e518 — The Old Ones Are The Best

e518 — The Old Ones Are The Best

Author: Michael Rowe, Michael Martine, Andy Piper June 23, 2025 Duration: 32:19
Atari Flashback console playing Asteroids connected to a portable television in front of a skateboard
Photo by Boris Langvand on Unsplash

Published 23 June 2025

e518 with Andy, Michael, and Michael – stories about Atari adjacent AI, a new Emotiv experience, Midjourney video magic, Bondi blue, visionOS persona improvements, the Nex Playground and a whole lot more.

Andy, Michael and Michael begin with a couple of Atari AI stories.  First up, there’s a Hackaday article dealing with randomly generating Atari games, replete with a link in the notes below to the Github repo to check out.  Next is a Futurism article detailing how ChatGPT loses to the computing might encompassed by an Atari 2600 console.  Continuing on the ChatGPT theme, the co-hosts check out a post on the recent ChatGPT worldwide outage, and what happened as a result.  

Then, the team turns to a discussion on the recent Emotiv kickstarter, the MW20 Neuro Earphones, and are reminded about the Emotiv Insight.  Rounding out the AI section, Michael, Andy and Michael enjoy Ian Hughes’ Midjourney experiment to create a short video of Roisin Kincade from his book Reconfigure

After considering a cute iMac G3 inspired Apple Watch charging stand, the team charges into a conversation about the recent updates to visionOS 26, paying special focus to the Persona function.  Michael Rowe has a nice before-and-after view of his Persona posted in his blog, and Michael M finds the AI generated Dutch master painting of Michael from back in e240.  Check out the links below to see for yourself!

A new to the cohosts gaming console called Nex Playground (not Next – that was a different company!) has a modular form factor, and makes use of a camera for the gameplay.  The Creative Bloq article references Homecourt as the origin for the Nex Playground — “the eye in the sky does not lie!” is a common refrain from sports analytics enthusiasts.  It is intriguing how sophisticated the AI motion detection has come in this consumer space.

What games can you imagine playing where your body is the controller?  Have your bots 🤖 drop our bots 🤖 a line at @gamesatwork_biz@mastodon.social (our home for now) and let us know! 

These show notes were lovingly hand crafted by a real human, and not by a bot.  All rights reserved.  That’s our story and we’re sticking to it.

Selected Links

AI

Hackaday article: Randomly Generating Atari Games

Finite Atari Machine GitHub repo

Futurism article: ChatGPT “Absolutely Wrecked” at Chess by Atari 2600 Console From 1977

Robert Caruso’s LinkedIn Post: 🧠🤖 Atari 2600 Pulls Off the Upset!!

Wikipedia article: TRS-80 Color Computer

ChatGPT goes down — and fake jobs grind to a halt worldwide

pivot-to-ai.com/2025/06/11/cha – text
youtube.com/watch?v=889fSJTRZl – video

— David Gerard (@davidgerard@circumstances.run)
2025-06-11T15:59:42.031Z

Pivot to AI post: ChatGPT goes down — and fake jobs grind to a halt worldwide

Kickstarter post: Emotiv MW20 Neuro Earphones: Hi‑Fi Audio + Brain Insights

Emotiv

Games at Work e37: Sticky Games (for Emotiv reference – perhaps the first?)

IMDb: Minority Report

Loving midjourney new video generation. Ran the opening still from reconfigurebook.co.uk through it and Roisin really came to life. I last did this in 2023 with Runway. As I wrote feedingedge.co.uk/blog/2023/07

— Epredator (@epredator@mastodon.online)
2025-06-18T23:02:57.523Z

Feeding Edge post: Reconfigure – The Movie, nearly

Midjourney post: Introducing Our V1 Video Model

Apple

The Verge article: Charge your Apple Watch on this tiny iMac G3 replica

Wikipedia article: iMac G3

iColorpaltte Bondi blue

Six Colors article: visionOS 26 keeps pushing Apple’s newest platform toward the future

Random Thoughts post: WWDC 2025 – Liquid Glass (for the AI Dutch master version of Michael Rowe in the initial visionOS)

Games at Work e240: Game of Life (for Michael R’s generated portrait)

Games

Creative Bloq article: Nex Playground review: an Apple-like active games console for the family

Nex Playground

Homecourt.ai

Games at Work e327: Virtually Athletic

Nintendo Wii Sports

CNET article: I Downloaded Crazy Taxi on My iPhone for Free Before Sega Discontinues It


The weekly conversation hosted by Michael Rowe, Michael Martine, and Andy Piper, Games At Work dot Biz, explores the intersection where our digital play and professional lives collide. This isn't just a review show; it's a deep dive into the technology that powers our hobbies, the business behind the leisure, and the cultural news shaping both worlds. Each episode feels like pulling up a chair with three friends who are as passionate about the craft of game development and the evolution of hardware as they are about the pure joy of finding a great new title. You'll hear specific discussions on everything from the latest graphics card impacting performance to the narrative design of an indie darling, all filtered through the lens of professionals who live in the tech space. The Games At Work dot Biz podcast operates on the belief that the games we play and the tools we use are inextricably linked, offering listeners a consistently thoughtful and engaging analysis that goes far beyond a simple score. Tune in for a regular dose of insightful commentary where the serious business of technology meets the serious fun of games.
Author: Language: en-us Episodes: 50

Games At Work dot Biz
Podcast Episodes
e521 — We Like Big Drives [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 29:35
Photo by benjamin lehman on Unsplash Published 21 July 2025 e521 with Andy, Michael and Michael – stories about expressive robots (Shoggoth Mini, Apple ELEGNT, SpiRob & facehugger), newly reengineered Commodore & Sinclai…
e520 — Cold Fusion Gaming [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 26:13
original photo, by Michael Martine, Sandwich MA June 2025. Animated by Google Veo3 July 2025 Published 14 July 2025 e520 with Michael, Andy and Michael – stories about AI advertising, still photo animation, anime agents,…
e519 — Clippy Kittens [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 27:56
Photo by Mike Stimpson on Unsplash Published 30 June 2025 e519 with Michael, Andy and Michael – stories about AI conversations with pets and people, LLM data retention, AI slop, Clippy-esque prompts, AI workloads in spac…
e517 — Where Every AI Knows Your Name [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 34:07
Photo by Hasnain Sikora on Unsplash Published 9 June 2025 e517 with Michael, Michael and Andy – stories about Atarino microcomputing, AI through movie and television metaphor, AR running, screens and zombies, Skyrim Gran…
e516 — Model Behavior [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 27:06
Photo by insung yoon on Unsplash Published 2 June 2025 e516 with Michael and Michael – AI prompts, browsers, model collapse & automation along with a teeny tiny pico Mac nano, and a whole lot more. While Andy is away, Mi…
e515 — Seeing Through Walls [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 28:52
Photo by Mihály Köles on Unsplash Published 26 May 2025 e515 with Andy, Michael and Michael – the Fortnite Darth Vader NPC, IO, both from Google and Open AI, AI hardware, an intriguing Vision Pro use case, infrared conta…
e514 — Leroooooy Jenkins! [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 36:50
Photo by WTFast on Unsplash Published 19 May 2025 e514 with Michael R and Andy – generative ads & LEGO, Aston Martin x Apple CarPlay Ultra, new Vision Pro UX, an Internet Roadtrip, Leroy Jenkins and so much more. While M…
e513 — Not Dead Yet [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 39:26
Photo by Hande B. on Unsplash Published 12 May 2025 e513 with Michael and Michael – Clippy + LLMs, social AI, first person video, Duck, Pong & other games, and so much more. While Andy is away, Michael and Michael start…
e512 — Sounds Good, On Paper [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 26:58
Cartoon versions of Andy and Michael M, generated by ChatGPT Published 5 May 2025 e512 with Andy and Michael – E Ink monitors, Agent run companies & towns, winning arguments with AI assistants, pixellating reality and mu…
e511 — Vibing in London [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 28:36
Photo by bill emrich from Pexels: Published 28 April 2025 e511 with Michael, Andy and Michael – Vibe coding with the Vision Pro, E Ink, ePaper, multi and single player MMORPGs, Minecraft London and much more. Michael, An…