Category: posts

Loading a 30 Year Old SimCity 2000 Save Game File

I am a digital packrat. I have a blob of data that I started way back in the early 80s on my Apple II. It includes Bank Street Writer files from elementary school, and nearly all of my school assignments throughout middle school, high school and college. It also includes at least one SimCity save game file I made way back in March, 1994.

I was eager to see if the file would still boot up. I likely made it on my Mac PowerBook that I got in December of 1993 so I figured a Mac emulator would be a good place to start.

There’s a quick turn-key solution out there called Infinite Mac that lets you boot up a number of different classic Mac configurations in your web browser! They even have a copy of SimCity 2000 already installed. I demoed the emulator in this video from a few years ago:

Initially SimCity did not recognize the file and I couldn’t open it up. But what likely happened was that at some point in the 90’s I copied the file onto my Windows PC for safe keeping and it lost some of its embedded file information. Enter the Mac utility ResEdit that helps manually assign those values.

To figure out what those values were I created a new city and saved it and got the “type” and “creator” for that working file. Once I entered the values in the old file I reloaded SimCity 2000 and voila!

My city is a bit of a mess as it kind of just grew over time without doing much urban planning to get it up and running. I’ve had fun this weekend trying to improve the underground utilities and transportation systems, but I do think the bulldozer will be needed soon to get everything whipped into shape.

The early 90’s were a golden era for PC gaming. PCs of course had the advantage of significantly more storage space and processing power vs. the cartridge-based console titles at the time. But there was more to it than just greater system resources. Developers came up with fun and inventive new gaming concepts. We were blessed with Sierra’s adventure games (including talkie CD-ROMs), awesome flight sims, space simulators like Wing Commander and X-Wing, and of course the dawn of first person shooters with Wolfenstein 3D and Doom.

Check out The Lon Report!

Inspired by Dave Winer (the father of RSS) I have been “link blogging” for the last three years. My links get posted to links.lon.tv which is powered by the open source tool “Shaarli.”

I chose Shaarli because it’s a very low impact PHP app that can run on my shared webhost. It also provides an RSS feed of my links. From that RSS feed I then push out individual posts to X, BlueSky, Threads, Facebook, Mastodon and a few others too. I use Zapier to automate the process and Buffer to space out my posts so I’m not too “noisy” when I dump a bunch of links into the linkblog.

But I’ve never been happy with the way Shaarli looks.. It’s just blah.. Shaarli does have a neat daily digest output but I wanted to have something that could consolidate multiple days of links on a single page. Enter the “Lon Report!”

Yes this looks a lot like the “Drudge Report” but as far as linkblogs go the Drudge style is the gold standard. Unlike Drudge’s site which is largely edited by hand, mine is totally dynamically generated from the Shaarli RSS feed.

It takes the first link and makes that the main headline, pulling the thumbnail image from the article. Once a new link gets posted the headline position will switch to the new link and the prior headline will become the first link on the left hand column. Each new link pushes everything down. The last link on the third column is the last link in the RSS feed.

I also have it pull thumbnails for the middle links on the left and right hand columns along with the first link in the center column.

When you visit the LonReport you’ll notice that the page loads incredible fast. That’s because it’s running off a single HTML file that gets rendered via a Python script. The images are not stored on my server but pulled from the source.

I initially tried to have it all run in PHP but it was pretty sluggish and I didn’t want to add the complexity of coding in a caching system. So instead I have a script that runs on my Synology NAS every 15 minutes and uploads the HTML file to my web host.

The craziest part? The Python code was whipped up in an afternoon via Google’s Gemini Advance. It actually worked on the first execution! Google’s AI is very good at coding and it was pretty amazing to see how quickly this thing came together. Even more amazing is that I gave it a screenshot of the Drudge report and asked it to build the site around that image.

I don’t plan to spend much time on this but I finally have a linkblog that I’m happy with (for now). I’ll probably tweak things every so often so stay tuned!

Expanding my Footprint to Threads & Bluesky

I have a pretty extensive behind-the-scenes automation system set up for posting my YouTube videos and Linkblog to a number of popular social media platforms like X, Facebook and Mastodon. I am now adding Threads and Bluesky.

I’m adding these two new platforms because they are now supported on Buffer which is one of the ways I automate the process of distributing my links. I use Zapier to grab my RSS feeds and the magic happens from there.

Third Time’s a Charm for ARM PCs? My hands-on first impressions.

Microsoft and its partners have started shipping CoPilot+ PCs equipped with the new Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite ARM processors. Microsoft and Qualcomm claim that these new chips are finally comparable to the ARM-based Apple silicon processors found in Macs. This is promising since, to date, the best-performing ARM-based Windows PCs in my experience are Macs!

I attended a Lenovo press event in New York City yesterday and got some hands on time with two of their new devices: the Yoga Slim 7x and the new ThinkPad T14s Gen 6. The Yoga is pictured below:

In addition to the battery longevity benefits ARM processors have always brought to Windows, these new PCs promise to add some limited on-device generative AI functionality – most of it centered around image generation.

One demo involved a new feature being added to Microsoft Paint that allows the user to draw a rudimentary image and then have the on-board AI generate a much nicer looking version in a number of different styles.

The user still has to enter a text prompt although the AI will take into account the placement of objects in the original image. The photo above doesn’t show that happening, but I did see it correctly place the tree and sun in subsequent image generations. The Windows image viewer also brings similar generative features to images and photos.

Co-pilot+ PCs will get additional OS-level webcam controls that allow for adding realtime filters and a few other neat effects not found on other PCs.

According to a Microsoft blog post, additional on-device AI features are available from third party developers including some generative text capabilties. I did find it odd that Microsoft did not include any generative text features at the OS level like Google and Apple recently announced in their operating systems.

I also saw a short demo of the now infamous Microsoft Recall feature that takes snapshots of user activity and provides the ability to quickly go back to documents, applications and websites with a simple plain english query. Clearly this was going to be the centerpiece of the new embedded AI features but security concerns forced Microsoft to hold off on its release for now.

Without Recall the AI features are a bit underwhelming and currently limited only to these new Snapdragon Elite X PCs. Intel and AMD both have embedded NPUs on their new processors so over time Copilot+ features will likely make their way across the Windows ecosystem which will be necessary for widespread developer adoption.

While these AI features will all execute on device, user queries do apparently get sent to Microsoft to prevent inappropriate use. When I get these machines in for review I plan to explore exactly what type of monitoring will be going on with them.

From a performance perspective the new Snapdragon X Elite feels like a nice step up from the ARM PCs I’ve looked at previously. While the prior attempts delivered great battery life, performance was lackluster especially for applications that were not specifically written for the ARM architecture. This will be another area we’ll explore in my upcoming reviews.

You can see a lineup of CoPilot+ PCs at Best Buy (compensated affiliate link). Most are selling at or above $1,000. Both HP and Lenovo are sending me loaner units to play with. Stay tuned!

Short WhatNot Mini PC Auction Wednesday, June 12th

I will be hosting a short live Mini PC auction this Wednesday, June 12th at 12:30 p.m. eastern time on WhatNot! Four mini PCs will be listed at $1 starts and you do not need to be present to get the winning bid. If you don’t already have a WhatNot account, click here to get $15 off your first order (affiliate link).  

You can find the auction on Whatnot by clicking here. If you are using their mobile app you can pre-bid ahead of the auction. If your pre-bid remains the high bid you’ll win it. I have also posted the current retail prices of these Mini PCs. Here’s what will be available:

Beelink SER7 Ryzen Mini PC
Minix NEO Z100-0db Mini PC
Kamrui Mini PC
GMKTec M5 Mini PC (affiliate link)

There will also be a few giveaway items for those tuning in. 

I’m going to do shorter but more frequent shows rolling forward each based on a specific type of product vertical (e.g. mini PCs, video production, etc). Weekend shows will be a little longer with more items when I have time. 

As always there are other items available at my store too for immediate purchase. I just added a Blue Sona microphone and HP Sprocket Select printer. 

I met William Shatner and an Astronaut at the Premiere of “You Can Call Me Bill!”

A big thank you to my decades-long friend Antonio Peronace for inviting me along to the premiere of William Shatner’s new movie You Can Call Me Bill in NYC this weekend! One of the highlights was meeting the man himself and getting a picture with him!

The highlight of the day (in addition to meeting Captain Kirk of course) was also getting to meet and chat with citizen astronaut Dr. Sian Proctor, who was one of the citizen astronauts who flew on the first all civilian Inspiration 4 mission in 2021.

A 45 minute Q&A session followed the film mc’ed by Neil DeGrasse Tyson with Shatner and the film’s director Alexandre O. Philippe. Shatner, who turns 93 this week, was just as energetic and sharp as ever. He kept Degrasse Tyson on his toes throughout the session with the audience eating it up.

Their stealthy photographer also caught me enjoying the show with this shot appearing on their LinkedIn post of the event:

My friend Antonio is the new Executive Director of Space for Humanity, a non-profit that aims to send every day people into space. They are a sponsor of the film as Shatner had a life changing experience aboard a Blue Origin in 2022. Space For Humanity sent up their first participant, also on a Blue Origin flight, that year as well.

Remembering Super Cheap and Super Fast Shipping in the Pre-Internet Early 90s

One of the many feeds in my RSS reader is from the Internet Archive’s Computer Magazines collection. Every so often they’ll dump a bunch of scans of popular computing and gaming magazines into the archive.

This morning some new (old) Mac User magazines made their way to the archive and I virtually thumbed through a few editions. One of the ads reminded me of one of the coolest parts of 90’s computing: super fast and super cheap overnight shipping from mail-order retailers.

One of my favorites was the “Mac Zone” and “PC Zone.” They were located on the West Coast of the USA. With me being on the East Coast I could call them at 4 p.m. my time and often have items delivered to me here in Connecticut by the next morning. The best part? Shipping was only $3! Even adjusting for inflation that’s still super cheap for next day delivery.

Other retailers like the Mac & PC Connection also had attractive freight rates like this. Most of them used “Airborne Express,” a competitor to FedEx (known as Federal Express back then). Airborne Express was later acquired by DHL.

The Mac and PC Zone is still around today. Known simply as “Zones,” they mostly cater to the B2B market offering IT equipment and services. They still have the same toll-free number! The PC and Mac Connection is also still around. They too pivoted more towards the B2B market.

Fact Checking Warnings about Apple’s “NameDrop” Feature

I appeared on my local Fox affiliate today after a number of law enforcement agencies expressed concern about Apple’s new NameDrop feature.

NameDrop allows two iPhones in close proximity to share contact information. Here’s what most of the Facebook posts I’m seeing today leave out about how the feature works:

1. Both phones need to be unlocked. Your phone won’t transmit your contact info when locked.

2. In order to transmit contact information you need to push a button on your phone to send contact information to the other phone.

3. This only works when the phones are in close proximity, pretty much touching each other.

For users concerned about their phone leaking information I suggest spending some time in the “Privacy and Security” settings to see which apps have access to your private information, location data and more.

My Next WhatNot Sale Giveaway is November 25 – Win an Atomis Alpha Scooter!

It’s time for another WhatNot Sale and Giveaway! This will be a fun one with a huge giveaway of an Atomi Alpha Electric Scooter (provided free of charge by Atomi), some cost of shipping giveaways of a bunch of items including a laptop and some Lenovo tablets, and I’ll be selling a bunch of stuff too. It all takes place Saturday, November 25th at 2:00 p.m. eastern time.

Here’s the scoop:

1. Sign up for a Whatnot account if you don’t already have one at https://lon.tv/whatnot (affiliate link). Signing up with my link will get you $15 of credit to spend on your first purchase! Be sure to follow me after signing up on my Whatnot profile.

2. If you’d like to participate in the cost of shipping giveaways, be sure to submit your Whatnot profile name on this form so we can load the randomizer ahead of the stream. You do need to be present on the stream in order to win.

3. You can pre-bid on the auction items by visiting the link I set up for the stream here. Note that you need to use the WhatNot mobile app to bid on items ahead of time. You don’t need to be present on the 25th to purchase an item – if your pre-bid is the high bid you’ll be billed automatically when the auction closes on the 25th. A list of items being sold is below – note that I may find some more things ahead of the sale. I’ll notify folks on my store alert email of any additions. Sign up for that list here!

    Here’s a list of items I’ll be selling:

    Zagg Pro Stylus 2
    Backbone Controller (Lightning) along with iPhone 13/14 adapter
    Robo and Kala Windows ARM PC
    Startech Thunderbolt 3 mini dock
    Tablo 4th Gen Tuner (2 tuner model
    Oculus/Meta Quest 2
    Atari 2600+ (review coming tomorrow!)
    xScreen for Xbox Series S
    Xbox One X Console

    If you have any questions shoot me an email at lon@lon.tv. Look forward to seeing you Saturday!

    First Impressions of Lenovo’s Legion Go Gaming Handheld

    Last night I was invited to Lenovo’s launch event of their Legion Go handheld gaming PC. They sent me home with a review unit so I’ll have more to talk about soon, but I thought I would deliver my first impressions after playing with it for a little while. You can find it at Best Buy (compensated affiliate link) starting at $699.

    First and foremost this is a much better Steam Deck alternative vs. the Asus ROG Ally that I reviewed a few months ago. In my review I felt the Ally was “unpolished” but its performance was certainly a leg up over the Steam Deck especially as it could run many games at 1080p with decent framerates. The Ally also was running Windows which is especially attractive for those subscribed to Microsoft’s Game Pass service.

    Lenovo seems to have paid close attention to the market with the Legion Go and built a handheld with features that so far have been missing from the other big name handhelds.

    First it has a much larger 8.8″ display vs. the 7″ display on the Ally and Steam Deck. I didn’t think the Ally benefited much from its 1080p 7″ display, as even 720p games look pretty good on a screen that small. Like the Ally the Go has an AMD Ryzen Z1 Extreme processor and performs roughly the same.

    What I like most about the Legion Go so far is that it adds some nice creature comforts missing from the current crop of PC handhelds. It has detachable controllers that work wirelessly. The right hand controller can even function as a joystick style mouse thanks to its optical sensor on the bottom. The Go has a sturdy kickstand that folds out from the back for standing it up on a desk or table.

    But the standout feature for me so far is that the Go comes equipped with two USB 4.0 ports running at 40 gigabits per second each. There’s one on the bottom and one on the top of the display. USB 4 is backwards compatible with Thunderbolt 3, so it’s possible to dock the Legion Go with an eGPU enclosure to boost its graphical performance. The ROG Ally had a fast expansion port but it only worked with proprietary Asus docks. The Lenovo device should work with just about anything.

    I still have a bunch of testing to do before I’ll be ready to post a review but my first impressions so far are very good. This is definitely the better Steam Deck alternative.

    Disclosure: I paid for my travel to the Lenovo launch event but they did provide me with a review unit free of charge. They did not review or approve this blog post before uploading.

    ATSC 3.0 DRM Absurdity Continues with Zapperbox’s DRM Plans

    I just received the below email from Zapperbox .. Apparently it will soon allow for decrypting DRM protected over the air TV channels.

    BUT – existing customers need to have Zapperbox customer service log in remotely and unattended to enable it. Yes – you essentially open full control to your Zapperbox (an Android TV device underneath) and give a stranger full and unattended access at at a time that’s convenient to them.

    Presumably they have some root level control of it too. I’m more than a bit nervous about that since they don’t tell you when they’ll be accessing it or what kind of access their customer service representatives will have to the device or your local network.

    And after that ? You guessed it – you need an active Internet connection to watch over the air TV. And it won’t record DRM protected channels initially. A future firmware update will not require an internet connection they say. But in the near term, Internet will once again be required to watch over the air television using an antenna.

    If you’re curious about the Zapperbox you can see my initial review here. I’ll be updating my box to the DRM capability and will do a followup soon.

    Recent Media Appearances

    In addition to the work I do on my own channel I also show up in other places too! Last week I appeared on WTIC AM radio here in Connecticut talking about Amazon’s Prime Deal Days along with a number of other topics.

    And as I announced a few months ago I started working with the folks at NASASpaceFlight.com on some of their live coverage of Space related events. On Friday I covered the launch of the Psyche mission aboard a Falcon Heavy rocket.

    And earlier today I co-hosted their livestream of the Annular Solar Eclipse that took place across portions of the United States today!

    My Longest Ham Radio Contact Yet!

    Every morning when I’m having my coffee I like to make a few amateur radio contacts with other operators throughout the world. This morning I noticed that my signals were reaching into Australia from my home here in Connecticut!

    These signals were being logged by other amateur operators running the WSJTX software that listens for transmissions generated using the FT8 protocol.

    I immediately sent a Tweet (or whatever X calls them these days) to my friend Hayden who runs the awesome Hamradio DX YouTube channel. He’s located in Tasmania, an island off the southern coast of Australia. He fired up his rig and we were able to reach each other!

    FT8 is a specialized digital communications mode that can send limited messages over very long distances. The combination of the signal’s characteristics and the WSJTX software makes these transmissions readable even when a human listening may only hear static. Hayden’s software reported receiving my signal at -15db which is actually pretty good given the distance involved.

    What’s most impressive is that these signals are not being relayed through satellites or the Internet. This is a direct point-to-point communication with the signal bouncing off the atmosphere. These super long range communications won’t happen every day, but when atmospheric conditions are right these long distance contacts are possible as we demonstrated.

    To find out more check out Hayden’s channel where I learned a lot about radio technology when I was just getting started out. And of course you can take a look at my growing playlist of amateur radio topics including a video where I detail how FT8 works.

    ADTH Tuner Firmware Update Still Does Not Encrypt the HDMI Port

    Last week I reviewed the new ADTH ATSC 3 TV tuner, the first external device that can decrypt DRM protected TV stations.

    I discovered in the review that the ADTH is not protecting the HDMI output which is required according to the ATSC 3.0 DRM specifications. Some asked if recent firmware updates corrected this oversight.

    After updating my box this morning my Windows laptop equipped with an Elgato Camlink USB HDMI capture device is still able to record encrypted stations:

    Tesla’s New Model 3 Has a ’93 Ford Probe Interior Vibe

    When I was a kid I had a 1993 Ford Probe. I loved that car – it was affordable, durable, and looked great both inside and out. The 1993 Probe was a significant update from the version of the car Ford sold from 1988 through 1992.

    One of the signatures of the ’93 Probe was its wrap-around interior, with a cool red line that circled interior of the car. Check it out:

    Earlier today Tesla announced their updated Model 3 that features an interior refresh that looks a bit familiar!

    The Tesla being 30 years into the future uses an LED accent light for its wrap-around trim vs. the Probe’s static piece of plastic. But having spent six years in that Probe throughout high school and college it was hard not to immediately see the resemblance!