Retro Thing

Midwest Gaming Classic - this weekend!

A quick announcement...  This weekend is the Midwest Gaming Classic - a great gaming show in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.  I've gone pretty much every year, and am driving up to the land of legal fireworks and butterburgers again this Saturday.  I'll be enjoying all the free pinball, the arcade games set to "free play", and I'll probably pick up some old console games. My Vectrex and Virtual Boy have been a bit lonely lately...

I've always had a good time, and this year's show looks to be better than ever - it's worth going just to see what items they've added to their massive console/computer museum.  Anyone else from RetroThing going?

Midwest Gaming Classic main site

Pictures from last year's show

Verbot: Tomy's Voice Controlled Robot

If we're talking robots, we need to talk Tomy.  In the 1980's, Tomy had a really impressive lineup of robots that ranged from small windup toys, up to a trashcan sized robot that you could program to serve and hand out drinks.  In between were several models of sophisticated toy robots, and Verbot was among the most interesting.

Though it may look like any other remote control toy, Verbot had an important difference - it was voice controlled (oh, and he's one of the few toy robots that can pick stuff up and cart it around).  Before operating Verbot, you'd record eight commands for his eight functions into the robot itself.  The remote was merely a microphone to transmit your eight spoken desires into his alkaline powered brain.

How well did it work?  I was going to test this one out, but didn't have the staggering number of batteries that it seemed to need.  I do remember my neighbor having one when they were new, and the voice control was a little sketchy.  We were a bit disappointed, but now I'm actually quite impressed.

I remember many 80's era catalogs featuring many models of household robots on the promise that every robot would soon have a robo servant of some kind.  Most were impractical, unaffordable, or vaporware.  Tomy is one of the few companies to actually deliver a varied line of workable robots that kept both kids and adults fascinated.

Verbot's manual

85 Years of Robots

Czech writer Karel Capek coined the term 'robot' to describe humanoid androids designed for menial and repetitive labor. His play R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots) opened in Prague in 1921, replete with political undertones. To celebrate, Cambridge University social anthropologist Kathleen Richardson organized The Robot Project to explore their history and meaning.

Richardson comments, "We've come to think of robots in a kind of sub-cultural way or, you know, as characters in Star Wars. So really, what I wanted to do with the whole project was to try and reclaim the robot - not only as technological object and an entertainment one, but as the political object that Capek intended."  [By the way, Retro Thing contributor Bohus Blahut is either a Czech or a robot... I can't remember which... -ed]

The Robot Turns 85 (Radio Praha)

Analog Calculators For Boffins And Astronauts

Duncan Waldron writes... Long ago, in the mists of time, way before the ultra-modern IBM PC revolutionised serious number-crunching, and even before the pocket calculator freed the masses from the drudgery of hard sums, no serious student or boffin would be seen without his/her trusty slide rule.

A marvellous gadget, sleek and silent, and best of all - battery free, the slide rule was how you worked things out. Unless of course, you only had log tables. Well, there were mechanical and electronic adding machines, but you couldn't easily slip one into your back pocket or satchel.

The slide rule was one of those timeless, essential tools which, in the hands of an expert, could work wonders. To the rest of us, who encountered them only in school, there tended to be a lot of mystery surrounding some of the scales and markings. Frustratingly, you couldn't add or subtract, but multiply, divide, raise to powers, derive logarithms, and so on into ever deeper recesses of mathematical speciality - you could certainly do all of that.

Once upon a time, electronic calculators were not allowed in schools, or at least - not into exam rooms. We were then forced to buy a slide rule when heavy calculating was required. Before too long though, the authorities had relaxed their attitude (but only after yours truly had procured a good old British Thornton 'rule), and transistor-assisted calculation was available to every school student - at least, once the price had dropped sufficiently. Thereafter, the slide rule was pretty much consigned to the same historical bin as the abacus.

Slide rules can still be had, and will still work every bit as well as they did 30 years ago. I know at least one programmer who likes to use a slide rule at times, just because of the ease of obtaining an approximate answer, when 10 decimal places of accuracy are not required. [Check out our writeup on Curt Herzstark's brilliant Curta for a different 'twist' on mechanical calculators.]

The Slide Rule Universe
Slide rule info from Wikipedia

Japanese Cars: Then and Now

We live in a world where Toyota is poised to become the world's largest auto manufacturer and Honda isn't far behind, but it wasn't always this way. Japanese car makers struggled for decades to earn credibility and market share. Here's a "way things were" look at a few classic Japanese vehicles.

Honda Civic: An Econobox Moves Upscale

The Honda CVCC/Civic (above) was unveiled in 1972. The original shortbody 2-door was powered by a revolutionary 4-cylinder that was clean burning and efficient. This played well throughout the OPEC oil embargo of 1973-1974, which saw demand for compact cars skyrocket worldwide. The original Civic was powered by a 50 HP 1.2L engine, at a base price of around $2,200. Options included cloth uphostery and an AM radio.

Fast-forward 34 years and the Civic is now one of the leading compact cars worldwide. The modern $14,570 Civic Coupe weighs over 1000 lbs more than its ancestor and packs a 1.8L 4-cylinder that develops almost 3x the horses; a whopping 140 HP. Incidentally, it offers about the same fuel economy as the original.

The Experimental Aircraft Association

If you're intruigued by the kit aircraft that occasionally appear on these pages, you should join the Experimental Aircraft Association. The EAA was founded in 1953 by a group of aviation enthusiasts interested in building their own aircraft. They now boast over 170,000 members worldwide, and you don't need to be a pilot to join:

Today, tens of thousands of homebuilt aircraft fly throughout the world. A significant number of homebuilt aircraft have flown around the globe and one, the Voyager in 1986, was the first airplane ever to fly around the world non-stop on a single tank of fuel."

Annual membership starts at $40 and includes a subscription to EAA Sport Aviation magazine or EAA Sport Pilot.

All about the Experimental Aircraft Association

A Seriously Zippy Homebuilt Aircraft

The Lancair PropJet is an incredibly fast home-built aircraft. It cruises at a jaw-dropping 370 mph (595 kph), powered by a 750 HP Walter 601E turbine. She can travel 1400 miles (2,254 km) without refueling and the cabin seats four with room for up to 150 lb of baggage. The airframe is constructed from advanced composite materials (translation: lightweight and really strong). The climb rate of this machine is phenomenal, too: up to 7000 feet per minute (solo).

A fast-build kit costs a mere $129,500 (cough... cough...) and you'll need a high-performance endorsement before even thinking of getting behind the controls of this little rocket. Oh, and don't forget to pack your platinum credit card when you fly -- the fuel tank holds a whopping 125 gallons (473 L).

Lancair Propjet High Performance Kit Aircraft

Oddball Micros: Zenith Unleashes the 2-Inch Floppy

The Zenith ZL-1 MiniSport was released in 1989. Its main claim to fame was a "revolutionary" 2-inch floppy format, which stored 720K. The machine also shipped with 1MB or RAM which could be configured so that the "top" 384K functioned as a battery-backed solid state "C:" drive.

Apart from that, the machine's capabilities were similar to the popular Toshiba T1000 series; monochrome LCD screen with CGA video output, 4.77/8MHz Intel 80C88 processor. No mice, no Windows, just good old MS-DOS 3.3 in ROM.

The oddball disk drive made this machine a hard sell, and Zenith cleared out their remaining units for under $300 in 1991. I couldn't resist the blow-out price, especially since the machine featured a program called FastLynx that could transfer files to a "real" PC, just in case I felt the urge to store data on "real" floppies. Incidentally, FastLynx could install itself on a remote machine via a serial cable -- sorta like a helpful virus. Those were the days.

Zenith MiniSport Info (Google translated from Spanish)

The History of Data Storage

Here's a link to a quick and dirty history of data storage, via the ever-inquisitive Mikael S. at fosfor gadgets. It starts with Hollerith punch cards (1884) and concludes by pondering a future filled with holographic discs.

The article's most important statistic: You'd need approximately 4,500 cassette tapes to store the data on a single DVD, and it would take around 281 days of mind-numbing boredom to load it all into your Commodore 64. That said, most "backup" DVDs are full of pirated mp3s... so you might as well just record yourself a few mixtapes instead.

History of Data Storage (fosfor gadgets)

Elongated Pennies - Mint Your Own!

Squeeze a penny hard between your thumb and forefinger and what have you got?  The imprint of a penny on your sore thumb.  But you really wanted to crush a penny into an elongated shape with the visage of your favorite tourist attraction on it - what do you do?

Enter the elongated penny machine.  Drop in a penny along with fifty cents to pay for the pleasure of cranking a penny between two ratcheted wheels, resulting in your freshly minted prize.  I've seen these machines at vacation spots, restaurants, I've even seen a version carried around by a street vendor.  They're everywhere.  If you don't care to travel, you can also collect the coins at Penny Collector, Pressed Penny or even Ebay.  Or perhaps we could set something up on RetroThing to trade between different countries, counties, and planets!

History and legality of mooshing pennies

Video 2000 - The other home video system

We mentioned the VHS/Beta format war a short while ago, but somehow we skipped over the Video 2000 format that was introduced by Philips and Grundig in the late 1970s. Like VHS and Beta, this European format used 1/2 inch tape in a cassette that was slightly larger than VHS. Unlike VHS and Beta, V2000 cassettes could be flipped over like audio tapes.

V2000 had a couple of other nifty features as well -- dynamic track following eliminated the need for manual tracking knobs, and the format displayed a full frame image when paused. V2000 machines had numeric tape counters with a handy GOTO function.

Alas, V2000 had a tough time competing with the two other heavily promoted formats. Relatively few V2000 VCRs were produced, along with far fewer "extra-curricular" videos (nudge, nudge... wink, wink). Sadly, the format succumbed before Philips could roll out features like hi-fi stereo and miniature cassettes for camcorder use.

V2000 PALsite - The V2000 web resource

Stapleless Staplers

Imagine a stapler that never runs out of staples, because it doesn't use any. OhGizmo just posted a link to a nifty video of the Lihit Number 5 stapler, manufactured by a Japanese company in the late 1980s. It works its magic by cutting and tucking a flap of paper to attach pages together. Alas, these beautiful devices are no longer made. Have no fear, you can still get your hands on a cheap plastic copy for under $6.

Lihit Number 5 stapler (via OhGizmo)

Cartoon covers for classical CDs

Deutsche Grammophon is offering a series of classical CDs with cover art drawn by respected cartoonists. Classical Bytes is intended to be the first taste of classical for a new generation. Methinks they should probably release these as mp3 downloads if they're planning to reach anyone under the age of 30.

My faves are Peter Bagge's decidedly modern rendition of Bach banging out a score on computer and Jim Woodring's impression of Handel grooving on a sleek looking synth with a beer at his side.

Classical Bytes (via Boing Boing)

Canon 'freezes' development of new film cameras

Looks like Canon is joining pals Nikon and Konica-Minolta by pulling out of the film camera market. Current models will stay on the market for now, but I doubt anything new will be coming down the pipeline.

"Canon said on Thursday that it would halt development of new film cameras to focus resources on digital models, the latest sign of the rapidly fading role of film in photography. Canon ... made the decision to freeze development of both compact and single lens reflex (SLR) film models because the markets for both are shrinking. Canon said it would continue to produce and sell existing models and make a final judgment on the business in the future while monitoring market demand."

Previous Canon posts: Canon camera museum, Canon's best Super 8 cameras

Via Photography Blog

Flexi-Disc Flexible Record R.I.P.

Admittedly I'm six years too late with my eulogy, but why didn't anyone tell me that Flexi-Discs ceased production in 2000?  For those who might not remember, Flexi-Discs were records pressed into thin, flexible vinyl.  They were really cheap, faster to produce than conventional records, and their form factor meant that you could include a flexi in a magazine or book with little trouble.

Evatone created Flexi-Discs (calling them "Soundsheets") in 1960 making them available for direct mail campaigns (famously used by Ronald Reagan in his 1966 bid for governor of California), insertion into books (I've got a set included with a book on Yamaha DX-7 programming - like I'm ever going to do that), even distribution of software (you'd transfer the flexi to tape, then load the program into your computer).

For what they are, the fidelity isn't too bad.  Their light weight can make them slip on a turntable, so many flexi's have a space for taping on a penny - sorta lo-fi & DIY.  I have a ton of these, many of them especially interesting because they're usually esoteric, and were designed to be disposable.  Pictured is a record with installation instructions for a faucet, prayers & bible stories, Time Life's intro to Beethoven (terrified me as a kid) a Commodore 64 music demo, a Spiro Agnew speech, McDonald's contest, and more.

This came up recently as a musician friend of mine was asking me for advice on creating a unique single.  I suggested issuing a soundsheet, and that's when I learned that Evatone stopped making them in 2000.  You'd think that if they continued all the way into 2000 (well after demand must have bottomed out), they'd never stop.  Was it (gulp) a Y2K problem?

If any of you out there know of any other companies making Flexi-Discs, I'd appreciate a mention in the comments section.  Thanks!

More info from the mavens at WMFU
Q&A about Flexi's
McDonald's direct mail flexi (lower right in picture)