The Curious Engineer

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Oldskooler Ramblings

trixter.oldskool.org

the unlikely child born of the home computer wars

DOS / vintage PCDemosceneComputing historyGeneral

’10’15’20’25
Posts
381 from 6 Jan 2006 to 24 Aug 2026
Posting
now and then (1 in the last year)
Kind
personal blog
Feed
https://trixter.oldskool.org/feed/

2026 1

  1. I resent AI disclosure policies, but here’s mine

2025 1

  1. Some recent podcast appearances

2024 4

  1. October Of Horror 2024
  2. Panasonic Lumix G9 Mark II Overheating Test Results (and workarounds)
  3. VCF Midwest Presentation Selection Transparency
  4. Resources for making DOS programs (or tearing them apart)

2023 4

  1. How to shoot vintage computer product photography for YouTube (or anything)
  2. How I got into tech
  3. In which Trixter rambles about the IBM PC for 5 hours
  4. MartyPC: Finally, a cycle-accurate IBM PC emulator!

2022 2

  1. Protected: The semantics of discourse
  2. How to transcode UHD 4K HDR rips for lower bandwidth to an LG C8 OLED via Plex

2021 2

  1. The Care And Feeding of the M24/6300/6060/1600
  2. My IBM PCjr Print Media Archival Project

2020 2

  1. October Horror Movie Challenge Results
  2. How to reasonably archive color magazines to PDF

2019 3

  1. Experiment results and changing tactics
  2. What does normal living feel like?
  3. 20 Years of MobyGames

2018 37

  1. Protected: The Blind Item
  2. It’s been fun
  3. A Premature End to October of Horror
  4. October of Horror #25: Society (1989)
  5. October of Horror #24: Waxwork (1988)
  6. October of Horror #23: Zombie High (1987)
  7. October of Horror #22: Street Trash (1987)
  8. October of Horror #21: The Wraith (1986)
  9. October of Horror #20: Meet The Hollowheads (1989)
  10. October of Horror #19: Bordello of Blood (1996)
  11. October of Horror #18: The Borrower (1991)
  12. October of Horror #17: The Thing (1982)
  13. October of Horror #16: Halloween (1978)
  14. October of Horror #15: Slaughterhouse Rock (1988)
  15. October of Horror #14: The Beyond (1981)
  16. October of Horror #13: Killer! (1989)
  17. October of Horror #12: Zombieland (2009)
  18. October of Horror #11: The Darkest Hour (2011)
  19. October of Horror #10: Pinocchio’s Revenge (1996)
  20. October of Horror #9: Infection (2004)
  21. October of Horror #8: Evils of the Night (1985)
  22. October of Horror #7: Return of the Living Dead III (1993)
  23. October of Horror #6: Warlock (1989)
  24. October of Horror #5: The Night Stalker (1972)
  25. Vintage DOS MIDI Game Music Explained
  26. October of Horror #4: Fright Night (1985)
  27. October of Horror #3: Return of the Living Dead II
  28. October of Horror #2: A Nightmare On Elm Street (1984)
  29. October of Horror #1: The Visitor (1979)
  30. Binging 31 Horror Movies in October
  31. Vintage DOS Memory Conventions Explained
  32. Using a Sound Blaster in a PC/XT-class system
  33. Public Service Announcement: Do Not Use The eBay Global Shipping Program
  34. What they don’t tell you about getting older
  35. You cannot violate the laws of physics
  36. A Reason to Disregard Copyright Law
  37. Color #23 (CGA Update)

2017 9

  1. The first 256-color game on the IBM PC
  2. How to make better YouTube videos
  3. How to explain programming to the total beginner
  4. Come to Vintage Computer Festival Midwest
  5. The End of a Perfect Day
  6. An informal comparison of intermediate editing codecs for Windows platforms
  7. The failure of the Dreamcast
  8. BASIC Memories
  9. I talked about old PC audio methods

2016 9

  1. Fear of Success
  2. I’m right, you’re wrong, and it doesn’t matter
  3. Kidney Stones 1.0
  4. Leaving the main grid for a while
  5. Milestones
  6. We’ll take it
  7. I hear it!
  8. It was an honor just to be nominated
  9. Beyond Economic Recovery

2015 16

  1. Jack of all trades, master of one
  2. An experiment: Should I put on a show?
  3. Solving an IBM PS/2 Model 25-286 Chicken and Egg CMOS problem
  4. Converting a newer CGA card to an older one
  5. See you at the Vintage Computer Festival Midwest 2015!
  6. Still no love for the IBM PC
  7. Rave Movie Rundown
  8. Comedy gold in the Handy specification
  9. Final version of 8088 MPH released
  10. The Great Irony
  11. Aftershocks and future plans
  12. 8088 MPH: We Break All Your Emulators
  13. Annoying adventures in disassembly: SNATCHIT
  14. Gone Home’s horrifying alternate ending
  15. Sony Xperia Z3v impressions and workarounds
  16. Best In Class

2014 30

  1. CGADEMO by Codeblasters
  2. Fun for the feeble-minded
  3. An Episode Guide to Monsters (The TV Show)
  4. The Outlandish Adventure of Miss Amanda Collins
  5. Cyberpunx
  6. Two decades of “the demoscene on the web”
  7. 8088 Domination Source and Encoder Released
  8. Out, damned bug! out, I say!
  9. 8088 Domination Post-Mortem, Conclusion
  10. 8088 Domination Post-Mortem, Part 1
  11. 8088 Domination
  12. Dev journal, day 37
  13. Dev journal, day 30
  14. Dev journal, day 22
  15. Dev journal, day 20
  16. Dev journal, day 19
  17. Dev journal, day 18
  18. Dev journal, day 14
  19. Dev journal, day 11
  20. Dev journal, day 10
  21. Dev journal, day 9
  22. Dev journal, day 8
  23. Dev journal, day 7
  24. Dev journal, day 6
  25. Dev journal, day 2
  26. Dev journal, Day 1
  27. The strangest kind of problem
  28. Happy 30th Birthday, Peanut
  29. Mixed Feelings
  30. Where’s Trixter?

2013 21

  1. Just keeping it real… like it’s 1991
  2. Another podcast appearance
  3. Hardware for an OpenIndiana ZFS file server
  4. The IBM PCjr Exhibition Starter Kit
  5. The lazy way to work a sticky floppy drive spindle free
  6. Hey, a podcast appearance
  7. Vintage Computer Festival Midwest 8.0
  8. Access Software’s Echelon
  9. Hump Algorithms
  10. World Firsts and Happy Accidents
  11. Now THAT was fun
  12. Upcoming Trixter Sighting + Retroprogramming
  13. Journey’s End
  14. PCjr talk cancelled
  15. PCjr Presentation Details
  16. The PCjr: Wasn’t That a Time!
  17. LZ4 on the 8088: One small drop
  18. Optimizing for the 8088 and 8086 CPU, Part 3: A Case Study In Speed
  19. Optimizing for the 8088 and 8086 CPU: Part 2
  20. Optimizing for the 8088 and 8086 CPU: Part 1
  21. No love for the IBM PC

2012 21

  1. The IBM PC 5150: What if?
  2. Maze Generation In Thirteen Bytes
  3. Sleeping in a Mall
  4. Anthropomorphising Computers
  5. Living with autism
  6. MindCandy Black Friday Deal
  7. Reverse-engineering an old wound
  8. Internet Detox Addendum
  9. November Lifehacking: The Walking Dad
  10. Internet Detox: Results
  11. October Lifehacking: Internet Detox
  12. Emulation vs. the Real Thing
  13. A Quick Vignette
  14. The esoteric side of DOS-era soundcards
  15. You couldn’t be a total idiot
  16. Wow, that stuff sure is old
  17. Memories of NAID
  18. Data Preservation Case Study: AT&T 6312 WGS
  19. I grow tired of the technologically ignorant
  20. Collections
  21. 2011 in review

2011 19

  1. MindCandy Volume 3’s First Review
  2. MindCandy Volume 3 Is Now Available
  3. Family Computing
  4. PC Speaker Music Article
  5. MindCandy Volume 3 sent to replicators
  6. Blu-ray media size mismatches
  7. No keyboard, no monitor, no problem
  8. MPEG-2 Encoding, The OCD Way
  9. The PC Mockingboard
  10. to the last, I grapple with thee
  11. Happy Birthday to the IBM PC (and MTV)
  12. Walking the road to dead
  13. My thoughts exactly
  14. At a disadvantage
  15. MindCandy: What’s taking so damn long?
  16. PixelJam @ NOTACON
  17. When you reach the top, keep climbing
  18. Dopplegangers!
  19. An attempt at podcasting

2010 14

  1. If you’re gonna screw up, do it while you’re young
  2. Vintage Computer Festival Midwest 5.0 Pix
  3. My So-Called Series
  4. Stone Age Multimedia: Corruption
  5. Stone Age Multimedia: The President Is Missing
  6. Stone Age Multimedia: Sub Mission
  7. Stone Age Multimedia: The American Challenge
  8. Stone Age Multimedia: Homeword
  9. Soundcard Museum flythrough
  10. @theEndOfTheRoad
  11. A box of nostalgia
  12. Pharmacokinetics
  13. It’s been a long time
  14. Attempt #4

2009 20

  1. If you focus your energy like a laser, you can do anything!
  2. Chapter Three, In Which He Went Anyway
  3. Hello Again Everybody
  4. Save Ferris
  5. And so it goes
  6. Tips for making your own demodvd
  7. Supercharging The Free Time
  8. Wave Of Change
  9. DietHacking
  10. And now a word from our sponsor
  11. Back from Block Party 2009
  12. Blogging on the move at Block Party 2009
  13. Nikki and me
  14. The Incredibly Shrinking Trixter
  15. Learning to let go
  16. Editing HD On a Budget: Cost of Entry
  17. Yes, Virginia, things will work out fine
  18. The Great Television Migration
  19. The Next Big Thing
  20. Parsing Life

2008 52

  1. Blast Processing 101
  2. People started dancing a long time ago
  3. NVScene 2008 Seminars Online
  4. 25 Years of Junior
  5. Voter’s Remorse
  6. The Demoparty You Can Drive
  7. The diskette that blew Trixter’s mind
  8. I’ll save you the trouble
  9. Chock full of awesome
  10. [N|R]VScene
  11. Kicking my own ass
  12. A Rebuttal
  13. Birthday Frags
  14. From Courier To Supplier
  15. Showing promise
  16. Demographics and horses
  17. Faded memories
  18. Utterly random observations
  19. Crushed under the weight of my own fun
  20. Even experts make mistakes
  21. Collecting and Programming
  22. Punish Floppy Disks For Fun And Profit
  23. Stop me if you’ve heard this one before
  24. It must be my time of the month again
  25. Beefing up your AT&T PC 6300
  26. MONOTONE Party Release
  27. Would you like fries with that?
  28. Trixter’s wild compo entry — now with motion!
  29. Trixter’s wild compo entry
  30. I need a better camera
  31. Block Party is over
  32. The hard part is over; now the hard part begins
  33. It’s Alive
  34. More Procrastination
  35. Procrastination
  36. Progress… I think
  37. Internal conflicts
  38. I can see it in my head
  39. Slowly, Come, Together
  40. How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Project
  41. Scope Creep
  42. Tubes
  43. No Tubes!
  44. My experience is killing me
  45. Step 2: Light Exercise
  46. Fine, I’ll do it myself
  47. Back to the Future
  48. Black Hole
  49. When design was king
  50. Small setback
  51. Sweating the small stuff
  52. Step 1: Detox

2007 52

  1. Coming out of the closet
  2. 12-Step Program
  3. Playing Between The Lines
  4. Using A Sharper Stick
  5. My favorite Casio product…
  6. Trixter Gets Pwned By Son; Film At 11
  7. You, sir, are no hero
  8. The Window
  9. My love/hate relationship with the demoscene
  10. Back on the grid
  11. The truth about netopsystems
  12. Bonez
  13. Beep
  14. But it’s FREE
  15. Hacking MPG
  16. A different, rambling approach
  17. Still off the grid
  18. Off the grid
  19. Mom and dad I love you boath
  20. Answers
  21. Reaching Voyager Saturation
  22. 8088 Videos
  23. Keep Moving Forward
  24. Lost
  25. 8088 Corruption Explained
  26. Happy Lucky Tech Big Fun Super Go Surprise!
  27. Block Party: A quick encapsulation of the NA scene
  28. Block Party: Transportation
  29. Block Party: Hops!
  30. Block Party: Phoenix’s Report
  31. Block Party: The rebirth of the True Real Wild
  32. Block Party: I’m back
  33. Completing the trilogy
  34. Kingston Propz
  35. The crazy upside-down world of 8088 hardware programming
  36. Losing my memory
  37. 8088 Textitude
  38. GDC Highlights from a Sick, Sick Man
  39. Oldskooler is wrong!
  40. Post something, dammit!
  41. Week #5
  42. Mirrors in DOS
  43. The Mighty Mite
  44. Week #4
  45. Week #3
  46. I’m full?
  47. 16x DVD+/-R: Fact or fiction?
  48. Side Effects
  49. Week 2
  50. Unorthodox
  51. MindCandy Volume 2 finally available for sale
  52. Let’s try this again: Week 1

2006 62

  1. Four Long Years
  2. CGA Corruption
  3. Government workers are so very helpful
  4. 24 hours of MTV
  5. 12 hours
  6. Ripoff
  7. Halfway there
  8. Wither the poor CRT
  9. Nerd
  10. Beginnings and Endings
  11. Patience
  12. The Zen of Programming
  13. Week #14: Scales and Canals
  14. Calculation
  15. Week #13 incognito
  16. Jim Fixx Irony Clarified
  17. Week #12
  18. The Running Program
  19. Week #11
  20. Week #10
  21. Week #9
  22. Week #8
  23. Week #7 – Blood Pressure
  24. Week #7
  25. Expansion
  26. Karma
  27. Week #6
  28. Computing Myth #2: Broadband only works with a new computer
  29. Computing Myth #1: Software cannot damage hardware
  30. Fresh Evil
  31. Week #5
  32. Inanimate Empathy
  33. I’m slipping
  34. My first transgression
  35. I’ve been Dugg!
  36. I’m getting dumber with age
  37. Week #4
  38. World Champion
  39. The madness of nostalgia
  40. Week #3
  41. Kernel Seasons
  42. Kursing Krispy Kreme
  43. 8088 Corruption
  44. Irresponsible Casting on “Geek”
  45. Celery Bomb
  46. Discovery Health National Body Challenge
  47. Programmers: Deeper understanding of video games?
  48. New Look
  49. Hypertension!
  50. Three Cheers for Ritalin
  51. Week #2
  52. A Sam and Max of my very own
  53. The Proof in the Pudding
  54. Habit #3: Noshing
  55. Habit #2: Skipping Breakfast
  56. The Secret
  57. Habit #1: Pop
  58. Where did Trixter come from?
  59. A System of Weights and Measures
  60. Raw Sewage!
  61. I can’t keep going on this way
  62. First Post!