035 - Retro-friendly homelabs with ZimaOS

<p>In this episode, John and Dave talk about discovering ZimaOS and building an affordable home lab using repurposed hardware - and how that single setup quickly expands into media streaming, network-wide ad blocking, ROM organization, browser-based retro gaming, backups, and local services. Along the way, they also touch on the Commodore 64 Ultimate, a Sega Channel preservation project, a retro electronics repair simulator, and why digital preservation and self-hosting matter more than ever. </p><p><strong>Topics &amp; sub-topics discussed:</strong></p><ul><li><p><strong>ZimaOS</strong> - app-based operating system that makes home labs approachable<br><a href="https://www.zimaspace.com/zimaos" target="_new" rel="noopener">https://www.zimaspace.com/zimaos</a></p></li><li><p><strong>Home lab fundamentals</strong> - NAS, backups, ad blocking, VMs, and always-on servers</p></li><li><p><strong>ROMM</strong> - organizing ROM libraries with metadata, artwork, and downloads<br><a href="https://github.com/rommapp/romm" target="_new" rel="noopener">https://github.com/rommapp/romm</a></p></li><li><p><strong>EmulatorJS - </strong>play retro games directly in your web browser<br><a href="https://emulatorjs.org" target="_new" rel="noopener">https://emulatorjs.org</a></p></li><li><p><strong>Jellyfin</strong> - self-hosted media streaming without subscriptions<br><a href="https://jellyfin.org" target="_new" rel="noopener">https://jellyfin.org</a></p></li></ul><ul><li><p><strong>The 8-Bit Files Podcast &amp; Discord</strong><br><a href="https://the8bitfiles.com" target="_new" rel="noopener">https://the8bitfiles.com</a></p></li></ul>