Ian Scott
banner
polpo.org
Ian Scott
@polpo.org
I'm currently cooking up PicoIDE, a hardware IDE/ATAPI emulator, launching on Crowd Supply: https://www.crowdsupply.com/polpotronics/picoide
I also made PicoGUS: https://picog.us
Also on Fedi at https://chaos.social/@polpo
In Colorado, USA
Pinned
The PicoIDE Crowd Supply campaign is now live! Back the project to be among the first to get yours! PicoIDE is an open IDE/ATAPI drive emulator for retro systems. www.crowdsupply.com/polpotronics...
PicoIDE
An open source IDE/ATAPI drive emulator for vintage computers
www.crowdsupply.com
I want one of these so bad. I’m biding my time until I stumble on one for cheap…
February 10, 2026 at 4:21 PM
Huh, I wonder if there’s something off the shelf that can do that or you’d need to make something custom
February 9, 2026 at 2:27 PM
I implemented the speedup for fragmented images for PicoIDE and I'm excited to see it in BlueSCSI as well! Big release all around for them.
#BlueSCSI v2026.02.08 - HUGE release
* 16-bit Ultra Wide SCSI
* CD audio S/PDIF/I2S
* Fragmented images are fast now!
* SCA drive bay
* 11.5x BlueSCSI Toolbox speed boost
* SCSI bus timing fixes
* 520-byte sector imaging
* No Arduino deps
* 2287 unit test assertions
& more github.com/BlueSCSI/Blu...
February 9, 2026 at 7:31 AM
Yes, it can handle DVD (or even Blu-Ray) sized images, no problem. It doesn't support DVD specific command extensions around regions, copy protection, or DVD structural querying, but I am pretty sure only movie playback needs those.
February 9, 2026 at 3:40 AM
Reposted by Ian Scott
"Animated Bokeh" has been on my whiteboard for a long time, and this is the result.

I thought it would just be for cheesy novelty effects, but it also does lightfield manipulation that was cooler than I expected.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kg_2...
Digital Iris
YouTube video by Ancient
www.youtube.com
February 7, 2026 at 5:35 PM
I admit it took a lot of effort to not just sit back and watch the whole movie after testing that it worked…
February 8, 2026 at 4:59 PM
Yeah, it definitely taxes this K6-2 that I’m testing on!
February 8, 2026 at 4:50 PM
And now, our feature presentation. I added support for XA form 2 CD tracks to PicoIDE so now you can watch movies in 240p on Video CD
February 8, 2026 at 4:32 PM
It’s still too soon to really tell, but on the IDE bus only one device is actually active at one time unless they support the complex OVERLAP protocol, and many optical drives that I’ve run into do not. So in theory there should be little to no speed difference in that mode
February 7, 2026 at 3:25 PM
Yes and yes. Here it my A1200 booted off of one in HDD mode. CD mode works as well including audio playback.
February 7, 2026 at 3:22 PM
Reposted by Ian Scott
pictured: our geese looking at airplanes
February 6, 2026 at 8:00 PM
DOS YouTube legend PhilsComputerLab has a pre-release PicoIDE and put it through its paces in optical disc emulation mode in his latest video: youtu.be/KNv3sf-rCAM
PicoIDE CD-ROM IDE ATAPI Emulator
youtu.be
February 6, 2026 at 2:09 PM
I really wish FB Marketplace didn't kill Craigslist in my area, because that's all I use FB for these days
February 6, 2026 at 3:13 AM
Unfortunately that’s not possible on the current hardware because it can’t drive the IOR and IOW signals the way a host does.
February 5, 2026 at 1:08 AM
The first project update for PicoIDE is up at Crowd Supply: A Journey Into Understanding the IDE Bus, featuring used books, a pilgrimage to a random office building, and the impact of making your own tools. www.crowdsupply.com/polpotronics...
A Journey Into Understanding the IDE Bus
First, I'd like to thank everybody who has backed the project so far! We doubled our goal in less than 24 hours and as of this publication we have more than tripled it. The response to PicoIDE has bee...
www.crowdsupply.com
February 4, 2026 at 8:02 PM
I’m trying out Openvibe, seems pretty nice
February 4, 2026 at 5:24 PM
This is a test post to see if cross posting images to both Mastodon and Bluesky is viable in 2026. Last time I tried it Bluesky capped attachments to a tiny size, making images look terrible. Here goes nothing…
February 4, 2026 at 4:44 PM
dang. cool kid!
February 3, 2026 at 6:35 AM
I like StickerGiant a lot. They're local to me (Longmont CO) - I interviewed there for a job and all the people I talked to up to the CEO seemed like great people.
February 3, 2026 at 1:34 AM
This is who runs this account.
February 2, 2026 at 4:35 AM
I was there! What a show. bsky.app/profile/polp...
KOYAANISQATSI
February 1, 2026 at 6:53 AM
The conductor of the Philip Glass Ensemble, Michael Riesman, uses an Apple puck mouse
February 1, 2026 at 6:11 AM
KOYAANISQATSI
February 1, 2026 at 4:15 AM
anti-glare coating probably?
January 31, 2026 at 6:08 PM
I got up at 5 AM to record with the TWiR crew… totally worth it! It was really fun getting to chat retro with them. What a great bunch!
PicoIDE, the CD-ROM and HD replacement, is here and so is creator @polpo.org to tell us all about it! youtu.be/NcWE9F3F85c
Then it's preservation problems with Little Computer People and Alternate Reality: The City, and a discussion of the all-in-one TV/VCR combo on This Week in Retro 253!
January 31, 2026 at 3:37 PM