In this ad for the Tandy 1000 SX, Radio Shack shamelessly depicts the 1980s version of the “work in your underwear” marketing tagline: work in your shorts. Oh, the indecency. If this guy shows any more leg, it’s going to cause a scandal.

Discussion topic of the week: What if everyone wore shorts while using computers? Would global economic productivity grind to a halt?

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I’ve read a lot of bad press about China Warrior recently due to its re-release on Nintendo’s Virtual Console service. Many make fun of the simple beat-’em-up as being a completely horrible game, which is not far off the mark: playing China Warrior is about as fun as eating a brick. But they don’t know exactly how horrible it can be. In the early nineties, I had a personal run-in with this TurboGrafx-16 non-classic that still haunts me to this day.

[ Continue reading How China Warrior Ruined My Childhood » ]

It’s true: most controllers can’t stand up to the intense punishment delivered by the average Donkey Kong Country player. That’s why Asciiware created the Super Advantage joystick for the SNES. It’s built “gorilla tough” for “gorilla games.”

Woah there — don’t try using this sophisticated piece of technology on a non-gorilla game, or that tiny gorilla (pictured) will jump out of the controller and smack you. Just a warning: he goes straight for the eyes.

Discussion topic of the week: What if standard joysticks looked like this in the Atari 2600 era? How would games have been different?

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And I mean epic. Last week, I crossed the country to attend Game Developers Conference 2008 in San Francisco, California. Below, you’ll find a detailed report on my travels, replete with in-depth photos, each accompanied by both honest and sometimes facetious commentary. But be warned: it’s going to be a long trip. If there be any lilly-livered scallywags amongst ye who fear the voyage, turn back now, or forever will ye be scarred by me words.

[ Continue reading Benj’s Epic GDC 2008 Adventure Slideshow » ]

So this is what the famous Super Breakout Astronaut does when he’s not battling gigantic rainbow force fields.

If you haven’t noticed, this painting is a Where’s Waldo sort of exercise. Here are the instructions:

The seaside has been invaded by characters and objects from 23 different Atari games — how many of them can you identify?

Put your Atari knowledge to the test and post your guesses in the comments section below.

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Yesterday afternoon, I drove to a local Goodwill store in search of more random junk to clutter up my house. As always when the electronics pickings are slim, I spent most of my visit perusing their used books section. Among the mountains of Danielle Steele and self help guides, one can usually find a number of interesting obsolete computer and video-game related books there. Yesterday was no exception, as I picked up three interesting printed techno-artifacts from the past. Care to take a look? To the Bookmobile!

[ Continue reading Goodwill Goods: Pokémon, God’s Y2K, and Japanese AI » ]

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A rare scene from the ill-fated film Poltergeist IV: Poltergeist Position.

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