Archive for 2006

Name Those Pixels Contest

Saturday, October 28th, 2006

Name Those Pixels ContestMatt Groves, a regular reader of VC&G, is hosting a vintage gaming contest with an innovative concept called “Name Those Pixels.” He’s selected an excerpt from a NES game’s graphics in the form of a square block of pixels (pictured to the right). Your job is to guess which game the pixels came from. The winner of the contest will be selected randomly from all the correct entries and will receive a copy of Dr. Mario for the NES as a prize. If all goes well, he could be hosting more contests like this on VC&G in the future. To enter the contest, visit his site and send him an email. Good luck!

VC&G’s Last-Minute Halloween Costume Ideas: Computer Edition

Friday, October 27th, 2006

Last Minute Computer Costume IdeasWith Halloween only four days away, it’s getting quite late in the game to figure out what you’re going to dress up as this year. Here to the rescue, as always, is VC&G with the first of two parts on last-minute Halloween costume ideas. This first part deals with vintage computer-related costumes. The second part will deal exclusively with video game-related costumes and will be published soon. So if you’re desperate for some ideas, feel free to take a look what we’ve cooked up for you below. And by all means, share any of your own ideas with us as well.

By the way, if you like these, here’s even more costume ideas:
2010 Video Game Edition
2009 Video Game Edition
2008 Video Game Edition
2007 Video Game Edition
2006 Video Game Edition

[ Continue reading VC&G’s Last-Minute Halloween Costume Ideas: Computer Edition » ]

What Was the First Computer Game You Ever Played?

Wednesday, October 25th, 2006

Eric's First Computer GamesAbout a month ago, RedWolf posted a column about the first computer he ever used, and it started me thinking about my specialty: computer games. What was the first computer game, of any sort, that I played? I’ve spent some time thinking about it and sorting through the memories, and while I haven’t quite arrived at a definite answer, the list can be narrowed down to a handful of titles. They may not be the absolute earliest games I ever touched, but these are the ones that drew me into the whole sordid world of being a computer geek.

Oregon TrailI could take the easy way out, and claim that The Oregon Trail was it and end the discussion there. The Trail was introduced to my whole generation during the early years of elementary school, while we sat in a library full of Apple ][‘s and had a teacher drone on about how to insert a floppy into the drive and close the door. Every school I attended seemed to love having students play it during the “pioneer” section of Social Studies class, but it honestly didn’t make a great impression on me. It seemed boring, repetitious, and almost impossible to win. And while I, like all normal kids, enjoyed leaving my path westward littered with dead animals and broken limbs, it wasn’t a title I sought out on my own for entertainment. It was too much a part of school work to ever be much of a game.

[ Continue reading What Was the First Computer Game You Ever Played? » ]

Retro Scan of the Week: Some Like it Hex

Monday, October 23rd, 2006
Hex Magazine Program Listing

If you think computer magazines are dry these days, try this. I recently picked up a Compute Gazette from 1988 and there were dozens of pages of hex data listings just like this. Enthralled, I spent hours reading the incredible tale of a robot and his journey to Alpha Epsilon 7.

But seriously, what we have here is part of one of them old-fashioned program listings. They were extremely common in computer magazines back in the day. The magazines published the code (usually BASIC) for select programs they bought the rights to (from typically amateur programmers) and readers typed them into their computers themselves if they were interested. It’s one of those things that inspires computer old timers to pull out their grandpa hats and start lecturin’ youth about how easy they have it these days:

You know what, sonny?! I was typin’ in programs before you were even a twinkle in yer mammy’s eye. Back in my day, we didn’t get software on disks or any of that nonsense. We bought it on paper and had to type it all in ourselves. Twenty million lines of code! After typing fifteen hours nonstop, our fingers would be bleeding so bad that we’d have to use our toes. After that the family would work in shifts around the clock until we finally had a running version of a dumb word processor. Without spell check. It had three-hundred bugs in it and barely ran, but by golly, we liked it!

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.

Retro Scan of the Week: Super Breakout’s Rainbow-Smashing Astronaut

Monday, October 16th, 2006
Super Breakout Manual Cover

If you’ve ever wondered what really went on inside the game Super Breakout, then wonder no further. The explanation that Atari contrived is so dramatic and exciting that I’m not even going to make anything up this time. I’ll just read directly from the instruction manual for the Atari 2600 version of the game…

[ Continue reading Retro Scan of the Week: Super Breakout’s Rainbow-Smashing Astronaut » ]

Inside a Hamfest: An Annotated Slideshow, Part III

Friday, October 13th, 2006

RedWolf's 2006 Hamfest AdventureIn Part I of “Inside a Hamfest: An Annotated Slideshow,” I gave you an introduction to hamfests. In Part II, I told you about guys who try to sell utterly useless crap for too much money, but I also found some choice non-crap to purchase for very little money. We also met a Simpsons-like supernerd with a passion for redheads (himself) and video games. Below, in the concluding part of the series, we pick up exactly where we left off in Part II.

[ Continue reading Inside a Hamfest: An Annotated Slideshow, Part III » ]

Messiah Announces “NEX Wireless Arcade Stick”

Wednesday, October 11th, 2006

Image DescFor someone who was highly disappointed with the Generation NEX, I’ll have to admit that Messiah’s latest product looks pretty cool. But then again, the NEX looked awesome when it was announced, and you know how that turned out.

The product is the “NEX Wireless Arcade Stick,” a supposedly arcade-quality wireless arcade stick for Messiah’s NEX system. And that right there is the catch, and it’s a major one: it’s “exclusively” compatible with the NEX system, which is likely a horrible business move on the part of Messiah. Why would they limit a great stick design (which looks…absolutely nothing like a NES Advantage, by the way) to such a cheap NES-on-a-chip famiclone machine when they could probably triple their sales if they included a wireless receiver that worked with a standard NES? This stick is essentially what the Advantage should have been back in 1987, and NES freaks would love to get their hands on it for their own NES. But sorry, folks, you’re out of luck. That’s Messiah for ya — just shy of the target, as always. Gotta love ’em.

So why on earth am I telling you about it?

[ Continue reading Messiah Announces “NEX Wireless Arcade Stick” » ]

The Most Disturbing Halloween Costume Ever: Atari’s Asteroids

Wednesday, October 11th, 2006

I hereby declare: let this monstrosity be spread about the world as the scariest, strangest, and most disturbing Halloween costume ever conceived by mankind:

Disturbing Atari Asteroids Costume

And “luckily” for me, it has to do with video games. I’m not quite sure what Atari’s marketing department was thinking when they approved (or commissioned?) this costume. Oh wait; I know: money

“Say, Charlie…we’ve got this great idea…kids can dress up as the game Asteroids for Halloween. Their face will look like a disfigured conglomeration of hollow rocks! We’ll sell ten million units in three months — each family buying two or three costumes a piece because, quite frankly, we shit gold.”

The Disturbing Atari Asteroids Costume Box

We can only hope that this costume didn’t encourage anyone to shoot little kids in the face. Hmm…perhaps next Halloween I’ll go as one of those big straw archery targets. But hey; the 1980s was a more innocent time.

These images are from the brilliantly entertaining site known as RetroCrush. They have a gallery of some other vintage video game-related costumes that’s definitely worth checking out. Also, some years ago, the curator of RetroCrush compiled a list of the worst Halloween costumes of all time, and sensibly, this costume has a place on the list.

Coming Soon: Halloween costumes based on the racing asphalt in Pole Position, the inky blackness of Pong, and a realistic plastic mask of Donkey Kong’s hairy ass.

After all, he is a donkey.

Inside a Hamfest: An Annotated Slideshow, Part II

Tuesday, October 10th, 2006

RedWolf's 2006 Hamfest AdventureIn Part I of “Inside a Hamfest: An Annotated Slideshow,” I went through an introduction about amateur radio enthusiasts (hams), hamfests in general, and a bit about hams’ hacker-like ethos. Then, during the slideshow, I arrived at the hamfest, surveyed the scene, and made at least one major find. Below, in Part II of the series, we pick up exactly where we left off in Part I.

[ Continue reading Inside a Hamfest: An Annotated Slideshow, Part II » ]

Retro Scan of the Week: Computer Nurse Caption Contest

Monday, October 9th, 2006
VCG 2nd Caption Contest Image

August’s first-ever RSotW Caption Contest was such an entertaining success that I thought I’d do another one. Here’s the deal:

Anyone out there may enter the contest (multiple times is fine by me) by writing a comment on this post. Simply write the best (i.e. funniest) caption you can think of for the image above. The winning caption will be selected by me, and since last time’s surprise prize (the mousepad) broke VC&G‘s yearly budget, the prize this time for winning will be an autographed* used copy of Defender for the Atari 2600, which I will mail to the winner if they live in the US. 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.

* Autographed by RedWolf.