Guns don’t kill people. My grimy hands do.

Discussion Topic of the Week: Have you ever fired a gun in real life? Do any video games successfully replicate that experience?

A stunningly realistic RCA Studio II gameplay session.

Here’s the box cover of TV Arcade III: Tennis/Squash for the for the RCA Studio II (1977), the world’s second ROM cartridge-based video game console.

The early console, which featured only two numeric keypads for control, was such a dog that I named it the “worst video game console of all time” in a 2009 PC World slideshow. Three years later, I stand by that assessment.

You may be asking yourself why RCA prefaced the game title with “TV Arcade III.” Well, silly, that’s because it was part of a sequence of “TV Arcade” games for the RCA Studio II that started with “I” and ended with “IV.” That’s exactly, I might add, how the ancient Romans would have labeled their video games.

Discussion Topic of the Week: Have you ever played an RCA Studio II? What did you think?

“You won’t find a bluer word processor package anywhere…”

Discussion Topic of the Week: What was the first word processor software you ever used?

Quite frankly, Mario is stunned — just stunned — by that potted plant.

Discussion Topic of the Week: Tell us about your most novel experience with Mario Paint. Did you make any music or animations?