Michael Martin
@mcmartin.bsky.social
#retrocomputing on main, politics occasionally in the replies, video game stuff basically everywhere.
If you *just* want the retrotech, https://bumbershootsoft.wordpress.com/ is my retrodev blog.
If you *just* want the retrotech, https://bumbershootsoft.wordpress.com/ is my retrodev blog.
Reposted by Michael Martin
Reposted by Michael Martin
the 'conspiracies are actually real' rpg was very common in the 1990s but I think it's considerably harder to do today because conspiracy beliefs (and the attendant, inevitable anti-semitism) are an obviously malignant political force
I love learning about the little ins and outs of conspiracy and occult lore - the key is to always remember it's not actually real, at best it's real in a "this is a belief some people act on".
Once you actually start thinking there are Secret Masters out there, things go... bad.
Once you actually start thinking there are Secret Masters out there, things go... bad.
December 27, 2025 at 3:41 AM
the 'conspiracies are actually real' rpg was very common in the 1990s but I think it's considerably harder to do today because conspiracy beliefs (and the attendant, inevitable anti-semitism) are an obviously malignant political force
Reposted by Michael Martin
December 25, 2025 at 4:12 PM
Python and R as this generation's BASIC and LOGO has quite a bit to recommend it, frankly.
Excel is how most people will program computers these days but I lean towards thinking it's a meaningfully separate skill from more traditional script-and-function programming.
Excel is how most people will program computers these days but I lean towards thinking it's a meaningfully separate skill from more traditional script-and-function programming.
My hot take is that most people would benefit from intermediate math being taught in excel and R or python along side traditional notation.
December 20, 2025 at 9:26 PM
Python and R as this generation's BASIC and LOGO has quite a bit to recommend it, frankly.
Excel is how most people will program computers these days but I lean towards thinking it's a meaningfully separate skill from more traditional script-and-function programming.
Excel is how most people will program computers these days but I lean towards thinking it's a meaningfully separate skill from more traditional script-and-function programming.
Reposted by Michael Martin
Going through old boxes of my stuff at my parents' house. Found an old Alpha Centauri tech tree poster.
December 14, 2025 at 10:15 PM
Going through old boxes of my stuff at my parents' house. Found an old Alpha Centauri tech tree poster.
Looking through my blog stats at the end of the year, and it's funny to me that while a few posts got flash mobs of readers this year, this incredibly dry post about writing custom logging functions on a 1985-era GUI system is my most consistent draw
bumbershootsoft.wordpress.com/2022/07/24/c...
bumbershootsoft.wordpress.com/2022/07/24/c...
Custom printf: Wrapping Variadic Functions in C
Before we dig into actually working with asynchronous device I/O on the Amiga, I’m going to take a little bit of a detour—and one that ends up reaching all the way out modern C development, t…
bumbershootsoft.wordpress.com
December 12, 2025 at 7:39 AM
Looking through my blog stats at the end of the year, and it's funny to me that while a few posts got flash mobs of readers this year, this incredibly dry post about writing custom logging functions on a 1985-era GUI system is my most consistent draw
bumbershootsoft.wordpress.com/2022/07/24/c...
bumbershootsoft.wordpress.com/2022/07/24/c...
Some #retrocomputing nonsense; I've been doing some minor homebrewing for the Sega Master System to see what I can get its graphics system to do. It's been a journey! There's a lot more power here than I'm used to for 8-bit systems.
bumbershootsoft.wordpress.com/2025/12/06/s...
bumbershootsoft.wordpress.com/2025/12/06/s...
Sega Master System: Using ALL the Colors
Last week’s adventure ended with us writing text over a rainbow background, along with a drop shadow that respected the underlying color: To the extent that this involves any “tricks,&#…
bumbershootsoft.wordpress.com
December 7, 2025 at 2:07 AM
Some #retrocomputing nonsense; I've been doing some minor homebrewing for the Sega Master System to see what I can get its graphics system to do. It's been a journey! There's a lot more power here than I'm used to for 8-bit systems.
bumbershootsoft.wordpress.com/2025/12/06/s...
bumbershootsoft.wordpress.com/2025/12/06/s...
Reposted by Michael Martin
Very excited to share my greatest overreaction to Twitch's VOD disaster from February this year. This IBM LTO tape storage system was donated to my work, and I spent a few months on and off getting it back into working shape and figuring out how to connect it to my PC. I'm now the proud new owner!
December 1, 2025 at 4:36 AM
Very excited to share my greatest overreaction to Twitch's VOD disaster from February this year. This IBM LTO tape storage system was donated to my work, and I spent a few months on and off getting it back into working shape and figuring out how to connect it to my PC. I'm now the proud new owner!
Reposted by Michael Martin
Reposted by Michael Martin
M is for MAUD who was swept out to sea
N is for NEVILLE who died of bnuuy
N is for NEVILLE who died of bnuuy
March 16, 2025 at 3:00 AM
M is for MAUD who was swept out to sea
N is for NEVILLE who died of bnuuy
N is for NEVILLE who died of bnuuy
I grew up with the Atari 2600, the NES, and the Genesis, and never really got to take a look at the Sega Master System. Sega's first 8-bit console was essentially a stripped-down ColecoVision, but they REALLY stepped up for their 1985 hardware update...
bumbershootsoft.wordpress.com/2025/11/08/t...
bumbershootsoft.wordpress.com/2025/11/08/t...
The Sega Master System
We traditionally divide consoles into “generations”—the earliest devices like the Magnavox Odyssey are the first generation, the Atari 2600 is second, the NES third, the SNES and Genesi…
bumbershootsoft.wordpress.com
November 10, 2025 at 6:47 AM
I grew up with the Atari 2600, the NES, and the Genesis, and never really got to take a look at the Sega Master System. Sega's first 8-bit console was essentially a stripped-down ColecoVision, but they REALLY stepped up for their 1985 hardware update...
bumbershootsoft.wordpress.com/2025/11/08/t...
bumbershootsoft.wordpress.com/2025/11/08/t...
Reposted by Michael Martin
The finest thing about Cow Tools is that the reason it was an initial failure is also the *precise* reason it has eventually become immortal
43 years ago today, readers the world over opened their newspapers and gazed upon cow tools for the first time. happy birthday cow tools. you look great.
October 29, 2025 at 3:34 AM
The finest thing about Cow Tools is that the reason it was an initial failure is also the *precise* reason it has eventually become immortal
With this year's Interactive Fiction competition wrapping up, I looked back over some stuff I wrote ten years ago back when I seriously tried to judge the full comp each year. (This was just at the end of the era when that was feasible.)
I was writing about how I judged entries, but it generalizes
I was writing about how I judged entries, but it generalizes
October 26, 2025 at 5:52 PM
With this year's Interactive Fiction competition wrapping up, I looked back over some stuff I wrote ten years ago back when I seriously tried to judge the full comp each year. (This was just at the end of the era when that was feasible.)
I was writing about how I judged entries, but it generalizes
I was writing about how I judged entries, but it generalizes
Long-simmering take: Cyberpunk is more literary than transhumanist SF, because cyberpunk takes as a core axiom that "the human condition" is a thing that exists and continues to exist
One of the core conceits of Cyberpunk, interestingly enough.
October 24, 2025 at 11:58 PM
Long-simmering take: Cyberpunk is more literary than transhumanist SF, because cyberpunk takes as a core axiom that "the human condition" is a thing that exists and continues to exist
Reposted by Michael Martin
Daily red panda in the winter weather ❄️ :3
October 21, 2025 at 9:30 PM
Daily red panda in the winter weather ❄️ :3
Reposted by Michael Martin
Reposted by Michael Martin
sometimes it’s a lot of fun just listening to people who know a lot about something riff on it
October 18, 2025 at 10:08 AM
sometimes it’s a lot of fun just listening to people who know a lot about something riff on it
There were a handful of really big protests in my metro area, supplemented by a whole bunch of smaller ones.
My most local one was also right next to the local bookstore.
So: Great energy at No Kings both big and small! Also, I might have three more books now.
My most local one was also right next to the local bookstore.
So: Great energy at No Kings both big and small! Also, I might have three more books now.
October 19, 2025 at 12:03 AM
There were a handful of really big protests in my metro area, supplemented by a whole bunch of smaller ones.
My most local one was also right next to the local bookstore.
So: Great energy at No Kings both big and small! Also, I might have three more books now.
My most local one was also right next to the local bookstore.
So: Great energy at No Kings both big and small! Also, I might have three more books now.
Reposted by Michael Martin
forums.nesdev.org/viewtopic.ph...
wrote up a bit of info on a less common US revision of Micro Machines for the NES, featuring a pretty nasty bug, discovered just a little too late and then worked around by using a PLD to patch a single *bit*. this is what day one patches looked like in 1991!
wrote up a bit of info on a less common US revision of Micro Machines for the NES, featuring a pretty nasty bug, discovered just a little too late and then worked around by using a PLD to patch a single *bit*. this is what day one patches looked like in 1991!
October 13, 2025 at 10:42 PM
forums.nesdev.org/viewtopic.ph...
wrote up a bit of info on a less common US revision of Micro Machines for the NES, featuring a pretty nasty bug, discovered just a little too late and then worked around by using a PLD to patch a single *bit*. this is what day one patches looked like in 1991!
wrote up a bit of info on a less common US revision of Micro Machines for the NES, featuring a pretty nasty bug, discovered just a little too late and then worked around by using a PLD to patch a single *bit*. this is what day one patches looked like in 1991!
Fun addendum to this: it looks like the next version of the SDL library (3.4) will have a switch that does this. Hoping I see more of it in the future - it's very convenient and it looks _extremely_ nice.
New article on the blog this week as I pick apart and replicate (in #OpenGL) a #pixelart rendering technique that's actually pretty old but which almost nobody actually uses.
bumbershootsoft.wordpress.com/2025/10/11/s...
bumbershootsoft.wordpress.com/2025/10/11/s...
Sharp Bilinear Filters: Big Clean Pixels for Pixel Art
Now that I’ve walked through the history of OpenGL and seen what I can do at what points in history, I can attack one of the long-standing problems I had with my old pixmap library. It’…
bumbershootsoft.wordpress.com
October 14, 2025 at 4:44 AM
Fun addendum to this: it looks like the next version of the SDL library (3.4) will have a switch that does this. Hoping I see more of it in the future - it's very convenient and it looks _extremely_ nice.
New article on the blog this week as I pick apart and replicate (in #OpenGL) a #pixelart rendering technique that's actually pretty old but which almost nobody actually uses.
bumbershootsoft.wordpress.com/2025/10/11/s...
bumbershootsoft.wordpress.com/2025/10/11/s...
Sharp Bilinear Filters: Big Clean Pixels for Pixel Art
Now that I’ve walked through the history of OpenGL and seen what I can do at what points in history, I can attack one of the long-standing problems I had with my old pixmap library. It’…
bumbershootsoft.wordpress.com
October 13, 2025 at 4:41 AM
New article on the blog this week as I pick apart and replicate (in #OpenGL) a #pixelart rendering technique that's actually pretty old but which almost nobody actually uses.
bumbershootsoft.wordpress.com/2025/10/11/s...
bumbershootsoft.wordpress.com/2025/10/11/s...
One of my favorite chiptunes of all time, by Jeroen Tel and the Maniacs of Noise for the C64.
I first encountered this game as a kid and was able to track it down decades later purely on the strength of how memorable its soundtrack was.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kgz...
I first encountered this game as a kid and was able to track it down decades later purely on the strength of how memorable its soundtrack was.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kgz...
C64 Jeroen Tel's "Cybernoid I and II" Oscilloscope view
YouTube video by Rolf R Bakke
www.youtube.com
October 12, 2025 at 7:04 AM
One of my favorite chiptunes of all time, by Jeroen Tel and the Maniacs of Noise for the C64.
I first encountered this game as a kid and was able to track it down decades later purely on the strength of how memorable its soundtrack was.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kgz...
I first encountered this game as a kid and was able to track it down decades later purely on the strength of how memorable its soundtrack was.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kgz...
Reposted by Michael Martin
Dive Kick was an interesting game who's idea was get rid of most of the moves so people got to the advanced stuff faster
October 11, 2025 at 2:39 AM
Dive Kick was an interesting game who's idea was get rid of most of the moves so people got to the advanced stuff faster