About me.

Hello you and welcome to my blog.

I originally created this blog to keep track of various gardening projects I started in 2009 and being a complete novice thought it would serve as a useful learning tool for me. Rapidly I found that my blog developed into a mixture of all my hobbies, thoughts and ideas.

I’m a IT technician with a passion for all things Tech, be it old, retro or new. Everything from HTPC, Windows, Linux, Photoshop, IPTV, Tech news, retro gaming…….on and on. As well as gardening, I’m a keen photographer shooting with either my Canon DSLR, Fuji bridge camera or iPhone…especially the latter as it’s one device I’ve always got to hand.

In 2009 I attended my first Retro Computer Museum gaming event, met some great people that have since become very good friends and I now volunteer at the museum in my spare time.This really rekindled my interest in older tech and in particular, retro gaming. Although this has never pushed my keen interest in gardening to one side it does make for a strange mix of subjects on a blog.

Early in 2012, I decided to split my blog into two, moving my veggie growing and photography exploits to a new WordPress blog called StiGGy plot – http://stiggysplot.wordpress.com/ so if you get tired of pixel blasting feel free to head on over there and see me figure out if it’s a weed or plant 🙂

Comments are open and with no need to fill in any annoying forms asking for email addresses etc so please feel free to post. I really appreciate any feedback, comments or conversations.

Take care

Regards

StiGGy

Happy me.

42 responses to “About me.”

  1. Hi, compliments for your fantastic blog.
    I’ve noticed the very special passion that you put into retrogaming…I’ve also the same thing!
    Best regards.

    Max

  2. Thank you very much for your feedback Max. . Yes, for the past year, more and more posts have be been ‘retrogaming’ based and therefore having been thinking about creating a separate blog with this subject in mind. At present, my blog is bit of a eclectic mess 🙂

  3. I’ve been reading your blog for a while, nice to see more people putting up stuff about classic videogames. Keep the good work up!

  4. Thanks Mr S really appreciate it and likewise keep up the good work too, your blog is a wonderful read.

    Best wishes

    StiGGy

  5. Hi
    Well I must congratulate you on a very excellent blog and I found it very interesting that I strayed totally from the job in hand that I was doing..!

    I wanted to also ask you if you wouldn’t mind if I put up a couple of the early flight sim images you have, onto my site that i have just started building.

    It will be in the idea of a brief outline of where things began with ref to flight simulators on pc/consoles and just wanted to use 2 images to support it – to show how things ‘used to be’

    Many thanks in advance
    Regards
    Steve

  7. Hi, again
    I found this blog whilst I was crawling the net in hope to find some retro-gaming related sites. I’m spending my time here several days yet and, and I still cannot get enough! I like the stuff you do, and judging by what I read about your life, you must be very interesting person to know! I myself working as a computer technician and system administrator, so I’m the “computer guy” too, just like you. I adore retro-gaming and everything related to the wonderful past time. I live and work in Russia, Moscow, but I was always interested in knowning England, because I like your country so much. Unfortunately, my English is not that good I wish it would be, but I’m trying to do my best to get it improved. Just like you, I’m interested in all kind of computer systems, hard- and software. But, I mostly prefer UNIX-like operating systems and not those from M$. I run Linux both at home and at work. I don’t have a garden and honestly say I’m not have interested in seeding and so on, I must admit that I like to read your posts about all that stuff. If I ever by chance would be owner of my own house, I would try to make my own garden too, with flowers and vegetables. It seems to me interesting too. Well, thank you so much for bringing me a lot of good time by reading your blog! Keep on blogging anf have a good time!

  8. Hi Ilya, what wonderful comments, thankyou so much!

    It’s great to hear from someone from Russia, especially a fellow I.T. guy! I’ve always wanted to visit Moscow and am particularly interested in your countries art and history. It’s on ‘big list” so hopeful will visit one day.

    Even though my blog is a bit of mixed bag from Commodore 64’s to cucumbers I hope you’ve found something worth while here on your journey around the net.

    Take care and thanks for stopping by.

    Regards

    StiGGy

    p.s Your english is very very good!

  9. Hi,

    I’m about to embark on my first real custom PC building journey and drawing lots of inspiration from you! I’ve won a faulty C64 on Ebay and am now trying to learn about mini-itx motherboards. It is completely daunting! I want HDMI and wireless functionality and obviously, a small z-height. Would you have any pointers or recommendations?

    I have access to a Dremel (oo-er) and strong doubts about the safety of the components I will order but I still want to give it a go!

    Keep up the good work!

    Ieff

  10. Hey Jeff, thanks for stopping by and having a look at my blog. I’m really pleased that my C64 ITX has inspired you to have a go yourself.

    I’m not overly familiar with that many ITX boards so my recommendations are limited I’m afraid. For me, all I wanted to do was basic web surfing, play a few emulators/older pc games and watch the odd movie. The Atom 1.6 CPU on my board perfectly copes with these tasks. It really depends what you want go use the computer for. High tech gaming or HD video will obviously require something with a bit more oomph.

    z-height is the biggest problem so try to get the slimmest board you can find. If you like, I can measure the amount of space inside the C64 and post my findings tomorrow if this helps?

    You can easily fit a 3.5″ hdd inside the c64, although I went for 2.5″ drive to increase space thus increase airflow. Without the small fan I’ve fitted inside, things can get a little hot. Not too hot to worry about but better safe than sorry!

    Feel free to ask any more questions and I’ll try to answer as best I can.

    Have fun

    StiGGy

  11. Stiggy,

    Still researching motherboards and found this: http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=58992

    Check the height of that board!

    Following your reply, it would be good to know the max height. I won’t be running anything too intensive maybe adobe creative suite 3 would be the most demanding software – would atom be ok? The reason I want hdmi is to make the most of my hd TFT monitor!

    Jeff

  12. Hi Jeff I’ve checked the amount of clearance inside the C64 case taking measurements between the bottom of the case to where the underside of the C64 keyboard.

    At the very front of the C64, there’s a 2cm gap and and the back end there’s just over 3cm. The highest component on my motherboard is the Ethernet socket at just over 1cm so mine fits with ease.

    I had a look at the link that you posted and indeed that does look like a very nice board. Those ION Nvidia chipsets are supposed to be very good and much better that most onboard GFX chips. My own board runs CS3 & Adobe Lightroom2 without any issues and have been editing RAW images from my DSLR without any hiccups.

    However…here’s a few things to consider.

    1) Make sure that whatever board you decide to buy allows for RAM sticks to be inserted horizontally instead of the traditional vertical slot (even better if it supports laptop style DIMMs) PC memory Dimms are quite tall and I’m not sure if they’ll be enough clearance inside the C64 case.

    2) As is the case with most PC motherboards, they usually use that big fat bundle of cables that connects between the 20 or 24 pin ATX socket on the motherboard to your power supply. The same is usually used in ITX motherboards too.

    So, with this in mind, don’t buy an ITX board that has the 20/24 ATX located at the front end of the board as there’s not enough clearance at the front end of the C64 case to allow you to plug in the cable and allow for enough room to bend it towards the PSU (even if you did manage to squeeze it in, it’s not going to be great for airflow).

    What i did was to find a ITX motherboard that had all of the power supply circuitry onboard thus eliminating having to use this big cable at all. My mother board simple plugs into a laptop style external power brick via a DC jack on the rear of the motherboard.

    What else are you hoping to fit inside? DVD drive, 3.5″ drive, fans? Will you be using a Keyrah interface so that you can use the original C64 keyboard or are you going to exclude this and use an external USB PC keyboard?

    Hope the above is of use to you and feel free to ask me any more questions. If you do decide to go for it, you’ll have to send me a link to pictures as it’s always nice to see other peoples ITX projects.

    Kind regards

    StiGGy

  13. Faulty C64 arrived today (I couldn’t harm a healthy one).

    I think I’m going to copy your motherboard (and probably everything else you did) coz there’s nothing else with the 20mm profile. I guess I’ll need a DVI to HDMI adapter and a wireless card. I’ll get a Keyrah too and I hope to use this new PC as storage for all my photos and files that are spread across various PCs at the moment so a big HD will be needed. I’ll want a DVD drive so I’ll keep an eye out for a laptop drive on Ebay.

    I’m a bit apprehensive about actually doing any of the work from the cutting the case to the wiring and connectors and so on as I’ve never done anything like this before.

    It’ll be a long-term project no doubt and I think the next step will be to buy the motherboard so I’ll need to try selling some stuff on Ebay to finance it.

    Thanks for the encouragement and I hope you’ll be on standby to assist!!!

    Stay tuned!

    Jeff

  14. Nice one Jeff hopefully it won’t be long before you’ve got all of the bits to make a start. Cutting that case can be a scary prospect but it’s quite a tough one and would need some serious slip ups with a dremel to do a lot of damage.

    Let me know if you need anymore detailed pictures of my case etc

    And yes, I’m on standby so fire away!

    Kind regards

    StiGGy

  15. Hi StiGGy,

    I’ve stumbled across your blog and really enjoyed reading some of your posts – especially the ones about retro gaming, the best kind of gaming!

    I was just wondering if you would be interested in reviewing a product for us? I noticed a post from a few months back saying that you had a new laptop – would you like to review a laptop case for us?

    I look forward to your response.

    Kind regards,

    Luke Jordan
    GearZap

  18. http://velesoft.speccy.cz/sam_zx128.htm

    hi if you understand how to use the nmi button on the +D isciple disc interface to save a SNApshot to disc – or use an emulator then this link has two discs for sim coupe or a real one that would run the top 32768 in external ram things should go a bit faster closer to 6mhz in external ram i was hoping to see things like gyron mercenary sky ranger sentinel elite freescape starglider carrier/battle command but we seem to still be having difficulties with 128 stuff though getting closer each year who knows maybe f16 at 6mhz soon too – though only the 48 version naturally!

  21. Hello 😉
    thanks for your spectacular spectaculator tutorial 😀

    I have one question – were you able to run multi load games – I would like to play Lords of chaos on my iPad, but I were unable to run it correctly – it needs commands to rewind / forward / stop / pause and play for tape 😦

    please contact me via mail if you find out how to run LoC on Spectaculator 🙂
    “old.school.retro.gamer@gmail.com”

  22. Hi Steve,

    I found your blog while searching for video game box art. It’s what I do for fun. Wanted to thank you for having this blog and some nice pics. I’m into scanning mostly retro boxes in hi-res, so your site is a good source.

    If I end up doing some custom coers and use your stuff, I’ll be sure to let you know!

    Cheers mate!

  23. Hey there and thanks a lot. Feel free to use anything here that you might find useful. I’ve been looking through your work. All i can say is Awesome-ness!

  27. Hey buddy, yeah I have heard of the kyroflux but I haven’t had the opportunity to try one myself yet. My friend has one and keep meaning ask him to bring it down to the next Retro Computer museum meet. He uses it for ripping his old c64 floppy disks.

  28. Stiggy – GREAT BLOG! I just finished building my Commodore Pi today with the keyrahv2 and Chameleon Linux thanks to your help… Just a quick question.. getting the joysticks to work. Wondering if you may be able to elaborate on how you did that in VICE settings…

  30. Hello,

    My name is Rob Hewson. My dad, Andrew Hewson, was the founder of Hewson Consultants who published many classic Spectrum and C64 games including Avalon, Dragontorc, Uridium, Paradroid, Nebulus, Cybernoid, Zynaps and Exolon. He is currently working on a book and we have a Kickstarter campaign going to help fund it:

    We’d really appreciate your support in promoting the campaign to your blog followers. If you wanted anything from us, such as an interview with dad to help, we’d be more than happy to oblige.

    Best regards 🙂

    Rob Hewson

  31. Nice to hear from you Rob. Happy to spread the word on such an awesome Kickstarter project.

    Here’s hoping you reach you’re goal.

    Best wishes

    StiGGY

  32. Loved your post, received my CF adapter today by post, and already had a PCMCIA adapter running on the A1200. Got a question which I hope you can answer ; When booting up HD Toolbox (WB3.0) it does not recognise my CFs at all. They both work however via the PCMCIA adapter. Any idea’s what that could be ? Kind Regards, Angelo

  34. Hey Sam, I briefly saw a post about this on RGCD and thought ‘woo, that looks like it’s something for me’. Best of luck with the project mate, hope it’s a great experience.

    Regards

    StiGGy

  35. Hi StiGGY,

    seen your Blog and want to ask if you have the covers from the Street Sports American Football game in a good quality??? I am searching for this one for over a year right now in different forums but no reply… 😦

    Cheers,
    Andy

  38. Im creating a powerpoint presentation for my work, and we just adopted a smoke free environment, and was wondering if it would be ok with you if I used the picture with Mario stepping on the cigarette picture. I have to get permission from the creator, so with your permission, is it ok? – Thanks, Nikki with Nichols Brothers Boat Builders

  42. Hey there, hope you are well. All is dandy here but i’d decided to stop posting for a while (eek, i’ve just checked, it’s been THAT long!) whilst we went through a house renovation before selling etc. Maybe i’ll start up again soon as the retro tech toys are finally coming out of storage.

    Take care.

    StiGGY

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