Retro Thing

Emulating The Commodore 64's Sound Chip

The Commodore SID -- a 3 voice music synthesizer on a chip -- is probably the most famous computer sound generator of the early 1980s. Many of the kids who grew up listening to its distinctive sound never lost their taste for raw analog music, and it still enjoys a cult following.

SIDizer is a software emulation that mimics the sound and flaws of several versions of the SID chip with startling realism. The program simulates the half wave filter distortion of earlier 6581 versions of the chip, along with other famous glitches such as oscillator leakage, input noise and switchable 6581/8580 D/A converter distortion.

To streamline the creative process, the GUI offers hands-on tweaking of every parameter on a single page along with an 8 step arpeggiator, pitch and mod wheel support, portamento, stereo spread and a bit cruncher module with pre and post filter routing. SIDizer lists for $64, although the first 64 customers can pick up a copy for only $49.

HyperSynth SIDizer Software Based SID Synth

Vintage Soviet Underwater Camera Enclosures

Vladislav Kern writes, "Hey guys, if you remember me from the KGB cameras, I thought you'd get a kick from our underwater camera enclosures section. Just thought maybe some of these would be worthy of mention in your blog. I always got a kick out of them."

I can only imagine the delight my family would have experienced taking one of these technological marvels along on a relaxing mission holiday to the Baltic seaside, nestled safely in the back of our faithful little Zaporozhets sedan. The KRAB housing above was produced around 1960 for use with the GOMZ Leningrad 35mm camera. If you look closely, you can see a 1958 Leningrad camera nestled safely inside.

Underwater Camera Housings From The USSR

New Life For A 30 Year Old Music Computer

The Fairlight Computer Music Instrument is one of the most distinctive digital samplers ever made. Back in 1982, it cost a stratospheric $32,000. In return, you got eight voices of 8-bit lo-fi audio sampling (each voice card had only 16K of memory), along with a musical keyboard and a futuristic terminal with a lightpen.

Only a few hundred Fairlight Series II machines were manufactured, and factory support has been non-existent for decades. Repair technicians have been forced to strip dead machines to keep others running. However, some parts are impossible to come by.The lightpen was a clever way to navigate screens in the pre-mouse era, but many lived hard lives in the studio and no longer function. The manufacturer is long gone, and there's no plug-in replacement. Until now, the only solution has been to memorize keyboard shortcuts.

One of the members of the Fairlight-CMI Yahoo! group decided to design a replacement for his dead light pen. After countless hours, Joe Britt's Fairlight CMI lightpen/mouse interface was announced to the Fairlight community last year. Dozens of users expressed immediate interest, because in addition to supporting your favorite USB mouse, the little box outputs PAL video to generate B&W video on a modern LCD screen. It even allows you to use the lightpen alongsite a mouse.

Only 20 converter boxes were manufactured in the first run (with potential for more), allowing several dozen vintage samplers to continue making music will into the 21st century.

Join the Yahoo! Fairlight-CMI Group

This Vintage Electric Car Could Be Yours

efftee writes, "Check out this auction I just stumbled upon for a 1975 Citicar. Looks like something out of Logan's Run. Seems reasonably priced too..."

About 2,300 CitiCars was produced between 1974 and 1977 in response to the OPEC oil crisis. It had a top speed of around 50 mph and a maximum range of 40 miles per charge - fairly impressive for a vehicle with a 3.5 HP motor powered by 48 volts from a stack of eight lead acid batteries. More importantly, it's street legal and just begging to be modded with modern technology. As I write this, it's at $2,550 with 4 days to go in the auction.

1975 CitiCar on eBay

Handcrafting A Triode Tube

2FO, a HAM radio operator since 1959, guides us through the various stages of crafting his own triode vacuum tube. This tube has made contact with other amateurs radio buffs on four continents.

For more information, visit his site [French, thanks Sam Poynter!]

Al Flosso: The Magic Of Magic

Somewhere between dinosaurs and astronauts, every boy goes through a magic phase. I did, and the fascination never vanished. Though it took me several years to learn that the fun is more than just the gimmicks and props that come with a Marshall Brodien Magic Kit. It's more about the style and zing of your performance.

Many of us can remember back to getting a magic kit. Did you hungrily devour the secret instructions as eagerly as I did? That's why so many of us know the mechanics of the "disappearing milk" jug, and we understand the secret of the "Chinese Linking Rings". Before you ask; if you don't know these secrets, the magician's code prevents me from telling you! As mysterious as they may be, the props are only a small part of what makes magic fun to watch. Even if you know the secret to a magic trick, it's still a delight to see a really good performance of it. It's like hearing a cover version of a favorite song. It may be the same base material, but what's interesting is how each band reinterprets it. The song can can either be a simple mechanical copy, or a wonderful new creation.

This 1952 clip from "It's Magic" features Al Flosso's hysterical version of "The Miser's Dream", a classic magician's trick. He performed on Coney Island for decades, honing his performance into what you see here. It is so funny, so fast, so amazing, so outside of what you expect to see, that it's easy to forget that you've seen this trick a hundred times before. The gadget lover in me adores the clever mechanics and secret gimmicks that come along with tricks like these, but it's that human touch that makes genuine magic.

link:

learn more about the amazing Al Flosso

Hop On The Magic Movie Bus

The Vintage Mobile Cinema is a one-of-a-kind automotive restoration project - The only survivor among seven mobile cinemas custom built for the British government in the late 1960s.

The vehicles initially were operated by the Production Engineering Research Association and had the prosaic mission of teaching engineers about the latest factory production techniques. The bus has a unique steel-framed plastic dome that housed the film projection equipment apart from the cinema, which has a stepped floor to ensure clear views.

Reclaimed and renovated, the bus now sports a fully upholstered 22-seat theater, a high-definition digital projection unit and Dolby surround sound. Through March, it's taking part in the Movie Bus Project in North Devon. The project has it traveling the countryside showing newly digitized archive footage of life in southwest England during the 20th century, including some fascinating looking images from the sea.

The other six movie buses are believed to be lost. Also missing: the trailers that each bus hauled. They were initially used for displays associated with the manufacturing presentations. For now, the restored vehicle has a decidedly modern trailer with a solar panel that allows it to present its unique films off the grid, without a generator. [Via Jalopnik]

The Return Of The Sound Burger

Crosley, maker of jukeboxes, radios and vintage-styled all-in-one record players, is coming out with a product that it's calling the Revolution, but it really is a derivation.

The Revolution is a pretty spot-on replica/update of Audio Technica's Sound Burger, the best name ever bestowed on an audio product. Crosley's Revolution can handle 7- and 12-inch records at 33 1/3 or 45 rpm. It is powered by 6 AA batteries or an AC-to-DC adapter. It outputs five ways: built-in speaker, USB port, FM transmitter, headphone jack and line-level 3.5 mm output.

Crosley says it's coming soon at a cost of $150. Amazingly, this is the company's first battery-powered offering. I say amazingly, because some of their suitcase-style players would seem ideal for bringing your LPs on a picnic, but require AC. (Though you can find case-like battery-powered record players, both old-looking and modern, elsewhere.)

[UPDATE: You can now buy it on Crosley's website.]

Gravity Feed Email

There's no getting away from infrastructure. You don't have to go far in a typical office before you trip over a big knot of ethernet cables or hopelessly out of date install CD's. These semi-secret information pathways have always been there, sometimes quietly clinging to the walls.

Mail drop chutes once dotted many office buildings. Instead of running to street level to find a mailbox, simply drop your letters in the slot, and they'd whisk away to a mysterious spot where they're collected and dispatched. A fine system, except when someone put in mail that was too large or folded. The chutes are often made of glass so you can see when mail is jammed in the tube. I worked in a building with a mail chute, and everyone with a desk near the chute kept a coat hanger nearby to persuade stuck mail to continue its journey.

The Cutler Mail Chute Company is long gone but you can still find mail chutes around, though many are dammed up like the one in the picture.

Uzebox: The Open Source Retro Console

Bohus wrote about several add-ons for the Atari 7800 and ColecoVision a few days ago, and one reader remarked, "The classic games are just so much fun, and when you get one, you can rest assured you got the whole game, not some gimped out copy that you'll have to whore out $5 a pop to get bits and pieces of it..[...] There is a market for an old style system with new style ease of use and programability."

Such a system already exists - the Uzebox. This modern 8-bit gaming platform is built around just two chips and a handful of discrete components. The ATmega644 microcontroller has a mere 4K of RAM and 64K of flash memory, and the system doesn't even have a video frame buffer (much like the old Atari 2600).

Games are stored on SD flash card, and the system supports a pair of easy to find NES/SNES controllers. Even with limited hardware, the machine can generate 256 colors at up to 360x224 pixels and includes a 4 channel sound engine and NTSC composite and S-Video output.

Dozens of eager coders have started to write for this open source platform. There are ports of Donkey Kong, Space Invaders, Tron, Lode Runner, Frogger and Moon Patrol, along with lots of original games. There's even an emulator to help speed development of your own 8-bit retro title.

Lady Ada makes a sweet $100 version of the system called the Fuzebox that includes the PC board kit, custom enclosure, SNES controller, programming cable and power supply.

Uzebox - The ATMega Game Console

Fuzebox - Lady Ada's version

Best Phone Access Panel Ever

Tribune Tower is a Chicago landmark built in the 20's. It's a lovely building with lots of cool treasures hidden within. Check out this phone access panel (I think) on the bottom floor. My guess is that this is original to the building, but it's not a standard part that you'd order out of a catalog. Look how roughly hewn the outline of the phone is, or the quality of the scrollwork. All very handmade. Made by a local artist? Carved by a bored night watchman? Also you've got to love that the icon representing the phone is an old candlestick model. Wow.

related:

Ranch phone
Phone from space
Corvette car phone scam

"Lost" 1970's Star Wars Toy Commercial From Japan

You may recall a while back when we told about a new project by Super7 to create the first jumbo "Shogun Warrior" type toy in 25 years. The giant figure is a Star Wars stormtrooper, and it's available for order right now. The creators have also crafted a mock TV commercial that looks like it could have easily come from the 1970's. As if we need more persuasion to get one...

Hi-Tech Walkman Rip Off

Adding about an inch to the size of a typical Walkman enabled this portable cassette/radio to pack in the features. It's got an analog radio with a large chrome tuner dial on the side. It's got four band EQ, something you'd almost never find on a Walkman of the era. There's a telescoping antenna (the genuine Walkman used the headphone cable for radio pickup) as well as a pair of flat square speakers on the back. After looking at it, this radio has less in common with a Walkman and more in common with my father's tabletop radio.

The first sign of trouble is that the brand name is unclear. I think that it's HI-TECH on the lower right corner - another bad sign. If you have to tell people that your gear is high technology... It is also part of the "Electronic Sports Collection" (claiming to be a registered trademark, though I did find a business in China still selling audio gear under that name). The problem with the "sports" part of that claim is that the unit is missing the most important part of the Walkman revolution - the belt clip! Not only is it a bit bigger than a typical Walkman, it's also quite heavy. So leave the ankle weights at home - just load up the 3 AA batteries, and strap on the ol' Hi-Tech for your next jog.

Guess what - it actually sounds pretty great! It doesn't have Dolby, but with the EQ controls I was able to get very good sound via headphones, just as good as more recognizable brands. The speakers are pretty dire, but serviceable in a pinch. The radio tuner was also surprisingly good. You could do a lot worse in a radio this size.

I think that we're looking at a unit that's more for your desktop than something you'd clamp on during a workout. The speakers on the back don't help portability much. Their presence adds more thickness to an already unwieldy unit. When listening to the speakers, the controls face away from you. It seems that little thought was put into the usability of this device, which is unfortunate given that the audio quality via the headphones is so good. To change the radio station, or flip the tape you've got to turn the whole unit around every time. I guess that's the "sports" aspect. You're going to get a lot of exercise just working the thing. Doesn't sound terribly "Hi-Tech" to me...

Transform your Walkman into a nasty sounding boom box
World's worst Walkman knockoff
Wireless Walkman

New Upgrades For Classic Consoles

While the homebrew crowd is still going strong creating new games for old systems, there are a pair of projects nearing completion that are even more ambitious. These are hardware expansion modules that expand the abilities of the base hardware beyond original spec. Both the Colecovision & 7800 promised expansions that never came, so in way these projects are fulfilling promises from decades ago.

Opcode Games is well known as a master programmer of arcade conversions to the Colecovision, creating accurate ports of games that were never thought possible on the Coleco hardware. To open up the possibilties of more ambitious games, Opcode is developing the Coleco Super Game Module. much of the hardware on the board would have been available back in the 80's, so it's a fairly accurate picture of what would have been a possible commercial product. It also adds some extra oomph to make it easier to port games from the Japanese MXF computer, which would instantly offer a much needed boost to the number of Coleco titles. I've seen Opcode's module in action at the Midwest Gaming Classic, so it is very close to being done.

Curt Vendel of Legacy Engineering is nearly finished with an expansion module for the Atari 7800. This professionally encased add-on offers extra power for future homebrew efforts as well as being able to retain high scores for original Atari games that supported the nigh-mythic high score cartridge. This also is using the type of hardware that could have realistically been available as an actual product in the 80's. Legacy is looking at a fall release.

There are many intriguing details on both project if you care to read the forum posts about them. Both projects raise interesting questions about whether this is a valid retro gaming platform. Is it somehow purer to create new games within the confines of the original hardware? Is it still a real 7800/Coleco once you've expanded it, or is it some hybrid format? I think as long as the games are fun, and it keeps the spirit of the original (neither is going to give you Xbox level graphics on your old consoles, sorry to report), then this is a fun and worthwhile project. We will likely be adding both here at the Retro Thing offices, and we'll let you know what we think. In the meantime, what do you think of this new direction in retro homebrew gaming?

Join the Coleco conversation on Atari Age
Join the 7800 conversation on Atari Age

Standard-Definition TV Is Getting Hard To Watch

My household has only one TV (the horror!), a standard-definition tube TV (stop laughing!). The signal feeding my 20-inch box comes from the cable company, so I didn't have to worry about those converter boxes when the broadcasters made the switch from analog to digital. Nonetheless, I can report that TV is getting hard to watch for us square-boxers.

First, there's — you know — the definition. Sports producers long ago stopped worrying about analog rabbit-ear-users, but they also have started ignoring us standard-definition viewers. One way they do this is by shrinking the on-screen text. The clocks, the scores, the stats, they're all getting smaller. (Small text isn't a big deal for high-definition TVs.) I cannot tell you how many times I have wondered, "Is that a 6 or an 8 in that score?" These days, tennis scores take intuition to decipher, because of the black text on white background.