Weekly Geekly Rundown for November 22, 2024
Happy Thanksgiving!
The Spectrum Brings British Retro Gaming Abroad
The microcomputing boom in the United States was fueled by a number of readily recognized home computer systems like the Apple II, the tari 400/800, the Commodore 64, the TRS-80, the Apple II, and a host of other competitors. It didn’t take long for the Apple, Atari and Commodore brands to dominate the market in the United States. Apple had a very good version of BASIC and was a highly customizable machine. Atari had brand recognition due to their Atari Video Systems. Commodore was the microcomputer of choice for the poorer DIY community and had a fantastic software catalog.
At their initial release, none of these computers were particularly affordable. The Apple II cost close to $1,300 in 1977 (about $7,000 today), the Atari computers ranged from $500 - $1,000 ($2,700 - $5,400), the Commodore 64 came in at $595 when it arrived on the scene ($3,200), and the TRS-80 was $600 ($3,200). Those are not price points that the average consumer could fork over for a home computer, especially in an era where the purpose of home computers wasn’t fully understood yet. It wasn’t until 1983 when Commodore lowered the price to $250 ($800 in 2024 dollars) that the microcomputer began to get deep saturation into middle class American households.
Based on my reading of the literature of the time, my fandom of various retro tech sites, and having watched Micro Men the BBC’s dramatization of the rise of Sinclair, the market was pretty similar in the United Kingdom during the same time period. In the United States it was Commodore’s lowering of the price of the 64 was the catalyst that exploded interest in microcomputing and created a generation who could code in BASIC (and later C++, Python, R, etc.). If Commodore reduced the price in the UK around the same time, it likely contributed to that move there as well. But the big player when it came to getting microcomputers into almost every home was Sinclair Research.
Sinclair Research’s found Clive Sinclair wanted to take advantage of the push by the Parliament to transform the United Kingdom into a computer literate society and began work designing an affordable microcomputer in the hopes to meet the future demand. The initial computer was the ZX-80 which cost a mere £99.95/$199.95 US. This machine was eventually replaced by the ZX-81 and the ZX-Spectrum computers and with them microcomputers were made available to not just the middle class but the working class as well. Because it’s an English product, it’s pronounced “Zed Ecks - Spectrum.” Being an American, it’s the only time in my life I will say Zed instead of Zee.
I’ve watched a lot of content about the ZX-Spectrum since 2020 and it’s definitely an item on my bucket list. I love the idea of a barebones computer that runs BASIC in a stripped down version that really pushes the user to learn how the language and the device interact. One of the reasons I love the Commodore 64 so much is that it came with documentation to help you understand every interaction and how “poking” various memory positions worked. It was eye opening.
I don’t know why the Timex/Sinclair home computer, based on the ZX-80/81, didn’t do well in the United States, but a part of me thinks that it had to do with the fact that there wasn’t a push to get computers to the working class here. Sure schools carried computers. The first time I programmed anything on a computer it was on an Apple IIGS. It was fun, but my fondest programming memory ever is when my friend Travis went to his garage, dug around, and pulled out a TRS-80 MC-10 microcomputer.
When Travis first showed it to me, I was highly skeptical. I’d been using the Apple IIGS at school and wondered just what the heck this smaller and less powerful machine could do. By the end of the night, we had programmed character generation programs for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Other Strangeness and Twilight 2000. Yes, you read that right, we stayed up all night programming character creation programs and it was a blast. We then made a ton of characters for each and crashed for a couple of hours before I had to go home. I was impressed with the little machine and it was Tandy’s attempt to compete against the Timex/Sinclair model, but neither really caught on here.
As I said though, the Sinclair ZX-Spectrum did catch on in the UK though and boy did it ever. It has a huge fanbase and in the past couple of years has seen a couple of Kickstarters for retrocomputers that emulate the old system, but now there is a mass market retrocomputer version of the Spectrum and my favorite nostalgiatuber Perifractic covers it in his latest episode. Peri, who is also named Christian, is the editor of a Commodore 64 focused magazine but he’s reviewing this retro-issue of a beloved old computer and I’ve got to tell you, it’s what I want for Christmas. Thankfully Amazon UK ships stateside.
I cannot wait to try out a few games and attempt to program using the relatively unique keyboard.
The Lamentations of Luke Y. Thompson
As a geek, I love lists. After all, the Weekly Geekly is a kind of list in its own right. I personally try to avoid ranked lists or “Top 5” lists because I have found that my own ranking can change from day to day. Sure on a list of disaster movies Twister (a personal favorite) will always rank higher than Twisters (a fun and well acted, but poorly directed “sequel”), but the positions of Dante’s Peak and Volcano might flip flop a lot.
As an aside, while Dante’s Peak is officially pronounced like the famous author, I had a coworker who absolutely loved the movie and constantly talked about how many times she’d watched “Dant’s Peak.” For that reason, this is the “official Geekerati” pronunciation. Anything that brings up fond memories overrides mere things like “proper” pronunciation.
recently wrote an interesting list over at SlashFilm ranking the 12 Best Michael Biehn and Biehn adjacent films, wait, scratch that, it’s the 12 Best Navy SEAL movies. But given the fact that Michael Biehn is in three of them, I think I can be forgiven for the mistake. To be fair to Luke, and to Mr. Biehn, all of his entries deserve to be there and all of the Biehn films are ranked in the order I’d put them at the moment. I might flip one and three from time to time.Luke did some good work putting this list together on a variety of levels. Not only does it feature the staples of the SEAL genre, but it includes some surprise entries as well. Any list that includes both Transformers: Dark of the Moon AND Captain Phillips is a list designed to do what lists do best, promote deep conversation about the topic.
This list was published a couple of weeks ago, so I’ve since (re)watched a couple of the entries and I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed Navy SEALS this time around. I didn’t like it when I first saw it as I was deep into my Hong Kong action film obsessive period and the action scenes felt more Golan and Globus/Megaforce than what I considered proper action pacing at the time.
Setting aside my youthful snobbishness and looking at the film itself, it stands out as having a pretty amazing cast who are all having a good time with the film. Luke ranks the film in the proper place and highlights all of the flaws, and many of the reasons for those flaws, but seeing actors like Joanne Whalley (Willow), S. Epatha Merkerson (if you’re a Law & Order fan you know how great she is), Bill Paxton, Charlie Sheen, Michael Biehn, and Dennis Haysbert makes it all worth it. The film does Haysbert dirty by implementing lame Hollywood trope #37, but he might not have gotten his role on The Unit if not for his role in Navy SEALS so I can almost forgive it. Almost.
Courtney Howard’s View from the Center Seat
Courtney’s had a number of reviews published lately ranging from her review of the new theatrical release of Wicked to the latest Netflix Christmas Universe (NCU) release The Merry Gentlemen. Certainly you should read those if you have any interest in either the Wicked franchise or the Netflix Christmas Universe. I do, but your mileage may vary. However, when she writes an article so squarely in the Geekerati wheelhouse as her recent interview over at FreshFiction.tv with Scot Stafford discussing his score for Ultraman: Rising, that’s going to be the focus of this week’s Weekly Geekly.
In the battle between mass audience and my Ultraman obsession, Ultraman always wins. I was introduced to Ultraman by a local afternoon science fiction host in the Bay Area called Captain Cosmic and I’ve loved the character since.
If you follow Courtney on social media, one of the things you’ll notice early in your reading is that she loves the music of film and television. She’ll often post an image of a new or old vinyl Soundtrack or Score that she’s currently listening to and it’s this fandom of the often overlooked elements of film making that make her such a good reviewer in general. One of the key questions she asks Stafford in the article is about how he avoids repeating himself “sonically” from project to project. Stafford’s answer is enlightening, not just about his own work but about the industry in general. The industry is obsessed with “branding” and having a signature sound could be a brand, but it’s one Stafford actively seeks to avoid.
Such an answer leads one to wonder whether movie composers should be chameleons who let the movie tell them how it should sound or whether they should have a sound that film makers can think of when they are directing in the first place. I don’t think there’s a right answer to this in general. Jerry Goldsmith’s films often have wildly different scores, but if you’re watching a John Williams film you know that the likelihood that you’ll hear a phrase of two from Aaron Copland is greater than 0%. Compare Copland’s Fanfare for the Common Man to his Superman Theme or Copland’s Rodeo Ballet (particularly the Hoe-Down section) to William’s work on The Cowboys.
A Forgotten “Almost” Role Playing Game
Tim S. Brannan has a wonderful breakdown of a “vaportext” role playing game called R.I.P. that TSR was developing in the final days before the mid-90s collapse over at his The Otherside blog. The horror tabletop gaming genre is similar to the fantasy genre in that it is dominated by a single game, in this case Call of Cthulhu. There are other games in the space, and some excellent ones to be sure, but Call of Cthulhu looms as large as its namesake over the competition. When I was young people mocked a competing game called Chill as being “simplistic” and “for kids.” My own personal tastes have always had me preferring Chill to CoC. That has more to do with my taste in horror than in mechanics. I like horror with hope rather than purely nihilistic horror. There is more to horror than that of the Cosmic variety. Certainly, that genre has cache and value, but for me it’s just part of a larger field.
Tim does a great job breaking down the history of R.I.P. and its place in TSR’s history. As a part of the discussion, Tim mentions Flint Dille’s Agent 13 game and books. TSR was attempting to build synergy between brands at the time and diversify into a multi-media company. It was a bit early for that to occur, but it did lead to some interesting actual products like the R.I.P. comics (that would have been related to the RPG) and the aforementioned Agent 13. I chatted with Flint Dille and David Marconi about those books when they were rereleased and it was an interesting glimpse into one of the minds that influenced Gygax’s and Lorraine Williams’ business decisions.
Another interesting item is that Paul A. Lidberg was slated to be one of the designers. Lidberg eventually went on to help design the multi-genre game Duel for Nightshift Studios, the superhero themed UNSanctioned: The Dream Corrupted (affiliate link) for his own Team Frog Studios, as well as a number of stuffed animal themed games. Lidberg’s games tend to focus on simple core mechanics, as can be seen in both Duel and UNSanctioned, and Brannan’s analysis of the R.I.P. comic gamebooks shows it might have gone in that direction.
Interesting Cover Illustration Tutorial
over at has a discussion of how to design your own RPG game covers using available software. His first piece of advice is to pay an artist if you can, and I am 100% behind that, but he also gives a step by step on how to combine free images to create a compelling cover. I personally subscribe to a couple of Stock Art patreons and will be using their art files as I move forward and Matteo’s tutorial advice on how to integrate multiple illustrations will come in very handy. has a really cool interview with Matthew John discussing the upcoming Conan: The Hyborian Age role playing game. I’m extremely excited about this game and backed it on Kickstarter. I’ll be continuing my series discussing Conan in role playing games soon. I wrote my first entry discussing Conan in Deities, Demigods, and Heroes for the Dungeons & Dragons role playing game, but Conan has appeared in a number of games ranging from D&D and GURPS to several game systems designed specifically for Hyborian Adventures. This latest game from Monolith looks to be one of the best yet. I love what Monolith did in their Batman RPG (I’ll post that review next week) and while the Conan game uses a different system, it looks just as faithful to the material.
No pre-Thanksgiving discussion would be complete without mentioning the greatest Thanksgiving Movie of All-Time, Planes, Trains, and Automobiles, so it’s a good thing that
has us covered with a podcast devoted entirely to the film. There aren’t many Thanksgiving films, but that’s okay when the day features a movie this good. Depending on your generation, you might know John Hughes best for National Lampoon’s Vacation, The Breakfast Club, Home Alone, or 101 Dalmations, but this film is the sweet spot for his talents. It’s G-rated in its message, but R-rated for one scene in particular and is a film for everyone. had a great magazine, and have a great Newsletter, but I’m linking their BlueSky Thread discussing the wonderful Fantasy Board Game advertisements of the 1980s and 1990s. The thread is filled with games that I play with my wife and daughters ranging from Dark World and Heroquest to Space Crusade and Battle Masters. We may think that fantasy gaming being mainstream is a new phenomenon, but these commercials tell a very different story. Imagine hearing the big game playing in the living room this Thanksgiving family only to hear the word “Broadsword!” (pronounced Brode-Sode in the commercial) coming from the television as Christopher Lee commands you to buy something. That’s mainstream and that’s Heroquest.
L. Sprague de Camp Fan reminds us that Catherine Crook de Camp continues to be underappreciated in our discussions of Conan pastiches and fandom in his latest post discussing the novelization of the film Conan the Barbarian. Lin Carter was one of the most important editors in the history of Fantasy fiction, but he had some significant personal problems and those problems led to him not pulling his weight when it came to finishing the Conan novelization (affiliate link). Instead, Catherine Crook de Camp filled in to help finish and polish the work as she was so often in Sprague’s career. In many ways, she was the Marcia Lucas of his life who made his work better but who got too little appreciation outside the deep fandom. Even the current printing of the book doesn’t list Catherine on the cover, though that’s likely due to old contracts regarding attribution etc.
Recent years have seen a rise in the number of Spielberg Kids style role playing games. It’s not exactly a new genre as Pandahead Games published Meddling Kids (affiliate link) in the early 00s and R. Talsorian published Teenagers from Outer Space (affiliate link) in the 80s/90s. Both of those are excellent games that have scrappy kids unraveling mysteries in humorous fashion. What sets many of the modern games apart from the older games is that they don’t assume that the gameplay will be silly and encourage more serious adventures with kids as well.
Pine Shallows from Jimmy Shelter is a mix of old and new “introductory” game design. Like many InSpectres (affiliate link) influenced post-Apocalypse World (affiliate link) games, Pine Shallows uses a 2d6 based mechanic where a total of 7 or higher leads to some kind of success. Unlike Apocalypse World games, this doesn’t result in the player taking over the narrative for the scene. I think that this is a good design choice for an introductory game as many new gamers are intimidated by the level of acting/storytelling they often assume is necessary to play a role playing game. Having rules that allow players to act and perform, but don’t require them to, expands the potential audience.
Additionally, by having characters earn experience on a failure (following from Runequest here) the game encourages players not to cheat on a roll to succeed. If the only way to improve is to fail, that balances loss aversion a little. I have a couple of minor quibbles when it comes to Pine Shallow’s game design, but overall I think this is a solid game that is tightly and compactly written. I especially like that it includes a gaming Appendix N of its own. Where the latest edition of D&D doesn’t cite its sources (this is pretty grievous in the DMG), Pine Shallows and other Indie Games use those references as a way of teaching game design.
This week’s musical recommendations with be short but eclectic. I’ll start with a reenvisioning of Tool’s song Ænema that shows us what the song might have sounded like if it had been produced by Motown. In this era of mass AI, I don’t know if the melody was designed by AI or not. I hope not because this is an interesting idea.
One cannot merely mention a Tool song without providing the song itself. Ænema is a dark and haunting song that laments the shallow nature of Los Angeles life. As much as I enjoy the song, it says more about the person making the song than about Los Angeles itself. My wife and I lived in the Los Angeles area for almost 20 years and while it has its share of shallow people, the depiction of it as a shallow place is as cliché as it is wrong. Los Angeles is a place filled with kind, hard working, and friendly people. They are everywhere from “the industry” to the local bakery. If you want to know my LA, watch Bosch or the food reviews of the late Jonathan Gold many of which were collected in Counter Intelligence (affiliate link) and stay away from prog rock, but keep the prog rock for the awesome musicianship.
I’ve been a fan of Darius Rucker since the Hootie and the Blowfish days, but I’ve recently been listening to his cover of Wagon Wheel. The original Wagon Wheel song was released by Old Crow Medicine Show in 2004 and has a pretty cool connection to Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid. Rucker’s version is fun and his rich vocals make it an eminently listenable song.
Speaking of songs that highlight the shallowness of Los Angeles, Electric Six’s “Disco Rock” song I’m the Bomb has lyrics that expose the real biases of the area. There’s a moment where the singer says he’s a “sucker perpetrator living in the 2-1-3” talking to a “superstar living in the 3-1-0.” The 213 includes some Bell Gardens, Alhambra, and rougher parts of Los Angeles while the 310 covers Coastal Los Angeles. My own beloved 323 overlaps the 213 but for some reason has a better rep. If living in Crenshaw gives me cred, that so be it. The difference between Tool’s references to LA’s shallow nature and Electric Six’s is that Tool’s is filled with despair and overseriousness while Electric Six’s is making fun of it.
It should be no surprise what the film recommendation is this week, it’s the greatest Thanksgiving film ever made. Planes, Trains, and Automobiles is one of the most heartwarming films ever made and yet it has an edge. The car rental scene featured in the clip below is hilarious in the context of the film, but it’s also a commentary on both corporate indifference and customer rage. John Hughes was a master at capturing all elements of human interaction. This is a moment that happens when the audience sympathizing greatly with the protagonist and yet his actions make us root for the corporate drone who gets mild revenge at the end of the scene.
Humor aside, what makes Planes, Trains, and Automobiles work so well is that the story is one of redemption and human connection. We are all reminded of the importance of those around us and how even the random stranger we meet might be in need of love.
In my head canon, Planes, Trains, and Automobiles takes place in the same universe as Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and She’s Having a Baby, two other favorite Hughes films. The “You’ll Never Make the Six” scene has characters from both of those films and highlight Hughes’s own experience working in advertising.
Awesome newsletter. Love the write up about retro computers. Bit before my time but I can respect it. Thanks for the shout out also!
Aw man, the Zeds! Many of my friends had them -- my parents resisted computers. I suspect one factor keeping them from taking off here is that the games had to be loaded by cassettes, which took what felt like an eternity. In the U.S., the Apple adapted to games on floppies that would play immediately quite a bit before the UK/Ireland finally got the Commodore (or at least before anybody I knew did)