iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Colin Hoad @colinhoad.com · 24/09/2026

My 9 games #My9Games my9games.net/en/share/be3...

Imogen (BBC Micro), Palace of Magic (BBC Micro), Final Fantasy VIII (PS1), Doom II (DOS), Civilization II (Windows 98), Super Mario Land 2 (Gameboy), Minesweeper (Windows 3.1), Lemmings (DOS), Half-Life (Windows 98)

Colin Hoad @colinhoad.com · 22/09/2026

I rarely visit the ebay home page as I mainly interact with ebay via notifications and saved searches, but having just gone there now... what, in the name of all that is holy, is this slopfest? "ebay live"?!

A cavalcade of sloptastic horrors on the ebay website home page

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Colin Hoad @colinhoad.com · 22/09/2026

Makes him look like the man in the moon...

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Colin Hoad @colinhoad.com · 16/09/2026

It's fine, I'll just think of them as mini Christmas trees

Paris will never forget the 'Christmas Tree' disaster in 2014

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Colin Hoad @colinhoad.com · 14/09/2026

Cursive always makes me think of this from @jimbenton.bsky.social

"Man, I hate cursive" comic by Jim Benton

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Colin Hoad @colinhoad.com · 12/09/2026

Well, the Greaseweazle was fun... but now it's time to try digitally archiving a tape image! This is hard mode, because you can't rewind and replay dropped bytes... so it probably won't work first time and will require some audio splicing ✂️

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Colin Hoad @colinhoad.com · 12/09/2026

This is what peak game cover art looks like

Games of Strategy boxed game for the BBC Micro

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Colin Hoad @colinhoad.com · 09/09/2026

Date yourself with a snap of your first ever computer.

Tasteful photograph of my Acorn Electron

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Colin Hoad @colinhoad.com · 07/09/2026

First attempt using a Greaseweazle! Software archiving ahoy...

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Colin Hoad @colinhoad.com · 18/08/2026

Brannigan's Beef & Mustard crisps. It brings tears to my eyes that they were discontinued, just as the crisps did back when I used to eat them.

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Colin Hoad @colinhoad.com · 25/07/2026

The old wizards in Hocus Pocus are always so helpful.

Screengrab from DOS game "Hocus Pocus", with a wizard telling our intrepid explorer that "It took me 67 years to grow this beard", an entirely useless piece of information

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Colin Hoad @colinhoad.com · 20/07/2026

One does not simply admit to one's age via the medium of film...

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Colin Hoad @colinhoad.com · 05/07/2026

My first visit to @retrocollective.co.uk today, and it was superb! Absolute privilege to meet, chat to and have my Beeb signed by the legendary Hermann Hauser

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Colin Hoad @colinhoad.com · 26/06/2026

New highlights reel just dropped

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Colin Hoad @colinhoad.com · 25/06/2026

Every hometown's got the ominous megastructure, what's yours?

Barad-Dûr, often incorrectly referred to as "The Shard", Borough, London.

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Colin Hoad @colinhoad.com · 25/06/2026

I was raised on these streets

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Colin Hoad @colinhoad.com · 24/06/2026

I miss the Zoom. A fantastic ice lolly, and also the TV ads going "a-zoom... a-zooom... a-zoooom"

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Colin Hoad @colinhoad.com · 22/06/2026

Loving my new @compiler-explorer.com desk topper! Really nice quality and a huge improvement on my old IKEA one that had seen better days 😅 Thanks, @matt.godbolt.org and team!

My desk looking unusually tidy (it won't last) with my new Compiler Explorer desk topper

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Colin Hoad @colinhoad.com · 10/06/2026

Keyboard design peaked in 1985 and has never been bettered...

The BBC Master keyboard layout: original and best.

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Colin Hoad @colinhoad.com · 10/06/2026

Well, now, hang on there...

First ever Virgin New Adventures novel "Timewyrm: Genesys"

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Colin Hoad @colinhoad.com · 06/06/2026

ebay, this is flat out irresponsible...

Two young souls contemplate the Lament Configuration

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Colin Hoad @colinhoad.com · 06/06/2026

I'm also not wholly convinced they're a real person? 😆

Screen grab from LinkedIn heckler's bio claiming to be from a "British military family with Blue Star and Gold Star heritage"

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Colin Hoad @colinhoad.com · 19/05/2026

New milestone achieved: 3,000 subscribers...! Gosh 😳 Thank you ever so much to everyone who follows my channel, it continues to be a hugely enjoyable hobby for me, so I'm very grateful to anyone who takes an interest!

My YouTube channel dashboard showing 3,003 subscribers as of today

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Colin Hoad @colinhoad.com · 18/05/2026

Toshiba Libretto 70ct (with banana for scale) So tiny!

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Colin Hoad @colinhoad.com · 10/05/2026

...which means, pop a program in a simple text file, then cat that as your argument to ecoclient and boom: instant transfer across to the Elk via Piconet!

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Colin Hoad @colinhoad.com · 10/05/2026

Haha Piconet supports BASIC injection within its NOTIFY implementation 🤣

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Colin Hoad @colinhoad.com · 09/05/2026

Piconet! Talking to my Acorn Electron from the Linux terminal 😄

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Colin Hoad @colinhoad.com · 09/05/2026

...and we're in business! SD card reader installed and working 💪

SD card interface plugged into the Plus-1

Plus-1 unit sealed up with SD card slot accessible

MMFS2 all working on boot, with a selection of disc images!

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Colin Hoad @colinhoad.com · 09/05/2026

Finally making some progress with the AP6 on my Electron Plus-1 (Retro Hardware edition). Got my SRAM and EEPROM chips inserted, jumpers set correctly and now registering on the Electron... next step is figuring out how to load a ROM image onto the EEPROM!

Sockets 4 and 5/6 with 32k SRAM and 32k EEPROM chips installed

ROM banks 5 and 6 registering my EEPROM and ROM bank 4 registering my SRAM!

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Colin Hoad @colinhoad.com · 30/04/2026

Bram Stoker's Dracula - DOS edition. I loved this game and even managed to complete it. While it's fair to say the 3D FPS didn't compare favourably to Doom etc. I still think it's a really enjoyable game and ties in nicely with the movie.

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Colin Hoad @colinhoad.com · 23/04/2026

Reminds me of this classic

The SatAn antenna from Kathrein. Beaming Satan directly into your home!

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Colin Hoad @colinhoad.com · 21/04/2026

I accept only one true authority

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Colin Hoad @colinhoad.com · 19/04/2026

Had a brilliant time at the @computinghistory.org.uk Bring & Byte today, came away with rather a lot of stuff - too many bargains, insufficient willpower 😆 Really enjoyed chatting to everyone too, a grand day out! Thanks to the volunteers for running such a fun event 🙌

Photo of my haul: two ZX Spectrums, a Psion 3a, lots of Spectrum games on tape, multiple vintage programming books, a Packard Bell mouse and White Knight Mk2 for the Beeb on tape

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Colin Hoad @colinhoad.com · 09/04/2026

Daily dose of dystopia there from Starbucks. What next, Soylent Matcha Latte?

Starbucks PR email promoting something horrifying called "protein cold foam"

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Colin Hoad @colinhoad.com · 02/04/2026

This feels very appropriate!

Jim'll Paint It of the Alien Queen on a conference call

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Colin Hoad @colinhoad.com · 02/04/2026

Latest new toy... a fully working, refurbished Psion netBook! What a beauty 😍

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Colin Hoad @colinhoad.com · 02/04/2026

Never thought I'd get a chance to buy a new album on cassette in 2026 😆 I @garynumanofficial.bsky.social clearly knows his audience 🤘

Me holding Gary Numan's "Intruder" album on newly issued cassette

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Colin Hoad @colinhoad.com · 30/03/2026

(as seen on clearsky.app)

Clearsky.app screenshot of the @attie.ai account showing 114,996 users blocking said account

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Colin Hoad @colinhoad.com · 26/03/2026

Link doesn't work for me...?

This site can’t provide a secure connection
www.abuglive.co.uk sent an invalid response.

Try running Windows Network Diagnostics.
ERR_SSL_PROTOCOL_ERROR

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Colin Hoad @colinhoad.com · 24/03/2026

This guy is doing his level best to outdo Sam Altman in the insufferable idiot stakes. What a ridiculous thing to say, of course we haven't achieved AGI. Not even close.

Jensen Huang, Nvidia CEO, and full time idiot

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Colin Hoad @colinhoad.com · 12/03/2026

And now on real hardware, woohoo!

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