Move over, Michael Jordan. Dan Bricklin, co-inventor of the PC’s original killer app, VisiCalc, has something to say about shoes. And he’s afraid somebody might steal them.

[ Scanned from Time Magazine, September 26th, 1988 ]

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Upon looking at this ad, I find myself wondering if Bill Cosby ever actually used a TI-99/4A. No, wait…has he ever owned one? Was it a gift from Texas Instruments for being their spokesman? Does he still have one sitting in his closet/attic/basement somewhere, or did he yard sale it in ’89? Did he ever turn it on? Did Bill Cosby ever write a BASIC program? Did he ever balance his budget with Household Budget Management? Did he play Munch Man or Alpiner? Did he curse the TI-99/4A joysticks for being terrible and throw them against the wall when he lost?

If you prick Bill Cosby, does he not bleed JELLO?

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This entertaining scan is from a fold-out catalog poster that came with many Sega Genesis games in the mid-1990s. My favorite items are the “2 Dudes with Atti2udes” t-shirt and the sleeveless Sonic & Knuckles denim jacket. Real classy stuff.

Dude — I’ve not seen this much attitude in years.

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Sounds awesome! Where do I sign up?

No, this is not a Photoshop job. Midwest Scientific Instruments really wanted to make your computer more boring, presumably by making you have to do less work to load a program into system memory. If this is the standard of “boring,” then I suppose my current computer is about 2000% more boring than the average computer in 1977. In fact, according to Moore’s Law of Boredom, this trend should continue well into the future. Moore famously postulated in 1968 that the Integral Boredom Factor (IBF) of computing devices will double every 12-24 months. So far his postulate has impressively held true. Only time will tell if bloated software companies such as Microsoft can complicate things enough to reverse the trend.

[Scanned by VC&G from Byte Magazine, February 1977]

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This is from a late-80s Epyx catalog. The Epyx 500XJ joystick is actually my favorite Atari 2600-compatible joystick. It uses microswitches exclusively (instead of conductive rubber pads or metal “domes”), making it responsive with a great tactile feel, and yet rugged to stand up to lots of playing. The design of the stick’s base is very ergonomic, fitting perfectly in your left hand. The only awkward thing about it is the button placement: repeatedly hitting the button by “curling” your index finger upward can get painful fast. Still, if you build up your finger muscles, it’s a gem of a joystick. I’d love to get a NES version of this stick just for novelty’s sake.

I’m sure many of you are also familiar with the Epyx Fast Load Cartridge, which is also on this catalog page. Feel free to share and discuss your memories of your C64 past…while I unpack more computers.

Wow — these instructions are so permanent that they have outlived the rugged plastic case they were grafted onto! The instructions in question are actually stuck like a sticker on the flip side of the piece you see here. I bet if a set of Permastruct (TM) instructions got caught in a nuclear blast, you’d inspect the site later to find only a smoldering pile of radioactive gravel and, of course, a concise guide on how to play Bionic Commando.

Of particular note is the presumed Permastruct (TM) mascot– we’ll call him Permaman — with his back to the camera, throwing an awkward, off-balance punch at absolutely nothing while shouting vague sardonic threats at the Permastruct (TM) logo. Tony the Tiger would get committed if found pulling a similar stunt on a box of Frosted Flakes. But then again, Tony’s not permanent. Permaman ain’t gotta take no crap from nobody.

Before you get excited about the low, low price for ~10,000,000 bytes of random-access magnetic data storage, make sure you read the fine print. Turns out the $3,495 price is for a refurbished unit only. The new 10 megabyte hard disk retails for a whopping $4,495. Oh, and there’s another catch: the price is in 1980 dollars (US). Adjusted to 2005 dollars, that comes to around $11,415.77. Ouch.

And this isn’t one of your 3.5″, half-height 5 1/4″ or even full-height 5 1/4″ hard drives either. No; it’s a hulking, old-school, non-Winchester jobbie that takes interchangeable disk cartridges.

I want one.

In this action-packed scan of the NES Power Glove manual cover, we see little Timmy hopping from leg to leg, trying to get in on the finger-bolt-shooting action. “Oooh! Oooh! Lemmie try!” he begs Lighting Finger Man. “Sorry, little Timmy. I think that glove is a little big for you,” LFM replies. “You must also understand that with great Power Gloves comes great responsibility,” he continues, “You are not yet ready to wield the awesome power of this lethal device.”

[Note: The mysterious stains on the manual cover are not mine. For that, you can thank the previous owner.]

Look at the little spud, frozen mid-stride in a moment of pure ghost-running bliss. As a continuation of last week’s Retro Scan, here are two pages from the manual of the Atari 2600 version of Pac-Man. The game itself was a terrible translation of the arcade hit (for Pac-Man done right on the 2600, see Ms. Pac-Man). The graphics were so bad that the manual tells you about the “video wafers” (lines, in lieu of pellets) that Pac-Man eats in this game. Also, the bonus fruit have become “vitamins” — because they’re square.

I wonder if Pac-Man would be so happy if he knew that Atari would be burying thousands (if not millions) of copies of his game in a landfill a few years later.

From the golden era of fancifully-rendered video game character depictions comes this gem, a scan from the instruction manual of the Atari 800 version of Pac-Man. Considering what we actually see in the game, the illustrator (“HIRO”) has chosen quite a liberal interpretation of Pac-People, drawing them as anthropomorphic, rubbery stick figures with giant round heads. For more of Hiro’s skinny Pac-Men, check out this buck-toothed Pac-Guy running for his life while eating floating discs from the cover of the manual.