Control Ultimate Edition

The images are scaled from 1920 wide to 1600

I originally played Control through on the Geforce streaming service a few years back (2022 apparently), having the product on Epic account. Later I bought the Control Ultimate Edition on Steam so I could play it more easily on Linux through the Proton compatibility layer.

That streaming service did introduce some lag, which in hindsight was quite a bad thing, given the hectic combat and the necessity to "play piano" while fiddling around with the mouse. So, I had been looking at an opportunity to enter the world of Control again.

You are Jesse Faden, who has just entered the building called the Oldest House in New York, occupied by an institution called the FBC. Soon you learn Jessie is looking for her brother who disappeared a long ago, and that the building is under a lockdown due to a parasitic paranormal infestation. And there's some kind of entity in Jessie's head telling what to do, reminiscent of Chocky from that 1984 TV show. Off you go. 

Descending

Completion took about 8 to 9 hours, in part because I had some idea where not to waste time. For example, I felt no need to actually read or listen to the multitudes of media scattered around the Oldest House. Just collecting them would be enough. During the first play I thought they might yield necessary clues, but they are mostly just world building.

First time around I also wasted time wandering around in the office environments, trying to find locations and openings. Maybe I also thought this was a good way to grind. Now I just used the Fast Travel whenever possible. The iconic office environments had a far smaller role than I remembered as the story proceeded in a faster pace. To improve the character it's much more effective to complete the minor, optional missions.

I also decided not to spread the ability points evenly, but to concentrate on health, energy and launch, prioritising launch damage. (Launch is the "force" style ability for throwing items and pieces of rock at the enemy). I ignored melee completely. I also chose not to develop all weapons, but only upgrade Grip, then develop and upgrade the Pierce weapon as I recalled it as kind of "sniper rifle" in this game. In addition, a 40% energy recovery mod fairly early on made things easier. 

The ability planning screen

I had also forgotten a lot, such as the Seize ability, which I acquired only after completion. Some of the boss battles that I expected to be tough from previous experience, were sometimes surprisingly easy.

Control builds up nicely in complexity, in the beginning you barely need to do much else except move, jump, sprint and fire the weapon. Each of the objects of power add a gameplay mechanic and usually a key that activates the mechanic. After acquiring you are whisked to the astral plane to solve a mini-mission requiring that mechanic. Basically this is a tutorial masquerading as main content. Clever.

Early on the Launch ability is added and generally the combat requires the player to juggle between the weapon and the launch, using one when the other is regenerating. Add to this the Dodge ability, and there's already quite a few keys to operate. Personally, I couldn't play this on a controller because mouse aiming feels better for me.

More secrets uncovered

There's a bunch of David Lynch/Stanley Kubrick/Stephen King sensibilities dropped here and there, and to an extent this recipe is a little off-putting at first because much of it is so familiar already to me. Perhaps it's a part of the shared cultural education of a generation of Finns from a particular background. Add to this the Martti Suosalo character whose Finnicisms either make a Finn yip in delight, or cringe.

I tend to appreciate Control more for its ludology than narrative content, but I have to admit even the story setting is quite ambitious and restrained compared to the usual action adventure BS we see even in huge games. Contrary to many games, Control saves some of its best bits towards the end. (Looking at you The Ashtray Maze) I also have to like the idea that typical game mechanics and idiosyncrasies have an in-world reason because of the the paranormal setting.

If I still find energy to play Control, I'll be looking at the rest of the missions and the DLCs, AWE and Foundation.

The trusty old 1660TI GPU did well in 60hz at 1920x1200 resolution. It's not silky smooth in all occasions but quite enough for me and more impressive than that Geforce streaming solution. It was now far clearer to spot that the various overlaid "psychedelic" effects and other content were lower resolution videos and not rendered with the engine.

Jonsbo DS8 impressions

I got a tip about this mini 8 inch display, it was cheap enough (50€-ish) to just try if I could find uses for it.

On arrival it looked quite good. Sure, the "stand" is just two hexagonal risers that connect poorly to the holes, but otherwise the physical appearance is good.

The display is intended to live together with a specific kind of PC case, the idea is to show system monitoring and temperature levels in a grand way. This also means it has no rounded corners or other faux ergonomic details, and I really like that.

Well, it's better than having not thought this at all

There's some space behind the panel, and it might fit a small Pi or something, but the cable connectors are there anyway and the cables will take most of that space.

Connection with the miniHDMI to HDMI posed no problem and the device showed as a second display on Linux Mint with no problems. The same goes with the Apple Mac from 2019. And the Windows HP Prodesk.

The viewing angles are good, surely it is best viewed from straight on but there's no nasty colour distortion when viewed from an angle.

The backside, the connectors are at the middle.

The 1280x800 resolution is actually 800x1280 according to xrandr, no surprise as the desktop was in vertical orientation when initially connected. There are no other resolutions available. 800 is already a lot more than 720, so many app windows fit quite fine.

Using ddcutil shows "Invalid display" and "DDC communication failed", so there's no hope in getting more information through that route. It does say it's manufactured in 2022, week 43 (if this data is true, that is).

Only three buttons for brightness and shutting the backlight, there's no menu.

The refresh rate is 60hz, and as the display likely does not adapt to 50hz I have little hope of using it in any proper retro/emulation context.

But there's a bunch of gear that could work with 60hz. How about them?

Retro Games' The Spectrum: Black screen. I did a factory reset on The Spectrum and tried again, no effect. Did a factory reset, explicitly chose 60hz, after which I reconnected to the 8 inch display. I can only refer to Nope N. Nopester, it did not work.

Likewise with Retro Games' Amiga Mini, no luck. There's a pattern here so I'm not going to dig up The C64 just to see it not working on this display.

22th of August 2025: Olimex Neo6502 board: black screen.

31st of August 2025: ZX Spectrum Next: black screen (both 50 and 60hz modes)

I can run an emulator on the second screen...

The Raspberry Pi 400 has a micro-HDMI connector, and I don't have the adapters to connect it to this display, which has mini-HDMI.

A conventional Raspberry Pi did not produce an image straightaway. There's so many ways to configure a Raspberry, so I don't think this is the definitive outcome. A topic for the future. 

(Edit 19th of August 2025: I got the Pi to show a screen easily, but due to circumstances I can't yet test anything interesting.)

Last and the least, Samsung Dex. I stick the USB-C to HDMI adapter in, the phone says Dex is enabled, but nothing is shown on the display. All right.

So, it appears that without deeper tinkering I've only been able to connect the Jonsbo DS8 to a normal desktop computer. I didn't expect this display to be highly versatile, but I have to say it's a little disappointing.

Still, it may prove to be useful as a 2nd display, or as a temporary display for the loose computers I have around.

...or Steam games at 1280x800, 60hz

Vammala Party 2025

The compos are on

The traditional summer event, Vammala Party, took place in Ikaalinen in mid-July. Part demoparty, part gaming event, all chaos.

The heatwave was unforgiving. Visiting Budapest earlier in the summer in 35+ degrees heat had hardened me somewhat, but the nights were still relentless.

This was the first time ever I had a full-size colour CRT at a party, but after going through the essentials (Rambo, Blue Max, Saboteur, Buggy Boy, Stunt Car Racer, Snoopy) it didn't serve much of a purpose, except perhaps adding one more SID wail to the party soundscape. Without a card reader I couldn't even transfer programs from the Linux to the C64.

The obligatory "fire up Rambo" session

A variety of activities can be crammed into an extended weekend. I actually have to think a little of where and how I spend time. As I can't currently concentrate much on coding or playing games at home, I wanted to make sure there's enough such entertainment at the party place.

Also, I've not been able to do much creative coding lately. I heard a rumor the democompo had less entries. As the opportunity now presented itself, I took it. I created a filler entry from nearly nothing using Processing/Java.

For audio, I used Suno-generated AI songs. For this reason I used a pseudonym "Dr. Errorz", surely no-one will ever associate it with me. I cut audio from two separate AI outputs, so some human sensibility was used. It didn't take many hours to do. It didn't finish last, which was positive.

A frame from Mega_Amiga_Boing_Filler

Making the minimal demo wasn't particularly stressing, as I had set the bar extremely low for code quality. Instead, trying to get audio to work and generating the video output turned out to be a chore, as the Movie Maker in Processing 4 didn't work.

The solution involved ffmpeg from the command line and Kdenlive. Instead of delving deeper into ffmpeg, I used Kdenlive for combining the video and audio, because I already knew it would work. Time optimization. Even then, using Kdenlive on a low resolution screen was a little confusing, as the UI didn't fit properly.

MSX Juhannus, for MSX. 256x192

For the graphics compo I had already an MSX bitmap, but I continued working on it on-site. A landscape is a rarity for me, but there's a reason for the choice. It's sort of a commissioned work. But the production it belonged to, did not materialize at this party. We'll see.

I made a PETSCII on location, as is almost the tradition.

I'd say neither gfx were my best work, but they did land me the 2nd and 3rd place in a competition that had perhaps more serious entries than I can ever remember.

Overall there was quite good attendance and good entries for all compos. Is Vammala Party becoming a more serious demoscene event?

Stunt Car PETSCII

I made a hasty entry into the Tuplain (audio-video combination) compo, and surprisingly it got the 2nd place. Both times this has happened, I lost to Marq. Curse you Red Baron!

The camping stove hobby was also present at the party. Well, it's another hardware to play with. At times it felt silly to boil water at the yard as a kitchen was available, but this way I got some peace and variety to the activities.

I used the combination of the Outzone burner and the Trangia coffee pot, although there were other pots too.

Morning coffee

From the fleamarket table I did buy a couple of things, a SiDi FPGA multicore and a real crappy joystick. Oh and Deactivators for ZX Spectrum. I'll get back to these later.

Vammala Party 2025 at Demozoo

Trangia, Primus and other explorations

A potpourri of camp stove-related things.

Trangia Coffee Pot 27

I felt a sudden urge to have the Trangia coffee pot for the 27 set. For completeness sake.

It's really tiny, for 0.6 liters. It's quick and simple to make water for a cup of coffee. I guess I'm disappointed with the Stormberg kettle set I mentioned earlier. It's too big for my purposes.

Playing with Furno stove and Trangia kettle

Although the pot fits snugly inside the Trangia kit, you can't really carry much inside it, and this also means the Trangia handle. A small camping gas cartridge goes through the opening, but the lid won't fit. 

The Trangia alcohol stove would fit in, but as the pot is best reserved for boiling water, I wouldn't risk dirtying the insides of the pot, as it takes more work to clean than the ordinary pots.

But I don't actually need to take the coffee pot with the Trangia full set. It could do well alone with bag-foods and then for some coffee/tea/cocoa afterwards. No need for Trangia handle either.

I did try some instant coffee, but it would also need milk powder. Vile stuff.

The lid is loose enough to drop off, which was easy to fix by bending the edges a little.

Trangia Duossal 27

One time I boiled eggs with the aluminum pot, which resulted in an annoying colorisation in the metal. Although unrelated, it reminded me of potential dangers of having the aluminum seep into the food.

Early 2025

As camping gear is not used very often, the ingested amounts would be meaningless. But as the Trangia has become my go-to pot for any burner, I wanted to make sure.

With the Duossal pots, the outer layer is aluminum, while the inner layer is steel. The outer shell ensures the heat gets distributed well, while steel... it's not aluminum.

It's more sturdy, heavier than an aluminum pot (145g vs 80g) and just as easy to cook with. No food has got stuck so far.

Duossal 27, pictured with the Primus Mimer mod

Primus Mimer mod

This is a wind screen modification for the Mimer stove. I've been thinking and discussing this move for a while, and it was high time to do at least something about it.

I rolled out some metal mounting tape (hole tape). Then I used a hacksaw to make four notches so it would stick better to the Mimer wings. Other than that, there's nothing that keeps it in place.

Had I been more lucky, tightening the bolt could have helped tighten the ring too, but the holes did not align that way.

I considered attaching the protection to the inner orbit, which would have been smaller and looked neater. But it would be quite close to the burner and I don't want to obstruct the flame itself. The Mimer flame should stay wide.

The circumference is rather large

Trying it out, I could hear additional sounds from the metal expanding and contracting, which isn't super pleasing but shouldn't indicate disaster.

As the Mimer should work well enough during summer, there's probably not much to say about the mod. Time will tell if it will work as a wind screen at all.

Fuel transfer device

A fuel flipper. This device goes between two gas cartridges. A temperature difference ensures the gas flows from the top cartridge (hot, donor) to the bottom cartridge (cold, receiver).

Why? It's suggested the remains of near-empty canisters could be combined. But I'd argue against this use, unless they are exactly the same gas. I had a combination of 3 different blends (Tarmo, Primus, Biltema), which worked well enough but was a little unpleasant with some unevenness.

It's not a complex thing

The better idea is to buy larger canisters and fill small ones multiple times.

I put the receiving cartridge in a freezer for a few minutes, while the donor gets a suntan on the balcony. This really shouldn't take long. Without the temperature difference, nothing useful will happen.

Then, connect cartridges, open valve and listen for the sound. After the loudest hiss has died out, it's better to close the valve and measure the weight of the cartridges.

Simulation

Yes, it's a good idea to weigh the cartridges when full, empty, and in-between, to be constantly aware of the amount of gas. I've moved roughly 40-50g of gas in one go. Overfilling is probably not a good idea.

And of course, you're not supposed to refill the cartridges, you're not supposed to put them under direct sunlight, and so on. 

I'd not re-use the cartridges indefinitely. Practically, after the large donor canister is empty, there's no point in refilling that one. It might be a good time to recycle the tiny canister too.

My Arcade Pocket Arcade Bubble Bobble

My Arcade Pocket Arcade

When will I ever learn? I just saw these on the shelf, and thought "Hey there's Bubble Bobble and Rainbow Islands together, well that's not too bad."

Again, it turns out these are NES versions of the games, not the arcade originals. This time it should have been obvious as the box screenshots make it very clear.

Now I have to add these are not necessarily bad versions, but this does fall a little short of my expectations.

Rainbow Islands

There are three games, Bubble Bobble, Bubble Bobble 2 and Rainbow Islands, which is the "Story of Bubble Bobble 2". The Bubble Bobble 2 doesn't seem to be "Bubble Symphony" either, which I learned is also sometimes called "Bubble Bobble 2". Discombobulating, isn't it?

Bubble Bobble does what Bubble Bobble does. Many have fond memories of it as a simultaneous two-player game, so the PocketArcade one-player environment can be seen as a limitation.

Bubble Bobble 2

Bubble Bobble 2 was perhaps the most interesting of the three as I had no expectations or anything to compare it to. It's a 1990s NES game, with bigger and more varied graphics, but basically it's quite similar to Bubble Bobble. Perhaps it serves a little better as an one-player game, as each of the screens provides a clear problem-like situation.

Rainbow Islands makes it most painfully obvious that it's not the arcade version. I still guess it's better than the ZX Spectrum and C64 adaptations, but it's a far cry from the near-arcade perfect Amiga conversion. The music no longer has the Somewhere Over the Rainbow quote which is sad.

With not one, but two battery compartments

Physically, Pocket Arcade is quite nice, colourful item and the horizontal layout is natural. It's not flimsy, especially with the batteries it has a reassuring weight to it. Recalling the Pixel Arcade Data East hits handheld, it's an improvement.

The buttons have a good feel to them, and the screen, although tiny, is bright and crisp.

You can power it with 4 AAA batteries or with a micro-USB connector. It's therefore possible to use an external power pack, which is good as I have a 20000mAh workhorse. There's also a headphone connector which can be helpful in some situations. The volume level can be adjusted and muted entirely.

Running with reserve juice

There's some of the usual laziness, you can generally only get back from games and game over screens by using the reset button, which also means the volume level setting becomes reset.

There's no real reason why the product of this size couldn't contain more games, just as the Pixel Arcade did, but maybe it's envisioned as some kind of collectible.

So, why not, a few moments of enjoyment with PocketArcade. For 30-40€ -ish. Gnnh.

Jean-Michel Jarre in Helsinki pt. 2

I had been eyeing the Jean-Michel Jarre 15.6.2025 concert for months, but only bought the ticket at the last moment. I wasn't too attracted by the Helsinki City Festival setting, but the weather seemed fine and I became anxious about missing a Jarre show inside walking distance.

The festival setting was a little dubious. Expensive foods, expensive drinks. People having difficulties walking the stairs, people avoiding the beer because it means having to go to the toilet 15 minutes later. A random audience member with a clandestine air showed me a Phaedra 50th anniversary reissue he had scored. Another was seen becoming teary-eyed hearing the first notes of a mangled Oxygene. Demosceners and hangarounds were in attendance, you know who you are.

T-shirts and merchandise had run out by the time I had arrived, so no Jarre cap for me, sniff.

I did blog about the 2016 indoor show, and although my notes are rather sparse, I can try to invite some comparisons.

Around 2016 Jarre had a lot of new material, including the collaborative Electronica albums. The Snowden-featuring Exit had even made the news. There had been another new Oxygene. So, all seemed rather good for Jarre back then, and it was reflected in the energetic show.

Since then, Jarre has released Equinoxe Infinity, a couple of soundtrack albums and Oxymore, so there's no lack of material to choose from.

I noted in the 2016 indoor concert how the classic songs had received an amped-up and abbreviated treatment. This was just as true now. But the difference here is that this time I wasn't so excited about the material from that era (The Architect, Zero Gravity, Exit) and was on occasions a little puzzled with the more recent tracks (Oxymore).  

It's likely a difficult balance, play the older songs and be accused of becoming a nostalgia act, play a lot of new material and lose the "Jarre signature sound". Jarre has lately associated himself with the EDM tag, which might be a wise move, but it may also have meant skewing the material in a particular direction.

He played a short version of Zoolookologie and I could have easily listened it for a couple of minutes more. At another moment, he switches on abstract techno jam that takes far longer (At least inside my mind). Why nothing from the Chronologie album?

But I have to say I enjoyed the show as it was happening, it's just that in hindsight I felt things could have been made a little differently.

Jarre brought various technologies on stage, such as live video feed glasses to give a POV to his keyboard and gear. This appeared to confirm that he plays the lead melody and can in other ways influence the sound, that he's not just DJ:ing his own material. Sure, all the other songs could have been playback, but there's no real reason why it would need to be so.

But this wasn't one of his large format concerts, so JMJ was on stage alone and you'd only see a glimpse of a technician.

Sun shines almost perpetually in Finland at this time of year, so at this hour you didn't even get the effect of darkening skies for the finale. The lasers and displays were strong enough, the stage utilized these different-sized vertical blocks (monolith-like) for video displays. On occasions this gave a strong sense of integration between the main and side screens, lending a sculptural appearance to the stage.

A number of AI-visuals had crept into the show, and to someone accustomed seeing them daily in social media, it felt a little off. I had a memory of Jarre using something like that already in the 2016 show, which would have been somewhat possible. (Considering the dog-eyed Deep Dream imagery of 2012) But it might be a false memory after seeing some recent live concert material on Youtube. At least in my blog I only paid attention to the more geometric visuals.

Jarre made a small speech in favour of exploring AI creatively and responsibly, but it remained unclear if some songs had been helped with AI. Another speechlet suggested the electronic music heritage is distinctly European, not grown out of rock and blues. As a simplification this has a kernel of truth, but I'm wondering why this needed to be said. Maybe Jarre, at 76, wanted to encourage younger people to pick up the baton or something.

Just as I thought I could feel somewhat happy about a concert, there was something with a hint of bad odor.

The setlist featured a Nina Kraviz-collaborated track Sex in the Machine (Kraviz absent obviously). As far as I know the Russian artist has been a little vague about the Ukraine war, and there are claims of displaying pro-military and pro-Putin sentiment. Jarre was happy to relay a message from Snowden, but what kind of message was relayed here?

Edit: Oops, I'll have to check which version was actually played, but apparently Sex in the Machine is originally a Jarre song.

Jarre didn't say anything either, but in one of the visuals the robots appeared to have the colours of Ukraine. A likely pro-Ukraine nod, but under analysis could be again seen as vague or even a mixed message. Ukraine as robots, really?

Tuning The Spectrum

Up until now, I used a Commodore 64 -themed memory stick as the drive for Retro Games' The Spectrum. Obviously it sticks out like a sore thumb drive.

It took a while before I bothered to look for a better alternative. Eventually I ordered an "Eletra Nano" USB memory, 32GB (USB 2.0). The memory size is acceptable, and with this I mean it's not too much! I wouldn't want an overkill of space, as the emulator files tend to be 48K or less and I don't even want all of them on the stick.

I don't mind the 2.0 protocol because the drive doesn't have to shift large files.

Smaller, virtually invisible memory sticks exist, but this is still easy to pull out with fingers. The colour, shape and styling are quite compatible with the Sinclair.

Importantly, it works. Format with FAT32 and move all the files from the other stick to this drive. Then insert it in The Spectrum and go.

Previously, I've discussed the modification of a vintage Kempston/Sound interface to give a more full 1980s experience to The Spectrum. The sound interface side is still under consideration.

If I really wanted I could have created space under the "Kempston" interface, camouflaging the memory stick entirely. But I'd rather avoid any accidental physical contact with the memory stick, even if crashes related to extension wobble might be period authentic.