Archive.org still exists and still has DMCA immunity*, you can get no-intro, goodset & redump sets on there. There is a gap in PC game ISOs currently though afaik, but steam and gog do seem to be good for covering most releases

Failing legal options, those sets will be available forever via BitTorrent

*If you’re in the US, please make sure your representative knows how important it is this continues—well, unless they’re a republican, in which case, probably better they stay oblivious if they don’t already know.

Probably jumping on the popularity of retro gaming

Ah that’s good to know, might be one for 86box then

I would also suggest the modern emulated alternatives if you struggle to get hold of the original hardware

MT32-pi: https://github.com/dwhinham/mt32-pi (covers the MT-32 & CM-32, can also do some general midi with sound fonts, so in theory you could emulate a soundcanvas too)

Then there’s the sound cards too

PicoGUS: https://github.com/polpo/picogus/ (emulates a Gravis Ultrasound, SB2, AdLib, Tandy & also the MPU401 if you do end up with real midi hardware)

Also gonna just drop the goldlib too: https://pcmidi.eu/goldlib.html but that one might be a bit separate from what OP is currently doing

Yes to all of those, though I never actually played empire earth, so that goes on my modern day list

ME is a bold choice regardless—those installs always seem to destroy themselves before long in my experience (admittedly from quite a while ago now)

As for games (in no particular order):

• Command & Conquer (basically all of them up to including RA2)
• Diablo 2
• Warcraft 3
• Dungeon Keeper
• Theme Hospital
• Rollercoaster Tycoon (and RCT2)
• Unreal Tournament 99
• Fury 3/Terminal Velocity
• Z
• Age of Empires 1 & 2
• Pharaoh & Caesar 3
• MechWarrior 3
• Serious Sam
• Sim City 3000
• Quake 2 & 3
• Half Life
• Deus Ex

I’m definitely forgetting some

Ah sorry my bad! Looks like I went in with an incorrect assumption of the use case. Given an iPad is typically used as a consumption device, I assumed watching video content would be the main use case—which honestly in my anecdotal experience I’ve not heard anyone using mega for in ages, but even so perhaps that’s just the people I talk to and I’ve just been oblivious though.

Anecdotally from people I’ve spoken to about this recently, it seems to be a mix of:

• Running your own Plex server (or a good friend letting you onto theirs)
• Real debrid
• Stremio
• Some random modded fire stick thing with a load of piracy services installed

Can’t say I remember anyone mentioning old school download or video streaming sites like that in ages.

Might just be the people I’ve spoken to though, it’s not a topic that comes up every day after all

Mega in 2024? I didn’t know anyone was still using it

I would say the definitive PS1 Wipeout game is Wip3out: Special Edition.

Specifically the special edition as it comes with double the number of tracks where the best of the previous two games are selected for the bonus content.

Also the wipeout 3 soundtrack is absolute perfection.

As for how to play, retroarch is probably the recommended approach these days, PS1 emulation is pretty mature and has been for a while.

they seem more focused on extracting every penny from customers, rather than providing the best products possible.

Funnily I actually see them doing the opposite of this currently.

They’ve always been a company that extracts the most they can from their target demographics. It was a meme for a long time that apple hardware was overpriced rubbish that was wrapped up in a shiny (thermally badly designed) box, and until the recent shift, that’s kinda mostly tracked as true.

What we’re seeing differently now though, is they’re actually putting some of the best hardware in the industry in their machines, combined with the (now much colder) shiny box, suddenly the value proposition starts to make a lot more sense outside their usual demographics

They’ve been in a slump for a while in terms of product innovation. Technically though, they’re designing some of the best processors on the planet for the past 4-5 years or so. They recently beat Intel on single core performance (which was the last thing Intel still had over everyone else)

Apple aren’t going anywhere, and if you look at the stock ticker, wall street doesn’t think so either.

8GB of memory on your base model was ridiculous half a decade ago, it’s a crime in 2024.

I’d also say a quarter of a terabyte is nowhere near enough storage for a computer a quarter of the cost.

I’m not a Mac hater, the (non-baseline with recent revisions) MBP line has been pretty fantastic for as long as I’ve been using them (over a decade now), but the baseline non-pro models are a waste of money.

Gotta keep those weirdly under-specced non-pro macbooks selling somehow

Yes, I’m aware, I’m more wishing it was elixir rather than saying it was actually possible.

This but elixir

It’s basically erlang but nice

This would have happened on Android already if it was going to happen

VSCode for anything complex and running locally, vim for everything else

If you didn’t know already, it’s really worth knowing that anger is addictive and acts on dopamine pathways.

That’s the same mechanism which cocaine works through.

Anything more than very occasional anger is dangerously unhealthy, if you value not being an arsehole for the rest of your life

(I might be slightly dramatising, but really everyone chill the fuck out, there’s much better ways to get your dopamine)

It’s not incoherent, it just takes a tiny bit more effort to mentally parse as it’s not a stereotypical for loop. Maybe it’s just me, but let me try and explain

With the i example if you’re familiar enough with a language, your brain will gloss over the unimportant syntax, you go straight to the comparison and then whether it’s incrementing or decrementing.

With the other example, the first my brain did was notice it’s not following convention, which then pushes me to read the line carefully as there is probably a reason it doesn’t.

I’m not saying it’s a huge difference or anything, but following code conventions like this makes things like code reviews much easier cumulatively.