff - so I remember back even in high school, somebody gave me a 386 laptop and I thought:
“I wonder if I can just use this?”
And of course this is in like the Pentium 4 era, but I’m trying to get AOL Instant Messenger working on it and, you know, chat with people and running out of memory and stuff.
So I don’t know why I’m drawn to do these silly things, you know?
Also kind of in the beginning like watching your channel for example where it’s these kind of in-depth documentaries - I mean that’s like all I watch on YouTube, is that kind of content.
So I’m just glad that other people find this as interesting as I do.
Yeah, well as you know, I’ve been a patron of yours as well for a long time as well so-
Yeah, thanks for that!
I’m a big supporter of that.
Yeah, actually I must admit I did do some background research into you earlier today because I didn’t really know your backstory and I kind of assumed that this had been your full time job for a while because obviously, you’ve got all the other sort of side projects, like you’ve got FrogFind and 68K News and the other stuff that you’ve done kind of in parallel with the channel.
So I thought, well, you know, I really want to support this guy, because I really want to support what he’s doing and then I find out you’ve got a full time job as well, so just like me, and it’s like-
I suppose it’s because it can be hard to balance.
Yeah, no, I certainly know that feeling because- are you self employed, or?
I used to be like doing consulting, but for the past six or seven years, I’ve had a full time job. I am lucky enough that we do two days in the office, three days from home. So I’m not like wasting all this time on a commute. So that does give me a bit of an advantage time-wise. But yeah, it can be hard to balance.
Mm-Hmm. Again, very similar to myself. It’s quite eerie.
Yeah. Because you- do you work in SEO or…?
Yeah, so basically I do like web development, but focused on fixing SEO issues.
Yeah. So I’m in web development but more on the coding side. So I was gonna ask, is the SEO side of things, do you think, you know, optimizing your videos, do those skills kind of transfer to YouTube and trying to get stuff to sort of rank highly on YouTube?
In the beginning I thought that would be the case, and I did some experiments like I, I would look for topics like instructional things that had a video but it was very old, so I would try to make an updated version with, you know, the newer version of the software like, you know, installing MacOS from a USB stick or something - how to do it on PowerPC.
And I think those brought some people in from Google search results - but it pales in comparison to just making consistent videos and having the algorithm pick up a video. So, you know, I don’t think SEO really plays into it at all on YouTube. I think it’s purely consistent content and getting people who are subscribed to click.
So make it interesting, know what they want to watch, and try to make a video, you know, immediately obvious that it’s going to be interesting for them.
Not clickbait! Clickbait ruins it, actually, because then people click in, don’t like it, and leave - and that kind of messes with the algorithm.
Yeah, I must admit, I’ve been tempted to go down the clickbait route myself with a few videos, and yeah, it can sometimes kill your retention and you do get some quite angry comments from people as well - people who hate clickbait. I mean, I’m not a fan either. So…
But you have to try these things. You have to experiment.
Yes, you have to experiment.
Because I had those solar videos, which I’ve been trying to get away from for ages - I’m sure you’d be familiar with the story if you’ve been watching my channel for a while - but yeah, the one that really blew up and got like 800,000 views in the end - that was all search driven.
Yeah.
…and I don’t really understand what I did because people were just searching for like “DIY Solar” and it was coming top of the search results in YouTube and I have no idea what I did - I mean obviously like I say I’m kind of from a web development background and I have dabbled with SEO and I do try to sort of optimize things and put the keywords in and the tags and all that stuff.
But yeah, it still puzzles me to this day.
It got to the point where it took over the whole channel and then I had to take the whole thing down as you know.
Yeah. I remember the story, which I found very interesting - you know, the decision making behind deciding to take that video down, you don’t want to be a solar channel.
It’s very interesting - I mean, I don’t know, you must’ve racked your mind to make that decision?
Yeah… I mean, yeah…
What do you think? Do you think I made the right decision? I still don’t know!
I think so. I mean…
OK.
…unless you wanted to go into just being a solar channel, you know, you’re getting all these people who aren’t going to click on the other videos.
Hm.
If you want to make the retro computing content it’s going to destroy the click through rate from your subscribers if they’re all coming in from a completely different topic.
Yeah, I know, especially - I mean, I had like 7,000 subscribers just before it blew up, and then I kind of gained, like, nearly 20,000 in a month, and it was like
“Oh, none of these people are going to watch my videos!”
Yeah.
I think one of the first really big popular viral videos on your channel, was it the cursed Mac? The SE30?
I loved that series! That was one of my favorite things that you’ve ever done, that cursed Mac - especially that very first video when you kind of opened it up and you were like
“Oh my God, what’s going on inside this thing!?”
Yeah, that was a pretty wild experience because I had a completely different video planned and then I just saw on a listing locally, this blurry picture of a spray painted black compact Mac and I was like
“I have to go get that!”
So yeah - I just went and picked it up and brought it home and started recording. It was the first time I’ve ever done that - and I haven’t really done that since, you know? Everything I do is part scripted, part, you know, not scripted, but this one I just kind of turned the camera on and cracked it open and that was like two years ago now or more.
It was pretty crazy, yeah!
Because back in those days that was before the new studio set up, wasn’t it? So that was when you were literally just like a pair of tattooed arms on screen that kind of randomly pointed at stuff and then all of a sudden you had a face and it was like
“Oh!”
In Philadelphia, it’s a lot of very, very small row homes, so we had a small - even by Philly standards - row home, a bedroom that was barely big enough to fit a queen size bed, and then the office, which became my recording studio, which is basically the size of a closet. And when I bought my camera, I didn’t really know what I was doing so I just bought a lens based off of reviews, and it turns out even with the camera all the way against the wall, the room was not big enough for me to be in frame, it was just barely enough room to get that table in the frame enough!
Yeah, because I have this obsession with 16mm lenses, which is practically a wide angle lens, and the reason I started using those was because I was the same - I was recording in this tiny little closet-sized room in our house - obviously you saw my old setup - and yeah, I put the camera one end of the room and I sat right at the other end of the room and there just wasn’t-
That was it, that was The whole thing!
So it’s quite nice to move into a proper sort of studio space.
Yeah, I think I remember you did like a tour of your old setup - I was very surprised at how small it was!
Yeah, just kind of stood in the middle of the room with the camera, you know, on like a handheld- on like a GorillaPod or something and just turned around saying
“Well, that’s that, and that’s that…”
And that was literally the tour!
Yeah, I need to do an updated one of this space really now this is all up and running. Obviously, I did the build videos and stuff. Because I love stuff like that - I love kind of behind the scenes, seeing how things work and you know, what microphones people use and what cameras people use and I’m still kind of experimenting here - I’ve done a couple of videos with overhead mics and I’ve started playing with lapel mics and stuff, but you use an overhead mic, don’t you?
Cause you’ve got like a… rig thing.
So I had quite a journey of trying to figure out what equipment to use because going into it I had no idea.
So originally it was just my phone - actually this phone here - my Galaxy. And I had it duct taped to a stand and then I found that my USB microphone worked with an adapter in there, and then I just put that on another stand duct taped to a shelf - and that was for the first couple of videos. That’s what I did.
And then, you know, trying to figure out what camera to use to capture CRTs to sync to the refresh rate.
So I went through a couple different iterations, but then I found an LGR video where he talked about his camera, which was a Lumix - I think at the time a GH4 - so I found a used one of those, and I’ve been using that ever since, and that has the synchro scan or whatever it’s called.
And then I just watched a ton of videos to figure out what microphone set up to use, and finally-
Actually, I just changed the microphone too recently to a Sennheiser something-or-other. Kind of a mid range one - I was using a RODE but it had a lot of noise.
But yeah, I still don’t know anything about this stuff!
It’s crazy how much we have in common.
Cause I’m on exactly the same journey. So I’m all kind of RODE mics at the minute, but I’m starting to think
“Well, you know… I need to look at professional shotgun mics and XLR stuff - you know, audio interfaces and…”
It’s a really deep rabbit hole once you start to go down it.
Oh, yeah. Oh yeah!
Yeah.
I kind of set it up to try to make it as easy as possible - so I have the camera, on top of that I have an audio interface that plugs directly into the camera, and then from there just a really long XLR cable up to the shotgun microphone. But then everything goes to the SD card and then I just put it right into DaVinci Resolve and EQ it in there.
So I know, you know, you can go crazy with external recorders and like clap and sync it up. But I don’t do any of that!
No, exactly the same - I use Resolve and I try to record everything on camera as much as possible just because it’s so much easier. That’s the thing - I mean, obviously, because you’ve committed to this weekly schedule and you’re very good at sticking to that, which I’m not…
I guess sort of streamlining the workflow and getting stuff out - anything that you can do to streamline your workflow is good when you’ve committed to that kind of schedule.
So yeah, this is- obviously we’re talking about how small your old house was, and you mentioned before that what we’re seeing here is your basement.
But the studio is also in your basement and that seems quite big as well, so it’s quite a big space!
Yeah, so we moved out - we’re right on the outskirts of Philly now, but we found a nice little ranch style house - I don’t know if you call them the same over there - but basically it’s a one floor house and the basement is the whole house.
So a ranch house is typically, you know, more…
Since it’s one floor, it’s more spread out, and the bonus is a gigantic basement. It hasn’t been updated since the 1960s, but it’s pretty nice. I kind of like the 80s-ish tack of down here - so it has like the wood paneling up that they painted white, which is very reminiscent of my basement when I was a kid so it’s kinda nice and definitely the space is- I wonder if I can show you by switching cameras?
Let’s do it, let’s do a tour.
Let’s see.
Or this could all go horribly wrong…
Most things do but that’s, like, my whole thing.
It’s on brand!
Oh, it doesn’t let me switch.
Alright, well, I can just do this…
So here’s my huge mess!
Yep.
Back there is where I used to film but that’s now storage…
There’s my gaming TV where I have my industrial computer kind of behind it as the gaming PC…
And over there I’m desperately trying to install Rhapsody on a PowerBook!
And then we have some laundry back there.
That was the official tour!
The official tour - OK, yeah, the layout makes a lot more sense in my mind now.
The cool thing is about having a studio - because obviously this is all new and novel to me as well - is that you have everything set up, you’ve got the lights and the camera and everything set up - and you can just walk in and start recording stuff which is so novel when you’re used to recording in a tiny little room and you’ve got to set everything up before you can record, you’ve got to tidy up, and then you record, and then you have to tidy it all away again to start editing, and then you think
“Oh, I need a bit of B-roll for this…”
And you’ve got to get stuff out again, and it’s just…
Yep.
Yeah, you just literally described a day in the life of that house!
Obviously I’ve had to rent this office two minutes down the road from my house - which is very convenient - which is nice.
But yeah, I’ve always kind of been jealous of-
You’re jealous of me!? I was going to say I’m jealous of you!
That’s funny! We do think very alike, I think.
Yeah! Big, American houses with big basements and stuff - and I’ve always kind of thought that’s so cool, cause you can just- obviously like Adrian - you know, Adrian’s Digital Basement - you just wander downstairs and you’ve got all this cool stuff to play with and you know, I’ve got to get in my car and drive like a minute down the road - I mean, it’s such a hardship!
From one point of view I guess you’re right - it’s very nice having this huge space down here. I could just come down to and film, on the other hand, it’s like I think I’ve become a little lax in what I’m doing where I’m down here doing this - I’m like
“I’m bored, I’ll go upstairs and play with the cats or something.”
And then I think - then it takes me even longer because I’m kind of unfocused. But like you with your studio, that’s very cool - you know, you have a dedicated space that you go and you get things done - and the same thing with RMC, right? So he has that amazing museum in that space so he has that separation between home life and going there and being Mr. RMC and filming the videos and getting it all done, so I think my dream would be to have a space like that.
Even if I had to pop in the car - just not too far!
He was a really big inspiration to me when I first started, and obviously I’ve never made any kind of secret of that.
It was very kind of him to invite me to his original cave - which was a very similar size and a very similar setup to this - way back when I first started my channel, and there’s an infamous photo of me posing with him and acting like an idiot.
I have to say when I first got my hands on this space, I went back to those photos and I was like:
“Right, how did Neil lay his space out?”
And I’ve gone for a very similar kind of workbench area down that end, which has actually just become a massive dumping ground for stuff so nobody ever sees that on camera, even though the plan was to use that as kind of a secondary filming space - nnd now I’ve got this tiny bit in the corner that’s tidy.
And this desk which seems to get more use than anything - which is kind of my rambling slash screaming- streaming…
Screaming!?
Streaming slash interview space.
And screaming!
So yeah, interesting. Interesting stuff.
But I think yours is definitely messier than mine at the moment - at the moment.
Oh yeah, I’m in a project of trying to straighten it up right now - I just bought a whole bunch of storage solutions, but instead of them being storage solutions right now, they’re in boxes.
So they’ve made it worse.
Yep, I know that feeling.
So, I suppose we should talk about your other side projects like FrogFind and 68k News - are there others that I’m forgetting forgetting about?
Probably…
They’re the big ones.
They’re the big ones, aren’t they?
I mean I’ve done other little things like fixed an installer disk for Rhapsody - I think that’s a very niche thing - but yeah FrogFind is the search engine kind of built for vintage web browsers. It strips down DuckDuckGo search results and then strips down the resulting pages so you can click through the links and then 68k.news is Google News with kind of the same thing you can read the news articles - clicking through strips them down for vintage web browsers.
It was kind of cool to bring my mediocre web development skills into this kind of stuff - if you’re familiar with PHP and you look at the code, you might be a little like
“I don’t know if I would do it that way”
But it does work - and I use them all the time. I mean, that was like the main reason to build them.
I was working on my- what the cursed Mac turned into - which included networking - so I wanted to test out old versions of Netscape and have something to use them with.
So yeah, I built 68k.news first and then used the same kind of concept to build FrogFind.
It’s the Mozilla readability library, there’s a guy - Andres - who did a port of it into PHP. So I use that, I found it on GitHub. Very nice of him to make that open source available.
So I just have that up on a server with some tweaks to really strip down to basic HTML, and then, yeah, DuckDuckGo search results.
So you are not going to believe this - but I had a very similar project a couple of years ago.
Oh yeah?
Where I used that exact same library.
No way! Because I wanted-
It was for browsing websites on the Kindle - the Amazon Kindle - because it has a built in web browser but it’s absolutely terrible. And I thought
“What if I could get webpages and just sort of convert them into plain text and then make them so you could just page through them like you do a book on the Kindle?”
And I actually got to the point where it was very nearly all working - and I gave up on it. That’s why the whole FrogFind thing kind of fascinates me - cause obviously you’ve done a very similar project, but you’ve seen it through to the end - and the odd thing is I actually put it all up on GitHub - it was all MIT license or something completely open source and a couple of years later when I’d completely forgotten about it, there was some random guy in India who contacted me and said
“Do you mind if I pick up this project and run with it and kind of finish it off?”
And I was like
“Well, yeah, I got so far with it and gave up”
And I have no idea how far he got with it - he could be a millionaire now for all I know, based on my project. But yeah, I thought it was really interesting. That’s why I find the whole thing fascinating because obviously it’s something I have a lot of personal experience of - and just because I am from a slightly more professional development background doesn’t mean that the code was any better!
So you know, these hobby projects are all the same, aren’t they? They’re all kind of cobbled together!
Well, if you ever want to take a look at that code and tell me what I did wrong…
I am in no position to be judging other people’s code! Absolutely not.
You said that the inspiration to start your channel was lockdown and being at home and not having anything else to do, and I was really lucky in that I started my channel literally just before all of that stuff happened and I had no way of foreseeing that that was going to happen.
But yeah, I think there were a lot of channels that started around that time that have kind of fizzled away now and you hear about a lot of people kind of retiring from YouTube and stuff like that, but yeah, what’s the long term plan - a million subscribers? Taking on LGR at his own game?
Or is it just, I imagine because we’re both of a very similar mindset that it’s just a case of it’s a fun thing to do and we’ll, you know, play with it and see where it goes.
Yeah.
Yeah!
I never expected it to go here - you know, when I first started doing this, I kind of-
I was even like, the first couple of videos I made, I was making in the office and I didn’t even tell my wife what I was doing up there. Just like shut the door and tried to speak quietly so she couldn’t hear me because I felt a little bit embarrassed - like I’m up here pretending to be a tech YouTuber or something.
From a personal growth perspective, just being able to be more confident doing this stuff and feeling like I can contribute to the wider community that’s been amazing, and all the new people that I’ve met, that’s been amazing. So there are so many benefits that were unexpected, but like this whole kind of world of vintage computer enthusiasts and going to shows and stuff kind of revealed itself.
As far as the future goes, we’ll see what happens!
You know, it’s been kind of a wild, amazing ride so far but yeah, I think my favorite part really is going to VCF shows and stuff and just being able to talk about this stuff with people and meet people - so I hope to do that even more. I think that’s my goal.
You’re getting quite actively involved in the running of the VCF stuff, aren’t you? Cause there’s the SoCal one - that’s the new one that’s starting soon. That’s very soon, isn’t it?
Leaving next week, yeah!
Yes. We’re getting a little vacation out of it.
I was - I can’t remember the name of the guy now - but someone contacted me and asked if I wanted to come and actually speak at that, which was really nice to kind of be recognized. And I would love to do it but unfortunately I’m just not in a position to travel to to California at the moment, much as I-
I was there back in September, so I do love that part of - not that I know America at all - but it’s sunny there and the people seem nice enough so that’s all you want.
Yeah! Yeah.
Well, that’s all I’m looking forward to - the sun!
I’d love to make it over there and obviously do a VCF at some point in the future because we don’t have that kind of thing here in the UK, nothing of that kind of scale.
I know you do have shows over there - I would love to go to, well, one - the RMC cave - and then I’ve seen a lot of Amiga focused activities over there - I do have a few Amigas that I’m interested in and want to play more with, so it’d be fun to see it kind of on its home turf.
There’s the Kickstart Amiga show - that started last year - I actually went to that. I’ve been asked to set up some kind of display or stand or something at this year’s Kickstart even though I’m not an Amiga guy, but I think that’s part of the reason they want me there because they want to - I don’t know - they either want an Atari ST owner that they can all point and laugh at, or maybe they do genuinely want some representation from some other kind of systems, but yeah, looking forward to doing that.
And of course, we’ve got Play Expo and stuff like that, but it’s not really the same as - I mean at VCF you get like the mainframe guys and all the proper old school guys there, which as far as I know, I don’t think we have anything quite like that. But hey, if you want to - you know - if you’re ever interested in starting a VCF UK, I would be more than happy to get involved, to help get that set up maybe.
All right, well, everyone heard it here - VCF UK!
Yeah, this is the genesis!
We also have some family over there - I forget exactly where, on my wife’s side. So, I think they might be right on the outskirts of London somewhere. So if we can do a trip over there, you know, I’d love to work in some other points of interest.
You’re welcome here as well - if you want to come and have a tour of the studio, but I wouldn’t go out of your way. I think the tour would take all of about two minutes!
Oh, of course I would, and meet the chickens, right?
Yeah - ducks.
Ducks! Ducks! Ducks!
Meet the ducks!
Well, cut out the thing where I said chickens!
It’s all the same.
Meet the ducks.
What are you working on right now?
That’s a very good question - I’m sure you’ve probably spotted that behind me, haven’t you? So that’s an NEC PC-9821 - I’ve just had a video that’s gone out on my channel talking about that. It’s funny you should mention the community and meeting people and speaking to people and that side of things because that’s something I experienced with that machine probably more than anything that I’ve covered so far on my channel.
Because the amount of PC-98 enthusiasts who’ve come out of the woodwork to help me out and give me information, and one guy sent me a disk image that’s got hundreds of games all set up and ready to go - and it’s saved me days and days worth of work - and I did make some-
I don’t know if you saw the whole thing around the video getting taken down and updated and stuff like that-
Yeah.
Yeah, I did make some mistakes in that video - and usually you make mistakes on YouTube and people are not kind about it, to put it lightly! But these guys are all like
“Oh, you know… really cool to see that you’re getting enthusiastic about this, and by the way, this bit’s not quite right, but if you need some help with it, or if you need any advice or anything like that…”
and I thought
“These are such nice people!”
All of these NEC PC-98 people are just universally really nice people, which is why I updated the video, because I thought, well, there’s not much stuff out there on this particular machine, so I guess it needs to be right, and I want to do right by these people.
So I’ve got that set up for capture at the minute. So I’m running through various games and things and doing video capture and it’s got like a weird 24kHz video mode - kHz? Hz? I dunno - which has been quite fun to try and work out with the OSSC and that side of things.
So what are you working on? Oobviously you mentioned something to do with Rhapsody, which isn’t surprising?
I’m trying to - because we’re going out to VCF in California - so I’m trying to make an exhibit that I can fit into a suitcase. So my idea right now is to run the same version of Rhapsody DR2 on both an IBM ThinkPad for the Intel version and a PowerBook G3 Kanga for the PowerPC version, and call them “The Unlikely Twins” and that’ll be my exhibit - and then as a bonus I have it running on a Toshiba Libretto too. So yeah, three things I can fit into a suitcase and make a hopefully interesting exhibit.
Is there any way you could sort of get them linked up running Minecraft or? Just to be completely on brand for the channel?
Yeah, Minecraft is- the VCF East exhibit is full of Minecraft - I have a G4 Cube running Minecraft.
Excellent. Oh, of course, you did that cube video as well, where the- you’ve done so much stuff! So many videos!
The thing that made me laugh in the latest one when you had-
because obviously you took that industrial PC and turned it into the world’s worst Steam Deck and it was just - in the latest video when you said that you were raiding it for parts for that weird sort of hi-fi Wooden thing - and then the camera swings around and you just sort of completely nonchalantly just say
“Oh, yeah I’ve been using this as my main gaming PC”
and it’s not like a joke or a bit or anything, it’s like literally
“I’ve just been using this as my main g-“
and you’ve got like this huge great industrial PC just wedged behind the TV and I thought
“Could that be any more on brand for for Action Retro?”
It’s not just a thing that you do for the camera - for the channel - is it? You are living the lifestyle!
I played through most of Starfield on that thing!
Nice.
I don’t know.
I think that’s pretty much everything I wanted to go over, really. Obviously you’re kind of busy preparing for VCF, and I’m sure you’ve got work to get back to, and you said you were fighting with Rhapsody trying to get that working, so anything you want to say to ctrl-alt-rees viewers?
I just want to say, it was awesome talking to you - talking in person, you know, it’s kind of weird, you know, I watch your channel all the time so there’s that kind of weird parasocial thing. So it’s like
“Yeah, I’m talking to a YouTube video”
But also it’s you the person.
So yeah, I hope I wasn’t too awkward, but it was a ton of fun talking to you!
Oh, no, I’m exactly the same - I always come away from these things thinking
“Was I weird? Was I awkward?”
But especially when I’m the one that’s in charge and trying to steer the conversation. But no, it’s been cool. It’s been really good. So I’m sure it won’t be the last time that we chat either. And I must say I was quite surprised when I sent you that message - because I literally sent you the message yesterday saying
“We should chat at some point”
and you were like
“What about tomorrow?”
Okay. He’s keen!
Yeah, well, I had to ask my people, but they said today was fine.
It’s been great and I appreciate you making the time to talk to me and appear on the channel and get a bit more sort of background information behind what you do.
So of course I’ll I will link to your channel and all the social stuff and all the other stuff in the usual places -I’m sure people know where to find you, but yeah - any last words?
It was fun being a part of the Rees Rambles Universe.
The “Rees Rambles Universe”.
Yeah!
Cool. Well, thank you very much.
Thank you.
How do you end these things?
People usually wave to the camera, right?
Oh, yeah. Yeah, let’s do the wave.
Original Video Links
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Relevant Links:
Action Retro: https://www.youtube.com/@ActionRetro
Sean’s Band: https://open.spotify.com/artist/4L8n8QZGDY7CSJcVqfZaXk?si=nwW9nqvaSQqfzOqDc5vd1Q
My Band: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/34ukiLaTYVwzEH62YqLghS?si=1bdc6ae5a6e0400f
FrogFind: http://frogfind.com
68K News: http://68k.news
Dan Wood: https://www.youtube.com/@danwood_uk
RMC: https://www.youtube.com/@RMCRetro
Cursed Mac Series: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4xUKkQyY278&list=PLPbN2ejWqayXV39t43q80P2Na6FWwLLET
Readability GitHub: https://github.com/fivefilters/readability.php
World’s Worst Steam Deck: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NCtBvRpJRDE
Weird Wooden Media Center PC: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sdj94cvQQrw
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