February 2026

Byte Magazine Artist Robert Tinney, Who Illustrated the Birth of PCs, Dies at 78

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Robert Tinney, the artist behind Byte magazine’s iconic covers from 1975 to the late 1980s, passed away at 78. His surrealist-influenced illustrations, created using airbrushed Designers Gouache, helped define the visual language of personal computing for a generation. Tinney’s work, characterized by its non-technical metaphors, made complex computing topics accessible and memorable.

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/02/byte-magazine-artist-robert-tinney-who-illustrated-the-birth-of-pcs-dies-at-78/

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Apple Arcade Just Accidentally Became the Best Place for Normal People to Play Retro Arcade Games

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Apple Arcade now features Retrocade, a top app for playing retro arcade games. It offers classic titles like Pac-Man and Asteroids with excellent controls, daily challenges, and global high scores. However, it lacks certain features like multiplayer and Mac support. Despite its limitations, it signals a shift in Apple’s gaming strategy towards embracing retro gaming without the hassle of emulation. The app costs $6.99/month or as part of Apple One.

https://www.stuff.tv/features/apple-arcade-just-accidentally-became-the-best-place-for-normal-people-to-play-retro-arcade-games/

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Screenshots From Developers & Unix People (2002)

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In 2002, Anders Jensen-Urstad collected desktop screenshots from prominent developers and Unix users for Unix.se. Noteworthy contributors include Dennis Ritchie, Brian Kernighan, and Richard Stallman, showcasing various Unix systems and preferences. Most desktops displayed a preference for command-line interfaces with minimal GUI use. The collection is a nostalgic glimpse into the developers’ environments at the time, with the article revised in 2015 for additional context.

https://anders.unix.se/2015/10/28/screenshots-from-developers–unix-people-2002/

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Defeating a 40-year-old Copy Protection Dongle

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Dmitry Brant’s blog features recent challenges with outdated software protection, including defeating a 40-year-old hardware dongle for a legacy RPG-based accounting program still running on Windows 98. The blog details a software archaeology process to extract data and bypass the dongle’s simplistic copy protection, ultimately allowing access to the software’s source code and enabling historical preservation.

https://dmitrybrant.com/2026/02/01/defeating-a-40-year-old-copy-protection-dongle

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