[ Newsbits ] June 29, 2016
June 29th, 2016 by Benj EdwardsI’ve recently received a big influx of news, announcements, and press releases, so I thought I’d bring Newsbits out of cold storage and use it to share everything all at once.
Recent News
It’s wonderful to see this stuff preserved, as always
A group of former employees from the Minnesota Educational Computing Corporation (MECC) recently donated an extensive collection of materials to The Strong museum documenting the history of the pioneering company from 1973 to 1996. The collection includes hundreds of pieces of software, internal documents, and press clippings.
Brock Kyle recently let me know that his essential Apple info site is turning 20 this Saturday. Quite an accomplistment!
Established in 1996, EveryMac.com is the complete guide to every Mac, iPod, iPhone, iPad and Mac clone in the world, with technical specs, configuration details, system identifiers, performance benchmarks, and global pricing info.
They’ve assembled some incredible footage so far; would be a shame to see this disappear
This 100 minutes long documentary about the Atari story will feature a list of unreleased interviews with the key people of these events, including a very rare one with Warner VP Manny Gerard and a unique one with Atari CEO Ray Kassar, the man held responsible for Atari success and the video game industry crash at the same time, who never appeared in a documentary before.
Quite a project
My name is Gaming Jay. I’m a retro gamer who started a challenge this past year to play through a book called ‘1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die.’ Each week I’ve been playing 2 games and recording my gaming sessions and uploading them to YouTube. I have also recently developed a new website to document my journey with written summaries to supplement my YouTube videos.
Neat iOS camera app that simulates vintage graphics
I created Famicam64, an 8bit RetroGaming style Camera app. Famicam64 lets you take photos with 40+ real-time filters that emulate the nostalgic look of retro computers (and games) of the 80s and 90s. CGA, EGA, VGA, Hercules and old PC graphic modes are all there, as well as style emulating home computers and handheld consoles (C64, Spectrum or Gameboy etc. etc.).
It’s a niche subject, but a story worth telling
The Secret History of Mac Gaming is the story of those communities and the game developers who survived and thrived in an ecosystem that was serially ignored by the outside world. The work draws on archive materials as well as 60+ new interviews with key figures from Mac gaming’s past.
Cool Links
Very, very creative electronics project from Star Simpson
Forrest M. Mims III is a trusted name in the electronics world for good reason: his charming and engaging texts have drawn millions of people into the world of electronics for the first time. I am bringing some of those hand-drawn circuits projects to life by creating an exquisitely designed series of finely crafted and highly detailed boards. These are the Circuit Classics.
VC&G reader Ben Winchester built a NES-shaped coffee table; it’s up for sale on Etsy.com
I wanted to show this to you because I feel this piece is truly unique and original to me. I got my start by replicating your NES DVD player and then moving on to putting my own twist on the NES coffee table, and now I think I have created an original design.
Bob Alexander turns Tinney’s train illustration into a photo composition
I’ve just completed an art project that was inspired by Robert Tinney’s painting “Computer Engineering” for Byte magazine. That’s the one with a train chugging around a printed circuit board. I made a printed circuit board that resembled the one in the painting, photographed it, and Photoshopped a picture of an HO scale model train onto it.
June 29th, 2016 at 4:32 pm
Thanks for sharing!
That Byte recreation was awe inspiring. One of my favorites.
June 29th, 2016 at 9:02 pm
Glad there are still people out there reading VC&G. If I hear more from people liking Newbits, I may start it back up again regularly.
June 30th, 2016 at 7:42 am
Benj,
I know in a previous post, you commented that readership was still strong but comments had waned.
Is this still the trend?
June 30th, 2016 at 12:20 pm
Geoff,
Traffic in general is still fine, but it’s hard to tell the difference between crawlers, spambots, and actual readers if people don’t comment and let me know they’re out there. For all I know, computers are reading this blog thousands of times a day and not real people. It’s hard to tell.
I was going to say traffic was down, but it looks like the last three Retro Scans have been the most popular (traffic-wise) in a long time. So maybe less is more.
July 1st, 2016 at 1:36 am
Thanks for featuring my end table, Benj! The link takes me to everymac.com, though :/
July 1st, 2016 at 9:22 am
No problem, Ben. I fixed the link now — sorry about that.
July 3rd, 2016 at 11:50 am
Newbits are awesome. More please, Benj. 🙂