Happy Birthday Linux!

Happy Birthday Linux! Over a quarter (26yrs) of a century old, still going strong and conquering area after area in various technology-segments 😋😊😃

Yes, I know he didn't announce it on newsgroups this day, he did on August 25th.

But, as he says himself, he considers both dates as birthdays. The first as the announcement-date, and the second (today, August 29th) as the upload-date.

Back 2 School

Looks like I'll be a student again this fall 😉 "precourse in maths and physics for engineering" 😏 after that, probably a BSc/MSc in Computer Science.

Yes.., I didn't finish any grade when I was attending private college earlier, it didn't work out, so I started working instead 😎

Now, I'm attending the University of Stavanger (UiS).

Retro-gaming

I've been itching to write this blogpost for a while...

I'm an avid retro-gamer, as well as a contemporary gamer. My emulation-antics took off in the late 90s when I started getting nostalgic about old DOS-games from the late 80s and early 90s. For the most part, DOS-emulation was pretty accurate even in the early days.

But these days emulation is pretty much a native thing. CPU-cycle-imitation and other emulation-techniques have pretty much reached the runtime-levels of the actual systems they are emulating.

I don't favor the new idea of releasing limited special-editions of consoles, like the NES classic mini and the SNES classic mini, when you can build a COTS-computer (or even use a deprecated laptop/desktop), load it up with RetroPie and ROMs, and you basically have a multi-emulation box that runs EVERYTHING, and can be CUSTOMIZED.

If you go for a Raspberry Pi 3, such a system could even cost you as low as $30 (apart from cables and gamepads / arcade-sticks, then it would cost you a minimum of $50).

Sure, a few people argue that the RPi3 is a fad, or that the SD-card gets worn out so it's not made to last, etc.

Well, a $30 credit-card computer isn't really that hard to replace, and SD-cards are a dime a dozen these days and are even getting cheaper, not to mention quite easy to back up (making a copy-image on your computer harddrive / usb-drive).

Sure you cannot for example use exotic console-hardware, like the microphone gamepad for the Japanese NES. Nor can you play roms made from FX-gamepaks (Nintendo addon-technology to render pseudo-3D on the SNES). Then again, would you want to? Hey, if that's your thing, have at it. I don't give a flying f**k...

Emulation is king - imho.

Phantom mic-mixer

The Behringer Xenyx302USB is a nifty little piece of audio-hardware :) 5 channel mixer, Phantom-powered (48V) XLR microphone-input / JACK-input, line-input and 2-track input coupled with an USB audio-interface (full duplex input/output).

A compact and really portable design, weighs nothing and sports a sturdy build-quality I'm not used to seeing in equipment in this price-range. Although the mic-input could really use a filter (it picks up every hiss and click in the room), this can easily be remedied with a standalone hum-eliminator box.

All-round it is a great choice for podcasting, amateur recording, limited input-mixing, video / audio conferences and the like.

RetroPie

TIP: For those of you out there considering getting a NES Classic / SNES Classic read this blogpost first... you won't be sorry.

Since I started dabbling in Raspberry Pi SBC's, I've been testing a few emulation-distros and the like. Been playing around with this since June 2016, so a good 10 months by now I would say :P

One particular distro caught my interest while testing; namely RetroPie.
Excerpt from retropie.org.uk:

RetroPie allows you to turn your Raspberry Pi, ODroid C1/C2, or PC into a retro-gaming machine. It builds upon Raspbian, EmulationStation, RetroArch and many other projects to enable you to play your favourite Arcade, home-console, and classic PC games with the minimum set-up.

RetroPie lets you play virtually ALL arcade-/console-/PC-games released in the period 1980-2000. Every .rom I've got in my library (accumulated around 10.000+ since the 1990s) works out-of-the-box.

Tested a good few arcade- and console-roms, and they work flawlessly.

Only configuration it may require is a simple dialogue-based gamepad/joystick setup. And you're ready to game as you please :)

Zelda II - The Adventure of Link (NES)

Bubble Bobble (NES)

Super Mario Kart (SNES)

Super Mario World (SNES)

Super Bomber Man (SNES)

Super Street Fighter II (SNES)

Super Street Fighter II - In-game (SNES)

Turrican II (Amiga)

Turrican II - In-game (Amiga)

Giana Sisters (Amiga)

My Logitech F310 gamepad used testing RetroPie.

Street Fighter II (Arcade)

Street Fighter II - In-game (Arcade)

Sonic The Hedgehog (SEGA Genesis)

 Sonic The Hedgehog (SEGA Genesis)

Splatterhouse 2 (SEGA Genesis)

Splatterhouse 2 - In-game (SEGA Genesis)

HiFiBerry Digi+ Pro (for RPi)

Recently got a really nifty Pi-hat (addon-card for Raspberry Pi) called "HiFiBerry" - model "Digi+ Pro".

"Pi-hats" are simple single-PCB addon-cards that slot on top of Raspberry Pi line of single-board computers, and extends the functionality of the RPi's. The HiFiBerry slots easily on top of the GPIO pin-row, with the help of plastic risers (the white bolts/nuts pictured below).

With the HiFiBerry Digi+ Pro, I get audio-output in 24bit 96KHz "studio-quality". NiCE! :)