Oh man! We're celebrating five years of Digitiser2000, whatever that is! And here to mark the occasion I offer you a bunch of things that I've created over the last half-a-decade that represents a reasonable cross-section of The Best of That Stuff. 

Starting, of course, with the first proper episode of Mr Biffo's Found Footage, which you can click on above. I miss it. Maybe I'll do something in a similar vein.

WAIT AND SEE.

And if you like that, there's a whole load more of it here. It really should be the most popular thing of all time. 

Next...

Five years ago this week... Digitiser was reborn. Well... sort of. To be honest, I never really saw this site as the actual continuation of Digitiser. It was always going to end up as a sort of hybrid between my old blog and Digi's reviews. 

What it gave me, at first, was an outlet for all the stuff that had been forced to stayed cooped up in my brain for the best part of a decade - and once the cork was off the bottle... well... you only have to look at the insane, three posts-a-day, schedule I was managing when I first started. I had a lot of itches to scratch. 

I did, in the early days, hope Digitiser2000 might take off in its own way, but I realised relatively early on that the site existed in a completely different media landscape to the one the original Digitiser launched in, back in 1993. To stand a chance of breaking through would've required me to kind of compromise on what I wrote, and I fast became aware that I didn't want to do that. 

Truthfully... we don't really get a lot of people reading these days, barring the occasional article which gets some interest outside of the core audience, though any disappointment over that has long since dissipated.

I've tried, on and off, experimenting, but ultimately I had to conclude that I needed to write what I wanted to write, and to hell with trying to compete for clicks, or making the entire point of this site in any way coherent and consistent. 

There have been times - even relatively recently - where I've wondered why I continue in the face of widespread apathy (blunt I know, but there's no real way of dressing it up as anything else), but I think I enjoy the structure it gives me. I like having a schedule to keep to, and I like the mental workout of having to think of what to write. 

And I like that there are at least some people who appreciate it. 

If you're already sick of hearing about Digitiser live... good news! Now you can get sick of seeing Digitiser Live with this enormous gallery of photos, courtesy of Steve from Bridge And Valley Creative, that manages to capture some of the evening's unbridled madness and joy. 

I'm still processing, so this could be a bit of a ramble, but I thought I should try and write about Saturday night. It was a lot to take in, and the utter exhaustion was immense.

I was a semi-vegetable by the time I got home (what sort of semi-vegetable? A carrot-esque, if you must know). If you were there, you probably saw that it was quite a physical show. That was on top of loading in, setting up, rehearsing the day before etc. etc. We all, I think, put everything into the performance on stage. Certainly, Gannon was a sweaty, broken, mess by the end too. I've never seen him look so wrecked. 

Then there was the chaotic load-out - which tons of you helped with, so thank you - but because we'd overrun so much, there was sort of no downtime. We'd planned to have half hour backstage just to decompress a bit before heading out to meet you all, but we didn't get that. There was also something of a dressing room invasion, which I regret, as we'd have benefited from some headspace.

Basically, if you thought the show was chaos - what happened afterwards was twice that. 

I tried to grab five minutes in the carpark once the stage was cleared, but I was gasping for a drink. I'd lost sight of Larry, Sarah, and Paul I only managed to speak to Paul, briefly, through the bar window. I headed inside, with the aim of having a beer, and never made it. I wanted to see them and tell them how brilliant they'd been, but never managed to. I only saw Larry right at the end of the night, 

I dunno how long I was chatting in the corridor, and doing the selfies thing, but long enough that the bar closed. And then they started turning off the lights. And there was more chatting outside.

​So, it ended up being hugely mentally and emotionally draining, as well as physically. But at least I was sober, and could drive home.

Originally a backer-exclusive ep, Octav1us and Gameplay Jenny interview Mr Biffo and Mr Hairs about the earliest days of Digitiser on Teletext. Learn secrets about Bamboozle, our favourite characters, and more!

Again now with another edition of Digitiser, from some 19 years ago - an era when the index page was at its most unmemorable. ​- an era when the index page was at its most unmemorable. 

Thanks to @ZXGuesser for the recovery. If it wasn't for these brave heroes and their digital archeology, so much of Digi's history would be lost. Instead, we can all revel once more in Digi's review of Pokemon Yellow, The Man having an existential crisis, and some dull Neo Geo Pocket news.

​Behold...!

Jason Robertson - the man who rummages down the backs of YOUR sofas - has provided us with yet another classic edition of Digitiser, not seen for 23 of your English years.

This time we've a bumper weekend instalment, featuring Violet Berlin and the first part of an interview with Argonaut Software mogul Jez Sex (San). Interestingly, it also boasts a made-up letter by one "Danny Boyd", and an Old Game: Here that's also clearly made up, as it has been "sent in" by someone I used to sit next to at school.

Also: see if you can find the hilarious way I used to think "monkeys" was spelled. Given how frequently I'd write about moneys, it would often be the catalyst for some merriment. 

Don't forget, if you've got some old VHS tapes - especially if they contain footage of you frolicking - to let Jason know.

Jason Robertson - teletext's apology for Indiana Jones - has once more been ferreting around in the fusty mausoleums of Pixeltopia. This time, he has unearthed another entire edition of classic Digitiser, not seen by human eyes since the 24th May 1994 - a year-and-a-bit into Digi's life.

For more on what Jason does, how he does it - and how to get in touch if you have any old VHS tapes you'd like to loan to his noble cause - bear lewd witness to his website: here.  

I've written before about Digitiser's history with the Amiga. Indeed, it's one of the first things that comes up whenever I'm interviewed. In short: Digi didn't cover the Amiga initially. Amiga owners complained in their thousands. We relented and got our bosses to buy us an Amiga, but we continued to grumble bitterly, and then - when the Amiga did go under - we gloated and continued to troll Amiga owners, because it was funny.

Thing is, when we started writing Digi, we had nothing against the Amiga or Amiga owners. I mean, why would we? What sort of lunatic would hate a computer?! How broken would you have to be to launch a vendetta against a computer and its entire user base?!

I mean, to be honest I even regretted that I'd chosen the Atari ST over the Amiga. It had probably been down to some latent loyalty from owning an Atari 2600 years before, but it soon became clear to me which system had the best games catalogue.

Regardless, we didn't see the Amiga as a priority. Anyone could see that the games industry was moving towards a PC/console-centric place, and the Amiga had been knocking around in one form or another since the mid-80s. 

Unfortunately, pointing that out didn't stop Amiga owners from hating us, and it didn't stop us trolling them, and that certainly didn't stop Amiga owners telling us we had an obligation to cover the Amiga, and complaining about us to our bosses and television watchdogs, and trying to get us sacked.

I never understood it. If they wanted Amiga reviews there were plenty of magazines they could go to! Were these people also writing complaints to, I dunno, Mean Machines and Super Play?! Why us?!

GUEST POST by PAUL DUNNING

I remember when I was at school that every now and then Smash Hits (and probably other magazines) would give away stickers. I remember one series being small, oval shaped things with “exciting” words and phrases printed on them, such as “Cheap Thrill” and - probably - “Disco Rules”.

​Anyway, such stickers ended up pretty much everywhere, much to the annoyance of our form teacher (who probably wished we were all slightly better behaved, and weren’t so keen on sticking things on the walls and furniture). Look: we were competing on stuff. Like chairs, desks, and the blackboard.

Moving on to today, stickers have become digital. You can slap them all over messages to your friends on your phones, to add “emotion” and “character” to your messages. Of course, you can’t put a digital sticker on the back of a classmate, but you can lob them at him (or her) over the electronic ether.
Apple added stickers to their Messages app for iOS last year.

They were not creating a walled garden where only a select few “big brands” and carefully chosen designers could play. Anyone could create sticker packs. That could be YOU.

It's possible that the first ever Digitiser has been widely seen in recent times. Though by "widely" I mean  "a couple of thousand people". Still, there's a video of it up on YouTube, if you've missed it.

It's fine for what it is.

Here, though, is second edition of Digi ever - a sacred relic which has not been seen for more than 25 years - once again unearthed by teletext archeologist Jason Robertson.

I'm assuming we had most of the first week or so of Digitiser written before we went to air - though I don't quite remember - but there's a sense here that we're still trying to fill pages. 

As before, it's something of a jarring read if you're familiar with the later, more anarchic, tone that we adopted; no Man Diary, no reveal-ohs, silliness kept to a minimum... not even the charts are in place. Furthermore, there are a few wince-inducing moments for myself and Mr Hairs. But anyhow. That's okay. Do your reading of this now. Just start, please.

Huge thanks on behalf of us and Jason to @amylrob1863 for supplying the tape upon which this important historical artefact was splayed.