March 29, 2026: We Put A Computer In Your Computer

I'm a fan of old-school gaming . . . mostly owing to an overly large collection that was cutting-edge gaming when I was living through the decades.

One development I've found fascinating in recent years has been techniques to bolster the abilities of those old devices by plugging in new devices. I've augmented my old GameCube with two mini-computers: a modern upscaling digital audio/video adapter dongle powered by GCVideo DVI, and – as of a few days ago – a virtual memory-card device for saved games called FlipperMCE.

I'm not 100% sure if the video-dongle thingie is technically a "computer" on its own. It's powered by an "FPGA," which is like a reprogrammable black box that makes sense as long as I don't think about it. But I do believe the FlipperMCE thingie is definitely a "computer," complete with a screen and (as I understand it) a tiny Raspberry Pi Pico-type device.

I've seen similar projects I've eyed for my Apple IIe, with the opportunity to add virtual "hard drives" using ultra-fast modern MicroSD cards and digital HDMI output with tiny new add-on computers.

It all feels very "floppypunk" to augment once-modern, now-retro devices with even newer bits of add-ons and bling. The future was now way back then . . . and even more so today.

-- Steven Marsh