HardwareHacks 2000

Temporarily down for maintenance. Listen to Nostalgia Gaming Podcast Six for more details.

You're seeing this static page because HardwareHacks 2000 is down for maintenance. It will most likely be back up by the end of this week. For your convenience, information and download links for the Nostalgia Gaming Podcast are still available below. Our forums are back up over here.

Episode 8 - 11/03/07

Our first feature-packed release since October.

  1. A comparison of Valve's Steam and Microsoft's Games for Windows Live services.
  2. Echoes of old games in new, modern, and revolutionary engines.
  3. PS3s in supercomputing: real-world examples of PS3s used in mainframe and distributed computing.
  4. Mac OS X Leopard and the appeal of the "flashy" over "usable" interface.
  5. The future of the Halo franchise and the upcoming Halo movie after Bungie's split from Microsoft.

65:08 duration, 60kbps single-channel MP3. Download Here. (28.3MB)

Episode 7 - 10/01/07

We return from exile in number seven, featuring:

  1. A review of Halo 3, as well as a look at Forge and its effect on multiplayer gameplay.
  2. Intel's new Penryn chips and Moore's Law.
  3. Backup media: is a linear tape still viable?
  4. The successes and shortcomings of Apple's iPhone.
  5. The Amazon MP3 store and its high-bitrate, non-DRM content.

46:30 duration, 60kbps single-channel MP3. Download Here. (20.4MB)

Episode 6 - 9/14/07

An explanation for the dust being kicked up by our downtime. Featuring a guest appearance by Antony Shen.

05:50 duration, 60kbps single-channel MP3. Download Here. (2.54MB)

Episode 5 - 8/27/07

Number five, this time on-schedule. We're proud to announce in this episode that our podcast is now released under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license,

  1. Discussion: what's on our PCs?
  2. Does the digital revolution translate to cheap gadgets with lower-quality content?
  3. HD-DVD versus Blu-ray and the hi-def format war.
  4. The longevity of the x86 platform
  5. An interview with TomClancy on homebrew 3D modeling and homebrew game engines.

53:00 duration, 61kbps single-channel MP3. Download Here. (23.1MB)

Episode 4 - 8/20/07

Number four, out on schedule and a mere five days after episode three. This release celebrates one month of the Nostalgia Gaming Podcast. The lineup includes:

  1. Annoyances in gaming: what adds and what detracts from the gaming experience.
  2. How networking and the Internet have revolutionized the way games are played.
  3. The rise of the massively multiplayer online game as a result of the Internet's introduction to gameplay
  4. A brief review of BioShock for the PC and Xbox 360.
  5. Jeff's wrapup of the Comiket con in Japan that recently came to a close.
  6. A special segment covering the making of our podcast, in particular how various technologies such as digital editing tools and VoIP have made recording easier than ever.

62:40 duration, 60kbps single-channel MP3. Download Here. (27.1MB)

Episode 3 - 8/15/07

Number three. This release was delayed a week due to recording and editing difficulties. The lineup includes:

  1. Our new co-host, Jeff.
  2. The NVIDIA G90-series GPU, its new 65nm manufacturing process, and what this means to physical applications
  3. Dōjin software and conventions from Japan, as well as its reminiscence of early-'90s domestic game distributors
  4. The so-called "Modchip Raids", digital rights management, and corporate intervention in today's media
  5. Creativity versus intellectual property infringement: how do we define the blurred line between the two?

61:30 duration, 61kbps single-channel MP3. Download Here.(27.2MB)

Episode 2 - 7/29/07

Number two. The lineup includes:

  1. Game demo reviews galore, in particular, Max Payne 2
  2. The benefits and setbacks of Vista's DirectX 10 API
  3. Handheld computing as it stands today
  4. A layman's explanation of game-rendering jargon
  5. The consistent user interface system: Utopian idea, or possible reality?

67:46 duration, 61kbps single-channel MP3. Download Here. (30MB)

Episode 1 - 7/23/07

Our first radio show. The lineup includes:

  1. Sacrifices being made to game plot in order to create more realistic graphics
  2. The status of multiplayer online games after the passage of time and new releases
  3. The PlayStation 2 Linux Kit and general-purpose versus specific computing environments
  4. The Chinook Checkers Program and the future of computer-driven intelligence, as well as the effects of code bloat on software development
  5. The 2004 Olympic Cellphone Sabotage, labeled by IEEE/Spectrum Magazine as "The most audacious network hack ever."
  6. The relationship between age, gender, and gaming, as well as what these factors mean for the average game player

58:20 duration, 60kbps single-channel MP3. Download Here. (25.3MB)

In the Background

The Nostalgia Gaming Podcast is hosted by Don and Mark. Its release schedule is still tentative, though we are currently aiming for a weekly release. The podcast itself is hosted over a two-way Skype connection, and is recorded on both ends using the freeware Audacity editing tool. The two resulting tracks are edited and cut together in Audacity by Don and hosted by HardwareHacks 2000 using MP3 compression. The original two streams and the final cut are stored on a CD using the lossless FLAC codec.

Contact Info

You can reach the co-hosts, Mark and Don, via AOL Instant Messenger and e-mail to provide comments, feedback, or request an interview on the show.

Add in the appropriate domain suffixes to prevent us from being spammed.