Retro Scan of the Week: And Now…The Atari Calculator
Monday, January 15th, 2007
In the heart of every Atari, whether it be a computer or a game system, is nothing more than a glorified calculator. But chances are that it doesn’t have a durable folding case or “32 step auto recall.”
I bought this Atari calculator a few years ago as a curiosity. I always wanted one back when I was an Atari freak in the early ’90s. It remains as you see it, within its creased blister pack. It’s so much more fun to look at than to use, especially since a dead llama could cough up the equivalent in terms of capability these days. And unfortunately, the only game you could play on this Atari is typing in “1134” and turning it upside down for a laugh.
Anybody else have an Atari calculator out there? Tell us about it!
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Hello, friends. It’s New Year’s time once again, and by this point, you’ve probably been bombarded by year-end reviews and retrospectives on dozens of other websites and blogs. While typically not one to follow the trend, I just couldn’t resist throwing another log on the fire of your journalistic discontent.
Among those who celebrate it, Christmas is often remembered as a magical time full of joy, excitement, and anticipation. It all goes back to when we were kids and we begged our parents all year long to buy us something we wanted so badly, but they resisted because the item usually cost over $20. We typically lost all hope of ever getting the item until Christmas rolled around. That was the only time of year that you could ever get that one mythical item, usually courtesy of Santa Claus.
Some of the greatest computer-related Christmas presents I’ve received throughout the years include a Prodigy sign-up kit and membership (Man, I wanted that so bad. It was in my early BBS days), a 14.4 kbps modem (which was bad-ass at the time), a SoundBlaster Pro (our first sound card ever), and our family’s first CD-ROM drive and some software on CD-ROM. Some of my favorite video game presents have been Mega Man 3 and Castlevania III (my brother and I received them in the same year, which was incredibly exciting at the time) and our first PlayStation with a copy of Twisted Metal 2. My brother typically received various PC games over the years, like Shogun, Planet’s Edge, Thexder, Wasteland, Silpheed, Bard’s Tale III, and more. I had a lot of fun watching him play them, of course, so they were like presents to me too.
Tomorrow is Thanksgiving in the United States, which means we cook a lot, eat a lot, sleep a lot, feel uncomfortable around somewhat estranged relatives a lot, prepare to spend a lot, officially start Christmas a lot, and generally take it all for granted, despite the title of the holiday. In order to break with American tradition, I thought I’d offer a personal list of things that I think we — vintage computer and video game enthusiasts — should be thankful for. After all, these things let us enjoy our hobbies. Without them, we’d be collecting dirt and not even know what it’s called. Pay attention, my friends, as we start off serious-ish and degrade into something resembling silliness — but it’s all in the name of holiday fun.
