Retro Thing

Worst Retro Joystick Ever?

The Vic 20 computer made chunky 8 bit waves in the history of video gaming. Commodore offered a joystick that was an albino version of the ol' Atari CX-40 [see smaller photo]. The C64 hit the scene later, and became a gaming classic despite Commodore's issue of possibly the crappiest joystick ever - the notorious 1311.

An initial look at the Commodore 1311 might make you think it's got some interesting ideas in the design. It's smaller profile fits in the hand a bit better, and that centered wide fire button seems like it would work for lefties too. The your eyes fall on the triangular joystick. Wait, what?

Corners on a joystick? Three angles to dig into your vulnerable hand during a marathon gaming session? Why not just put razor blades in there? It doesn't just look nasty, it IS nasty. I remember being really excited when my best friend got a C64, and tried really hard not to weep at the hideous pain from this joystick. Oh yeah, and that narrow profile thing is the bunk too. I find diminished stability, making me push harder, bringing the pain faster.

Retro gamers have strong opinions of which is the worst joystick ever, but you haven't been to the front lines until you've suffered through this gaming abomination.

There Is Such A Thing As Too Many Records

With all the trouble this guy's million strong record collection is causing, it makes me glad that I stopped at just a couple thousand.

Lights Out For Incandescent Bulbs - Hoarding Begins

Reports are coming in that folks are snapping up remaining stocks of incandescent bulbs before the end of the year. January 1st marks the start of the Federal phaseout of traditional light bulbs in the United States. While many are unaware of the upcoming ban, 13% of U.S. residents are reportedly stocking up on the 130 year old symbol of American ingenuity and invention.

Home Depot has reported higher than normal sales in these last few weeks as they blow out their back stocks. I'll admit, I picked up a couple dozen bulbs myself. Yes, I too have joined the Incandescent Underground. I have mostly replaced the lights around my apartment with CFL and LED lights, but there are a couple of old lamps that just don't look right with new style bulbs. There's also a fixture in a dark and cold corner of the apartment (where I tend to write Retro Thing posts, coincidentally) where I actually rely on the little bit of extra heat kicked off by the bulb.

There are those who are turning this into a political issue, unhappy that the government is regulating what they can and cannot stick into their sockets. The Republican House has blocked the funds that were originally allotted for enforcing the January 1st ban (make of that what you will), and enterprising bulb sellers have come up with all kinds of strategies to keep you filled with filament fired light. One outfit has gone so far as to relabel their incandescent bulbs as mini-heaters. Yup - that's how we'll save the planet... why address a problem head-on when we can just relabel it?

I'm sure that the news will feature those outliers who will only defy the darkness with old fashioned bulbs, and we will certainly hear many stories of folks who have their garages packed to the ceiling with old fashioned bulbs. Maybe we'll see an inflated future market for light bulbs the same way as we've seen for high flush toilets (Hard to believe, but yes... I recently read about an older high flush toilet changing hands [ewww] for $600 on Ebay).

Here's another question that no one seems to be addressing. A lightbulb floating over someone's head has ong been the symbol of a bright idea. What'll it be now? A CFL? An LED? I'm going to look pretty weird walking around with a diode floating over my head.

Merry Christmas, All

Christmas always makes me realize just how short a year is. It seems like only a couple of months pass before the decorations come back out of storage and the presents go under the tree.

This has been a fantastic year for the Retro Thing gang. You might have noticed that Bohus was scarce most of the spring and summer, and it was with good reason. He was instrumental in putting together a clever and irreverent morning TV show for Tribune Broadcasting. The good news is that things are now a bit less hectic in his world and he's excited about once again pushing the frontiers of all things vintage.

I've been hard at work designing consumer electronics gear, and I'm looking forward to a slightly tamer year to come. Hopefully one that doesn't involve quite so many blinking LEDs or as much assembly language programming.

Even though we didn't have as much time to dedicate to the site this year, our readership remained strong with about 3,550,000 page views. One thing's for sure -- we've enjoyed reading your comments, insights, emails and story ideas in 2011.

Thanks and Happy Holidays.

Last Minute Retro Gift Ideas

It's getting down to the wire, so here are a few "Argh! I left it until the last second" Christmas gift ideas with a Retro flavour. 

Seiko 5 Wristwatch - Forget batteries and back-lit displays and get a mechanical watch with 21 jewel automatic mechanism and clear back. They're beautiful, practical and affordable. Priced from $60

Korg Monotron - A handheld analog synthesizer for under $60. The Monotron features the same resonant filter circuit as the classic Korg MS-10, along with a tiny membrane keyboard and built-in speaker.

A Decent Budget Turntable - The Audio Technica AT-LP120 isn't the cheapest turntable on the market, but it's one of the best you're going to get for under $250. Includes a digital USB port along with standard stereo RCA jacks, 33-1/3, 45, and 78 rpm playback speeds with quartz-controlled variable playback. The Spin-Clean record washer is a great way to clean your vintage vinyl, too.

Alesis MMT-8 MIDI Sequencer - Bringing The Beats Since '87

I found this sequencer among some of my older music gear in storage (i.e. the closet of broken dreams). The Alesis MMT-8 was born in 1987,when it's features and low price combined to make it a wildly popular piece of gear. Surprisingly, this is a piece of retro gear that still gets interest. Even with all of today's cool laptop music, there's still room in the studio for the old MMT-8.
The spec sheet may not exactly impress today. The unit can hold 100 songs - as long as you don't go over 10,000 notes. There's internal storage in the form of a built-in battery. You can also export data either via MIDI or by recording sequence data out to audio cassette (and I can tell you firsthand what a hateful and tense way that was to save your precious songs.)

One aspect keeping interest in the MMT-8 alive is that this unit is an interesting link between MIDI and older devices that came before - you can use the "click out" jack to drive ancient drum machines. Despite these limitations, the MMT-8 still fascinates musicians and retains a cult following, more than 20 years after its release - there's even an online fansite at MMT8.com.

The MMT-8 has an interesting pedigree. It was designed by Marcus Ryle (of Line 6 fame) of Fast Forward Design (who also did the even more famous Alesis HR-16 drum machine) around an Intel 80C31 microcontoller. Up 'til that point, Alesis had mostly been an effects company, and the success of this slope-faced pair paved the way for widely diversifying what they offered musicians. Ryle went on to design Alesis' Quadrasynth and their famous ADAT digital recording system.

I have to sheepishly admit that I really never used this. I have much more time logged in as a digital drummer with the HR-16 drum machine mentioned earlier. I kept it around in hopes of messing with its novel approach to creating music (Especially after digging up lots of info online about the sequencer). I guess I'll just leave that up to Orbital, Moby, Jimmy Edgar, Higher Intelligence Agency, Autechre, and Carl Craig who all still use the MMT-8 for live performance.

Build A Christmas Tradition With LEGO

These days Lego has a ton of Christmas specialities every year. You can always count on a fresh advent calendar, or even a wintery village. The bricky pickin's haven't always been so good. In fact the overall line of Lego models didn't change all that much years ago. Some models would stick around for a couple years. For example, in 1989, this was pretty much it in the Christmas category. There were a couple of other simple yuletide models back then, but nothing like today's elaborate holiday offerings.

You'll also notice that this model is made up of very simple shapes rather than the more detailed (and often less versatile) pieces you get today. There are also none of those pieces consisting of one big chunk that you could have built from smaller bits. Adult Lego fans humorously refer to these single piece abominations as "POOPS": Piece Out Of Other Pieces. Check out how versatile this 20 year old set is thanks to the variety of simple pieces.


I like these little Holiday sets as they're terrific stocking stuffers, and fortunately Lego still offers these litte sets for a buck or two. They even offer special limited-edition random minifigs for you collector types out there. Kids love these sets, and don't forget... it's okay for grownups to like Lego too.

Bootleg Portable NES Hides Behind Pompous Naval Rank

At first glance, the Game Theory Admiral looks like a first generation Game Boy Advance. It's around the same size too - it even has a pretty solid build. The cart slot is a little different, so what goes in there? Oh... the crazy adapter thing that was bundled in the box.

Then what? Looks like the right kind of slot for a Famicom cart. That's the original Japanese release of Nintendo's video game powerhouse. The cartridge is pretty small, so maybe this oddball arrangement can kind of work? I powered up the very peculiar setup, and yes - it does work. The screen is a backlit TFT - not the worst screen I've seen, but at this low resolution it's hard to make out the elements of the many games I tried. Audio is weird too, but that's common to most NES clones out there.

The Game Theory Admiral was alleged to include (mine didn't) small pigtail leads that adapt a full sized NES controller to connect to the portable. Two people trying to share a single tiny screen wouldn't work too well, but the GTA can output to a full sized TV. Kinda neat, but pretty much defeats the whole purpose of having a pocket sized game unit.

This is the cousin of a notorious portable NES bootleg called the Game Axe (which still trades hands for unreasonable money - pictured here.) The GTA is neat for a collector, but I wouldn't recommend it for really enjoying a game. The GTA is unusually sturdy for a bootleg (with the controller buttons and d-pad getting a special mention for being well executed), but the loopy design just invites trouble. Having that Famicom cart flopping around is just asking for a lost connection during an exciting game session.

The question you might ask is whether an American NES cart can play on the Game Theory Admiral. The answer is yes, but you wouldn't want to. Not only do you have to contend with the much larger NES cart, but there's extra height added when plugging in the Famicom slot adapter. Promising start, but really... this thing is just ridiculous.

Just stick with one of the newer portable NES units by Hyperkin or Yobo with better screens and (hopefully) better design overall. You'll also not run into the danger specified in the Game Theory Admiral's manual.

"Relevant Crazy Warning! When take a look at in the usualenvironment inside usually a certain flashlight that appear or a certainpattern, minimum amount the part of people will or crazy disease go into actionis take placed to temporary lose the consciousness".

You just can't afford to ignore a warning like that.

Two Lost Episodes of Doctor Who Rematerialize!

This weekend, fans of the classic Doctor Who thrilled to hear that two more lost episodes have been recovered on 16mm film.The British Film Institute holds an annual event "Missing Believed Wiped" where they spread the word about Britain's lost TV history, and at this year's screening surprised fans with these two missing episodes (as well as a lost Peter Cook & Dudley Moore show from the 60's), not seen since their original broadcast nearly 50 years ago.

The BBC was never good about keeping an archive of their broadcast material before the 70's. It was regular practice to erase the video masters of shows in order to erase and reuse the expensive video tape. In fact, the incredible Monty Python series was nearly destroyed, but troupe member Terry Gilliam stepped in an bought the original edited video reels at 90 pounds a piece.

There was another reason for this besides clearing up shelf space, the actor's union Equity placed a limit on how many times a show could be re-run. This together with the move to color (sorry... "colour") broadcast in the 1970's made the BBC's black and white TV history fodder for the rubbish tip.

These recovered Who episodes are kinescope copies; 16mm film prints made of the original videotapes. With so many video standards worldwide, it was easier to make 16mm film copies of shows for international sale and distribution. These episodes were aired in Australia, and instead of being destroyed or returned to the BBC, they ended up at a rummage sale where they were bought by a film collector in the 80s.

One recovered episode features the first ever Doctor in the adventure of "Galaxy Four" from 1965, a story that has only existed thus far in the BBC archives as a 15 minute clip. The story features squat robots called Chumblies, clearly an attempt at another Dalek-mania craze (the Chumblies canister vac looks to the Dalek's pepper shaker silhouette), but this time without having to split profits with the creator of the Daleks, Terry Nation.

While grateful for any return of a missing episode, fans were a little less interested in seeing another installment from the second doctor's notorious "Underwater Menace" broadcast in 1967. The bland title gives little indication of the"arch" overacting of the lead bad guy. Seriously, this sort of over the top acting didn't tend to happen in Who. Another existing installment of this story features a bizarre underwater ballet by the fish people. Uh, yeah, it's a weird one...

So we're down to 106 missing half-hours of Doctor Who. While there's little chance of all of the shows ever reappearing, it's hopeful that even at this late date more cans of film marked "Doctor Who" can find their way back to our TVs - even if it has taken a half-century.

related:

Found tapes prove 60's Doctor Who musician may have invented techno
Doctor Who the computer salesman?
Classic Doctor Who figures in black and white

70's TV News And The Dangers of Dart Guns

This may look like a typical TV news clip from 1977 (from Chicago's WGN Channel 9 as it happens). It's a fairly standard TV news theme from around the holidays. First, spook viewers with the possible threats posed by popular toys, then pit the poor reporter against these perilous playthings.

In this clip, our hapless correspondent shows us the dangers of a suction cup dart that refuses to stick to its target. Many, many times. Okay, that's kind of funny... but stay tuned past the bloopers to see the outrageous 70's newsroom and the atomic yellow blazers on our three correspondents. If anything, Ron Burgundy went too subtle.

Don't touch that dial yet... Channel 9 used to show the local weather in lieu of closing credits. The footage underneath the weather text is test footage of the notorious Shogun Warrior toy. Watch one of the missiles aimed on purpose at the eyes of a goggle wearing kid. These vinyl robots were a massive 2 feet tall - and were massively popular back then. They were super-colorful with wild designs not typical of American robo toys... but the main feature was always the sheer number of projectiles the robot could deploy. The results of tests like the one featured here declared the toy too dangerous to children's eyes and respiratory systems. It's hard to disagree.

The Shogun Warrior is, sadly, a mostly forgotten toy of the 70's, the ban of the toy led to its rarity. I'd actually kind of like one now for my shelf as they are so outlandish and huge, but they command real money on Ebay. You may recall that we featured a Shogun styled Stormtrooper limited edition figure a while back. I've since seen it in person, and it's amazing. Hopefully more Shogun styled toys are in the pipeline. Now that we're adults maybe we can just play with our toys responsibly, and avoid ending up on the evening news.

[Sharp eared Retro Thing readers may recognize the unusual music from the closing credits. The bleeps and bloops are from the seminal electronic music album "The In Sound From Way Out", featuring synth pioneers Jean-Jaques Perry and Gershon Kingsley.]

Thanks to Fuzzy Memories, the amazing online museum for classic TV fans from Chicago and beyond.

related:
Collectible stormtrooper style Shogun toy
Memories of the Zanbots
Qonto: another forgotten late 70's Japanese toy robot