Christmas morning wouldn’t be the same without a PreComputer Power Pad

I’m a big fan of educational, semi-toy computers like the VTech PreComputer Power Pad (seen here in his scan from the 1994 JCPenney Christmas Catalog) because historians and collectors alike often completely overlook them in study of computer history.

I’ve previously written about the much more famous VTech Pre Computer 1000 and even did a slideshow on kids’ computers for PCWorld back in 2011.

I don’t have a Power Pad at the moment, but I do have a few other educational computers, including some featured in that slideshow. My favorite is probably the VTech I.Q. Unlimited or the Tiger Learning Computer. But we’ll save those for another day.

Discussion Topic of the Week: Did you ever own any educational or kids’ computers? Tell us about them.

Santa Claus enjoys some hot CoCo on Christmas Eve

Discussion Topic of the Week: If you could go back in time and give yourself one Christmas present, any year, what would it be?

Last week marked the 20th anniversary of the Sony PlayStation’s release in Japan. To celebrate, my old friend Harry McCracken (who now works at FastCompany) asked me if I wanted to bring my long-running Oddities series out of retirement. In short, I said “heck yes,” and the result can be seen over on the FastCompany website.

This latest entry marks a change in format for the series: it is the first that is not a page-by-page slideshow. I made a bajillion slideshows between 2007 and 2012, and while they were fun to make, I am thankful that I have moved on.

So if you’re a fan of the PlayStation, click through and check out some weird variations, accessories, and tributes to one of the most successful game consoles of all time.

All Entries in Benj’s Oddities Series:

• 10 PlayStation Oddities
• Atari Oddities
• iPod Oddities
• IBM PC Oddities
• Donkey Kong Oddities
• Sonic the Hedgehog Oddities
• Legend of Zelda Oddities
• Windows Oddities
• Nintendo Entertainment System Oddities
• Super Mario Oddities
• Game Boy Oddities

It’s that time of year again: the Yuletide. Over the past few years, I’ve been posting an annual collection of all the Christmas-related material I’ve written (both for this site and for others) into one place for easy reading. Below, you’ll find list of off-site Christmas slideshows, other features, and of course, plenty of Retro Scans of the Week.

I have a soft spot for Christmas, having been raised with the tradition, so this list is for me as much as it is for everyone else. After going through these things again, it’s amazing to see how much Christmas stuff I’ve posted over the years. I hope you enjoy it.

[ Continue reading The VC&G Christmas Collection (2014 Edition) » ]

With great portable power comes great portable responsibility.

The box art for Game Boy’s launch titles was brilliant. So distinctive, playful, and irresistible. Even though the games themselves were blurry messes on the original Game Boy screen, the art makes me want to go back and buy those games all over again.

Discussion Topic of the Week: How many items on this flyer do you own?

In Memoriam: Ralph Baer (1922-2014),
co-inventor of TV video games and the home video game console

Our dear Ralph. What a man. 92 years old. A life full of technology, audacity, and gumption (with equal measures wise prudence). He died on December 6, 2014 at his home in Manchester, New Hampshire. May he rest in peace.

Just summarizing Baer’s biography with keywords sounds impressive: Germany, Kristallnacht, WWII Service, small arms expert, Lee De Forest, TV technician, Sanders, engineering, Apollo, inventor of TV video games, game console, Odyssey, cable TV, patents, Simon, toy inventor. The list could go on and on. He achieved quite a bit and lived a very full, very fulfilling long life.

Of course, he is most well known for inventing the concept of television video games and co-inventing, with William Rusch and William Harrison, the world’s first video game console during his time at Sanders in the mid-late 1960s. The prototype console that the trio finished in 1968 later became the Magnavox Odyssey (1972), the world’s first commercial video game console.

But there was much more to the man, and I count myself fortunate to have known him.

[ Continue reading Remembering Ralph Baer (1922-2014) » ]

“The Most Comprehensive Directory of Internet Sites Ever Produced”

18 years ago, a fairly complete index of the entire Internet — circa 1995 — could fit on a single CD-ROM — about 20,000 sites, as the box for Microforum’s Internet Connection ’96 says. [Update: See comments below for a discussion on the number of websites in 1995 and 1996] I ran a website back then, and the Web did indeed feel that small. FTP sites were still a big deal in those days, so that number may include them as well.

Today, some estimates say that the Web alone consists of over one billion websites. Consider storing a simple list of one billion websites URLs. If each URL was about 25 characters long (I’m just making this up as an example), it would take around 25 gigabytes to store the list alone (or about 39 CDs worth). Google stores that list and copies of individual websites for caching. Needless to say, that takes quite a bit more storage room.

So it’s amusing to think back to a time when you might actually buy a professionally mastered and duplicated CD-ROM containing web addresses, many of which were potentially obsolete by the time the disc landed in your hands (I just used Yahoo’s web directory). Now we have Google. Imagine that: using the Internet to index itself.

Discussion Topic of the Week: What year did you create your first website?

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See Also: Internet In a Box (RSOTW, 2014)

“Whoa…what’s in these brownies, Grandma?”

Thanksgiving is almost upon us again, so it’s time to gather around your home PC for a game of…Quizagon?

Yes, Quizagon. A game I’ve never played, nor will I for the foreseeable future. It looks like a hexagon-themed family trivia game, which is not my bag, man. But what a great photo.

Instead, I’m going to host a The Seven Cities of Gold marathon on an Atari 800XL with my brother. We plan on exploring a completely new continent while interacting vigorously with the natives. Meanwhile, my brothers- and sisters-in-law will be playing Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed on my dedicated gaming PC that is hooked to the flat-screen living room TV. It’s a great kart game to play on Steam with four Xbox 360 controllers that’s easy to set up and jump into. Fun times shall be had by all.

By the way, I first used this amusing scan in a 2009 Thanksgiving-related slideshow I did for Technologizer (hoping I’m not repeating it on VC&G). If you’re in the mood, here’s some other Thanksgiving-related material from the VC&G archives.

Discussion Topic of the Week: Do you have any family video gaming planned for this Thanksgiving? If so, what are you going to play?

The shotgun approach: z80 and 8086 in one box

Discussion Topic of the Week: Have you ever owned a computer with two different primary CPUs in it?

Even polygons get mad sometimes

Discussion Topic of the Week: If you’re old enough to remember it in the arcade, what did you think of Virtua Fighter the first time you saw it?