Cartridges, cartridges, cartridges.

I found this Electronics Boutique flyer in my old files recently. It measures about 5.5″ by 8.5″ in size. Sometimes I’m glad I save everything, and other times, well…ask my wife.

Discussion Topic of the Week: What’s the worst deal you’ve ever received when trading in used games?

The good, the bad, and the obscure.

There’s a vast wilderness of little-known business micros that have long been overshadowed by the IBM PC and its brethren in the history books. Seen here is one such machine, the Canon AS-100, which sported an Intel 8088 CPU but was not an IBM PC clone (in other words, it could run MS-DOS, but was not hardware compatible with the PC).

Machines like this one tend to get overlooked historically because they were very expensive (this machine retailed for $3495 in 1983, or about $8,052 today) and they deviated from the emerging business standard of the IBM PC compatible. With those two elements combined, they sold relatively poorly — and, being business-oriented, they also never became notable gaming platforms (enthusiasm for retrogaming brings a lot of attention to certain classic PCs that otherwise might have been forgotten).

Speaking of gaming platforms, the color capabilities of this machine look amazing for 1983. I wonder if anyone ever did write a game for it that took advantage of those high-end graphical specs.

Discussion Topic of the Week: What’s the most obscure computer model you’ve ever used? Something that you think no one has ever heard of.

Virtual Boy: Eating Mario’s face since 1995. (Artwork © David Julian)

[Update (03/05/2018): The illustrator of this image contacted me via email and asked me to add a copyright credit. His name is David Julian, and you can see more of his work on his personal website.

Discussion Topic of the Week: Have you ever felt sick while playing a video game in 3D?

The IBM PC Workstation: Almost as small as a refrigerator.

Once upon a time, IBM made furniture.

Specifically, they created a custom folding desk for its IBM Personal Computer called the “IBM Synergetix PC Work Station,” which we see in the 1983 ad above.

IBM registered the trademark “Synergetix” in 1981 to cover its line of IBM PC-related furniture, which even included an official IBM PC Table and IBM PC chair. Big Blue let the trademark expire in 1989, which shows you how successful that idea was.

I’ve been trying to think of modern analogies to the IBM PC Work Station, and the closest I can come up with is Apple making a special cover for its iPad — although Apple’s Smart Cover has been popular and well-received. The Smart Cover also doesn’t cost $850 like the IBM PC Work Station did (that’s about $1,961 today).

Discussion Topic of the Week: Have you ever used a desk specifically designed for use with a computer?

Frozen whipped gelatin on a stick.

I recently found this cardboard tip sheet for Crystalis in a pile of my old stuff at my parents’ house. As you can see, I cut it out of a JELLO Gelatin Pops box in or around 1990.

The tip sheet seems to serve a triple marketing purpose: 1) to promote NES games (specifically Crystalis, in this case), 2) to promote the 1990 Nintendo World Championships, and 3) to promote Nintendo Power magazine.

I love finding tie-in marketing artifacts like this — I’m glad I saved it all those years ago.

Discussion Topic of the Week: Do you remember cutting video game tips out of boxes, magazines, or other paper publications? Tell us about it.

Two out of three doctors recommend Osborne 1 for muscle fatigue.

We’ve come a long way from what many consider to be the first commercial portable PC, the Osborne 1 (seen here), and the recently announced Microsoft Surface tablet.

Here’s a brain twister for you. If you packed a case the size of the Osborne 1 (think small suitcase) with Surface-sized portable tech, how powerful would the machine be?

Discussion Topic of the Week: What was your first portable computer? When did you get it?

I think they have it backwards.

Amid the recent media hullabaloo that modern video games are sexist and overly fixated on violence, I give you this ad for Deathtrap Dungeon from 1998. That is all.

Discussion Topic of the Week: Graphics quality aside, do you think today’s video games are more sexist and violent than games from earlier eras?

A similar phrase adorns a plaque inside the base of the Statue of Liberty.

In this ad for Polaroid PerfectData disks, Polaroid mentions a free data recovery service for damaged floppies. I wonder what tools they used to recover the data; that would be very interesting to look into. Also, I wonder whether anyone ever took Polaroid up on the company’s offer to rescue their data. If anyone out there knows more about this, by all means, leave a comment.

Make sure you take note of the “20-year guarantee” mentioned in this ad — then read Why History Needs Software Piracy.

Discussion Topic of the Week: What’s the worst thing that has ever happened to your computer storage media?

“We’ve got a lot of space here, Fred, and I’m tired.” [stamps 7 times] “Fixed.”

Forty years ago, Magnavox lifted the veil on the world’s first commercial video game console, the Odyssey. Designed to work with a home TV set, the Odyssey blazed a trail that every game console follows today.

While the Odyssey had first been revealed to the press in April 1972, the Odyssey reached the market at $99.99 (about $548 in today’s dollars) in August of that year.

Magnavox’s console relied on technology originally developed by Ralph Baer, Bill Harrison, and Bill Rusch at Sanders Associates in the mid- to late 1960s. Baer’s invention, together with Atari’s work during the same period, founded an industry.

Even though I’ve been writing about the work of Ralph Baer for over five years now, I still am amazed that the commercial video game console is now 40 years old. But 40 years is a long time in technology, and it’s easy to see how we’ve come so far if you keep that time scale in mind.

By the way — in honor of this anniversary, I recently took apart an Odyssey console for PC World. You can read about that adventure in another post.

Discussion Topic of the Week: Have you ever played an original Magnavox Odyssey console? Describe how you felt about the experience.

The Mountain Computer MusicSystem. Not a scene from Hee Haw.

In an age when the vast majority of commercial music is recorded or produced using computers, it’s interesting to look back to a time with computer-based music tools were in their infancy. In this case we’re turning back the clock 30 years to examine an ad for the Mountain Computer MusicSystem, a musical synthesizer and sequencer add-on for the Apple II (horse not included).

Admittedly, I know nothing about this system beyond what you read in the ad above (and some Googled info found here and here). But I wouldn’t be surprised if the original creators of the MusicSystem are lurking somewhere out there on the Internet — just waiting for this subject to come up so they can post a comment about it on a blog like this one. If that’s the case, please do!

Discussion Topic of the Week: When was the first time you used a computer as a tool in music production?