“It Was So Copy Protected, You Couldn’t Even Copy the Protection!” - Rob Smith - VIDEO VERSION

This week’s guest is Rob Smith: the mad‑scientist of the retro scene. Rob takes us on a tour of his wild inventions—from a disco‑themed floppy‑disk cleaning workstation that actually plays tunes, to a full‑scale whack‑a‑mole game controlled by an Amiga via Arduino and AMOS, and his glowing levitating Boing Ball built with magnets and LEDs. He also talks about the Retro Directory, disc backup stations, and his journey from VIC 20 BASIC to making modern retro PD titles. Rob Smith's website: https://robsmithdev.co.uk/ 00:00 – Intro & guest Rob Smith (Retro Directory, wacky inventor) 01:00 – First computers: VIC-20, BBC Micros, Amiga 500+ 04:00 – Discovering Amos BASIC & learning programming 06:30 – Electronics kits, early hardware tinkering 08:00 – First games made in Amos (competition winner & PD release) 09:00 – Fascination with floppy disks & birth of DrawBridge 13:00 – Copy protection schemes & preservation work 14:00 – Recovering the original Lemmings level editor 16:00 – Bringing Amiga floppies to MiSTer & Windows integration 18:00 – Balancing hardware vs software projects 19:30 – Christmas games & Amos projects (Santa’s Present Drop etc.) 22:00 – Starting YouTube channel & teaching others with source code 23:00 – X-Copy documentary & uncovering its history 25:00 – Early karaoke software & link to Knightmare TV 27:30 – Amiga inventions: levitating Boing Ball & A590 remake 31:00 – Nostalgia vs modernization in Amiga upgrades 33:00 – Noisy floppy drives & Mister floppy emulation 34:00 – Floppy Disc Cleaning Station (the “car wash”) 35:50 – Floppy Disc Whack-a-Mole game (DiscCreted) 38:00 – Taking inventions to retro shows & airports 39:00 – Retro.Directory – origins & features (events, map, alerts) 41:00 – Supporting retro venues & free ticket system 42:00 – Ads, funding & keeping the site alive 42:30 – What’s next on YouTube & future builds 43:10 – Outro & thanks