Category Archives: Just Rambling

Leveling Up Tracker Time with Glowing VU Meters in the Byte Cellar

Posted on November 6, 2024 by Blake Patterson

Lately, I’ve been spending time in the evenings listening to tracker tunes on my Gravis Ultrasound-equipped 486 PC. My go-to player program is Open CubicPlayer for DOS, which does a great job of both accurate playback and adjusting and sorting … Continue reading →

Posted in DOS / Win PC, Just Rambling | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Thinking Back on ‘Turbo Pascal’ as It Turns 40

Posted on December 4, 2023 by Blake Patterson

November marked the 40th anniversary of Turbo Pascal, the first Integrated Development Environment (or IDE), which allowed a user to quickly and easily write a program in the Pascal programming language and see it compiled and linked — all in … Continue reading →

Posted in Amiga, DOS / Win PC, Down Memory Lane, Just Rambling, Multi-Platform, Other Platform, Programming | Tagged , , , | 4 Comments

“4K Scaling” Is Not a Problem on Modern Macs

Posted on November 8, 2022 by Blake Patterson

I found myself posting this information so frequently on forum threads and in video comments that I wanted to put it all together in one place so that I can share my experience and what I’ve learned with a single … Continue reading →

Posted in Just Rambling, Macintosh | Tagged , | 35 Comments

BBSing in the Snow Is the Best Way to Login

Posted on January 11, 2022 by Blake Patterson

I logged into my first dial-up electronic Bulletin Board System in the spring of 1986 at the house of a friend I was visiting. His family had an Apple IIe setup with an Apple Modem 1200, the kind that sat … Continue reading →

Posted in Apple II, BBS, Down Memory Lane, Just Rambling | Tagged | 7 Comments

About the Personalized, Cut Wood Apple Logo Sign from 1984

Posted on July 26, 2021 by Blake Patterson

On Saturday KansasFest 2021 wrapped up and it was sad to see it end — what an amazing 48 hours it was! This was the second KFest I have attended (both virtual) and it was incredibly fun, just like last year. … Continue reading →

Posted in Apple, Just Rambling | 1 Comment

I Sit at the Round Table (And Dance Whene’er I’m Able)

Posted on November 14, 2020 by Blake Patterson

Just a quick post here to share a notable update to my retrocomputing activities of late that has proven to be a very enjoyable addition, indeed. Early this year, I sat down at the Retro Computing Roundtable and partook of … Continue reading →

Posted in Just Rambling, News | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Announcing “NMSspot” – My New “No Man’s Sky” Blog

Posted on January 25, 2020 by Blake Patterson

Just a quick post here to spread the word regarding a new blog I’ve started in the past month. Called NMSspot, the new site will cover my adventures travelling within the universe of the procedurally infinite space exploration / adventure … Continue reading →

Posted in Just Rambling, No Man's Sky | Leave a comment

How I Got Started in Vintage Computing

Posted on November 23, 2019 by Blake Patterson

I was recently listening to the celebratory 200th episode of my favorite vintage computing podcast, the Retro Computing Roundtable, which has been running for nine years. Marking the occasion, the early hosts of the show were in attendance and much … Continue reading →

Posted in Just Rambling, Multi-Platform | 3 Comments

I Laughed Just A Little Too Hard…

Posted on July 31, 2019 by Blake Patterson

Spotted on Instagram. Also: relevant. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Miikka Salonen (@miisalo) on Jul 30, 2019 at 2:33pm PDT ( Modified by ? Original artist is Jake Likes Onions. )

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Memories of a Software Rental Shop

Posted on May 11, 2019 by Blake Patterson

I remember the first video my family ever rented. It was a James Bond film, Never Say Never Again. We rented it (on Beta videocassette) from the video rental counter that popped up in our local five and dime, a … Continue reading →

Posted in Just Rambling | Tagged , , , , , | 25 Comments