It should come as no surprise to my regular readers that I like to foster a sense of community around Vintage Computing and Gaming; I believe that the main strength of any publication lies in its readership, and VC&G is blessed with an exceptionally intelligent, resourceful, and creative one.

As a historian, I like to help people reconnect with and rediscover the past. But I can’t do it alone — we need to stick together. That’s why I’m announcing a new contest to promote activity on the VC&G Discussion Forum, an oft-neglected part of the site. Anyone can enter the contest by registering for an account on the forum and posting.

[ Continue reading Win a Free NES DVD Player and More » ]

Click above to see the full ad.

In this week’s Retro Scan, we’re looking way back to 1953. Many computers in the 1950s used monster magnetic drum storage units, like the one you see above, as working memory — ala RAM — until the faster and more adept core memory came along. Using technology similar to a cylindrical hard disk, these beasts were understandably slow compared to their non-mechanical successors.

If anybody out there ever worked with one of these, we’d definitely love to hear from you.

Discussion topic of the week: How much RAM did your first computer have?

If you use this image on your site, please support “Retro Scan of the Week” by giving us obvious credit for the original scan and entry. Thanks.

What you’re seeing is not a hallucination. It is neither the result of partial head trauma, nor an accidental intrusion from an alternate dimension.

It’s a plug-and-play video game system marketed by Polaroid.

Walking through an absurdly enormous Target Supercenter last year, I spotted this strange beast hanging on an isle in the electronics section. I knew Polaroid was in bad shape (having declared bankruptcy years ago), but this? It’s so bizarre that I had to pick it up.

What I got was a battery powered NES clone with 15 mostly terrible games. No big surprise there. After some searching on the web, I found pictures of this same unit colored translucent blue instead of Polaroid grey — clearly Polaroid licensed this from another manufacturer. But why?

Word on the street (aka “the Internet”) says that Polaroid had originally built these games into their Portable DVD players. With that move, Polaroid quietly tiptoed into video game business. Still not satisfied, Polaroid soon launched this re-branded Chinese bargain-bin controller…almost directly into the clearance isles of retail electronics stores across the nation. Little did they know that it would some day make its most famous press appearance ever on Vintage Computing and Gaming.

Polaroid 15-in-1 Video Game System Title Screen

[ Continue reading Polaroid Instant Video Games » ]

Click above to see the full ad.

Close your eyes! The above picture is too hot for young minds to take. Or so thought Electronic Games in 1983 when they elected to censor the poster-girl’s bikini-clad crotch with an inelegant black circle.

When I first saw this ad for “video game sports accessories,” I thought the censorship have been a joke. But since it was published a video game magazine in 1983 — hence, “for kids” — it makes more sense. She’s clutching that phallic-looking broken joystick awfully close to the operative parts of her reproductive anatomy, and I guess that made the magazine nervous. God forbid she conceive a child with an arcade machine.

But what exactly has been gained by covering her crotch? It makes one wonder what hideous, kinky, suggestive imagery might be lurking under there to warrant such a circle. And therein lies the problem with arbitrary censorship — it draws undue attention to what otherwise might have been a mundane affair.

Discussion topic of the week: Imagine you’re ten years old in 1983. What would you think of the image above?

If you use this image on your site, please support “Retro Scan of the Week” by giving us obvious credit for the original scan and entry. Thanks.

Vintage computing shows up in some of the unlikeliest places. And in this case, it saved the day.

According to a recent Associated Press article, a 340 megabyte 2.5″ Seagate hard drive from the ill-fated space shuttle Columbia survived the craft’s fiery break-up and crash to the earth back in February 2003.

A data recovery service called Kroll Ontrack managed to recover most of the data on the drive, which dealt with an advanced xenon experiment. Oddly enough, Jon Edwards of Kroll credits the formatting and data storage methods of the MS-DOS operating system for allowing him to recover the data:

However, at the core of the drive, the spinning metal platters that actually store data were not warped. They had been gouged and pitted, but the 340-megabyte drive was only half full, and the damage happened where data had not yet been written.

Edwards attributes that to a lucky twist: The computer was running an ancient operating system, DOS, which does not scatter data all over drives as other approaches do.

Three cheers for the FAT file system. I guess that NASA (or the experiment’s designers) kept their drives pretty well defragged.

It’s amazing Kroll recovered any data off of the platters at all, with the drive’s external case scorched, its dust-proof seal compromised, its heads driven into the platter surfaces, and its internal components desoldered by the intense heat.

I’ll wager that the platters were composed of solid aluminum, like hard drives of old. If the disk had been a more recent model — you know, the kind with platters made of glass — the fragile discs might have been shattered from the stress of the explosion and hard landing.

Researchers recently published the recovered data from the shuttle’s xenon experiment in a science journal, as was originally intended. It’s satisfying that some good science came out of Columbia’s last mission, proving that the crew’s tragic journey wasn’t completely in vain. For that, in a strange and lucky way, you can thank Microsoft.

An excellent source of FDA Certified non-GMO 100% organic, free-range people.

Tired of trouncing lifeless, boring computer chips in your games? Then you’ve come to the right place. Here at GEnie, our entire subscriber base is clinically insane and writes exclusively in crayon. Signing up is easy. Here’s how:

1. Set your modem for half duplex (local echo) at 300, 1200, or 2400 baud.

2. Dial toll free — 1-800-638-8369. Upon connection, enter HHH.

3. At the U # = prompt, enter XTX99316, VideoG92 then press RETURN.

4. Have a major credit card or your checking account number ready.

Make sure you get step #3 exactly right, or you might end up one kidney short after accidentally subscribing to Nigerian Cyber Exchange.

Discussion topic of the week: When was the first time you played a computer game over a modem or computer network? Describe your experience.

If you use this image on your site, please support “Retro Scan of the Week” by giving us obvious credit for the original scan and entry. Thanks.

We’re back. Last week’s Fuzzy Memory mysery was such an astounding success that we’ve received another request from someone seeking resolution of their distant childhood gaming memories. I’m not a fount of infinite knowledge, so like always, I need the adept VC&G readership to help solve the mystery.

Spirits of Ancient Egypt

Julia, from Australia, wrote me a few days ago regarding an electronic handheld game from her past:

G’day red

I’m hoping you can help me locate a game I played when I was a child. I live in South Australia. The game was a handheld game made around 1981 with a lcd screen. The name Tutankhamen comes to mind but it may have been called something else, but I’m pretty sure it had an Egyptian theme. I don’t remember how the game was played, I only remember what it looks like. It may have been red in colour, small between 10-20cm wide an I recall it had a little black stand attached to the bottom of it. I think it was modelled after the 2 player tabletop arcade games except a mini version.

Your help would be much appreciated!

Cheers

-Julia

[ Continue reading [ Fuzzy Memory ] Tutankhamen Rises Again » ]

A couple weekends ago, I made the requisite annual trek to RARSfest, my local hamfest of choice, which takes place on the NC State Fairgrounds. You might remember my in-depth slideshow on a similar hamfest adventure two years ago. Well, this year I decided to take a few shots of the ‘fest again, and I thought you might enjoy them. So hop in the HamCar, and we’ll take a quick ride through RARSfest 2008.

[ Continue reading The 2008 Hamfest Report » ]

They put that blue streak there for a reason.

It may seem like online dating is a new thing, but it stretches back farther than you’d think. Case in point: American People/Link, an early dial-up relationship service using Teletext — a much hyped (but little used) online graphical display technology at the time. I’m not sure how successful the service was, but that guy looks pretty happy. If anybody out there ever used People/Link, we’d love to hear from you.

Discussion topic of the week: Have you ever dated someone you met online? Beyond that, how have computer networks changed your social life?

If you use this image on your site, please support “Retro Scan of the Week” by giving us obvious credit for the original scan and entry. Thanks.

Hot off the virtual PC World presses comes my latest volley of vintage nostalgia. This time I covered celebrity computer endorsements.

William Shatner, Alan Alda, Bill Cosby, Isaac Asimov, and other celebrities promoted certain brands of PCs in the early 1980s, and this PC World slideshow surveys the topic well, with eleven scans straight from the vintage source material. And just to warn you: any references you see to man-boobs came directly from the Great Editors in the Sky, although my original text was no less wacky. After all, if it’s good enough for Shatner…