100th Birthday of Claude Shannon

CC-BY Tekniska museet

Today is the 100th birthday of Claude E. Shannon, also known as the "father of information theory". For the occasion, the IEEE has republished an excellent portrait of the man from 1992. Well worth the read.

6x Gameboy Live Jam by Cymba

Sometimes, one Gameboy (Advance) just isn't enough. So here's "Live Tool 01", a squelching acid live jam performed on 5 GBAs and one GB classic. Brought to you by French-British collective Cymba.

[demo] Topomorph 16b by Desire

16(!) bytes of MS-DOS crazyness by HellMood of Desire.

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[album] Pokey Nights by Warlord

Just when you think there's no more hope for the world (of chiptune), a great release is just around the corner. So, without further ado, here's the master of the trail-blazing arpeggio, Warlord, with a brand-new Atari 8-bit release. Rarely ever has the Pokey chip sounded so good!

[demo] We are Demo by Fairlight, Offence, and Noice

Well, I guess you've all seen this one by now, but just in case, here's the winner of this year's oldskool compo at Revision.

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[demo] Be No Sqr by Psidum, Sim, and Slimeball

Now here's something you don't see every day: A new demo for the SEGA Master System. And not only that, it's easily one of the best productions I have seen so far on this platform.

Be No Sqr is running in the SMS Power Anniversary Coding Competition. Placements aren't in yet, as voting is open for a few more days.

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[demo] Harder, Better, Manic, Miner by Hooy-Program

A cute little 4K ZX Spectrum intro by Gasman. Nothing really spectacular to see here in terms of effects, but the pacing and music is nice, and overall this prod feels very well rounded. In other words, the art direction is pretty solid. 2nd place in the oldskool intro compo at Revision.

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[album] Black by Zan

Russian chipper Zan (not to be confused with Zan-zan-zawa-veia) brings us this excellent EP full of driving LSDJ beats. Dark and heavy stuff, certainly dark enough to do the album title justice!

[demo] nautilus dreaming by sensenstahl

Some stunning new 256 byte #sensenstahlism. Since there was no sizecoding compo at Revision, this little prod ran in Wild, where it took 5th place.

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[hardware] Retroleum Nebula - A ZX Spectrum ULA Replacement

As our beloved 8-bitters are getting older, things are inevitably going to break at some point. For generic small components this isn't much of an issue, but some of the custom ICs from back in the day are increasingly hard, if not impossible to come by nowadays.

The ZX Spectrum ULA chip falls into the latter category, as it has been out of production for decades. So Spectrum fans will be delighted to hear that Phil Ruston and Alessandro Dorigatti from Retroleum have created a CPLD replacement module for the 48K ULA. Titled the Nebula, it aims to provide full compatibility with the 6Cxxx series ULA, meaning it should work with most if not all Spectrum 48K models. An outstanding achievement that deserves a round of applause in my opinion!

[demo] LED there be light! by project #lighthouse

Time to post some of the great releases from Revision! Let's start with project #lighthouse, a massive LED installation at Kiel University. The idea to light up a huge building is of course nothing new, but project #lighthouse nevertheless takes the whole Blinkenlights idea to a new level. Needless to say, this production won the wild compo at Revision. Well, see for yourself.

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