With floating disc technology, “Pac-Man watches gobble all day long for you.”
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As if you hadn’t had enough Christmas already. Well, here comes yet another Christmas-related piece: my latest article on PCWorld.com. It’s titled “A Very Vintage Tech Christmas” and it’s a slideshow of vintage home computer ads. A few of the ads are decidedly Christmas-themed, and the others focus either on families or pitching PCs to home buyers.
Unfortunately, PC World’s slideshow setup makes the text in the ads too small to read. But at least you can look at the pictures. I hope you enjoy it.
How does Santa keep track of who’s been naughty and who’s been nice? A computer database, of course. And it runs on an Apple II.
Looks like Woz saved Christmas!
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[ Editor’s Note: I asked Eric Lambert, a VC&G contributor, to write something entertaining for Christmas in the vein of his Halloween Spam poem. Just yesterday he delivered, sending me an MP3 of modified holiday jingles with a computer twist. It’s a tad cheesy, yes, but it’s full of fun and spirit. Thanks, Eric! ]
Download the MP3 file here or read a full transcript after the break.
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 » ]
Last night, the incomparable Harry McCracken spotted Steve Wozniak and Jack Tramiel chatting right before they took part in a group panel on the 25th anniversary of the Commodore 64 at the Comptuer History Museum. Thinking quickly, McCracken snapped this photo — and what a photo it is.
For those of you who don’t know, Jack Tramiel founded and ran Commodore until about 1984, after which he bought Atari’s consumer division from Warner Communications, stewarding Atari in new directions. And Woz…well, Woz is Woz.
You can read more about the Commodore event on McCracken’s Techlog at PCWorld.com. Wish I could have been there, but alas, I live on the east coast.
Atari’s venerable VCS (2600) turned 30 this year, and 1UP asked me to write a feature about the console’s influence and impact on the industry. I finished the piece in October, but it didn’t go up until a few weeks ago. I haven’t checked to see if 1UP changed much from my original version, but if it’s anything like it, the article should be worth the read for all video game fans.
The piece contains some original analysis of the 2600’s impact that you won’t likely find anywhere else. For example, did you know that the first video game based on licensed non-video game IP was Superman for the Atari VCS in 1979? If that comes as a surprise to you, you’ll want to read the rest of the article. Even diehard Atari fiends might learn something new.
R2D2 he is not. But at least he can become a vacuum cleaner.
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Chestnuts roasting on an open fire, jackboots kicking at your nose…
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