My first feature on PCWorld.com is now live — The 10 Worst PC Keyboards of All Time. The article started as a pet project of mine over a year ago, although it took far longer to complete than I expected. Between other projects, I anguished and wrestled with myself over the final ten entries after considering (and using) twenty-plus keyboards in detail. Perhaps I put too much work into it, but I wanted to create the most definitive list I could. The end result will never be truly definitive, of course, since any list like this — by its very nature — is based on subjective criteria defined by the author.
The final work turned out to be much longer than the version published, but the pictures turned out so well (taken by both myself and Steven Stengel of oldcomputers.net), that PC World decided to turn it into a slide show. The result, I think, speaks for itself. Still, an unabridged version might make it to the Net some day, with more info on my ranking and inclusion criteria. Just so you know, I considered only non-laptop QWERTY keyboards that shipped with a computer in the United States for the list.
I’d like to thank Steven Stengel for help with the pictures, and especially Harry McCracken of PC World for doing an excellent job of condensing my lengthy epic for a mainstream audience. Last, but not least, thanks to the PC World staff, who did a great job of putting it all together.
Now that the love-fest is over, you can check out the article here. Let me know what you think. And while you’re at it, feel free to tell us which keyboards you’d nominate for the worst (or the best) of all time.
It’s 1987. Your ravenous love for Nintendo’s new console leads you to rent every new game released for the system, craving the joy of each new experience. One day, a stranger walks up to you on the street and offers you a device that lets you play nearly all the NES games ever released (or ever will be released) around the world on a single magic cartridge. What do you say?
Twenty years ago, such a contraption would have seemed laughably impossible. But that same mind-blowing scenario (minus the mysterious stranger) has become a reality in 2007 with RetroZone‘s PowerPak NES flash cartridge. Brian Parker, the man behind RetroZone and the PowerPak, put forth a monumental effort to bring this technically challenging dream product to market.
The PowerPak retains the familiar form factor of classic licensed NES cartridges, albeit rendered in a translucent orange plastic. Cut from top edge of each PowerPak is a notch through which a standard compact flash (CF) card may be conveniently inserted or removed. Turn on a NES with the PowerPak cart inside, and you’ll see an on-screen menu that lists all the games on the CF card. Pick one from the list, you’ll be playing the game as if you had the game’s original cartridge in the console.
With a flash “multicart” like the PowerPak, NES users no longer need to switch cartridges between games, except for the few games that the PowerPak doesn’t support (see below). Legal vagaries be damned: as an owner of over 250 NES cartridges, I find the convenience of this feature worth the price of the PowerPak alone.
Taking the top prize for most overpriced computer product ever is the “Kensington NoteBook KeyPad.” I actually happen to own one of these, although I picked it up for free at a hamfest. It’s quite honestly nothing special — just an external ADB keypad with a construction similar to any keyboard of the time.
I pose this question to you, dear readers: is any numeric keypad worth $129? Even in 1993? Certainly the Kensington KeyPad’s exorbitant price put it in parity with Apple’s hyperexpensive products in the early 1990s. But why would anyone buy a numeric keypad for the modern equivalent of $186? I suspect lack of competition in the numeric Mac keypad market had something to do with it.
[ From The Apple Catalog, Spring 1993 ]
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.
Can you believe it? Ultima Online is ten years old, which means it’s now firmly in the “vintage” software category. Last week, 1UP published an article I wrote about Ultima Online that surveys its history through an overview of its expansion packs. Aside from a few unfortunate edits/interjections by 1UP’s staff (and their erroneous placement of a Kingdom Reborn image in the Third Dawn section), it turned out pretty well. Folks interested in learning more about Ultima Online’s long and storied history might want to check it out.
Halloween will soon be upon us, and you know what that means. That’s right! It’s time for VC&G’s 5th caption contest.
Your task? Simply write the funniest caption you can think of for the image above. Anyone out there may enter the contest as many times as they want by writing a comment on this post. I will select the winning caption a week from today and post the result. The winner will receive an autographed*, heavily used copy of Pac-Man for the Atari 2600, which I will mail to him/her if he/she lives in the United States.
But of course, it’s not really about winning; it’s about the self-satisfaction you’ll gain by entertaining your peers and the joy of participating in a community event.
So join in the fun. Let’s see what you guys can come up with for this one.
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.
In this excerpt from the first level of Spawn for the SNES, we watch as Spawn’s mere presence compels the limitless forces of evil to repeatedly hurl themselves off the top of a skyscraper.
I left this game on for a few hours recently while I did my laundry. By the time I got back, I was morally responsible for the deaths of thousands of pipe-wielding street thugs. And somehow, I didn’t feel bad about it — there’s always more where that came from.
Retro Scanner of the Week? For only $9,639.64 (in today’s dollars), you could buy a Sharp flatbed scanner in 1989 that could digitize images in 260,000 colors at up to 300 DPI. Why 260,000? I have no idea, but any color support at all made this this one heck of a high quality scanner for the time.
Even today, most 11×17″ scanners still cost an arm and a leg; users have always paid a premium for that much glass real estate. But current models offer much higher resolutions and color depths in a far-sleeker form factor than this one.
[ From CDA Computer Sales Fall/Winter 1989 Catalog ]
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.
You don’t have to check your calendar; you know, instinctively, what time of year it is. You get that warm tingling feeling in your gut that grows stronger as the big day approaches — the greatest day of the year. You’re a Halloween freak.
Some video game fans have a tough time figuring out what costume to wear on All Hallows’ Eve, so as per tradition, I figured I’d help them out and provide some detailed suggestions geared towards the gaming enthusiast. Any of the ten costumes listed below is guaranteed to make you popular at the office Halloween party, on the street begging for candy, or anywhere in between.
How many of these puppies do you have sitting around? A fellow on eBay is selling a lot of 36. I’ll have to admit: I have a box of a few dozen myself.
The object in question, of course, is the once-essential manual RF switch, commonly known as a “TV/GAME” switch. Such switches were used to alternate between RF video/audio input from a video game system or home computer and a broadcast (or cable) TV antenna signal. They went the way of the dodo in the mid-1980s — first in Japan with the introduction of Nintendo’s innovative automatic RF switch box (it came packaged with every Famicom produced from 1983-1993), and then in the US around 1985 with the introduction of the NES (which included an automatic switch box with every unit sold). Later, RF switches in general became endangered once nearly all consumer TV sets started shipping with separate A/V jacks for composite video and stereo audio. The choice was natural, as video quality through an RF antenna input is inferior to a composite video connection.
Even among collectors, manual TV/GAME switches are mostly useless these days because most of us try to make at least composite (or better) video connections to our TVs, either via special cables or modifications to the systems themselves. Still, if you want to play classic machines like the Atari VCS without video hacks, you’ll probably need to use one.
Does anybody out there collect these things? We’d love to hear from you.
My first feature on PCWorld.com is now live — The 10 Worst PC Keyboards of All Time. The article started as a pet project of mine over a year ago, although it took far longer to complete than I expected. Between other projects, I anguished and wrestled with myself over the final ten entries after considering (and using) twenty-plus keyboards in detail. Perhaps I put too much work into it, but I wanted to create the most definitive list I could. The end result will never be truly definitive, of course, since any list like this — by its very nature — is based on subjective criteria defined by the author.
The PowerPak retains the familiar form factor of classic licensed NES cartridges, albeit rendered in a translucent orange plastic. Cut from top edge of each PowerPak is a notch through which a standard compact flash (CF) card may be conveniently inserted or removed. Turn on a NES with the PowerPak cart inside, and you’ll see an on-screen menu that lists all the games on the CF card. Pick one from the list, you’ll be playing the game as if you had the game’s original cartridge in the console.
You don’t have to check your calendar; you know, instinctively, what time of year it is. You get that warm tingling feeling in your gut that grows stronger as the big day approaches — the greatest day of the year. You’re a Halloween freak.
Even among collectors, manual TV/GAME switches are mostly useless these days because most of us try to make at least composite (or better) video connections to our TVs, either via special cables or modifications to the systems themselves. Still, if you want to play classic machines like the Atari VCS without video hacks, you’ll probably need to use one.
