Retro Thing

Weekend Retro Roundup

Let's start the weekend off right with a couple of vintage crash tests -- an old VW Beetle and classic Golf. Sadly, neither fared particularly well. Thank goodness for modern computer-designed crumple zones and airbags.

- Hack-A-Day recently featured a USB-equipped Commodore 64 modded to work as a standard PC keyboard. Given the nightmarish ergonomics of the C-64, I'm not sure this is a good idea. There's also a writeup on an insanely complicated Intel 8008-based clock.  

- Rob Beschizza seems to be re-targeting Boing Boing Gadgets at the arts & crafts crowd with a completely daft felt netbook sleeve reminiscent of an old NES controller. Inexplicably, I find myself drawn to its fuzzy retro cuteness.

- Ace Fairlight technician Peter Wielk is selling a fully expanded Fairlight Series III Computer Music Instrument on eBay, currently at $7,900. It's equipped with 32 MB of sample memory, a 4 GB hard drive and 16 voices. Shipping to the USA from Oz is a whopping $630 extra.

- Chiron Bramberger tells us, "A while back I wanted to see if I could turn e-waste into something fun, so I designed an effects pedal from the guts of an old modem." The result is the tremendously cool Dragonfly, an all-analog effects pedal that combines recycled components with demented chrome-plated skull knobs.

Oh, and I just discovered that my Essential Retro gadget book is now 10% off at Amazon. Only $17.95, with free shipping on orders over $25. If you love this site, please support us by buying a copy. We're also considering a run of Retro Thing t-shirts. Anyone interested?

ACME Whistles

My 7-year-old would love an ACME whistle. However, it would only be a matter of minutes before one of his loving parents discovered him terrorizing the hamster with shrill 100 dB blasts.

Evil Parent would then accidentally flatten the bloody thing under the nearest passing bus. The disarmed kid would count to ten before wailing inconsolably (with a mischievous glint in his eye) until we promised to buy an even louder model.

Luckily, most of ACME's wares are dirt cheap. For example, the famous Metropolitan Police Whistle weighs in at a quite reasonable £8.55.

If you're eager to spend more, the Thunderer Titanic - finished in sterling silver - could be yours for £82.71. It's billed as the "Authentic whistle as used on the famous ocean liner." The site includes dozens of piercing audio samples in mp3 format for hours of torture listening pleasure.

The Official ACME Whistle Site [via Dominic Ali]

Visit The Retro Thing Forums And Win My Book

Have you visited the RT forums lately? They're the place to discuss vintage gadgets, sell or trade your retro gear and get to know retronauts from around the world. Register and join the conversation -- we look forward to meeting you. 

As added incentive, one lucky forum member will be chosen at random on Saturday July 4th to receive a signed copy of my Essential Retro book.

PS - If you're a graphic designer and would like to design a button/banner/graphic for the main site that will make the forums stand out, please drop us a note.

Visit The Retro Thing Forums

RetroBytes: Soviet Arcade Games, Wooden Music Players And More

A few random things that caught my attention today...

Open Emu - An open source video game emulation system for the Mac that lets you play six games at once, dramatically increasing your productivity. Just don't apply the same technique to romance.

Twitterized Typewriter - The lowly intern at oomlout gets to feed endless reams of A4 paper into their snazzy new Twitter typewriter. She secretly wishes she'd trained to become a hairstylist instead.

Fifteen Kopeks of fun - The Museum of Soviet Arcade Machines now has a stunningly beautiful website, so it's time to pretend you speak Russian while admiring the pretty pictures.

Wooden iPod - Josh created a decidedly steampunk wood and brass case for his aging iPod Nano. Then he posted it on flickr to humiliate those of us who think that crafting dinky little Lego spaceships is an earth-shattering achievement. 

Moon Bomb - NASA plans to blast a 5 mile wide crater into the surface of the moon. What could possibly go wrong?

This Week On The RT Forums...

Over on the RT forums, JayP concludes that the Knight Rider remake was a train wreck, Komissar shows off some pics of militarized VW Beetles (Herbie The Scud Bug??!), and nineteenineteen announces the upcoming Commie Camera Day.

Join the Retro Thing Forums

A Ghoulish Hollywood Wax Museum Auction

The Hollywood Wax Museum is auctioning off a collection of life-sized wax figures. That's right, for $3,000 you could be the proud owner of Mel Gibson as William Wallace from Braveheart, though the figure looks more like a bedraggled street person than the ill-fated Scotsman. Other highlights include John Travolta & Uma Thurman in Pulp Fiction, Sir Alec Guinness as Obi-Wan Kenobi, William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy from Star Trek, and Michael Keaton as Beetlejuice and Batman (I guess his star is waning).

I'm prepping my credit card to create a brilliant Halloween diorama featuring an ominously creepy Alien replica dismembering hanging out with Nicole Kidman and Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz.

Hollywood Wax Museum Auction [via Nerdcore]

Nationwide Hunt For George Washington

I got another "Where's George" dollar bill back in change the other day. If you haven't seen one, it's a dollar bill that has a rubber stamp or other marking on it encouraging you to log in at wheresgeorge.com. Once there you enter your bill's serial number and your location, and then you pop the money back into circulation to see where it turns up next. In many ways it reminds me of classic hobbies like sending messages tied to a balloon, or chess by mail. Something simple, interesting, and free that only takes a few moments to be part of.

It's interesting to see how far a bill can go - a researcher even used the Where's George stats to demonstrate how quickly diseases can travel through first-person contact. Eww. Still, it sounds like a great starting place for a school project, or just a few moments of diversion tracking bills that you've entered.

Of course it relies on people knowing there's a place to enter their serial numbers, so how best to get the word out? Rubber stamps like on my dollar? The practice of using the bills themselves as viral marketing is a definite U.S. Treasury Department no-no. But don't worry if you've already started marking up all the bills in your wallet. A spokesman for the Secret Service was quoted in The Seattle Times, "Quite frankly, we wouldn't spend too much looking into this."

Where's George homepage

related:
Steel Penny from 1943
Elongated pennies
Tinplate ten dollar dime bank

Painfully Beautiful Vintage Tech

Expensive technology is usually knock-dead gorgeous or absurdly ridiculous, and it's been that way for decades. Dark Roasted Blend has pulled together an eclectic collection of mouth watering tech photos spanning the better part of the 20th century. Read and weep for the future that might have been....

The Cutting Edge of Retro Tech [via BB Gadgets]

My Newspaper Doesn't Want Me

My subscription to the National Post expired last week. Instead of automatically renewing as they've done for the past three years, the company sent a polite letter stating that the cost of my subscription would increase by more than 400%. They indicated that the new price still doesn't cover the full cost of printing and distribution.

After four years, I had become strangely addicted to my daily hands-on dose of news and commentary. However, I couldn't justify the increased expense in an increasingly electronic world and made the reluctant decision to cancel. I suspect many others received similar letters and reacted the same way.

Ironically, I penned a brief editorial in December 2007 that pondered the resurgence of print news. Here's an excerpt.

Follow Us On Twitter

In a desperate attempt to step firmly into the 21st century, Bohus and I have embraced Twitter in all its ADHD infused glory. You can follow the day-to-day adventures of Bohus @bolexian and James @retrothing.

Damn. That was more than 140 characters, wasn't it?

Retro Thing On The Radio - Mediageek Interview Online

Thanks to Paul for a great time in his Mediageek studio a few weeks back. The show is online if you'd like to hear us discussing Retro Thing's place in the world, bits of vintage geekery, and how Atari's and 8 Tracks will save us in this economic crisis. Okay, I'm lying about that last thing, but we've gotten a lot of positive feedback from some unexpected corners and thought that you might enjoy hearing the show as well.

The interview is in two parts. The main show is a half hour, and there is also a 15 minute segment of extra fun. You can download the MP3's of the show, or stream right from the Mediageek site we've linked. Let us know what you think in our comments section. Thanks again, Mediageek!

Retro Thing Interview - 30 minutes
Interview - 15 minute bonus

Is The Bottom Falling Out On eBay?

I recently decided to put together a computer for my home entertainment system. I was able to scrounge most of the components from the basement, but I turned to eBay for a couple of things. Within a matter of days, I picked up a $2.49 Wireless-G internet card, a $9.99 Firefly remote control and some $5 memory. Even after shipping costs, I saved a fortune.

Intrigued, I explored the virtual aisles of eBay a bit more carefully. Things definitely weren't "business as usual." While many collectors' items still fetch good money, run-of-the-mill items aren't attracting as much interest. In fact, many respectable gadgets aren't getting any bids at all.

The used market seems to have dried up alongside the broader economy. That surprised me a tad, because I assumed bargain hunters would turn to sites like eBay in droves. Instead, many people are choosing to keep their wallets in their back pockets, even with amazing deals to be had. Dare I say it? The American bargain hunter is behaving like an endangered species.

The company confirmed my hunch a few days ago by reporting its first ever quarterly revenue decline. Gross merchandise volume was down a stunning 12% in the last three months of 2008, capping off a second consecutive quarter of decline. I suspect the first few months of 2009 will be even worse as people struggle to pay off Christmas overindulgence and fret about the future.

However, every cloud has a silver lining. If you have a few extra dollars to spare, this might be the perfect time to pick up a beautiful Super 8 camera, vintage turntable or 8-bit video game system for next to nothing. What do you think? Have you noticed a slowdown on eBay and other second-hand sites?

Interview: Bohuš On Mediageek Radio Tonight

Paul Riismandel of Mediageek Radio has invited me to be a guest on his internationally syndicated show tonight . He discovered Retro Thing a while back, and asked me to come by to chat as well as field calls from listeners. The show starts at 9PM CST on WNUR in Chicago, and will run an hour. The show streams live at wnur.org if you'd like to be part of the fun, or you can check out the list of affiliates (rightmost column) who air the show and find out when you can hear the interview on a genuine super-hetrodyne radio.

I don't know what to expect, which is part of the excitement. This is my first time meeting the host - all I know is that he has a Sonic Impact T-amp which we've written about before. Hopefully some of you will call in the show to chat - I'd love to hear from you if you read Retro Thing! I'm going to bring along a few audio surprises if there's time to share.

[Update: the show started a few minutes late because of a live basketball game that ran long. We had a great chat for the remainder of the hour, and the complete show will be posted to the mediageek website soon. Paul invited me to come back, and in the future we'll be able to make time for listener calls and emails. Thanks to all of you who tuned in! Let us know what you thought in the comments section.]

Stream the show thanks to WNUR
Learn more about Mediageek Radio

Winners: The White Stripes Holiday Camera Contest

The White Stripes sent us a few special edition Lomography cameras to give away for the holidays. To win, we asked you to send in a photo of your favorite retro gadget. We awarded one pair of cameras for our favorite photo, and another winner was selected randomly.

Mike Nyberg of Sacramento, CA submitted the winning photo. His unforgettable composition combines Santa Claus, slot car racing and baby Jesus (in the passenger seat) to win a pair of 'Jack' and 'Meg' cameras.

The randomly drawn winner of the second camera set was Deirdre Ohlwein from County Westmeath, Ireland. She tells us, "I've had this crazy little parachute person since I was little (early 70's), it's my very favorite and the sweetest most sentimental retro thing that I posses." Here's Deirdre's shot:

Follow the jump for a look at some of the other entries we received.

The World's First Modern Shopping Mall

You're looking at the grandfather of all modern shopping malls. Southdale Center in Edina, Minnesota first opened its doors in 1956. It was designed by Victor Gruen, a commercial architect who emigrated from Austria shortly before WWII. Gruen's aim was to design an environment that would act as the hub of a community by bringing people together to shop, chat at cafes and spend time with friends.

Gruen's mall concept proved tremendously successful and was replicated around the world, although his vision was never fully realized. He originally intended the mall to act as a substitute for the arcades found in old European cities, surrounded by apartment complexes, houses, schools, and social facilities within easy walking distance. However, our love affair with the automobile ensured that malls across America were surrounded by seemingly endless parking lots with convenient access to nearby freeways.

Fast forward fifty years and Southdale Center is now anchored by Macy’s, JC Penney and Marshall’s with over 120 other specialty stores. The open fields surrounding the mall have been replaced by suburban streets that stretch toward Minneapolis as far as the eye can see. Astoundingly, there's another mall just a few yards to the south across West 69th Street. [Dana gently reminded me in the comments that the stupendously large Mall of America is only 10 minutes down the freeway, too. - Ed.]

America now has a glut of retail space that averages out to almost 21 square feet per person and many malls are struggling to attract increasingly reluctant customers. It will be interesting to see what becomes of these massive shrines to the Gods of Capitalism over the next few years.

The Official Southdale Center Site
Memories in Your Browser: Southdale Center