# Cancelled Perfect Dark Footage Emerges, AI Slop Vs Adobe, DOOM On VHS & More - Ramble 173 > In this episode I talk about Heretic and Hexen, ArtCraft's AI-coded clones of Adobe's apps and Microsoft Office, DOOM on the Vectrex, in a Microsoft developer tool, on a pen plotter and on a PlayStation memory card, video games on VHS, newly surfaced footage from Xbox's cancelled Perfect Dark reboot, a warning for Playdate owners, Max Toy's short tenure at Commodore, modern Nvidia GPUs on Windows XP, an Atari 2600 handheld with a CRT, open source replacement boards for the SNES, Famicom and Sega CD, a tribute to Apollo software pioneer Margaret Hamilton & more! - Canonical URL: https://ctrl-alt-rees.com/2026-10-09-cancelled-perfect-dark-footage-emerges-ai-slop-vs-adobe-doom-on-vhs-more-ramble-173.html - Published: 2026-10-09 - Last updated: 2026-10-29 - Author: Rees (ctrl-alt-rees) - Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sO2SNUil7JM (1:10:42) - Licence: CC BY-SA 2.0 UK (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/uk/), unless stated otherwise below Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sO2SNUil7JM In this episode I talk about Heretic and Hexen, ArtCraft's AI-coded clones of Adobe's apps and Microsoft Office, DOOM on the Vectrex, in a Microsoft developer tool, on a pen plotter and on a PlayStation memory card, video games on VHS, newly surfaced footage from Xbox's cancelled Perfect Dark reboot, a warning for Playdate owners, Max Toy's short tenure at Commodore, modern Nvidia GPUs on Windows XP, an Atari 2600 handheld with a CRT, open source replacement boards for the SNES, Famicom and Sega CD, a tribute to Apollo software pioneer Margaret Hamilton & more! ## Chapters * [00:00:00 – This Week I Have Been Mostly Playing](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sO2SNUil7JM&t=0s) * [00:07:47 – AI Slop Takes On Adobe... And Microsoft?](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sO2SNUil7JM&t=467s) * [00:20:34 – The DOOM Shrine](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sO2SNUil7JM&t=1234s) * [00:32:04 – Cancelled Perfect Dark Reboot Footage Found!](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sO2SNUil7JM&t=1924s) * [00:42:12 – Not Rees's Pieces](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sO2SNUil7JM&t=2532s) * [00:56:58 – Videos Of The Week](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sO2SNUil7JM&t=3418s) * [01:06:06 – ...And Finally](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sO2SNUil7JM&t=3966s) ## Transcript ### [This Week I Have Been Mostly Playing](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sO2SNUil7JM&t=0s) Hello there, Ramblers, and welcome to another instalment of Rees Rambles, my weekly podcast all about the latest comings and goings, movings and shakings, and indeed all the rest of it in the worlds of vintage and retro computing, gaming and technology. Hope you're doing well out there and welcome to another weekend. Indeed, what is shaping up to be a rather chilly weekend, I think, here in the UK. I've just arrived at the studio and it's a bit cold. I was actually going to keep my jacket on for this recording, but it's got these zips on the sleeves and the pull bits, the toggles on the zips are quite chunky and it was banging against the desk and I thought, no, I'm going to have to brave it and sit here and record this in a t-shirt as I usually do. Usually I would preheat the studio. I actually have some fan heaters which I have set up connected to smart plugs and I can turn those on remotely, kind of 15-20 minutes, of course. I always check that the area around them is clear and, you know, they're safe to be able to turn on remotely so I don't set the place on fire. And they have served me very, very well indeed over the past few years and through the past few iterations of studios, but I must admit it did slip my mind, not only with it being the first cold day of the year so far, but also because I had another distraction to deal with this morning. I was actually called into work. You're probably aware by now that I work full-time or pretty much full-time as a contractor for the mail order e-commerce business that owns this building looking after their website. And I'm finding that I am becoming increasingly involved in their day-to-day IT support operation as well. And that's the reason I was called in because over the past few days I have caused havoc with their IT support company, their external IT support company. They do have their own internal IT department, but of course have outsourced some stuff as the business grows, as you do. They signed up with them all the way back in 2021. And it seems that increasingly over the past few months, their level of service has been somewhat lacking. And that led to me getting into a bit of an argument with them over the past few days. And it has now fallen upon me to sort everything out with them, with the management's very encouraging approval and indeed the IT department's very encouraging approval because things haven't been quite right for quite a while. Now, I wanted to start this ramble with a bit of a rant about IT support people, because you're probably also aware that I am a developer in my day job and that makes us natural enemies. People that go around turning stuff off and on again and unplugging and plugging printers in. I'm not quite sure what else they do, actually, to be honest. But then I remembered that a lot of you probably work in IT support and actually, you know what, you're good people. You're honest, hardworking, positive people. And when it comes down to it, we have a lot more in common than that which separates us. I also remembered that this is a family-friendly podcast. And if I shared my true thoughts on the current situation of the IT support within this business, I'm not sure I could keep the language entirely family-friendly. So what I am going to talk about is the game that I have been playing over the past, well, over the past week. I'm actually finding myself enjoying some gaming in the evenings, which is very nice. It's nice to be able to get back to it. And all those games that I promised I would check out in these various rambles every week, maybe I'll now finally get a chance to check out because winter is a kind of gaming season for me. And this is Heretic. I'm sure you probably recognise it if you're watching this on YouTube. Of course, the Nightdive remaster, which was released a couple of years ago now. This isn't the Nightdive remaster. This is the original DOS version, courtesy of Nostalgic Games on YouTube, I will say. So, you know, do go and check out some of their long gameplay videos. And if you're not familiar with Heretic, it is. I mean, you should be familiar with it by now, I'm sure. But it's based on the DOOM engine and it was released back in 1995 by Raven Software, who had worked very, very closely with id Software, who, of course, made DOOM. And John Romero of id Software fame was also, I believe, the producer on this. He was very heavily involved in the production of this game. It's very ambitious for its time. And also some of the modifications that they've made to the DOOM engine are very impressive indeed. You can look up and down, you can jump. It's got all these interactive elements and things, and it's very impressive. Yeah, very impressive for what it is. Has this kind of medieval theme to it. And I do remember attempting to play this back in the day when it was new and just not getting into it at all. I just didn't really get it. Oh, it's also got this inventory system as well. These various objects you can pick up and, you know, apply various effects and things and weapon buffs. And there's the chaos device that teleports you back to the beginning of the level. And there's flying, you know, there's a power up that actually allows you to fly around the map, which, again, very ambitious for its day and for the DOOM engine. And a lot of you probably think that I've gone a bit mad singing the praises of Heretic now after all these years and only just checking it out. But I did complete it last weekend, I think. And actually, I kind of reflected upon the experience and I enjoyed it. I like Heretic a lot, actually. I like the Nightdive remaster. It's very easy to play, pick up and play with all of the various, you know, user-friendly enhancements, quality of life improvements that they've made to it. And I can recommend it. So there you go. That's me, the DOOM guy, recommending Heretic. But of course, after that, I went on to its sequel, Hexen. And Hexen is an even bigger and more ambitious game. It's very much more of the same, I think. And some of the power ups and things do reappear in this game. So it does feel very familiar. Certainly part of the same universe and part of the same kind of storyline. But the level design in this is even more baffling than it was in Heretic. I have talked previously about Heretic and the fact that, you know, you'll come across things and have absolutely no idea how to activate them. Doors and lifts and secret areas and stuff. And then you'll find a random switch all the way over the other side of the map and switch it. And it doesn't give you any kind of feedback as to what's actually happened until you kind of stumble upon that original door or whatever. And I think, oh, that wasn't actually open before. And now it is. Is it something to do with that switch that I switched 10 minutes ago? And Hexen just takes that to extremes. I mean, it's built around certainly this hub area initially with various portals and things. And you're teleporting to all these different themed areas. You know, there's an ice themed area and a fire themed area. And you're, you know, switching switches and stuff. And then things are opening in different areas behind different portals. And there's all this back and forth and backtracking. And, you know, in the day when the shooters were very linear, this whole kind of open, it's not really open world, is it? But this whole kind of more exploration kind of focused type of game, I would have thought would have felt quite big, actually. I certainly think I would have felt that way back in the day. And again, I am enjoying Hexen. I do think it is even more confusing than Heretic, but I am getting into it. I even actually managed to open one of the secret levels as well, which was quite exciting and quite interesting. Anyway, that's what I've been up to over the past week. And I think with the intro, well and truly, you know, sorted and in our pockets, it's about time we got on with the rest of this week's Rees Rambles. ### [AI Slop Takes On Adobe... And Microsoft?](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sO2SNUil7JM&t=467s) And so for my first story in this week's ramble, I thought I would dive, perhaps inadvisedly so, into a very hot topic indeed. A software release from the past week, which has taken the internet by storm, and understandably led to quite a bit of debate. And I will say it is quite difficult to choose a side in this particular fight for reasons which should hopefully become apparent over the course of this story. Now, this does have a bit of a retro slash vintage software connection because ultimately it is based on a piece of software that was originally released all the way back in 1990, which I know feels like yesterday to us old folk, but I will remind you was 36 years ago. It's a household name. It's something which you've probably used yourself. And I'm talking about Adobe's creative suite, which, of course, began with Photoshop all those years ago. Now, Adobe has had its fair share of controversy. Of course, it used to be the case that you could go to your local software supplier and you could buy Photoshop or Acrobat or Illustrator, or indeed the whole suite if you want, in a nice box with a nice manual. And that was it. You owned that software forever. You installed it on your computer. You could use it forever. You would even get online updates from Adobe until they decided to stop supporting your specific version. And all was good with the world until they moved to a subscription based model. And nowadays you have to keep paying every single month if you want to keep using Photoshop or one of those other bits of software that I mentioned. There have been some very good attempts, I will say, at recreating various bits of functionality and, of course, compatibility with that software. Stuff like, you know, GIMP and Inkscape and, you know, lots of stuff from the open source world. I've used it myself and been quite happy with it. But unfortunately, unfortunately, I do need to use the Adobe Suite in my day job. So I do have a subscription and I'm very much looking forward to the day when I can free myself from those particular shackles. And it seems that that day is now closer thanks to, and this is the debate part, thanks to a new vibe-coded project, which people have been claiming is at least partially, if not entirely, based on reverse engineering and/or decompiling Adobe's own offerings. Which, you know, if that was the case, would be quite dodgy indeed, legally. Now, this is the post over on Bluesky that brought this to my attention. So this is James O'Malley: "Holy" – family-friendly podcast – "Someone has decompiled the Adobe Suite, rebuilt it in Rust and released it as open source. Either all software is dead or the US copyright laws are about to receive an update." Now, I will say, when I first saw this, I thought this was based on a decompilation. And when you see what these applications actually look like, you'd probably think the same because they are identical to the original versions. But there has been some clarification and there have been some statements from the developer of this project. It is a solo developer and this has appeared overnight. So yeah, I think that tells you all you need to know about the quality of it and about the process of vibe coding itself. Anyway, there has been, like I say, some clarification here. Comments from Boxo McFoxo on Bluesky. "Not a decompilation, it's a vibe-coded reimplementation. They've not stolen from Adobe, they've just stolen from everyone whose code was scraped to train LLMs." And then finally, after a bit of back and forth about cleanroom implementations, comment here from Matt Hodges, who points out some statements on the developer's GitHub repo. "Never read, disassemble or copy anything inside Adobe application bundles. Never read/disassemble and implemented from public specs and observed behavior only." So that's what the author is claiming. Now the suite itself is called ArtCraft and it has a website over on ArtCraft.com. "Seven apps, one craft, image editing, vector illustration, video, photography, PDFs, motion graphics and page layout. Native open source apps from the ArtCraft team, built in Rust and free to use." Rust is kind of the cool language of the moment. It's very, apparently allows people to build very kind of compact and efficient programs. I'm not familiar with it myself, but I have heard lots of good things about it, so that's quite cool. The names of the apps are PhotoCraft, VectorCraft, FilmCraft, LightCraft, PDFCraft, EffectCraft and DesignCraft. And if you're familiar with those O'Reilly programming manuals, you'll also be familiar with these kind of line art style drawings of animals and things, which is what they've gone for with the branding, which is a bit of an odd choice, but I quite like it. You know, it's quite stylish. Anyway, let's check out PhotoCraft. I don't have this installed on my computer. I haven't actually used this myself, although I have seen various reports of various bugs and things, although people also being quite impressed with how kind of functional these things are. But if we look at the screenshots here: "PhotoCraft: the image editor you already know how to use. Layers, masks, adjustment layers, layer styles, type, vectors and brushes in a native app written entirely in Rust. Open source, offline and yours." It's free, it's open source, you install it on your computer and there it is, forever. No subscriptions. And I thought I would point that out in addition to what it says here. But look, this is, it's Photoshop. It's identical. You know, it's got everything. I mean, I only really use the, I only really know how to use the very basic features of Photoshop and stuff like layers and things. But this would probably be more than adequate for my very basic usage, provided I can open the files that people send to me. You know, lots of features listed here, familiar by design, native GPU canvas. So this is all rendered natively by GPU. It's not an Electron app, it is a native app. We've got support for layers. We've got, yeah, apparently they've tested it with 135 real world test files, byte for byte. And out of those, 134 actually worked perfectly. Non-destructive editing. I mean, you're familiar with all of this stuff. Yeah, it looks very impressive, doesn't it? We've got native macOS, Windows and Linux versions as well. And that's just one part of this suite. Of course, I'm also familiar with Premiere and their take on that being called FilmCraft. I did used to use Premiere for all of my video editing. I've actually moved away from it now. I had a whole unfortunate business with a project that got corrupted and that I couldn't export. And I ended up moving to DaVinci Resolve. And if you're familiar with that, you will no doubt know that Resolve users are the crossfitters or vegans or cyclists, or indeed Linux users of the video editing world. And if you know anyone who's used it, they've probably sung its praises to you repeatedly to the point that you're fed up of hearing about it. It is really good, though. You should try it. So that is ArtCraft. And it does have a pricing model. So it is open source and you can indeed download it and install it for free. And apparently that is always going to be the case. But you can subscribe to various AI-related add-ons and "get a ton of generations and invest in a tool you'll always own. Your subscription helps keep ArtCraft free and open for everyone." And we've got Nano Banana images. No idea what that is. GPT images. Seedance video. Kling video. You can pay various levels and get all of that AI stuff if you want to make your own slop. So yeah, that is that. Of course, those wonderful ChatGPT flyers. You can churn all of those out to your heart's content. Does this sound like an advert? Hopefully I am giving a balanced view on this. It's just, it is crazy that one person can put together a complete clone of the Adobe suite. You know, all right, apparently it's full of bugs, but you know, it can only improve from here. And it is crazy that we are now in a situation where someone can actually produce this and make it available for download. And you know, as James O'Malley pointed out over on Bluesky, it does have some very serious implications for the future of software and copyright law as well. And that is a whole ongoing debate. Of course, we've also seen a lot of this going on in the kind of gaming world as well. You know, these ports to various different systems of various different quality, which I've talked about every week here on Rees Rambles, but a complete Adobe Creative Suite clone. I mean, that's a bit of a game changer. And also there has been another development as alluded to. And I will also draw your attention to this just before we wrap this story up. So The Register reports that they are now working on a re-implementation of Microsoft Office: "ArtCraft adds Word, Excel and PowerPoint lookalikes to its open source lineup, but they're not ready for production." And yeah, apparently they are now tackling Microsoft with their cleanroom re-implementations of proprietary software, as they describe it themselves. "The projects lean heavily on Claude for development and remain unfinished, but our first look at its Word alternative, WordCraft, suggests they are worth watching." It goes on to talk about ArtCraft, of course, which we've just talked about. "The company is at pains to point out that WordCraft is at the pre-alpha stage and estimates that it is at 62% of real feature parity, although an alpha for everyday writing is close. We would keep it away from production workloads for now. Its roadmap says 'testing DOCX compatibility against a collection of real-world files has not begun, and charts, SmartArt and embedded OLE objects are dropped.'" So they are targeting kind of a subset of the features of Word. If they could make this a clone of, you know, Word 2000, I think that was pretty much when Office peaked, wasn't it? Around, you know, 2000 maybe Office XP. That would be nice. You know, we don't need all the modern cloudy rubbish that's built into the Office suite. Just something that can open Word documents and edit them would be nice, along with Excel, of course, and all the rest. "The Document Foundation, which develops LibreOffice, declined to comment. Microsoft acknowledged our inquiry, but offered no further response. Adobe also declined to comment on the projects targeting its creative applications." And interesting take here: "Neil Brown of Decoded.legal told The Register that the legal position would depend on the jurisdiction, but suggested that those doing the reimplementations may well argue that, since they have implemented the underlying functionality independently, i.e. without access to the source code of the software that they are re-implementing, their overall re-implementation is non-infringing. That said, the legal situation is always going to be interesting, and quite possibly litigated, when the party most likely to feel aggrieved has deep pockets and lots of lawyers, and probably quite a lot to lose. ArtCraft says WordCraft was built from public specifications and observation using original or openly licensed assets. Its ambitions now extend from creative software to office applications, but whether the projects can deliver reliable replacements remains to be seen. In the years to come, it would be richly ironic if AI programming tools took a bite out of the revenues of the company that gave us Copilot in GitHub." Of course, one of the most widely used vibe coding tools. My goodness, there's a lot to take in there, isn't there? So yeah, that is what it is. I'm going to be keeping an eye on both of these projects. I suppose it's all kind of under one project, isn't it? ArtCraft. Out of the blue, with this complete feature, you know, complete clone of the Adobe Suite, and now seemingly also taking on Microsoft Office overnight. It is insane and is quite representative of the software development world as it stands. Thoughts? ### [The DOOM Shrine](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sO2SNUil7JM&t=1234s) Hmm. I think after that story, we need a bit of a palette cleanser, something a bit more comfortable and familiar. And I know I would usually do this a bit later on in the ramble on a usual week, but I have decided to bring it forward. We're talking about DOOM and our weekly visit to the DOOM Shrine, my collection of DOOM-related releases and paraphernalia dating back to the original shareware release that we got with our first PC back in 1994, all the way up to my DOOM: The Dark Ages fire pit and lots of bits and pieces in between, including some stuff signed by the original development team. But as is the case at the moment, of course, it has been dismantled. It's on its way to the new studio to be reassembled and re-born as something far more grand and impressive. So it exists only in our minds. A little "DOOM mind palace", if you like. And hopefully that doesn't diminish the stories that I'm about to bring to you. Because I have five DOOM-related stories for you for this little roundup. Of course, all paying homage, and quite rightly, to the FPS that defined the genre back in 1993. Of course, id Software's DOOM, if you haven't got the point already. First up, we have the game that we know and love ported to the Vectrex, believe it or not. That vector-based console. A very interesting console because, of course, it included the screen inside, but it wasn't a portable or a handheld as such. I suppose it did have a handle on the top and you could take it around with you. But yeah, full-blown CRT screen built in. And the reason for that was because it used vector graphics. So rather than the usual top-to-bottom scan lines that we know and love, the beam inside the CRT was being steered around to draw lines on the screen. Of course, quite big in the arcades back in the day, and sadly something that no longer exists due to modern display technology. But we can still appreciate it via videos like this. So, I mean, look at this. It looks absolutely fantastic, doesn't it? I mean, obviously you've just got the basic level geometry here. It's all being drawn in this white wireframe on a black background. Now, of course, as you might expect, this isn't being rendered by the Vectrex's internal CPU and RAM and whatnot itself. This is actually being rendered on a flash cart called the UVMC2. Usually it would be used to just store the game code and load it into the Vectrex's RAM, if indeed that's how the Vectrex works. I assume it has some kind of RAM. But in this case, it is literally doing all of the heavy lifting and running as an entire computer in its own right. It's very impressive. It uses the Vectrex for its video output, as you can see, and apparently the flash cart has its own three and a half millimetre socket, which is also doing audio output duties. I don't really know what else to say about this other than to just sit back and watch it and marvel in its glory. So this is the creation of ArcadeJason: "Some graphics were hand traced, others were auto traced. It's fully playable with sound coming from the audio jack on the cart itself. To play, you need to buy the WAD file from Steam or copy it from a copy of DOOM you already own." I'm sure we all own a copy of DOOM somehow nowadays, although perhaps not a Vectrex. Sadly, I don't own one of those. I've always wanted one. "This was made using Daniel Ferrer Guerrero's SDK for the UVMC2." And some great comments on this: "Trying to imagine someone in '82 playing this right after Spike." Pants would get filled and all the rest of it. So yeah, my hat is off to you, ArcadeJason. This looks absolutely fantastic. It's so cool to see DOOM in this way. And we're going to be checking out something very similar in a moment. But let's move on to our next one. Another video. And this is Aspire. This is Microsoft's development environment for distributed apps, apparently. Some kind of corporate software development rubbish that I'm sure I would have gotten involved with at some point in the past. But yeah, this tool now apparently has built-in terminal emulation and someone has ported DOOM to it, as we can see in this update on the official Aspire development channel with all 2,730 subscribers. But you know, it's a new project and it's growing. Anyway, the video does go on to explain a bit more about it and some more technical details. The update is sadly not about the port of DOOM specifically, so it is kind of light on specific details on that. But yeah, if you're interested in Microsoft's distributed software development environments and DOOM, it's yet another way to enjoy the game. And that's the good news. You can tell I'm struggling to find anything at all positive to say about this one, but I did want to mention it. I used to do a lot of C# development and Azure stuff and stuff like that. But thankfully, I have now moved away from that world. I do still love C# though. It's a very good programming language. Next up, we have a follow-up to the plotter-based DOOM that I talked about last week. Now, of course, we have plotters, an alternative to the printers that we know and love. They have a little pen and they draw stuff on a piece of paper by moving the pen around, so in a kind of a very human method of drawing. And they have been very much used and abused to great effect over the years. And as mentioned last week, someone was plotting out various scenes from DOOM. But this takes things one step further because it actually makes the game playable and interactive. It has a keyboard attached and you can actually move around and it will update and draw the scenes as you go along. So this is a post by u/revdancat over on r/PlotterArt on Reddit: "Playing DOOM at 0.00881057 FPS." I did find the maths on that at one point. Actually, I don't know if I have it here. That's one frame every one minute and 53.5 seconds or about 32 frames per hour. DOOM tops out at 35 FPS. So a single second of gameplay takes the plotter about 66 minutes to draw. Just to put that into context. So you have the WASD and cursor keys to where you think you'll end up. And basically, it draws on these little index cards, which you have to change, of course, once it's been drawn on. But it's this whole custom-made rig, this whole plotter that's obviously kind of been designed and made from scratch. I can see some 3D printing and stuff in here. It's just such a cool looking device. And it's got this mechanical typewriter keyboard type thing driving it all. Perhaps one of the most impractical ways I've seen to play DOOM, but it is very playable. A nice comment here from the creator: "If we pretend for a moment that this isn't totally ridiculous, a couple of thoughts pop to mind. It would be much better with a custom-built H-style pen plotter. That way you could do whole A5 or A4 pages. I'm using the AxiDraw Mini Kit 2, because I have it kicking around." I see. So it's actually a kit that you can buy. That's cool. "It's not very efficient in size to plotting area ratio. It's running off a laptop." So yeah, it uses this mechanical keyboard for input and the plotter for output. But of course, you could build in a Raspberry Pi or something. "And it would be nice to have a small e-ink display somewhere for debug or status info. I'm not going to do any of those things because I'm terrible at building/electronics. Just get 64 of those things together and you can do speculative rendering to increase that FPS a bit. You could have like a flipbook-style thing that gets assembled as you go along, maybe." DOOM on a plotter, but it's controllable. You can steer it. You can move around. I imagine if the enemies are in here, of course, you will find yourself dead before it gets a chance to even finish drawing the scene. But that's the price you pay for being able to play DOOM on a plotter. Next up, we have "Can We Port Games to VHS?" Now, this is one of my videos of the week for this week, which, of course, I will be talking about later on in this ramble. But I wanted to draw attention to this as part of this segment. So this is DOOM running on a Raspberry Pi, an RP2350, which, of course, is the microcontroller version. But what this project does is actually stores the software itself on a VHS tape. And the larger context of this video is that Throaty Mumbo has built this system to basically load games and software and stuff from VHS, load them into the Raspberry Pi and run them. And DOOM is used as one of the examples as to how that works. There is quite a bit more to it. You know, there's composite video encoding and decoding stuff going on and all sorts. So the video is well worth a watch. And I will talk about that in a moment in my videos of the week segment. But it's DOOM running on a VHS tape. And that's all we need to know for now. And finally, and finally, to wrap up my little DOOM offering for this week, we have to pay a visit to my good friend Taki Udon. Of course, I've talked at length about his various FPGA and MiSTer-based projects in the past. And he is now releasing memory cards for the SuperStation, which is his MiSTer console based around the design of the PS1, Sony's PlayStation from back in the day. And Time Extension reports that the $20 memory card being offered by Taki Udon for the SuperStation plays DOOM. You can run DOOM on the memory card. But I did a bit of digging and I can't really find any examples or any kind of footage of this actually working. So I guess this remains to be seen. "Taki Udon has released a memory card to complement his SuperStation 1 MiSTer FPGA system, and it also works on original PS1 and PS2 consoles. The SuperStation memory card, or SSMC to its friends, has a built-in display for game ID support and works with FreePSXBoot, FMCB, OPL, MMCE and more. You can also use it to load ISOs from a microSD card in the same way 8BitMods' MemCard PRO2 does." For $20. Taki Udon is a genius. "But thanks to the screen, the SSMC can also run emulators and Taki Udon has shown it playing DOOM. Not the full-fat version, but DOOM all the same." And this is running Arduboy games and a cursed Game Boy emulator apparently. And I don't know. I don't have a Twitter account anymore, so I couldn't actually see the footage in action. But there you go. A PlayStation memory card that plays DOOM. So much stuff going on in the DOOM world just lately. I can't imagine why. ### [Cancelled Perfect Dark Reboot Footage Found!](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sO2SNUil7JM&t=1924s) If you're a regular here, you will no doubt be well aware of the fact that I have an awful lot of love for the original Xbox, Microsoft's first console released all the way back in 2001. A console that should be celebrating its 25th anniversary this year. But that does seem, and I think quite rightly so, to have been overshadowed by all this talk of restructuring and the complete and utter mess that Microsoft is making of its Xbox division at the moment. And this story does actually relate to that in a couple of ways. But before we get ahead of ourselves and get on with the actual story, of course, we need to take a bit of a meandering diversion, as we always do. So, yeah, back in 2001, I was a huge Dreamcast fan, as were some friends of mine. We all had Dreamcasts and we all enjoyed them very, very much. But sadly, Sega decided that they didn't want to be in the console market anymore, and unceremoniously killed off the Dreamcast well, well before its time. I think they couldn't handle the pressure from Sony with the PS2. And the Xbox just felt like the natural successor, you know, to the Dreamcast, the spiritual successor, I guess, if you will. Many of the same features, you know, it had the four controller ports, the online functionality. The controllers were a very, very similar layout, felt very familiar. And also, of course, the Dreamcast ran Windows, so a bit of a Microsoft connection there as well. And after a few years of enjoying our Xboxes, we, of course, made the natural progression and picked up the 360 when that was released. And this next story relates to a launch title from the Xbox 360 and was actually a game that I picked up with my Xbox 360, as did some friends of mine. And we played it to death. We really loved this game. And I think quite rightly so. I mean, I don't think it's been remembered all that well by history, perhaps because it is overshadowed again, quite rightly, by the game upon which it was based. I'm talking about Perfect Dark, made by Rare, of course, a local developer to me based over in Twycross. And sadly, also victims themselves of this restructuring. As I reported last week, they have been restructured, although they do survive in some form or another as one of the kind of biggest and best loved game developers of all time. And yeah, Perfect Dark on the Xbox 360 was their reimagined version, their re-release of their N64 game released back on the Nintendo console in the 90s. A game that I think, you know, isn't as fondly remembered as GoldenEye, which of course it shares a lot of technology and a lot of DNA with, but was a very, very good game and quite a revolutionary game that really kind of pushed the limits of what the N64 could do back in the day. Sadly, the remake on the 360 wasn't, you know, didn't quite live up to that reputation, but it was a solid shooter in its own right. So enough waffling about my history with the Xbox and Perfect Dark. Because back in 2020, it was announced that Microsoft was actually working on a reboot themselves of Perfect Dark. And it was a really big deal at the time. You know, they made this big announcement all about it and they showed off some gameplay footage and it was actually received quite well from what I remember. It looked really kind of big and ambitious and people were quite keen to see the return of Joanna Dark and a return to the Perfect Dark universe. And then in 2025, when the restructuring started, it was one of the first projects on the chopping block. And that was the last we heard about it. Or at least that's what we thought. Because if we head over to timeextension.com, "New footage from Xbox's cancelled Perfect Dark reboot surfaces online." That's right. You know, we were shown that very brief snippet of gameplay footage. But now there is some footage of the unreleased early version of the game. Whether that means the game actually exists out there somewhere and will end up being preserved in its own right. And, you know, maybe we'll get a chance to check it out. I'm not quite sure. But for now, we can check out the footage. So anyway, going back to Time Extension's coverage by Kris Moyse: "Gameplay footage from the cancelled reboot of Rare's N64 icon Perfect Dark has surfaced online, offering the world a teasing glimpse at the further adventures of the Carrington Institute and its finest agent, Joanna Dark. Perfect Dark was in development at Xbox subsidiary studio The Initiative, a super studio of sorts that featured a team of veteran developers with lineage from Crystal Dynamics, Rockstar Games, BioWare, and Naughty Dog." Bloody hell, that's quite a lineup, isn't it? "Perfect Dark, first revealed at the Game Awards in 2020, was expected to be the studio's first release, but was unceremoniously cancelled in 2025, along with The Initiative's closure, as one of the innumerable casualties in Xbox's round of layoffs that continues to this day." "The new two-minute video, first posted by gaming outlet MP1st, is comprised of several short clips, reportedly from a developmental build of Perfect Dark. The footage includes several locations, with futuristic sci-fi settings appearing alongside more ordinary locales. An exploding industrial complex, a sunlit contemporary town, and a complex exterior, swept up in a vicious red sandstorm, are included in the mix. What we can only assume to be protagonist, Joanna Dark, is seen experimenting with a selection of weapons, including a rotary grenade launcher" – try saying that three times quickly after a couple of drinks – "and her trusty standard Carrington issue pistol, the Falcon. Some brief split-screen gameplay is shown" – you can tell it's late in the afternoon, can't you? – "as well as a hand-based hacking mechanic, reminiscent of Overwatch's Sombra, or even Pragmata's Diana. Given that the video supposedly came from a member of the VFX team, it stands to reason that the clips focus on explosions, gunshots and remarkable fruit-killing skills. It has been whispered by several team members that Perfect Dark was far along in its development cycle, with Joanna Dark voice actor Alex Wilton Regan noting that they had completed several chapters of in-game dialogue. Quite how much of the unfinished project remains, and whether it will ever see completion, is a truth that lies only with Xbox and the former members of The Initiative. But given the incredible dice roll nature of Xbox and its current streak of ruthless and unpredictable behaviour, it remains to be seen whether Joanna will walk the shadows ever again." And here is the footage. Now, the feedback on this hasn't been great from the people that have seen it. Go away, stupid x.com rubbish. Oh, it won't let me make the video full screen. Thanks, Elon. Let's just zoom in on it. I mean, it's not all that great quality anyway. But yeah, does it look like a game from 2020? I don't think so. I mean, bear in mind this is kind of early footage, but yeah, perhaps looks like something from the early 2000s. Not the big AAA spectacle that I think some of us were expecting. Still, we can see some of the weapons that they were working on here, some of the explosion effects and stuff. I think the level design of some of this, if you remember the Deus Ex reboots like Human Revolution and Mankind Divided, love those games, absolutely love those games to death on the PC. Some of the architecture and stuff in this game does look very reminiscent of some of that. We've perhaps got some like DOOM 3 influence, I guess the fogginess, the redness in general. I don't know. Maybe not. Some of these kind of onscreen graphics and interactive things just kind of reminded me of that. We've got some test levels here with, you know, don't have textures or any of the rest of it, but we can see, you know, footage of some of the weapons and things. We've got an enemy here scanning with some kind of head-mounted scanner thing. We've got, yeah, you know, we've got some weapons and environments. There we go. Shooting some fruit as you do. This looks like quite a well-fleshed out level, doesn't it? This marketplace, kind of a Middle Eastern, bazaar, bazaar type thing with the, you know, the trees and things. Oh, back to the DOOM-like level. Yeah, there's quite a lot to look at here. Oh, it's got some good foliage going on there as well. I think audio listeners are probably very confused as to what's going on at the moment. I just wanted to waffle all over the top of this video for two minutes. But yeah, if you think the Deus Ex reboots, I think that's probably going to get you closest to what this game looked like visually. You know, as mentioned, Mankind Divided and Human Revolution, two of my favourite games of kind of the 2000s. It's such a shame. It's such a shame that we lost this game, and particularly as it had been in development for five years at this point. And, you know, as reported by the people involved with the project was actually quite far along as well. Hopefully it exists somewhere. Hopefully it can be preserved and rescued. Whether this was just like a showreel of visual effects from an artist or whether this has been captured, you know, from someone who actually has access to a copy of this game, I'm not quite sure. The Time Extension story would suggest the former. But we live in hope and it might be nice to actually give this a play and relive those glory days of the Xbox 360. The reboot, the Perfect Dark reboot that did actually end up making it to market. And the glory days of Rare. Hmm. Depressing to think about. ### [Not Rees's Pieces](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sO2SNUil7JM&t=2532s) So I think it's time for the triumphant return of a regular Rees Rambles feature. One that has been notably absent in recent weeks, but I'm very pleased to report that it's back. This is the feature that we know as Not Rees's Pieces. For various reasons. Partly because I can't stand Reese's Pieces. I think they're disgusting. Partly because that would be incredibly cheesy and unfunny as a joke. But mainly because it's a term that's copyrighted to someone else. I don't even know who makes things to be honest. But that means that I can't use it in any kind of official capacity. So sorry about that. But what is important is that this is a collection of stories that I've seen discussed over on my Discord server in the past week. And I wanted to bring them to your attention, but I didn't really have anything kind of detailed or interesting to say about any particular story. I didn't want to come up with 10 minutes worth of waffle for each one. And perhaps more importantly, it is getting quite late in the day and I do need to get this ramble edited and uploaded. So let's briefly stroll through these and hopefully there's something of interest. Of course, this is all linked down in the description. If you are interested in anything that you hear here, here, here, along with everything else that I talk about in this week's ramble, as always, or if you're listening to this on your podcast platform of choice, should be in the show notes, if that is something that said platform supports. So without further ado, let's talk about the Playdate. I love this console. I don't have any hands on experience with it at all. I followed it from the beginning. I love the concept. I would really dearly love to own one, but I haven't gotten around to getting one yet. But I know quite a few of you out there do have these and do love them. And there is a public service announcement around this. So yes, you do need to update your firmware. This is very important. So: "Panic recommends update as older Playdate OS secure certificates about to expire." And the certificate in question expires on October the 15th. So you only have a few days now at the moment. If you are running the older firmware, you should update. You will still be able to update after the 15th, but it is quite a convoluted and a manual process. So just fire up your Playdate if you've got one sat in a drawer somewhere and run through the firmware update process, and then you'll be all right for at least another few years. Also, perhaps play with it when you do get it out of storage, because they're great. The next story that I have for you is from Time Extension again, but that's by the by because this is about my good friend Kim Justice, who has published a book, or is indeed in the process of publishing a book, celebrating 45 years of the ZX Spectrum, called the Rubber-Keyed Wonder. And yeah, publisher Golden Slumbers Limited has opened its Kickstarter, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But the story has been updated 24 hours after launch: "The crowdfunding campaign has smashed its initial goal of £30,000, sitting at just under £49,000 at the time of writing. Pledge goals remain open, with hardback signed and special collector's edition copies available at various pledge levels." As mentioned, I do know Kim Justice. I have met Kim Justice in real life and always been a big fan. And of course, Kim has been a big inspiration to me, produced some wonderful retro gaming projects over the years that I have backed, and I am indeed going to be backing this one as well. I actually have had the tab open for a while, and I just need to get around to it. But yeah, it's happening. Some of the stretch goals will indeed be happening, and perhaps even more stretch goals will be announced as a result of the massive success of this project. So yeah, well done, Kim. Really great to see that this one is coming to fruition. The next story is a complete and utter diversion from that. This was posted over on my Discord, and it's a very obscure bit of Nintendo hardware, which I wasn't familiar with at all. So I thought this would be cool to check out for a moment. It's a Nintendo Gateway system for in-flight entertainment. Yeah: "I picked up an interesting piece of hardware from an unlikely place," writes Rob Ivey on Facebook, in the retro microcomputers, workstations, servers and consoles group. "This week, I've been attending an aviation conference in Canada. It was on a vendor's table at a convention, along with other scrap PCBs from avionics systems used as decor. They saw my interest in it and were generous enough to let me have it. Two Super Nintendo systems on a single board, designed to operate in an avionics environment. The Nintendo Gateway was designed to interface with the IFE (in-flight entertainment) system in the late 90s. Does anyone know more about this system and how it operated? The last photo with the controller is what I found online." And some people sharing their stories here. I'm not on Facebook, so I can't read all the comments. But people sharing their stories and experiences of actually playing with this thing on actual real-life flights back in the 90s. As late as 1997, according to one of the commenters. And we've got some photos of the board, as promised. And finally, this photo that Rob Ivey found online of the controller. It's the kind of thing we had back in the 90s. You know, of course, it's all touchscreen now. But back in those days when you had those ridiculous headphones and you had the CRTs in the in the middle of the aisle. I guess it kind of postdates that a little bit because it does have its own individual screen. But the armrest with something that looks vaguely like a Super Nintendo controller, but it's got the extra buttons for calling the cabin crew and turning the volume up and down and all of that stuff as well. So I bet that was a load of fun back in the day. Probably a business class or, you know, first class experience. I can't imagine those of us plebs in economy would have got to enjoy this quality of in-flight entertainment. I had no idea that existed, but I think that's a very cool thing indeed. Next up, something completely different. Again, this is a really interesting article posted over on the Silicon Underground. And it's all about Max Toy, the embattled Commodore president. I'm just going to read the intro to you: "Commodore went through a revolving door of executives after Jack Tramiel resigned due to conflicts with Irving Gould. On October the 6th, 1987, it was Max Toy's turn. On that day, Commodore hired him. And for a while, it seemed like Max Toy might be the one to turn the company around. In this blog post, we'll explore what was different and what wasn't so different about him." I haven't even heard the name Max Toy. I don't know much about Commodore history. And that's why I find it very interesting indeed. Of course, I was on the Atari side of things. I'm very familiar with Jack Tramiel. And yeah, of course, the founder of Commodore, who went on to take over Atari. And, you know, there's a lot of research evidently that has gone into this article. I do like to recommend at least one nice big meaty history article for people to read every week. Of course, this isn't just an audio visual thing. And this very much falls into that category. So, yeah, if you want to know the story of Max Toy, how he ended up being, you know, the CEO or sorry, the president of Commodore for a brief stint in the late 1980s, what he managed to achieve or perhaps not so when he was there and how he came to no longer be the president of Commodore, I thought it was a really interesting story. So yeah, the Silicon Underground and Max Toy embattled Commodore president link down below. Next up, I have for you. Oh, yes, I love this. I actually spotted this one. I can't even remember where this came up. But yeah, tomshardware.com. This is support for NVIDIA Pascal GPUs in Windows XP 32-bit, modded drivers that bring better DisplayPort and HDMI support for modern monitors to Windows XP. Windows XP, of course, I mean, that's what, 25 years old in its own right, becoming very much retro in its own right. And this means that, I mean, as far as I was concerned, NVIDIA Pascal was bang up to date, but it turns out it's 10 years old, believe it or not. I know how time flies, but the NVIDIA Titan X pictured here, of course, iconic graphics card that I thought was modern, but apparently not. And all you need to know really is that this is a modded driver that allows you to use these more modern cards on Windows XP 32-bit. And I guess there's a lot of stuff. There are a lot of games from that era that don't run reliably on modern Windows these days. So if you want to put together an XP 32-bit box, but have a bit more graphical grunt, I mean, what would we have from that era? Stuff like Crysis and Half-Life 2 and all those great kind of turn of the century games, just glancing over at my game shelf here. I like it. DOOM 3, perhaps, perhaps, you know, get a few frames out of those games and enjoy them in a silky, smooth way that perhaps would have been slightly out of grasp back in the day. I will say that this has been AI assisted and that has been a bit of a discussion around this, but there you go. So yeah, NVIDIA Pascal GPUs on Windows XP 32-bit, very much becoming retro in its own right. Next up, we have this handheld Atari 2600, which has a little tiny built-in CRT. It's a handheld with a built-in CRT that runs original Atari 2600 cartridges. "We covered Nick Bild's mini Atari console using original devices not so long ago, and today he's back with the same console wrapped up with a CRT as a handheld. It would have cost a fortune in D-cells to own back in the day, but we know we'd have lusted after one of these in 1979. He's called it the µTari Go, pronounced microtari." Oh, I see. "It's a 3D printed affair with the buttons roughly where you'd expect them if you're used to the Game Boy and a cartridge socket at the top above the screen. It's the original PCB, which has been apparently hacked down and modified to fit into a smaller space, and it's a Sony CRT module." It doesn't actually say... Oh, "it could still be found in the usual online bazaars." I think that's out of like a CCTV system or an intercom system. There you go! A handheld... well, a handheld with a CRT built in. I mean, that's not something you see every day, is it? Next up we have, and finally, and this should be a much bigger story in its own right, I will say, hopefully something that I can cover in a bit more detail in a future ramble. But this is Starlight, which is a recreation of various original PCBs for original consoles. I've launched an official homepage for my hardware projects, let's give you a follow. The post over on Bluesky reads: "You can find information about OpenSFC, OpenFC and OpenKSK there. Lots of cool new stuff coming soon as well." I've talked a bit about the Board Folk, my good friends, in the past and their recreations of various PCBs, some which existed back in the day, some Commodore PCBs and things and some which didn't, like the Sega Neptune. Sega's cancelled, integrated Mega Drive and 32X console. And it seems that Starlight Retro is very much a project along those same lines. They have a website, and of course you can acquire these things for yourself. "Starlight Retro creates reproduction designs for 1980s and 1990s retro gaming systems. These parts are intended to provide repair parts for repairing our aging game consoles." Of course, we get various issues working on these old bits of hardware issues I very much know very well myself. Stuff like battery damage and corrosion and things. And if you own an original Famicom, for example, you can buy one of these lovely boards. And yeah, it's a faithful reproduction. It's a one-to-one reproduction of the original PCB. De-solder all of the components from the original PCB, or indeed just the custom chips if you want to go with all brand new components. And transfer them across to this. I talk quite a lot in these rambles about the importance of software preservation, of game preservation, of being able to, of course, enjoy all of those games and bits of software from the past. But hardware preservation, something I've covered extensively on my YouTube channel as well, ctrl-alt-rees. This is one way to go about it. I'm very much on board with this. I think this is fantastic. Great to see this work. There is an eBay shop, an Etsy shop, there's a Ko-fi shop. Should we check out some of the prices of these things? And also available from Retro Upgrades here in the UK and One Up Restorations over in the US as well. So that's great to see. Quite reasonably priced. I will say we've got the Famicom motherboard, that's $45. That includes the power board. If you just want the motherboard part itself, that's only $25. We've got the controller. PCBs as well, $15 to $20. Sega CD 101 Laser Drive board. The Super Famicom board, that's, what was that, $25? Yeah, $25 to $30. These are very reasonably priced indeed. And, you know, I know I talked a bit about the Board Folk. Obviously they released their stuff as kind of open source and you can get those fabricated yourself with various online services, which shall not be named because they aren't sponsoring this particular episode. But, you know, a huge amount of work has gone into these and I certainly don't begrudge the creator for putting them up for sale. Looks like they're based in Japan. That's quite interesting, isn't it? Yeah, I'm going to have to take a closer look at that. I might try to acquire one or more of their boards and perhaps do a bit of a project about it later on. Anyway, they were some bits and pieces for you. And if you are, again, interested in any of those stories or anything else I've mentioned in this week's Ramble, please do check out the links down below in the description or in the show notes in your podcast app of choice. ### [Videos Of The Week](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sO2SNUil7JM&t=3418s) And that's, my dear Ramblers, that brings us around rather neatly to my regular videos of the week feature, wherein I feature a video or indeed multiple videos that I have seen here on the old YouTubes in the past week that have entertained, educated, enlightened or otherwise improved my life in some small way or indeed their videos that I've come across added to my watch later list and not quite gotten around to checking out yet. But either way, they look interesting and I thought I would share them here with you as I do every week without fail. They're linked down below in the videos of the week segment of the description, of course, and with all of that out of the way, I think we should just dive straight in. So, first up, this is a bit of computing history from the UK. And, of course, we hear all about the homebrew computer club over in America in the 70s, you know, the coming together of the likes of Bill Gates and Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak and the birth of, you know, the Altair and the Apple I and those early pioneers of computing. But what's perhaps a little bit less well-known is the fact that that was very much happening on this side of the pond as well. And one of the early projects to come out of that scene was this: the Newbury Newbear. The computer you couldn't buy, as this video describes it. Well, why couldn't you buy it? Well, the description actually does explain that in quite nice detail. So I will defer to that. By the way, this channel, GlassTTY, only has 2,400 subscribers and deserves an awful lot more based on the quality of this video alone. So if you do go and watch this, please subscribe to the channel. This was actually shown off at RetroFest. And sadly, that is a show that I couldn't actually make it to this year. So yeah, I would have liked to check this out in person. Anyway, the story is: "Newbear 77-68 – replica or original? A working 1977 Motorola 6800 kit computer built in 2025 from original plans and put to work running a depressed talking weighing machine. In April 1977, Tim Moore published his design for a 6800-based computer in the Amateur Computer Club newsletter. Newbury Labs took it up, and as the Newbear 77-68, it became one of the earliest machines in British hobbyist and home computing – a computer you couldn't buy because what you bought was the design. This is a not-so-serious look at a genuine, non-original, new-old Newbury Newbear. It covers sourcing the parts, building the single-sided CPU monitor and RAM boards, booting from paper tape with a soft monitor, and finally giving it a voice as a computerised "speak your weight" machine for RetroFest 2026 at the Great Western Railway Museum in Swindon. Along the way there's 1977 Britain, the Altair, Apple I, SCRUMPI, MK14 and Nascom, the story of Tim Moore and the Newbear Computing Store, and the 1978 Horizon documentary that we're sure microcomputers would take all our jobs." And I have featured some of those BBC documentaries, of course, here on my videos of the week. Always a fascinating watch. So there we go, the Newbury Newbear. And I wasn't aware of this kit DIY computer from 1977 from the UK, but very interesting looking machine indeed, and very well kind of thought out and designed machine. Here we can actually see one in action. My only regret is that I didn't make it to RetroFest where I could have checked this out myself. Still, 23 minutes and 12 seconds, so a good video to check out on your lunch break. And please do go and give GlassTTY a subscribe as well. Next up, two rather long videos, but well, well worth the watch. Loads of information. The first one that I have already mentioned in this ramble, this was part of my DOOM roundup, of course, the weekly visit to the DOOM Shrine. Can we port video games to VHS? Now this talks a little bit initially about this Action Max, which you may remember advertised back in the day, although I don't think anyone actually bought one. It connected to your VCR and your TV and you had these interactive games that kind of loaded from the VHS tape. And I think it was all around quite a disappointment. I think Nostalgia Nerd made a video about this a few years ago. That's where I'm familiar with it. But this is a project to basically build a new and improved, a 21st century take on that. It involves FPGAs and, you know, custom development, storing code on the tapes, as well as interactive video elements. And as we have previously discovered, there is a version of DOOM that runs on this as well. Really comprehensive and technical, a detailed project and also some great demos of some games actually running, as well as some previous examples of games that have been released on VHS as well. Great look at the history of it. And kind of, it's great. It's a great project. Of course, covers all the stuff that I love. Throaty Mumbo, a channel that I was already subscribed to. So evidently I have featured something from Throaty Mumbo in the past or come across one of his previous videos. But yeah, it's brilliant. 56 minutes and 47 seconds. So it's an hour long. Stick it on on your TV while you eat your dinner and give it a proper watch because it's a great project. It's a great video. Speaking of long videos and great videos, we have a good friend of mine up next. This is RetroBytes. John, with his magnificent beard, a bloody lovely chap and a great member of the community, and he makes brilliant videos. He's not one of these people who churns one out every single week. You know, he certainly takes his time and it shows in the production values and just in the sheer amount of research that goes into these documentaries. I think I pretty much feature all of his videos as my videos of the week. And rightly so. If you don't know RetroBytes, do go and check it out. This is the history of Cray, of course, who made the Cray supercomputers back in the day. I've talked a bit in the past about Cray supercomputers and various machines that have come up for auction and stuff and how I remember reading about them as a kid and not really understanding what they were all about. But if you want to know literally everything there is to know about the history of Cray, it's in this video. It's a great documentary. It's an hour and 16 minutes long and it is brilliant. It's just packed with information as we've come to expect from RetroBytes, of course. So again, links down below with my other videos of the week. And finally, finally, something a little bit shorter, a little bit of a teaser and something also a bit more modern as well, because this is the Talos Principle 3. I fired up my gaming PC last night to play Hexen and this was on the homepage on Steam. I watched this video. I love these games. I ranted and raved about Talos Principle 2 when that was released here on Rees Rambles. God, that must have been, what, three or four years ago. I loved the original game. Apparently, they are all massively discounted on the various platforms, so if you haven't played them, do check them out. They're great puzzle games, first-person puzzle games. I don't really know what else to compare them to. Maybe Portal, but maybe not. You get to put together all of these different interactive elements and kind of direct these lasers around and there's like, you need to play the games yourself to know what they're all about. But there's a really great story around it, quite an important lesson, quite a profound, you know, whole philosophy behind the whole thing as well, which is very much explored and expanded in the second game. But yeah, really, really great puzzle games. It's just a teaser. It's literally just a minute long, but it is being released next year and I'm very, very much looking forward to it. I enjoyed the first two games and also the expansions that they released for those. They released a remastered version of the original Talos Principle as well. All great games and I wanted to bring that to your attention because I know that I do have some fans of that series in my audience. So, they're my videos of the week. We have the Newbury Newbear, the computer you couldn't buy from GlassTTY. Looking at that kit computer from the 70s, from the UK. We have Can We Port Video Games to VHS, a project to turn VHS tapes, VCRs, into a gaming platform. And a very good project it is indeed. A great documentary from RetroBytes, covering literally everything you ever wanted to know about the history of Cray, the world-famous supercomputer manufacturer. And finally, that's a trailer for the Talos Principle 3, one of the greatest puzzle series of all time. ### [...And Finally](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sO2SNUil7JM&t=3966s) And so, sadly, as is the case every single week, our time together must now draw to a close. So, thank you ever so much for joining me here on Rees Rambles. It is, of course, very much appreciated. These go out every single week on a Friday night at two minutes to midnight UK time, both on my second YouTube channel, youtube.com/reesrambles, and also to Spotify, and then onwards to the rest of the podcast platforms via some kind of RSS-based system that I don't understand and don't really care to understand. But that's what's great about podcasts over and above video. Anyway, as is always the case, some or all or none of this week's stories have been sourced from my Discord server and you would be more than welcome to come and join my wonderful little community over there. And you will find a link to that in the same place as all of the other links from this week's stories. So, I just want to give an extra special thank you and a bit of a shout out to members of that community who have been involved in either posting stories for this week or discussing them. So, Analogue Sheep, Mike C, LifeSizeTeddyBear, Steve Cooper of Steve'sTechShed, Richard Shears, Chrissy, OtherRetroMatt, HardlyWorgen71, Mx Autumn (PhotoGabble), TechNick, Crafton, mumboking, gravitone, Sozzled (Andrew S), and Catriona. Oh, and mnemo, of course. Thank you to all of you for being wonderful members of my community. Please do come and join us. There is a link to join the Discord server. And finally, on a slightly sadder note, we do have another obituary for this week. One of the greats in the world of software engineering, if not the greatest, you know, not to belittle the achievements of all of the other people that we have sadly lost and honoured on Rees Rambles over the weeks. But yeah, Margaret Hamilton, reported here on BBC News: "Margaret Hamilton, whose software helped land Apollo 11 on the Moon, dies at 90." Yeah, the names don't come much bigger than this in the world of software engineering. "The computer scientist behind groundbreaking research that helped land NASA's astronauts on the moon has died, aged 90." "Margaret Hamilton was a trailblazer in her field, leading the team who developed the software for NASA's Apollo missions, which coined the term software engineering. Hamilton's former employer, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, MIT, confirmed her death, adding she died on the 30th of September. 'To say Hamilton was a pioneer, to say she was ahead of her time, would be a dramatic understatement,' MIT said in its statement, before acknowledging that she was a software engineer before it was mainstream. Hamilton worked at MIT from 1959 until the mid-1970s and managed the software engineering division. It was in this division that she led a team of engineers writing and testing all onboard in-flight software for NASA's Apollo 11 project that guided US astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin to land safely on the moon." "'I was attracted both by the sheer idea and the fact that it had never been done before. I was the first programmer to join and the first woman they hired,' she told The Guardian in 2019. In 1969, moments before the historic Apollo 11 Moon landing, an onboard computer raised an alarm, signalling an error was occurring. The error detected the computer was overloaded and for a moment it looked like the complex landing might not be achieved. But Hamilton and her team had planned for such an error by engineering priority-driven software to shut down any background tasks and favour the most important, the moon landing, according to MIT. The team's famous software engineering was immortalised in a 1969 photograph of Hamilton standing beside the stack of printed code that towered beside her." So, yes, mourning the loss of Margaret Hamilton, the leader of the team that landed us on the moon back in 1969. That is quite the lifetime achievement and at the grand old age of 90 as well. But that's all I have as mentioned for this week's ramble, so thanks again for joining me and hopefully I'll see you in the same time and place next week. Bye! ## Original Video Links Episode Links: Heretic Gameplay: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Xklmh0dz2I](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Xklmh0dz2I) Hexen Gameplay: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ZOWDbU1voE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ZOWDbU1voE) ArtCraft: [https://getartcraft.com/pricing](https://getartcraft.com/pricing) ArtCraft's Clean-Room Claims: [https://bsky.app/profile/matthodges.bsky.social/post/3mxbzlzahok2u](https://bsky.app/profile/matthodges.bsky.social/post/3mxbzlzahok2u) ArtCraft Takes On Microsoft Office: [https://www.theregister.com/software/2026/10/08/rust-upstart-reveals-reimplementation-of-microsoft-office-with-claude-on-coding-duty/5301952](https://www.theregister.com/software/2026/10/08/rust-upstart-reveals-reimplementation-of-microsoft-office-with-claude-on-coding-duty/5301952) DOOM On The Vectrex: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pDJuGPmYWis](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pDJuGPmYWis) DOOM In Microsoft's Aspire Dashboard: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mXPj2DK6CPk&t=345s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mXPj2DK6CPk&t=345s) DOOM On A Pen Plotter: [https://www.reddit.com/r/PlotterArt/comments/1wz4k5o/playing_doom_at_000881057_fps/](https://www.reddit.com/r/PlotterArt/comments/1wz4k5o/playing_doom_at_000881057_fps/) DOOM On VHS: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vcgEQVsysYM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vcgEQVsysYM) DOOM On A PlayStation Memory Card: [https://www.timeextension.com/news/2026/10/superstation-ones-usd20-memory-card-goes-on-sale-today-and-yes-it-plays-doom](https://www.timeextension.com/news/2026/10/superstation-ones-usd20-memory-card-goes-on-sale-today-and-yes-it-plays-doom) Cancelled Perfect Dark Reboot Footage: [https://www.timeextension.com/news/2026/10/new-footage-from-xboxs-cancelled-perfect-dark-reboot-surfaces-online](https://www.timeextension.com/news/2026/10/new-footage-from-xboxs-cancelled-perfect-dark-reboot-surfaces-online) Video Of The Above: [https://x.com/IdleSloth84_/status/2107577138140586402](https://x.com/IdleSloth84_/status/2107577138140586402) Playdate Certificate Expiry Warning: [https://www.siliconera.com/psa-panic-recommends-update-as-older-playdate-os-secure-certificates-about-to-expire/](https://www.siliconera.com/psa-panic-recommends-update-as-older-playdate-os-secure-certificates-about-to-expire/) ZX Spectrum Book Smashes Kickstarter Goal: [https://www.timeextension.com/news/2026/10/new-book-celebrating-45-years-of-the-zx-spectrum-smashes-its-kickstarter-goal-day-one](https://www.timeextension.com/news/2026/10/new-book-celebrating-45-years-of-the-zx-spectrum-smashes-its-kickstarter-goal-day-one) In-Flight Nintendo Console: [https://www.facebook.com/groups/retrocomputers/posts/29405041699098998/?hpir=1&_rdr](https://www.facebook.com/groups/retrocomputers/posts/29405041699098998/?hpir=1&_rdr) Max Toy's Short Tenure At Commodore: [https://dfarq.homeip.net/max-toy-embattled-commodore-president/](https://dfarq.homeip.net/max-toy-embattled-commodore-president/) Nvidia Pascal GPUs On Windows XP: [https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/gpu-drivers/modder-brings-nvidia-pascal-gpu-support-to-windows-xp-32-bit-modded-drivers-unlock-better-displayport-and-hdmi-support-for-modern-monitors](https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/gpu-drivers/modder-brings-nvidia-pascal-gpu-support-to-windows-xp-32-bit-modded-drivers-unlock-better-displayport-and-hdmi-support-for-modern-monitors) Atari 2600 Handheld With A CRT: [https://hackaday.com/2026/10/07/handheld-atari-2600-packs-a-crt/](https://hackaday.com/2026/10/07/handheld-atari-2600-packs-a-crt/) Starlight Retro Open Source Boards: [https://bsky.app/profile/starlightk7.bsky.social/post/3mxbxeuagbc2n](https://bsky.app/profile/starlightk7.bsky.social/post/3mxbxeuagbc2n) Buy Page For The Above: [https://starlight-retro.com/buy/](https://starlight-retro.com/buy/) Margaret Hamilton Obituary: [https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx5yn46j41zpo](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx5yn46j41zpo) Video Of The Week 1 (GlassTTY Newbury Newbear): [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBDzNDR9Bic](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBDzNDR9Bic) Video Of The Week 2 (Throaty Mumbo Games on VHS): [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vcgEQVsysYM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vcgEQVsysYM) Video Of The Week 2 (RetroBytes History Of Cray): [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qSgnDD83m-U](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qSgnDD83m-U) Video Of The Week 3 (Talos Principle 3 Gameplay Reveal): [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UB-btaymgEY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UB-btaymgEY)