Glowing Modem

In my early BBS days, I started using a 2400 bps external modem hooked to the serial port of a PC clone. A few years later, I switched to an external Intel 14,400 bps modem. Then I believe I got a Creative Labs Modem Blaster kit with an internal 28,800 bps modem on an ISA card. After that I moved up to 33,600 with some generic Winmodem, then 56,000 bps.

In 2000, I signed up for my first cable modem service…and the rest is history.

Discussion Topic of the Week: What speed was your first modem?

“Try new metal puddin’ pops!”

When looking at the Texas Instruments CC-40’s capabilities, one wonders why companies even bothered in making tiny portable machines like this one (see also the Epson HX-20, HP-75C, and TRS-80 Pocket Computer, among others) in the early 1980s.

Sure, each one came equipped with a gee-whiz wow factor, but most of these diminutive PCs proved impractical to actually use. Limited memory, restrictive and unreliable data storage, and tiny LCDs capable of displaying either one or a few lines of text almost ensured that these products would remain technological novelties.

(As an aside, the only computer of this circa-1983 portable class that I find to be practical and truly useful was the TRS-80 Model 100, which many journalists relied on for decades)

After giving the question considerable thought, I recently realized why they did it. Companies like TI spent untold millions upon millions of dollars on R&D, design, tooling, and production, distribution, and marketing so that collectors of vintage computers, like me, would one day have more and varied specimens to collect.

To those companies, I say this: Thank you for wasting your money to make my hobby more fun.

See Also: Bill Cosby Fondles a TI-99/4A (Retro Scan, 2006)

Discussion Topic of the Week: What’s the smallest vintage computer you’ve ever used?

Oh my god, it’s full of stars

Discussion Topic of the Week: Which system has the best game library: NES or SNES?

DUUUDDE, BAAR CODZZZZ, MAAN

Never played it, never wanted it. Amusing idea though. See also: Barcode Battler

Discussion Topic of the Week: Have you ever used a barcode gaming device?

Rayman: Missing limbs since 1995

I bought Rayman for the Atari Jaguar shortly after it came out in 1995, hopeful it would bring some Mario-style platforming magic to Atari’s “64-bit” machine. While lushly illustrated with a deep color palette, I found the gameplay and the controls a little kludgy, and I had trouble advancing past one of the first few stages. I gave up and moved on to other games.

Shorty thereafter, I lent Rayman and my Jaguar to my brother and his roommate to play at college, and they beat it within a few days. Determination was just as important as skill when it came to completing video games in those days, and I had no motivation to torture myself with a frustrating game.

Which brings me to a tangential point: When I was a kid, if I couldn’t beat a video game, I thought it meant that I was a bad video game player. I thought it was my fault. But years later I realized that the games that frustrated me most were just poorly designed.

Not to say that all difficult games are bad games — in fact, I’d say there’s a big difference between “difficult” and “frustrating.” Merely difficult games are still fun even if you fail; they make you want to try again to complete a challenge. Frustrating ones feel unfair and make you want to smash your game console with a hammer.

One of my friends did that to his NES once. He also threw it off his second story apartment balcony. Ah; those were the days.

Discussion Topic of the Week: Have you ever visited physical violence against a video game console or controller?

If there were only 40 degrees in a circle, this is what it would look like.

There is a certain rustic beauty in hand-drawn video game notes that I will never cease to enjoy. Case in point: this map/reference key created by family friend Chris when he was a kid in the 1980s. I’m not quite sure what game it was for (other than “Golf”), but it was likely a game for the Apple IIc, as I found it among related Apple IIc ephemera when I acquired his collection some years ago.

For more hand-drawn video game goodness, check out this VC&G post about my friend’s Deadly Towers maps from 2006.

[ Update: 06/03/2013 – I was just talking to my brother, and he thinks that either he drew this alone or I wrote the letters and he drew the numbers. It was either a reference to a Golf game he programmed in C in 1991, or an old Atari 800 golf game that I haven’t found yet. I still think it’s possible that Chris wrote the letters. ]

Discussion Topic of the Week: Do you ever hand-draw maps for modern video games?

Words cannot express how hard it is to use USB plugs properly.

This is not particularly retro — in fact, it’s from 2005. But I find it so amusing that I have to share it. I believe this insert (about 5 inches wide) came with a Kodak scanner that my father bought some years ago.

The back side of the paper is blank.

Discussion Topic of the Week: Do you read instruction manuals before using electronic gadgets?

Surely you have newer locks in your house.

I bought a Sega 32X for $30 new in 1995 or ’96 at Toys”R”Us. They were on clearance because nobody wanted them. (I also bought a Virtual Boy for $30 this way around the same time.) There were good reasons why no one wanted them: chiefly, because better machines like the PlayStation and Saturn were out there, and most games for the 32X weren’t very good.

Still, I have a soft spot for this system. It touches some fundamental nerdy part of me that likes convoluted electronic expansion modules — it means more to collect, and more to mess with. I have a bunch of 32X games, perhaps even half of the entire library for that system, but I rarely play any of them. I seem to recall the Star Wars Arcade title being pretty good for it. Virtua Racing wasn’t half bad either.

By the way, the only explanation I can muster for the inclusion of the keyhole in the ad above is that it’s some sort of sexual metaphor, much like those found in Sega’s other 32X ads at the time (See “The Sega Mating Game,” Retro Scan of the Week, 2008). In other words, I guess we’re spying on a Genesis and a 32X having electronic intercourse.

Discussion Topic of the Week: In an alternate universe where there was no Sega Saturn, do you think the 32X could have held its own against the competition for a few years?

The balls are moving and the cue ball hasn’t even hit them yet. Spooky.

Discussion Topic of the Week: In your opinion, what’s the best pool/billiards video game of all time?

An elephant never forgets your Atari 2600 cartridges.

In a previous Retro Scan, I cataloged one of my least-favorite brands of floppy disk storage boxes. This time, I thought I’d share an ad for the Elephant Memory Systems Trunk, one of my favorite disk storage boxes.

As far as floppy disk box designs go, the Trunk is my favorite mostly because of nostalgia. This was one of the first floppy boxes I ever used; my dad had bought one to store our Atari 800 or Apple II floppies in (can’t remember which, although I still have it in my closet). Compared to other disk boxes, this one feels solid, and the build quality is high.

The Trunk does have one serious drawback, though: The lid covers so much of its outward-facing surface area that it is very hard to pick up and move around without accidentally opening it and spilling its contents on the floor.

Still, it’s a pretty good floppy box. This and the Flip ‘N File.

Discussion Topic of the Week: Estimate how many 5.25″ floppy disks you own. What system(s) are they for?