Techie Ramblings

Category: Nostalgia

  • Handheld gaming – How far we’ve come.

    Some of my most memorable gaming memories come from handheld gaming consoles. My earliest being my beloved Game Boy Color (same as the one above). My first games were Pokemon Red, Harry Potter – Philosophers Stone and Turok. Pokemon Red, Pokemon silver and Pokemon Pinball were where the majority of time with this console was spent. I have extremely fond memories of trading Pokemon in the school playground using a link cable, or sat in the back of the car on long road trips, trying to use the illumination of passing street lights to see my screen.

    My childhood Gameboy Color is still alive and well, putting in a couple of AA batteries and a game cartridge brings it back to life and I have no doubt it will continue to function indefinitely, things were built to last in the 90’s!

    Following the GBC I got a Gameboy Advance SP which with it’s breakthrough feature of a back light, the ability to play Game Boy Color games and a rechargeable battery largely made it’s predecessor obsolete. I really only played a few Pokemon and Zelda titles on this console, and didn’t explore the huge GBA library beyond that.

    A few years later I got a PSP, this was really the first handheld that gave the ability to play console level games on the go. I had GTA Liberty City Stories, a Need for Speed title and Loco Roco. Unfortunately my PSP collected dust for the most part though, the UMD based games and proprietary memory card meant that for a young lad relying solely on pocket money, Christmas and Birthdays that expanding my collection for this console was prohibitively expensive.

    My timeline is a little hazy, but somewhere along the line I got a DS Lite. I have very fond memories of the DS Lite, thinking about it now I’d actually love to own one again. The console was simple and reliable, but the 2 screens allowed developers to do completely new things. I had the usual brain training games, and Mario but there were games like Zelda which used the touch screen for movement and Plants VS Zombies used the touch screen the same way a PC game would allowing for accurate input. The console also brought about an excellent, often overlooked feature which was sleep mode. When folded away the DS would go into a low power state, and when opened it would resume a game from where you left off. This made fitting gaming sessions into very small windows of free time possible. I used my DS Lite extensively when I was travelling to and from my Apprenticeship around 2012. Waiting at bus stops, train stations or while on the transport it was now possible for me to play something without having to spend time turning the console on and off or loading saves.

    The DS Lite was also where I first dipped my toes into the world of homebrew and emulation. I got a M3 flash cartridge and could extend my library beyond what my past cash strapped self could’ve afforded (Obviously I don’t advocate piracy, but downloading and playing a game that would’ve never been purchased anyway is not a lost sale to the publishers).

    Following this I didn’t do much mobile gaming at all, I completely avoided the PS Vita for the same reason the PSP didn’t get much play time. I did get a used 3DS but this got very little use, and didn’t seem to get the same big library the DS did. The Wii U set the stage for the Nintendo Switch, but was largely a flop and I had no interest in that either.

    When the Switch came out it instantly grabbed my attention. It had all the handheld features I appreciated from my DS, but with the added bonus of outputting to a big screen for more traditional gaming. I bought a launch edition switch (which I still have to this day, working perfectly) and amassed a huge collection of games. I still hold that Mario Odyssey is my favourite platformer to date. Pokemon Sword and Shield, while quirky and somewhat empty feeling revolutionized the franchise and I really enjoyed the Pearl remake. Where the switch really stood out was that it was bringing full Triple A quality console titles and giving you the option to play them on the go. Legend of Zelda breath of the wild is one of my all time favourite games, and it’s accessibility of being able to play it either on the go or sat on the sofa probably helped it achieve that rating in my head. I can safely say I played it about 50% handheld and 50% docked, with my playthrough lasting around 100 hours. Would I have put that much time into it being limited to only a big screen? Who knows. We also sunk countless hours into Mario Kart and Mario Party, between gatherings, evenings on the sofa and even sat on the plane. Having two controllers for certain games at all times attached to the console opened up loads of opportunities for social gaming.

    Later on in my ownership of the Switch, especially as I stopped gaming online I did install CFW on, again mainly to expand the games I had access to and to try games I’d never otherwise purchase. I also began emulating other consoles on the Switch, which is surprisingly good at, especially since Nintendo re-released their old titles in the virtual consoles.

    The Switch revitalized the handheld market which was previously slowing down, it showcased that the quality of a game didn’t need to be compromised just because of the consoles form factor. We now have behemoth handhelds such as the Steam Deck or ROG Ally which run Linux or Windows operating system and are capable of playing Desktop PC games. While these consoles are no doubt a technical marvel, and which are beloved by their fanbases I’d argue they’re simply too big to have that convenience factor the older generations of handhelds had. If it can’t fit in your pocket, the chances are you won’t have it with you when it’s convenient to play. Also with the sheer computational power of these new generation of consoles the battery life has taken a major hit. I noticed this even with my original Switch, I didn’t often have it with me like I did my DS. That lead me to purchase a Switch Lite, which while it lost it’s ability to be docked it had a much smaller form factor and longer battery life. It’s clear that I played this console much more than the full sized switch due to the fact that one of the analog sticks now has drift. I’ll get round to fixing that… One day!

    There are alternatives to these behemoths though. Lots of companies popped up, seemingly overnight offering what are often referred to as “handheld emulators”. These consoles, from companies such as Ambernic and Powkiddy don’t offer any titles developed for them specifically but come with the ability to play games from other, older consoles. I purchased an Ambernic RG351P a few years ago, and while it would be considered archaic now it’s ability to play some games from the past hasn’t dwindled. I can play PS1, GBA, SNES, NES, Megadrive and pretty much anything earlier. The battery lasts hours and it has a very similar form factor to the original GBA. If I’d had access to this when I was a child my mind would’ve been blown, and the fact that these consoles can be bought so cheaply is astounding. Because the titles are emulated save states are available, meaning you don’t need to rely on the games own save/load system unless you choose too, which brings with it convenience and accessibility to have these shorter gaming sessions which handheld gaming lends itself so well to. The market for these consoles is absolutely saturated at the moment, so you can choose one in pretty much any form factor you can think of. As long as expectations are reasonably set (most won’t play PS2, GC and later well if at all) then you can’t really go wrong.

    However, there is yet another option. You may even be reading this article on it. Android Smartphones. The majority of Android smartphones are majorly overpowered for their application if it’s a midrange or flagship device and emulators can take full advantage of this power. PS2, Gamecube, Wii and in some case even Switch titles will play better than on original hardware on these phones. Throw in a controller that grips onto the phone and you have an absolute power house of a handheld gaming device that you keep on you at all times! I’ve recently began delving deeper into Android emulation, and I feel like this deserves it’s own post so I’ll leave this topic here for now.

    Overall though I’m glad to see handheld gaming still flourishing, even in a different format. In all honesty I can’t see the Switch 2 doing as well as the original Switch, I feel Nintendo have gotten far too greedy. With the Cartridges no longer containing the games, the price of games and the pushing of their online services they’ve ruined the recipe for success they once had. Unfortunately for Sony, and Nintendo the future of gaming is something they’ll struggle to capitalise on. It lies in playing games that were originally intended for other systems. Steam have done really well by making PC gaming more accessible, and it’s yet to be seen if Microsoft will try to bring a handheld that has access to their game pass library to market. If Microsoft do choose to do that, I’d hazard a guess that it’d do well. Aside from the big companies, handheld gaming sits firmly in the murky territory of playing digital copies of older games. Personally I like this, no developers are being hurt by this as the games are no longer for sale and it’s breathing new life into titles that were confined to obsolete gaming consoles, that struggle to even display on modern TV’s.

  • HMD 105 – Incremental upgrades

    From time to time I feel myself getting overwhelmed with technology. I’m very mindful and aware of my behavioral trait to be sucked into things to the point of obsession. Mobile games, social media, even just scrolling news can become unhealthy time sinks for me. I manage this in a few ways; I don’t do social media full stop, I only play games on my tablet which is too big and unwieldy to use at a moments notice or to leave the house, I disable the default apps and news scrollers that come with my devices and try to avoid browsing the websites.

    Even with these self imposed rules from time to time I sometimes start to feel like I’m spending too much time on my phone. Other times I feel like I’m just becoming too reliant on it. Most recently I felt like the Samsung S25 was so over the top with it’s data collection I was completely uncomfortable using it. When these things happen I like to spend some time using what’s referred to nowadays as a “Dumbphone”. I’d estimate I generally end up doing this once or twice a year, and do it for between a couple of weeks and a month. However in the past through Covid I did it for 6 months solid.

    My first purposeful dumbphone was a Nokia 105 that looked like the below:

    This phone still works perfectly fine to this day, but unfortunately 2G reception is getting worse and worse in my area and can’t be relied on.

    I then got the Nokia 110 4G 2023 model:

    This saw me through my last “Digital detox” but had some real flaws that lead me to end it prematurely out of sheer frustration. The keyboard seemingly just ignored about 20% of my button presses. This made typing a nightmare, more than going back to T9 predictive already was.

    So a few days ago when I decided I needed a break from smartphones and put my SIM in this phone again I was quickly reminded of it’s downfalls. Being seemingly one of the only people that don’t hold a grudge against HMD for using the Nokia brand I took a look at their now HMD branded web store and came across the HMD 105 4G, and HMD 110 4G. These are very clearly a continuation of the Nokia counterparts with the same naming convention. The differences between the two models are slim; the 110 has a 0.1MP camera and a ceramic coated shell, the 105 does not. I certainly wasn’t going to spend extra money on either of these features so opted for the 105.

    As can be seen below (unfortunately the old 105 can’t be compared as I lent it to a colleague for a detox of his own) the sizes between the Nokia 110 and HMD 105 are very similar, with the HMD 105 being slight bigger, but having bigger, more pronounced buttons and a much bigger screen:

    Aside from the lack of a camera on the 105 there aren’t really any differences, so I think a comparison is still fair.

    If you own a Nokia 110 4G 2023, and aren’t having any troubles with your keypad this probably isn’t a worthwhile upgrade. It’s very much an incremental upgrade, and lets be honest there’s only so much that can be done with the S30 operating system.

    That being said there are some differences. Texts on the HMD are now threaded, so makes for much easier tracking of conversations. The screen being bigger helps with basic web browsing and reading. Icons on the screen can now be rearranged, unfortunately still not removable though. The entire operating system has had a bit of a spruce up, with new settings, higher resolution and a less budget feel.

    There are some things that I would consider downgrades too: The auto power off/on has been removed. The weather app is gone. The unlock combination has become more awkward, with you now having to reach for the * key.

    Overall though I’m impressed. It’s everything I want from a “Dumbphone”. It allows me to call and text when I need to. It has a select few “tool” applications, a couple of very simple games (snake and blackjack) ignoring the trials and very little else.

    More importantly it doesn’t ask much of me. There was next to no setup of the device to be done, absolutely no accounts to sign into and other than calls, texts and alarms the phone cannot start sending me notifications. I can’t get invested into this device enough that it becomes invaluable to me, because it’s so simple. I know that “burner” phone has bad connotations, but this truly is that. It’s a tool. Other than your contacts (which you should have backed up elsewhere) if you lost this device other than your SIM card you wouldn’t really have lost anything of value. You wouldn’t be fearful that someone may find it and gain access to your entire life and all your secrets. And that is very refreshing.

    On a side note, this phone uses the BL-L5H batteries that have been used in previous models too. These are readily available online, and cheaply so the dream of having multiple spare batteries and being able to stay away from a charger for weeks is an achievable reality now!

    UPDATE: After some more real world usage I have noticed a couple of things that have annoyed me. The first is that ringer and ringtones, there are only 4 ringtones to choose from and none of them are attention grabbing. I missed 3 calls over the weekend, even with the phone on max volume in my bag I didn’t hear the phone while walking. The 2nd and this is not specific to this phone, it seems to apply to all recent button bound phones and this is the emergency dialler. If the phone is locked, screen off and in a pocket it only takes catching the 9 key to begin dialling. 3 accidental presses of this button and you will begin to call the emergency services. This essentially means the phone is unsafe to keep in a pocket. I would not want to put additional stress on the emergency services or get in trouble for accidentally dialling them. We are nearing double digits on the amount of times I’ve pulled the phone out of my pocket to find that the screen is on with a 9 already in the dialling screen.

    Feature phones of the time didn’t have this problem, why do we have it now? What is the point of a key lock if it doesn’t apply to one of the keys?!

  • The attention economy

    In my constant battle of trying to find balance in today’s world I’ve been going on a trip filled with nostalgia back in time a decade or two.

    I’m 31 now so some of my fondest memories are 15–20 years ago which takes us back to the time period of 2005–2010. Now I imagine everyone of different ages has a period of time in their heads they consider to be the “golden times” but I truly do believe these were great times, for technology and the internet at the very least which is something I enjoy focusing on.

    Myspace was in it’s final days, the most addictive part of Facebook was Farmville, Tumblr was where we pretended we were very deep and complex individuals and I never really got my head around what the point of Twitter was. We accessed these sites with intention, because it involved sitting down at a PC, more often than not the family PC in a shared space in the house. We still used MSN messenger, and Facebook chat was just getting started. Messages would only be replied to when we were on the PC.

    Our phones were what I consider to be the ideal scenario, they were complex enough that we could play basic offline games, they had rudimentary web browsers so we could obtain information in a pinch but the lack of memory and slow data meant that it was not an enjoyable experience. Other than that they made calls, sent texts and took very pixelated photos and videos.

    Most people gamed on an Xbox 360 or PS3 and most households had a Wii to play as a family. Online gaming was experiencing it’s first generation for most people who never owned a gaming PC. You bought the game and a year subscription to online services (or not in the case of the PS3, it was free!) and could play to your hearts content with your friends. Nobody was competing on who had the most expensive cosmetic items, and there was very little in the way of DLC.

    At some point in time, which I struggle to pinpoint, around 2012–2015 there was a major shift. Mobile devices became more advanced, mobile internet speeds improved and prices decreased, and WiFi became commonplace everywhere. The internet became a thing that followed us everywhere we went, rather than something we sit down to pay a visit to. Social media began to boom, and multiple different platforms began popping up. As time went on a cultural shift happened, most people no longer used or even owned a desktop PC or a laptop. Everything could be done on the ever expanding smartphone in our pockets.

    A war began across the internet, and the target was our attention.

    Very quickly marketers discovered that someone’s decision making process could be altered by what they saw on their social media feeds. Be that making a decision to buy a product based on advertisements that were displayed to the user, political opinions based on videos and material the user was fed, even lifestyle choices could all be altered.

    Social media platforms began monetising their platforms, but not to us the users. We were the product. Our attention was and is still sold to the highest bidder, they can pay money to target very specific demographics with their material. Think what you may but it’s very effective, these social media companies are now some of the wealthiest in the world, and their only product is a platform and its users.

    Any successful company will ensure it’s product is available and in plentiful supply, and this is where the addictive nature of these platforms come into play. Huge teams of people engineer their platform to be as addictive as possible, to keep you coming back and for as long as possible to ensure you are there and ready to view their customers advertisements. A notable example of this is when Facebook introduced notifications. At first the notification dot was blue, and users generally left it unread. When the colour was changed to red however it got much more attention, the colour red is well known to provoke a response in humans (https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4413730/). These companies openly utilise our human nature and instinct to assure our attention.

    Humans have developed very rapidly over the last century. In evolution terms it’s been the blink of an eye since we were simple tribal or nomadic hunter gatherers. Our brains are not equipped to deal the cheap thrill that is social media. We are social creatures too, so when we receive a “like” it simulates social acceptance from our peers. Our brain rewards us for this good action with a little rush of dopamine. We crave this dopamine and repeat the behaviour. In more primitive times this would’ve been beneficial in that humans would act in ways that other members of their group liked, and this in turn would strengthen their bond which in survival terms is a good thing. In terms of social media a like costs nothing, and often means very little however the primitive circuitry in our brain cannot differentiate that from genuine interaction. Very easily people become addicted to this instant gratification, and in turn spend more time on social media which leads them to spend less time on genuine interaction.

    As you probably already know, or are finding out now social media isn’t beneficial for average people. There are genuine use cases for it, such as long distance relationships or friendships where face to face or a higher quality interaction is impossible but in general it is a lower quality social interaction. People are lonelier than ever but more connected than ever, why is this? I’d argue it’s because we’re replacing face to face interaction, or even a phone call with a like or a comment on a post, and somehow that feels like we’ve touched base with that person and removed the need to contact them in another manner.

    Social media then, is only really beneficial for the social media company itself, who make money from exploiting their users and keeping them active, and the companies that pay the social media company to advertise to it’s users.

    This is where we are today, and it only takes an altered perspective and you’ll find it impossible to avoid. AI generated sites litter search results. Social media can make you lose hours without realising just by choosing to open the app. We feel disconnected, dissatisfied and lonely through poor quality interaction online. Teenage boys are using steroids so they can look like their idols on Instagram, teenage girls are struggling with eating disorders for the same reason. Buying a genuine product online has become a minefield of ads and inferior products. There are so many bots online now it’s hard to tell if we’re talking to a real person, and in some cases bots end up talking to themselves.

    It feels like somewhere along the lines we went wrong with the internet, and I suppose where money is involved this was bound to happen. But I wish we could go back, and enjoy the internet for what it was again when it was fresh, exciting but not yet addictive and completely capitalised.