Kevin Bunch (ubersaurus)

Hello new followers! I'm Kevin, game historian, science communicator, and fighting games old head. My history focus is on the early days of gaming history in particular, so I want to plug some of my work: first and foremost with my book, for sale through Limited Run (and on Amazon in paperback).

RIP

Shout out to @cpi.pinball.horse for having me visit last week while I was in Ottawa for work! Got to try some extremely rad, very old mechanical and EM coin op games, and even recorded some footage of them running (to upload when I finally have time this week)

As ever, three quarters of "look at this asshole" is always "look at this". Don't do PR for the fash. Don't give free advertising to the worst bastards. There is no dunk witty enough to warrant amplifying their hate.

A couple of years before Carol Shaw started working at Atari, Joyce Weisbecker had already designed, programmed, and sold her first piece of video game software in 1976 for the RCA Studio II games console as an independent contractor, making her the first indie dev to boot.

lrt: there really is plenty of opposition to AI on jp social media. Tons of artists hate it for stealing their work on top of everything else; the artists you *do* see flocking to it are the major ones with established careers they can coast on. In other words, the same dynamic you see in English.

Aw, damn. What a truly kind man… RIP, Walter. ❤️🖖🏼

Can't sleep, clown will eat me

Anti-trans Democrats are spreading poison when we can least afford it, during elections in this ongoing fascist takeover. As a strategy, it’s a recipe for failure. As a moral stand, it’s reprehensible. PS I’m the father of young trans woman and I’ll never forgive anyone who makes her life harder.

hey y'all I already don't enjoy the way shit is going just don't fucking make fake SNES prototypes with AI vibe code shit

Best-em-ups are the OG social co-op game. People like me have “fun while losing” and “enjoy continuing the game” precisely because it’s not difficult and requires little focus, it’s laid back fun while chatting with friends. If you play a beat-em-up solo you will likely have a bad time.

My weekly plug: "Computer Chronicles Revisited" is a monthly newsletter. You can download the 16-page PDF for free. I also sell 6- & 12-month mail subscriptions (U.S. only). This month's issue (October 2026) covers a 1989 episode on portable computers: www.computerchronicles.blog/computer-chr...

안녕

It is exhausting to look into what looks like a neat hack or homebrew game for a retro system and then learn that the “author” just slopped it up through Claude or whatever the fuck until they got something that (maybe) ran properly.

I’m already excited for this one and it’s two years off

"oh hey wow an Ace Combat 7 co-op mod" > claude in github contributors STOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOPPPPPPPPP IF YOUR IDEA IS GOOD ENOUGH TO MAKE, MAKE IT THE NORMAL WAY IF YOU DON'T KNOW HOW, -LEARN- HOW STOP SWAMPING RETRO GAMING WITH YOUR STUPID SLOP

“An Angel’s Message”🪽 Gouache and ink on watercolor paper

Given the heartburn that kept me up all night I guess it’s safe to say that late night McDonald’s is no longer in the cards for me at my age

Marco Bucci’s story is absolutely fascinating. He went from an untrained teenager who was rejected from art school to a self-taught elite industry illustrator for Disney, Marvel, and Blizzard. And now has created a homebrew pinball masterpiece. #thesimpsons #simpsons #mrburns #pinball #arcade

Wednesday at work :

I've mentioned before I've updated my contracts to make sure everything in the production of my books is done by humans and not "AI"; if you're wondering what such a thing looks like, here's a clause covering that from a recent contract.

Zelda: The Island ​o Catchin Flees - Scottish Translation (Complete) (GB) Added

16 years since my friend, the legendary Kinn "Robotron" Henderson passed away. Still miss him all the time as a friend, as a master of old arcade games, as a host to incredible FG house sessions, and as one of the most welcoming and kindest people I've met in my years. I'm richer for knowing you.

If I ever ran for president, it would be solely on the platform of “anyone attempting to name their tech company after a SFF term must submit a twenty page essay on the work in question alongside their trademark application to prove they’ve fucking read it”

the thing that really bothers me about a good half of these projects is like how often they are just two things stapled together with no transparency, like entire MiSTer cores that are just shitty, uncredited MAME ports

Big Streaming doesn't want you to know that Kanopy is kind of like Amazon Prime Video except that you have to pay for Prime and Kanopy is free. Oh also Prime shows ads even though you pay for it and Kanopy doesn't show ads even though you don't pay for it. Oh and Bezos doesn't get Kanopy's data.

Finally sat down and finished editing the latest Atari Archive blog post on Video Pinball, featuring a rundown of a lot of the early arcade and console titles! There's even a couple mentions of very early computer games that I'd love to have turn up one day. www.atariarchive.org/atari-vcs/vi...

NEVER - dashare.zone ADMIN

If you have ever enjoyed one of the musical tracks from Street Fighter 2, odds are you have this woman, Yoko Shimomura, to thank

Dame de la Vengeance🗡️🩸 So happy to complete this illustration! I’ll be bringing her to Design Festa next month 🛡️

🥏Quorra from Tron Legacy. Penciled with a blue mechanical pencil, inked with Microns and filled in with markers. #Fanart

I'm of the opinion that redeeming him was the biggest mistake of the entire sequel trilogy The ENTIRE MESSAGE of his role in the first two entries was that he rejected every attempt at redemption and doubled down on being a massive piece of shit Embrace that! He doesn't get a good ending!

Happy #portfolioday AND happy birthday to the NEC PC-98

I write code by writing code.

This is very clearly a attempt by the PiF to muscle out frosty with a 25k plat event. Frosty is one of the scenes last Major grassroots strongholds so its in line with their plan to wholly own the scene awful awful. Also first time arcsys has worked with the PiF in a major way which is uh very scary

Hi folks-- We're starting on our next indexing project, and we're building our volunteer team! If you have some degree of Japanese fluency and want to help index periodicals for VGHF, hit me up here

i was fortunate enough to profile Margaret Hamilton in 2019. A really kind and curious person. This was my favorite story she told me:

ah damn, RIP Margaret Hamilton. she took safety-critical software engineering seriously, and got people to the moon and back. news.mit.edu/2026/margare...

Being a writer is great, your job is just words and every time you see the slightest edit in a google doc you get to think that everyone hates you actually

Hyper Gunsport is for all the Dog Patch sickos out there, you know who you are