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Christopher Pitt Software Developer

Articles

Welcome to the archive of conference and meet-up group talks I've given. Some of them have content that was current when I gave the talk, but have become a little outdated over the years.

Creating the most expensive e-book reader
Why settle for a fancy e-book reader, when you can use an impractically sized 35 year old device instead? Join me as I show you how to convert modern e-books into Gameboy games; and how I turned this into a free service for other masochists.
Turning Something Old Into Something New
I love taking broken retro tech and fixing it up. It’s deeply satisfying giving something a second life. Join me as I show you how I fixed and modernised a 20 year old gaming console; and how you can do the same.
Playing PS2 Games in Discord
I wanted to play a retro couch-coop game with my friend, but they were too far away. So, I connected a game controller to the internet and created website they could use to join in the game. Follow along as I explain how I used soldering, IoT, web sockets, and video streaming to do what would have taken 3 minutes with a Steam game. 🤦‍♂️
Web Components for fun and profit!
Web components are an underused superpower of the modern web. They allow intricate rendering and interactivity without the difficulty of modern JS frameworks or build pipelines. I’d like to show you how they work, and some of the interesting ways I’ve used them recently. It might surprise you how well they fit into your web applications. They'll actually increase the utility of the frameworks you’re already using.
Oops! I Made a Game Engine
I needed to teach a bunch of non-coders how to write JS, so I built a game engine. Not the wisest choice, but definitely one that taught me much about how game engines work. Follow along as I show you more of the interesting things I learned through this process.
Building and Programming Robots
Who is your favorite superhero? Mine is Iron Man. Not because he’s noble or even very good. It’s because he builds cool suits. I’ve never felt more like Iron Man than when I modified a LEGO Technic set so that I could control it with computer code.
Zombies and Binary
Minecraft is a bit of a hidden gem when it comes to teaching. It’s capable of simulating computation and electronic circuitry. One of things that can’t be unseen once you know it’s there.
Cooperative Multitasking with Generators
One day, while staring out the window at all the async/await languages playing ball, I wondered what it would take to do the same in PHP. This talk became the answer to that question.