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Microsoft veteran Dave W. Plummer showed off a reimagined Task Manager, featuring AI, cyberpunk visuals, and synthwave sound.
Microsoft veteran Dave W. Plummer (perhaps better recognized as Dave's Garage across social media) is known across the Windows ecosystem for his contributions to the Task Manager, Calculator, and even pinball, among many others.
The engineer-turned-YouTuber has shared interesting stories about his time at the tech giant, including the time he almost got fired for adding ZIP file support to Windows over 30 years ago. While Plummer left Microsoft in 2003 before the release of Windows Vista, his creative juices continue to flow.
This imagined dashboard, based on that Tempest AI project, includes several graphs, two speedometer‑style gauges, and a general cyberpunk‑inspired theme. It also features music, surprisingly, which our sister site PCGamer called its best (and worst) part due to its "pounding synthwave/rave/glitch" nature — hardly in keeping with modern Windows.
If you didn't know, Tempest was a retro arcade game published by Atari in 1981. It used early vector graphics to simulate 3D movement, and was particularly difficult. Last year, Plummer indicated that he chose Tempest for his AI project because it's a "beast to master with fast-paced action and complex patterns."
You might wonder why I chose Tempest for this AI project. It's not because Tempest is an easy game. Far from it. Tempest is a beast to master with fast-paced action and complex patterns. Its spinning 3D playfield and relentless enemies make every second a test of skill and reflexes.
Dave W. Plummer
For context, Plummer holds the world record on Tempest on its hardest settings. "Most humans are notoriously bad at the game, and it's a tough challenge for an AI to crack, which is precisely why it's perfect for this project," the engineer added.
According to Plummer, "It burns about 75% of the GPU at 30fps on my M2 Mac Pro, so it's "not insubstantial' with its GPU demands!", just in case you were wondering how much processor and memory the project takes.
Over to you
Should Windows utilities like Task Manager get modern redesigns with AI and advanced visuals?Let me know in the comments.
Hope you enjoyed this news post. Feedback welcome.
Posted Thursday 19 February 2026 at 5:50 am AEST (my time).
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