This week on the channel +195K views this week

Action Retro's 2001 voice assistant has a CRT connection

A thrift-store device shares the active catalog with Haiku experiments and a tiny working Macintosh.

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Action Retro Story of October 11, 2026Trari Newsroom

Why this story? The channel's weekly summary: what went up this week, what is drawing views now, and where the channel stands among similar channels.

The Most Cursed Device of 2001

How far into the future can a thrift-store find from 2001 take you? Action Retro's answer involves a digital voice assistant and TIMEX's "Data CRT" technology, which transfers data through a CRT monitor. Not quite the wireless future most people picture.

There were no new uploads this week, but "The Most Cursed Device of 2001" is the busiest video in the channel's catalog right now. Posted about four months ago, it has reached roughly 215,000 views and is drawing more daily viewing than either of the two more recent computing experiments.

Those offer different ways to keep old computing ideas alive. In "The New Haiku is Wonderful," Action Retro installs a bleeding-edge version of Haiku, the open-source operating system that carries forward the ideas of BeOS. "This Tiny 90's Macintosh Really Works" explores version three of Pico Micro Mac, with a pointer to RonsCompVids for more on the project. A strange personal gadget, an alternative operating system and a miniature Mac: the channel's "Totally normal computing" introduction fits nicely here.

The upload break didn't stop subscriber growth: about 1,000 subscribers joined over seven days. Current daily viewing is a little above the channel's usual pace. Among nearby technology channels, Monitors Unboxed and Byte Review had substantial weekly viewing, while Adrian's Digital Basement had a weekly audience close to Action Retro's. Here, the biggest daily draw remains that unlikely voice assistant with its monitor-based data connection.

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