GoKawiil
Tech News
A developer has built ZX Desk, a full graphical desktop environment for the 1982 ZX Spectrum 48K, written entirely in Z80 assembly. It supports overlapping resizable windows with z-ordering, pull-down menus, a file manager, notepad, calendar, clock and settings panel, all running within the machine's 48K memory and real-time frame budget, on actual hardware rather than an emulator.
A new essay traces how media mogul Steve Ross built his fortune not through glamorous entertainment deals but by acquiring a series of mundane businesses—limousine rentals, parking lots, cleaning services, and building trades—before rolling them into Kinney Services and eventually using that platform to acquire Warner Bros. The piece highlights the overlooked, unglamorous groundwork that preceded his transformation into one of America's best-paid executives, earning $78 million in 1990.
A reader recounts how his father, an electrical engineer who once designed early aviation safety systems, built a KIM-1 computer kit at home before moving on to a Fairchild Channel F and an Atari 400. The family customized the machines with RF output, serial ports, and floppy drives, and grew up playing early cartridge and cassette-based games like an unlicensed Star Trek title and Activision's grueling 'Decathlon.'