Retro Thing

Vintage Computers Used To Teach Programming

Robin Lee pointed us to this piece about using 8-bit BBC Micros from the 1980s to teach programming. Given the complexity of modern computing platforms, it's an intriguing idea. From the look of it, the class barely skimmed the surface using a BASIC interpreter, whereas making the most of the machine requires mastering 6502 assembly language.

Of course, revisiting classic machines is nothing new. The Commodore 64 -- once a fierce competitor to the BBC Micro Model B -- still has a cult following. What's new is the acknowledgement that there are several generations of young programmers who grew up without cutting their teeth on simple hardware platforms. Today's coding environments have so many levels of abstraction that it's possible to code through an entire career without having to write a keyboard debounce routine. On one hand, that's a good thing. On the other, there's nothing quite as exciting as trying to squeeze a professional application into only 16K.

Several modern manufacturers have tried to fill the void - most notably the Arduino series of microcontroller boards. These tiny 8-bit computers include dirt cheap Atmega microcontrollers that operate at five or ten times the speed of common 8-bit processors from the 1980s. These modern chips might not have the charm of classic designs like the BBC Micro and the Sinclair ZX Spectrum, but they offer programmers the opportunity to design their own devices from the ground up -- something that's becoming increasingly rare.

BBC Micros used in retro programming class

A Decent Budget Turntable

The vinyl resurgence that kicked into high gear about five years ago shows no sign of slowing. Many companies such as Sony, Audio-Technica and Numark offer entry-level turntables for under $100. However, the sweet spot for budget home enthusiasts seems to be the $200 mark.

The $209 Audio-Technica AT-LP120 USB is a direct drive turntable with a built-in USB port, just in case you get the urge to dupe your virgin vinyl to digital. It offers a nice compromise between affordability and respectable performance at a price point that isn't unreasonable in the iPod era.The turntable even includes a built-in phono preamp just in case your modern amplifier doesn't have one.

The table runs at 33-1/3 45, or 78 rpm and includes quartz speed control and a stroboscopic platter speed indicator. There's also a variable pitch control to bring out your inner experimental chipmunk.The s-shaped tone arm assembly provides an adjustable counterweight, antiskate adjustment, tone-arm height adjustment and a lock to prevent storage damage. An ATP-2 cartridge is included, along with a fairly typical cast-aluminum record platter and slip mat.

 While many audiophiles will decry the inclusion of a USB port as a gimmick, I think it's an important feature these days -- like it or not, many of us listen to most of our music using portable music players and digital libraries on our PCs.

And I'll let you in on a secret: A digital copy of a vinyl record preserves most of the character of the original.

You see, the "magical sound of vinyl" can -- to a certain extent -- be captured using digital equipment. Records have a distinctive sound because of their limited dynamic range and the way that music has to be compressed and equalized to prevent the needle from jumping out of the groove. The result is a distinctive, organic sound. Capturing that sound in a digital format results in a recording that is often surprisingly different than the same track that has been "digitally remastered for CD."

Of course, some of you are going to be apoplectic at the thought of listening to digital copies of your favorite LPs. In that case, just use the analog outputs of the AT-LP120 and enjoy completely analog sound. For once, everybody wins.

Audio-Technica AT-PL120 Professional Direct-Drive Turntable

Summer Can't Be Over, I'm Still Wearing My 80s Shades

There is sill plenty of summer left, people. Nothing ticks me off more than people greeting the first few days of September as if autumn were only minutes away. Summer doesn't end officially for another couple of weeks. I advise all fellow mavericks to dare wear white after Labor Day, keep hitting the beaches, and cook every possible meal you can outside. In return I pledge to continue wearing these flashy 80's sunglasses until I see snow.

Okay, I realize that I should have a strict geometric haircut and skin tight leathers on, but even on their own the specs offer quite the effect, eh? I did get these in the 80's, even though they're were not exactly a fit for my personality or fashion sense... ever. Perhaps I invested in them as I could see that these were going to be a real artifact of the 80's - the amateur anthropologist in me knew that this style was not going to stay part of the mainstream for long and these would be a great souvenir of that decade. Or more likely, they were 99 cents.

Help out Retro Thing when you buy 80s sunglasses (or anything else) on Ebay

related:
Cardboard 80s sunglasses for your car
Shutter Shades make a comeback
Polaroid went from sunglasses to instant cameras

iFixit's Retro Console Teardowns

iFixit usually takes apart and photographs expensive new devices that most of us would never dream of disassembling for kicks - smartphones, computers and the like.

This week, they're on a retro kick. They started on Monday with the Magnavox Odyssey 100 (a typical pong/hockey game from 1975), then dismembered an RCA Studio II, Atari 2600 and a Nintendo Famicom.

There's something comforting about mid-1970s technology. The Odyssey 100, for example, incorporates a spacious circuit board populated with discrete components and a simple Texas Instrument "pong" chipset. The presence of a half dozen jumper wires hints at how quickly this design was brought to market - getting the unit into stores before Christmas was more important than a perfect circuit board design. There's very little mystery here, unlike the highly integrated silicon innards of today's "magical" entertainment devices.

Even the venerable Atari 2600 -- which sold more than 30 million units -- is strikingly spartan inside. That's because Atari had to cut quite a few corners to hit a $199 price point in 1977 ($700 in 2009 dollars). The machine was built around three core chips -- a MOS Technology 6507 microprocessor running at 1.19 MHz, an I/O and timer chip that held 128 bytes of RAM, and a custom Atari TIA video chip with only 20 bits of internal pixel memory that had to be updated for each raster line.

I'm looking forward to seeing what retro treat iFixit has in store for us on Friday.

Modernizing The Console Stereo

Robin Cooksley recently contacted us with news of his audio furniture business. He explains, "I am trying to start a furniture making business specializing in retro audio equipment, one of my ideas is to make retro record player units, like the old ones where the record player was under a lift up lid and the speakers were integrated into the unit. The units can be fully customized to the size of audio equipment being placed in them, have ipod docs etc etc and be made out of the wood of choice for the purchaser. I would love to hear from you guys as to what you think, I think it is pretty groovy and original, well originally retro."

It should come as no surprise that I'm a huge fan of stylish systems like the Clairtone Project G and even the homey Magnavox Astro-Sonic Solid-State models. Their appeal is straightforward -- a piece of furniture is much easier to blend into a room than a stack of modern stereo components.

Robin's audio furniture wraps the components of your choice in a hand-crafted cabinet that evokes classic design of the 1960s. Each console can be customized to fit the buyer's needs. He explains, "The doors of each unit are carved into waves to give a really cool 3 dimensional feel to it and there is also some classic dovetail joinery incorporated. The unit in the photo is made of walnut with the internal cabinet made of baltic birch plywood.  I could make the unit in Ash (light color) Oak (medium) or Walnut (dark) for around the same price."

The speaker mounts in the prototype are approximately 20" wide by 10" high and 17" deep, and there are two shelves behind the middle door that fit standard 17" components. Additional shelves can be added as required. Overall, the unit measures 60" wide by 18" deep by 30" tall and weighs 160 lbs.

He estimates the price will be around $1800. That's expensive by Ikea standards but reasonable when you consider the hundreds of hours of labour required to craft a piece of custom furniture.

So what do you think? Do you have any ideas to help Robin get his venture off the ground?

Visit Robin Cooksley Custom Woodworking

ToneMaster: Is It Live, Or Is It Killing Your Tape Deck?

As a lad, I was an avid taper. My friends were into taping music off of FM, or dubbing albums. Always the oddball, I was recording old time radio adventures. In Chicago, we're still lucky enough to have a radio show devoted to those old time classics like "Jack Benny" and "Suspense". My friends and I would argue the merits of various brands of recording tape, which had the best sound quality, which had the roomiest labels... I went through countless Maxell UR60's (since those old time radio shows tended to have low fidelity, I could get away with using normal formulation tape). Those tapes had a cleaning strip at the head of every tape, and if you watched the sale papers, you could catch them for a buck a piece (in 1980's money...).

If money was low, I'd sometimes cast my eye over the cheaper tape brands. ToneMaster was the house brand of national pharmacy chain Walgreens. They were quite cheap (sometimes you could get 10 for $3.00), looked cheap, were often packed in a plastic bag without protective cases, and most disappointingly sounded like death warmed over. A few times, I'd try to brave the odds, hoping that somehow ToneMaster tapes had improved. If the tape didn't snap or tangle, it was frequently significantly degraded within a few plays. The tape deck frequently needed cleaning after a ToneMaster playback. There was even an attempt to upgrade the image of ToneMaster by individually shrinkwrapping the cassettes each in a protective case, and upping the price. Still just awful.

If you mention ToneMaster tapes today, pretty much everyone is in on the joke. The name has been reduced to a punchline on cassette enthusiasts message boards. If the rotten audio weren't enough, there was always the fear that this inferior tape was actually harming your tape deck. Shoddy quality like this ToneMaster cassette is what made me welcome recordable optical media. Those times I had to use cheap audio cassettes or VHS tapes, I feared the irreparable damage I might be doing to my equipment. No matter how lousy a blank CD-R or a DVD-R might be, at least you're not wrecking your gear by using one.

I do still look for bargains, and I'm not afraid to test out an off brand product in search of a great deal. However ToneMaster has taught me that just because it fits into a cassette deck doesn't make it a particularly good thing to have in there. Sometimes a bargain can actually end up being quite costly.

related:
Pioneer's last cassette deck
No more 4 track cassette recorders
Early cassettes were pink?

Pantomation - Video Art The Way It Used To Be

I love old video performance gear. The real-time analog nature of the art form still holds exciting possibilities. Pantomation was a system from the 1970's that did some amazing stuff using what today would be considered a rather slow and low res video camera and a PDP computer. Pantomation was able to follow specific colored objects in the visual field using chromakey, then trigger audio and graphical events based on those movements. This is amazing stuff, especially when you see how the tracking system worked in concert with music and video synthesizers of the day.

Today's video game consoles are caught up in the "all new" area of gestural control, but look how capable the Pantomation system was at achieving this sort of effect decades ago. I would love to see more of this kind of kinetic art today using these breakthrough video game technologies. I miss the exuberance of video art pieces like these. Lots of computer based art these days just comes down to being elaborate computer animations. With all these great new real-time performance technologies, maybe we'll catch up with how cool the Pantomation was back in the late 70's!

related:

Wicked DIY analog video synth
Replicating the PDP-8