Thirty years ago this month, Intel released the 8086 microprocessor, the originator of the now-famous x86 standard and the ultimate progenitor of most modern consumer CPUs.

But what, exactly, does all that mean? Well, think of it this way: any assembly language program written as far back as 1978 for the Intel 8086 will run, unmodified, on Intel’s latest Core 2 Extreme released in 2008 — only 180,000 times faster.

The thirty-year tale of x86 began when an Intel engineer named Stephen P. Morse defined the 8086 instruction set (the core group of instructions that define what a microprocessor can do) while working at Intel in the late 1970s. That same instruction set would go on to form the basis of the world’s most popular personal computer architecture. Even the once-insular Macintosh platform, the last mainstream bastion of the non-Intel world, now runs on x86 processors.

What’s going on here, and how did it get that way?

PC World recently published a feature I wrote on the anniversary that answers those questions, along with an in-depth interview I conducted with Stephen P. Morse, designer of the 8086 and the original x86 instruction set.

Anyone interested in PC history, or how this standard came to be, should check them out. For better or for worse, x86 is what we’re stuck with, so I feel that it is important for computer users to understand it.

I hope you enjoy the article.

Earlier this year, I had the chance to interview Nolan Bushnell, career entrepreneur and nigh-but-legendary founder of Atari. For the last seven years, Bushnell has been pouring most of his energy into his latest venture, uWink — a sort of Chuck E. Cheese restaurant for adults.

Of course, being the history buff I am, I wanted Bushnell to clear up some things regarding articles I was working on at the time. Accordingly, we touched on a variety of topics, such as the origin of the term “video game,” Steve Jobs at Atari, his “feud” with Ralph Baer, the Atari 800, and his wife’s love of the Wii, among other things. Despite being such a grab bag of topics, I figured the interview was worth publishing in its entirety while it still feels relevant. Bushnell’s thoughts deserve to be heard, especially since he took time out of his busy schedule to share them.

This interview took place on March 30th, 2007 over the telephone.

[ Continue reading VC&G Interview: Nolan Bushnell, Founder of Atari » ]

Brian Parker, a resident of Redwood City, CA, has run RetroZone full time for three years. His company is well known in the retrogaming community for its sales of original console controllers — like NES, SNES, and Genesis control pads — modified to work with the USB ports found on modern computers. In 2005, I reviewed one of his USB NES controller products and found it to be excellent (I still use it regularly, in fact). But it was with the new PowerPak NES flash cartridge in mind that I interviewed Brian via email last month.

Also an avid cyclist, Brian gave me a picture of him competitively riding a racing bicycle, the only known picture of him in existence. Ok, I’m kidding — but it is him.

Thanks for the interview, Brian.

[ Update (11/02/2007): Click Here to read our review of the RetroZone PowerPak flash cart. ]

[ Continue reading [ VC&G Interview ] Brian Parker on RetroZone and the PowerPak NES Flash Cart » ]

Earlier this year, I spent a few months getting into everything Civilization for an in-depth look at the history of Sid Meier’s classic. The result of that work is now up on Gamasutra as “The History of Civilization.” It also includes (at the end of the article) the transcript of a lengthy telephone interview I conducted with Sid Meier on the topic.

I’d like to extend special thanks to Sid Meier, Bruce C. Shelley, and Troy S. Goodfellow for their indispensable help in putting the piece together. I hope you enjoy reading it.

Forty years ago today, the world’s first television video game contest took place in a small lab in Nashua, NH. The place was Sanders Associates, a large defense contractor, and the contestants were Ralph Baer and his technician, Bill Harrison. The inventions of these two men and a third, Bill Rusch, would later appear commercially as the Magnavox Odyssey console in 1972.

History has heard quite a bit from Baer recently, including an interview I conducted with him back in January. But most often overlooked is perspective of the second player in that monumental game, Bill Harrison, who built all of the original Sanders video game hardware by hand. Now 73 years old and retired, William L. Harrison finally gives his side of the story in his first ever interview, and it’s exclusive to Vintage Computing and Gaming.

[ For more information on this important anniversary, read my feature, “Video Games Turn Forty,” at 1UP.com. ]

[ Continue reading VC&G Interview: Bill Harrison, The First Video Game Hardware Guru » ]