PODCAST · leisure
NCOT Technology
by juytre
Ever wondered what/'s actually happening beneath your code? Welcome to NCOT Technology, where we strip away the abstractions to explore the /"how/" and /"why/" of computing. From building 3D engines without a GPU to wiring up binary adders and mastering IEEE 754 floating point, this channel is for the curious programmers who want to fall down the technical /"rabbit holes./" What we cover: * Low-Level Engineering: Logic gates, CPU architecture, and hardware arithmetic. * Graphics from Scratch: 3D projection and rasterization without the libraries. * Computing Standards: Deep dives into the standards that make the digital world work. * Hands-on Code: Technical walkthroughs in C++, Python, and Assembly. If you aren/'t satisfied with a library doing the work for you and want to understand the circuitry driving it all, hit Subscribe. Let/'s see how deep the rabbit hole goes.
Episodes
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Your CPU Can\'t Tell Code From Data - Inside the Von Neumann Architecture
This video explains the Von Neumann architecture and demonstrates, with real BBC BASIC and C code, how computers fundamentally cannot tell the difference between data and executable instructions. Join Patreon : https://patreon.com/ncot_tech One time donation: https://ko-fi.com/ncot_tech Website :...
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I Let ChatGPT Teach Me Embedded Programming — It Went Badly | UPERFECT BE156MF Monitor
Get your own UPERFECT monitor using the following link https://shop.uperfect.com/4dNpTOl Use the following offer codes for a discount ncotech50, $50off for order amount above $300 ncotech60, $60off for order amount above $400 I picked up a Cheap Yellow Display (CYD) — an ESP32 with a built-in LCD…
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Everything In DOOM Is A Lie | The Genius Behind The Legend
Summer Living Starts with FlexiSpot – [https://go.flexispot.co.uk/ncot_tech-deals] Get £170 off the E7 Pro Standing Desk Now – [https://go.flexispot.co.uk/ncot_tech-e7pro] DOOM ran on a 386 with 4MB of RAM and convinced an entire generation they were walking through actual 3D world. They…
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The Floating Point Lie Every Programmer Discovers Too Late
Why does Python tell you that 0.1 + 0.2 = 0.30000000000000004? The answer is IEEE 754 - the floating-point standard baked into every CPU on the planet. In this video we go under the hood: from the limits of fixed-point arithmetic, through scientific notation in binary, to hand-converting 3.14…
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A Computer Has No Idea What Addition Is — Here\'s How It Fakes It
How does a computer add two numbers — not with code, but with actual electronics? In this video we build the circuits that make addition happen at the hardware level, starting from the simplest possible adding circuit and working up to something that can add multi-bit binary numbers. We cover: •...
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Your CPU Has Never Seen a Minus Sign — Here\'s the Trick It Uses Instead
What happens when a computer encounters -1? The answer is weirder — and more elegant — than you\'d expect. In this video we dig into how computers actually represent negative numbers in binary. We start with the obvious-but-broken approach (sign-magnitude), show why it fails, then work through...
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Your CPU Has No Concept of 3D — Here\'s How It Fakes It
Support the channel, visit patreon.com/ncot_tech Every frame of a 3D game you\'ve ever seen ultimately reduces to pixels written into memory. No matter how fast the GPU or how impressive the graphics, it all comes down to plotting pixels on the screen. Today we\'re taking a short look at how...
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Can I Make a Neon World Using Only OpenGL?
Support the channel, visit patreon.com/ncot_tech In this video I build a classic vapourwave scene from scratch using C++ and raw OpenGL. No game engines, no shortcuts—just direct graphics programming. The scene features the iconic retro grid floor, distant mountains, and a glowing neon sunset sky...
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3D Graphics Without OpenGL or DirectX?
This video is my journey through learning how early games drew 3D graphics before 3D APIs and modern GPUs existed. In fact, before old 3D APIs like OpenGL and old GPUs existed, too. Just me, the computer and some code and maths. No 3D hardware or 3D libraries were used in the making of this…
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How Retro Games Built Their Worlds (Tile Maps in C from Scratch)
Welcome to the next edition of Gamedev The Hard Way, my attempt at writing a game from scratch for the Agon Light, using nothing but C. This time I create a tilemap system. The tilemap system is able to load tiles drawn in Aseprite, load a tile map drawn in Tiled, and scroll around a world…
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I Built a Game Engine in C and Made Something Playable
Welcome to the next edition of Gamedev The Hard Way, my attempt at writing a game from scratch for the Agon Light, using nothing but C. This time I actually make a game! For once I actually finish something. Support the channel ------------------------------ https://patreon.com/ncot_tech...
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How I Built a Joystick Interface (And Made Every Mistake)
Welcome to the next edition of Gamedev The Hard Way, my attempt at writing a game from scratch for the Agon Light, using nothing but C. This time I make a joystick work by building a joystick interface for the Agon Light. Then I program it to add it to my game. Support the channel...
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Collision Detection Doesn\'t Need to Be Complicated
Welcome to the next edition of Gamedev The Hard Way, my attempt at writing a game from scratch for the Agon Light, using nothing but C. This time I get thoroughly distracted and accidentally make a Pong style game idea while figuring out how to add collision detection to my game engine. I…
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I Threw Away My Game Engine and Rebuilt It — Here\'s Why
Welcome to the next edition of Gamedev The Hard Way, my attempt at writing a game from scratch for the Agon Light, using nothing but C. This time I throw away a ton of code and replace it with a shiny new Entity Component System. Blog Post - https://ncot.uk/blog-posts/ecs-entity-component-system/...
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State Machines - How to engineer better software
Welcome to the next edition of Gamedev The Hard Way, my attempt at writing a game from scratch for the Agon Light, using nothing but C. This time I attempt to put the \"engineering\" back in \"software engineer\". Instead of blindly hacking away at my code and hoping for the best, I am now more...
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Parallel Port to Speaker - MS-DOS Audio Trick
To try everything Brilliant has to offer—free— visit https://brilliant.org/NCOTTechnology/ . You’ll also get 20% off an annual premium subscription. Support me on Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/ncot_tech Credits ------------ This video was sponsored by Brilliant #MSDOS #BorlandCPP #RetroCoding...
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The Mistake Every Programmer Makes
Support the channel ------------------------------ https://patreon.com/ncot_tech https://ko-fi.com/ncot_tech In this video, I dive headfirst into coding a tilemap engine for my game — no plan, just pure momentum. Everything seems to go great… until I slam into a brick wall: I have no idea how to...
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The PC Speaker shouldn\'t sound this good!
To try everything Brilliant has to offer—free—for a full 30 days, visit https://brilliant.org/NCOTTechnology/ . You’ll also get 20% off an annual premium subscription. Support me on Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/ncot_tech Source code - https://github.com/ncot-tech/pc-speaker Visit the...
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C programming a roguelike - the dungeon problem
Let\'s try to write a Roguelike game in C for the Agon Light. This is the first video. I explore how the original Rogue and similar games like Nethack generate their own dungeons, then adapt code that draws mazes so my dungeons are a bit more interesting to explore. Discuss the video here -...
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How Programmers Created Hypnotic Visual Effects on 1990s PCs
To try everything Brilliant has to offer—free—for a full 30 days, visit https://brilliant.org/NCOTTechnology/ . You’ll also get 20% off an annual premium subscription. Support me on Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/ncot_tech Source code - https://github.com/ncot-tech/vga-demo Visit the…
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Can You Make Something Good on Weak Hardware? I Tried
Discuss the video here! - https://github.com/ncot-tech/community/discussions/2 Source Code here! - https://github.com/ncot-tech/agon-adventure Support the channel ------------------------------ https://patreon.com/ncot_tech https://ko-fi.com/ncot_tech In this abridged video, I walk you through…
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Game Engine From Scratch in C - When Everything Goes Wrong
Welcome to the next edition of Gamedev The Hard Way, my attempt at writing a game from scratch for the Agon Light, using nothing but C. This time I attempt to program some basic enemy behaviours to test out my game\'s entity handling code. This is quite a fundamental part of the game as I will…
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Mode X: The Graphics Trick IBM Never Authorized
Github: https://github.com/ncot-tech/MS-DOS-Mode-X-Animation Blog Post: https://ncot.uk/projects/dosdev/mode-x-madness/ Support the channel! https://www.patreon.com/c/ncot_tech Music by Karl Casey @ White Bat Audio After learning about Mode 13h last time, I’ve been digging about in the ancient...
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Drawing Pixels Directly to Video RAM - What Could Go Wrong?
Support the channel - https://www.patreon.com/c/ncot_tech Visit the website - https://ncot.uk Let\'s move into the 1990s and draw some graphics! I\'ve got a whole 320x200 pixel screen, 256 colours and direct access to the video card. No APIs, no helper functions. Just me and the video RAM. Watch…
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Building games in C | Design and code from zero
Support the channel - https://ko-fi.com/ncot_tech Let\'s continue trying to design and make a retro computer game from scratch, in C, for the Agon Light. This time I explain my game design and what I want the game to be, and then walk through the code. Since last time the player is able to move...
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Retro MS-DOS Coding - Recreating the Iconic Award BIOS Screen
Support the channel: https://ko-fi.com/ncot_tech Read the longer blog post: https://ncot.uk/projects/dosdev/lets-recreate-a-90s-pc-bios-boot-screen/ Because why not, it looks simpler than it really is and we’ll get to fall down a rabbit hole trying to draw the Energy Star logo. Once you’ve tested...
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Nostalgic DOS Development Part 1 - FreeDOS, DJGPP, RHIDE and other madness.
Support the channel: https://ko-fi.com/ncot_tech Modern programming is too abstract, let\'s get down to basics and do some programming in DOS using C. You can join in too! In this video I explain how to set up 86Box with FreeDOS, and then how to install DJGPP the C compiler and RHIDE the IDE.…
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Agon Light Game Engine: Tilemap System & Collision Detection
In this video, I took the next step in my game development for the Agon Light by building a tilemap system and integrating it with the existing physics engine from the previous video. The tilemap, a classic way to structure game levels, includes solid tiles that interact with game sprites. While...
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Writing a Rigid Body Physics System Without Engines
Join me on a journey as I attempt to write a game for my Agon Light using nothing but raw C programming. In this second episode I figure out how to make a very basic 2D rigid body physics system work. It doesn\'t matter if you don\'t have an Agon Light, I\'m bringing you along for the ride.…
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Writing a game the hard way - from scratch using C. #1
Support the channel: https://ko-fi.com/ncot_tech Join me on a journey as I attempt to write a game for my Agon Light using nothing but raw C programming. In this first episode I figure out what kind of game to make, look at some shareware games of the past and get a basic game engine working…
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I Built an NES Tilemap System in C - Here\'s How
Support the channel: https://ncot.uk/support Github: https://github.com/ncot-tech/agon-graphics In this video, I explore how early computers used clever tricks to create moving graphics, focusing on how Nintendo developed tile-based games on the NES. Using these techniques, I built a scrolling...
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Displaying Multiple Bitmaps on Agon Light with VDP
Get the code: https://github.com/ncot-tech/agon-graphics Support the channel: https://ncot.uk/support Visit the website: https://ncot.uk In this video I look at how you can program the Agon Light to display bitmap images using C. I go through how to convert a PNG image into an RGB2222 format…
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I Built Mystify & Starfield on the Agon Light
Support the Channel - https://ncot.uk/support Get the code for this episode - https://github.com/ncot-tech/agon-graphics I\'m learning how to program the Agon Light, and as a project thought it\'d be fun to try and program two of the classic Windows 3.11 screensavers - Mystify and Starfield...
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The Strangest Things Developers Buried in Languages
Easter eggs are usually hidden inside our games and software, but did you know there are some hidden inside the tools and languages used to make that software? Come with me on a fun Easter diversion while we eat our bodyweight in chocolate, and look at six programming Easter Eggs. Some of these…
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Generating Infinite Pi Digits Without Overflow
Let\'s celebrate #piday in this appropriately short video by writing some #python programs to calculate Pi. The first method uses something called the Gauss-Legendre method. It works by iteratively refining an approximation of Pi, generating the answer digit by digit. When writing code to…
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Agon Light 2 - C Programming, Better Keyboard Routines, Joystick Ports
Dive into the exciting world of DIY hardware hacking. Join in as I explore joystick integration, keyboard inputs, and serial debugging using the versatile Agon Light platform. Delve into the technical intricacies of GPIO pins, assembly language programming, and C compiler usage for low-level...
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Chaos to Order: Inside Cellular Automata
Today, we\'re diving into the world of cellular automata. A digital playground of sorts where simple rules lead to astonishing complexity. where order can arise from chaos and collapse back into chaos just as quickly. First we have a look at One Dimensional Cellular Automata which were originally...
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Agon Light C Programming - An Introduction
Instead of bashing away in BASIC, it\'s possible to do some coding in C on the Agon Light. Let\'s find out how in this introduction to an ongoing series where I figure out the Agon hardware and work on a game. I have no idea what game I want to make, and I\'m not entirely sure how to achieve some...
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The Obfuscated C Contest is Insane
It\'s Halloween, programming is an art form and there\'s a darker side to it. Come with me in this fun video as I explore several languages that hate you and are trying to make your life difficult, before we go off down the rabbit hole and find some truly horrific examples of real programming....
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FORTH - Better than BASIC?
Support the channel: https://ko-fi.com/ncot_tech Let\'s look at FORTH, the obscure stack based programming language that nobody seems to use. Or do they? After getting an Agon Light Z80 computer and discovering it can do things other than run BBC BASIC I went looking at other programs to run on…
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Sinclair BASIC vs BBC BASIC - How to fit an entire devkit inside 64K
Just how did 8 bit computers like the ZX Spectrum or BBC Micro manage to cram an entire programming language into their tiny systems, and still have space for the user\'s programs? Let\'s compare two systems of the time - the low end ZX Spectrum that tried to cram as much computer as possible…
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The Internet - Mid 90\'s Web Culture
Let\'s jack into the \'net, surf the Information Superhighway and go visit the global village in this video taking a look at mid 90\'s Internet culture. Come and see what all the fuss was about before the dot-com bubble even began and people were still trying to work out how to make us of a...
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Zilog Z80 Deep Dive - How does it work?
Support the channel: https://ko-fi.com/ncot_tech Let\'s go right inside a CPU and watch it execute code at the transistor level! As a programmer I have often wondered exactly what the CPU is doing when I give it some code. Being a computer science teacher I know all about the fetch-execute cycle...
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Calculators, Reverse Polish Notation, and the Birth of Computing
What happens when you set out to build a pocket calculator? Well in this case it turns out you also accidentally invent desktop computers, and spawn a bunch of CPUs that are still being used today. Follow along as we go through the thoroughly bizarre story of how trying to do complex maths and…
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Sorting Data: The Problem That Built Computers
How did the 1880 US Census and the end of World War 2 lead to the invention of the computer? What was it that kickstarted the Information Age? Come with me as we find out how the need to count everyone in 1800s America directly lead to the modern information age and all the technology we take for...
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Wang Tiles: The Mathematical Trick Behind Perfect Textures
Understand the concept of tiling a plane by arranging regular tiles in a systematic manner, creating visually pleasing patterns. Additionally, get introduced to Wang tiles, a fascinating method that employs specific rules for tile placement, resulting in captivating, non-repetitive designs. Wang...
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DIY Solar PV Installation - Can it save me money?
Can I put a solar panel on the roof of my shed and use it to power my server farm, or will I just waste all my money? Our energy prices are ridiculous and even taking into account recent \"world events\" I find it hard to understand why electricity is so expensive. So I figured I\'d try to do...
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Hacking Your Way to a Smarter Home: Integrating Smart Sockets with Home Assistant
In this video, you\'ll learn how to take control of your smart sockets by replacing the firmware with Tasmota, a popular open-source alternative to the stock firmware that many smart home devices come with. By the end of this video, you\'ll be able to use your smart sockets with Home Assistant, a...
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BBC BASIC in RiscOS on a Raspberry Pi is really cool!
The Raspberry Pi, Acorn Archimedes, and the BBC Micro have played a significant role in shaping the microcomputer industry. They were designed to be affordable and accessible to the general public and educational institutions, with the goal of promoting computer literacy and technology education....
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Samsung SDP-860 Document Presenter Thing [VLOG 1]
I\'ve been buying odd things off eBay again. I figured that since I needed to test out this document camera thing for some other videos, I may as well record my initial reactions, unboxing and thoughts while trying to work out what it does. I bought this blind off eBay without really researching...
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ABOUT THIS SHOW
Ever wondered what/'s actually happening beneath your code? Welcome to NCOT Technology, where we strip away the abstractions to explore the /"how/" and /"why/" of computing. From building 3D engines without a GPU to wiring up binary adders and mastering IEEE 754 floating point, this channel is for the curious programmers who want to fall down the technical /"rabbit holes./" What we cover: * Low-Level Engineering: Logic gates, CPU architecture, and hardware arithmetic. * Graphics from Scratch: 3D projection and rasterization without the libraries. * Computing Standards: Deep dives into the standards that make the digital world work. * Hands-on Code: Technical walkthroughs in C++, Python, and Assembly. If you aren/'t satisfied with a library doing the work for you and want to understand the circuitry driving it all, hit Subscribe. Let/'s see how deep the rabbit hole goes.
HOSTED BY
juytre
CATEGORIES
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Frequently Asked Questions
How many episodes does NCOT Technology have?
NCOT Technology currently has 88 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
What is NCOT Technology about?
Ever wondered what/'s actually happening beneath your code? Welcome to NCOT Technology, where we strip away the abstractions to explore the /"how/" and /"why/" of computing. From building 3D engines without a GPU to wiring up binary adders and mastering IEEE 754 floating point, this channel is for...
How often does NCOT Technology release new episodes?
NCOT Technology has 88 episodes. Check the episode list to see recent publication dates and frequency.
Where can I listen to NCOT Technology?
You can listen to NCOT Technology on PodParley by clicking any episode. We provide an embedded audio player for direct listening, and you can also subscribe via your preferred podcast app using the RSS feed.
Who hosts NCOT Technology?
NCOT Technology is created and hosted by juytre.
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