This add-in card lets you yank M.2 SSDs from your gaming PC while it’s running

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Depending on when you built your PC, it might not have an M.2 slot, leaving you unable to add a sleek and fast NVMe SSD to your setup. You could always upgrade your motherboard, but that’s not exactly a quick and easy fix. Icy Docks solves the dilemma with its new ToughArmor MB840M2P-B, an add-in card for M.2 drives.

Icy Dock is not the first to offer such a product, but this one stands out because it supports hot-swapping drives (via Tom’s Hardware). That means you can add and remove M.2 SSDs while your PC is still powered on.

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This Abandoned Computer Store Is a Time Capsule of Early 2000s Tech

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In the era before Amazon and boutique custom built PCs, computer enthusiasts visited humble local computer stores to buy things like RAM, graphics cards, and computer games sold in big cardboard packages. They had names like PC STORE, Computer King, and Computer Factory Outlet. The last is the name of an abandoned store rotting away in a lonely strip mall in Norman, Oklahoma. Closed for a decade, Computer Factory Outlet is locked tight and somehow still full of merchandise.

It’s like a time capsule of the early 2000s personal computer industry. Dell and Gateway boxes press against the glass, turning yellow in the sun. Beige PC towers loom in ramshackle piles. PC copies of the Tiger Woods 99 video game gather dust on the shelves.

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RetroPie 4.6 released with RaspberryPi 4 support.

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We are very pleased to announce RetroPie 4.6 with beta support for the Raspberry Pi 4.

It’s been some time since we last updated our pre-built images. However development has been ongoing in the background, and a lot of changes have been made since the last release. Note that we update RetroPie constantly, and you can update your system at any time. We wanted to wait until we were happy with the Raspberry Pi 4 support before putting out some new images though, but RetroPie has been working on the Raspberry Pi 4 for some time for those wanting to manually install or try a weekly development image.

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Why was the Nintendo 64 so hard to develop games for ? | MVG

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The Nintendo 64 was an impressive console. Silicon Graphics and Nintendo pulled off the unthinkable – the precision of accurate 3D hardware on a $199 consumer home console. Yet developers complained that the system was too complex and overly difficult to develop games on.
In this episode we take a closer look at some of the complexities developers faced when making games for the N64.

Nvidia has an ‘exciting’ graphics card launch on May 14 via YouTube

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Nvidia has announced that it will be holding the much-awaited GTC 2020 keynote online come May 14.

Specifically, the pre-recorded (not livestreamed) keynote will be available to view on the company’s YouTube channel on May 14 at 6am PT (9am ET, 2pm UK time). It was originally scheduled to happen on March 23, but was one of many tech events canceled due to the coronavirus outbreak.

The firm stated: “Huang [Nvidia’s CEO] will highlight the company’s latest innovations in AI, high performance computing, data science, autonomous machines, healthcare and graphics during the recorded keynote.”

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8-Bit Brawler Jay And Silent Bob: Mall Brawl Gets Its Own Switch eShop Release Next Week

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The game, which is an 8-bit companion brawler to Jay and Silent Bob: Chronic Blunt Punch, actually started out as a free digital bonus for backers of that game’s crowdfunding campaign. It received a Limited Run physical edition for the NES last year but will soon be available to download on Switch. Here’s the official eShop description:

Play as Jay and Silent Bob in a retro 8-bit sidescrolling brawler. Go solo or team up with a friend. Pummel enemies with hard-hitting combos, dash attacks, and elbow drops as well as a random assortment of weapons as you battle your way out of the mall and back to the Quickstop.

You can see it running on Switch in the video below; the clip shows the development team’s first console test for the software.

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How Prince of Persia Defeated Apple II’s Memory Limitations

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For today’s episode of War Stories, Ars Technica sat down with Prince of Persia creator Jordan Mechner to learn about the challenges he faced while bringing his ambitious vision for the game to life. As the 1980’s wound down, he found himself fighting against not only the limitations of the Apple II hardware but the impending death of the platform itself. Decades later, Prince of Persia remains a classic example of how the constraints of early gaming led to solutions that advanced the artform.

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