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The HardwareHacks 2000 Podcast, formerly the Nostalgia Gaminc Podcast, is an online radio show. Co-hosted by Don_HH2K and MetKiller Joe, we are dedicated to the analysis of recent advances in technology. You can track our releases via Digg, iTunes and RSS. All new releases are presented in 64kbps mono MP3 format.

Please note that we've recently archived old podcasts using the WMA9 Voice codec. Any episodes not from the current year have been re-encoded at 20kbps to save space. If you would like to obtain archived podcasts in MP3 format, please contact Don.

Episode 13 - 7/13/2008

Our one-year anniversary episode!

  1. Intel's upcoming Larrabee GPUs and high-performance GPGPU computing.
  2. The iPhone 3G: Closed platform or open development?
  3. A look at Hans Reiser's ReiserFS filesystem and recent legal events.
  4. Nvidia's new GeForce GTX 280.
  5. Looking to the future: what's coming up soon.

57:34 MP3 (25.1MB) | Download Here

Episode 12 - 5/4/2008

  1. Firefox 4 and desktop integration.
  2. Web applications and their implications with respect to privacy, reliability, and bandwidth.
  3. Windows 7 and the possibility of an incompatible, multiplatform switch.
  4. The Yahoo-Microsoft merger revisited.
  5. Discussion of Halo 2 and the upcoming Too Human.

57:00 MP3 (25.5MB) | Download Here

Episode 11 - 2/16/2008

  1. The podcast undergoes a name-change: we explain our motive behind this change.
  2. The Yahoo-Microsoft merger, and what it might have meant for the industry.
  3. The future of HD-DVD now that Blu-ray has emerged as the HD format winner.
  4. Solid state hard drives, and the main differences when compared to standard hard drives.
  5. An obligatory DRM rant, in particular Gene Simmons' comments, Qtrax, and BD+ on Blu-ray discs.
  6. A look at keyboard technology, from rubber domes to membranes to buckling springs.
  7. The AMPS shutoff: completed today. Up next: NTSC.

63:13 MP3 (28MB) | Download Here

Episode 10 - 12/31/2007

Part two of the Christmas special, somewhat after Christmas.

  1. The IPv4 address space exhaustion
  2. Solid-state hard drives
  3. The sunset date for analog mobile phones, and Don's search for a new mobile phone
  4. Media Center PCs and digital rights management in meda
  5. The Creative X-Fi Fatal1ty sound card, as demonstrated by Earl the Christmas Elf

68:18 WMA9 (10MB) | Download Here

Episode 9 - 12/08/2007

Part one of the Christmas special, featuring an opening self-written parody of The Twelve Days of Christmas.

  1. Age bracketing in gaming: would age group separation improve multiplayer gameplay?
  2. HP's nightmare technical support and Don's interim laptop
  3. The Canadian DMCA bill, proposed to be even more restrictive than that of the United States
  4. Microsoft's place in the HD format wars
  5. Reviews of Call of Duty 4 and Assassin's Creed

59:20 WMA9 (8.73MB) | Download Here

Episode 8 - 11/03/07

Number eight, featuring:

  1. Steam vs. Games for Windows Live
  2. Echoes of old games in new engines
  3. PS3s and supercomputing
  4. Mac OS X Leopard
  5. The upcoming (or not) Halo movie.

64:57 WMA9 (9.56MB) | Download Here

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 WMA9 (6.84MB) | Download Here

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 WMA9 (886KB) | Download Here

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 WMA9 (7.8MB) | Download Here

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 WMA9 (9.22MB) | Download Here

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 WMA9 (9.05MB) | Download Here

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 WMA9 (9.97MB) | Download Here

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 WMA9 (8.58MB) | Download Here

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.

  • Mark: AIM screenname "metkillerjoe", E-Mail address "metkillerjoe (at) gmail"
  • Don: E-Mail address "donhh2k (at) gmail"

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