Retro Thing

$14 MP3 Player With Built In NES Emulator, But...

I still don't have an expensive mp3 player. I listen to music & podcasts all the time, so an MP3 player in my employ is likely to get crammed into a pocket and get knocked around a bit. Since there is such a wealth of perfectly serviceable sub $25 models around, it really doesn't pay for me to splash out for a fancy music player (though I'd still like to get an early iPod one of these days).

I usually end up with an off-brand or non-brand unit from some online surplus outfit. The one I'm using right now is amazingly feature-packed. It plays music that sounds good (not always the case with a cheapie), videos, even e-books... all of this for the amazing price of $14.

So what makes this interesting to the retro crowd (besides the fact that I keep it loaded up with old time radio shows and old Sammy Davis Jr. records...)? It packs a surprise function. This $14 no-name has an extra on-screen menu for "Games". I highlighted the joystick icon to be greeted by what is clearly a not-at-all legal NES emulator. The included game ROM? A game starring a certain plumber in his adventure-ready coveralls. Ahem.

That signature music came on, so I was looking forward to playing NES games on a $14 cheapie that I could recommend to all of you, but there's a significant problem. There aren't enough buttons to actually play the games. You use the fast-forward and rewind buttons to move left and right (the buttons are on top of each other to make gameplay even more disorienting). No buttons on the player make Mario jump or do anything other than move left and right. As you can imagine, this does curtail one's game selection quite a bit. I can't even think of one game that would be fun this way... Arkanoid maybe?

My guess is that my player is reusing firmware from another (possibly less cheap?) MP3 player that hopefully has more buttons built in. I guess that an NES emulator doesn't pose much of a challenge to modern processors - even the sorts of processor chips they can afford to slap into a cheap MP3 player. Let's remain vigilant, retro readers, for any other cheap electronics harboring an illegitimate 8 bit secret.

Wall To Wall Retro Video Games From Ikea For $10

Originally I was going to write about an ongoing retro video game Ebay auction that had already reached more than a half million dollars, but the listing has been pulled. We were wondering whether those bids could have been real, but it's "game over" on the auction. Sadly, the point is moot.

That said, we would have thoroughly enjoyed the affiliate fees had one of our faithful Retro Thing readers won the lot, but we figure that perhaps it's smarter to find a thriftier way to share our love of old video games. For me, being a career cheapass is what got me into retro video games in the first place...

Ikea, of all places, is offering a set of wall decals to retro up any room in your house that has... uh... walls. While not devoted to any specific game, you can feel the ghost of Berzerk & Space Invaders here. Because the decals are lo-res blocks of a single color, I'm reminded of the stripped down graphics of the earliest home consoles, so this is about as retro as retro gaming gets.

For $10, the SLÄTTHULT (I know, I know...) provides you with four sheets of decals about the size of a legal pad. It's the same lineup of characters on each sheet, and you get two color variations. The sameyness is even MORE of an authentic retro gaming move if you ask me.

Other companies have offered similar retro gaming wall decals, but they've almost universally been way too expensive. Only a few have been of actual gaming graphics - most I've seen show characters like Mario and Zelda rendered as cartoons. Cute, but my memory of these characters is a but more on the blocky side.

For those of you who don't want to splash out the 10 smackers for the Ikea decals, and if you want to go even deeper into video game history, you'll be pleased to know that Retro Thing is negotiating to bring you wall decals of our own. For $4 we hope to send you the end of a roll of masking tape, and instructions on how to create your own wall-sized Pong diorama.

SLÄTTHULT computer game stickers

¡Ay, caramba! El "Great Video Game Crash" En Español

You can point your joystick a whole lot of directions to try to target the exact cause of the Great Video Game Crash of the early 80s. Home computers were on the horizon, reaching a level of sophistication that 70s era game console hardware couldn't touch. There were a couple of high profile failures at Atari in the form of that poor anemic Pac-Man, and the much maligned E.T.. Then there was the avalanche of atari 2600 shovelware littering shelves.

The Atari 2600 didn't have any sort of built-in security, so anyone could figure out the workings of the system and develop a game for it. [Nintendo was able to reboot video gaming a few years later by building a lock-out chip into their NES system so only licensed games bearing the "seal of quality" would run.] The tremendous profits that Atari was raking in attracted developers who were less invested in creating cool games, than they were in cashing in on the fad.

Genuine games from Atari cost $30-40 back then, but this new breed of budget releases were hitting shelves at $10-20 driving the overall market down. Many of these poor games made the Atari 2600 look even longer in the 8 bit tooth, weakening confidence in the market.

Here's a TV commercial from the mid 80s that bundles together several third party games (with doubtful claims of the games' value) into a mega-bundle deal for $19.95. The Game Crash may have been over, but there was still a lot of crap game inventory to blow out. It's a long ad too - 90 seconds to offer UHF audiences everywhere (at least in Chicago) about this Five Pack of not-so-great games. Even at this price, it wasn't that great of a deal. My local Zayre was already selling these titles at 88 cents a piece at that time.

No cash grab is complete without reaching the largest audience possible, so here's another version of the ad (that's even 30 seconds LONGER!) en Español as it was broadcast in Chicago on Sunday June 9th, 1985.

These Membership Cards Should Stay In Your Wallet

One of the great comforts of the internet is that no matter how obscure your interests are, you're going to find some virtual friends out there who like the same stuff. Lots of folks who thought they were the only people in the world interested in [insert oddball anti-social pastime here], are now part of online communities and real-world clubs too. The net has made it easier than ever to find others and organize real world get-togethers between like-minded hobbyists.

What if your new shared-interest friends aren't quite specific enough for your tastes? You're about to discover the joy of the splinter group... My father was, quite literally, a card-carrying philatelist. Sure, there was the unparalleled joy of tweezing his way through all of those miniature sticky-backed engravings, but there sure seemed to be a lot of multi-ethnic riff-raff around. So here's his membership card from the really specific First (there were more?) Czechoslovak Philatelic Club Of America. The membership card is from 1973, but the club actually dates back to 1924, and was founded right here in Chicago. Follow this link to thrill to one of their newsletters from the 60s.

Like a lot of hobbies, your interest eventually focuses less on the hobby itself, and more on the friends you've made along the way. So I imagine that stamp night was more about my father hanging out with his stamp-crazy singing buddies (I did mention that he was a card carrying member of a Czech singing club, right?) swapping stamps, telling ribald stories of Ben Franklin (that's a Postmaster General joke right there...), and have a few laughs.Growing up, I always wanted to be part of some club too, but I was remarkably unliked. Okay, so in high school in the 80s I was in Doctor Who club - not exactly a bid for Mr. Popularity. I was a card-carrying member of the Doctor Who Fan Club of America (I'm still waiting for my newsletters, guys!). Before that, I did carry around a sort-of membership card. In reality it was from a pack of Pac-Man bubblegum cards and was my way of claiming to be a bad-ass at arcade Pac-Man. You'll note my best attempt at Pac-Man style lettering (I used to go by my middle name back then in a vain bid to fit in... *sigh*) to really cement my nerdery.Most recently, I was a card-carrying member of the Chicago Accordion Club (which was pretty much all 80 year old men, plus me...), so I probably shouldn't be too haughty about my old man's Czech stamp collector card. Looks like the weird apple doesn't fall far from the twisted tree. I guess that I collect peculiar membership cards with my last name on them.

[Addendum: Moments before I published this post, I moved some stuff in my office only to have this set of "collectible" stamps that had been missing for years end up in my lap. I should probably cogitate on what this all means, but I'm going to go have a lie down.]

Last Chance for Rogue Red Clear Classic USB Joysticks - 2 Day Sale!

We just built the final few dozen of our exclusive Rogue Red Clear Classic USB Joysticks. This is it, there won't be any more - in fact the mold isn't capable of making any more, even if we wanted to. If you're the kind of person who waits until the last minute... this is it.

Need a little extra push? Until Saturday at midnight, our Retro Red USB Joysticks are only $29.99 with free shipping within the US. We won't be repeating this offer again as we expect to sell out the last of our stock in the next few days.

To all those of you who helped make this fusion of current tech and retro good looks a success, thank you. You made our Clear Classic controller a consistent Top Ten product on Amazon (we rocketed all the way up to #2!) More importantly, every joystick helps keep Retro Thing going, and we're very grateful.

We're also very grateful to not have to spend long nights assembling sticks.That's right, they were all assembled in the U.S. of A. in our Chicago HQ. No underpaid overseas assembly service... in fact, everyone who touched the Clear Classic joysticks had a college degree. Now we can see what exactly a college degree is worth, I suppose.

But I digress. This is absolutely your last chance to get a Clear Classic USB joystick. When you plug it into any USB port, the whole stick lights up red. You can use it on any computer with any game that accepts input from a standard USB d-pad. Some games (including online Flash games) are keyboard-only, so please ensure that your favorite game is joystick compatible.

We expect to sell out very soon, and once they're gone, they're gone.

Thanks again to all of you for making our first Retro Thing hardware product a success, and thanks for keeping Retro Thing going. We hope to keep at it for many more years to come.

Order your Rogue Red Clear Classic USB joystick from Amazon before it's too late.

Pac-Man Matching Necktie & Ceramics

Today it's not strange to see a fully grown adult wearing a My Little Pony t-shirt. Well, it is strange... but that's beside the point. What I mean to say is that our pop culture clothes have grown to include lots of treasured childhood characters, no matter what your age is. That wasn't always the case. It used to be much more rare to show your enthusiasm for your pop culture faves in an "adult" context... where "adult" is defined by a desire for a sad polyester necktie and cheap ceramics.

Adult pop culture of the 70s and 80s had all the usual things - Mickey Mouse T-shirts, sport mascots, concert posters.... but of course video game characters hadn't really hit yet. A pixelated greyscale tank or Pong's phosphorescent slash don't exactly make for exciting garments.

That all changed when Pac-Man started gobbling the world's small change. He's often credited as being the first character in video gaming, I know what they mean, though it's funny to think of Pac-Man as having much of a personality. He's more or less characterized by his having a significant eating disorder.

Being the star of such a colorful gaming phenom made Pac-Man the star of one of the first gluts of video gaming merchandise. As a kid I had Pac-Man tube socks for goodness sake, but it wasn't only all about kid stuff. Check out these grown up Pac-Man and Ms. Pac-Man ceramics and a necktie.

Nothing says "grown-up" like a maroon necktie - the color necktie most favored by my youth's substitute teachers. This is an officially licensed bit of gear, with small tweaks applied to the look of the characters to be at least a little toned down.

The ceramics look like the sort of cheap thing that I might have given as a misguided mother's day gift. C'mon... Ms. Pac-Man is a lady, right? The inclusion of the Ms. tells us that this is part of a later merch push (there's an "82" scraped into the bottom).

I prefer a world where grown ups have more ways of showing their playful side. Too bad that the days are gone where wearing a Pac-Man tie would be outrageous in a boardroom... or ridiculed when wrapped around the neck of your new sub for Social Studies.

[thanks for the Pac-Man tie, Jeffrey!]

M*A*S*H Turns 40 Today - Awful Merchandise Memories

Worldwide hit TV series M*A*S*H was first broadcast 40 years ago today. The show teetered on cancellation throughout its first season, but then grew into one of the most popular shows on television (like stablemate "All In The Family" which it was often paired with on CBS). The series finale "Goodbye, Farewell, and Amen" 11 years later was the most watched television broadcast at the time, with an audience of 125 million dewey-eyed fans.

There are so many lessons to learn from M*A*S*H, a show that somehow balanced heart-wrenching drama and bawdy comedy. One that has always resonated with me isn't so obvious. It's that maybe cancelling a promising idea after 2 episodes isn't always the best policy. If today's network hatchetmen were in power in the 70s, you'd never have seen M*A*S*H beyond the first season. Same with "All In The Family" (which had soft ratings until summer reruns made it a hit). Can you imagine if the only examples we had of 70s TV potential was Three's Company and The Gong Show?

Another lesson is that not every TV show is a rich vein of tie-in merchandise. Even M*A*S*H couldn't dodge the shrapnel of a lot of lousy cash-in crap. I don't mind lunchboxes and posters, and the like... but M*A*S*H action figures? What kid is supposed to enjoy these? I guess it's like playing with army men, except the more tragic side of the equation. The figures are of the main cast, with one variant; you can get Klinger in fatigues or in a dress. Tri-Star rolled out these figures in 1982. Klinger had stopped the "bucking for a section 8" drag routine years before, but even so... is this the first action figure depicting a cross-dresser? 

Back in the early 80s, 20th Century Fox was raiding their licenses to cash in on the video game craze. They made some mighty odd choices. There's Alien, a Pac-Man clone based on an R-rated movie, and there's M*A*S*H - a mash-up (forgive me) of Defender and the classic board game Operation. Oh, and an even more depressing chip-tune rendition of the show's theme song "Suicide is Painless". This came out in 1983, the year that M*A*S*H went off the air, right in the thick of the video game industry crashing. You can suffer through this on either your Atari 2600 or Colecovision.

So we learn that even one of the best ideas in television history isn't immune to a constant barrage of really rotten ideas all around. I doubt that even Radar's strange pre-cognition could see these lousy concepts coming...

Only A Few Dozen Clear Classic USB Joysticks Left!

If you've been thinking about picking up one of our limited edition USB Joysticks, act fast. There are only a few dozen of the blue version left out of a production run of only 500.

Huge thanks to everyone who has already ordered one -- your enthusiasm made us grin from ear to ear.

Feedback from the AtariAge forums:

"I got mine. Even when not in use, it makes an awesome nightlight"

"I received mine today. Very kick ass."

"Got mine today as well. Looks pretty awesome and works perfectly right out of the box."

Visit the Clear Classic USB Joystick page on Amazon to order yours

1968: Wonderland Arcade

Wonderland Arcade occupied a corner of the Bonfils Building in Kansas City, Missouri from the mid-1940s until the building was renovated in 1983.

"Every season, every morning, two old ladies make their way through the milling crowd at 12th Street and Grand and enter the spectral funshow known as the Wonderland Arcade. Inside, they ignore the pinball, the screaming video games, and the hotdog breakfasts, and stride directly to the ancient mechanical fortune teller enclosing a gypsy mannequin which looks about their age. They slip in their coins, and receive a paper fortune which allows them to continue their day. Then they recede into Downtown.

The fortune-teller machine has only six fortunes to dispense. In fact, that's all it's ever had. Over the years, the ladies have collected hundreds of copies of each fortune. And still they return.

Such is the magic of this place. It is a siren's island, and there are those who cannot resist its call." ~ Kansas City Magazine, Nov 1980

Read more here.

Copper Sprites

According to my handy but hopelessly outdated dictionary, a sprite is "a small or elusive supernatural being." In the digital world, a sprite is a graphical image -- often found in a computer game -- that moves around the screen. Pac-Man, for example.

Jim Harris of 'This is Obsolete' recently whipped up a collection of etched copper plates with aluminium and brass inserts that depict classic video game sprites. So far, he's created five images including a couple of Pac-Man ghosts and a satisfyingly weathered aluminum space invader. He's got plans to continue the series with Mario and others.

I'd love one of these on the wall of my Evil Mad Scientist Lair. Not just because it's cool, but because this sort of stuff captures the ephemeral characters from video games in a concrete, physical way. And that's a good thing, because it serves as a constant reminder that sometimes simple games from the past are every bit as satisfying as modern multi-million dollar epic adventures.

Jim reports that the collection is currently being exhibited at The Rock Inn, Kemptown as part of The Brighton Five Pound Fringe.

Sprites (2012) Preview
A flickr set of the first five pieces in the collection

Contra Sweater - 8-bit Knit

PLEASE tell me that this belogs to one of our readers. If it does, you have the most badass grandma in the history of badass grandmas.

Sadly, it's a Photoshop fake (the gradient on the "C" in the logo is a tip off) - but you were pretty excited there for a few seconds, weren't you?

Kickstart A 3/4 Scale Arcade Machine Project!

My wife gets nervous whenever I mention arcade cabinets or pinball machines. It's an understandable sentiment, because a good friend of mine has a basement filled with over two dozen vintage machines. She knows that as soon as one sneaks through the door, more will undoubtedly follow.

Archie Jones faced a similar problem a couple of years ago. He wanted to build a multi-game arcade unit, but his wife didn't want a refrigerator-sized machine lurking in the corner. The result is the American Ace Arcade—a scaled-down arcade machine that stands just over 4 feet high. It's the perfect height for kids or seated adults.

The design looks absolutely beautiful and Archie just rolled out an affordable Kickstarter project for anyone interested in getting their hands on one. Pledging $40 gets you a set of plans, blueprints and full-sized templates to make cutting side panels a breeze.

If you're not quite so into DIY, a $300 pledge gets you a cabinet kit that assembles with only a screwdriver, and you can add a $150 pre-drilled control panel (USB arcade controller, sanwa joystick and happ buttons) and accessory kit (marquee lights, t-molding, plexiglass and marquee retainers). There's also a $250 personalized artwork option which gets you the side panel art, marquee and control panel overlay.

Once you have the cabinet assembled, what goes inside is up to you. You'll need to supply your own monitor, sound system and game board (PC-based MAME arcade emulator, JAMMA multi-game, or even a home game console).

The fit and finish of the American Ace Arcade looks first rate and it's an excellent alternative to buying a pre-built unit, which can easily cost several thousand dollars. The compact size makes it easy to accomodate in the corner of a family room and makes it absolutely irresistable to kids. And if you like the compact cabinet but want something that adults can play standing, it should be easy to build a small pedestal to raise the unit.

So what are you waiting for? Check out Archie's American Ace Arcade and let me know what you think!

Links:
American Ace Arcade Kickstarter
A Flickr set of American Ace photos
Build A 'MAME Brain' For Under $150

Super Morrissey Bros.

I realize that chiptune covers of classic 80s songs aren't exactly new (someday we'll lay down a whole setlist of C64 SID chip covers of 80s classics), but this fresh take on the classic "This Charming Man" by The Smiths is just so right. Of course anyone can play any tune on any oddball instrument to get a laugh, but in this case the instrumentation and arrangement are perfection. How can this not have been a video game from the golden age? I dare you to get this tune out of your head, or to stop your d-pad thumb from twitching all day.
Okay, so what would a video game based on The Smiths be like? It would have to alternate between jubilance and murk, that's a given. I imagine you'd play the part of old Stephen Patrick Morrissey (his single-pixel pompadour bouncing with every skip). First level you'd have to slink quietly through a dusty library, trying to score dates with English Lit majors by dropping some Wilde, Keats & 60s pop queen references.

Spurned, you move on to an uncustomary bright London day looking for Shyness or Coyness (hoping they'll be nice, though they can also stop you). If you don't find Love, don't worry. The Bomb will bring you together. Hint: A+B+pause will give you even more tortured metaphors for "death". Avoid panic, the boy with the thorn in his side, hooligans (no matter how sweet and tender they may seem) and right when you think you have five seconds to spare - Bigmouth strikes again! In the bonus round, you upgrade your character to both son and heir, finding sadly that it's to nothing in particular.
After all of your travails (and moping), you can see the the other members of The Smiths at the far end of the screen. Reunion concert? Nope... it's just Johhny Marr telling you that the rest of the band are in another castle. Actually it's 1998 and the other two members of the band await you in a courtroom to press a lawsuit. A bit depressing and anti-climactic for a video game, I grant you... but this is The Smiths game we're talking about. It was really nothing.

Miss ol' Moz's voice? Here's a (sloooooow, but impressive) mashup of "This Charming Man" and something by that Lana Del Rey so many people are grousing about.

[thanks, Julie!]

Eat Your Way Through Atari's 40th Anniversary

This year will see a lot of Atari celebrating the founding of the company 40 years ago. You can expect that  we'll do our fair share here on Retro Thing, but you may also see some retro punters take a shot. Target has teamed up with General Mills to offer kid's cereals in classic packaging (again). The idea is to bring back some of that 70s vibe when all that mattered on a Saturday morning was slamming down some Lucky Charms, watching SuperFriends and edging up that Space Invaders score.

The nostalgic packaging is cute, but the "Atari Activities" promised on the box are a little pale. Let's ignore the fact that a sterile name like "Atari Activities" doesn't exactly sound "Totally Radical".   of the box has some puzzles and riddles that I'm not sure would actually engage the kids who are supposed to eat the cereal, or even a retro gaming hound like me. There is an online version of Centipede you can play, so I guess that's something... but I was hoping for at least a lame 70's era cereal prize like an Atari sticker, or a patch or something. It would be great to have a little souvenir of so many years of Atari fun. I don't fault General Mills for cashing in on Atari nostalgia, but I am disappointed that they cheaped out so badly.

Epic Adventure: A New Game For The Atari 2600

Todd Holcomb writes, "Here's my new Atari 2600 game that's a follow-up to the classic Atari game, Adventure. Featuring all new enemies, castles, and mazes, it utilizes the Pitfall II engine to produce pretty graphics. It will soon be available in the AtariAge store. Check it out in the development thread at Atari Age—you'll need the latest version of Stella or Harmony cart to play."

Because the graphics are based on the Pitfall II engine, it really pushes the limits of the 2600. I would have loved a game like this back in the day. Todd plans to release Epic Adventure on cartridge in early 2012. It's like being back in 1982... except better.