As a sequel to last year’s “Very TRS-80 Christmas,” we have this ad for the TRS-80 Color Computer 2. I’m not sure what makes this model “better” than the first Color Computer (CoCo), aside from obvious: different keyboard, ugly case-retooling, and perhaps more RAM.

Unfortunately, this unit ages to a nasty brown and its rubber-dome keyboard isn’t much of an improvement (I still like the CoCo 1’s keyboard better). But at least Tandy saw it fit to advertise the unit with a Christmas theme, which is quite relevant to the season at hand.

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Earlier this year, I had the chance to interview Nolan Bushnell, career entrepreneur and nigh-but-legendary founder of Atari. For the last seven years, Bushnell has been pouring most of his energy into his latest venture, uWink — a sort of Chuck E. Cheese restaurant for adults.

Of course, being the history buff I am, I wanted Bushnell to clear up some things regarding articles I was working on at the time. Accordingly, we touched on a variety of topics, such as the origin of the term “video game,” Steve Jobs at Atari, his “feud” with Ralph Baer, the Atari 800, and his wife’s love of the Wii, among other things. Despite being such a grab bag of topics, I figured the interview was worth publishing in its entirety while it still feels relevant. Bushnell’s thoughts deserve to be heard, especially since he took time out of his busy schedule to share them.

This interview took place on March 30th, 2007 over the telephone.

[ Continue reading VC&G Interview: Nolan Bushnell, Founder of Atari » ]

R2D2 he is not. But at least he can become a vacuum cleaner.

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ULAF FIND THIS IN THE GARAGE OF BENJ TODAY. IN FACT MY MIND ALMOST DIED ON IT BECAUSE THE DEVICE MAKES A HEAVY GOOD TRIPPER. DOES ANY OF MY PERSONS UNDERSTAND WHAT IS THIS? TELL ULAF DURING THE COMMENTARY UNDER THIS MESSAGE.

Last month I received the spiffy Apple IIe system you see above as part of a sizable donation to my computer collection (thanks Tom!). This particular IIe configuration hails from a high school in Ohio where it was used primarily as an AppleWorks machine in the mid-late 1980s.

After carefully peeling away decades of nasty, nasty sticky dirt and grime from the hardware, I naturally set it all up on my kitchen table (hence the ceramic duck, a must in every modern kitchen). Instead of splitting up the set for parts, I decided that it would be fun to keep it all together and preserve it as it was used in the school.

Much to the mixed delight/chagrin of my wife, I doodled on Deluxe Paint with the mouse and tried various games on disk every day for about three weeks while eating breakfast. Alas, after about a month in the culinary limelight, the Kitchen IIe’s novelty has finally begun to wear thin. It will soon move on to another table, but I plan to keep this “school system” together with all its original parts so it will remain a functional example of 1980s educational computing.

My first feature on PCWorld.com is now live — The 10 Worst PC Keyboards of All Time. The article started as a pet project of mine over a year ago, although it took far longer to complete than I expected. Between other projects, I anguished and wrestled with myself over the final ten entries after considering (and using) twenty-plus keyboards in detail. Perhaps I put too much work into it, but I wanted to create the most definitive list I could. The end result will never be truly definitive, of course, since any list like this — by its very nature — is based on subjective criteria defined by the author.

The final work turned out to be much longer than the version published, but the pictures turned out so well (taken by both myself and Steven Stengel of oldcomputers.net), that PC World decided to turn it into a slide show. The result, I think, speaks for itself. Still, an unabridged version might make it to the Net some day, with more info on my ranking and inclusion criteria. Just so you know, I considered only non-laptop QWERTY keyboards that shipped with a computer in the United States for the list.

I’d like to thank Steven Stengel for help with the pictures, and especially Harry McCracken of PC World for doing an excellent job of condensing my lengthy epic for a mainstream audience. Last, but not least, thanks to the PC World staff, who did a great job of putting it all together.

Now that the love-fest is over, you can check out the article here. Let me know what you think. And while you’re at it, feel free to tell us which keyboards you’d nominate for the worst (or the best) of all time.