Full Self Driving

Yesterday I took our Tesla for its first charge at a Tesla Supercharger, mainly to check it out, see how simple the process was. Seriously, it was easy. Literally, as long as there’s a credit card linked to your Tesla account, you plug in and go, and you’re charged directly.

I decided to try getting there using Full Self Driving which is included for three months as I used a referral to purchase.

I started on the road in our relatively quiet neighbourhood which was a good place to start getting up to speed and then turning on FSD. I was nervous having researched some of the challenges, times you need to take over, etc.

Remember, you need to pay full attention when using any driver assistance system, especially one in beta. You can and should override the system anytime you’re feeling unsafe.

There areas where I was nervous:

  • Turning on to a busy street
  • The on ramp onto a highway
  • Exiting the highway and being placed in the correct lane – where I exit has, I believe, six lanes – two turning lanes left and right, and two go through lanes

I’d be curious to see how the vehicle does when the busy street is busier. The car turned flawlessly.

I was nervous that entering the ramp to get on the highway that it would take the ramp quickly and it initially did, but then slowed down appropriately and then accelerated up to speed beautifully. I’m used to merging sooner than the car did, and in this case the car chose to use the full acceleration lane.

People had moved over so it was clear to merge. That is one of my concerns – people often won’t move over for me in our other vehicle and I have to be aggressive getting on to the highway. It’s super annoying.

Exiting the highway at a particularly busy exit, it chose the correct lane and drove fully to the Supercharger.

I am impressed with the system and I hear that FSD 12 (we currently have FSD 11) is way better.

Do I need a Full Self Driving system in a car? I’d say not, I’m quite happy with a more “basic” lane keep assist and traffic aware cruise control which still uses AI. I still want to drive rather than give up that control. Yes, I want to be in control. LOL

If you’re interested in a Tesla and this blog has helped, feel free to ise my referral link to book a demo drive or to buy a Tesla. and get awards like 3 months of Full Self-Driving Capability.

https://ts.la/iain607877

Thoughts on Autopilot versus Driving Assistant Professional

I’ve been wanting to do a video for Iain the Tech Bear to demystify driving assistants on cars. Specifically I’m talking about autonomous driving.

BMW

On my 2020 BMW X5 I have the Driving Assistant Professional package. What this includes is:

  • Radar Cruise Control which allows the car to keep it’s distance while cruising down the road
  • Lane Keep Assist which keeps the car in it’s lane
  • Lane Change Assist on motorways which lets the car switch lanes automatically when I ask it to
  • Self Driving at speeds under 60kph which allows me to go completely hands free on motorways in stop and go traffic as long as I’m looking at the road. This feature in particular is a game changer for me.
  • My X5 came with some neat LEDs on the steering wheel that alert me if the car has lost sight of the road, i.e. disengages any of the autonomous driving features it flashes yellow, if it needs immediate attention, i.e. I need you to take control NOW it will flash red

It is a pretty fantastic package. When I moved from our Mini which was manual to our previous X3, it had similar features and was a total game changer. The X5 took this to the next level especially with the ability to self drive in stop and go traffic. In the Greater Toronto Area, you this feature is so helpful!

Tesla

Tesla has three packages – Autopilot, Enhanced Autopilot and Full Self Driving.

Autopilot really is just Traffic Aware Cruise Control which is the equivalent to radar cruise control, except on our 2024 MY it does it all with cameras, no radar. It also includes lane keep assist under the branding Auto Steer.

It’s pretty basic and it does the job. It doesn’t have self driving at 60kph which lets me go completely hands free in stop and go traffic, but I’m used to still holding onto the steering wheel when in that situation.

Enhanced Autopilot will “navigate on autopilot” which means on highways it will automatically navigate and traverse ramps and exists. It will automatically lane change as well with confirmation. In addition to automatically parking and the Summon functionality – which these are not currently available for Tesla Vision vehicles.

Full Self Driving is exactly that, the car uses AI to drive automatically. It’s still in beta, and you MUST pay attention. Even if it ever gets out of Beta, you still need to pay attention. You are ultimately responsible for your safety! This includes Autosteer on city streets and traffic light and stop sign control. I’ve not had a chance to test this at all.

I’ve experimented with Enhanced Autopilot and it’s both an improvement on what BMW offers, but it’s also a regression given the features that my BMW has that the Tesla doesn’t currently have.

That said, I’m very happy with what Tesla offers despite only having the car for just over 14 hours. I’d be happy with basic Autopilot.

So…

I really have to ask – what were the people thinking when they died in cars with any level of Autopilot? I’d never consider falling asleep at the wheel and not paying attention. It’s clear, the systems are NOT ready for that kind of trust. I value my life too much to trust the systems. Putting blind trust in these systems is a Darwin Award waiting to happen.

Since those times, the US NHTSA and other organizations have raised issues and Tesla has had to update the software so that people must touch the steering wheel, and the car will nag. Even other manufacturers have had to update and adjust their software.

Additionally, if you abuse the use of Autopilot, it will actually ban you from the service for a week. That’s smart on responsible.

I don’t have time for people using devices to counteract the safety systems on any vehicle that has some degree of autonomous driving such as weights.

In short, don’t be stupid. Pay attention.

Both our BMW and Tesla have driver attention cameras so it knows when you’re not paying attention to the road and doinking on your phone instead, and they alert you.

These systems do alleviate stress and I do feel refreshed after a longer drive. After driving manual, which I love, just not in Toronto traffic, having a system to help me arrive somewhere refreshed is amazing.

I like driver assistance systems and I’m fascinated by AI and how it can help to make driving safer. I do believe these systems do reduce accidents by keeping space, keeping you in lane, etc. However, it is your responsibility to pay attention and ensure safe operation of the vehicle.

We now have a second car

Over the past few months I’ve been thinking that Scott and I need a second car. Since I’m not going to the office, and Scott is driving to work everyday due to some of his mobility issues that make navigating the TTC a pain; I’ve been feeling like a bit of a shut-in.

Introducing the eKumaKart!

Our first electric car! A Tesla Model Y.

I have always wanted an electric vehicle, ever since we leased our first two hybrids. We’ve gone from being super efficient to buying a series of gas guzzlers to buying one of the most efficient vehicles in the world.

We did a test drive Friday evening after seriously considering the Model Y, and submitted a deposit online. There was a Deep Metallic Blue with the white interior – in fact two – available in Oakville.

Within an hour we had a VIN, all the paperwork we needed to do initially, and an appointment set for pick up. Today at 4pm.

Over the next few days, updated documentation was added to our account and I could digitally sign for things such as the electric car incentives, which is automatically applied to our car downpayment.

I have never had such a smooth sales process. I didn’t have to deal with the BS of haggling, things like oil change packages, and other things. The price is the price – and right now they’ve dropped prices by $4000 in Canada, plus the $5000 Federal Government incentive, that’s $9000 saved there.

Not to steal a saying from GM’s Saturn days, but this is a different kind of car company and a different kind of car.

The tech, the way the cars are built (despite the quality control issues – ours so far has none that I can tell), is pretty groundbreaking. It is refreshing to see the established car companies challenged. They definitely have some catching up to do, although a company like Tesla cannot be complacent.

Ageism and Madonna

Yesterday, I called someone out for ageism related to a particular part of Madonna’s Celebration Tour. People are often reposting how she’s dancing during Ray of Light and often saying rather ageist things about it.

In terms of the concert, Ray of Light was not her best moment in the concert.  Her dancing was not great, but for context, she’s in an open box, flying over the attendees with just the rail to hold on.  Hats off to Madonna for that because I know I’d be way nervous.

Her costume – epic!  I think it does two things, and keep in mind, this is my interpretation – I see it as A) celebrating rave culture and B) I kind of see it as saying, “Lady Gaga, here’s the torch” because what she’s wearing looks to me to be Gaga inspired.  I can vibe with that.

I’ve always been one to live and let live.  Who am I to judge what someone does, especially older folks in this case.  If you want to let your freak flag fly, using P!nk as reference, go for it.  

Talking with someone yesterday, at the recent Haçienda events in Manchester, there was a couple 80-ish plus years old who went to that event.  Are we go going to tell them to go home because of their age? No!  We’re going to dance and celebrate with them!  To me it would be awesome to be in their presence.

When I was at Hibearnation in November in Manchester, at the second club night, I was blown away by a 20-something guy coming up to me and going, “Damn!  You’re just tearing it up on the floor” and he was celebrating that with me.  Both club nights were special to me for a multitude of reasons, but knowing that I was accepted despite being almost 50 was the icing on the cake.

I’m not one of these myopic Madonna fans who are militant.  There are things she’s done at times that I’m like, WTF?  Sooner or Later at the Academy Awards in 1991 was one of those moments for sure.

At her core, I appreciate the fact that she shines the light on topics that people want to ignore such as sex, safe sex, HIV awareness, age, empowerment of women, empowerment of minorities and marginalised communities.

I know by the time I’m her age, I don’t want to be stuck at home; I’m planning on being out there and active.  Given the near death experience I had two years ago, I want to live and experience life even more.

Her music deals with some amazing deep topics.  A perfect example of this is almost the whole Like a Prayer album.  Her music videos speak volumes on several levels that often get missed.  What seemingly looks like a bunch of women having fun (referring to the video for her single Music) is commentary on, “Guys can have all this fun, why can’t women?”, and that’s a basic example.

Did you know that Like a Virgin was actually written by two guys and it’s actually about that time when you fall in love with someone and you’re all a flutter about the relationship, and you feel “shiny and new”?  

She has pushed the envelope for women, gay men, people of colour, etc.  Yes, she has done some of this stuff controversially, absolutely.  The right approach? Not always for sure, and it rubs people the wrong way.  I can appreciate that because, again, what I referred to in my WTF comment above.

Everyone seems to have an opinion on Madonna that’s surface level.  When you dig a little deeper, you realize just how much depth she has.  If all you’re looking at is the criticism and accepting that, then you’re not seeing the important messages and things she’s actually saying.

I can’t force anyone to like Madonna, just like someone can’t force me to be a fan of, say, Taylor Swift.  That said, I can learn to appreciate what Taylor Swift has done and while I don’t totally get her, I know she’s an important cultural force with a younger generation.  

My intention isn’t to make someone a fan of Madonna, but she has done a lot for our world and I think she actually deserves way more appreciation than she actually gets.  I wish people were a bit more critical and looked at things with a bit more depth.

A shame the person blocked me because a slightly shorter version of this would have been my thoughtful response to engage in discourse and to educate.  

My history with a Commodore 64

Before December 1983 my dad had written a letter to my mum which my grandmother read aloud which mentioned something to the effect of, “I’d like to buy Iain and Robyn a Commodore 64”.

The excitement of me going, “YES!” and then realizing maybe that wasn’t the response I should have given, “Maybe not? Is it okay?”. You could see the confusion in my voice because my parents did not have the smoothest of divorces and messaging was really confusing about us hating him yet still having a relationship with him.

I digress, December arrived and he visited taking us to the University of Guelph to introduce us to some of his colleagues and their work, going for meals. I really felt in those days, Dad was doing his best and making an effort to do what he could to inspire us and be a Dad.

I was too excited, after all, I was 10 years old and I was about to get an amazing computer! I had already experienced an Apple ][ and Commodore PETs at school; being exposed to UNIX and an IBM 5150 PC at my mum’s work; and friends had a Commodore VIC-20.

We drove to Guelph one late afternoon, went to a Zellers, and pick up a Commodore 64, a 1701 monitor, 1541 disk drive and all with, i think, a free VIC Desk! I think we also got Music Maker as well, so we weren’t left without something to try.

Those early days of not understanding how to load programs from the Commodore 64 and the 1541 – I remember my Grandfather and Uncle figuring it out; to getting my first joystick – a Suncom Slik Stick, and games Radar Rate Race and Jupiter Lander for my birthday.

I did so much with this computer

  • I played and copied many games
  • I did hours of homework using Easy Script and geoWrite
  • I spent a lot of time entering programs from magazines, though I admit to not writing too many of my own designed programs in those days. Compute!’s Gazett, Ahoy!, Commodore Magazine, Commodore Power/Play – I had to get them monthly from WH Smith – thanks mum! I actually still have these though I am considering passing these on to the University of Toronto’s Computing Archive
  • To help me learn the piano, I’d using music sequencing software to help learn timing of notes and such – this definitely inspired my music project, in the future and my comfort in programming analogue synthesizers
  • I did a lot of BBSing once I picked up a Commodore 1670 modem, around, I think, 1987

Mum actually used Paperclip to help type a book for one of the profs she worked with, rather than typing it out on Wordperfect on her work PC. I don’t remember how long the Commodore 64 was in her bedroom or at her office, but it certainly was a significant amount of time.

I made a number of friendships over the Commodore 64 – Paul and his dad too me to my first World of Commodore in December 1984. Paul gave me some of the first games – Ghostbusters, Pole Position and Frantic Freddie.

I’d learn about Super Snapshot cartridges, fast loaders, how bad Commodore printers were – thanks to my uncle for helping to purchase a Commodore 1526 printer that I used for many years to print out assignments; until I purchased a Xetec Supergrapics Jr and a Star NX-1000 Rainbow printer – the first piece of computer hardware I saved up for and purchased with summer work money.

I even bought a 1764 REU which, in some respects was a waste of money, though it really did speed up GEOS which I used VERY extensively for homework assignments.

I still have that Commodore 64, the 1541 disk drive, the REU and every disk I ever owned. Gone is the monitor, the VIC Desk, . The last time I turned it on was last year, and unfortunately, I think one of the PLA chips died as I was backing up my disks to an SD card – Pi1541 for the backup win!

Thankfully, the World of Commodore is still going and I was able to purchase a replacement PLA chip – that I still have yet to install. I will likely do that in the coming weeks.

While the TS 1000 was the first computer I owned, the main computer I used was this Commodore 64. It was a workhorse for me from 1983 to 1990 when I picked up a Commodore Amiga 500.

Such a powerful computer at the time, and I realize now there was so much more I could have learned, especially with electronics and the user port. I’d have loved to have had a second disk drive, a second phone line into the house and run a BBS. I actually did run one for a short time period, but off the main phone line. My grandmother was not pleased with me. LOL!

Still, I did push that computer and loved every minute of it.

Iain The Tech Bear

My YouTube Channel is going through a bit of a transition!

With not travelling as much as I used to, I decided to add a new category of content – Tech Content! Beyond travel and music, it’s one more thing I’m quite passionate about.

There is a lot that I want to talk about between retrocomputing history, Internet of Things, and various projects I have going on.

My history with a Timex Sinclair 1000

What a steal! CAD$69.99 in 1983 and comes with the arcade game, Frogger and Mixed Game Bag 1!

The problem, and the best way to disappoint a kid – to be clear, the corporation, not my mum who spent hard earned money in 1983 to get me my first computer.

To use those games, you’d need a 16K RAM Pack!

I first explored programming on this computer, with a membrane keyboard and the manual in hand, oh and a Panasonic tape recorder to save my programs to.

I’ve mentioned people in my life who inspired me in my career. I mentioned my great uncle, Reggie.

In my life story of the Timex Sinclair 1000, is another person that inspired me – Kenyon Taylor.

Kenyon and his wife were friends of my grandparents. In my fact, one of his sons and my mother dated for a period of time, I think, in the 1950s. When we would vacation in Northern Ontario, we would often travel to Mindemoya on Manitoulin Island where they lived.

Kenyon is famous as one of the co-inventors of the modern trackball, DATAR, vehicle detection systems, and Flip Disk Displays among a number of other patents. In many respects, I was standing in the presence of engineering greatness not really comprehending it as a kid.

We last saw Kenyon shortly before he passed away in June 1986. I remember Robyn and I being very quiet at his side with mum and some of his family members. He is someone I wish I could have spoken to as a teenager or an adult.

Back to our connection on the Timex Sinclair 1000 – When we visited Kenyon, he had a Timex Sinclair 1000 and he inspired me to learn more programming on it and printed out a number of programs for me to type in.

I still have those programs, printed on the Timex Sinclair 2040, using thermal paper!

It gave me some really good inspiration for algebra and trigonometry in high school.

This is one of a number of moments in my history, definitely a gift that I will always appreciate.

I didn’t always use the Timex Sinclair 1000 after about 1988. I’d occasionally pull it out and plug it in for fun, but I have fully transitioned to using my Commodore 64 for gaming, and homework. None the less, I held on to the computer and, as mentioned, I still have it, as well as two backups – one from an acquaintance from high school, and one my partner Sté is passing on to me.

Sinclair computers were such an important part of making computing available to the masses back in the 80s, especially in Europe and would go on to great acclaim with the Sinclair ZX Spectrum, of which I picked up a Spectrum+ when I lived in Norwich in 1995.

I created a home lab

I’ve dreamed of having servers in my home to do various things and, I guess, it’s finally taken on a life of it’s own!

See, it started with me implementing Pi-Hole, to stop annoying advertisements from websites. Of course, I have a bunch of IoT devices and have controllers.

Then Raspberry Pi announced the 8Gb Raspberry Pi 4. I bought one as soon as I could and wondered, what should I do with it? I’ve always wanted to install Home Assistant should our network connection ever go down, we can control our devices.

I added a Synology NAS as I needed the space and the redundancy for backups and the Raspberry Pi Retroconsole project I’ve been curating. This also allows me to run Docker containers – the ability to run a particular piece of software in it’s own little – are pretty cool.

The thing with Home Assistant, you don’t want to run that off an SDCard as it will burn it out. So I bought an Argon One M.2 case with a 250 Gb SSD. A Raspberry Pi running off an SDD is pretty quick! It surprised me.

So, Home Assistant doesn’t use that much space, so I’m wasting the space on a 250 Gb SDD! Also, admittedly, the fan on the Argon One M.2 case started making noises and I had situation where I thought I lost the SDD, so I decided to switch the case to a SunFounder Pironman – I’m all about the LED lighting.

So far so good.

So with that done, I’m deciding to experiment with a bunch of services hosted on both the NAS and my Pi 4 8Gb:

Pi-Hole – I’ve already mentioned, this is my Ad Blocker

Home Assistant – i’ve mentioned this too, which allows me to run my IoT devices independent of their cloud brokers

Mealie – This is a new addition, a recipe manager that will scrape website pages for recipes. I really like this concept, and have been somewhat fascinated by recipe managers since my Timex Sinclair 1000 days

WordPress – This was the first iteration of a dashboard, more a page of links to servers and such inside our home. I’m not sure I’ll use this much, but having the option, I might be inspired to put it to use

Homarr – is everything I ever wanted in a Dashboard for a home. It’s easy to add new buttons for internal web services and more! The perfect starting point!

OwnCloud – With the space on the Raspberry Pi, I could put some important files on here as a just in case backup fron the NAS and cloud; accessible anywhere.

Kasm – I heard about this from a YouTube video on servers people are running at home. I’m completely blown away that my Raspberry Pi 4 with 8Gb can run two streaming Docker containers running a game of Doom and a full Debian Linux instance! It’s pretty awesome and gives me a bunchmark for just how powerful a Raspberry Pi is.

Plex – I run Plex off my Mac server for streaming videos

Apple Music – Last but not least, my music streams off my Mac server

I also have dedicated systems that run a web browser, PHP and control LEDs for saying a room is busy.

There you have it – what

I built a Fishbowl

Well almost. See, I got the idea to put together my first desktop Windows-based PC in about 20+ years. Why? I guess I was inspired by my Steamdeck which at the time introduced me to the world of modern handheld PC gaming.

I feel in love with the Steamdeck after years of playing on my Sony PS Vita. The fact that games would also play on a PC versus years of consoles and handhelds being separate really got me thinking. I’ve known for a long time that PC gaming is outpacing console gaming.

What did I spec out for the Fishbowl?

  • AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D
  • XFX Speedster Merc 310 with an AMD Radeon RX 7900XTX Black Edition
  • Asus ROG Crosshair X670e Extreme
  • Asus ROG Ryujin III 360 cooler
  • LianLi Fans
  • Kingston Fury Beast 16Gbx2 DDR5 RAM that goes up to 6000 MT/s
  • WD Black SSDs

I tend to go a bit overboard on my builds because I do want them to last a long time between upgrades. Using an AM5 motherboard also helps keep that future upgrade path as future AMD processors will be supported.

I also admit, blinky lights and customization in the new generation of PC motherboards really grabs my attention. Where before the boring beige aesthetic was, well the boring beige box aesthetic.

The LED pixel and OLED displays and LEDs around the motherboard, the LCD screen on the cooler and the LEDs on the fans really add to the design to make my machine unique. Different colours also add to the ambience too.

I had to set the lighting to two shades of blue and add the two fish to the cooler LCD screen and the OLED display, and voila – digital fish tank!

I admit, I’m seriously impressed by modern PC tech. Now, the amount of power draw from this is quite something.

Comparing what I started out with, to where we are today. The PC I built is 700x more powerful than a Cray XMP super computers in the 80s! I could never have imagined that as a kid. Even something as small as a Raspberry Pi, what that can do, relative to, even 30 years ago.

I’ve not had a desktop PC since the early 2000s, when I switched to a Mac. I wasn’t a huge PC gamer, and I had started console gaming. Prior to that, I was gaming on 16-bit hardware like an Amiga 500.

I’ve known that PCs were very much getting ahead of consoles, which, at one point, used to be leading edge. Really researching what to put in my build, and seeing the results of it playing Starfield and Cyberpunk 2077 – Just incredible.

I’ve enjoyed the gaming experience so much on my Steamdeck, being able to play those games, literally anywhere between the Steamdeck, on my PC, or on my PC laptop, or streaming in my living room – is epic.

40 Years of Computers

This month I celebrate 40 years since I was given my first computer – A Timex Sinclair 1000. I’ve talked about and reminisced about this time period often.

The fishbowl PC next to my first computer, a Timex Sinclair 1000

Mum finally agreed to get a computer, so off we went to Consumers Distributing in Mississauga on Dundas St, after piano lessons. It was between a Timex Sinclair 1000 or a Texas Instruments TI99/4a – both being on sale. As history would have it, we bough the Timex Sinclair 1000 for CA$69.99 in 1983 – Today apparently that’s $211.77 adjusted for inflation!

That was a huge purchase back in the day, and it had a massive impact on my life.

Two months later, my Dad bought us a Commodore 64 for Christmas at a Zellers in Guelph complete with a Vic Desk, Monitor and disk drive! It was an amazing setup!

With my parents divorced, we had to keep the Sinclair a secret from Dad out of the irrational fear that he would not buy us the Commodore.

I’m so glad and very fortunate my parents invested in my future though both systems. It’s let me appreciate generations of computers from an early age. I used both a fair but, and we expanded the Sinclair with the thermal printer and a 16k RAM pack so we could play Frogger in black and white. 10 minutes to load from a tape deck!

In 1987, an acquaintance from school gave me his TS/1000 and a bunch of tapes. Both still are here with me, as are the tapes and a tape deck.

The impact of having a computer in my life did several things

  • It very much inspired my career – There were several things I wanted to do between becoming a high school Computer Science teacher, to being a software developer that travelled. I ended up doing the latter between software development, being a consultant, management and architecture.
  • It became a major hobby – between maximizing my home network, my retrogaming projects and other things, it opened up a whole new world to me, one that I wanted to play a part in.
  • It helped drive friendships and connection – Nothing like trading games to create community back then. L33t! 😉

My history of computing goes something like this

  • Timex Sinclair 1000
  • Commodore 64
  • Commodore Amiga 500 – I saved up for this all summer, the graphics were amazing
  • AST 486SX Laptop – Which sadly died two years after I bought it, not having used it for a year while I was living the UK
  • Commodore Amiga 3000 – This was given to me by a former work colleague and landlord. I took it with me to the UK and used it to emulate a Mac to complete my assignments
  • Compaq Presario 4528 – This was my first desktop Intel machine – Pentium II power with MMX! I used this to finish my degree
  • PC I had built – I’ve completely forgotten what the specs were for this machine
  • Lenovo T-Series laptop
  • Apple PowerMac G4 Desktop
  • At this point I got indoctrinated into Apple with various Mac laptops – G3, G4, MacBooks, MacBook Pros, MacBook Airs, an Intel-based iMac & MacMinis, and currently with an M1 Mac Mini, and a MacBook Pro
  • Various Raspberry Pi Model 3Bs, 4s, 400s, 3As
  • Minisforum HX90 – My first desktop PC since around 2003 which I was going to use for my arcade project but ended up not doing so
  • Beeline SER5 – I’m using this on my Pinball Machine to drive Pinball FX
  • Alienware M15 – AMD Rizen 9 7845 and Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070
  • And finally, to celebrate my 40th year of computing, I finally built my own PC with my friend Charles with an AMD Rizen 9 7950X3D and an AMD RX 7900 XTX which is all decked out with LCDs and LED lighting

If I were to include game machines:

  • Commodore Amiga CDTV – Do we really consider this a game machine? LOL
  • Commodore Amiga CD32
  • Nintendo Gameboy Colour
  • Nintendo Gamecube
  • Nintendo Gameboy Advance SP
  • Nintendo 3DS
  • Nintendo Wii
  • Sony Playstation 3
  • Xbox 360
  • Sony Playstation 4
  • Xbox One
  • Sony PlayStation 4 Pro
  • Xbox Series X
  • Playstation 5

Which gives me pause for thought.

Put my Timex Sinclair 1000 next to my new desktop PC – As a kid, I could not fathom having a computer that could generate the images that we now see in 4K on our computer monitors. My friends and I thought it was going to be an impossible task to emulate an Amiga, yet, today we have small credit-card sized computers that can emulate such a machine many times faster, with a huge amount of ram and storage space, relatively speaking.

At that time in the 80s, I’m not sure we could envision what we have today, even in the 90s. I think, by the 2000s you could see where things were going so the surprises are becoming fewer and fewer.

How many Cray XMPs are on my desktop? 800 MFLOPs versus 563 GFLOP (563000 MFLOPS) – 703 times the processing power!

We’ve come a long way from having to cool super computers the way we did in the 80s to what we have today.

The power of my new desktop, even my laptop, is completely insane!

I do believe one of my Timex Sinclair 1000s still works, the other would need to reconnect the keyboard properly and fix one of the membrane keys. The other challenge is having a TV with an analogue antenna port, which I do have, so I have ways of connecting the computer up to a TV.

Frogger for the Sinclair ZX81/Timex Sinclair 1000 being run off my Raspberry Pi arcade console

This is one of the reasons I believe in retro gaming archives and emulation, so people can experience what it was like using some of these more “primitive” machines which are so important to computing history, inspiring people and getting computers into the home.

I won’t lie that I miss the discussions we would have on the merits of different platforms, specifications, what computer the future should pick but that business had blinders on focusing on Intel 80X86 systems rather than the superior Motorola 680X0 series, what the future should be. We were all idealists back then, and we did have some foresight.

Thing is, that discussion became – Xbox versus Playstation, AMD versus Intel, Windows versus macOS. Where it used to be considerably broader, it always seemed to become two against each other – Commodore versus Atari back in the day.

DOS and Windows did become way more refined like Amiga Workbench and Apple macOS. Platforms are a lot more open. For example could you imagine the Windows Subsystem for Linux to run Linux oriented software on Windows? macOS being built on BSD? I couldn’t have either.

So what is there to get excited about these days, especially given 40 years of system versus system battles? Here is what I’m interested in:

  • Miniturization – The fact that a Raspberry Pi running an ARM core can emulate so many machines is, in many respects, mind-blowing. Just how powerful that platform is.
  • Efficiency – While my “Fishbowl” is one of the fastest setups you can buy, speed isn’t necessarily everything to me. Doing what I can with efficiency is really neat, which goes hand in hand with miniaturization. Doing all that I can to maximize use of the system. For example, I have a Raspberry Pi server in my home running multiple applications on a single machine – I’m not using an x86-based system for this.
  • What’s going on with other platforms? – I like learning and seeing what’s going on in the macOS, Linux and Windows worlds, especially with being away from the Windows world for over 20 years.

There are other things too, but those are the top three.

It’s been an incredible journey of 40 years.