The Blog

Take Back the Darknet (Part 2)

Nix McRetro // 4th January 2016 // Categories: Guides, Raspberry Pi

Part 2 - Image Raspbian, Basic Settings and Updates Archive note: This page documents the January 2016 Raspbian Jessie setup. Read the compatibility and security warning in Part 1 before using any of these commands on a current system. The Jessie image used here had the old default pi account.... Continue reading

Take Back the Darknet (Part 1)

Nix McRetro // 4th January 2016 // Categories: Guides, Raspberry Pi

Historical guide: This 14-part series documents the Raspberry Pi, Raspbian Jessie and Tor setup I used in January 2016. The original preamble was marked as an incomplete draft. Debian 8 Jessie is obsolete, Tor retired the v2 onion-service system used here in 2021, and Raspberry Pi OS, Apache, Samba, SSH... Continue reading

Sega Mega-CD Region-Free BIOS Programming and Testing

Nix McRetro // 3rd January 2016 // Categories: Hacks, Sega, YouTube

I’ve been sorting through some of my Sega collection and getting a Mega-CD Model 1 ready to pass on. It’s paired with a VA4 Mega Drive Model 1, and I’ve decided to install a region-free BIOS while I’ve got everything apart. Unfortunately, programming the thing has been giving me all... Continue reading

The Darknet (Day 36)

Nix McRetro // 29th December 2015 // Categories: News, YouTube

What a wonderful time to be alive. So much has been going on! Where to begin… Maybe we’ll start with a massive shout-out to SomeOrdinaryGamers on YouTube, who came across the onion version of this very website. I’m glad my Hackers references were picked up too! SOG had around 500,000... Continue reading

Sega Mega Drive Model 1 VA4 PAL Modification for the 32X

Nix McRetro // 19th December 2015 // Categories: Repairs, Sega, YouTube

I’ve finally had another go at the rather annoying video problems with my PAL VA4 Mega Drive Model 1 and the 32X. Sega actually released a service bulletin back in March 1995 covering this particular motherboard revision, so I’ve decided to give their recommended modification a try. Service bulletin 012... Continue reading