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Just two days ago, Sony announced the PlayStation 4 at a press event in New York. It reminded me of the last time I eagerly awaited a new console launch. That would be way back in 1993 with the introduction of the Atari Jaguar (check out the original press release at that link).

I was a huge Atari fan at that time, and I was also very active on the “GO ATARI” forum on CompuServe. From that forum, I downloaded this early Jaguar press image in 1993. It’s an official press image created and uploaded to CompuServe by Atari Corp. itself — quite possibly the very first one.

[ Continue reading [ Retro GIF of the Week ] Atari Jaguar Debut Photo » ]

In 2006, I wrote about a version of the classic Prodigy game MadMaze that had been adapted for the web by Russell D. Brown, an electronics engineer based in Rome, New York.

Just today, a commenter on that original post (thanks Joshua) let me know that Russell Brown passed away last year on July 1st. That means his implementation of MadMaze-II is now offline.

(Please note that the original author of MadMaze, Greg Costikyan, is still alive and kicking as far as I know.)

Luckily for all of us, I asked Russel Brown back in 2011 to share his MadMaze-II code with me in case his version of the game ever went down. He complied, and I have just now set up a fresh copy of his adaptation on this web server at the following address: https://www.vintagecomputing.com/madmaze/.

The game still requires Internet Explorer 5 or up, and it seems to work in IE 9 for me. Brown programmed the game in such a way that obfuscated its function to prevent cheating (he even incorporated a copy protection scheme), so at the moment I have no idea how to successfully modify it if players find any bugs. But if you encounter any problems, please feel free to let me know, and I’ll have a look.

Have fun in the maze. And may Russell Brown rest in peace.

[ Update – 01/18/2017: Thanks to the work of Brandt Horrocks, MadMaze-II now works in Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox web browsers. Read more about it here. ]

“There’s only one word for these prices: rip-off.”

Discussion Topic of the Week: Which was the better machine: the IBM PC AT, Atari 520ST, Mac 512K, or Amiga 1000?

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Have you ever seen an edible still life rendered in 16-color EGA?

It appears that this image, which shows fruits and vegetables, cheese, and a napkin or folded tablecloth, originated as either a video capture or a scan of a photograph that was then digitally cleaned up to isolate the centerpiece in absolute blackness.

[ Continue reading [ Retro GIF of the Week ] Digital Still Life » ]

Friendship cures all

Valentine’s Day is this week, and boy do I have a neat retro valentine for you. When I was growing up in North Carolina, it was traditional for kids in elementary school to give valentines to every one of their classmates regardless of gender. I’m not sure how it is these days (it may be the same), but I thought I’d explain it for folks who may hail from overseas.

One year, a friend of mine named Eric gave me a Dr. Mario-themed valentine, which you see scanned above (front side on top, rear side on bottom). Amid a scene of Dr. Mario himself throwing a vitamin pill (don’t do drugs, kids) at a group of viruses, we see the words “Friendship cures all! Be my valentine.”

The valentine itself was torn off from a larger sheet of valentines, as evidenced by the perforated tear on the left side of the paper and the “fold in half” inscription near it. I’ve put it away somewhere since I scanned it last year, but I recall that it measures about four inches on its longest dimension.

The printed image bears a copyright and trademark date of 1990, which coincides with the publication of Dr. Mario for the NES. That doesn’t mean the valentine was printed in that year. In fact, a much younger Benj — ever the historian — wrote the year he received the valentine: 1992. I was in fifth grade at the time.

Good ‘ole Eric never knew his compulsory elementary school valentine to me would one day be famous on the Internet. So 21 years after I received it, let his vintage valentine be my gift to you, dear readers, this Valentine’s Day.

Discussion Topic of the Week: Did you trade valentines in school? Were any of them video game-related?

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This particular image, titled “Another Day at the Office,” is one of the gems of my personal GIF collection. I believe I downloaded it from CompuServe, and I likely downloaded it on the file date, June 16, 1996.

The image itself is a computer-crafted ode to Doom II that merges a real digitized photograph with imagery ripped straight from id Software’s famous first-person shooter.

Such a passion for Doom II in the workplace isn’t foreign to me. In an office where I worked in the mid-late 1990s, certain engineers were known to play late night four-player Doom deathmatches over the company LAN.

[ Continue reading [ Retro GIF of the Week ] Doom II at the Office » ]

One big happy family — and a PowerBook (click to see entire ad)

It’s Black History Month once again in the US, so I thought it would be timely to share this Apple PowerBook advertisement from 1992.

The ad appeared in the February issue of Smithsonian Magazine; I don’t think it is a coincidence that it prominently featured people of African descent. It also prominently featured the PowerBook 100, which had just been introduced a few months prior in October 1991.

The obvious racial focus of this ad brings to my mind a couple of interesting, if racially-charged questions: What percentage of black Americans, historically, have used Apple products versus other computer brands? Do African Americans, like other demographic groups, have their computer or tech brands of choice?

Today, Apple is such a mainstream company that the answer to the first question is most certainly larger than it likely was in the pre-iPod era. It would be interesting from a cultural standpoint to peek back into private demographic customer studies that Apple no doubt commissioned at various points in its history.

As for an answer to the second question, I have no idea. But I would love to hear from African American computer users to find out.

Discussion Topic of the Week: What’s your favorite PowerBook model?

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This week we’re taking a look at another image that made the rounds in the BBS days, DRAGON6.GIF. In it, we see two digitally illustrated Chinese dragons who appear to be springing forth from a magical stone. Iridescent waves crash around them, and smoke curls throughout an ethereal void. The color palette is rich and bold, underscoring the image’s Eastern art influence.

At the moment, the artist behind this amazing work of digital art remains unknown. Still, we can narrow down when the image was made and how by taking a look at its resolution, color depth, and file date.

[ Continue reading [ Retro GIF of the Week ] Twin Chinese Dragons » ]

In light of the news that Virtual Console games on the Wii U won’t be able to use save files from the Wii’s Virtual Console, I would like to point something out.

Just today, I found a NES save file for The Legend of Zelda dated May 28th, 1998 (created by legendary NES emulator Nesticle) and continued that saved game in Nestopia in the year 2013.

I did it to spite Nintendo, because this is ridiculous.

That emulator save file originated on a PC I owned 15 years ago, and it resided on a long-since-decommissioned hard drive. Now it’s saved to a SSD in a computer a bajillion times more powerful, with a different emulator, and it still works.

[ Continue reading Virtual Console Makes Nintendo Look Incompetent » ]

“How to Start the Mother of All Wars”

Fifteen years ago today, Square released Final Fantasy Tactics in North America for the Sony PlayStation. (It’s kinda crazy, because I was going to use this scan today anyway, just by chance.)

I remember being excited when this game came out. I’m sure I read a glowing review of it in EGM and recommended it to my brother, who promptly bought it and played it on and off for the next two years. I still have Final Fantasy Tactics’ music stuck in my head just from hearing him play the game so much.

The game is a strategic masterpiece, and though I have not played it to completion myself, I appreciate its depth, its music, and I absolutely love its sprite-based graphics and spell effects. The sprite-based nature of FFT alone was something to cheer at a time when most new PSX games were plagued with choppy, low-res polygonal 3D graphics.

Discussion Topic of the Week: In your words, what’s so great about Final Fantasy Tactics?