Software development. Tech punditry. Retro gaming.
The Game & Watch are handheld electronic video game units created by Nintendo in the 1980s, consisting of a video game on an LCD display, and a clock (the “watch” part in the name). The first game, Ball, was introduced in 1980, and the last original Game & Watch was Mario the Juggler in 1991. These handheld games were …
Thinking back to high school you may remember being taught about pi and using it in maths classes to calculate perimeters and areas of circles. You may remember being told a good approximation of pi is 3.14, or 22/7. But you may also recall that pi is irrational (meaning, in maths, that it cannot be expressed exactly as …
News of the day is that a new Atari 2600 prototype game has been found. It is being referred to as Fish (that was the filename) and little is known about its origins apart from the fact it was created in 1983 and never released. You can read all about the discovery at AtariProtos.com.
Here’s a video of the …
The Mega Drive Mini (Genesis Mini in the US) has been out now for some time. It’s a great little device with 42 built-in games, and has the advantage that it connect to modern televisions giving easier access to those without original hardware or old CRT televisions.
However, it is also fairly easy to add more games to the device …
Many of you would be aware that a game titled “E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial” was released for the Atari 2600 in 1982. It is often (unfairly) claimed that it caused the great video game crash of 1983.
While not a great game, there are far worse games in existence. It was rushed in development and the result …
There are a number of different health identifiers in use throughout Australia, some for patients, some for doctors, some for organisations. Each identifier has its own particular use and rules around its format, with some more complex than others.
Good software will generally check the validity of field inputs where possible. For example, a field for an email address would …
It has been 15 years since my last blog post. I eventually turned the blog off because it had no updates, and everyone tells me no one blogs anymore. Well, I decided it is time to bring back the blog!
So, I’ve deleted most of the old blog items as the quality was lacking (it has been 15 years). But …
I work with a number of younger software engineers, so occasionally I’ll say something that demonstrates a sizeable generation gap. Usually it is because I’ve mentioned the lyrics of a song from the 80s, or some early 80s television show.
The other day I found myself more than a little surprised. I was explaining something to some of the boys, …
In Mac OS X, the terms “ejecting” and “unmounting”, as they relate to removeable media, are considered interchangeable by most end users. Most people will talk about “ejecting” their USB flash drive, even though this doesn’t cause the drive to pop out like a CD or DVD. Apple explain this thus:
…Ejecting a volume may not mean that it
This week at WWDC, Steve Jobs told Mac Developers that they were offering a “sweet” way to develop applications for the iPhone. Yes, he said “sweet”. Multiple times.
Steve also told us this was an “Innovative new way” to develop applications. And that it was “Easy to update – just change the code on your own server”. Ouch! Developers were …
For those who don’t know, OS X has the concept of a “bundle”. A bundle is basically a folder that allows related resources (software code, graphics files, configuration information) to be grouped together. The most common example of bundles is Mac OS X Applications. Mac OS X applications are often bundles, known as “packages”. To the end user, in the …
I’ve been meaning to do a quick review on iWoz for a while now, having read the book back in December last year.
iWoz is the autobiography of Steve “Woz” Wozniak. For those who don’t know who this is, Woz created the Apple I computer, and founded Apple Computer (along with Steve Jobs).
Now, I’m a big fan of Apple …