Programming Archives

AppWizard

August 16, 2026

David Brevik, creator of Diablo, reveals the ‘worst ending’ to any game he’s played: ‘But I really love the game. It’s amazing’

David Brevik co-founded Condor and pitched Diablo to Blizzard Entertainment, which became a cornerstone of the action role-playing game genre. He is currently the President of Skystone Games, which has released titles like Tiny Bookshop and Mistfall Hunter. Brevik is revisiting Marvel Heroes, where he served as creative director and later CEO until the game was shut down. He enjoys playing Minecraft with family and friends and has invested over 400 hours into No Man's Sky. Brevik regularly revisits EverQuest, logging thousands of hours, and also plays EQ '99. He uses Visual Studio for programming and works on game prototypes almost daily. His desktop is cluttered with about 300 icons for games, development tools, and notes.

Winsage

August 13, 2026

The guy who built Windows Task Manager in 1996 just remade it with a cyberpunk vibe — but there’s one big issue for PC users

Dave W. Plummer, a notable figure in programming, contributed significantly to Microsoft by introducing ZIP file support for Windows, adapting Space Cadet Pinball for Windows NT, and creating the Windows Task Manager, which debuted in 1996. He has shared insights from his time at Microsoft through his platform, Dave's Garage. Recently, he released a mockup of a redesigned Task Manager, named "Task Manager OG" (TMOG), which features a cyberpunk aesthetic and is currently available as a beta version for macOS, with a Windows version planned. TMOG combines elements of macOS's Activity Monitor and Windows Task Manager, providing essential system information and deeper diagnostics. The application is described as being half the size of the Windows Task Manager and is available for free download.

Winsage

August 11, 2026

Microsoft Word 1.1a Runs Natively on Windows 11 on x64

A developer has adapted Microsoft Word 1.1a, originally for 16-bit x86 systems, to run natively on modern 64-bit Windows PCs through a project called “Opus.” This adaptation compiles the original source code into a genuine x64 application, avoiding the use of emulators or virtual machines. The developer translated incompatible segments of the original code, including 16-bit assembly language, into C or C++, while mapping Win16 functions to modern Win32 APIs. The project retains original resources and copyright notices, and is hosted on GitHub without a broad open-source license. Automated testing has been implemented to ensure functionality mirrors the original application. Microsoft has previously published similar historic projects, but this port is an independent effort, providing insights into early Windows software architecture.

AppWizard

August 7, 2026

Overwatch’s new mech hero is the sword-and-board sequel to D.Va, except her code isn’t ‘a plate of spaghetti’ under the hood

In 2018, Blizzard Entertainment's game director Aaron Keller described D.Va's programming as complex, leading to amusing bugs during her mech transitions. D.Mon is a new character in the MEKA Squad, designed for sturdiness and versatility, capable of dashing in any direction with limited fuel and equipped with a mounted machine gun. When she raises her shield, she resembles Reinhardt but has a speed advantage and a unique charge ability. D.Mon's ultimate ability, Limit Break, unleashes a whirlwind slash that increases enemy damage taken and grants her overhealth. A notable gameplay moment occurs when she is ejected from her mech, with an animation reminiscent of Voltron. D.Mon will debut in season 4 on August 11.

AppWizard

August 3, 2026

Claude Opus 5 pushes prompt-to-game AI from rough color blocks to full 3D prototypes with physics and music

Anthropic's Claude Opus 5 can generate fully functional 3D game worlds from a single text prompt, autonomously creating code for geometry, textures, physics, and music, and outputting it as an editable HTML file. Users have successfully created various games without external assets, including a Call of Duty-style shooter, a snowboard demo, and a submarine game. Opus 5 utilizes procedural code for real-time geometry construction and shader-based textures, streamlining the development process. Community tests benchmark its capabilities against other models, with notable projects like a Minecraft clone featuring an infinite procedural world. Opus 5 has shown significant improvements in visual output compared to its predecessor, Claude 4 Opus.

AppWizard

July 31, 2026

Cheap Android TV Boxes Pose as Phones and Turn Owners’ Broadband Into Proxies

Bitsight's investigation revealed that inexpensive Android TV boxes are being shipped with applications that can change their hardware identity, allowing them to impersonate popular smartphone brands like Samsung and Huawei. This operation, named Fuyao, is linked to Zhejiang Fengwo IoT Technology Co., Ltd., a Chinese company established in 2019. The H96MAXV11 model was frequently reported among the affected devices. In one day, the operation received 65,957 reports from about 38,000 unique MAC addresses, with many devices misidentified as phones due to spoofed identifiers. Fengwo has also promoted over 120,000 "AI digital humans," though details on this marketing term are vague. The command-and-control server for Fuyao sends phone profiles to devices, masking their actual hardware specifications. The operation uses machine vision technology and a YOLOv8s object-detection model to identify advertisements. Bitsight documented 40 fraud tasks, 21 unique campaigns, and 166 modules across four devices. The operation's payout structure involves 144 operator-owned domains, with an estimated gross return of .25 per device daily, potentially leading to annual revenues in the millions. Attribution to Fengwo is supported by shared TLS certificate data and public patent records, although the patents do not directly address advertising. There is uncertainty about how the fraudulent apps were installed and at what point in the supply chain they were introduced. Device owners are advised to verify Play Protect certification and disconnect suspicious devices.

Tech Optimizer

July 29, 2026

After rewriting SQLite in Rust, Turso turns its sights on Postgres

Cloud database provider Turso is developing a Postgres-compatible implementation based on its SQLite-compatible database, which was created from scratch in Rust. CEO Glauber Costa believes Postgres can benefit from modernization for cloud-native applications. Turso's SQLite reimplementation, now called Turso, uses a virtual machine architecture that may eventually support other database frontends, including MySQL and Redis. The company initially forked SQLite into libSQL but later pivoted to a cloud service named Turso. They focused on a virtual machine architecture for their rewrite, which translates SQL queries into a custom bytecode language. Turso has developed a Postgres-compatible prototype named pgmicro, which aims to run existing applications with minimal modifications. The company is also working on a database-as-a-cloud service that will allow customers to use various database types on the Turso platform.

Winsage

July 27, 2026

Microsoft lays out a buffet of Windows goodies for JavaScript Developers

Microsoft has introduced "dynamic projections" that allow developers using JavaScript and TypeScript to access Windows internals more easily. The Windows Runtime API (WinRT) projection for Node.js is currently in public preview, simplifying access to Windows features without introducing new capabilities. A new single Node runtime package, dynwinrt, enables developers to generate JavaScript wrappers and TypeScript declarations for Windows features, while the winappCli package offers a command-line interface for setup and sample code. This setup utilizes Windows Metadata (winmd) to dynamically list available Windows APIs, automatically updating wrappers or declarations when API metadata changes. Developers can access various Windows functionalities, excluding UI elements, and utilize local AI capabilities for tasks such as text generation and image manipulation. Microsoft’s developments aim to align with industry trends rather than enforce a proprietary ecosystem.

Tech Optimizer

July 27, 2026

Hackers are hiding malware behind AI agents that antivirus cannot see

Sergey Lozhkin, head of Kaspersky’s global research and analysis team for the Asia-Pacific, Middle East, Turkey, and Africa, reported an increase in malware injection attacks targeting AI agents, particularly from outside an organization’s network. He noted that traditional signature-based analysis is becoming ineffective as AI skills operate in the cloud, connecting to external resources. Dmitry Galov, leading Kaspersky’s research for Russia and the CIS, emphasized the importance of behavioral analysis and sandboxing AI applications to combat these threats. Lozhkin warned that the rapid growth of skills and plugins requires organizations to adopt innovative security measures, as old models are no longer sufficient.

AppWizard

July 25, 2026

Conceived in a secure military facility, this Jedi Knight fansite has been running consistently for almost 30 years: ‘It looks really close to what it did back in 1998’

In the late 1990s, the internet saw a surge in websites, including those dedicated to PC gaming. The Massassi Temple, a website for Star Wars Jedi Knight: Dark Forces 2, was founded by Brian E. Lozier in early 1998. Lozier created the site to share tutorials and support fellow modders after discovering a community of modders while exploring other gaming websites. He learned programming to build the site, which has remained active due to the dedication of its community, despite challenges like the dotcom bubble burst and the failure of some games. The site hosts a vast collection of Jedi Knight content, including mods and multiplayer maps, and serves as a hub for ongoing support and development. Lozier has stepped away from the site multiple times but continues to return to ensure its survival. He aims to create a permanent archive of community contributions and reflects on the evolution of the internet and the shift toward corporate dominance.