Retro Thing

The Amazingly Uncool Nerd Watch Museum

Modern Nerds are nothing like the pathetic pale creatures of decades past. Duct-taped glasses have given way to laser corrective surgery and invisible braces have replaced barbaric steel mouth traps. Even the pocket protector has vanished, thanks to an omnipresent assortment of backpacks and messenger bags. Worst of all, mobile phones have supplanted wristwatch calculators. Yeah, that's right. Now even the cool kids can calculate square roots whenever they wish. Physics class will never be the same.

That's why we're going out of our way to draw your attention to the Nerd Watch Museum. It's filled with dozens of brilliant wrist-mounted calculators, computers, lottery number generators, translators and game watches. Long live technological insanity!

The Nerd Watch Museum [via Canada's coolest gadget site - OhGizmo]

Piaggio Releases The Vespa S in 50c and 125cc Versions

Two new classically styled scooters have been added to the Vespa lineup after being announced at last fall's EICMA Show. The Vespa S successfully echoes the style of vintage small frame Vespas, while providing all the benefits of modern technology.

illnoise at 2StrokeBuzz offers some perceptive analysis: "Most obvious is the legshield, which discards the plastic insert of the LX, returning to a more traditional shape and contour than any scooter since the PK series. The Corsa-style seat looks as magically uncomfortable as the original. Details like the fender and tailight add to the impression that the Vespa smallframe is back, although for some reason, of all the great smallframe models to choose from, they gave it the horncasting and square headlight of a Vespa 50 Special."

There's no word yet about North American availability and price, although I'm sure it'll be several thousand dollars more than I have in my piggy bank.

Nuova Vespa S [Auto-translated Italian, via 2StrokeBuzz]

Amstrad Mega PC: The First and Last IBM-PC / SEGA Hybrid

Manufacturers are always searching for a way to differentiate their product from dozens of others. It's often extremely hard, because electronic gear tends to share the same underlying technology. One approach is to meld several devices together in a single unit, which is the approach Amstrad took with the Mega PC.

The 1993 Mega PC was a boring beige IBM-PC clone that included a SEGA Mega Drive (AKA Genesis) on a board The console hardware was packaged on a standard ISA card that doubled as an AdLib compatible sound card. It connected to the main PC using a ribbon cable that passed graphics and sound and was the only version of the Mega Drive to include a VGA output. The package came with a custom beige control pad and 2 button analog joystick.

The computer itself was a respectable 25 MHz 386 with 1MB of memory and a 40 MB hard drive. It included AdLib sound and SVGA graphics, along with a state-of-the-art copy of Windows 3.11.

The system sold at a premium and savvy parents quickly realized it made much better sense to purchase a lower cost computer and standalone Genesis console, thus preventing a traffic jam in the basement when junior wanted to play Sonic at the same time dad wanted to surf the local BBS for ASCII porn art. The machine also suffered from a non-standard game cartridge slot on the front panel that did not accept all game carts. Amstrad eventually produced a 486 version of the same machine before abandoning the concept in the mid 1990s.

Read more about the Mega PC at Play:Right [From a tip in the comments of this post. Thanks, Richard!]

Fake Painting with Real Fake Polyurethane Wood Frame

If any of you have touched a prop from a movie, you've probably been surprised at just how lightweight and fake it feels.  This 20 x 16 inch "painting" has that patina of fakery about it, and cartoonish proportions to boot, yet it is intended to hang on the walls of otherwise sensible homes.  This is no smug & ironic statement about art.  It's the real thing... the real fake thing.

Not everyone can own an artist's original.  That's okay since we live in a world where a print or a poster is also perfectly acceptable to hang on your wall as art.  Add an understated frame and you've got something.

But then there's stuff like this... a landscape printed onto textured card surrounded by a 3" thick polyurethane simulated wood frame.  Honestly the most authentic thing about this painting is the exposed rusty nails that sort of hold it all together in the back.

I don't want to spend too much time on the "painting" itself - maybe you're a person who hates the rule of thirds and loves poplar trees, so I won't be too critical.  It's the polyurethane fake wood that I find fascinating.  Let's see what's in the "pro" column.  It's lighter than real wood, so you can hang this up even on the walls of your gingerbread house.  It also must have been terribly, terribly cheap to manufacture - and cheap enough to make it worth hanging up this nastiness in a home.

Negative points?  How about the whole "hideously ugly" thing?  The bucolic scene is ensconced in what's supposed to look like rough hewn wood, but it could just as easily be a neighborhood haunted house prop.  I hate to say this but it reminds me a lot of the sort of "quick fix" aesthetics you see in today's home improvement TV shows.  Too many times the experts advocate gaudy fascia instead of addressing the underlying problem.  This approach doesn't value lasting quality or evolving aesthetics.  I guess that eventually all of our houses will fall apart leaving only a shell of marble-printed formica and petrified Liquid Nails.

Paint By Numbers to hang up
Paint By Numbers software - convert your photo

Mercury Super Ten: Audiophile sound from 1926

The Mercury Super Ten table radio was manufactured by the H. M. Kipp Company in Toronto during the mid-1920's. It was sold as the "most sensitive and selective radio of its time" and retailed for a whopping $195 with tubes installed.

For that price, you received a beautifully built superhetrodyne receiver that pulled in frequencies between 200 and 600 meters using ten Northern Electric R215A tubes, which were renowned for their sensitivity and extremely long life (up to 10,000 hours).

I'm stretching the definition of "audiophile" a bit in this instance, but -- when paired with a good headset -- the Super Ten probably offered just about the finest radio reception of the era. I stumbled across this wonderful old set at TheOldRadioFixerUpperGuy.com, where Don was nice enough to post scans of a brochure entitled "The Story of the Mercury Super-Ten," along with various advertisements and testimonial letters that he found carefully tucked inside the case.

Mercury Super Ten Radio

Flashback: The JEEP Celebrates 66 years

The JEEP was created during WWII as a light reconnaissance utility vehicle. What you might not know is that there were originally multiple JEEPs built by several manufacturers -- the Bantam BRC-40, Willys MA and the Ford GP. The vehicle grew out of the US government's requirements for a "General purpose, personnel, or cargo carrier especially adaptable for reconnaissance or command, and designated as 1/4-ton 4x4 Truck." Ford's GP designation didn't mean "General Purpose," as most people believed. The G referred to "Government," while P was an internal code that referred to its wheelbase.

Willy's was contracted to produce 16,000 of the vehicles in July 1941, primarily on the basis of their vehicle's more powerful engine and low price. A number of design elements were incorporated from the Ford and Bantam designs and it was designated the Willys MB (Military Model B). The company was unable to keep up with the demand for this versatile little vehicle, and Ford began to produce a licensed version -- the Ford GPW -- later that year.

The most famous feature of the JEEP is probably the stamped slotted grille, created by Ford to reduce material and manufacturing costs. There were nine slats in the original Ford version. Ford decided not to produce the JEEP after the war and Willy's reworked the grille to become the "classic" seven slot look that is familiar to modern JEEP enthusiasts.

Over 500,000 of these versatile little machines were built during WWII, and various military derivatives remained in production until 1968. Literally millions of CJs (Civilian JEEPs) have been produced, and the design single-handedly inspired 4X4 models from Toyota, Land Rover, Suzuki and others.

Read more about the JEEP's early history [off-road.com]

Teach Yourself Celestial Navigation

Here's a nifty site that will teach you to identify 3 constellations, 2 stars, and 1 planet. You'll also learn the essence of nighttime navigation using the stars. Now where did I leave that sextant?

"The night sky has followed you your whole life. It may be the only thing your distant ancestors would recognize today. How much of it do you recognize? Fifteen minutes from now, you will recognize plenty."

Identify constellations, stars, planets and how to navigate at night

Tobin TVT-16: Low Cost 16mm Film to Video Transfer System

Tobin Cinema Systems is now shipping the TVT-16 16mm film to video transfer machine. While its $4200 price tag might seem a tad high at first glance, it is well within the budget of professional transfer facilities.

A significant difficulty faced by amateur filmmakers is the exorbitant cost of getting 16mm film scanned to video. Traditional Telecine transfer can cost up to $600 per hour, putting it out of reach for many budget-conscious movie makers. The TVT-16 should level the playing field a bit by reducing the cost of high-quality film transfers.

Unlike old-fashioned projector-based systems, the TVT-16 uses a built in CCD module to deliver frame-by-frame scanning in real time, without blended or blurred frames. It incorporates a custom macro lens assembly with a solid state LED light source that provides consistent illumination across the entire film frame.

The machine can be ordered with either an NTSC or PAL sensor module that outputs flicker-free video at either 752 or 768 pixel horizontal resolution. Supported transfer speeds include 24 and 16 fps (NTSC) or 25 and 16 2/3 fps (PAL). The maximum reel capacity is 2300 feet, giving one hour of running time. The company also manufactures several 8mm models.

Visit Tobin Cinema Systems for more info

Bell + Howell Flat Screen for your Film Projector

It's getting close to the international celebration of Home Movie Day, which reminds me to get out some home movie reels to prepare for the fun. When my family projected movies, my father had a special space picked out on the wall - other families had tripod screens. All are great when you've got the room to set up a big projection. Sometimes, I just want to review films with a quickie setup on a tabletop. This screen is perfect for those moments.

Bell + Howell made their name with all sorts of optical devices; cameras, projectors, and screens. This one is unusual; it has the look of a high quality picture frame. You can either hang it up like a painting, or it has feet that swing out to use on a tabletop.  Most important is that the screen is a true silver screen - super bright, and with a very wide viewing angle (apologies to all of you LCD TV's out there...).

Of all of my home movie gear, this screen may be my favorite. It's only 1" thick, and at about 31" wide it's small enough to store easily while remaining large enough for watching movies with a group. Since it's all one solid piece it never wrinkles. Being freestanding makes it surprisingly versatile, but the best part is just how darned classy it looks.

What's really funny is that when I leave this out on the table, friends (okay, my not-very-observant friends...) have thought it was the thinnest LCD TV they've ever seen! Of course I'm not above baiting them further when pointing out that super 8 can still pump out an image with higher resolution than HD. Oh sure, you kids with your desire for "sound" and "shooting for more than 3 minutes" might be a little disappointed, but I still say that threading up a movie projector is way more fun than watching a DVD.

One last thing... here's a call for help from our readers. I accidentally put a mighty scratch in the screen years ago.  A film collector friend once told me about a special kind of paint that would be compatible with the rest of the silver screen finish. I don't want to just repaint the whole thing grey... I definitely want to maintain the silver screen look and blend in the scratch. Any ideas out there?

Read about a home movie camera that shoots 3D

Home movie clapper sticks

Classic Home Video Games: A Complete Reference Guide

Former comic book store owner Brett Weiss has compiled a 316-page hardcover guide to nearly every official US game release for programmable home consoles prior to the Nintendo NES -- no small feat. The book covers titles for the Adventure Vision, APF MP1000, Arcadia 2001, Astrocade, Atari 2600, Atari 5200, Atari 7800, ColecoVision, Fairchild Channel F, Intellivision, Microvision, Odyssey, Odyssey2, RCA Studio II, Telstar Arcade, and Vectrex.

Each chapter offers an overview and history of a system, followed by encyclopedia-style entries for each game. There's even an appendix that lists homebrew titles that have been released by amateur programmers. This intriguing reference volume will hit stores in Fall 2007, but it's available now for pre-order.

Update from Bohus:

Having Retro Thing offices in two countries sometimes means that messages don't always get through. We got an advance copy of "Classic Home Video Games" in Chicago, but our carrier pigeon was still getting his skates on while James was merrily posting about the title from Retro Thing in Canada. Here then are a few of my thoughts after cracking the spine of the book.

The first thing that jumped out at me is the book's school textbook vibe. No surprise since McFarland is a noted academic publisher (though their title "Super Bitches and Action Babes" leave me wondering...) which also seems to have influenced the price.  Retailing at $55 makes this one of the highest priced video game books I've seen that isn't a coffee table book with a lot of color photography. Fortunately, the writing style isn't dry and clinical like a textbook might be. Weiss offers up accessible reviews of every game released for both popular and obscure game systems.

The problem facing a book like this is how to differentiate from similar sources of the same information.  There are countless websites that offer reviews of all of these games, but don't have the quality writing that this title offers - a point in the book's favor. This reference guide also collects all of this content - including some pretty obscure games - in one place. That's another good point.

On the other hand, you could get much the same info from the Digital Press Collector's Guide. It's $25 shipped, has rarity & pricing guides, and also has a healthy online component. Classic Home Video Games also features very little in the way of photography to justify the cost.  This book is priced like a serious research work, when most readers are likely to be hobbyists and collectors.  All in all, I think that author Brett Weiss delivers on the content & critiques, but the publisher needs to examine the market for the book and adjust the price by about $20.  Maybe we can reconvene when the softcover comes out. - Bohus

Classic Home Video Games, 1972-1984: A Complete Reference Guide

Vacuum Tube PC Motherboard

I imagine that all of us have gotten sucked into the argument of analog audio versus digital at one time or another.  Amplifier fans duke it out over solid state audio amps versus classic tube technology all the time.  It's not all nostalgia though.  The main emotional payback for investing in tube technology (besides the reassuring orange glow coming from your stereo cabinet) is that your audio feels "warmer" - even CD sources are supposed to sound better after being piped through a tube. 

Here in the pages of Retro Thing, we've discussed both sides of the issue.  We've written about high end CD & DVD players with tubes built in and the world's smallest tube amp. So audio and video seem to be well covered, but as more and more people are using their computers to listen to music, what can we do to make our favorite MP3's sound better?

Aopen has been making motherboards for a number of years.  At first this one looks pretty much like anything else out there - but wait, what's that roundish socket?  No way.  It's a PC motherboard with a socket for a vacuum tube!  While the onboard audio is pumped out by a typical soundchip, it makes its way through the tube to get the analog treatment.

The main thrust of this system is to beef up music and gaming audio but I'm even more interested in hearing the results from a softsynth, sound that's all generated from inside the PC.

Having said that, I'm sure that I'd crank some MP3's through the thing - so many MP3's are compressed so far down that they sound rotten, so maybe the "imperfections" in the old SovTek tube can smooth out some of those digital era audio hiccups.

 

Unfortunately I haven't done any of this stuff on my own yet.  I've had the motherboard for a while now (why hasn't AOpen made a simple sound card version with the tube on it?), but I haven't installed it yet because I'd like to find a Retro Thing worthy PC-case (especially if it's a luggable case of some kind).  Any ideas out there?

EVT Introduces 45mph Retro-Styled Electric Motorcycle

We've been waiting for EVT America to introduce their high performance Z-20 electric scooter since September 2005. For several years it appeared that the manufacturer of the popular EVT-4000e had bitten off more than they could chew during the development of an affordable electric moped capable of hitting 45 mph (72 km/h).

The wait is over, and EVT surprised everyone by unveiling three variations of the machine. I think this was a rather serious marketing blunder. There's nothing significant to differentiate the Z-20A and Z-20B models. They're mechanically identical and feature bland modern styling typical to dozens of low-cost Chinese scooter designs.

By far the most interesting model is the retro-inspired R-20 Electric Motorcycle. $1999 gets you a little urban runabout that can travel 30 to 45 Miles (48 to 72 km) on a charge. It's powered by a 2500 Watt brushless 60V motor (significantly more powerful than the 1500W model in the original EVT-4000e). The R-20 meets DOT requirements and includes the required paperwork and VIN for registration in the United States. It should also meet Canadian laws, but check with your local authorities before purchasing.

EVT R-20 Electric Motorcycle

Echo Verb: Outlandishly Expensive Tape Reverb

Back in the old days, adding ambiance to music was a serious challenge. Some creative studio owners built concrete rooms and recorded the output from speakers. Less wealthy musicians relied on electro-mechanical spring reverb units and tape delays. Sadly, the quirky old techniques were obliterated almost overnight by the arrival of low-cost digital effects units.

In an effort to revive and improve upon devices of the past, Unity Audio has unleashed the Echo Verb. This £1880 unit features six playback heads, along with record and erase heads. It sounds like a truly wonderful gadget to own if you're lucky enough to be a retired member of Pink Floyd, but mere mortals will have to do with something a tad more sensible.

The company says, "The aim was to eliminate all the problems associated with early tape echo machines, improving the performance, whilst retaining the unique analogue tape echo sound which has never been achieved through digital devices, be it hardware or software based plug-ins. Modern improvements for example include extremely low noise circuitry and the ability to select any combination of 6 available heads.

Many leading professionals still like the idea of using tape echo, or indeed are still use old existing units, many of which are on their last legs, because nothing has been able to recreate that unique sound and the hands on approach, until now!"

I'm somewhat sad they've attempted to do away with the imperfections of earlier gear -- those quirks gave classic music tracks a personality that's impossible with modern technology.

The Echo Verb - 6 Head Tape Echo & Reverb [via Music Thing]

PlayStation 1: An Audiophile Bargain or Fool's Gold?

The high-end audio world is a weird place, filled with "strident yet ethereal highs," "boisterous bass" and $23,500 speaker cables. As with any expensive hobby, there are thousands of clever audiophiles trying to produce truly high-end sound at bargain basement prices.

And what could be more bargain basement than an old game console? There's a growing legion of music fans who are convinced that the lowly PlayStation 1 (Model SCPH-1001/1002) offers CD audio quality that rivals units costing thousands of dollars more. A reviewer on 6moons.com enthuses:

"I had heard rumors of just how good this particular version of the PS1 is when used as a CD player and was curious to give it a listen. This kid's video game player really does have outstanding audio performance. I'm guessing you'd have to spend more than $6000 on a one-box CD player to equal let alone better it."

I'm always skeptical of such claims, especially when they're not backed up by hard evidence. After all, it could just be that the audio output of the PS One is louder than other CD players, or perhaps the Digital to Analog converters color the sound in a musically appealing manner.

Some users report that the PlayStation sounds best when left on for several days before a listening session, which strikes me as alchemy - solid state electronic equipment simply doesn't need time to warm up like vintage tube equipment. The unit will reach "normal" operating temperature within a few minutes, and extreme heat is never a friend of precision integrated circuitry.

I'd definitely be interested in hearing from readers who have tried the PlayStation One with a high-end stereo: Does it really sound better?

Need a high-end CD player? Why not use your old PlayStation? [ars technica]

Somewhat related:
A Look at the inexpensive Sonic Impact T-Amp
Athena Speakers: Bargain Priced Hi-Fi

Hasbro Easy-Bake Ovens Cause Injury and Mayhem

My sister had an Easy-Bake oven in the late 1970s. The original version used a light bulb to cook tiny trays of cake mix. It was invented by Ronald Howes (who also had a hand in the development of Play-Doh and the Spirograph) and released by American toymaker Kenner in 1963 at a price of $15.95. Its runaway success led to the invention of the Easy-Pop corn popper and Kiddie TV Dinners.

The modern version uses a custom-designed heating element, presumably because incandescent light bulbs are going the way of the Dodo. Millions have been sold, but it looks like the current design is cooking more than cake.

Hasbro recently announced a recall of about 1 million ovens produced between May 2006 and July 2007 because of a design flaw that could result in children getting their hands caught in the front opening. So far, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission has received 249 reports of children getting their hands caught, 77 reports of burns and one partial amputation.

My advice? Buy the classic version for your little princess at a garage sale. It's a wonderful way to demonstrate how inefficient incandescent light bulbs are