It’s that time of year again: the Yuletide. Instead of writing something new and fresh for the season, I thought I’d dredge through the VC&G archives for Christmas material and collect it all in one place.

Below you will find a list of everything Yule-flavored from this site and my freelance work. There are a couple slideshow gems in there that you don’t want to miss, so check those out if you haven’t already.

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 » ]

When you’re done reading that Computer Space piece I wrote, feel free to mosey on over to PCMag and check out this slideshow of 10 game consoles that could transform into PCs. (The title they gave it is kinda confusing, but the content still stands.)

Most of the console conversions featured in the piece are from the 1980s, but there’s one more recent example in there that might surprise you. Or maybe it won’t, because you guys tend to know a lot more than the average bear. Either way, I hope you enjoy it.

I see great things in your future.

I recently scanned this lovely Nintendo-sponsored Christmas greeting off the back of a 1988 issue of Nintendo Power. You can see the complete magazine back in the full-sized version of the scan (click the image above to see it). In that larger scan, names and addresses have been changed to protect the innocent.

Kinda gives you that warm and fuzzy feeling, doesn’t it?

Discussion Topic of the Week: Did you ever receive a NES (or even a NES game) for Christmas? Tell us about your memories of the occasion.

You may not have noticed, but commercial video games turned 40 years old just recently. To celebrate, I’ve written an in-depth history of Computer Space, the first mass-produced video game and the first true arcade video game, which launched in 1971. Those daring enough among you to read over 500 words in one sitting can find the piece over at Technologizer.com. I hope you enjoy it.

Two teen girls compare notes on vampires that attend their high school.

Ah, the dedicated electronic pocket organizer — an ever-present, seemingly useful device for want of a market.

Since the early 1980s, electronics manufacturers have produced pocket-sized computer gadgets that store databases of phone numbers, addresses, calendar appointments, and not much else. These electronic organizers reached their peak (in terms of number of devices in the market) in the mid-1990s. At that time, the technology involved became cheap enough to market to kids.

Despite manufacturers’ best efforts, such devices have continuously failed to gain widespread use for a simple reason: none have demonstrably improved upon the paper address book. Not even the socially-hungry teen girl market, as targeted by Sharp in this 1995 ad for the Pocket Locker, could push them into the mainstream.

It was only when manufacturers rolled electronic organizer functionality into a more general-purpose device (think palmtop computer, PalmPilot) that the idea of electronically maintaining personal contact records in a mobile setting took off. Address books, calendars, and phone databases became separate programs that lived in a larger ecosystem of applications that could be run on the device.

Most palmtop computer-style PDAs offered significant advantages over the paper organizer. They synchronized with PCs to back up information, and they could use the stored data in conjunction with other programs for more useful effect — for example, you could actually email someone directly from a record stored in your digital address book.

Contrast that experience to the dedicated pocket organizer model, where the the information you entered became trapped in a tiny plastic box with a crummy display and a kludgy interface that would lose its memory if its batteries ran out.

Today, the organizer-as-software clearly won over dedicated units, and anyone with a mobile phone now carries an organizer software suite in their pocket. It’s only one of many functions that cellphones have absorbed on their quest to become the ultimate multipurpose pocket device.

Discussion Topic of the Week: Have you ever used a dedicated electronic pocket organizer device? Tell us about it.

Greetings, my fellow chess fans. Welcome to The Chessmaster.

That is, welcome to a new feature where I, The Chessmaster, will answer your personal letters to the best of my chessly ability.

Since I have been playing chess almost non-stop for over 300 years, I thought it might be a good time to bring my accumulated wisdom directly to the people.

In preparation for this column, I have been soliciting questions from a troubled American populace for the last six months. It is my hope that my responses will benefit all readers as much as they help those who submitted the questions.

With that out of the way, let’s get to the first question.

[ Continue reading Ask the Chessmaster » ]

A novelty cocktail ice cube for giants.

Discussion Topic of the Week: Has one of your computers or video game consoles ever overheated? Tell us about it.

Just a little while ago on Twitter, I started spouting out some one liners, Jeff Foxworthy style, about how you know if a website is old. I love coming across old websites, so it’s fun to spit these out.

I can’t guarantee that they’re funny, but I think they’re at least amusing. People liked them enough that I decided to post my lines here and ask you guys to continue the list. I may add more to it over time.

• You know it’s an old website if…
  …every image on the site rotates.
• You know it’s an old website if…
  …they refer to AltaVista in the present tense.
• You know it’s an old website if…
  …you found it through a web ring.
• You know it’s an old website if…
  …it says “Best viewed in IBM WebExplorer.”
• You know it’s an old website if…
  …your browser complains that there’s no MIDI plug-in installed.
• You know it’s an old website if…
  …it forces you to enter the site through a splash page.
• You know it’s an old website if…
  …it asks you not to hotlink the GIF images.
• You know it’s an old website if…
  …every single link on the page ‘404s.
• You know it’s an old website if…
  …the owner claims it’s “under construction.”
• You know it’s an old website if…
  …it brags about having 1,000 hits.

Now it’s your turn. Add your one-liners in the comments below.

The cover of the first issue of “Family Computing” magazine, September 1983.

Discussion Topic of the Week: What’s your favorite food to eat for Thanksgiving? Favorite video game to play?

Vintage Computing and Gaming has retained the same general site design, albeit with a few aesthetic changes, since it started in 2005. Do you think it’s time to change the layout of the site? Do you think I should add any features to the site to make it like more modern blogs?

For VC&G, my philosophy has long been, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” And I defintely don’t think the site is broken. But perhaps it is time to modernize a few elements of the blog. The thing I’d like to add most is a tag-based post system. I think that would work better than post categories as they now stand.

The commenting system works pretty well for the number of comments we get, so I don’t think we need a complex comment rating or moderation system at the moment.

As for the current design, I like the fact that, because I haven’t added complex bells and whistles to the site’s software, VC&G is easy to view on older computers with slightly older browsers. It’s simple and it does the trick.

Let’s put it this way: do you think if I redesigned the site that more people would read VC&G? (Although statistically speaking, we have more readers than ever.) Is the design out of touch with a “modern” web audience? Your thoughts count, so let me know in the comments.