Retro Thing

An Armada of Battleships

Sadly, the inventor of 'Battleship' is lost in the fog of history. The game probably existed for decades as a quill-and-parchment way to keep bored children amused while enduring tedious cross-country carriage trips. It was first released in 1931 by Starex Novelty Co. as 'Salvo,' and a half dozen competitors soon sailed into view. The 'modern' Milton-Bradley (now Hasbro) version of the game arrived in 1967 and has been produced in dozens of permutations including tabletop, travel versions, folio editions and even a tiny electronic handheld version which made it possible to, uhh, play with yourself.

This package dates from the 1980s and demonstrates how children of the Me Generation were encouraged to sweetly obliterate their siblings in a sanitized version of Mutually Assured Destruction. It was a tad better than the boxed version unveiled in 1967, which pictured a father and son doing battle while mom and sis dutifully washed dishes in the next room.

Hasbro's Current Battleship Lineup

Steem Engine Atari ST Emulator

Steem is a free Atari STE emulator developed by Anthony and Russ Hayward. They report that it is "being updated regularly and runs almost every ST program ever made without any problems... Whether you want to run great old games, use MIDI apps just like you did on the ST or you have some other, more sinister motive, Steem is the emulator for you!"

Available for Windows and Linux, although the Haywards are somewhat coy about the minimum system requirements: "how well it runs relies on so many different factors that we can't really work out the minimum requirements are." Still, it's not like it'll cost you a bundle to take it for a spin.

Steem Engine Atari STE Emulator [via The Red Ferret Journal]

Colour me Retro!

[Giles Perkins took the week off work and mysteriously found himself painting the house. I'll let him tell you more...]

OK, so what can be retro about paint? Surely paint is paint and you slap it on your walls and all's good? Well, having just sampled the King of paints, I'm now an absolute convert to the retro way of decorating.

Farrow & Ball are traditional English manufacturers of decorating products, established in the 1930's by two chemists in Dorset, their paints are highly pigmented formulations which give colours of great depth with a characteristically chalky absolute matt finish (just 2% sheen level in their Estate Emulsions to be precise). Made with the finest ingredients, using traditional production methods, these aren't just any old colours in a pot. And, with most of their range also exceeding proposed 2010 environmental standards in Europe, they're environmentally friendly as well as stunningly good to look at!

With names like 'Elephant's Breath', 'Mouse's Back' and 'Ointment Pink' the limited colour range (just 132 in all) comprises subtle hues which hark back to a pastoral and more traditional look - think English country house or period city abode - but all are strangely bang up to date at the same time.

Whilst these cans aren't cheap, the paint is an absolute joy to work with and coverage excellent, thus offsetting the premium price tag. So, if you want to go retro on your walls, check out Farrow & Ball and maybe 'Pigeon' or 'Dead Salmon' might just be what you've been missing all these years!

www.farrow-ball.com  (US$, Can$, Euro and £) including background on some of those whacky names!

A look at some influential Amiga games

In hindsight, it is hard for us to grasp just how revolutionary the Commodore Amiga was. The combination of a 16-bit architecture and a capable custom chipset was incredibly attractive to coders around the world in the mid-1980s. While the original Amiga 1000 was a tad expensive, the later Amiga 500 was truly an affordable "machine for the masses."

Wired Gaming has just released a list of what they consider the 10 most influential Amiga games, and it brings back quite a few memories. The list includes several of my all-time faves, including Lemmings and Shadow of the Beast. In fact, the SoB soundtrack still echoes in my head from time to time (usually while driving late at night on deserted country roads), even though I haven't played it for at least 15 years. Personally, I have a soft spot for the Psygnosis scrolling shoot-em-ups Menace and Blood Money. Anyone want to share their favorite Amiga titles?

Top 10 Most Influential Amiga Games [Wired]

3D Movies On DVD: Is Anybody Watching?

Believe it or not, some 3D video technology is surprisingly affordable. Still, when most people think of 3D movies, they often recall cheap little cardboard glasses with 2-color lenses (typically red and bluish-green). These anaglyphic images were embarrassingly popular in the early 1950s, although some modern films have also been released in this format. Color reproduction was dismal, and the bizarre cardboard glasses definitely aren't designed for rest comfortably on human faces. A succession of increasingly optimistic mad scientists created ever more complex 3D viewing systems, including polarized projection systems (expensive and difficult to maintain) and shutter glasses (which must be electronically synchronized to the screen action).

As far as the mad scientists are concerned, it is only a matter of time before 3D leaps into living rooms around the world. Alas, there really isn't strong demand for 3D content at home because most of us are still trying to figure out how to get high-def content out of our newfangled flat screen TVs (heck, I'm still trying to find all of the remotes). Still, the loonies in the R&D labs keep pushing. And they've succeeded, to a certain extent.

A number of companies offer very inexpensive shutter glasses, usually bundled with a variety of short films such as Up Denali 3D on DVD. Unfortunately, these shutter systems have several significant drawbacks: They only work with CRT televisions (LCD and Plasma screens do not refresh in the same manner) and the screen refresh rate of standard television isn't high enough to avoid visible flicker. They're interesting novelty items, but the problem is that there just isn't a broad enough range of 3D content to support the fledgling industry. After all, there's a limit to how many times your family will be willing to watch IMAX nature films while wearing goofy plastic goggles.

3D Stereo Technology: Ready for Prime Time? [Tom's Hardware]

Related:
3D Bolex Movie Camera

Subminiature Film Fun

We're spoiled by modern miniature gadgetry. Things were different back in the early 1970s: Phones were attached to the wall by wires, Honda and Toyota vehicles were regarded as toys, the Intel 4004 was the pinnacle of microprocessor technology, and digital photography was unheard of.

Kodak introduced the tiny 110 cartridge format in 1972, along with a lineup of sleek little Pocket Instamatic cameras. Their top of the line model was the stainless steel Pocket Instamatic 60 with automatic exposure and rangefinder. They went on to produce such cameras at the rate of about 8 million per year, and the 110 format remained popular throughout the 1990s.

The 110 format didn't fare well in the digital age because of its tiny negative size, which made it somewhat challenging to produce respectable enlargements. Of course, the big problem with 110 was that the vast majority of these tiny cameras were cheaply made with dodgy lenses and very few exposure control options - users mistakenly believed that the film itself was to blame for the blurry images generated by these department store specials, while the truth was that the cameras themselves were junk. In fact, the 13 x 17 mm frame size is significantly larger than a Super 8 image (or even a 16 mm movie film frame, for that matter).

The reality is that a high-end subminiature camera can produce wonderful images. Such devices are still manufactured by Minox, but it's worth watching out for well-maintained vintage cameras such as the Canon ED, which featured a 26mm f/2 lens, CdS cell aperture-priority electronic exposure, and a coincidence rangefinder with  parallax correction marks. It measures a mere 142 x 28 x 56 mm and weighs 295g. Many other good quality Pocket Instamatics feature focusable multi-element lenses with electronic exposure metering. They're small enough to slip into a pocket and are guaranteed conversation starters (Yes, Kodak still manufactures the little 110 film cartridge).

Kodak Pocket Instamatic 60

Related:
Minox Subminiature Cameras

Schweizer 1-26: Birth of the One-Design Sailplane

Paul Schweizer's sailplane designs have introduced thousands of pilots to the sport of soaring. My favorite is the little 1-26 single-seat glider. Its short wingspan makes it wonderfully nimble and truly fun to fly and it offers adequate performance and safe handling for low-time pilots. The intent was to create a "one-design" class, much like in sailing where yachtsmen compete in more-or-less identical craft. The prototype was completed in early 1954 and offered either as a $1465 kit or fully assembled for $2150. The aircraft proved popular, with seven hundred 1-26's manufactured over the course of a quarter century.

The one-design philosophy was successful, spawning the birth of the 1-26 Association and annual championships. While the aircraft is easy to fly, it offers moderate performance and demands considerable skill from the pilot to complete lengthy tasks, especially in comparison to the new generation of carbon-composite sailplanes that seem to stick to the sky.

The 1-26 is almost Soviet in its rugged simplicity: a fabric covered tube fuselage with detachable aluminum wings is designed to be assembled from its trailer in a mere half hour (although you'll need a handful of people and a few wrenches). The design encourages gentle landings, because if you hit the ground hard the entire airfield hears the wings flex with a sound not unlike dropping a pair of oil barrels. It's also a good aircraft to reinforce the importance of a tight five-point harness: I'm just under six feet tall and there's only an inch or two of clearance between my head and the canopy - a little turbulence is enough to bump my noggin unless I'm well cinched down. Many 1-26's are still in the air at soaring clubs around the world and I heartily recommend taking one for a spin (literally).

Paul Schweizer recalls the development of the 1-26
Learning to Glide
Soaring Society of America
British Gliding Association
Soaring Association of Canada

Stanton Unveils USB Turntable: Vinyl Addicts Rejoice

The trendsters at Stanton DJ have announced their first USB-compatible turntable. The T.90 USB High-Torque Turntable continues a recent trend aimed at making it as easy as possible to connect a turntable to your computer. The T.90 has a few tricks up its sleeve, including 'Key Lock,' which gives DJs the ability to change a record's tempo without altering its pitch. The T.90 can handle 33, 45 and even 78 RPM disks and includes a pitch control slider capable of altering the platter speed by as much as 12%. In addition to USB,  the deck also includes an S/PDIF digital output for connection to a digital-capable amplifier or recording system. Price TBA.

T.90 USB High-Torque Turntable [Synthtopia]

Related:
Retro Thing's Affordable Turntable Roundup

My LED clock Fetish

There. It's all out in the open: I can't resist the glow of a nice tall 7-segment LED, even in a world filled with beautiful high-resolution color LCD panels. Luckily, Dynamism understands my plight. This sleek $179 aluminum-fronted clock weighs a 605 g (important when you irrationally decide to fling it across the room when it starts bleeping at 5:30am) and measures about 12 inches wide by 6 inches high. It includes a piercing electronic alarm and is switchable between 12 and 24 hour time. My only complaint is the color of the digits, since I'm definitely not a fan of ghostly radioactive blue.

Dynamism LED Clock