Stuart Ashen

Stuart Ashen takes a leap into reverse-chronology folk horror There is a specific kind of magic that happens when a creator known for reviewing "tat" on a brown sofa decides to helm a feature-length film. Stuart Ashen, the British YouTuber who has spent years chronicling the weirdest knock-off electronics and expired food, is currently finalizing his third cinematic outing, Turn Back. Unlike his previous efforts—*The Quest for the GameChild* and *The Polybius Heist*—which leaned heavily into action-comedy and low-budget charm, this project marks a significant shift into **folk horror**. Attending a test screening in a tucked-away indie cinema under a Brixton railway arch provided a unique look at the film's 80% completion state. The narrative structure is the real hook here; it is told entirely in reverse. We see the climax first, and the subsequent story unfolds through interweaving flashbacks that slowly pull the threads together. While the screening lacked final color grading and some visual effects, the cinematography and acting displayed a level of professional polish that dwarfs previous productions. For DIY creators, it is a testament to the power of community backing and the evolution of independent filmmaking in the digital age. Re-Falcon project reverse engineers the legendary Atari Falcon030 The Atari ST line remains a cornerstone of the home computing revolution, but its ultimate evolution, the Atari Falcon030, never truly received its due. Released in 1992 just as Atari began its final implosion, the Falcon was an ST on steroids, featuring the Motorola 68030 CPU and specialized hardware for sound and graphics. Today, these machines are exceptionally rare, often fetching upwards of $2,000 on the second-hand market. Enter the Re-Falcon project, a staggering feat of hardware engineering led by an expert known as Suave. This isn't just a simple recreation; it is a full reverse-engineering of the original six-layer motherboard. Using advanced techniques like **CT scanning** to map internal connections, the project has successfully produced working prototypes that were recently showcased at the Indie Classic Vintage Computer Expo. The new boards, striking in their purple finish, incorporate modern fixes while maintaining the soul of the original hardware. This project ensures that the Falcon’s legacy in music production and high-end 16/32-bit computing isn't lost to capacitor leakage and motherboard rot. 3dfx Voodoo lives again through FPGA re-implementation If you gamed on a PC in the mid-1990s, the name 3dfx Voodoo carries immense weight. Before GPUs were integrated into every system, the original Voodoo card was a dedicated 3D accelerator that sat alongside your 2D card, connected via a VGA pass-through cable. It transformed titles like *GLQuake* and *Unreal* into fluid, beautiful experiences. As original silicon becomes increasingly rare and prone to failure, the community has turned to FPGA technology to preserve the experience. Developer Francisco Ayala Lebrun has achieved the unthinkable: a full re-implementation of the 3dfx Voodoo 1 in **Spinal HDL**. This is a massive technical challenge because the original Voodoo didn't use programmable shaders; its entire behavior—from Gouraud shading to alpha clipping and bilinear filtering—was hardwired into the silicon. Replicating this requires matching the voodoo's exact behavior pixel-for-pixel. Successfully rendering *Screamer 2* on an FPGA is a milestone that paves the way for modern, plug-and-play hardware replacements for retro enthusiasts who want the authentic Glide API experience without the 30-year-old hardware failure risks. PicoZ80 transforms the Raspberry Pi Pico into a CPU replacement The Z80 processor is perhaps the most iconic 8-bit CPU in history, powering everything from the ZX Spectrum to industrial controllers for decades. While the Zilog chip only recently reached its official end-of-life in 2024, the supply of original DIP-40 packages will eventually dry up. The PicoZ80 project offers a futuristic solution by using an RP2350 microcontroller on a specialized PCB that fits directly into a Z80 socket. Because the Raspberry Pi Pico hardware is so much more powerful than the original Z80, it can emulate the CPU on a single core without breaking a sweat. This leaves the second core and additional co-processors like the ESP32 free to add modern "quality of life" features. We are talking about integrated Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and SD card storage, allowing a 40-year-old machine to access a virtual wireless disk drive. It is a brilliant example of using modern microcontrollers not just to mimic old hardware, but to augment it with features the original engineers could only dream of. Apple shutters the Mac Pro era in favor of the Mac Studio In a move that marks the end of an era for high-end workstation enthusiasts, Apple has officially discontinued the Mac Pro. Once the gold standard for upgradeability and raw power—epitomized by the "cheese grater" towers and the dual-Xeon Power Macs—the Mac Pro struggled to find its identity in the transition to **Apple Silicon**. The current M-series chips utilize a unified memory architecture that fundamentally clashes with the old-school Mac Pro philosophy of user-replaceable RAM and GPUs. While the Mac Studio now occupies the top spot in the lineup, offering staggering performance with the M3 Ultra, it lacks the modularity that made the Mac Pro a favorite for hardware tinkerers. The transition signals Apple's total commitment to an integrated, non-serviceable hardware model. For those of us who grew up swapping CPUs and hard drives in Power Macs, it’s a bittersweet farewell to a product line that once defined the "Pro" in Apple’s professional ecosystem. The high cost of automated moderation and the return of Tom Scott The human element of tech is often the most volatile. This week, we saw the dark side of platform automation when RoseTintedSpectrum, a creator known for his meticulous and funny reviews of retro TV and games, had his channel demonetized under YouTube's "reused content" policy. Despite his work being a clear case of transformative parody and commentary, an automated system stripped his livelihood without warning. It took a massive community outcry and manual review to reinstate him—a chilling reminder of how precarious the "creator economy" truly is. On a brighter note, the legendary Tom Scott has returned to the platform after a two-year hiatus. After famously burning out from a relentless weekly upload schedule, Scott is back with a new series exploring the counties of England. His return, coupled with a push for the creator-owned platform Nebula, suggests a new path forward for high-quality independent media: one that prioritizes sustainable production over the meat-grinder of the algorithm. Whether you are building an FPGA graphics card or a YouTube channel, sustainability is the name of the game.