The Super Mini cassette player has no controls. After inserting the tape, simply turn the volume knob to click the device on.

Lego designer Steen Sig Andersen took three weeks to craft his interpretation of a VW Beetle from angular LEGO blocks.

At first glance, this 1983 wristwatch TV from Seiko-Epson appears to be a gadget loves delight. However, it has several fatal flaws.

September 28, 2007

The Atari 2600 celebrates 30 years of low-rez fun

VCS prototype
It's funny how anniversaries sneak up on us.

The monstrosity above is an early prototype of the Atari CX2600 Video Computer System that went into production in October 1977. The $199 system came bundled with Combat, two rubberized joysticks, a pair of paddle controllers and a handy dandy RF modulator to mangle your parents' TV reception.

The prototype was built by Steve Mayer and Ron Milner in 1975, and it's now part of the Computer History Museum's permanent collection. They relied upon a DEC PDP-11 minicomputer to cross-compile the system's software because there simply weren't any suitable off-the-shelf microcomputers; the Apple II, Commodore PET and Radio Shack TRS-80 were still years away.

CX2600 Sunnyvale

The 2600 very nearly didn't happen. The early prototypes relied on a circuit board full of video circuitry which was miniaturized into a single IC, the TIA (Television Interface Adapter). Development costs skyrocketed, and Atari founder Nolan Bushnell realized in 1976 that the company simply didn't have the financial strength to complete the project as Pong sales plateaued. He sold the company to Warner Communications for $28 million, and it is rumored that the final development cost of the system was more than $100 million. It proved to be an insanely risky but shrewd gamble for Warner.

6507_2 The custom TIA chip was the key to making the system commercially viable. Microcomputer hardware was phenomenally expensive in the mid 1970s, and the first production version was built around only three main chips: the MOS 6507 CPU (a low-cost version of the famed MOS 6502 processor that would eventually power millions of home computers), MOS 6537 RIOT (128 bytes of RAM, two bidirectional I/O ports and a programmable timer), and Jay Miner's crude TIA video chip. The only other significant component was the cartridge ROM.

Combat screenshotEarly games such as Combat were crammed into 2K of ROM - a mere 2048 bytes - because memory was incredibly expensive. At the time, no one could imagine using the full 8K that the 6507 was capable of addressing. Incredibly, a handful of later titles included a whopping 32K of bank-switched ROM.

The Atari 2600's impact upon the gaming world was immense. No less than eight variations were produced over its stunning 14 year lifespan, along with three Sears-branded models and over a dozen clones. The system sold in excess of 40 million units, and AtariAge lists well over 1300 different game titles. This is all the more incredible because the system was envisioned to have only a two or three year lifespan before being replaced by something more sophisticated. That day never came. Even though Atari made repeated attempts to surpass their initial design, the 2600 remained the pinnacle of the company's console gaming success.

The Atari 2600 prototype is part of the Computer History Museum's permanent collection in Mountain View, California. Special thanks to Atari Age for allowing us to reproduce their images as part of Atari Week. Happy Birthday, VCS.

As for you... Have you played Atari today?

September 27, 2007

Pepsi Invaders - Primordial Adverware

Pepsiinvaders_screenshot The Atari cartridge collector crowd celebrates a number of rare games.  Unfortunately their stunning costs (often several hundred dollars) do not indicate the fun value.  My experience has been that rare games are mostly rare for a reason.  The best games are mostly the ones that we know best; the ones that were very popular and you can find for a couple bucks on Ebay.  But there are a few rare carts that capture an interesting moment, and Pepsi Invaders is one.

There were only ever 125 Pepsi Invaders cartridges built for Coke executives at an Atlanta convention - each exec got an Atari system, a handful of games, and this limited issue "Pepsi Invaders".  Instead of aliens, the player struggles to shoot down the letters of the word "Pepsi" floating in space.  Occasionally a Pepsi logo flies by along the top for bonus points.  The game times out after three minutes, so you don't have long to soak in that cola drenched message.  Could this be the first example of the modern scourge we call "adverware"?

Pepsi_invaders_cartAn original cartridge from that batch of 125 sold a few years back on Ebay for $1825.  The ROM has since leaked out, and I got this reproduction (in a clear cartridge case no less) a few years ago for considerably less.  As you've guessed, the game isn't all that fun, but it's enough of a curiosity to break it out at Atari parties.  Especially if someone is drinking Pepsi; the choice beverage of alien marauders.

Atari's Biggest Blunder

Activision
It's often impossible to predict the impact of a radical new technology. Atari's groundbreaking 2600 Video Computer System is a classic example. The 2600 topped many Christmas gift lists in 1978, thanks to some solid titles and a gradual realization that the incredibly flexible microprocessor-based system wasn't simply an expensive "Ultra Pong." The Atari VCS game library grew to 32 titles in their 1979 catalog and cartridge sales hit an estimated $100 million annually, but there was trouble brewing in pixel paradise.

AtariweeklogoAtari completely underestimated the role their programmers played in the company's newfound success. The corporate executives still lived in a world dominated by hardware, and they failed to recognize that a handful of extremely talented programmers were almost single handedly responsible for over half of their cartridge sales. These creative software artists toiled anonymously to produce smash hits - usually working alone. Unknown ace programmer David Crane, who joined Atari in 1977, took home a modest professional salary of about $20,000 per year in return for his efforts, while Atari's management team pocketed astronomical bonuses.

CraneThings reached the breaking point when the marketing department distributed a memo that systematically broke down the previous year's cartridge sales. Their goal was to let the developers know what was selling well, but Crane suddenly realized he was solely responsible for generating over $20 million in sales. In fact, four programmers - Alan Miller, Larry Kaplan, Bob Whitehead and Crane - were responsible for over half of the division's cartridge revenue that year. They approached Atari president Ray Kassar in an attempt to receive recognition and more appropriate compensation, but he turned them down flat.

Kassar's fateful response ultimately led to the infamous video game crash of 1984.

Continue reading "Atari's Biggest Blunder" »

September 26, 2007

Unknown Atari: A Few Secrets From The Labs

Logo_02_miniSome high priced consultant walked into the halls of Atari in its halcyon days and said, "you guys are doing great at this video game stuff, but you really need to diversify".  That's what consultants do - if you're really good at one thing, they tell you to spread that knowledge to other areas - if you're stretched too thin, they tell you to concentrate on your core competencies.  There - you're all consultants now.

The result of diversification within Atari were lots of projects that few outside the company ever heard of.  Curt Vendel (one of the designers of the Atari Flashback) has collected many concept sketches by Atari's industrial designer Regan Cheng at his superlative Atari History Museum website, but a surprising number of these projects made it to the prototype stage.  Others remained the kinds of dreams that only kajillionaires can have.  Here are just a few...

Unk_atariphone2 AtariTel - eager to make their mark in the world of telecommunications, Atari researches toiled for two years in secret to come up with a line of what we'd now call home networking products.  At least one actual product came of this, but it wasn't sold by Atari.  After AtariTel was shut down, Atari sold their design for a slow-scanning video phone to Mitsubishi who sold it as "Luna".   I actually have one of these monsters, and unless one of you out there also has one we'll never know if it works!

Unk_vidcomled Atari Healthcare Systems - Atari had some interesting ideas to create a modular hardware system to simplify hooking up multiple pieces of diagnostic gear to hospitalized patients.  They got as far as creating non-functioning mockups of the proposed gear, but the whole idea was scrapped after the Atari takeover by the Tramiel family.  One product near completion was the Vidicom, a handheld LED text display for patients unable to speak.

Unk_27002Remote Control Atari - the gaming division had it share of vaporware too.  One famous example was this wireless Atari.  Sure they all do it now, but Atari had this in mind decades ago, though with inferior cordless technology). There is at least one prototype of this monstrous unit that recently changed hands for lots of money.  Not bad if you like your Atari to look like that doorstop-shaped clipboard thing that Captain Kirk seems to sign at the end of every episode of Trek.

It's easy to jeer at some of these missteps, but isn't it better that a profitable and successful company explore creative ideas?  Or does this smack of the greedy fingers of a corporation that tried to infiltrate even more of our day-to-day lives?

Visit the Atari History Museum

DIY: Budget Bookshelf Speakers

Delsolspeaker

The DelSol is a compact bookshelf speaker based on a low cost $11 Aura NS3-194-8E three inch full range driver from Madisound. It was intended to be paired with the affordable Sonic Impact T-Amp, but it makes an ideal first speaker project for almost any low power amplifier.

Creator Jesse Ingham wanted to design something that was cheap, easy to build but capable of audiophile sound. The single speaker design eliminates the need for electronic crossovers, making the electronic part of this project as simple and inexpensive as possible. The elegant bass reflex enclosure measures only 6.5" X 5" X 8.25" and features a 2-inch bass port hidden on the bottom side. All in all, this looks like a great project get into the hobby of audiophile speaker building.

Inexpensive DIY Fullrange Bookshelf Speaker [diyaudioprojects.com]

September 25, 2007

The Poultry That Changed Atari History Forever

Fulop_missile_command_mini The Atari 2600's hardware was designed with just a few games in mind - pong games, and combat type battles.  Because the 2600 was only ever designed to support two moving objects on screen at a time, it took really clever programmers to expand the play abilities to the amazing point we've seen. 

Fulop Rob Fulop was a 1981 Atari staffer who managed to shoehorn the game mechanic of Missile Command into the meager computing resources of the 2600.  The game became a killer app, selling 2.5 million copies - shattering all previous sales records.  Fulop hoped that his bosses would show their appreciation via a fat Christmas bonus envelope, or perhaps the keys to a new car.  After all, his programming chops made Atari millions.

Gross_turkeyFulop's Christmas bonus was the same as every other Atari employee received in that year of historic profits; a gift certificate for a free Armor Star turkey.  After framing his turkey ticket (it hangs on his office wall to this day), he helped form Imagic; the second independent publisher of Atari games.  Two of his games have become Atari classics; Cosmic Ark & Demon Attack.  After a period of phenomenal growth, his company went down in the video game crash of the mid 80's and Activision picked up the rights to their 24 classic games.

Logo_02_miniFulop went on to work on the notorious Night Trap, a 90's game featuring video clips of a scantilly clad Dana Plato that invited government scrutiny and helped "inspire" the games rating system.  He's remained involved in interactive multimedia ever since.  So let's thank Rob Fulop for his many industry milestones, but let's not forget the role that a Mister Tom Turkey played in all of this too.

Atari Console Trivia

Atari 2600 catalog

Atari Week continues with a random assortment of factoids about the company that sparked the video game revolution:

Syzygy 1. The original name chosen for Bushnell & Dabney's fledgling enterprise was Syzygy (an astronomical term meaning 'unity' or 'alignment'). Fortunately, it was already taken and Atari Inc. was incorporated in California on June 27th, 1972. It's based on the Japanese 'ataru,' which roughly means "prepare to get your butt kicked."

2. Atari's first product was the coin-op version of Pong. It was completed in late 1972, featuring a B&W TV for the display and a laundromat coin-op mechanism. Almost 40,000 were produced, but it wasn't Bushnell's first arcade game. He had previously developed Nutting Associates' sleekly fiberglass-encased Computer Space.

3. Magnavox sued Atari for patent infringement, arguing that they had stolen the game play from "light tennis" on Ralph Baer's Magnavox Odyssey. The case was settled out of court and cost Atari a bundle.

4. Atari produced countless home versions of Pong. Unfortunately, so did everyone else. By 1976 the marketplace was overrun with cheap ball-and-paddle video games.

5. Founder Nolan Bushnell sold Atari Inc. to Warner Communications for $28 million the year before the famed 2600 Video Computer System -- their most successful product -- was released. He must have given one heck of a sales presentation.

6. The Atari 2600 cost a stunning $100 million to develop, and the key to its success was the extremely low chip count - there were only four main chips on the original circuit board. It retailed for the breakthrough price of $199. Nevertheless, the console sold a mere 250,000 units during its first year and required additional investment from Warner to stay afloat.

7. The Atari 2600 Video Computer System wasn't the first microprocessor-based cartridge console. That honor goes to Fairchild Semiconductor's clunky but cool Channel F (1976).

Space invaders 8. Things really took off for the console industry (and Atari) when they ported Taito's arcade hit Space Invaders to the 2600 in early 1980. The cartridge grossed over $100 million, but programmer Rick Mauer is rumored to have received a mere $11,000. I hope he bought Microsoft stock.

9. Atari's last ill-fated console was the Jaguar, introduced in 1993. Sadly, the only Atari console to generate a profit from the late 1980s onward was the Atari 2600jr, a sub-$50 bargain version of the original 2600 console.

10. The most recent console to carry the Atari logo was the Atari Flashback 2.0. Released in late 2005, this tiny 2600 replica retailed for under $30. It even included a version Pong. Rumor has it that more than 800,000 Flashback 2.0s were sold, and designer Curt Vendel is reportedly working on a handheld model.

Thanks to Atari Age for the photos.

September 24, 2007

Atari Week Kicks Off With A Paddlin'

Logo_02_mini It's Atari Week here at Retro Thing, and all week long we're going to looks at some lesser known aspects of the video game company that started it all; Atari.  Poor old thing has fallen on hard times - after years of being bounced around, Atari's current owners have incurred huge financial losses over the last few quarters... so it seems like a good time to remember a lot of those things that made Atari great.

PaddlesIt's still weird to me that current game systems only include a single controller and almost never include a pack-in game.  The 2600 included Combat and four (count 'em!) controllers.  Two were paddle controllers (rheostats to all of you solder jockeys out there) for spinning game elements from side to side.  The paddles lay bare the 2600's heritage as a Pong machine, but dozens of widely varied games came out that used the paddle in creative ways.

Super_breakout The rheostat style controller more or less disappeared after the 2600 (Coleco's Super Action Controllers had one, and Arkanoid for the NES included a special spinning controller).  Spinner type controllers are perfect for lightning fast gameplay (imagine Tempest with a joystick - yechhhh!), and on the VCS you could connect up to four of them for a mad frenzy.

Kaboom_patchSome of my favorite games for the 2600 are paddle games.  Super Breakout is still awesome after all these years, the superlative Warlords, the underrated Circus Atari.  Dual Shocks be damned... the closest a gamer gets to Zen is with a paddle controller in one hand and the classic Kaboom in the other.

Thanks to Atari Age for the photos.

September 23, 2007

Rock Paper Scissors Documentary Premieres September 25th

Proving that every conceivable documentary has not yet been made, the Calgary International Film Festival will premiere the new doc "Rock Paper Scissors" this Tuesday September 25th.  In the film we see the behind the scenes machinations of running an international RPS shampionship event.  Like any good documentary the film turns out to be less about the game itself, and more about the fanatics who play it.  The difference is that we have all played RPS, so it's easier for us to identify with people in the film, be they drunk party people, mathematicians, or costumed freaks.

There is a menace on the horizon.  The success of these tournaments hasn't gone unnoticed by major media, and they want in.  There is suddenly real cash on the barrelhead, and the arguments ensue.   Will the brothers who organize these events be scissored apart?  Their hopes pulverized by the rock of commercialism?    Will they sign that little paper contract?

Hopefully the film is a bit more poetic than I am.  Let us know if you see the movie by posting in the comments section!

Learn more about the RPS documentary

September 21, 2007

The triumphant return of the Diana Lomo camera

Dianaphoto

The Diana was a truly awful medium format camera introduced in the 1960s by the Great Wall Plastics Factory in Hong Kong. Its plastic body and lens were anything but high precision, making it unpredictable and prone to happy accidents and inconvenient light leaks. The simple design was copied by numerous other manufacturers during its heyday in the 1970s. Production ceased years ago, just as artists and experimental photographers were beginning to discover the unique charms of these cheap and cheery cameras. Inevitably, they became much sought after.

Lomography.com recently introduced an updated version, the Diana +. This Chinese-manufactured plastic device improves on the original by offering a removable lens that unscrews to reveal a pinhole, allowing pinhole photography without modification. They were even considerate enough to make the top of the camera a ghastly vintage shade of blue. The Diana + also lets you play with a panorama mode that allows you to stitch together a panoramic scene on the negative with multiple exposures. The original Diana camera didn't have the precision required to achieve this effect.

Diana+ camera
A third trick is a shutter lock to help you achieve dreamy light-streaked nighttime long exposure shots. The camera uses more-or-less easy to find 120 roll film. Prices start at $50 for the camera alone, of $70 for a package that adds 20 rolls of Agfa film. The camera offers three switchable frame sizes allowing 12 shots (5.2 x 5.2cm), 16 shots (4.2 x 4.2cm) and endless panorama mode (4.6 x 4.6 cm). There are only three lens aperture settings, so it's fairly hard to go wrong.

Diana+ Lomo Camera  [via Ektopia]

Furutech DFV-1 Record Flattener

LP Wafflemaker

Let's do things backwards today. This thing costs $1480, so you can't afford it. It's basically a gigantic waffle iron that heats warped LP records to a maximum of 65 degrees Celsius ('Bagdad at noon' in Fahrenheit) and flattens them like pancakes.

The space saving vertical design looks a tad like an old Bang & Olufsen stereo. You simply clip an LP onto the internal spindle, close the cover and tap a little white button to start the cooking process. After a few minutes, the sweet aroma of baked vinyl will permeate the room and you'll be presented with a newly flattened yet miraculously unharmed disc. Just add whipped cream and the fruit topping of your choice...

Furutech DFV-1 LP Flattener [via crave]

September 20, 2007

Vintage Pink

Pink Panther

Newsflash to cartoon creators: Kids hate kids' cartoons.

I'm the father of a five-year-old, which means I've suffered through dozens of episodes of Dora the Explorer, whose target demographic seems to be acid tripping bilingual preschoolers. I don't think children genuinely like this kind of show, they just accept them because they don't know any better and parents think they're safe.

The simple truth is that kids crave real cartoons. Grownup cartoons. Wickedly funny and sometimes horrifically violent cartoons. It's one reason that Disney Pixar movies have been such smash hits; kids realize that there's something supremely adult in some of the humor. They may not understand the subtext, but they understand it's cool. Grownup cool.

Continue reading "Vintage Pink" »

September 19, 2007

Amazingly Affordable Minox MX Miniature Cameras

Minoxmx

I've mentioned Minox miniature cameras several times over the years because I can't resist tiny mechanical marvels. The only problem is the price - forking out $1000 or more for a pocket-sized film camera is out of the question unless you're a determined collector.

Believe it or not, it's possible to buy a brand new Minox MX camera and flash for under $100. The sleek MX measures  8.4 x 2.1 x 3.4 cm and weighs a mere 55g. It uses the same Minox 8x11 Pro film as its more expensive brothers. Instead of incorporating a heavy and costly metal body, this lightweight model is manufactured from plastic reinforced with glass-fibre. The lens can focus from one meter to infinity, and a brightline viewfinder allows you to line up your spy shots with military precision. The detachable flash clips to the left side for easy low light shooting.

If you want a real bargain, I recently spotted several MX demo units on the Minox site starting at only € 39 without flash, or € 55 for the set as pictured.

Read more at Minox Germany

eBay: Remco Drive-In Theater

Drivein_01
I have never been to a drive-in theater, and I really want to have the experience before they all disappear forever.  In the next few weeks I'm finally going to go since a close friend just became the projectionist at one of our remaining drive-ins, and he's assured me that I won't have to get smuggled in within the trunk of a car.

Drivein_02We can all bewail the loss of drive-in movie theaters, but perhaps some of our more enterprising readers will invest in a theater of their own.  This Remco toy might be a little smaller than you were thinking, but here's a drive-in theater that's ready to go... no messy dealings with movie distributors, and no cleaning up after your little plastic patrons.

For just south of a thousand dollars you can pick up this mint boxed toy drive-in from 1959.  It includes toy cars, changeable movie marquees, and most impressively it has a built-in projector for showing filmstrips taken from actual movies.

eBay: Remco Drive-In Movie Theater

Chicago C64 Retro Event Sep. 29th.

C64_show2

Every year a group of hardcore Commodore 64 enthusiasts put on a show in the Chicago suburb of Lombard.  My first computer ever was the Amiga, though I seemed to be around C64's all the time back in the 80's.  I learned to appreciate all that the computer could do then, and I marvel at the kinds of things that people are still doing with it today. 

Not only will the show reunite you with some of your old favorites, but you can get caught up on new projects using the classic C64 hardware.  One of my favorite projects has birthed a new GUI - imagine a C64 with a windows-type environment (and I'm not talking GEOS here...).  The Commodore could even spool video off of a hard drive (that's right you read "spooling video", "hard drive" and "Commodore" in one sentence.  What has the rest of the computer industry been doing with all the RAM beyond 64k?

Even though I'm not very familiar with the more nitty-gritty aspects of the C64, I like going to the show every year.

1. There is much coding and hax0ring
2. There is much beer
3. This is your chance to meet members of the team that brought you the DTV C64 plug & play
4. The impromptu projects at the show can turn out to be the coolest things ever.

More details about the show (site is even readable using a net capable C64!)