Keith Kaisershot

Keith Kaisershot

@blitter.bsky.social

Programmer. Pippin hacker. Fan of Macs, Apple, 70s/80s/novelty music, retro gaming, VR, DeLoreans, and combinations thereof. Opinions expressed are mine. He/him. blitter.net

541 followers183 following425 posts

In cases where there are multiple device types on an Apple Desktop Bus, those ADB devices select a random 4-bit address and then perform arbitration similar to i2c to determine who “wins” an address reassignment from the host. Four bits is…not much. What if two devices pick the same random address?

Curiously, no documentation I can find on ADB describes what happens in this situation. Do both devices then share the same address and users just… live with the bugs that result? I’ll grant that such a scenario is rare, but it *is* possible…

Tech Note HW01 has this to say: > We recommend that you include some low-tolerance device (such as a capacitor on your reset line) to ensure that various devices will respond differently and be able to detect their collisions with each other. I guess the official answer is…play the odds? YOLO? 🤷🏻‍♂️

Keith Kaisershot reposted

Replying to @alice.averlong.com

the only thing worse than all the people flagrantly filling the retrotech world with AI slop are the ones doing it while trying to hide that that's what they're doing

Ah yes, Microsoft. The same company who, as part of a national advertising blitz in the 90s, co-opted a song featuring the lyric “I can’t compete.” 😉

KetAnthropic JoshAI@ketanjoshi.co

The first genuinely honest ad for generative AI I've ever seen, from Microsoft / CoPilot A mediocre white guy sees his non-white colleague getting praised for good work, he asks AI to *literally copy it*, and then he gets all the praise instead: www.ispot.tv/ad/SoDi/micr...

Can vouch for Frank and his expertise. I personally wouldn’t trust anyone else to do this work properly.

Frank Cifaldi@frankcifaldi.bsky.social

Part of my literal job is to fly out to physical game studios to rescue and recover historical materials that might be endangered and put them in a permanent archive. @gamehistoryorg.bsky.social is a 501(c)3 publicly funded to do that, my DMs are open, and I'm free for the next couple weeks...

Keith Kaisershot reposted

Part of my literal job is to fly out to physical game studios to rescue and recover historical materials that might be endangered and put them in a permanent archive. @gamehistoryorg.bsky.social is a 501(c)3 publicly funded to do that, my DMs are open, and I'm free for the next couple weeks...

Keith Kaisershot reposted

Even in the year 2026, with so many potential entries, this is somehow the most pathetic thing I've seen all year.

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Keith Kaisershot reposted

honestly re: reverse engineering it just kinda blows to see your fun hobby get completely blown up by AI shit and people who love the slop machine because it's faster. AI art and shit at least *most* people correctly loathe + shun it, but too many people think that code isn't similarly creative.

Keith Kaisershot reposted

absolutely disgusting to shamelessly gloat about vibecoding your product as you're charging ahead to devalue an entire industry and several art forms with copious amounts of AI confetti hyperslop, depriving real artists and developers of oxygen

Rock Paper Shotgun@rockpapershotgun.bsky.social

"We vibe coded a new Epic Games Launcher" because "programming is hard", announce company we're somehow supposed to see as a serious Steam competitor https://bit.ly/4hMHbi5

Keith Kaisershot reposted

Somebody asked me on Reddit why people who use AI to generate Recomp projects are currently being rejected from the communities and what they can do to fix this. I might tweak parts of this to be a more general blog post at some point, but this should be of help to anyone in a similar situation.

Keith Kaisershot reposted

Replying to @zaxour.bsky.social

“AI is the asbestos we are shoveling into the walls of our society and our descendants will be digging it out for generations" -Cory Doctorow

Keith Kaisershot reposted

Today, I decided to dump all my thoughts about A.I. infecting the retro and Saturn scene into one cohesive article. In short, I am certifiably sick of this.

SEGA SATURN, SHIRO!@segasaturnshiro.bsky.social

Is there any harm in using AI to work on — or entirely create — projects for the Sega Saturn and elsewhere in the retro gaming scene? Yes, PandaMonium says in this opinion column, equating such work to digital asbestos: www.segasaturnshiro.com/2026/09/24/c... #sega #saturn #segasaturn #retrogaming

Keith Kaisershot reposted

Lockard's story is incredible. He appeared on a 1987 "Computer Chronicles" to discuss turning his Mahjong Solitaire game into Activision's "Shanghai." www.computerchronicles.blog/computer-chr...

computerchronicles.blogComputer Chronicles Revisited 99 — Shanghai, Tower of Myraglen, Earl Weaver Baseball, and Ferrari Formula OneThe Computer Chronicles discusses computer games
martin pichlmair@martinpi.eurosky.social

The original Mahjong Solitaire (Brodie Lockard, 1981) on the PLATO looked glorious. Also clever to show stack height with outline width.

Keith Kaisershot reposted

Today's update, Dark Castle on Steam can now do the crispy pixel perfect integer scaling. See the difference in these screenshots. Oh, you don't know about Dark Castle rerelased on Steam and Apple Store? It's been out for a few weeks. So has Beyond Dark Castle. So has Return to Dark Castle.

Keith Kaisershot reposted

Warren Spector speaking some truths here. They were quite happy to rerelease the game and make more money off it recently. Some wider acknowledgement of Epic Mickey's contribution to Disney history is deserved.

I have always self-described my occupation as Programmer and have no plans to change this. I make no pretense about what my role in software development is.

beka valentine@bekavalentine.bsky.social

its also important to understand that im not saying that we need actual engineering levels of work for software that's a separate thing, and i think is very debatable! i think for a lot of things, you just dont need it, its fine to just be a programmer not an engineer

Keith Kaisershot reposted

Replying to @bekavalentine.bsky.social

its also important to understand that im not saying that we need actual engineering levels of work for software that's a separate thing, and i think is very debatable! i think for a lot of things, you just dont need it, its fine to just be a programmer not an engineer

Keith Kaisershot reposted

Replying to @bekavalentine.bsky.social

not being engineering is not some insult, but a lot of programmers like to elevate themselves and stroke their egos. calling yourself a Software Engineer makes you feel good and smart but real engineers would be horrified by the suggestion of Vibe Engineering a bridge or engine

Keith Kaisershot reposted

In exactly 1 month, I'm going to release BlastEm 1.0! This will be the first "stable" release since 2019 and will mark exactly 13 years since the release of BlastEm 0.1.0. Compared to 0.6.2, this release adds support for Sega CD, 32X, Sega Pico, Yamaha Copera, Game Gear, SC-3000 and Colecovision

Keith Kaisershot reposted

[back in the day] Low level programmers: "It's all about optimizing every byte and every cycle, use as little RAM as you can" Other devs: "Nonsense. We have plenty of RAM" [today] Low level programmers: "Well well well"

Keith Kaisershot reposted

I've said this before, but if they ever reboot Duke Nukem, they should make him pansexual and hit on *everybody*. Telling the cops they have a great ass, etc.

Keith Kaisershot reposted

Rebecca Heineman's source code disks for Apple II, Apple IIGS, and C64 versions of "Tass Times in Tonetown" were recently imaged at KansasFest 2026 and are now archived. Burger Becky was an incredible and beloved engineer and raconteur who we sadly lost last year. archive.org/details/tass...

Keith Kaisershot reposted

It really sucks when someone you were following for their work in the retro scene turns out to be big on AI and using it in all their projects. That instantly kills any and all interest in anything they ever make.

Keith Kaisershot reposted

‘I have good news & bad news The good news is that we just started production on #ThimbleweedPark2, due out in early 2028 Mark Ferrari, Gary Winnick, David Fox, Octavi Navarro, Robert Megone, & others from the original team will be back! Now the bad news There is no bad news, it’s all good news’

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Keith Kaisershot reposted

New blog post! What do you get when a British television channel makes a home videogame console? A really long project to make a Tetris clone for it. www.leadedsolder.com/2026/07/28/b... Come back next week for part 2! #bbcbc #tetris #retrogaming #retrocomputing

leadedsolder.comThe BBC Tetris CompanionOverview and history of the BBC Bridge Companion home game console, and a brief overview of a composite video mod, repairs, the design of a game cartridge PCB, and the development of a new puzzle game...

Keith Kaisershot reposted

Replying to @thomasfuchs.at

The AI companies _want_ you to believe that it's "rogue AI" because that overhypes what their broken statistical text generation software does and mystifies it and makes it appear magical. It's not magic. It's just badly made software.

Keith Kaisershot reposted

Keith Kaisershot reposted

RIP Bobby Prince. His music legacy will live on, making inspired music for Commander Keen, Wolfenstein 3D, DOOM, countless others. A true legend. And such a nice man, great musician, wonderful, fun-loving man, nothing but happy memories of him. A loss to the world.

The Journeyman Project: Racing Through Time

I think any game company should only be allowed to make up to three separate games before the fourth is required to be a cart racer, and then every sixth after that. Similarly, if you have a show or movie or whatever, and you want to make video games for it? First one has to be a cart racer.

🎵 Hammond, Indiana Hammond, Indiana Not Louisiana Paris, France New York, or Rooooome But Hammond, Indiana Hammond, Indiana Hammond, Indiana: The Bears’ new home! 🎵