Retro Thing

Thirty years of Nintendo video games

Nintendo released the Color TV Game 6 in 1977. It came ready to play six brightly colored variations of Pong, but the simple "light tennis" games are a world away from the fanciful universe of Mario and friends that would lead the company to dominate the industry in the late 1990s.

Nintendo got its start in the 1890s as a playing card manufacturer. By the early 1970s, they were a struggling toy company fighting to find their niche. The emergence of early video games caused great excitement and the company became the Japanese distributor of the Magnavox Odyssey game console in 1975. They wasted no time joining forces with electronics giant Mitsubishi to develop their own  microprocessor-based Pong derivative, much like the company's modern relationships with IBM and ATI.

The Color TV Game 6 was aimed at the domestic Japanese market, most likely because they were afraid of copyright lawsuits from Coleco, Atari and Magnavox if they attempted to market the device in the USA. It made a lot of sense for the company to leverage its existing sales network in Japan and Nintendo quickly sold more than a million of these futuristic devices.

Their 1978  followup console, the Color TV Game 15, improved on the original design by featuring external controllers and more games. These bright red consoles also sold more than a million units, paving the way for even more ambitious video-based projects such as their famed 1983 Famicom system.

Nintendo Color TV Game 6 [old-computers.com]

related:
1975: Atari Pong Invades the Family Room
Videogames: In the Beginning
Build your own Pong game

Citroen DS - A car years ahead of its time

The 1950s were filled with stunning curvy things: Sputnik, Marilyn Monroe and the Citroën DS. This masterpiece of French design and engineering was introduced at the 1955 Paris Auto Show. The company received an unbelievable 12,000 orders on the very first day of the show. In addition to being the first production car with front disc brakes, the DS offered a futuristic hydropneumatic suspension system with adjustable ground clearance, a lightweight fiberglass roof, semi-automatic transmission and front wheel drive.

Over 1.5 million DS variants were sold between 1955 and 1975, and it (along with the Citroën 2CV6 and the ubiquitous VW Bug) are the cars that populate my early memories of Paris in the 1970s. Back then, this amazing design seemed like something from outer space. The 1.9L 4-cylinder engine put out 75 HP and was mated to a fascinating 4-speed semi-automatic hydraulic transmission; changing gears required the driver to activate a lever mounted behind the steering wheel and release the accelerator pedal momentarily.

related:
Retro Thing's Top 20 Retro Cars

Misguided technostalgia in the guise of a USB phone

Dear anonymous USB phone producer somewhere in the Chinese Wild East: Please don't do this ever again.

A phone that looks like this should be made out silky-smooth Bakelite and hide a ringer will bells that can wake the dead. Sadly, this one probably serves up anemic digital versions of Beethoven and Yankee Doodle Dandy. A real phone also includes a dial that really dials, although you get kudos for awkwardly adding # and * buttons to the 'touchpad' on this charming little disaster.

There. I feel better now that's off my chest.

JAHT SkyVogue Old Fashioned USB Internet Phone

Pocket Commodore 64 emulator

Not everyone has the time or skill to hack together their own "real" Commodore 64 palmtop computer. Luckily, clickgamer.com offers the $24.95 Pocket Commodore 64 emulator for Windows Mobile. This software includes full Commodore 64 hardware emulation, stereo SID sound, keypad to C64 keyboard mapping, multiple built-in BIOS ROMS, switchable NTSC and PAL timing, and true 1541 floppy drive emulation so that many classic copy-protected games will run (I wonder if you can simulate the 1541's "click of death"?)

Pocket Commodore 64 Emulator

The almost flip clock

Flip clocks are wonderfully annoying, especially when you're trying desperately to concentrate. The digits flip every sixty seconds with a wonderfully mischevious SNIK, deliberately drawing your attention to any and all rapidly looming deadlines.

This € 225.00 not-quite-a-flip clock improves on the traditional design by offering nothing more than a flipping calendar, so you'll only have to put up with twice-daily SNIKKING. The "real" clock face in the bottom left corner behaves like a nice, quiet, well behaved analog clock. You know, the kind that you'd take home to meet your mom, if you were that kind of a timepiece. Personally, I'm holding out for the € 14.99 version from IKEA, coz apparently I'm a cheap date.

Big Flip Clock Calendar by Karlsson Design [via Red Ferret, which actually has nothing to do with animals or the color red...]

C64 Laptop... er... PDA... I Don't Care - I Want One!

After seeing this, I almost launched my own Mountain Dew out my nose.  You may recall that about a year ago, the Commodore 64 joined the games-in-a-joystick craze with the C64 DTV.  It's a great little joystick, and it's also very hacker friendly.  Once you get the main circuit board out of the case, there are solder pads (with silk screened labels yet!) that let you easily add a keyboard and an original C64 floppy drive.

There have been many great hacks of the DTV (including placing the entire computer inside the case of the aforementioned floppy drive), but this project takes the cake.  This project adds the keyboard plus a built in LCD monitor, joystick port (using a mini replica of an Atari joystick put out by Basic Fun - review to come!), and soon memory cards!  It runs off of internal rechargeable batteries, is made from time-honored contact paper & balsa wood, and has made it into my personal history books.

Ben Heckendorn is still my hero, but fortunately my heart is big enough for two hacker geniuses.

Discussion board with many more pictures

Found via Hack a Day 

Fuji Single-8 movie film outruns the grim reaper

Fuji announced today that their Single-8 movie format will live to see another day. Single-8 cartridge film was introduced in 1965 and was intended to compete with Kodak's famed Super 8 format. It didn't enjoy much success outside Japan, even though it was technically the better format. Unlike Super 8, it could be shot backwards and uses an in-camera film pressure plate that captures far more stable footage than Kodak's plastic in-cartridge design.

Sales dwindled to an estimated 14,000 cartridges last year and production of Fujichrome R25N and RT200N color stocks was scheduled to end in March 2007, with processing to run until September 2008. The cancellation was greeted in Japan with vocal protests from professional cinematographers and amateurs alike. It didn't take long for the furor to migrate onto the pages of major newspapers.

Faced with a minor public relations crisis and a surge in sales, Fuji quietly arranged to continue production and processing of the format for an unspecified period, rumored to be at least 3 to 5 years. Prices will increase slightly - less than 300 Yen ($2.50) per cartridge - to offset equipment maintenance costs and dwindling sales.

Related:
Movie Making With Fuji Single-8: Better than Kodak?
A Worthy Replacement For Kodachrome Super 8 Film

The iPhone smokescreen

Here's a bold prediction: The iPhone that Apple Inc. introduced yesterday won't be a runaway success. It will never sell tens of millions of units, nor is it intended to. In reality, it's a flagship product intended to define the high-end of Apple's new ultraportable media computer lineup.

Let's face it, the classic iPod has reached the end of its natural life. Even the most recent fifth generation iPods are showing their age. The screen is small, the OS extremely limited. To make things worse, Apple's competition has been nipping at their heels with rapidly improving devices such as SanDisk's tiny Sansa flash players and the Creative Zen Vision:M.

The iPod line needed a reboot, and the iPhone was splashiest way to do it. In fact, this device is the logical evolution of the Newton MessagePad. Think about it. Apple realized that boring contact lists, calendars and handwriting recognition won't encourage the Unwashed Masses to adopt portable computers. People are far more media-centric than that.

Could three wheels be better than two or four?

I spent the day at a motorcycle show. As a retro fanatic, I'm always a bit torn at these events. Should I spend my time on the classics concourse or venture out to see brilliant new models from the likes of BMW, Aprillia and Vespa? I did a bit of both.

From a retro perspective, the Russian sidecar-equipped Ural lineup seems to be selling well. Their factory reps tell me that they've been riding a wave of renewed interest in 3-wheeled biking. In fact, they commented that their Wolf 2-wheeler might be destined for the scrap-heap as the company focuses exclusively on their sidecar-equipped models.

And since we're talking about three wheelers, one of the bikes that seemed to be generating the biggest buzz wasn't a bike at all. It was the MP3 - the world's first three-wheeled scooter. It's manufactured by Vespa's parent company Piaggio and seems destined to turn the urban transportation world upside-down. The company claims that having two wheels at the front leads to improved cornering, braking and road grip. Follow the jump for video of the MP3 in action...

EightBanners Pinhole Cameras

TeamDroid recently introduced me to the EightBanners camera lineup. This little Taiwanese company from Shenzhen, China offers a number of different metal and wooden cameras. Their most exciting development is an interchangeable $35 pinhole plate set that allows you to select from up to eight laser-cut shutter shapes on a rotating turret. The turret doesn't appear to be available yet, but the pinhole plates are also compatible with their $35 single-plate t-shutter

EightBanners pinhole cameras [via TeamDroid]

Exploding Candy

I have vivid memories of being a nine year-old kid and spending my entire allowance on Pop Rocks - tiny sugary chunks that cheerfully pop and crackle in your mouth. My parents had never allowed me to purchase such a dubious substance, and so I did what any sane 9 year-old would do in my position: I opened three packages simultaneously and tossed them enthusiastically into my mouth. Half went down my throat and began to fizz and pop in the nooks and crannies of my esophagus. The other half coated my mouth and tongue. Everything began to pop and fizzle.

For a terrified few seconds, I was convinced that I was mere moments away from exploding.

I coughed, spluttered and choked noisily, while my best friend Erik convulsed with laughter and the shopkeeper regarded the entire scene with detached bemusement. "Hey kid! Do that outside my shop next time, OK?"

1960's Welcome Back Kit

James has been out of commission for about a week - not only due to the holiday, but his internet access got conked out.  He'll be posting again in the next few days, so here's a post to welcome him back.

As you can imagine, I've given more than my fair share of novelty gifts.  Often they're cheap, only fun for the length of the party (if you're lucky) - but if they're kept at all, they can be a little souvenir of good times.  The 60's abounded with strange little boxed novelty kits, and this is one of the strangest. 

The Welcome Pac (their spelling, not mine) has cute greeting card quality graphics proclaiming it's being perfect for home comings and red carpet occasions, by including party favors, brass band, and even Tums antacid & aspirin.  1968 was the space age after all, so perhaps the little box also had some special tablets that only required a few drops of water to create an instant party?

No space age good times here.  The stuff in the box embraces another 60's concept - that of the "mini".  The noisemakers and confetti are full sized, but the rest of the package is a pile of toy food, a mini red carpet, and other doll-sized party accoutrements.

I'd hate to think that there's something here that I'm just not getting - I can only hope that the kit is just not very funny.  Maybe I should simply down the 40 year old aspirin, have a quiet miniature celebration and just call it a day.

Free Retro Music Every Day in 2007

In 2003, WFMU's Otis Fodder spearheaded a project to share a different piece of unusual music every day.  At the end of the year, the 365 Days Project had amassed an incredible variety of lost or forgotten (or should have been forgotten) music from the 30's until today.  You could find anything from an amateur 78rpm home recording, a syrupy 1960's anthem about how special the bathroom is, or a gorgeous little 1940's ditty about a cowboy who contracts syphilis.

Fodder is at it again, and 2007 will see another collection of weird music.  Since bandwidth and online storage space today are cheap as free, some days will even feature full albums.  No one will know until the end of the year what will ultimately show up.  If it's anything like the last one, it'll be a hell of an adventure.  Sort of like a really weird audio-only advent calendar.

The gang organizing the project did a great job collecting tracks and authoring informative blurbs about each song, so it's not just some willy-nilly pile of random noise.  In 2007 you can expect a neatly curated pile of noise that you've likely never heard before.  Maybe they'll even let me contribute some retro goodies this time around!

Main page of the 365 Days Project 2007

Archive of the original 365 Days Project