CRT madness

Do you also miss the good old times? Do you also agree that everything was better in the past? Then cool-retro-term is just for you: https://github.com/Swordfish90/cool-retro-term .

“cool-retro-term is a terminal emulator which mimics the look and feel of the old cathode tube screens. It has been designed to be eye-candy, customizable, and reasonably lightweight.“

I don’t say it’s for everyday use, but it looks really cool.

Darwinia: the game

“Darwinia is a 2005 real-time tactics and real-time strategy video game for several platforms. It is the second game developed by Introversion Software, and its setting is within a computer environment that simulates artificial intelligence.” (from wikipedia)

I bought Darwinia on Steam last Christmas on a sale but I tried it this week. And I’m amazed! It’s one of the best games I’ve ever played with. The graphic and design are similar to the world of Tron, but it’s a real-time strategy. It runs on Linux too, I played it with 1920 x 1080 resolution. And this masterpiece was developed by 4 guys as I read it somewhere…

There is a tutorial system built in, so anybody can learn it :) Some tips though:

• Upgrade something all the time. When you get to the last levels, the only chance to survive if you are powered up. So when you get a notification that an upgrade is done, start another immediately. Some upgrades take a lot of time. By the time you reach Biosphere, your green men should be able to defend themselves, otherwise they will be massacred.
• Learn to use the armor, it will be a huge help and some enemies cannot be killed otherwise. Right clicking on an armor you can select an action: load, unload, stop loading. Put some green men in it (they will be the operators) and right click on a ground point. Here the armor will transform into a turret. Don’t deploy the turret too close to red men because they can overtake the gun and turn it against you! The armor can go over anything: sea, mountain, nothing can stop it :)
• If you take the focus off of a squad (with space), it will defend itself automatically.
• Spiders can be destroyed with grenades or rockets. Rocket is easier to use against spiders so upgrade this skill to increase range.
• There is a level called Escort. It can be done with zero kills :)
• Darwinians (the little green men) can climb up a hill. In water they drown.
• If you finished the game and later you want to play on a custom level, do the following: edit the file ~/.darwinia/full/preferences.txt and modify this line: “UserProfile = AccessAllAreas“. Now you can play any level.

Links

• Darwinia home page
• Darwinia guides (level, unit, enemy, etc. descriptions)
• Darwinia official forum
• Introversion blog

Videos

• Introversion on Subversion and Prison Architect Rezzed Session (meet the developers)

Commodore 64 screen with HTML and CSS

To see the good old Commodore 64 screen in your browser, done with HTML and CSS, visit this link. Note that it was not done by me, I copied it from the BitHUmen site.

The font file c64.ttf is here.

Play with Amiga classics

This entry is based on this post (in Hungarian).

At the website of The Company, you can download classic Amiga games (for free). There is a huge advantage: each game is bundled with an emulator, so all you have to do is download an .exe and launch it. That’s all, you can play right away. They add new games regularly, and you can also ask games in the forum.

When I was a child, I had a Commodore 64, we couldn’t afford an Amiga at that time. Now, 20 years later I can finally play these games :)

Some favorites of mine:

• Crystal Kingdom Dizzy (@wikipedia; longplay; level maps; @lemon)
• Rick Dangerous
• Rick Dangerous II

Star Wars floppy disk

The Force is strong with this floppy:

I found this video in this post (follow this link for more videos).

Listen to Slay Radio

Did you have a Commodore 64 when you were a child? Do you miss those good old times? Then Slay Radio is for you!

“SLAY Radio is an internet-based radio station, transmitting from Gothenburg (Göteborg) in Sweden and relaying to several other relays. Normally, it automatically plays from its internal playlist of Commodore 64 remixes that have mainly come from R:K:O [see A.1.2] and the commercial CDs at C64Audio.com [see A.1.3].” (from the FAQ)

Play Slay Radio from the Desktop

• visit http://www.slayradio.org
• right click on Broadband (top left corner), and save the file listen.m3u in your ~/Desktop folder
• listen.m3u will appear on your desktop. Launch it with a double click.
• To customize which application should open it: right click on listen.m3u, Properties, Open With tab, and select your favorite media player.