Where to download the Cube Quest CHD?
UPDATE: As widely expected, all the sources quoted in the post are now offering the download for the first laserdisc videogame emulated by MAME, though with various shapes and variously practical modes. The guide has been modified and updated according to the new wider availability.
Passed away the emotional fuddle for the news of the emulation of the first lasergame in the MAME history, here it is the question that necessarily follows: where to get the ginormous file in CHD format, of more than 10 Gigabytes, containing the dump of the game laserdisc? What I propose here is a brief yet useful (or at least I hope that) guide to the Internet recesses from which is currently possible to obtain this digital moloch to feed the emulator of emulators with.
Good Old Games, who wants a beta invite code?
UPDATE: A lucky user writing from the USA has received via mail the invite code that GOG.com has granted me. Happy retrogaming to him, to me and everyone enjoys the experience 
Dunno why (yet), but the beta of Good Old Games, the digital store of retrogaming that would like to become a point of reference for the peculiar audience to which it refers, isn’t closed yet. Not so bad, anyway, personally I’ll profit to continue to test the service, buy some old classic that I still haven’t played and more generally devote myself to my preferred activity after sex. That is retrogaming 
LLOOGG, the essential web access stats
Among the offers of free on-line tools for analyzing web traffic one can find anything. There are services capable of giving an embarrassing amount of data and statistics, but who already has a good quality collector on the server of his host maybe could like to use something less verbose, focused more on the (nearly) real-time representation of basic information on the site visitors activities. Something like LLOOGG.
Dario Argento involved in videogames?
No, not yet, but a brief collaboration with the videogames multinational Electronic Arts shows the keen interest of the auteur for the interactive entertainment and its expressive imagery. Dario Argento, one of the true masters of Italian and international motion pictures will give his voice to a characters of the localized edition of Dead Space, the survival horror game with which EA prepares to challenge Capcom and Resident Evil within the next October.
Slashdot effect… part two
The wise says that it’s dangerous to hope for something, because then you risk to get it and have to face it in full. When at the beginning of September the news on DeathSpank has been featured on Slashdot, the blog has been flooded by nearly 18,000 visitors spanned on three, four days, to my great delight for the reaction and the promotion (I mean, it’s Slashdot, not just a z-series site like there are too much in Italy and elsewhere) and above all with no issues for my web host, the already quoted AN Hosting. What has happened in the past days, however, during the second Slashdot effect flowed on Sir Arthur’s Den, has made me rethink my ideas on shared web hosting, AN Hosting itself and the trend I’ve got in the adoption of WordPress plug-ins preferring the ease of use to all the rest.
IBM will manufacture 22 nanometers chips
In the endless race to the immensely small, a typical trait of the integrated circuits world, the American giant IBM states to be the first chipmaker to having developed a reliable enough process for the manufacturing of 22 nanometers microchips. A technological achievement that, if not quite round the corner, surely pushes the final boundaries for the exploitation of silicon as the transistors’ basic element some years forward.
New Diablo III screenshots, design triumphs over blackness
Blizzard hasn’t yet announced the time within which works on Diablo III will be completed, but one can be sure about the fact that the software house is pretty busy into giving shape and substance to the game. The indiscretions coming from an unknown internal source talk about development resources almost entirely devoted to DIII in detriment of other important projects (Starcraft 2), while new screenshots appear on-line to catch and catalyze the fans’ eye.
Links & Suggestions # 4: space worms, stingy ISPs, Google and the ancient Persia
If there’s something that is clear to anyone would have just washed his feet in the Internet ocean, it’s that in the so-called information society what is never absent are the debate cues, the (exactly) information sources and the events worth of citing. The possible suggestions, indeed, abound, and the problem isn’t to find them but to make a selection and put together the most interesting ones.
AV-Comparatives, the August tests are on-line
As is tradition at the end of summer, from the Austrian labs of Andreas Clementi and the analysts team behind AV-Comparatives come the updated comparative tests on 16 among the most known antivirus on the market. As a recognized industry standard for evaluating the effectiveness of antivirus solutions, the Clementi’s comparatives put in comparison security software against more than 2.3 millions of malware samples variously assorted, further providing useful indications on the capabilities of the programs to avoid false positives and the total scanning speed.
Xbox 360 is (even) cheaper in Europe. And outsells Wii in Japan
Microsoft continues to push on the aggressive Xbox 360 price strategy announced in the first days of September. After having brought the cost of the basic console version below 200 dollars in the United States, Redmond has got through doing the same in the Old Continent where Xbox 360 “Arcade” will have a price of 180 € starting from tomorrow September 19.
VideoLAN releases VLC media player 0.9.2
Good things need time, and the folks at the VideoLAN project have taken all the time that was needed to finish the works on Grishenko, codename for the just released newer version of VLC media player software. After two years of development, one of the most appreciated and used open source multimedia players appears in a totally renewed shape, provides a good amount of new features and naturally the same usual convenience of having at one’s disposal all the codecs needed to enjoy contents integrated straight into the software.
Diablo III, a videoclip rekindles the colors controversy
Is Diablo III better with the vivid colors shown by Blizzard or as wished by the saga hardcore fans, that is dark as tar and with a very little fancy within the choice of chromatic variations mostly in the dungeons? The software house has already given its reply, stating that the graphic style remains the same though the game art director Brian Morrisroe has left his job to devote himself to other things, but the fans do not want to face the facts and continue to speculate on how in their estimation the third chapter of the Lord of Terror saga should be represented on the screen.
Good Old Games, first use impressions
A month after the announcement of the Good Old Games beta broadening, the CD Projekt folks have finally sent to me the access code for the retrogaming store, the digital delivery portal that would like to become a reference point for gamers with a folk memory to protect and above all the desire to replay the good old times of the former videogaming. Waiting for the store’s public opening and to spend some money for the first purchases, in the next paragraphs I’ll begin to report some preliminary considerations drawn from the brief “tasting” sessions of what GOG has currently to offer.
Electronic Arts videogames? Unfinished and full of draconian DRM
Electronic Arts, the videogames multinational dedicated to the production of endless sequels and to the havoc of creative energies within the small and talented software houses, has once again been able to break up a potential masterpiece and to change it into a chance for controversy, criticism and furious debate about the usual copy protections useful only for losing customers.
Microsoft sez: Wii has won the game. But Xbox 360 is cheaper
In a candid impotence acknowledgment in regard of the money-making machine that the Wii console has turned to be, senior vice-president of Microsoft’s Interactive Entertainment Business division Don Mattrick has clearly said that the larger part of seventh generation home consoles’ sales is enlarging and will continue to enlarge the yet-puffy Nintendo’s wallet.
Google Chrome starts the Third Great Browser War
With the characteristic effect of a bolt from the blue, at the beginning of this week Mountain View has released the beta version of its browser, Google Chrome, joining the super-competitive market of software interfaces toward the possibilities of net economy and information society. Everybody talk about it, everybody express their own thoughts on the matter, but still no one has had the heart to define the event with its due name: Chrome, there’s no much to do about that, marks the beginning of a new browser war in a time in which the said browsers are the main framework of business and access to digital heritage of interconnected mankind.
Stardock publishes the “Gamer’s Bill of Rights”
Even if it’s technologically way ahead of any state of the art console, PC videogaming is often viewed as an industry in an identity crisis, on the edge of failure and suffering of ancient and purulent evils like piracy and selling of counterfeit media. In response of this unfavorable view - what is more contradicted by facts - the software house Stardock has brought a “Bill” of fundamental “Rights” for who plays on PC, a desirable behavioral handbook for videogames producers.
ScummVM 0.12.0, all your adventures are belong to us
Waiting for the Architect of adventure games Ron Gilbert to unveil the (certainly) moronic face of the DeathSpank hero to the world, if one was in withdrawal from “point & click” games he could always practice with ScummVM, the virtual machine designed for the preservation of the good old adventures from Lucasfilm/Lucasarts (and much more) released in these days in its new, sparkling version 0.12.0.
DeathSpank shows off at Penny Arcade Expo… And where are the monkeys?!?
Only a few months left, and the offspring of the return of Ron Gilbert on the videogaming stage that matters should make its appearance on the Internet. No absurd puzzles flavoured by wannabe pirates and three-headed monkeys this time, but a new formula that would like to merge the opposed gameplay of the adventures and the wilder hack and slash videogames.
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