iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Shahid Kamal Ahmad

@dancingmonkeys.net

1.5K followers 180 following 553 posts

“A punk existentialist coder alive to his mortality, standing in wonder at the world” I make Reverie, the journal app: freeholder.dev I wrote Code is Just and Chimera Substack: newsletter.dancingmonkeys.net

Posts Replies Media

Shahid Kamal Ahmad @dancingmonkeys.net · 05/07/2026

It’s #1 in Amazon’s “Social Aspects of the Internet” category! Thanks to everyone who made this happen.

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Shahid Kamal Ahmad @dancingmonkeys.net · 05/07/2026

Many called it the best Twitter thread ever Code Is Just was about the early 1980s British home computing revolution and my place in it. Today you can finally get all three seasons, with footnotes and some light editing on Kindle. The original flow is preserved.

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Shahid Kamal Ahmad @dancingmonkeys.net · 04/06/2026

My mum taught me how to do embroidery when I was 14. This was the first thing I hand embroidered. Yes, I still have it 46 years later.

Hand embroidered handkerchief in white with the text “Spandau Ballet” in red in the band’s first album type face.

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Shahid Kamal Ahmad @dancingmonkeys.net · 16/05/2026

The part of Regents Park I’d come to at night when it was closed when I was stuck on a code problem, as described in Code is Just.

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Shahid Kamal Ahmad @dancingmonkeys.net · 05/11/2025

This is funny

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Shahid Kamal Ahmad @dancingmonkeys.net · 08/05/2025

I hope you all enjoyed International Motörhead Day. The 8th of May! The 8th of May! (I tell this joke every year because it’s my joke)

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Shahid Kamal Ahmad @dancingmonkeys.net · 26/01/2025

It is done. Black Ops 6 Prestige Master.

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Shahid Kamal Ahmad @dancingmonkeys.net · 30/11/2024

11 years ago last night, the PS4 launch event in Covent Garden, where I got to invite @mikebithell.bsky.social , James Marsden and others. What an amazing event. If I hadn’t kept a brief diary, I’d have forgotten! I had actually left earlier, but Ian Vinten (legend) called me back for an interview

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Shahid Kamal Ahmad @dancingmonkeys.net · 24/11/2024

Can a man with dodgy eyes and the reflexes of a man who will be 60 next year (because that’s me) win a free-for-all against youngsters in Modern Warfare 3? I come bearing receipts.

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Shahid Kamal Ahmad @dancingmonkeys.net · 18/11/2024

Have you ever heard someone say truly magical words? Words that changed everything? I have, often, but I remember these particularly well:

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Shahid Kamal Ahmad @dancingmonkeys.net · 17/11/2024

I'm not going to itemise my blessings here, but look at this picture, that's my setup now. If you knew what I'd come from, you'd find the contrast shocking too. It's not that I deserve this. I'm just grateful for it. It could have gone either way.

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Shahid Kamal Ahmad @dancingmonkeys.net · 16/11/2024

We are now in the spring of 1984. My Word is out, in a fancy presentation box also containing a dictionary, but despite being a good game for 1-4 players and a pretty strong AI player, it wasn't marketed and so naturally, no royalties were forthcoming.

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Shahid Kamal Ahmad @dancingmonkeys.net · 16/11/2024

At first, I thought they were a piss-take company, their ads seemingly mocking Imagine, who were the cool kids on the block.

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Shahid Kamal Ahmad @dancingmonkeys.net · 15/11/2024

Here's a letter from Chris after Artic showed initial interest in my game.

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Shahid Kamal Ahmad @dancingmonkeys.net · 14/11/2024

And the latest update during the middle of a one hour Double XP has decided to delete my game and won’t let me install it. Just some of the worst software ever written.

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Shahid Kamal Ahmad @dancingmonkeys.net · 14/11/2024

I mean what the hell is this crap at the end of a game? Then 10 minutes to get the game going again. Some of the worker quality of life stuff I’ve ever seen couple with some of the very best gameplay.

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Shahid Kamal Ahmad @dancingmonkeys.net · 13/11/2024

It's 1983, and I'd been programming since the previous summer. I finally decide to send the earlier Raining Cats and Dogs to Virgin Games, who had recently entered the games arena. Here's their letter turning me down...

Copy of original letter from Nick Alexander of Virgin Games to me in 1983

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