“Gather ’round, kids, and warm up by the TRS-80 Model 4″ (1983)

[Edit (04/02/2008) - This was an April Fool’s Day scan. It was edited by me to look weird. Hope you enjoyed it! ]

Discussion topic of the week: Have you ever used a computer with all four members of your nuclear family at the same time?

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My trusty workbench has officially gone mainstream, courtesy of PC World. They’ve just published my autopsy of Apple’s first portable computer, the Apple IIc, as a richly illustrated slide show. It’s peppered with factoids and doses of VC&G-style humor, so I think you guys will like it. Here’s an excerpt from the intro:

Earlier this year Apple released its thinnest and lightest portable computer yet, the MacBook Air, to great fanfare. But it wasn’t the first time for such an event: Twenty-four years ago critics hailed another Apple computer–its first portable ever–as a masterpiece of compact industrial design. The Apple IIc marked an important milestone for Apple’s stalwart Apple II line, squeezing the power of a full-size IIe into a svelte 7.5-pound package.

With that intro in mind, I have a question for my keenly intelligent, historically-minded readership: Which release made more of a splash? The Apple IIc or the MacBook Air?

Exhibit A: Talking Whiz-Kid Program Card #43 (1987)

Nothing captures the childlike zeal and enthusiasm most kids have to murder grown adults like this illustration from 1987. A young boy mercilessly withholds the “answer” from a balding, middle aged man — ruthlessly toying with his life — while the innocent adult faces imminent death at the end of a hangman’s noose.

And for what? I couldn’t tell you. Is the enjoyment of a “game” worth a man’s life? Maybe the answer lies somewhere in the deep, sordid archives of Vtech.

Discussion topic of the week: How many child players of Hangman grew up to be murderers?

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Yesterday afternoon, I made a trip to some local thrift stores that I hadn’t visited in eight years. I left with a 24-game N64 cartridge drawer, some books, an unopened copy of Bill Gates’ The Road Ahead on audio cassette, some neat board games, and the two devices you see above. It’s more junk, but it’s good junk.

The VTech Talking Whiz-Kid (1987, right) came with the box, manual, and cards. This educational toy reads paper “program cards” as you insert them into an optical reader slot. The cards don’t contain any software, but instead bear a simple bar code that tells the Whiz-Kid which built-in program to start. Highlights include Hangman, word scramble, and an extremely limited calculator.

I remember seeing the VTL Computron (1980, left) in J.C. Penney catalogs as a kid. It works too, although it’s missing the battery door. The LED-based Computron plays matching games based on which letter you select. Most of the games obviously went along with a printed guidebook that I don’t have.

Neither device does BASIC like the VTech Pre-Computer 1000, but they’re both highly collectible microprocessor-powered toys. Total cost for both? $10 (US).

Anybody else have one of these? Feel free to share your memories with us.

What is Nasty?

Nasty is the keyboard of my well-loved 29 year-old Apple II Plus.

It’s always a bad sign when a keyboard that’s been sitting untouched for ten years in climate-controlled storage is wet beneath the keys, coated with a glistening, gooey gunk of unknown origin. Mix in two decades of fuzzy dust and moldy cat hairs, and you have yourself a potent cocktail of pure, unadulterated Nasty.

[ Continue reading Shining a Rotten Apple » ]