Retro Thing

A Pair of Mini Arcade Cabinets

I have a friend who owns several dozen pinball machines along with an old jukebox and an arcade cabinet or two. His collection now fills his basement, which has effectively put the brakes on his hobby. I'd love a few machines, too, but I fear that my house would share a similar fate. One appealing solution is a miniature arcade cabinet, like these two unique designs that recently popped up on the net.

The Game Boy arcade mod is sheer lunacy -- an ancient monochome Game Boy repackaged as a miniature arcade console. It's hand crafted somewhere in China and available on eBay for $149 + shipping. It'll be interesting to see if anyone is crazy enough to buy it.

The other machine is much more sensible. Samuel Seide's Cocktail Table Arcade Cabinet is a fully operational MAME cabinet with 2-player head-to-head support. It's built using an Asus netbook, incorporating an 8.9" widescreen display and an iPac arcade control interface.

Seide explains, "The unit is constructed from MDF board, hand painted black with laminated stickers on bezel and joystick area. The sides are simulated wood grain vinyl applied to the MDF board, much like how the original full size cabinets were done. The unit utilizes a ASUS Netbook Computer running Atomic FE Frontend Software and MAME for the games. Features Two Full sets of joysticks and 6 button layouts so two people can play at once. In cocktail mode, the two player games screen can be mirrored so each side of the system gets it's own view of the game being played so one person doesn't have to play the game upside down that way.

Putting ROMS on it is as simple as hooking a keyboard and mouse up and dropping the ROMS into a folder on the computer. Not much to it. The side contains a full size coin slot lit up by an LED powered from the computer systems USB port. Due to size constraints within the cabinet, I could not fit a working coin mech inside, so the coin slot is decorative. Coin insertion can be simulated by holding down the player 1 start button and hitting the upper left button on either player 1 or player 2's buttons. Plays just like the original large size arcades! It's 7" inches tall by 11" wide by 17" long."

It's a very neat idea, although I think someone should create an open source cabinet design so that these could be built inexpensively -- it doesn't make sense to pay the same price as a real cocktail cabinet for a miniature replica. [Update: Sam has offered to share his cabinet design if anyone wants to build their own. See his comment for details.]

Mini Ms. Pac Man / Galaga Cocktail MAME Arcade System [Thanks, Mike!]
GameBoy ARCADE Mod Game Boy [via OhGizmo!]

Remembering the E-mu Drumulator

The E-mu Drumulator was the first taste of sampled percussion for many electronic musicians in the early 1980s.

It followed hot on the heels of the company's groundbreaking Emulator sampling keyboard. It was also my first drum machine, although mine was a road-worn unit picked up at a music store clearance sale in the late 1980s. Sadly, I sold it while trying to scrape together the money to buy an E-mu sampler during my "imitate Depeche Mode's live setup" phase.

The Drumulator was introduced in 1983 for $995 -- an absolute bargain at the time. Twelve gritty 8-bit samples lived within its gigantic enclosure. To keep costs down, there was only a single slider for data entry, and only four samples could be mapped to the trigger buttons at a time.

There were no helpful alphanumeric displays and only the barest minimum of controls. Everything had to be programmed using a pair of cryptic two digit LED displays. There was no MIDI interface, either. The machine had to be synchronized to tape (or other devices) using a prehistoric click pulse system. Nevertheless, the Drumulator was extremely successful and sold over 10,000 units during its two year lifespan. The Drumulator was followed by the SP-12 and SP-1200 sampling drum machines, which became an iconic part of early hip-hop.

I'd love to get my hands on an old Drumulator for nostalgia's sake, but there aren't even any lingering around on eBay these days. Ahh, well. It's probably one of those pieces of gear that sounds better in my memory than it does in reality.

Now Shipping: Pandora Open Source Game System

I first wrote about the Pandora open source gaming platform over two years ago, excited by its retro gaming possibilities. For a while, I feared it was vaporware, but they're finally shipping the first units from the UK.

Pandora promises to be a retrogamer's paradise.  It crams a 4.3-inch 800x480 LCD screen, qwerty keyboard, 128MB RAM and Wi-Fi into a clamshell case only slightly larger than a Nintendo DS.

Pandora is Linux based, so it'll support numerous browsers and developers are expecting it to be an extremely capable platform for running emulators (Super NES, Playstation 1, SEGA Genesis and many others) along with homebrew titles.

An open source gaming platform means that gamers will no longer be at the whim of Nintendo or Sony, and there's a very real chance that some skilled independent developers will be able to eke out a lucrative market selling affordable original titles for the machine. It includes dual SD card slots and TV a TV output, so it's possible for Pandora to act as a media hub, too.

What do you guys think? Will you buy one? This thing appeals to me far more than a netbook, because I think it has a good chance of sparking a fervent following much like the C-64, Radio Shack CoCo and Sinclair Spectrum did in the early 80s.

Pandora: The Cortex A8 Powered Handheld Linux Console

Revisiting The Game Boy Advance

Deal Extreme is a weird and wonderful online shop in Hong Kong. They're worth checking out every now and then, just in case they've got some nifty new LED watches, compact flashlights or hand-held games in stock. 

I came across their aptly named Designer 2.9" LCD Portable Handheld Game Console a few days ago. On the outside, it's the spitting image of a crystal clear Nintendo Game Boy Advance. However, it houses an ARM-core emulator and 2GB of memory loaded with about 90 GBA titles and over 300 NES games.

A USB cable is included to charge the built-in battery and transfer new games, although there's probably enough here already to keep you occupied for a few weeks. The surprisingly well-built unit does a pretty good job of emulating most games, although some titles exhibit a bit of slowdown and weirdness. Build quality seems rock solid, too.

My main gripe is that the display aspect ratio isn't quite right -- I'm guessing that the creators used whatever panel they could. All in all, this is a great way to get a vintage Game Boy Advance fix for under $50 (with free shipping).

Designer 2.9" LCD Portable Handheld Game Console with 498 Built-in Games

Glow-In-The-Dark Stoplight Lamp Pull Mystery

 
There are those things you grow up around, and are surprised when you learn they're not a normal part of everyone else's lives. For example it wasn't until high school that I fully realized that on Saturdays, the other kids' fathers didn't send them with a 1930's army backpack to the Czech butcher shop to pick up the latest copy of the "Denní Hlasatel". I'm still kind of slow to realize things like that.

I also thought that everyone had these 2 inch glow-in-the-dark lamp pulls that look like stoplights. Many houses in my neighborhood had these hanging from their basement & pantry light fixtures. They are also mighty old - even back in the 70's when I s first saw them the glow on many barely worked. Within the glowing body are two red & green bits of transparent plastic that reflect light in a way that can make them look almost illuminated, which rounds out the cuteness of the thing.

They must have been part of some local promotional giveaway if so many people throughout Chicago had them. I actually didn't get one until fairly recently when I was helping clear out a neighbor's basement and found one stuffed in a drawer. There is no clue as to the stoplight's origin, or what year it might be from. I've only found one other reference to it online, and it was on the page of an avid collector of... you guessed it... stoplights. It's cute, and even with its dimmed glow it's rather useful for its original purpose. But what could it represent? A reminder to put a "stop" to wasting electricity? Or to help you remember to tip your local stoplight cleaner? Can any of our readers shed some light on this mystery?

related:

Dining room lamp mystery
Lava Lite telelphone

Classic 'Doctor Who' On Guitar

Bill Ruppert's latest Effectology video recreates the original 'Doctor Who' theme using just a guitar and Electro-Harmonix effect pedals. Imagine what Delia Derbyshire might have accomplished with this stack of gear...

Watch more Effectology on YouTube

Ural's New 2WD Patrol T Motorcycle

Ural motorcycles are direct descendants of the venerable BMW R71. Prior to WWII, the Germans gave blueprints and casting molds for the design to the Russians, who promptly turned around and manufactured thousands of them for the Red Army. The Irbit Motorcycles Works has been producing updated versions ever since.

The new 2WD Ural Patrol T is a sport utility motorcycle with the world’s only on-demand 2WD sidecar drive shaft that would put a Lada Niva to shame. It even features a reverse gear to back out of tough spots in a hurry. The bike features a 749cc air-cooled 4-cycle opposed twin cylinder engine, Herzog gears, Brembo brakes and Domino controls. There's even a storage compartment in the sidecar for spare ammunition gear and tools.

Every Ural bike is still hand-assembled in Irbit, Russia and is simple to maintain. As the company proudly declares, there's nothing that can't be fixed with a hammer and sickle. Available for $12,399 at a sport utility motorcycle dealership near you.

Ural Patrol T Sport Utility Motorcycle

1983 Naked Eyes Song Was A Burt Bachrach Remake?

The song "Always Something There To Remind Me" always reminds me specifically of the 80's. Not only was the song everywhere back then, it's on every 80's retrospective now. To me the sound is so distinctly 80's with those synth bell sounds that were so common in a post Yamaha DX-7 world. The song is definitely a product of its time - a musical snapshot of when synthpop and MTV were new, so imagine my surprise when I learned the song was a 60's Burt Bachrach hit!

The song was originally recorded by Dionne Warwick (I wonder which of her psychic friends advised her to do it) as a demo in 1963, but it became a geniune #1 hit in the UK the next year when performed by Sandie Shaw (seen here in a performance that needs a cup of coffee). The herky-jerky beats of the song definitely work (though there's an unsettling key change toward the end), and now I'm hearing the 80's song in an all new way. How did I never notice those signature 60's chord progressions in the Naked Eyes 1980's mega-hit?

Of course the best known version of the song came 20 years later from synthpoppers Naked Eyes - reportedly Bachrach's favorite version. It's become a sort of musical shortcut for 80's nostalgia shows, so closely identified with the 80's sound that it's still difficult to believe that the song is decades older than I thought. You can still hear the 80's version on the radio everywhere today on "adult contemporary" radio stations. If you've ever had one of your teenage favorites relegated to "adult contemporary" radio, you understand how I'm feeling right now.

1980's Naked Eyes version of "There's Always Something There To Remind Me"

related:
Synth Britannia: the emergence of British synth pop
Yazoo: 80's synthpop is back with five disc box set
Barry Manilow tries his hand at another 80's pop "classic"

Your 8 Track Player Can Sing With The Voice Of Cassettes

It's been a cool spring - possibly the first spring you ever cared about. Finally, prom night is here. You've invested heavily in the After Six Miami Vice double-breasted tuxedo that you and you date picked out. You're still on budget, though after adding up the corsage, the dinner, and those snappy patent leather rental shoes things are running a bit tight. Fortunately your lady doesn't care much about a limo, and besides... your dad promised you could borrow the Monte Carlo. Your hair is finally fixed, your face is as good as it's ever going to be, so you race to the Monty figuring you have just enough time to stow the T-tops in the trunk.

Damn! The tires are all flat... probably your jerky neighbor with the Buick Regal. Your pop tosses you the keys to his beloved pickup truck, a truck so old and rusty that no one knows what make it might have once been. Ford? Chevy? Radio Flyer? Heck, it's wheels. You clamber in, trying not to spill the soup can full of Newport butts. Horrors! You suddenly realize that the radio is AM only. You can't impress your girl on prom night while barely tuning in the farm report.

Fortunately you crafted the perfect mix tape, but argh! The truck only plays 8 tracks! It took two days to get that mix tape just right. Side "A" is party music for the journey there, side "B" is all soulful and gorgeous... for listening to after dark. You can't let the tool with the Regal get the better of you, even if he does have a portable CD player and cassette adapter to play through his car's stereo.

Fortunately you remember the gift you gave your dad last father's day. It takes a couple of solid punches to get the glove box to give up its grip. Out tumble some complimentary roadside maps, a tiny spray bottle of "new car smell", and the Kraco KCA-7. It's a chunky bit of plastic that shoves into the 8 track tape slot, and can play every crucial song on that mix cassette you made. You chuck in the Kraco, and after a few tense moments it works. It doesn't sound great, but the Farfisa fueled lunacy of "Rock Lobster" bleats through. Perfect.

You listen to the first few songs on the way to her house, but when you're five minutes away you stop the music and pop the tape. Since the Kraco is using the 8 track tape player's motor, the drive only goes in one direction. In order to rewind side "A" you have to flip the cassette, pop it back into the Kraco, and fast forward side "B" until the end.

You finish the clever tape rewind maneuver as you pull up to her house. Dad is on the creaky front porch fiddling with the Instamatic. Your date descends the stairs in the most gorgeous dress you've ever seen, looking like an angel on top of a cake. Mom fusses over this and that, smoothing back her daughter's precious curls. Dad peers over his aviator sunglasses at you, firmly says "twelve thirty", and presses two damp tens into your hand. The pair of you are in the truck. Her tresses cascade down her neck as she throws her head back, laughing at the adventure so far. She starts the tape, points and waves at her folks, and the truck lurches into the twilight while the two of you sing along to those weird songs no one else understands. Perfect.

related:

Turn an 8-Track player into an equally useful CB radio
Cartable 8 Track player is not a boom box
Surprisingly modern 8-Track tapes

The Pacific Pinball Museum

The Pacific Pinball Machine in Alameda, California features over 90 playable historic pinball machines, including dozens of vintage electro-mechanical tables from the 1940s through the 1960s.

This is the point at which I get misty-eyed, because chance childhood experiences so frequently define adult tastes. When I was ten or so, my family lived in a prairie town of about 400 people. Main Street was a dusty little strip with a handful of businesses including a rickety old hotel and an even seedier pool hall. I probably wasn't allowed to be in either, but I went in anyway and plunked down 25 cents for three games on a couple of battle-scarred Gottleib wedge machines.

That was in the late Seventies, at the dawn of the digital revolution. The clunks and chimes of those ancient tables quickly gave way to the bleeps and bloops of Space Invaders and fancy digital pinball machines, but I never forgot my first taste of electro-mechanical heaven.

Those early memories make Pacific Pinball the ideal place for me to while away an evening. Admission is $15 for adults and $7.50 for kids under 12 and all the machines are set to freeplay. It's an all-you-can-eat buffet of flashing lights and sparkling metal balls. The walls are decorated with stunning themed wall murals by Dan Fontes, Ed Cassel and many volunteers.

The stars of the show are 5 wood-rails and 20 wedge heads from Larry Zartarian’s collection, but you'll also find a roomful of digital machines from the 70s and 80s, along with a handful of modern machines in the back. It's almost enough to make me drive down to the Bay area (which Google informs me is a mere 1267 mile road trip).

Discover The Pacific Pinball Museum

RIP: The Floppy Disk (1971-2011)

Sony recently announced plans to end  production of 3.5" floppy disks in March, 2011. What amazes me most is that they still sell about 12 million per year -- there must be a lot of legacy lab gear that still needs them.

I can't honestly remember the last time I bought a floppy. I'm guessing it was sometime in the late 1990s. How about you?

The Evolution of PC Audio

YouTuber phreakindee used the theme tune from The Secret of Monkey Island to track the evolution of PC audio. It all started in 1981 with crude square wave bleeps from an IBM PC...

Evolution of PC Audio - As Told by Secret of Monkey Island [via Slashdot]

Forget Using Switches - Turn On Your Lights With A Duck

 
I remember that in the 80's or so, game shows started offering ugly brassy lamps as prizes. It wasn't merely an attempt to give homes that Raddison lobby aesthetic, there was an angle. Instead of a light switch, you merely touched the brass base of the lamp to turn it on. Subsequent taps would cycle the bulb through a couple levels of brightness before turning off.

These "touch lamps" didn't exactly send pull cords & twist switches into extinction... those are still the dominant way to add some lumens to any space. You can still find touch lights today, but they're an oddity for sure. Why did they fail? According to some folks at repairfaq.org, the underlying tech isn't super reliable. I'd add that having so many ugly examples of the species out there doesn't help the cause much either.

So in waddles this brass duck. This fowl just sits there, like any other desk duck. People can admire him, wondering when your bird dog fetched you a rare pygmy ducky (which you had bronzed, of course). Imagine their surprise when you give the duck a tap and the lights come on. Secreted into the base is a 1986 "Touch On Light Control", wired up to the metal of the mallardy maquette. Tickle him under the chin (or anywhere else), and it'll activate a lamp that's connected to the special plug.

I had a spot all picked out for ducky, but sadly he doesn't work. Initially I thought that it was because the unit will only work with incandescent bulbs, and I have a lot of CFL's around. I tried it with a regular bulb, and nada. Alas, quacky is back to being just a statuette again instead of covert light switch.

As little as I like the original version of the brass touch lights, I like this little oddity that I can connect to my own lamps. It would be cool to have light switches disguised as statuary around the house. Maybe a little brass flowerpot for the back porch? A skillet for the kitchen? Or famous monuments like The Statue of Liberty (just touch the torch)? Never mind. Someone would want to use Michaelangelo's David to turn on the lights and I hate to think of what part you'd have to flick.

How to repair your own touch switch lamp (or touch switch duck)

related:

Lava Lite + kitschy telephone
Dining room lamp mystery
The poultry that changed Atari history forever

LEGO Arcade Takes Pixelation To A New Level

Ben Fleskes built this 34" tall arcade cabinet out of standard Lego pieces. It includes a Jamma 48-in-1 arcade PC board, LCD panel display, ATX power supply, a switchable 4/8-way joystick and genuine arcade buttons. Now if only someone would create a cocktail version...

Table Top 80s Arcade Game [via Make]

BBC One In 90 Seconds

Here's a montage of BBC1 channel idents from 1953 - when it was the only TV channel in the UK - through 2006, when the Beeb resorted to schools of swimming hippos to mesmerize viewers.

BBC ONE Idents 1953 - 2008