Vintage Computer Manuals

Retro Microcomputer Vintage Timex Sinclair Homepage

2007-01-21T11:53:00.000-06:00

SINCLAIR ZX81 ZX80 - TIMEX TS1000 TS1500 - PC8300 - LAMBDA - JUPITER ACE

ZX-TEAM-homepage www.zx81.de
ZX-TEAM
the world's very last but active users group for
SINCLAIR ZX80, ZX81 and clones presents:
ZX-TEAM-Homepage (English pages)

ISO81* zeddyfied
* International Sinclair Owners since 1981
ZX-TEAM
weltweit die letzte aktive User-Gruppe für
SINCLAIR ZX80, ZX81 und Clones präsentiert:
ZX-TEAM-Homepage (Deutsche Seiten)

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Webmaster: Peter Liebert-Adelt, Luetzowstr.3, D-38102 Braunschweig, Germany
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Acorn 305 Vintage Retro Computer Vintage

2007-01-21T11:51:00.000-06:00

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X81 Timex Sinclair Micro Computer Vintage

2007-01-21T11:49:00.000-06:00

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Timex Sinclair Computer Vintage Vintage Computer

2007-01-21T11:46:00.000-06:00

The ZX81, Sinclair's third computer, sparked a popular mania for computing following its launch in 1981. The machine was shipped in two versions: as a traditional self-assembly kit (right) and, more popularly, as a ready-assembled machine which only needed to be connected to a television and power supply before it could be used. In modern terms it was one of the first "plug and play" computers.

By today's standards the ZX81 is laughably primitive: only 1K of memory, no colour or sound and a notably unresponsive touch-sensitive keyboard. Even by the standards of the time, its technology was basic. The ZX81 owed its success not to its capabilities but to that most elusive quality, being the right product in the right place at the right time. It attracted a great deal of attention by Sinclair's traditional sales route, mail-order - 300,000 ZX81s were sold that way by the end of January 1982 - but its key breakthrough was on the British high street.

It seems strange these days, when shops selling computers are so ubiquitous, but back in 1981 there were very few shops selling computer equipment. The ZX81 could not have succeeded in the way that it did without the fortuitous involvement of the British newspaper chain W.H. Smith. The company was a long-established high street presence which had gone somewhat stale by the early 1980s. Seeking to reinvigorate its business, Smiths agreed to stock ZX81s in selected stores across the UK. The response was phenomenal, tapping into a previously unsuspected mass market for home computing. By February 1982, Sinclair Research was making over 40,000 ZX81s a month and still could not keep up with the demand. Within two years of release, the ZX81 had sold over a million units.

The huge success of the ZX81 virtually created the British home computer market. Many competitors sprang up to take advantage of the tidal wave of public enthusiasm for home computers. Hundreds of software and hardware manufacturers sprang up almost overnight to support the new market. More seriously for Sinclair, a flurry of rival computer manfacturers entered the market. Most were seen off relatively quickly - machines such as the Oric-1 and Dragon 32 failed to make much impact - but some of the competitors, such as Acorn (itself founded by ex-Sinclair employees), survived and prospered.

ZX81s were exported to the United States in considerable numbers - 15,000 a month - suggesting that, as in Britain, there was a huge untapped market. The ZX81 was actually manufactured by an American company, Timex Inc., operating from its factory in Dundee, Scotland. From the outset it was clear that Timex was the ideal partner for Sinclair to use in its attempt to crack the crucial United States market. Between, the Timex/Sinclair partnership produced two modified versions of the ZX81 for the US market

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Computer Vintage Apple II Ad

2007-01-21T11:37:00.000-06:00

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The "Mac" Name Was Also Trademarked By Another Company

2007-01-19T17:46:00.000-06:00

The "Mac" Name Was Also Trademarked By Another Company
Topic: Apple

Steve Jobs' trademark spat with Cisco over "iPhone" isn't the first time Jobs has brought a product to market with another company's trademark -- he did it with the Mac.

According to the biography of former Apple CEO John Sculley, Odyssey: Pepsi to Apple, Jobs launched the Mac in 1984 even though the "Mac" trademark belonged to another company.

"Knowing we would face trademark challenges over Steve's decision to launch Macintosh under its original codename, Al (Eisenstat, Apple's general counsel) had argued at full volume that Steve should pick another name for the computer," Sculley writes on page 208.

Sculley doesn't name the other company, but says: "Steve prevailed, but it ultimately cost us nearly $2 million in out-of-court settlements."

The other company appears to be Management and Computer Services Inc., a small Philadelphia software company.

In 1985, Apple settled a trademark infringement suit with MACS Inc. for an undisclosed sum, according to a Jan. 24 report from the Associated Press:

"Apple Computer Inc. will pay an undisclosed sum to Management and Computer Services Inc. to settle a trademark-infringement lawsuit, the companies said today. The software company sued Apple for using 'Mac' to describe items associated with its Macintosh personal computer. Management and Computer Services uses 'Macs' as a trademark."

Modern Times

2007-01-14T17:52:00.000-06:00

5th January 2007

Introduction

In the latest article of his weekly column, Hiroshige Goto talks about the subject of console costs and the strategies which the different manufacturers try to apply in order to minimize their expenses. We take a look at his statements, strategies and analysis.

For Goto, both Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Sony's Playstation are designed for future cost reductions by semiconductor scaling. According to him there will be 2 process changes during the current console cycle -- 65nm in 2007 and 45nm in 2009 -- which would theoretically cut current dice sizes to a fourth of their current size. Coinciding with process shrinks, the manufacturers would observe "dramatic" improvements in the yield rate. Also, a lower power consumption and heat generation would lower costs for the cooling and the EMI shielding.

Goto sees two results from the shrinks: on the one hand the reduction of the die size would reduce the silicon costs, on the other hand the shrinks should ease the reduction of the number of chips, the substrate costs, etc. -- as such, chip-related costs should scale down faster than the actual die sizes.

The current die sizes at 90nm are about 228mm² for the Cell CPU and ~240-260mm² for RSX in Sony's PlayStation 3. In Microsoft's Xbox360 the Xenon CPU is 168mm²; Xenos is comprised of a 170mm² GPU core and 70mm² EDRAM on the same package. On a 45nm process Goto expects Cell to be about 60mm². Consequently "the chip costs would decrease to a third or a fourth." (Goto).

Sony PlayStation 3

One of the biggest potentials for cost reductions is the number of DRAM chips used in the PlayStation 3 (PS3). Currently PS3 uses 4 512Mib GDDR3 and 4 512Mib XDR DRAMs. "The difficulty in decreasing the number of DRAM chips is maintaining the memory access times and memory bandwidth while decreasing their number" (Goto). Goto estimates that all DRAM chips will be replaced by 1Gib chips in the future, which we would expect in the timeframe.

As for the XDR chips, they're currently using a 64-bit interface to Cell which could be replaced by 1Gib XDR2 chips with a 32-bit bus while the bandwidth would remain the same. "Reducing the Rambus memory chips from 4 to 2 is easy. The memory bandwidth doesn’t change. Since we develop the XDRAM together with Rambus, we keep an eye on all such thing during the development" (Ken Kutaragi).

On the RSX side Goto assumes that the GPU and the 4 512Mib GDDR3 chips, both on the same substrate, could be connected via a custom interface. Thus, the 4 GDDR3 chips could be replaced by 2 1Gib custom DRAMs while still retaining the speed and bandwidth. Due to the high production volume of the PS3, the additional costs would be more than just offset by the cost savings. "If the product volume is small, it's difficult. But in the case of 20 million units per year, the options are manifold. For example, you can think about SIP (System-In-Package)." (Ken Kutaragi). From our point of view, it is perfectly possible that these chips would run at 1.4GHz and use a 64-bit memory bus instead of a 128-bit one, however. This would be more akin to a migration to GDDR4, then.

Another likely direction for cost reduction is the hardware backwards compatibility of the current PS3. In case of a reliable soft emulation solution, the PS2's EE/GS and 2 128Mib RDRAM chips could be removed.

Click here for Goto's proposed PS3 schematics

Microsoft Xbox 360

In contrast to the previous generation Microsoft bought the design from the chip vendors and has the chips produced in foundries. According to Goto this makes responding to advances in the manufacturing processes easier and allows for chip integration, which is an advantage only Sony had in the last generation.

For Goto the cost reductions lie mainly with Xbox 360's GPU (Xenos): The current multi-die setup of a GPU core currently manufactured by TSMC and the eDRAM currently produced by NEC, contributes to higher costs. A one-chip solution (eDRAM & GPU core) would reduce the number of dice produced (and at different foundries) and thus costs.

Goto expects that by the time the 65nm process becomes available, the eDRAM will be integrated in the GPU core. That move would also replace the wiring between the core and the daughter die, which according to Goto will become more difficult at smaller processes. Moreover, it would reduce the power consumption of the GPU. We believe, however, that plenty of problems exist with such a strategy, because EDRAM processes are quite different from traditional ones and not quite as tuned for logic. In the near future, Xenos will be produced on 65nm while the EDRAM will be produced on 55nm; in the longer term, Z-RAM may or may not become a viable option to replace EDRAM in the 45nm timeframe, possibly using SOI at TSMC.

The 8 512Mib GDDR3 DRAM chips connecting to Xenos through a 128-bit interface also offer the potential for a further cost cut: Goto reckons they will be replaced by 4 1Gib RAM chips, as soon they become cheaper through DRAM manufacturing shrinks.

Click here for Goto's proposed Xbox 360 schematics

Nintendo Wii

For Nintendo's Wii, Goto see little room for further cost reduction. After changing their approach toward technology Nintendo already focused on low-costs: Broadway's die size (CPU) is already down to 19 mm², which implies truly negligible costs. The number of DRAM chips has been reduced to 2: 1 GDDR3 chip and a 1T-SRAM chip. The only possibility for reduction is the integration of the 1T-SRAM die, "but the integration of the 1T-SRAM seems difficult because of the size of its capacity" (Goto).

It is furthermore questionable from our point of view whether such integration would actually reduce costs, given the resulting yield differences. We believe straight shrinks of AMD's Hollywood GPU are inevitable, however, which might help a fair bit already given the likely proportion of costs attributed to the chip.

Thus, Goto expects to the costs difference between Wii and Xbox360 & PS3 to shrink, as well as the price difference.

Click here for Goto's proposed Wii schematics

Conclusion

Historically, console cost reductions are met by engaging new process developments and advances in manufacturing technology, shrinking and combining components in order to make the same for less. It seems that the Wii's hardware is already small enough, and therefore cheap enough, for them to likely seek possible cost reductions via process scaling alone, rather than seek hardware combination too. Contrast that to the PS3 and Xbox 360 where Sony and Microsoft are likely to agressively seek scaling and silicon combination to achieve their ongoing cost reduction goals.

Extrapolating out to the mid-point and conclusion of this new console life-cycle, we can forsee points where Microsoft and then Sony achieve non-loss price points on their respective consoles, where they're selling for more than it cost to make (which clearly isn't the case right now). However, the fact that the console vendors are seeking to enhance their offerings in ways that didn't effect the last generation, be that better optical technology, larger hard disks, better display output options and more (all while keeping the base spec constant), means that certain SKUs might never cross over that break-even point.

The vendors therefore still hang a good chunk of their money-making endeavours on the games and value-add online services. We watch any new console variants with great interest nonetheless, since they'll have influence no matter how small on how the vendors attack a brand new generation come.

Hiroshige Goto is a technical journalist who focuses on development of next-generation gaming with strong emphasis on hardware. His articles have been published on the PC Watch website and in “DOS/VPowerreport” (Impress Japan), “Nikkei WinPC” (Nikkei BP), “DOS/VSpecial” (Mainichi Communications). He has also held several lectures, including a talk on multicore chips and Cell at SIG-GT 6 (2005).

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Picadore 64: A Commodore PDA

2007-01-13T09:04:00.000-06:00

Unveiling the Picodore 64 - a Commodore PDA!
« Thread Started on Dec 31, 2006, 1:30am »

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Here are a few pics of my own DTV Hummer project. I had an old PSOne LCD screen lying around and I thought I'd make a C64 laptop. Actually, it's more like a C64 PDA! It measures 6.5 x 6 x 1.5 inches (15.5 x 16.5 x 4 cm) when closed. It can run from an AC wall adapter or 6 NiMH AA batteries. The keyboard is hacked from a portable folding keyboard for a Jornada PDA which outputs RS-232. I'm using a PIC 16F88 to decode the signals and re-encode them to PS/2 (that was an ordeal to figure out). The PIC checks to see if an external PS/2 keyboard is connected on power up. If one is hooked up, it will route data from that instead. There is an internal ampilfied speaker as well as connections for audio and video output on the back. There's a serial connection for a disk drive and an SD card slot in the side for a 1541-III but I haven't been able to get that to work yet. I also have a connection for a userport/joystick. The joystick in the picture is a hacked Atari keychain joystick. The mini joystick wasn't in the original plan but after I accidentally discovered it on ebay, it seemed perfect.

Here's a how-to post regarding the RS232 to PS/2 keyboard hack:
http://jledger.proboards19.com/index.cgi?board=dtvhacking&action=display&thread=1167783024

Here are some of the innards. It was originally a Hummer. I cut the power supply part of the PCB off and supplied my own regulated 3.3V.

Another size comparison to emphasize the tiny-ness of it.

Special thanks to David Murray, his site has been a permanent fixture on my computer for the last few weeks!

Why Super Nintendos Lose Their Color: Plastic Discoloration in Classic Machines

2007-01-13T08:58:00.001-06:00

Why Super Nintendos Lose Their Color: Plastic Discoloration in Classic Machines

January 12th, 2007 by Benj Edwards

Sure, consoles age and get dirty. Heck, I remember a suspicious incident involving my Super Nintendo (SNES) console and a can of Coca-Cola in the early ’90s that left my SNES looking more like a moldy loaf of bread than a video game system. But around five years ago, I noticed that my SNES console was aging particularly badly. I cleaned off all the remnants of fossilized Coke residue from the chassis with a wet washcloth, but the “moldy bread” look still remained. The top half of the console’s plastic body retained a uniformly nasty yellow-brown hue, while the bottom half flaunted its showroom shine — that native SNES gray that we all know and love. I soon realized that a much deeper mechanism was responsible for the aesthetic disfigurement of my beloved SNES than mere dirt and sugar.

To further complicate matters, I have another SNES unit that was obviously produced more recently than my original one, and that console shows no sign of aging whatsoever. Comparing the units and the way different parts of them had discolored led me to believe that there is something different about the two batches of plastics — the one for the top half of the SNES chassis and the one for the bottom, or the plastic for the old unit and plastic for the new — that made them age differently over time.

Immediately below are two photos I took of my actual SNES units. Notice the difference between the colors of the top and bottom halves of the plastic chassis on the older unit, and also how the newer unit shows no sign of discoloration at all.

My first SNES console (right) exhibits discoloration on the top half only.
The newer unit on the left, however, looks as good as new.

The top half and bottom half of my first SNES console, disassembled.
Notice that the underside is yellowed with the same uniformity as the top.

The Investigation Begins

Case yellowing effects aren’t limited to the Super Nintendo console. Many models of Apple Macintosh computers exhibit similar symptoms: their cases discolor heavily as they age, frustrating computer collectors everywhere. I had long heard that plastic discoloration had something to do with UV exposure, which made more sense for the Macs, but not so for the SNES. In the case of the SNES itself, the chassis was uniformly discolored on both the outside and the inside of the case, which means that it could not have been the work of light. With all this in mind, I set out to find what was causing these plastic yellowing effects, and if the yellowing on the SNES and the Macintosh cases were related.

After poking around the net, I found some forum threads where people seemed to have vague ideas about what was causing the yellowing. Suggestions and accusations from forum regulars like “Wash your hands!” or “It’s tobacco stains,” were usually returned with, “But I’m a clean guy!” and “I don’t smoke,” so the problem isn’t quite that simple. Other people weighing in on the issue seemed more knowledgeable and suggested that keeping computers away from windows and fluorescent lighting will help prevent discoloration. Sounds good to me, but why, exactly, would sunlight cause certain plastic to yellow while other plastics retained their original color?

While searching the forums, the most helpful hint I found regarding the SNES was this. Someone had asked Nintendo of America’s customer support about the issue, and this is how they responded:

Message(#6851-000101-5635\1015635)

Hi!

Thank you for contacting us. That’s an interesting question! For the Super NES, this is a normal condition and no cause for alarm. Cleaning or handling the system will have minimal impact to change or revive the original color.

The Super NES, as well as our other systems, are made with a plastic containing flame-retardant chemicals to meet safety guidelines. Over time, the plastic will age and discolor both because of these chemicals as well as from the normal heat generated from the product or exposure to light. Because of the light color of the plastic of the SNES and NES, this discoloration is more easily seen than with other darker plastics such as on the N64 and the Nintendo GameCube.

Thanks for your email!
Nintendo of America Inc.
Casey Ludwig

Nintendo’s home page: http://www.nintendo.com/
Power Line (Automated Product Info): (425) 885-7529

Sounds pretty good to me, but is it true? While trying to get a more specific answer, I decided to write NOA myself to see what they said. This is what they responded:

Thanks for the e-mail. Unfortunately I don’t have an answer to your question. We’ve stopped servicing the Super NES many years ago, so our information is limited. I took a look at what we have, and nothing discusses housing discoloration. In addition I don’t have anyone I could refer you to that would be able to answer that question. If you need additional assistance, please contact our Consumer Service Department by calling 1-800-255-3700. Our representatives are available between 6:00 a.m. and 7:00 p.m. Pacific Time, seven days a week.

Sincerely,

Nintendo of America Inc.
Shane O’Neil

As you can read, the answer they sent me wasn’t nearly as helpful as the forum patron’s response. The only thing I learned from their reply is that people must not ask NOA support questions about discoloration very often if they don’t have a prepared answer for it.

When in Doubt, Consult an Expert

Unsatisfied with Nintendo’s answer, I decided to dig deeper. I contacted Dr. Rudolph D. Deanin, founder of the graduate program in Plastics Engineering at the University of Massachusetts, Lowell and director of the program for over thirty years. I told him everything I know about plastic chassis discoloration in both the Super Nintendo and Macintosh computers and asked what he thought might be causing it.

“The plastics most commonly used to make the structural cases for electronic equipment are polypropylene, impact styrene, and ABS,” replied Deanin. “These all tend to discolor and embrittle gradually when exposed to UV and/or heat. They become oxidized and develop conjugated unsaturation, which produces color. They crosslink or degrade, which causes brittleness.”

From looking at a stamp on the Super Nintendo’s plastic case, I learned that the case is composed of ABS, which is a rugged, durable plastic that is sadly more susceptible to discoloration and degradation from both UV and heat than the alternatives.

“There are other plastics which would be more stable,” Deanin continued, “but manufacturers avoid them because they are more expensive and/or more difficult to process.”

Instead of using more expensive plastics, manufactures put additives known as stabilizers, absorbers, or blockers into the plastic mixture to reduce the effects of degradation. They also get creative with their use of pigmentation.

“Since most discoloration is toward yellowing, some manufacturers add a little blue to neutralize the yellow,” Deanin said. “This gives a temporary reprieve, but eventually the yellow keeps growing and overpowers it anyway.”

The Best Answer Involves Chemistry

Deanin got me really curious. I wanted to know more about how exactly the whole plastic degradation process woks, but he failed to go into it in detail. For example, what exactly about degradation makes the plastic change color?

After a few days of research on the process though jargon-dense industry white papers and by lurking on plastics forums, I managed to piece together an answer. Unfortunately, most of what I found focused on the UV-degradation (light exposure) side of things, which is most applicable to the discoloration of Macintosh cases. But we can apply some of what we’ll learn to the SNES in a moment.

Most plastics typically reflect the majority of UV light that hits them. However, if there are trace elements of catalyst residues (chemicals used in manufacturing of the plastic), such as if the manufacturer doesn’t get the mixture quite right, then the residues present in the final plastic will absorb UV and drastically accelerate the degradation process. Exposure to UV light in this instance starts a process called photodegradation (through photooxidation), which takes place in parallel with thermal oxidation (from exposure to heat). Both processes break down the chemical structure of the plastic as certain parts of it combine with available oxygen. And once this process gets started, it feeds upon itself and starts a continual cycle of degradation. Interestingly enough, the disrupted plastic molecules that are produced by the photooxidation process absorb UV light themselves and re-emit it at a lower wavelength (in the visible range), which changes the perceived color of the plastic.

In the case of the SNES plastic, however, the trigger of the oxidation process is clearly not UV light, but simple exposure to heat and air over time. Once the process is triggered, its effects cascade in a recursive cycle — as in the UV example above — eventually changing the physical nature of the plastic and its color.

A piece of my Super Nintendo’s case was chipped off accidentally at some point in the console’s recent history. Notice how the center of the case’s plastic — which hasn’t been exposed to air for very long — is still gray.

In the Name of Retardation

So think back. Those flame retardant chemicals that Nintendo mentioned are starting to sound like a plausible trigger for premature degradation. If we presume that those flame retardant additives, if mixed in an improper amount, have a similar effect as the catalyst residues that are absorbing the UV light and heat and triggering the photodegradation process described above, then it could account for the discoloration effect we’ve seen. Deanin weighed in on the flame retardant issue only by saying that most retardants are harmless, but certain “aliphatic bromine compounds” are unstable to heat and UV, and should be avoided. Flame retardants unstable to heat! How ironic.

Since two different batches of plastics had two different aging results (as illustrated in the top and bottom halves of my SNES, or the old and new SNES units), then there must have been a difference of additives between them. Perhaps in one of the production runs of plastic, they didn’t get the catalyst or flame retardant mixture quite right and more residues were left over in the top half’s plastic batch, thus causing it to degrade more rapidly over time. And by the time Nintendo produced the later runs of Super Nintendos, they had perfected the manufacturing process of their plastic, meaning that those later models aren’t as susceptible to oxidation as the earlier models are.

So, What Can I Do About It?

Now that you’ve heard all about plastic discoloration and its causes, you’re probably wondering what you can do to prevent or fix it. Unfortunately, the best answer is, “not much.” The only prevention tip Deanin had for me was this:

“A useful way to prevent UV discoloration is to put a UV-resistant plastic coating on top of the base plastic. This adds to the cost, but it definitely solves the problem. ”

Ok, so you can paint your old consoles with a UV-resistant coating, but that doesn’t sound like a very attractive option. It might make your console shiny, and it wouldn’t be historically accurate — if you care about that sort of thing. So what can you do after the discoloration has taken place? Once, again, Deanin wasn’t much help.

“Paint it! The auto industry paints much of the plastic they use in cars. The paint industry could certainly design an optimum paint formulation for such a market.”

So, yeah, you could sand down your old consoles like an old car and paint them, which some people do already to make green and yellow “John Deere” Atari 2600s and black PlayStation 2-like Nintendo Entertainment Systems. But then the console becomes a “mod” and ceases to be faithful to the original design.

Despite all this general negativity, I have managed to put together a few tips and ideas about how to prevent and repair plastic discoloration.

Prevention Methods:

Keep your most prized collector pieces out of rooms with fluorescent lighting.
Keep your units away from windows and sunlight because, like the fluorescent lighting, the UV exposure will drastically hasten their discoloration. Even indirect sunlight can do damage over time.
Avoid placing your unit next to a heat source such as a radiator, air duct, or fireplace. Or in the fire.
Do not keep your machines in a room where people smoke tobacco (wacky or otherwise).
Apply a coat of UV protectant.
Try not to breathe too heavily upon your console’s exterior.
Ok — this one’s a joke.
For the ultimate in protection, seal your unit in a lead-lined, temperature-controlled, evacuated vault away from any radiation, visible or otherwise. But hey, what fun is that?

Repair & Restoration Methods:

Magic Erasers (melamine foam) - Great for surface dirt. Good for very light surface discoloration, but it will rub off painted logos and subtle textures like an abrasive.
Sandpaper - Scrape your way to fresh plastic underneath. Not recommended for historical purists or console rights activists!
Bleach - I’ve had limited success with letting bleach sit on Macintosh cases. It does work, but it’s difficult to get a uniform effect unless you can soak the whole piece in bleach equally. And who knows what it does to the structure of the plastic.
Paint - Cover up that ugly yellowed plastic and turn your SNES into a shiny ode to Heinz ketchup!

The “Magic” in Magic Erasers

I have recently overheard a number of collectors talking about using “Mr. Clean Magic Erasers” to clean their computer cases. Magic Erasers are incredibly effective at removing surface dirt, smudges, or cigarette smoke film (when it’s not chemically bonded to the plastic). But using them to combat intrinsic case yellowing is another story all together.

Magic Erasers are made entirely of a substance called melamine, which is lightweight, heat resistant organic compound which has, in the case of Magic Erasers, been extruded into a microporous foam. Until someone discovered its cleaning properties, melamine was used primarily as a flame resistant sound-proofing material and as an ingredient in resin laminates. Melamine foam has a microscopic open-ended bubble structure that, with the aid of water, finds its way into previously impossible-to-clean cracks, crevices, and textures.

Despite their amazing cleaning potential, Magic Erasers are no more than fancy abrasive pads, complete with all the drawbacks that entails. Which means that you should exercise caution while using Magic Erasers or other melamine foam products. Magic Erasers essentially act like extremely fine-grade sandpaper that will wear away any surface over time with repeated scrubbings. It happens so slowly, however, and on such a small scale that its effect is hard to notice at first. But if you keep rubbing and rubbing, you’ll wear more and more of what you’re rubbing away. Permanently.

Magic Erasers are capable of removing discolored plastic to a limited extent, but you’ll have to scrub very hard and you’ll lose surface texture in the process. I tried scrubbing for about ten minutes on both SNES and Mac LC III cases with melamine foam, but the results were unsatisfactory due to the smoothing of the cases and the paltry reduction in yellowing. If you’re into abrasives like that, you might as well use sandpaper for a quicker result (but you’ll regret it). Save the Magic Erasers for surface dirt only.

A Gallery of Dysfunctional Plastics

Finally, with all that other stuff out of the way, I thought I’d show you some more pictures of plastic discoloration. They range from SNES cartridges to video monitors.

Enjoy, and help keep plastics clean and beautiful.

SNES cartridges are not immune to the vagaries of plastic discoloration.
Like the SNES unit itself, sometimes two halves of a cartridge case
will age differently due to different manufacturing runs.

UV at Work: This computer sat in sunlight for years with a monitor connected.
Notice how the monitor connector shielded some of the plastic from
discoloration, preserving the original gray color only in that spot.

Here’s one where a monitor sat on top of a Mac for years, shading
the plastic underneath from exposure to sunlight.

This poor Apple IIe Platinum has been the victim of discoloration too.

Yes, most of my equipment looks this bad! This discoloration is the result of this
monitor sitting in a room with florescent lighting as the only light source for a very
long time. The two parts of the monitor were originally the same light gray color.

This entry was posted on Friday, January 12th, 2007 at 2:02 pm and is filed under Collecting, Hacks & Projects, Collecting, Hacks & Projects, Design, Design. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site

Why Super Nintendos Lose Their Color: Plastic Discoloration in Classic Machines

2007-01-13T08:58:00.000-06:00

Why Super Nintendos Lose Their Color: Plastic Discoloration in Classic Machines

January 12th, 2007 by Benj Edwards

My first SNES console (right) exhibits discoloration on the top half only.
The newer unit on the left, however, looks as good as new.

The top half and bottom half of my first SNES console, disassembled.
Notice that the underside is yellowed with the same uniformity as the top.

The Investigation Begins

While searching the forums, the most helpful hint I found regarding the SNES was this. Someone had asked Nintendo of America’s customer support about the issue, and this is how they responded:

Message(#6851-000101-5635\1015635)

Hi!

Thank you for contacting us. That’s an interesting question! For the Super NES, this is a normal condition and no cause for alarm. Cleaning or handling the system will have minimal impact to change or revive the original color.

The Super NES, as well as our other systems, are made with a plastic containing flame-retardant chemicals to meet safety guidelines. Over time, the plastic will age and discolor both because of these chemicals as well as from the normal heat generated from the product or exposure to light. Because of the light color of the plastic of the SNES and NES, this discoloration is more easily seen than with other darker plastics such as on the N64 and the Nintendo GameCube.

Thanks for your email!
Nintendo of America Inc.
Casey Ludwig

Nintendo’s home page: http://www.nintendo.com/
Power Line (Automated Product Info): (425) 885-7529

Sounds pretty good to me, but is it true? While trying to get a more specific answer, I decided to write NOA myself to see what they said. This is what they responded:

Thanks for the e-mail. Unfortunately I don’t have an answer to your question. We’ve stopped servicing the Super NES many years ago, so our information is limited. I took a look at what we have, and nothing discusses housing discoloration. In addition I don’t have anyone I could refer you to that would be able to answer that question. If you need additional assistance, please contact our Consumer Service Department by calling 1-800-255-3700. Our representatives are available between 6:00 a.m. and 7:00 p.m. Pacific Time, seven days a week.

Sincerely,

Nintendo of America Inc.
Shane O’Neil

When in Doubt, Consult an Expert

“There are other plastics which would be more stable,” Deanin continued, “but manufacturers avoid them because they are more expensive and/or more difficult to process.”

The Best Answer Involves Chemistry

In the Name of Retardation

So, What Can I Do About It?

“A useful way to prevent UV discoloration is to put a UV-resistant plastic coating on top of the base plastic. This adds to the cost, but it definitely solves the problem. ”

“Paint it! The auto industry paints much of the plastic they use in cars. The paint industry could certainly design an optimum paint formulation for such a market.”

Despite all this general negativity, I have managed to put together a few tips and ideas about how to prevent and repair plastic discoloration.

Prevention Methods:

Keep your most prized collector pieces out of rooms with fluorescent lighting.
Keep your units away from windows and sunlight because, like the fluorescent lighting, the UV exposure will drastically hasten their discoloration. Even indirect sunlight can do damage over time.
Avoid placing your unit next to a heat source such as a radiator, air duct, or fireplace. Or in the fire.
Do not keep your machines in a room where people smoke tobacco (wacky or otherwise).
Apply a coat of UV protectant.
Try not to breathe too heavily upon your console’s exterior.
Ok — this one’s a joke.
For the ultimate in protection, seal your unit in a lead-lined, temperature-controlled, evacuated vault away from any radiation, visible or otherwise. But hey, what fun is that?

Repair & Restoration Methods:

Magic Erasers (melamine foam) - Great for surface dirt. Good for very light surface discoloration, but it will rub off painted logos and subtle textures like an abrasive.
Sandpaper - Scrape your way to fresh plastic underneath. Not recommended for historical purists or console rights activists!
Bleach - I’ve had limited success with letting bleach sit on Macintosh cases. It does work, but it’s difficult to get a uniform effect unless you can soak the whole piece in bleach equally. And who knows what it does to the structure of the plastic.
Paint - Cover up that ugly yellowed plastic and turn your SNES into a shiny ode to Heinz ketchup!

The “Magic” in Magic Erasers

A Gallery of Dysfunctional Plastics

Finally, with all that other stuff out of the way, I thought I’d show you some more pictures of plastic discoloration. They range from SNES cartridges to video monitors.

Enjoy, and help keep plastics clean and beautiful.

SNES cartridges are not immune to the vagaries of plastic discoloration.
Like the SNES unit itself, sometimes two halves of a cartridge case
will age differently due to different manufacturing runs.

Here’s one where a monitor sat on top of a Mac for years, shading
the plastic underneath from exposure to sunlight.

This poor Apple IIe Platinum has been the victim of discoloration too.

Casio sells its one billionth calculator

2007-01-11T07:34:00.000-06:00

Casio sells its one billionth calculator

Just as broadcast radio was turning one hundred, Casio was selling its one billionth calculator, as the company reportedly announced that this past December held the milestone purchase. The firm's first electronic calculator, dubbed the 001, hit the market in 1965, and played a big part in the development of the chip industry by generating demand for LSI chips. The pocket-sized renditions the company is so well known for started in 1972 with the Casio Mini, only to be followed by the graphing scientific version in 1985. These monochrome graphing editions will always hold a special spot in our hearts, as there was just nothing like kicking back during class and crushing your previous Tetris record while the instructor gave you kudos for focusing so intently on your work, and of course, that wasn't the only game to ever get ported to the small screen. So here's to Casio for hitting the big 1 billion, but we've got to admit, it looks like TI is the current champ in terms of universal acceptability, but we can't argue too much with a figure like that.

Vintage Computer Manuals

2007-01-07T00:24:00.001-06:00

Vintage Computer Manuals

2007-01-07T00:24:00.000-06:00

Vintage Computer Computing History

2007-01-06T10:02:00.000-06:00

Vintage Computer Manuals

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Vintage Computer Manuals

2007-01-06T10:01:00.000-06:00

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Vintage Computer Manuals

2007-01-06T09:57:00.000-06:00

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Evolution of the Handheld Computer Gaming Console

2007-01-06T09:42:00.000-06:00

The handheld gaming scene has witnessed many attempts by a variety of companies to gain commercial success, but over thirty formats shown below, only a handful have been able to gain support of the mainstream. The main problems for companies trying to enter the handheld gaming scene is how to create an affordable, portable machine that won't eat up the battery.

It wasn't until 1989 when Nintendo released the GameBoy, with it's dot-matrix screen, low battery consumption (though needed 4 AA batteries), relatively small size and one killer game, Tetris , that guaranteed them the success they wanted. No other company could emulate what Nintendo had created, try as they may, there was nothing as successful as the GameBoy.

Almost sixteen years after the GameBoy, in 2005, both Nintendo and Sony released their 'revolutionary' contenders, each aiming at a different market. So far, two years down the line it seems like Nintendo still have the same magic formula they had back in 1989.

Milton Bradley Microvision - 1978

Nintendo Game & Watch (60 in the series) - 1980 - 1991

Epoch Game Pocket Computer - 1984

Nintendo Gameboy - 1989

Atari Lynx - 1989

NEC TurboExpress - 1990

Sega GameGear - 1991

Watara Supervision - 1992

Sega MegaJet - 1992

Nintendo VirtualBoy - 1994

Sega Nomad - 1995

NeoGeo Pocket - 1996

Nintendo GameBoy Pocket - 1996

Nintendo GameBoy Pocket Light - 1997

Tiger Game.com - 1997

Nintendo GameBoy Color - 1998

Cybiko - 1998

Dreamcast VMU - 1998

Sony PocketStation - 1998

NeoGeo Pocket Color - 1999

Bandai WonderSwan - 1999

Bandai WonderSwan Color - 2000

GamePark GP32 - 2001

Nintendo GameBoy Advance - 2001

Nintendo Pokemon Mini - 2004

Bandai Swan Crystal - 2002

Nokia N-Gage - 2003

Nintendo GameBoy Advance SP - 2003

Timetop Gameking - 2003

Tapwave Zodiac - 2004

Nokia N-Gage QD - 2004

Nintendo DS - 2004

Sony PSP - 2004

Tiger Gizmondo - 2005

Nintendo GameBoy Micro - 2005

GamePark XGP - 2005

V-Smile Pocket - 2005

Ez Mini - 2005

Nintendo DS Lite - 2006

2007-01-05T23:27:00.000-06:00

Stella is a multi-platform Atari 2600 VCS emulator

2007-01-05T23:26:00.000-06:00

The Atari 2600 Video Computer System (VCS), introduced in 1977, was the most popular home video game system of the early 1980's. Now you can enjoy all of your favorite Atari 2600 games on your PC thanks to Stella!

Stella is a multi-platform Atari 2600 VCS emulator released under the GNU General Public License (GPL). Stella was originally developed for Linux by Bradford W. Mott, however, since its original release several people have joined the development team to port Stella to other operating systems such as AcornOS, AmigaOS, DOS, FreeBSD, IRIX, Linux, OS/2, MacOS, Unix, and Windows. The development team is working hard to perfect the emulator and we hope you enjoy our effort.

On this site you'll find information about downloading, installing, using, and enhancing Stella. You'll also find useful information about the Atari 2600 and emulation.

Accessed many times since April 1997. Updated on December 22, 2006.

2007-01-05T08:04:00.000-06:00

Microsoft Family Portait 1978

2007-01-05T08:03:00.000-06:00

After reading Knox’s article on today’s IT giants, as usual, I started browsing around and found the above photography. It looked like a weird family photo to me. But I was so wrong. That is a photo taken on December 7th, 1978 and it represents the Microsoft staff. In case you’re wondering, Bill Gates is located in the lower left corner of the picture. The rest of them are as it follows, left to right.
Top row: Steve Wood, Bob Wallace, Jim Lane.
Middle row: Bob O’Rear, Bob Greenberg, Marc McDonald, Gordon Letwin.
Bottom row: Bill Gates, Andrea Lewis, Marla Wood, Paul Allen.
Who would have thought

2007-01-05T01:17:00.000-06:00

2006-12-31T03:37:00.001-06:00

MFM and RLL

2006-12-31T03:37:00.000-06:00

MFM and RLL
Most hard drives of the pre-IDE period used MFM (Modified Frequency Modulation) encoding. Floppy drives still do. MFM was not the only twin-cable hard drive interface though: aside from its close relative RLL, there was also the now long forgotten high-end competitor to SCSI, EDSI.

MFM was relatively simple to implement, and quite robust. RLL (Run Length Limited) encoding used the same electrical interface and cables but a different data format (much as Morse Code and Baudot code are different). An RLL format squeezes the information more tightly onto the disc and increases the effective areal density by 50%.

So a 10MB MFM drive, if formatted with an RLL controller, could now store 15MB, and can be up to 50% faster too. Almost all MFM drives had 17 sectors per track, but RLL drives squeezed 26, or even 32 sectors onto each track. RLL did, however, require a very accurate drive mechanism.

Early attempts to increase speed and storage capacity by adding an after-market RLL controller to an MFM drive system often resulted in poor reliability. This gave RLL an undeserved bad name. Later on, many drive manufacturers introduced RLL certified models, and these were generally just as reliable as their cheaper, smaller MFM drives. (See Miniscribe 8438 below.)

Technically, there was no such thing as an 'RLL drive'. The drive type (MFM or RLL) was solely determined by the low-level format, and this in turn, depended on the drive controller card. In theory, any ST-506 (two-cable) drive could be formatted with either an MFM or an RLL controller. Not many early drives, however, were capable of taking an RLL format reliably.

All modern drives use an embedded controller (usually IDE or SCSI), which is built into the drive itself. The card we used to call a 'controller card' and plug into IDE-equipped 386 systems was actually just an interface between the drive controller proper (on the actual drive) and the PC bus. It should really have been called a 'host adaptor'. (Since late 486 days, this is integrated into the motherboard and it is unusual to have an IDE host adaptor as a separate, plug-in component.) Until the advent of PRML in the mid-1990's, all IDE and SCSI drives actually used RLL encoding internally. IDE and SCSI drive electronics are 'smart' enough to take care of encoding in such a way that we no longer need to know the details.

2006-12-31T03:36:00.000-06:00

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Kalok Octagon KL-230

2006-12-31T03:34:00.000-06:00

Kalok Octagon KL-230
Kalok was founded by a former Seagate engineer, the same man who had been largely responsible for the ST-225. The company seemed to live on the edge of bankruptcy most of the time, and later morphed into JTS. Like all Kalok drives, the KL-230s had a dreadful reputation but we always found this model pretty good. We never saw new ones, only second-hand, so maybe all the duds had already expired by then.

Picture: A Kalok Octagon 330 — essentially an RLL certified 230 — with Western Digital 1002A-WX1 MFM XT controller. Western Digital had missed out on the biggie — the IBM contract for the XT, but they soon established themselves as the controller manufacturer of choice.

Performance 0.19 Reliability AA2
Data rate 5 Mbit/sec Spin rate 3600 RPM
Seek time 48ms Actuator Stepper
Platter capacity 10.5MB Interface MFM
AT drive type 2 or 6 Form 3.5" half-height
KL-230 21MB 4 thin-film heads
KL-330 30MB 4 thin-film heads

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Microscience HH-1050

2006-12-30T21:29:00.000-06:00

Microscience HH-1050

Microscience were a high-cost, small-volume maker of quality drives — back in the days when you didn't have to be a multinational giant to afford hard drive research and development. They made a range of beautifully crafted 5.25 inch voice-coil drives, all with a distinctive rippled top. The HH-1050 was the smallest and most common of them, and very fast for its day.

Notice the odd number of heads: voice-coil drives need to have positioning information encoded onto the drive itself, so that the heads can find the correct track. (Stepper drives just step in or out the required number of times and hope for the best.) Until the development of embedded servo technology in the early 1990's, all voice-coil drives had to sacrifice one complete surface for head positioning — you can't put data on the servo tracks. This meant that it was uneconomic to make small voice-coil drives — in a single-platter drive, you'd waste 50%, but in a big 8-platter drive, you only waste 12.5%. Notice that a few new drives still did this until about 1995.

Picture: Two MFM drives. The 5.25 inch Microscience HH-825 on the left was high-end class, almost equivalent to a Cheetah X15 today. The little 20MB Miniscribe 8425 was an early 3.5 inch stepper drive, still mass-market but a cut above the big old 3650s and ST-225s. This one was manufactured on 24th August 1989. The Microscience goes back to June 1987.

Performance	0.29	Reliability	AA1
Data rate	7.5 Mbit/sec	Spin rate	3600 RPM
Seek time	28ms	Actuator	Voice coil
Platter capacity	16.8MB	Interface	RLL
AT drive type	2	Form	3.5" half-height
HH-1050	42MB	5 thin-film heads	1987

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The 25 Worst Tech Products of All Time

2006-12-30T20:47:00.000-06:00

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21. Eyetop Wearable DVD Player (2004)
Some things just aren't meant to be done while walking or driving, and one of them is watching DVDs. Unfortunately, that message was lost on Eyetop.net, makers of the Eyetop Wearable DVD Player.

This system consisted of a standard portable DVD player attached to a pair of heavy-duty shades that had a tiny 320-by-240-pixel LCD embedded in the right eyepiece. You were supposed to carry the DVD player and battery pack in an over-the shoulder sling, put on the eyeglasses, and then... squint. Or maybe wear a patch on your left eye as you walked and watched at the same time.

Up close, the LCD was supposed to simulate a 14-inch screen. Unfortunately, the only thing the Eyetop stimulated was motion sickness.

22. Apple Pippin @World (1996)
Before Xbox, before PlayStation, before DreamCast, there was Apple's Pippin. Wha-huh? That's right--Apple had an Internet-capable game console that connected to your TV. But it ran on a weak PowerPC processor and came with a puny 14.4-kbps modem, so it was stupendously slow offline and online.

Then, too, it was based on the Mac OS, so almost no games were available for it. And it cost nearly $600--nearly twice as much as other, far more powerful game consoles. Underpowered, overpriced, and underutilized--that pretty much describes everything that came out of Apple in the mid-90s.

(Photo courtesy of The Mac Geek.com.)

23. Free PCs (1999)
In the late 90s, companies competed to dangle free PCs in front of you: All you had to do was sign up, and a PC would eventually show up at your door. But one way or another. there was always a catch: You had to sign up for a long-term ISP agreement, or tolerate an endless procession of Web ads, or surrender reams of personal information. Free-PC.com may have been the creepiest of them all. First you filled out an extensive questionnaire on your income, interests, racial and marital status, and more. Then you had to spend at least 10 hours a week on the PC and at least 1 hour surfing the Web using Free-PC's ISP.

In return you got a low-end Compaq Presario with roughly a third of the screen covered in ads. And while you watched the PC (and the ads), Free-PC watched you--recording where you surfed, what software you used, and who knows what else.

We can't say whether this would have led to some Big Brotherish nightmare, because within a year Free-PC.com merged with eMachines. By then, other vendors had similarly concluded that "free" computers just didn't pay.

24. DigiScents iSmell (2001)
Few products literally stink, but this one did--or at least it would have, had it progressed beyond the prototype stage.

In 2001, DigiScents unveiled the iSmell, a shark-fin-shaped gizmo that plugged into your PC's USB port and wafted appropriate scents as you surfed smell-enabled Web sites--say, perfume as you were browsing Chanel.com, or cheese doodles at Frito-Lay.com. But skeptical users turned up their noses at the idea, making the iSmell the ultimate in vaporware.

25. Sharp RD3D Notebook (2004)
As the first "autostereo" 3D notebook, Sharp's RD3D was supposed to display 3D images without requiring the use of funny glasses. But "auto-headache" was more like it, as the RD3D was painful to look at.

When you pressed the button to enable 3D mode, the notebook's performance slowed, and the 3D effect was noticeable only within a very narrow angle--and if you moved your head, it disappeared. Maybe the funny glasses weren't so bad after all.

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The 25 Worst Tech Products of All Time

2006-12-30T20:46:00.000-06:00

Numbers 16 to 20

16. Comet Systems Comet Cursor (1997)

Thank Comet Cursor for introducing spyware to an ungrateful nation. This simple program had one purpose: to change your mouse cursor into Bart Simpson, Dilbert, or one of thousands of other cutesy icons while you were visiting certain Web sites. But Comet had other habits that were not so cute.

For example, it assigned your computer a unique ID and phoned home whenever you visited a Comet-friendly Web site. When you visited certain sites, it could install itself into Internet Explorer without your knowledge or explicit consent. And it was bundled with RealPlayer 7 (yet another reason to loathe RealPlayer). Some versions would hijack IE's search assistant or cause the browser to crash.

Though Comet's founders insisted that the program was not spyware, thousands of users disagreed. Comet Systems was bought by pay-per-click ad company FindWhat in 2004; earlier this year, Comet's cursor software scurried down a mouse hole, never to be seen again.

Editor's note: After publication of this article, we heard from a founder of Comet Systems who took issue with our characterization of Comet Cursor's behavior. In response we have amended the description of how Comet Cursor got installed on PCs. See PC World's Techlog for more information.

17. Apple Macintosh Portable (1989)

Some buildings are portable, if you have access to a Freightliner. Stonehenge is a portable sun dial, if you have enough people on hand to get things rolling. And in 1989, Apple offered a "portable" Macintosh--a 4-inch-thick, 16-pound beast that severely strained the definition of "laptop"--and the aching backs of its porters.

Huge lead-acid batteries contributed to its weight and bulk; the batteries were especially important because Portable wouldn't run on AC power. Some computers are affordable, too; the Portable met that description only if you had $6500 of extra cash on hand.

18. IBM Deskstar 75GXP (2000)

Fast, big, and highly unreliable, this 75GB hard drive was quickly dubbed the "Deathstar" for its habit of suddenly failing and taking all of your data with it.

About a year after IBM released the Deskstar, users filed a class action suit, alleging that IBM had misled customers about its reliability. IBM denied all liability, but last June it agreed to pay $100 to Deskstar owners whose drives and data had departed their desks and gone on to a celestial reward. Well before that, IBM had washed its hands of the Deathstar, selling its hard drive division to Hitachi in 2002.

19. OQO Model 1 (2004)

The 14-ounce OQO Model 1 billed itself as the "world's smallest Windows XP computer"--and that was a big part of its problem. You needed a magnifying glass to read icons or text on its 5-by-3-inch screen, and the hide-away keypad was too tiny to accommodate even two adult fingers.

The Model 1 also ran hot to the touch, and at $1900+ it could easily burn a hole in your wallet. Good things often come in small packages, but not this time.

20. DigitalConvergence CueCat (2000)

Appearing at the tail end of the dot com craze, the CueCat was supposed to make it easier for magazine and newspaper readers to find advertisers' Web sites (because apparently it was too challenging to type www.pepsi.com into your browser).

The company behind the device, DigitalConvergence, mailed hundreds of thousands of these cat-shaped bar-code scanners to subscribers of magazines and newspapers. Readers were supposed to connect the device to a computer, install some software, scan the barcodes inside the ads, and be whiskered away to advertisers' websites. Another "benefit": The company used the device to gather personally identifiable information about its users.

The CueCat's maker was permanently declawed in 2001, but not before it may have accidentally exposed its user database to hackers.

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2006-12-30T20:44:00.000-06:00

11. Priceline Groceries and Gas (2000)

The name-your-price model worked for airline tickets, rental cars, and hotels--why not groceries and gas? Unfortunately, even Priceline spokescaptain William Shatner couldn't keep these services in orbit. Grocery shoppers could find real discounts bidding for products online, but only if they weren't picky about brands and were willing to follow Byzantine rules on what they could buy and how they paid for them.

Fuel customers had to pay for petrol online, wait for a Priceline gas card to arrive in the mail, and then find a local station that would honor it--a lot of hassle to save a few pennies per gallon. In less than a year, WebHouse Club, the Priceline affiliate that ran both programs, ran out of gas--and cash--and was forced to shut down.

12. PointCast Network (1996)

Back in the mid-90s, so-called "push" technology was all the rage. In place of surfing the Web for news and information, push apps like the PointCast Network would deliver customized information directly to your desktop--along with a healthy serving of ads. But push quickly turned into a drag, as PointCast's endless appetite for bandwidth overwhelmed dial-up connections and clogged corporate networks.

In addition, PointCast's proprietary screensaver/browser had a nasty habit of commandeering your computer and not giving it back. Companies began to ban the application from offices and cubicles, and push got shoved out the door. Ironically, the idea of push has made a comeback of sorts via low-bandwidth RSS feeds. But too late for PointCast, which sent out its last broadcast in early 2000.

13. IBM PCjr. (1984)

Talk about your bastard offspring. IBM's attempt to build an inexpensive computer for homes and schools was an orphan almost from the start. The infamous "Chiclet" keyboard on the PCjr. was virtually unusable for typing, and the computer couldn't run much of the software written for its hugely successful parent, the IBM PC.

A price tag nearly twice that of competing home systems from Commodore and Atari didn't improve the situation. Two years after Junior's splashy debut, IBM sent him to his room and never let him out again.

(Photo courtesy of the Oldskool Shrine to the IBM PCjr and Tandy 1000.)

14. Gateway 2000 10th Anniversary PC (1995)

After a decade as one of the computer industry's major PC builders, the folks at Gateway 2000 wanted to celebrate--not just by popping a few corks, but by offering a specially configured system to show some customer appreciation.

But instead of Cristal champagne, buyers got Boone's Farm--the so-called 6X CD-ROM spun at 4X or slower (a big performance hit in 1995), the video card was a crippled version of what people thought they were getting, and the surround-sound speakers weren't actually surround-capable. Perhaps Gateway was sticking to the traditional gift for a tenth anniversary: It's tin, not gold.

15. Iomega Zip Drive (1998)

Click-click-click. That was the sound of data dying on thousands of Iomega Zip drives. Though Iomega sold tens of millions of Zip and Jaz drives that worked flawlessly, thousands of the drives died mysteriously, issuing a clicking noise as the drive head became misaligned and clipped the edge of the removable media, rendering any data on that disc permanently inaccessible.

Iomega largely ignored the problem until angry customers filed a class action suit in 1998, which the company settled three years later by offering rebates on future products. And the Zip disk, once the floppy's heir apparent, has largely been eclipsed by thumb drives and cheaper, faster, more capacious rewritable CDs and DVDs.

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The 25 Worst Tech Products of All Time

2006-12-30T20:36:00.000-06:00

The 25 Worst Tech Products of All Time

These products are so bad, they belong in the high-tech hall of shame.

6. Disney The Lion King CD-ROM (1994)

Few products get accused of killing Christmas for thousands of kids, but that fate befell Disney's first CD-ROM for Windows. The problem: The game relied on Microsoft's new WinG graphics engine, and video card drivers had to be hand-tuned to work with it, says Alex St. John. He's currently CEO of game publisher WildTangent, but in the early 1990s he was Microsoft's first "game evangelist."

In late 1994, Compaq released a Presario whose video drivers hadn't been tested with WinG. When parents loaded the Lion King disc into their new Presarios on Christmas morning, many children got their first glimpse of the Blue Screen of Death. But this sad story has a happy ending. The WinG debacle led Microsoft to develop a more stable and powerful graphics engine called DirectX. And the team behind DirectX went on to build the Xbox--restoring holiday joy for a new generation of kids.

7. Microsoft Bob (1995)

No list of the worst of the worst would be complete without Windows' idiot cousin, Bob. Designed as a "social" interface for Windows 3.1, Bob featured a living room filled with clickable objects, and a series of cartoon "helpers" like Chaos the Cat and Scuzz the Rat that walked you through a small suite of applications. Fortunately, Bob was soon buried in the avalanche of hype surrounding Windows 95, though some of the cartoons lived on to annoy users of Microsoft Office and Windows XP (Clippy the animated paper clip, anyone?).

Mostly, Bob raised more questions than it answered. Like, had anyone at Microsoft actually used Bob? Did they think anyone else would? And did they deliberately make Bob's smiley face logo look like Bill Gates, or was that just an accident?

8. Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 (2001)

Full of features, easy to use, and a virtual engraved invitation to hackers and other digital delinquents, Internet Explorer 6.x might be the least secure software on the planet. How insecure? In June 2004, the U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team (CERT) took the unusual step of urging PC users to use a browser--any browser--other than IE. Their reason: IE users who visited the wrong Web site could end up infected with the Scob or Download.Ject keylogger, which could be used to steal their passwords and other personal information. Microsoft patched that hole, and the next one, and the one after that, and so on, ad infinitum.

To be fair, its ubiquity paints a big red target on it--less popular apps don't draw nearly as much fire from hackers and the like. But here's hoping that Internet Explorer 7 springs fewer leaks than its predecessor.

9. Pressplay and MusicNet 2002

Digital music is such a great idea that even record companies finally, begrudgingly accepted it after years of implacable opposition. In 2002, two online services backed by music industry giants proposed giving consumers a legitimate alternative to illegal file sharing. But the services' stunningly brain-dead features showed that the record companies still didn't get it.

PressPlay charged $15 per month for the right to listen to 500 low-quality audio streams, download 50 audio tracks, and burn 10 tracks to CD. It didn't sound like an awful deal, until you found out that not every song could be downloaded, and that you couldn't burn more than two tracks from the same artist. MusicNet cost $10 per month for 100 streamed songs and 100 downloads, but each downloaded audio file expired after only 30 days, and every time you renewed the song it counted against your allotment.

Neither service's paltry music selections could compete against the virtual feast available through illicit means. Several billion illegal downloads later, an outside company--Apple, with its iTunes Music Service--showed the record companies the right way to market digital music.

10. Ashton-Tate dBASE IV (1988)

In the early days of the PC, dBASE was synonymous with database. By the late 1980s, Ashton-Tate's flagship product owned nearly 70 percent of the PC database market. But dBASE IV changed all that. Impossibly slow and filled with more bugs than a rain forest, the $795 program was an unmitigated disaster.

Within a year of its release, Ashton-Tate's market share had plummeted to the low 40s. A patched-up version, dBASE IV 1.1, appeared two years later, but by then it was too late. In July 1991 the company merged with Borland, which eventually discontinued dBASE in favor of its own database products and sold the rights in 1999 to a new company, dataBased Intelligence, Inc.

The 25 Worst Tech Products of All Time

2006-12-30T20:35:00.000-06:00

The 25 Worst Tech Products of All Time

These products are so bad, they belong in the high-tech hall of shame

The Worst Five

1. America Online (1989-2006)

How do we loathe AOL? Let us count the ways. Since America Online emerged from the belly of a BBS called Quantum "PC-Link" in 1989, users have suffered through awful software, inaccessible dial-up numbers, rapacious marketing, in-your-face advertising, questionable billing practices, inexcusably poor customer service, and enough spam to last a lifetime. And all the while, AOL remained more expensive than its major competitors. This lethal combination earned the world's biggest ISP the top spot on our list of bottom feeders.

AOL succeeded initially by targeting newbies, using brute-force marketing techniques. In the 90s you couldn't open a magazine (PC World included) or your mailbox without an AOL disk falling out of it. This carpet-bombing technique yielded big numbers: At its peak, AOL claimed 34 million subscribers worldwide, though it never revealed how many were just using up their free hours.

Once AOL had you in its clutches, escaping was notoriously difficult. Several states sued the service, claiming that it continued to bill customers after they had requested cancellation of their subscriptions. In August 2005, AOL paid a $1.25 million fine to the state of New York and agreed to change its cancellation policies--but the agreement covered only people in New York.

Ultimately the Net itself--which AOL subscribers were finally able to access in 1995-- made the service's shortcomings painfully obvious. Prior to that, though AOL offered plenty of its own online content, it walled off the greater Internet. Once people realized what content was available elsewhere on the Net, they started wondering why they were paying AOL. And as America moved to broadband, many left their sluggish AOL accounts behind. AOL is now busy rebranding itself as a content provider, not an access service.

Though America Online has shown some improvement lately--with better browsers and e-mail tools, fewer obnoxious ads, scads of broadband content, and innovative features such as parental controls--it has never overcome the stigma of being the online service for people who don't know any better.

2. RealNetworks RealPlayer (1999)

In order for your browser to display the following paragraph this site must download new software; please wait. Sorry, the requested codec was not found. Please upgrade your system.

A frustrating inability to play media files--due in part to constantly changing file formats--was only part of Real's problem. RealPlayer also had a disturbing way of making itself a little too much at home on your PC--installing itself as the default media player, taking liberties with your Windows Registry, popping up annoying "messages" that were really just advertisements, and so on.

And some of RealNetworks' habits were even more troubling. For example, shortly after RealJukeBox appeared in 1999, security researcher Richard M. Smith discovered that the software was assigning a unique ID to each user and phoning home with the titles of media files played on it--while failing to disclose any of this in its privacy policy. Turns out that RealPlayer G2, which had been out since the previous year, also broadcast unique IDs. After a tsunami of bad publicity and a handful of lawsuits, Real issued a patch to prevent the software from tracking users' listening habits. But less than a year later, Real was in hot water again for tracking the habits of its RealDownload download-management software customers.

To be fair, RealNetworks deserves credit for offering a free media player and for hanging in there against Microsoft's relentless onslaught. We appreciate the fact that there's an alternative to Windows Media Player; we just wish it were a better one.

3. Syncronys SoftRAM (1995)

Back in 1995, when RAM cost $30 to $50 a megabyte and Windows 95 apps were demanding more and more of it, the idea of "doubling" your system memory by installing a $30 piece of software sounded mighty tempting. The 700,000 users who bought Syncronys's SoftRAM products certainly thought so. Unfortunately, that's not what they got.

It turns out that all SoftRAM really did was expand the size of Windows' hard disk cache--something a moderately savvy user could do without any extra software in about a minute. And even then, the performance boost was negligible. The FTC dubbed Syncronys's claims "false and misleading," and the company was eventually forced to pull the product from the market and issue refunds. After releasing a handful of other bad Windows utilities, the company filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy in 1999. It will not be missed.

4. Microsoft Windows Millennium (2000)

This might be the worst version of Windows ever released--or, at least, since the dark days of Windows 2.0. Windows Millennium Edition (aka Me, or the Mistake Edition) was Microsoft's follow-up to Windows 98 SE for home users. Shortly after Me appeared in late 2000, users reported problems installing it, getting it to run, getting it to work with other hardware or software, and getting it to stop running. Aside from that, Me worked great.

To its credit, Me introduced features later made popular by Windows XP, such as system restore. Unfortunately, it could also restore files you never wanted to see again, like viruses that you'd just deleted. Forget Y2K; this was the real millennium bug.

(Photo courtesy of Geek.com.)

5. Sony BMG Music CDs (2005)

When you stick a music CD into your computer, you shouldn't have to worry that it will turn your PC into a hacker's plaything. But that's exactly what Sony BMG Music Entertainment's music discs did in 2005. The discs' harebrained copy protection software installed a rootkit that made it invisible even to antispyware or antivirus software. Any moderately clever cyber attacker could then use the same rootkit to hide, say, a keylogger to capture your bank account information, or a remote-access Trojan to turn your PC into a zombie.

Security researcher Dan Kaminsky estimated that more than half a million machines were infected by the rootkit. After first downplaying the problem and then issuing a "fix" that made things worse, Sony BMG offered to refund users' money and replace the faulty discs. Since then, the record company has been sued up the wazoo; a federal court judge recently approved a settlement in the national class action suit. Making your machine totally vulnerable to attacks--isn't that Microsoft's job?

Early Predictions of Vintage Computer Game Platforms

2006-12-29T05:09:00.000-06:00

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Windows 95 Screenshot

2006-12-27T10:27:00.000-06:00

Windows 95 Commercial

2006-12-27T10:24:00.000-06:00

Windows 95 Commerical:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30BWTIoXwPk&eurl=

Vintage Pac Man 80's Video Game

2006-12-27T07:22:00.000-06:00

Vintage Computer Gaming Pac Man

2006-12-27T07:20:00.000-06:00

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2006-12-27T07:19:00.000-06:00

Vintage Computer Gaming Nintendo NES

2006-12-27T07:17:00.000-06:00

Vintage Computer Gaming Nintendo NES

Demand for Vintage video rises

2006-12-27T07:16:00.000-06:00

Demand for Vintage video rises
PlayStation, Xbox and Wii are hot commodities these days, but collectors are snapping up the arcade games from the 1970s and 1980s.
By John Reinan, Star Tribune
Marc Jensen is a geek's geek.
At 35, he has a master's degree in computer science and a job as director of technology for Space150, a Minneapolis digital-marketing firm. Jensen spends his days developing interactive computer programs for some of the world's largest businesses.
Then he goes home and plays the same video games he loved as a 7-year-old.
"I'm trying to slow down, because I only have so much space in my house," said Jensen, whose Golden Valley home displays eight full-size arcade machines, about 40 hand-held video games and more than a dozen computer-based home video game systems, all from the 1970s and '80s.
As the first generation that grew up on video games comes of age -- and into earning power -- vintage video games have become hot collectibles. A "Pac-Man" game in its original arcade cabinet that sold for $300 five years ago now commands as much as $1,500, and prices are continuing to rise.
The same is true for computer-based home systems, or "consoles," as they're known in the gaming world. Prices for vintage Atari and Nintendo consoles have doubled in the past three years, and some rare game cartridges, once available for a buck or two at garage sales, sell for more than $100.
These are the great-granddaddies of the video game world, products that fueled the growth of a $10 billion business. Compared with modern games, they're crude, slow and clunky. But they're also the entertainment equivalent of comfort food: easy, fun and full of warm childhood memories.
"Sometimes it's weird to look back and think, 'Am I that old, that what I played with as a kid is collectible?' But it is," said Joe Esposito, a 36-year-old Minneapolis social worker and video game collector.
Esposito has 10 consoles in his collection, including Intellivision, Colecovision and three generations of early Atari. He also has about 850 games, but it's getting harder to fill the gaps.
"It's very difficult to come across it in the wild, as they say in the collector realm," Esposito said. "There was a time when you could walk into any garage sale or thrift store and find boxes and boxes of this stuff. Now ... forget it."
The appeal of vintage games, Esposito and others said, is partly based on nostalgia. People like the games they played as kids.
But it's also a reaction to the complexity of modern video games, with their 3D graphics, high-definition video and steep learning curves. With modern games, a player can easily spend 40 or 50 hours playing and never reach an endpoint.
"I don't have time for the complicated games anymore," Esposito said. "If I'm going to play a video game, I just want to pop it in and invest 15 minutes. If I've got to read a 64-page instruction manual and manipulate a 15-button controller, I've got better things to do."
Jensen is an avid historian of video games and teaches a class on video game history at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design. His goal, he said, is to write the definitive academic book on video games.
"You can take any modern game and trace it back to the old games," he said. "Any game you see nowadays is generally an outgrowth of games created in the late '70s to mid-'80s."
That was the golden age of arcade games, when "Pac-Man" and "Space Invaders" sucked countless quarters from the pockets of American youths. Jensen loves the clean lines and crisp graphics of the classic arcade games, which faded in popularity as computer-based home systems took over.
"A lot of the old games have a depth to them that's not obvious," Jensen said. "We have "Joust" at work -- I've been playing it for four years, and I'm still figuring out new things about it."
Weddings with 'Ms. Pac-Man'
Todd Erickson, owner of Summit Amusements in St. Paul, sees another side of the vintage video game boom. The arcade games have become popular attractions at weddings, parties and corporate events, said Erickson, who has sold and rented pinball machines and video games for more than 30 years.
"I can bring a "Ms. Pac-Man" to a wedding, and everybody plays it," Erickson said. "Kids and adults, they all love it." There's also a trend toward home game rooms, he said, and people with game rooms need something to put in them.
In his cluttered showroom on University Avenue, Erickson maintains a sort of video game Hall of Fame. There's "Centipede,"Galaga" and "Lunar Lander."Space Invaders,"Asteroids" and "Missile Command." Few companies bother to make arcade video games anymore, Erickson said.
"They figured out that they can make more money selling millions of cartridges for the home unit than they can selling 5,000 [arcade] machines," he said.
Gamemakers are starting to ride the vintage wave. Versions of classic games are being produced for use on modern consoles made by Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo. That could further expand the appeal of video games, said Steven Brown, owner of Cedar Cliff Collectibles in Eagan.
"Today's games are produced for a very narrow segment of the gaming community: people who can spend 80 hours a week on it," said Brown, whose store sells vintage video games along with collectible toys, comic books and sports memorabilia.
Brown's shop sells about 30 Super Nintendo systems a month and has trouble keeping the 15-year-old consoles in stock. There's such a demand for game accessories, such as joysticks, that he's arranged to have them specially manufactured.
Customers tend to be between 25 and 45 years old, Brown said, and equally divided between men and women.
"There's so much more money to be made in vintage video games than in [regular] video games," Brown said. "I raised my prices significantly this year, without any guilt. And we still sell them."
John Reinan • 612-673-7402 • jreinan@startribune.com

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The Best Geek Quotes Change Subject

2006-12-26T07:13:00.000-06:00

The Best Geek Quotes Change Subject

The Best Recent Highlights Recently Added || Show All Show Only Famous

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Submitted by Anonymous Guest, 8/6/2002 11:25:55 AM [profile]

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There are 10 types of people in the world: those who understand binary, and those who don't.

- Unknown

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Submitted by sundayx, 9/15/2004 6:12:19 PM [profile]

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If at first you don't succeed; call it version 1.0

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Submitted by ziveeman, 9/1/2005 12:30:53 AM [profile]

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Microsoft: "You've got questions. We've got dancing paperclips."

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My pokemon bring all the nerds to the yard, and they're like you wanna trade cards? Darn right, I wanna trade cards, I'll trade this but not my charizard.

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Submitted by mgriff, 3/10/2005 10:22:31 PM [profile]

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1f u c4n r34d th1s u r34lly n33d t0 g37 l41d

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I'm not anti-social; I'm just not user friendly

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I would love to change the world, but they won't give me the source code

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Submitted by Alkdarf, 8/11/2004 10:42:13 AM [profile]

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Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning.

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A computer lets you make more mistakes faster than any invention in human history - with the possible exceptions of handguns and tequila.

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Submitted by Anonymous Guest, 9/9/2002 8:49:35 PM [profile]

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My software never has bugs. It just develops random features.

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World's Largest Floppy Disk Drive

2006-12-26T07:12:00.000-06:00

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World's Largest Floppy Disk Drive

2006-12-26T06:46:00.000-06:00

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World's Largest Floppy Disk Drive

2006-12-26T06:41:00.000-06:00

World's Largest Floppy Disk Drive

Engineers at Common Door, while working on the next version of the PIT computer, stumbled on a revolutionary principle. Cutting through the mathematical jargon and formulae, the breakthrough can be stated simply "that a bigger disk holds more data." The engineers then set out to find out if there is an upper limit to this principle. Computer simulations on the PIT computer indicated that disks would continue to hold more data as their size increased up to diameter of 32,767 millimeters but then the run abruptly blew up. Consequently, the engineers concluded that a physical prototype must be constructed. The photo shows the first prototype with a diameter of 32,768 millimeters (about 107 feet).

When revolving at the standard speed of 78 rpm, the outer edge travels at well over 55 mph. The California Highway Patrol picked this up in a radar trap but a liberal judge gave the engineers at Common Door the go-ahead "as long as you keep it off the road." Experiments with speeds of 30,000 rpm are now being conducted to see what happens when the outer edge exceeds the speed of light (and electrons). A Common Door spokesperson said, "At these speeds we expect some very high data transfer rates."

Common Door expects to release the consumer version of this product at the summer CES. In keeping with the high quality control and extensive testing of other PIT peripherals, Common Door would not promise delivery until "August 1980 at the very latest." Pricing was not announced.

From Creative Computing, April 1980.

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History of Video Gaming Video Clip:

2006-12-25T18:43:00.000-06:00

History of Video Gaming Video Clip:

http://contragears.com/?p=176

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2006-12-24T13:01:00.000-06:00

First Russian Mobile Phone

2006-12-24T12:57:00.000-06:00

Comments (5) 9:20 am

First Russian Mobile Phone

This is the photo of the first Soviet cellular phone. The development of such devices has started in 1958 as a cooperative project by the group of the Soviet scientists from different cities.

It was a fully functional mobile phone that was placed in the car of the Soviet elite. It had a full duplex link and in order to dial a phone one had just pick up the receiver and dial a number using this big square buttons with letters and digits on them. On the first models there were even old-style round dial.

n a common Soviet town the phone base station had only 16 radio channels, but it was enough to serve the local Communist elite with a mobile phone link.

There was used a 150 MHz frequency, so the antenna placed on the roof of a high building could give a coverage area of 40-50 miles.

The first devices were started in production in 1963, and till 1970 more than 30 Soviet cities were covered with this elite mobile phone network. As far as the author knows, in USA there was also such kind of mobile telephone system but it started a bit later – at 1969.

The system had even some modern day features as “conference-call”. And there was a hierarchy in using this system. People who hold higher Communist positions could throw of the line the lower posts when they needed to talk urgently but all the lines were busy. Some could call only local numbers and more advanced Communists could call worldwide.

In the late 70s there appeared a new, less monstrous model of the Soviet mobile phone. It could be conveniently placed between front passenger chairs in the car, not in the trunk as before.

The Soviet authorities even didn’t think about providing the service to common people. The mobile phone could give another level of freedom to its owner, and it was not what they expected from the citizens.

Video games may be beneficial to the brain, suggests McMaster researcher

2006-12-24T07:08:00.000-06:00

Video games may be beneficial to the brain, suggests McMaster researcher

Sat Dec 23, 1:08 PM

By Anne-Marie Tobin

TORONTO (CP) - Video games have been maligned by many as "a mindless activity," but playing them may be good for the brain, says a researcher who is conducting studies on the possible benefits.

The research, being done at McMaster University in Hamilton, involves hooking test subjects up for a brain scan while they are given tests of their working memory - otherwise known as short-term memory.

"We've looked at a series of tasks in which video gamers and non video gamers do these memory tasks," Jim Karle, a psychology graduate student who's running the experiments, said in an interview Thursday.

"And we've been trying to determine if there's any major differences between the two groups."

The work is in its early stages, and so far he's studied 30 men who play video games and 30 others who don't, all aged between 19 and 36. He didn't enrol women in the study, suggesting it would have been more difficult to find enough who play the sort of first-person shooters and action games that he was focusing on, including "Medal of Honor" and "Half Life 2."

The two groups that were tested didn't differ in their ability to maintain something in memory, such as a 10-digit telephone number.

The differences arose when the information was manipulated and the last four digits were changed to something else, Karle said. "That manipulation is difficult because you have to drop out old numbers and bring in new numbers," he said.

"And we find that video gamers are much more accurate at that task than non video gamers."

Video game players made about eight per cent fewer errors when performing a memory manipulation task, he said, and were about 45 milliseconds faster than non-video game players.

The findings have not been published or peer-reviewed, and Karle cautioned against coming up with a take-home message at this point.

"This is a very new project, and the findings are certainly tenuous, so I wouldn't run out and tell everyone to start playing video games consistently," said Karle, 29, who concedes that he's an avid gamer himself.

He also noted that the possible downsides of playing video games aren't known yet; some studies have looked at whether they're linked to aggression or violence.

Karle said his experiments were inspired by work he's heard about at the department of brain and cognitive sciences at the University of Rochester, where PhD student Shawn Green has conducted numerous studies of gamers.

Green wasn't aware of Karle's findings but said they sound "reasonable," although he was hesitant to comment on a study that hadn't been peer-reviewed, and noted that subject selection is an important component of video gamer studies.

"Something we have to do with all our papers is make sure the effect is actually due to the game training and not due to subject selection," he said from Rochester, N.Y.

"It's always perfectly possible that people who are good at a certain task will tend to migrate towards playing video games that require these tasks, and reward being good at the tasks. And the people who are naturally bad at them will tend to stay away."

Karle said he hasn't had a chance to fully analyze the brain activity of the two groups yet.

"Overall, there's definitely differences in the brain activity between the two groups," he said. "It seems in some instances that video gamers don't have to activate as many resources as non video gamers - which would make sense, if they're finding the task easier, they probably don't have to work quite as hard."

He suggested that somewhere down the road, video games might be tailored to help the elderly keep their minds sharp.

Cheryl Grady, senior scientist at the Rotman Research Institute at Baycrest in Toronto, said there are a variety of techniques to improve the memories of elderly persons.

"The big problem with this in the past has been getting it to generalize, from one thing to another," said Grady, a professor of psychiatry and psychology at the University of Toronto.

"So you can train them on one thing and make them better on that thing that you've trained them on. The question is can you train them more generally so that what you've done with them helps them in their daily lives."

2006-12-23T05:02:00.000-06:00

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Most Expensive Handheld Video Game System

2006-12-23T05:01:00.000-06:00

Most Expensive Handheld Video Game System

You might remember how in your younger days you had a Nintendo Gameboy. One of the kids in your class might have had a Sega Gamegear. These days, possibly depending on whether or not you have a social life, you might have a Sony PSP or a Nintendo DS. But did you know that since 1979 there have been 33 known handheld video game systems released throughout the world? Most of these haldheld games quickly faded into obscurity. So which of them is the most expensive handheld video game system in the world?

Some of these video game systems were very ambitious and way ahead of their time. Most of them were complete disasters, due to either poor marketing or other kinds of corporate ineptitude that lead to terrible design decisions. The three expensive handheld video game consoles we’ll be looking at today are the Gizmondo, the Tapwave Zodiac and the TurboExpress.

Released in October 2005 for $400 (without ads), the Gizmondo featured a 400MHz ARM9 processor, a GeForce 3D 4500 GPU and a GPS module for in-car navigation. Between January and September of 2005, Tiger Telematics, the company responsible for this abortion, reported a loss of $210 million USD. Soon afterwards Gizmondo declared bankruptcy and a controversy about Steffan Eriksson, a Gizmondo exec with connection to the Swedish mafia, soon errupted after he crashed his Ferrari Enzo. Only 8 crappy games were ever released for it.

The Tapwave Zodiac, costing $400 (depending on config), was released in time for the 2003 holiday shopping season. It was a Palm OS 5 based PDA created by the Tapwave company. It featured a 200MHz ARM9 processor and an ATI Imageon W4200 GPU. A lot of Palm OS compatible games could run on it, but it’s not clear how many games were released specifically for it, because Tapwave went bankrupt in July 2005, and because nobody cares.

Having the honor of being the most expensive handheld video game ever made, the NEC TurboExpress, the Rolls Royce of handheld systems, was released in 1990. It was the portable version of the TurboGrafx-16 and cost $249 at launch. Its price was briefly raised to $299, which adjusted for inflation is $446 in todays dollars. It featured 6820 CPU which ran at 3.58 or 7.16 MHz and had a 512 color palette. It could also be connected to a TV. The TurboExpress was never able to catch on with gamers due to bad marketing and the price of the expensive game system.

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Vintage Computer Gaming Platform : Atari 5200

2006-12-23T04:59:00.000-06:00

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Dreamcast Shenmue.: Most Expensive Vintage Video Game

2006-12-23T04:48:00.000-06:00

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Most Expensive Vintage Video Game : Dreamcast Fornat Shenmue.

2006-12-23T04:42:00.000-06:00

Most Expensive Video Game

Doom was a revolutionary first person shooter, released in 1993 to worldwide acclaim. Only 11 people are credited for this game, which took only a year to develop from start to finish. It’s not clear how big the development budget was, but it was typical for most games of that time to have a budgets around $200,000.

Today the production of a video game can cost upwards of tens of millions of dollars and sometimes takes over 5 years to develop. Releasing an A-list title is a massive business undertaking, employing many hundreds of people. An incredible amount of risk is involved in releasing a title. Big name publishers lean towards releasing sequels and safer titles that appeal to a broader audience.

Sometimes an ambitious game developer will completely overrun its budget and development time. Sometimes this results in an epic title that breaks all the rules set before it. More often than not, it results in poor reviews, poor sales and a generally crappy video game. By now you might be wondering, what is the most expensive video game ever made? It’s a Sega Dreamcast game called Shenmue. Released in 1999, the project cost over $20 million and took over 7 years to complete. It was produced and directed by Yu Suzuki for the Sega-AM2 (Sega Amusement Machine Research and Development Department 2).

Shenmue boasted unparalled freedom and interactivity, even a real time weather system. But this wasn’t enough to impress, the most expensive video game received mixed reviews and experienced mediocre sales. Nonetheless, the expensive game inspired a massive fan base that remains active to this day.

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7 Computer Mice You Cannot Buy at Any Price

2006-12-21T20:26:00.000-06:00

7 Computer Mice You Can’t Buy

Our editors have compiled a list of seven computer mice you can’t buy, or at least anytime soon. If we happened to miss any, please leave us a comment. “Continue reading” for the list.

The Minty Optical Mouse

To make your own “Minty Mouse”, you’ll need one Altoids tin, an optical mouse, dremel tools, epoxy glue, a mini-hack saw, and around 4 hours of free time.

[Source]

Glove Mouse

A group of college students — Brian Eng, Andy Homar, Matteo Mannino, and Saad Sam — designed and created this nifty PowerGlove-like mouse for Purdue ECE477.

This is not merely a hack job like other glove mice found on youtube that simply use an off the shelf gyration mouse. Custom PCB’s for the base station and glove module were designed by us and fabricated. Everything was built from the ground up

LCD Mouse

Modder Jani ‘Japala’ Pönkkö added an LCD display (Nokia 6610) into a Logitech G5 laser mouse. Full instructions here.

The controller requires adding three more wires to the mouse. These are connected to a parallel port. The screen can only show about 1 frame per second, but that is fast enough for general statistics or showing photos. It’s a really clean build. A clever trick was using a piece of plastic from the blister pack to cover the screen since it was already the same shape as the mouse

[Source]

Nokia 6230i Bluetooth Mouse

Pyrofer’s nifty “Nokia 6230i Bluetooth Mouse” functions as both a computer input device and cell phone.

After giving up on the idea of a proper mouse HID I used the bluetooth to just link the phone as normal and send the data over the Nokia driver to a special driver on the PC again, this isnt as convenient as the original plan as it needs software on the PC as well as the phone

[Source]

Stone Mouse

File this under: “Strange Computer Mice” A Russian designer has created the world’s first functional computer mouse made of stone.

…looks like the stone parts are polished/cut and glued to the mouse. The beige scroll wheel and cable ruin the appeal slightly…

[Source 1 - 2]

Soap - The Mid-Air Mouse

Soap puts a new twist on tradional optical mice by adding mid-air functionality. This technology is “based on hardware found in a mouse” and “consists of an optical sensor device moving freely inside a hull made of fabric.”

As the user applies pressure from the outside, the optical sensor moves independent from the hull. The optical sensor perceives this relative motion and reports it as position input. Soap offers many of the benefits of optical mice, such as high-accuracy sensing

3D Wireless Mouse

Students at UC Santa Cruz have developed “FRE3SPACE“, a wireless mouse “that could operate in three dimensions.”

In other words, while holding the mouse in the air you could move your arm left or right, up and down, towards and away, in relation to your computer. Our system would detect the 3D position of the mouse and give this information to the PC to be used by other applications

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Wooden Vintage Computer Models

2006-12-21T20:05:00.000-06:00

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lost Super Mario Brothers gam

2006-12-19T13:29:00.000-06:00

To get the new-look WoS off to an especially tremendous start, we've got something a little special for you. This week, your intrepid reporter discovered a piece of gaming history whose existence has until now escaped even the most supposedly definitive of books and web archives - a lost Super Mario Brothers game. Called "Super Mario Brothers Special", the game ran on the obscure Japanese PC-8001 computer, and was created in 1986 by veteran developers Hudson Soft. Looking and sounding very much like the arcade/NES original, SMB Special has two major differences to its parent.

Firstly, it contains a complete new set of levels, different from both the first game and the Japan-only "Super Mario Bros 2" which later appeared on the SNES Mario Allstars compilation. And secondly, rather than having a scrolling display in the manner of the other Mario games, SMBS features a flick-screen format which changes the gameplay significantly. (For example, a kicked Koopa shell will now rebound off the edge of the screen and come back at you whether there's an obstacle there or not.)

Despite these changes, and the primitive hardware the game was running on, SMB Special is an entertaining game, significantly harder than the original and a challenge even in comparison to the Japanese SMB2. But hey, don't take my word for it.

This file contains everything you need to play SMB Special - the PC88Win emulator, the system ROMs, and the disk image itself. Simply unzip the file contents to a folder, load up the disk in drive 1, select "N Mode" from the "Options" menu and then reset the emulator. The game should auto-run from there. (Controls are numeric pad to move, Z and X the fire buttons. You can use normal cursor keys by switchng Num Lock off.) Enjoy, before Nintendo's lawyers have us all killed.

http://worldofstuart.excellentcontent.com/special.htm
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Ten Worst Video Games of All Time

2006-12-18T07:44:00.000-06:00

The 10 Worst Games of All Time

Pac-Man without the pizzazz. An evil-smashing basketball player. Sex and violence in all the wrong places. And our number one worst game ever. You call this entertainment?

By Emru Townsend, PC World

It's rare that a top-ten list--or more precisely, a bottom-ten list--leads to philosophical questions. But that's exactly what happened when my editor asked me to write about the worst video games ever. As I started to think about particularly atrocious games I'd played over the past quarter-century or so, I realized that each one was bad for an entirely different set of reasons.

So what, precisely, makes a game terrible? To help answer that vital question, I turned to the game fans at PC World, as well as to my family and friends, and even a few enemies. They responded with multiple answers, as well as scads of nominees for our list of the all-time worst.

Some titles had rotten game play. Some were a waste of considerable potential. Others led you to question the very reason for their existence, or at least what their creators were smoking. The worst of the worst managed to fit into two or more of these categories.

After sifting through the nominees and reliving memories of games that I'd long since suppressed [Note to my editor: Please see the therapy bills attached to my expense report], I came up with ten clunkers that span the range of different kinds of bad, plus an additional seven dishonorable mentions. The list includes games from 1976 straight through to the modern era--no platform, it seems, is immune to crumminess. (Keep that in mind when you drop a few hundred bucks on an Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, or Wii.)

I ranked the ten worst games using a complex, highly scientific series of factors, looking for lousy playability, crude aesthetics, executive or developer cluelessness, half-baked concepts, and overall negative impact on humanity; I also considered how many unprintable comments I received about a particular title. Hold your nose: Here comes the number one stinker.

The Worst Game of All Time

1. E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial (Atari, 1982)
Platform: Atari 2600

About a third of the people I quizzed came up with this title almost instantly, and it's not hard to see why. No matter how you rate it, E.T. was a misbegotten product that deserved to be buried. (And, as things turned out, it was. More on that in a minute.)

How, you may wonder, does someone screw up the one-two punch of the year's most popular movie and the number one video game console? Through a combination of poor planning and unbridled optimism. Warner Communications, then Atari's parent company, sealed the deal to make a video game adaptation of the blockbuster movie in the summer of 1982, aiming to have the cartridge out for the Christmas shopping season. (Remember the TV ad, with E.T. in a Santa outfit? No? You can refresh your memory.) The result was a severely compressed development schedule, giving programmer Howard Scott Warshaw a mere five weeks to pull the game together.

Then corporate hubris entered the mix: With the expectation of runaway sales, Atari produced 4 million cartridges.

Unfortunately for Atari--and the collective psyche of anyone who ended up buying the cartridge--the rushed development was apparent on the screen. Everyone I spoke to who singled out particular gripes mentioned the pits that the player, as E.T., fell into and would then have to slowly levitate out of, which led to horrendously monotonous game play. None of the qualitative comments I received about the game are printable, except for one: "Famously bad."

Atari's big gamble didn't pay off. Less than 40 percent of the cartridges sold, one of the major financial blows that resulted in Atari's bankruptcy in 1984.

Amazingly, E.T.'s story doesn't end there. In 1983, faced with literally millions of unsold and returned E.T. games added to its already sizeable inventory of unusable cartridges, Atari opted for an environmentally unfriendly (some would say downright hostile) solution: The company dumped them into a city landfill in Alamogordo, New Mexico, where they were crushed, buried, and later covered in a layer of cement. The incident was reported in the New York Times and prompted protests and legislation from city officials

2. Super Columbine Massacre RPG (Danny Ledonne, 2005)
Platform: Windows

Do violent video games inspire horrific, violent acts in the real world? No one really knows for sure. Do horrific, violent acts in the real world inspire violent video games? Absolutely.

One of the most recent, Super Columbine Massacre RPG (or SCMRPG), re-created Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold's 1999 massacre at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, from the perspective of the two disturbed teenagers. Deriving the game's content largely from video footage of the events, the pair's diaries, and quotes from various media figures, creator Danny Ledonne strove for a certain level of verisimilitude--though the part of the game where Harris and Klebold find themselves embarking on further adventures in Hell after their suicides is, presumably, conjecture.

Like the developers of JFK Reloaded, another re-creation of a historic murder, the creator of SCMRPG claimed lofty aims. On his Web site--whose illegible look (blue and red text on a black background) is some sort of crime against good design itself--Ledonne says the game "asks more of its audience than rudimentary button-pushing and map navigation; it implores introspection." The site also links to press coverage of the game (typical example: the Denver Post's "Columbine Game Makes Us Ill") and a forum for discussion of the game and the actual shootings.

Whether Ledonne's site has any constructive value whatsoever is still up in the air. But as a game, Super Columbine Massacre RPG is appalling.

3. Custer's Revenge (Mystique, 1982)
Platform: Atari 2600

I can just imagine what they were thinking over at game company Mystique: Create an adults-only game under a well-known porn brand (Swedish Erotica) for a platform known for family-friendly titles (Atari 2600). Sex, novelty, and, hopefully, a touch of scandal should make for runaway success, right?

Well, no--not if one of your releases is Custer's Revenge, starring a mostly naked General Custer (he wore boots and a hat) and a mostly naked Native American woman (she wore a feathered headband), who is tied to a post. Your job was to guide Custer through a hail of arrows and a field of cacti to reach the woman and engage in the type of behavior one expects in a Swedish Erotica production.

Not only was game play unnecessarily difficult and the objective questionable on multiple levels, but the game's crude graphics gave the impression that your Lego collection was getting freaky.

In recent years, some games (most notably, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas) have pushed the raciness envelope further than most people could have imagined 24 years ago. That may or may not be a good thing, but at least the graphics and game mechanics have gotten a heck of a lot better.

9. Prince of Persia: Warrior Within (Ubisoft, 2004)
Platforms: PlayStation 2, Xbox, GameCube, Windows, cell phone, PlayStation Portable (as Prince of Persia: Revelations)

Ever since the first Prince of Persia in 1989, players had been won over by the various games' charm, story, and design (not to mention the Prince's personal charm). However, by 2003's Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, sales of the venerable series were starting to slip.

In an effort to increase the next game's appeal, Ubisoft opted for a tried-and-true formula and ramped up the violence, sex, and noise. The newer, edgier Prince was aggressive and obnoxious; the level of gore was increased; female characters were eroticized and wore less; and the soundtrack, originally based on Persian music, was largely replaced with hard rock. In short, Prince of Persia went "extreme." As one friend put it, "Warrior Within took everything that Sands of Time did right and threw it out the window."

Warrior Within did sell well, though the revamped combat system may have had something to do with it. However, that success came at a cost: Ubisoft alienated many of the people who had made Prince of Persia so popular in the first place.

10. Elf Bowling (NStorm, 2005)
Platform: Nintendo DS

Remember when, during the waning months of 1999, a company named NStorm released a free Windows game called Elf Bowling? Sure, you do. Productivity ground to a halt all across the continent as people played "just one more game" in which Santa Claus dealt with a labor dispute by using his minions as bowling pins. Remember passing it along to your friends, contributing to the e-mail slowdown at your workplace? Sure, you do. (You can admit it now; the statute of limitations for server blockage is up.)

Now tell the truth: Do you remember ever bothering to play the game after the first week you tried it, or even the first day? You probably don't, because Elf Bowling gets old pretty darned fast. (Don't believe me? try it yourself for a quick reminder.)

Most games fade after a while, but 24 hours has to be some kind of record. So why, exactly, would anyone expect people to pay for a DS version of the game, six years after the elf-athletics craze had come and gone?

Seven Runners-Up for the Game Hall of Shame
Lackluster. Tasteless. Just plain odd. These games didn't make the final cut for our worst-ten list. But we can't let them go by without comment--even though some leave us almost speechless. Here are they are, in chronological order.

Death Race (1976)
Inspired by the film Death Race 2000, this early arcade game had a simple objective: Run over as many people as possible, and try to inure yourself to their dying screams. Your biggest problem? Trying to avoid the tombstones that appeared in your victims' place. A similar game called Speed Racer (no relation to the cartoon) appeared on the Commodore 64 in 1983, but there you had the choice of hitting people for "devil points," or avoiding them for "angel points."

Microsoft Bob GeoSafari (1995)
Bob, the legendarily annoying software package that PC World named the seventh-worst product of all time, featured this "educational" game. Its smarmy elephant host, clunky graphics, and irritating sound effects left you wishing that Microsoft had stuck to Flight Simulator.

Daryl F. Gates Police Quest: SWAT (1995)
This full-motion-video title from the blessedly brief mid-1990s era of "interactive movie" gaming featured a questionable namesake (the Los Angeles police chief who was forced to resign after the city's 1992 riots) and repetitive, tedious game play. Like most multimedia games of the time, it flopped.

Postal (1997)
Extremely violent even by the standard of extremely violent gaming, this mass-murder title had players blowing away ... well, just about every innocent person in town, including the high school marching band. You can't really blame the U.S. Postal Service for (unsuccessfully) suing the game's producers for copyright infringement. Or Australia and New Zealand for outlawing the game's sequel.

Deer Hunter (1997)
Give Deer Hunter its due--unlike Postal, at least it didn't involve gunning down innocent human beings. But the popular hunting game, which spawned numerous sequels and imitators, basically puts you in the role of the guy who ruined Bambi's life.

The Typing of the Dead (2000)
Think of this instructional title as Mavis Beacon, except with carnage. You have to question what possessed Sega to create a game in which you had to type words accurately in order to fight off a ravening zombie horde. Maybe the "Type or Die" subtitle was too good to pass up.

The Howard Dean for Iowa Game (2003)
Back when Howard Dean's presidential campaign was making use of the Internet like no politico ever had, this Web-based Flash game sought to teach "Deaniacs" about grass-roots campaigning tactics by letting them "strategically place campaigners on a virtual map," "wave your Dean sign to get the word out," and "canvas door-to-door to influence caucus goers." (At least the Iowa citizens you pestered were virtual, not real.) Ahead of its time? Um, maybe. But along with the Dean campaign itself, the game went out not with a whisper, but a scream.

4. Daikatana (Eidos Interactive, 2000)
Platforms: Windows, Nintendo 64, GameCube

Sometimes ambitious projects are badly underplanned. I get that. And sometimes you end up with a little release-date slippage. I get that too. And sometimes the end result isn't quite what was expected. I definitely get that.

But in several respects, Daikatana set a new standard for gaming misfires. Legendary developer John Romero planned to top his earlier work on Doom and Quake by creating a first-person shooter with unprecedented game play and design.

When work started in 1997, Romero expected the 24-level game, featuring a time-traveling storyline, to be done in about seven months. Those seven months became three years, with the most notable delay being the mid-production switch to a different game engine.

Little of that would have mattered if the game was any fun. Many of the people I spoke to listed this game as one of their personal worsts without hesitation, citing its stunning mediocrity.

Some were also dismayed at the stereotypical nature of the characters, including that of an African-American man named Superfly Johnson. (One of the game designers defended Superfly in a 2002 Salon article.)

Considering the string of unimpressive demos released at various stages of production, maybe the end result shouldn't have been surprising. And considering the $25 million spent on development in the first two years ... well, let's just say that no one got what they paid for.

5. Pac-Man (Atari, 1981)
Platform: Atari 2600

Worst. Port. Ever.

When I was growing up in Montreal in the early 1980s, getting Atari games was something of a challenge--they simply weren't as readily available as in the United States, and the ones that did make it up here usually arrived at a later date. But I wanted--no, I needed to have the highly anticipated home version of Pac-Man, the hottest arcade game of its era. So on the Saturday after it came out, my family got into the car and drove 2 hours across the border to Vermont.

When we returned home, my best friend and fellow Atari disciple came over to witness the unveiling--and we were greeted by several degrees of awfulness. Nothing about this game looked, sounded, or felt the same as the arcade version; even Pac-Man himself wasn't his usual pie-with-a-slice-missing shape, and his trademark "wakka wakka wakka" had become a grating "bonk bonk bonk." The ghosts shimmered in and out of existence (like, er, ghosts), owing to the 2600's limited graphics capabilities. What should have been little white power pellets looked like stale Twinkies.

I went on to master the game because I owned it and therefore felt an obligation to do so, but I felt unclean every time I started it up. (The following year Atari released a vastly better home version of Pac-Man for the Atari 400 and 800 computer systems, but it still didn't make up for the company's earlier travesty.)

The 1981 Pac-Man gets a few more points on our badness scale for company arrogance: It seems that Atari figured that the mere thought of having Pac-Man at home would motivate people to buy consoles, as 12 million cartridges were manufactured--even though only around 10 million Atari 2600 consoles existed.

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Peter Coffee's 25 Killer Apps of All Time Ziff

2006-12-17T20:15:00.000-06:00

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Peter Coffee's 25 Killer Apps of All Time

Slide Title: 1984: MultiMate

For companies wedded to their Wang word processors, the appearance of a work-alike for PCs finally made those less costly and more flexible machines an option.

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The Eight Ways The Tech Industry Tries To Screw Us — And How To Avoid Them

2006-12-13T17:03:00.000-06:00

The Eight Ways The Tech Industry Tries To Screw Us — And How To Avoid Them

December 13 Seth Porges

It may come as a shock to some people that tech companies are corporations–charged first and foremost with making money. Still, it sometimes seems like it wouldn’t hurt Big Tech to treat us just a little bit better. Here are some of the ways companies try to screw you… and how a savvy customer can avoid them.

1.Draconian Contracts:
The Problem: You too can get a “color cameraphone” for free! All you have to do is sign away the next two years of your life to unresponsive customer service and dropped calls. And when your shoddy phone inevitably breaks, you better believe they’ll nail you down for another two years when you walk in that store to get a replacement. And then you have to pay for an “upgrade” to the latest and greatest phone — which is just like your old one.

The Solution: First stop: Celltradeusa or CellSwapper. You can pawn your unwanted contract off to someone who it might be a better fit for. Or just buy an unlocked cell phone. Companies like Samsung and Nokia now sell them directly to consumers. It’ll cost you more without the carrier subsidy that keeps most phones cheap, but it’s a small price to pay to not be somebody’s bitch for the next 24 months. And a bonus: For unlocked phones like the Black Carbon, Samsung provides customer service so you don’t have to deal with your carrier when things go bad.

Worst Offender: Umm… Cell phone carriers everywhere?

2. DRM

The Problem: You get the privilege of paying a licensing fee for a crippled version of “Who Let The Dogs Out” that won’t even play on an off-brand MP3 player.

The Solution: Get music from DRM-free download sites like emusic.com. And if you rip your own CDs into iTunes, make sure you change the default setting from Apple’s proprietary AAC format to the uber-flexible MP3. Somebody also told me about something called BitTorrent. You might want to Google it.

Worst offenders: Apple, Microsoft, Sony (rootkit, anybody?)

3. Feature Crippling
The Problem: You’ve got a Bluetooth phone, but your service provider decided they don’t want you to use it as a modem. In fact, there’s a good chance your phone’s Bluetooth is disabled for everything except wireless headsets.

The Solution: Research your fave phone before you sign up for a service provider or lay down cash for a phone is the only real option. Visit PhoneScoop for full phone specs and look for features like DUN, Dial-up Networking, if you want to use your phone as a modem.

Worst Offender: Verizon is pretty notorious for this everybody has done it

4. Unfriendly Customer Service
The Problem: You wait on hold 20 minutes, only to find they can’t help you because you don’t have four different serial numbers in front of you.

The Solution: Check out GetHuman for the direct line to a human voice. And for the best service, get the cancellation department on the phone (see #6).

5. Format Wars
The Problem: The inability of a few companies to get along could turn your next-gen DVD player (not to mention your brand new copy of Little Man) into a very expensive Betamax.

The Solution: This one’s easy — sit it out. The movies on HBO HD are better than anything that’s been thrown on either Blu-ray or HD-DVD yet. Or just get a cheap upscaling DVD player and max out your Netflix subscription. Expect a Blu-Ray/HD-DVD hybrid player in the next year or so and then wait another year for the price to come down to non-millionaire levels.

Worst Offenders: Sony, Toshiba

6. Companies Suing Their Customers
The Problem: Nothing says “We appreciate your business” like a subpeona. Seriously though, when you’re suing old ladies and 12-year-old girls for downloading Fergie songs, you’ve got issues.

The Solution: Use your neighbor’s Wi-Fi — the RIAA will come knocking on their door! When you download those tracks you already own, make sure you’re not using a six-year-old version of Kazaa. Use something like Azereus. We have no idea what it is, but it seems like a good product.

Worst Offender: RIAA

7. Overzealous Retention
The Problem: CrunchGear readers are probably familiar with the case of Vincent Ferrari — the man with the AOL account that he didn’t know he needed. His recording says it far better than I ever could.

The Solution: Take advantage of the hard sell. In the name of keeping up accounts, cancellation departments have enormous power to chop zeros off your monthly rates, add on bonus features, and generally give you better bang for your buck. Don’t dilly-dally with the customer service line—threaten to cancel the second you get someone on the phone and they’ll do your bidding.

Worst Offender: AOL

8. Pushing Extended Warranties and Protection Plans
The Problem: Most shelf-fillers give big box stores razor-thin profit margins. It’s add-on waranties and protection plans (the modern equivalent of rustproofing) that really pay for corporate bonuses. Of course they’re usually a rip-off.

The Solution: Just Say No. Even better — stick it to them and only buy their loss-leaders — those advertised items they sell for a loss to get you in the door. Anything that costs less than it does online is a loss leader.

Worst Offender: Best Buy

The 10 Gadgets That Changed the World

2006-12-12T23:08:00.000-06:00

December 11, 2006

1. RCA Model 630TS TV (1946)

When soldiers returned home from World War II, they could finally kick back and watch TV. More often than not, they flipped on this set, which sold for a cool $350 –- that’s $3,600 in today’s dollars. With a 10-inch black-and-white screen and enormous speakers packed into a fine wooden cabinet that weighed almost 100 pounds, the Model T of televisions was the first mass-produced postwar boob tube. The set could receive a dozen broadcast channels, including the ill-fated Channel 1, and was considered the standard until 1954, when RCA's 12-inch color set took center stage. It was the golden age of television: Dragnet, Alfred Hitchcock Presents and I Love Lucy were all on the air, and TV became the center of the family room.

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Best Video Game Collection Ever

2006-12-12T22:29:00.000-06:00

Greatest Video Game Collection Ever

Now that’s what I call a video game collection. This person probably owns every game, console, and accessory in existence. Lots more pics after the jump.

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Good Use for Old Vintage Computers ?

2006-12-11T14:32:00.000-06:00

Mauritian Sunset
January 2006

"Mauritian Sunset" was made for the 'Great Artspectations' exhibition at The Embassy Gallery in Edinburgh. A relatively small gallery, and another 2 artists to share the space with, meant that the work had to be as self contained as possible. As the gallery also had large windows, letting in light which could ruin the soft lighting effects of the work, the wall had to be as 'perfect' and light-proof as possible.

The resulting wall stretched accross the centre of the main room of the gallery, wall to wall and floor to ceiling, the rear of the computers facing the windows onto the street. A small doorway was built into the wall, only five and a half foot tall, and two foot wide. The monitors facing forwards showed flat colour, working over the wall to create a rough gradient representation of a classic sunset.

Click on a thumbnail below to see a large version of the photograph.

Thanks to The Glasgow School of Art for donating the computers used to create this piece.

Press Reviews

The List, Feb 2006

Metro, 31st Jan 2006

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Ten Worst Computer Video Game Platform Names

2006-12-09T16:31:00.000-06:00

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Wii Are Family: The 10 Weirdest Game Console Names

2006-12-09T16:27:00.000-06:00

by Sid Shuman

Wii Are Family: The 10 Weirdest Game Console Names

10. Nintendo Wii

"While the code-name "Revolution" expressed our direction, Wii represents the answer....it's really not about you or me. It's about Wii." -- Nintendo.com

We don't think Nintendo Wii is a truly terrible console name, but it's an uncharacteristically risky choice, even for Nintendo. We admire its simplicity and its playfulness (the two i's represent multiplayer action, you see). But on the flip side, parents will have a hard time pronouncing it ("Nintendo...why?") and hardcore gamers will slam it because, well, they're jerk asses. On the other hand, The Big N is often at its best when it pushes boundaries, so maybe this wasn't such a bad name after all. Good luck convincing the fanboys, though.

9. Dreamcast

Sega's got a history of creating inspired console names: Sega Master System, Sega Saturn, and particularly, Sega Genesis sounded effortlessly sleek and powerful. But starting with the much-maligned expansion system 32X (aka "32 Why?"), Sega's fortunes sunk. Dreamcast sounds like the kind of overambitious, high-concept brand an undergraduate marketing major would conjure up the morning after a Saturday night bender.

And don't get us started on that Cinnabon swirl. Ugh.

8. GameCube

When it comes to naming video game systems, Nintendo runs hot and cold. Usually, simplicity is the best course -- "Game Boy" and "Nintendo 64" were smart, smart choices. But Nintendo's quirky side sometimes gets the best of it, leading to odd names like "GameCube." The name itself sounds harmless enough, but is much too generic to really convey anything at all. Worse, its passing similarity to the similarly square-named Xbox was bound to cause at least a little confusion. At least it was an improvement over the GameCube codename, "Dolphin."

7. CDi

Phillip's first (and last) foray into the video game market brought pain and suffering for the electronics manufacturer. But as bad as the games were, the name was even worse -- bland, lifeless, and forgettable, just like the console. There's just something about the name "CDi" that makes us assume that the system is designed to play those free DVDs that come inside corn flakes boxes.

6. N-Gage

Definitely a god-awful console name, even when you consider that most handheld systems already have terrible names (see Game Gear, Wonder Swan). Its similarity to the word "engage" suggests that Nokia wanted to highlight the system's wireless multiplayer functions. Too bad there are no decent games to take advantage of that feature!

5. Xbox 360

Microsoft didn't listen to the prevailing wisdom when it gave its first console the clunky sounding name "Xbox." But in designing the second Xbox system, Microsoft was worried that the name "Xbox 2" would look inferior next to "PlayStation 3" on a Wal-Mart shelf. The solution? Second guess Sony's PS 3 plans by tacking on an impressive-sounding, but utterly meaningless, number. The Xbox 360 was born.

When the final name was announced behind closed doors, we'll never forget J Allard explaining how the name 360 was chosen because, and we're paraphrasing, fun things move in circles (CDs, DVDs, merry-go-rounds). Yeah...that's the ticket.

4. Virtual Boy

Nintendo's first follow-up to the smash hit Game Boy was a victim of poor planning all around. A tripod-mounted gaming system? Ugly, red, monochrome graphics? Headache-inducing 3D effects? But the kicker was the name. Read one way, it sounds like a successor to the monster-hit Game Boy. Read another, it sounds like a euphemism for an imaginary friend. Either way, we weren't buying.

3. ColecoVision

Great system. Terrible name. The ColecoVision was manufactured by a company named Coleco, which stands for the Connecticut Leather Company. Yeah, we know what you're thinking -- not exactly the most elegant name for an electronics company. We couldn't agree more. Coleco agreed, too, and mostly manufactured leather goods and wading pools before going out of business in 1989.

2. 3DO Interactive Multiplayer

Stereo. Video. And now, 3DO. That was Trip Hawkins ambitious vision, a world in which 3D gaming was as pervasive and accessible as the TVs and radios down at the local Wal-Mart. Unfortunately, this dream soon turned into a nightmare -- the 3DO "Interactive Multiplayer" bombed, and bombed hard. Consumers were confused by the name -- it's pronounced "three-dee-oh," not "three-dee-zero." Even after moving to game development, 3DO never recovered.

1. Gizmondo

Well, they tried. We're guessing that Tiger Telematics' naming strategy was twofold: first, to convince gamers that their new handheld was a gizmo; second, to convince gamers that it's, uh, mondo.

Okay, we give up. There's no denying that this name just sucks. Need any more be said?

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5MB Hard Disk in 1956

2006-12-09T15:52:00.000-06:00

5MB Hard Disk in 1956

Its a hard disk in 1956.... The Volume and Size of 5MB memory storage in 1956. In September 1956 IBM launched the 305 RAMAC, the first computer with a hard disk drive (HDD). The HDD weighed over a ton and stored 5MB of data. Let us start appreciating your 4 GB jump drive!

5MB Hard Disk in 1956 - Its a hard disk in 1956.... The Volume and Size of 5MB memory storage in 1956. In September 1956 IBM launched the 305 RAMAC, the first computer with a hard disk drive (HDD). The HDD weighed over a ton and stored 5MB of data. Let us start appreciating your 4 GB jump drive!

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It is decidedly a nerd biography. iWoz: From Computer Geek to Cult Icon: How I Invented the Personal Computer, Co-Founded Apple, and Had Fun Doing I

2006-12-09T04:34:00.000-06:00

It is decidedly a nerd biography. iWoz: From Computer Geek to Cult Icon: How I Invented the Personal Computer, Co-Founded Apple, and Had Fun Doing It by Steve Wozniak (the true creator of the original Apple) and Gina Smith, shows how Woz thinks, eats and breathes like an engineer. Most of the high points in his personal narrative revolve around moments when he figures out how stuff works, gets stuff to work, or executes some offbeat prank.

Co-author Gina Smith joined Will Block and myself on the NeoFiles Show to chat about all things Steve. Smith herself has a great history in tech reportage, including ten years writing “Inside Silicon Valley,” a column for the San Francisco Chronicle, and six years as the technology correspondent for “World News Tonight with Peter Jennings.”

The wonderful wizard, Woz himself, has said he would come in for a follow up show, and we intend to hold his feet to the fire. Literally. But in keeping with Woznakian ethics, we’ll remove his feet long before a harmless prank crosses over into the realm of cruelty.

To listen to the entire interview in MP3, click here.

RU SIRIUS: “iWoz” is not a conventional biography where you might expect some pathos, some childhood trauma, or whatever. It’s totally an engineer’s biography. The major scenes are the ones where he figures out how something works.

GINA SMITH: One of the first things he told me in our interviews was that he had never understood what his dad did for a living. Around the house, it was this big secret. And what dad did was — he was designing the Polaris missile. It was super high-tech, top-secret stuff that he couldn’t talk about at home. In a way, that’s what drove Steve to be an engineer. He wanted to understand the stuff that his father couldn’t talk about. In his childhood, he became fascinated with this world of transistors and resistors and diodes and putting together little projects. He was this little 200 IQ geek in 1960 California.

RU: And his father really encouraged him.

GS: His dad was sort of a teacher for him. He would use a blackboard. And while his dad couldn’t really get into it with him about what he did for a living, he was happy to say, “OK, here’s how electricity works. Here’s what a vacuum is. Here’s an electron. Here’s what happens when an electron goes through a wire. Here’s what happens when it doesn’t. This is a one and this is a zero.” He’s showing Steve how an AND gate and an OR gate works — the basic fundamentals of electronics. He explained all of that to Steve before he was even out of fifth grade.

RU: And he explained it all it in a way that helped him become an engineer. He started at the bottom of the process.

GS: That’s how Steve explained it. He’d ask something like, “Well, how does a computer work?” And his dad wouldn’t say, “Well, here’s how a computer works.” He would say, “Well, do you understand how electricity works? Because without electrons, there’s no computing. Do you understand what an atom is? Let’s look at the positive charge and the negative charge and how these things flow.” And from that bottom, he would go all the way up until Steve truly understood, from the basics, how computers at that time worked.

WILL BLOCK: What comes across in the bio is an incredible purity, innocence and delight in learning how the world works.

GS: That’s what the tapes of my interviews with Steve sound like. It’s all, “Wow! And then I was able to develop the Apple I, and… Wow! Then I was able to add color, and… Wow!” He hasn’t lost that innocence. He hasn’t lost that sense of enthusiasm. When he looks back, you can see that youthful kind of vigor in his face.

RU: He won a sixth grade science project by doing something kind of amazing.

GS: He essentially built a giant calculator in the 6th grade. This was before handheld calculators. It added or subtracted numbers. And basically, that’s all a computer needs to do in order to do everything else — it has to add and subtract. The judges took one look at this thing and he was awarded a ride on a jet. He was always known as the science and math whiz, since he was five-years-old. What my editors at Norton wanted answered in the book was, “Why Steve?” Why did he get to be the one who invented the personal computer and not a myriad of other people? And that’s what we tried to answer. Well, Steve was always miles ahead of his peers in terms of understanding electronics.

WB: Timing has a lot to do with computers and seems like a good metaphor for why it was him. He came into a unique environment with a lot of enthusiasm.

GS: Now we have to include Steve Jobs in this discussion. Steve Jobs looked at this little invention that Steve Wozniak has come up with. It was essentially a board that allowed you to input data using a typewriter keyboard and output it using an RCA TV screen — it had to be the RCA. Steve Jobs looked at this and said, “Hey! I bet we could make fifty of these! And sell ‘em!”

RU: The sound of ka-ching is heard by Steve Jobs.

GS: He was only 21 years old, and Steve Wozniak was 26. Steve Wozniak’s dad thought this was all very funny.

RU: What was it like working with Woz? Was it hard to get him to tell his story? Did you have to do a lot of coaxing?

GS: It was a lot of coaxing. I met him through a friend of mine who had met him at a Grateful Dead concert. I said, “I’d love his email address.” Because when I started covering technology in 1988, Steve Wozniak was already gone. He was out of technology, so I never had a reason to interview him.

So I asked Steve, “Have you ever thought about doing an autobiography?” And he said he tried it a few times, but had always sent the money back because he had never been
able to get a writer to do his voice.

So once we had our deal; in my mind, I was scared to death we were going to have to send the money back. This is how I make my money — writing books! Maybe Steve can send back a big advance, but I’d have to sell the house! So I was very very careful, in working with him, to always go over the chapters and make sure that he was always aware that I was trying to make it sound exactly like he speaks. That has gotten us a little criticism because people read it and say, “Hey, it sounds like somebody’s talking!”

RU: It has an “As Told To” flavor. But that’s who he is.

GS: That’s what it is!

RU: Did you ever want more “blood on the tracks” from him? More heaviness?

GS: Yes. We met two or three times a week for a year, and we either met at a coffee place called Pearls in the West Portal district of San Francisco, or we met at the Hickory Pit, which is a barbecue place in Sunnyvale. I’m a vegetarian, and I spent the whole year smelling meat and talking to Steve Wozniak. I thought we’d get all this kind of dirt, politics, Steve Jobs… what was going on in the early days of Apple. And what I quickly discovered was Steve Wozniak wasn’t privy to that. Steve Wozniak was an engineer whose head was in a breadboard. He wasn’t paying attention to what was going on. They put him in a building all by himself and said, “Complete the floppy drive.” So in terms of the down and dirty politicking happening, there’s not a lot of new stuff.

RU: I like the story about how they named the company Apple. Most people assumed that it was the influence of The Beatles. But there’s a great story about Wozniak picking up Jobs at the airport.

GS: Talk about coaxing; it took me probably eight months to get Steve Wozniak to tell me how the word “apple” came up. He was resistant to talking about it. And finally, the story came out. He had picked Steve Jobs up from the airport. And Steve Jobs had been living in a commune up in Oregon that was an apple orchard. So that was just the name that popped into his head, coming out of the commune — apple. And they both loved it. And think about how fresh that name was in 1975. They had the immediate concern — what about Apple records?

RU: … which only recently became a problem.

GS: Steve Jobs said “No, that’s music. This is computers. How could that possibly be a problem?”

RU: More than anything else, it seems Woz loves being a prankster

GS: If you look through history, a lot of geniuses and people of this ilk have also been pranksters. I couldn’t get Steve to stop telling me about pranks. In fact, most of the time, I wanted to get all this Apple stuff, and he wanted to talk about the time that he pretended he was Henry Kissinger and called the Pope. And I’m like, “This is funny, but I want the Apple stuff in the book.” He could do a whole book of pranks.

RU: He did his first prank when he was very young.

GS: The first one was when Richard Nixon was running for governor in California. It was really his mom’s idea. He got this pranksterism I think, in part, from his mom. I’ve met her and she’s a real card. When he was 10 or 11, she had him walk up to Nixon at a campaign rally with a placard that said that the ham radio operators of our little town back Nixon. And Nixon signed the placard, and someone took a picture and it was on the front page of the San Jose Mercury News. In fact, there was no ham radio group and Steve Wozniak was probably the only ham radio operator anywhere near California at that time — certainly the youngest

RU: He evolved and developed a taste for pranks after that.

GS: I think it’s a way of dealing with his shyness, too, He talks a lot, and he talks rapidly, but he’s very shy. These pranks are a way to get people laughing, get people comfortable.
We used to spend the beginning of almost every interview with, “Pick a card, any card.” I’d be doing card tricks with him. And I’d be like, “O—kay. When are we going to get to the interview?” And he’d be, like, “Look at my lasers and how I can put them through my ears!” And I’d be, like, “O—kay! When are we going to get to the interview here?!”

WB: A prank is a form of creativity, and it continues on and on since you get to tell people about it again and again, so you revivify it. That’s the kind of spark of creative genius that some need as a trigger.

GS: One of my favorite pranks that he talks about in the book took place right around the time of the Altair. That was a kit computer that made Bill Gates a bit famous — writing a version of BASIC for that. So there was a big computer conference and Wozniak went through all this trouble to create these fake fliers for a computer called the Zaltair, because there was an operating system at the time that started with a Z. So it had all these Z jokes in it, but if you looked at the very first letter of every word in the topic sentence, it spelled out a competitor — P.r.o.c.e.s.s.o.r T.e.c.h.n.o.l.o.g.y. And he tricked Steve Jobs with this. It was fifteen years before he handed a copy of the flyer to Steve Jobs and said, “I was the one who did this.” He’s a prankster. I had a lot of salt in my coffee, a lot of red pepper in my eggs. And I was not going to show him that it bothered me, so I drank salty coffee and ate peppery eggs for a solid year without even blinking.

There are so many prank stories. I mean, they’re absolutely endless. Steve carries around books of two dollar bills. He actually goes to the mint — I guess if you have enough money, and you pay them enough money, they’ll give you your own sheets of money. And they’re funny, because they’re perforated. And so every time you go out with him,
instead of paying like a normal person and giving them the cash; he holds out these long rolls of perforated two dollar bills and says, “How much is it? Okay, let’s count down… 2, 4, 6, 8… Okay, I’ll tear right here!” And at this point, the woman or the man behind the register always says, “That’s not real money. We can’t accept that.” And of course, it is real money, it’s just how he presents it.

We were at our mutual friend’s wedding and he was selling two dollar bills off in the corner. And he was making a profit. He was selling these two dollar bills for three dollars to people, and telling them that the two dollar bills weren’t real. That’s part of the trick. People walk away with these wads of money that they’ll never spend. But I spent my two dollar bills on a lot of Starbucks. I needed coffee that didn’t have salt in it, so after I left him, I’d got to Starbucks.

RU: There’s a connection that lots of people in this culture would make between the spirit of pranking and the whole thing with phone phreaking. And it’s widely known that the development of Apple was tied in with blue boxes.

GS: Steve Wozniak was really one of the first phone phreaks ever. When people hear that word, phone phreaks, who do they imagine? Maybe someone who has done prison time. But back in those days, very few people knew the secrets of the phone company, and how to make a free call. All phones were rotary back then. He was able to develop a little box that you could attach to a payphone that would get the operator; open up a line, and then he could call anywhere.

Steve was really into ethics. So he felt he didn’t want to do this as a way to save money. He wanted to do it to have fun. Like he tried to call the Vatican, and tried to get a call in to the Pope, saying he was Henry Kissinger. You know, “Tal-king vith theees ac-cents,” saying “Hel-lo, this is Henry Kissinger…”

RU: It was 5 a.m. in Italy when he called.

GS: Yeah. And he and Steve Jobs made a little business of this thing. They were kids. Steve Jobs was maybe 17 at the time and Steve Wozniak was four or five years older. They were selling these blue boxes. You can bet that the people who were buying the blue boxes weren’t quite as ethical.

RU: Now we’re into the “outlaw roots” of Apple. Whatever Woz thought, the Phone Phreaking ethic was pretty much a Yippie thing. For a lot of them, it was about intentionally ripping off corporations. It was an anti-authoritarian thing. Woz was sort of half-in and half-out on that sort of thing. He was in the middle.

GS: He talks about his ethic. He says the Phone Phreaks weren’t about ripping people off, they were about exposing flaws in the phone system. And then he’s into the Homebrew Computer Club. They had this ethic that big companies shouldn’t be the only ones with computers. The idea was, “We’re taking the spare chips from the warehouses of the companies where we work, and building computers for ourselves.” So you’re right, they were kind of walking a line between ethics.

RU: He really admired Captain Crunch – John Draper – the great phone phreak.

GS: Certainly. Captain Crunch, the legendary phone phreak, really became famous through an article in “Esquire” before the two Steves began phone phreaking. before the two Steves began phone phreaking, John Draper spent time in jail…

RU: … where he hurt his back. Now you have to jump on his back if you want to talk to him. [laughter]

GS: He actually wrote the first word processor for the Apple computers from his cell in prison. And then, in the ’70s, he ran several pirate radio stations from his van. This was very cutting-edge crime.

RU: In a way, there’s a hint of that sixties radicalism in Woz, but in a very moderate form.

GS: He walks the line, You really see that throughout the book. Like, he put all that salt in my coffee. Finally at the end, I said, “Look, you know. How much salt have you put in my coffee?” And he said, “No, I haven’t.” And I said, “What is this ethic you have about not lying? You should be honest, because I know salty coffee, I’ve been drinking it for a year.” And he said, “A prank is different than honesty. If it’s a joke, you don’t have to tell the truth.” And that’s walking the line.

In the book, Steve talks about when he was at Berkeley and Captain Crunch was coming to meet him. He’s a kid and he idolizes Captain Crunch, and he expects this really dashing, suave character to come in because that was the impression he’d gotten from the stories he’d read. And then Draper comes in and he’s missing most of his teeth, his hair is all greasy, he’s smelly. The lawyers at Norton books asked, “Are you sure we can say all this stuff about John Draper? Couldn’t he sue us for saying he smells and he has no teeth?” And Steve said, “Well he does smell and he does have no teeth.” And we checked it all with Draper, and it was okay. “Yes, this is how I was in 1974.”

RU: We should talk a bit about Apple’s success and Wozniak’s disillusionment with some of Jobs’ actions. That’s a theme – the relationship between Wozniak and Jobs.

GS: I really had to coax these stories out of Steve. I did a lot of research before I actually started interviewing Steve, and I’d read this story in some book about Steve Jobs allegedly ripping Steve Wozniak off on a version of Pong called Breakout that they were doing for Atari. Jobs told Wozniak that they were getting paid one amount, but really they were getting paid much more. And so I asked Steve about that and he said, “No, no. I don’t want to put that in the book. I don’t want to hurt Steve.” And I said, “Look, the story’s out! It’s been published. It’s in a book.” I had to keep coming back to him for stories like that.

They had repeated arguments about things like opening up the Apple II. Steve Jobs didn’t think you should have slots — didn’t think you should be able to open up the system. And Steve Wozniak felt very certainly that — “I don’t know what these slots will be used for, but I bet you we’ll find a use for them.” And, in fact, that’s how the Apple II really took off. All these guys started coming up with adapter cards and expansion boards to put into the Apple II.

They’re just two guys with two different mind-sets. From a marketing standpoint, you could see why you’d want to close up the system. From a technical standpoint, you’d be nuts to close it up.

RU: What other myths are there about Apple, where Woz knows better?

GS: When I first started interviewing Steve, I said to him, “What should this book say?” And he’d say, “I hate reading anything about Apple. It’s all wrong. It’s all wrong!” And I’d ask what was wrong, and he’d just kind of brush his hand and say, “It’s all wrong! Everything ever written about me is wrong.” So I did a lot of research and I’d bring him stories and articles from throughout the years — “Is this wrong? Is that wrong?” And, in fact, a lot of the stuff out there that had been written about him was wrong. One common myth is that he was kicked out of the University of Colorado. He wasn’t kicked out. He’d run up so many fees from computer usage that he was afraid to tell his dad. So he chose not to go back the next semester and instead went to De Anza community college… With his 200 IQ and the perfect college board scores…

Another misconception that bothered him was the idea that he and Steve Jobs had designed the Apple I and the Apple II together. The sole designer of both those computers was Steve Wozniak. The sole designer. And that’s not to say that Steve Jobs isn’t an engineer in his own right; he may be. But he had nothing to do with the design of those two computers. He was the business guy there.

RU: And then there’s the myth that it was developed in a garage.

GS: It wasn’t done in a garage — that was HP. HP was started in a garage several decades earlier but not Apple! Steve Jobs worked in his bedroom of his parents’ house and Steve Wozniak was on the kitchen table.

RU: I guess some final tweaks were done in a garage.

GS: I think at the very end, when they have their first order of a hundred some units; they were actually just popping chips into sockets — some of that was done with Steve Jobs’ sister, and Dan Kottke, an early friend. Dan Kottke is a good example of one of the early employees who had everything to do with the success of these first computers — the Apple II, the first personal computer with color and sound.

RU: Steve Jobs treated these early employees very poorly.

GS: They weren’t rewarded. Now, you think if you’re at a startup and it does great — Larry Ellison’s personal assistant was a billionaire because she was there from the beginning. But back then, employees weren’t routinely rewarded like that. So while Steve Jobs and the board of directors all got stock options when Apple was the biggest IPO in a long time — I think since Ford — people like Dan Kottke and the people who really were instrumental in the early designs got nothing.

RU: The story I heard is that Wozniak told Jobs that “however much stock you want to give to Kottke, I’ll match it.” And Jobs said, “Zero.”

GS: Steve didn’t tell me that for the book, but that sounds about right. So Steve Wozniak came up with the Woz plan. He gave 2000 shares of stock to all the employees that he felt weren’t…

RU: … his own stock…

GS: Right. And those people, and I’m assuming including Dan Kottke, all came out OK. They were certainly millionaires.

WB: That’s the happiest part of this story, the ethical aspect of who Woz is. When Jobs smashes the Cloud 9 controller against the wall, he doesn’t choose to go there. Despite the fact that he doesn’t seem to spend a lot of time thinking about social issues; he chooses not to travel into the world of social competition.

GS: Steve Wozniak invented the Cloud 9 controller, and it was the first universal remote. This was in the 80s, before everybody had nine things and needed a remote to control. And it was designed also by Frog, another company. And Steve Jobs, I suppose, was furious that Wozniak had used Frog and he smashed it up against the wall. And Steve Wozniak’s attitude, always, is… “Whatever. I’m not engaging in this.” He is always ethical. And he was very concerned about how Steve Jobs would appear in the book. He didn’t want to hurt people. That’s Steve Wozniak. He’s very kind. There’s a kind of innocence there you don’t see often among billionaires and millionaires

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The Best (and Worst) Console Game Innovations Ever

2006-12-07T23:30:00.000-06:00

The Best (and Worst) Console Game Innovations Ever

December 6 Seth Porges

I combed the depths of history and my memory to pull together a (very subjective) list of the best and worst innovations to hit console gaming. Rather than full systems (with a few obvious exceptions), I chose to focus on peripherals and concepts. Enjoy!

The list is after the jump…

THE BEST:

1. The Wiimote — When the Wiimote was first announced, EVERYBODY was skeptical about how they’d pull this one off. It seemed like the type of gimmick that would inevitably find its way into the peripherals graveyard. However, in just the first generation of Wii games, Nintendo has absolutely obliterated critics. Not only does it Just Work—that incredibly rare grail of any consumer electronics products—but it pumps life into an industry that has been increasingly relying on More of the Same (sharper graphics and more unlockable characters will only get you so far.) The brilliance of the Wiimote is that it forces game developers to think differently about how they approach video games. As a result, innovative and interesting games are almost inevitable. And the fact that Nintendo had the brains to give developers the time and resources they needed to make games that could take advantage of the unique platform didn’t hurt. Now that the obvious uses are out of the way—swords, baseball bats, steering wheels—the next batch of games should show just how creative developers can be with this anything-simulator.

2. Game Boy – Before this granddaddy of portable consoles came around, carrying around a video game meant playing those cruddy bricks they sold for 30 bucks at K.B. Toys. You know the ones—they had a total of about five pixels, and your sprite was a tiny outline of a dude that had a total of two positions (usually “standing” and “jump kicking”). Yeah, they sucked. Starting with Tetris, the Game Boy had games that were actually playable—the animation was smooth, the games were complex, the characters looked like characters. And, for the next few years, battery companies everywhere reaped the profits.

3. Game Emulators — Emulators are crack for nostalgic gamers—they let you play any game, any time, without having to spend 10 minutes blowing the dust off a cartridge before sliding it into your NES at just the right angle to avoid the Blank Screen Of Death. Today, we’re seeing retro gaming demand resonate with the companies as next-gen systems are increasingly adopting support for downloading and playing these once-Abandonware titles.

4. Save Game – Remember the original Legend of Zelda cartridge? If you shook it, you could actually hear the tiny battery that let it store your game bang around inside. So cool! I don’t know about you, but I never once bothered to write down a password to get back to Ridley’s Lair in Metroid, so this was a godsend. Unfortunately, early games were fragile—pulling the game from the system while it was still on just once (which I know they explicitly told me NOT to do) was enough to burn out the battery. Still, not having to spend another three hours getting the Magic Sword was priceless.

5. Nintendo Zapper Light Gun — If you think about it, Duck Hunt should have been the most boring game ever. You shoot a duck, a cartoon dog retrieves it, repeat. But still, we played it… again, and again, and again. Sure the Zapper was used in only slightly more games than the R.O.B. robot, but it seemed like complete MAGIC at the time (I still don’t understand how it worked.) I’ll never know why exactly it was so fun, but there isn’t a person you know who won’t smile when you bring this thing up in conversation.

HONORABLE MENTION:

Power Pad - I might get some haters on this, and I know it didn’t have much use beyond a track and field and an aerobics game, but we wouldn’t have Dance Dance Revolution if it weren’t for this thing, and fat kids everywhere would be without their only source of exercise.

AND THE WORST:

4. Laser Disc Games — I’m aware this was more of an arcade than a console phenomenon, but they simply need to be included. These things were GORGEOUS, but boy oh boy did they suck. Running through Dragon’s Lair or Space Ace was an investment (try getting through with less than 20 bucks!), and really no more fun than watching somone else play. The problem, of course, was that you didn’t control the cartoons so much as press a button every once in awhile.

3. Super Nintendo Super Scope 6 — The follow-up to the NES Zapper light gun LOOKED so cool—it was a freakin’ bazooka! And when I finally got mine, I couldn’t wait to get home and shoot some bad guys. But what did I get when I took this thing out and opened it up? A bunch of cruddy mini-games where you shoot moles and Tetris blocks. I wanted to blow up some Nazis or something, and I was stuck fighting garden pests. Developers didn’t put too much faith in this thing, and barely any games (much less decent ones) ever came off the assembly line.

2. TurboExpress — Instead of buying separate games for a portable system, wouldn’t it be great if it could play the same ones at home and on-the-go? With the TurboExpress, anyone with a TurboGrafx-16 could play the same games they played at home on the go! Wow! Unfortunately, no one bothered to tell developers that shrinking something designed for 19-inch image (as was the standard TV size of the time) down to 2.6-inches is enough to send both of the people who bought this thing to the optometrist.

1. Power Glove — You wanted this thing — we all did. Maybe it was the idea of actually punching Mike Tyson, or perhaps you saw The Wizard and wanted to be like video game maestro Lucas (“I love the Power Glove, it’s so bad.”), able to make Fred Savage and the girl from Rilo Kiley’s jaw drop with a few well-timed wrist movements. Unfortunately, this thing absolutely, completely sucked. It was complicated, hard to set up, unresponsive, expensive. Worst of all, however, was the need to punch in different programming codes for each game. When you inevitably lost the book containing them, you were SOL.

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2006-12-04T07:55:00.000-06:00

Sunday, December 03, 2006

WEEK NINE & TEN: TECHNOLOGY & TRADITION

My travels in New England during Thanksgiving week got me thinking about how digital technology can fit into traditional lifestyles. I spent part of my trip in a rural New Hampshire town called Alexandria, where my sister Monica recently moved with her husband Todd. They live right off the village green, which is about the most picture-perfect example of an old New England town center you can imagine.

Except for paved roads, cars and telephone poles, the scene here is vintage Currier and Ives: virtually unchanged in the last one hundred and fifty years. Unlike other well-preserved places like Colonial Williamsburg or Old Sturbridge Village, however, Alexandria is not a museum or historic district, artificially frozen in time; it is just a place where people have seen little need for change.

Access to media must have been quite a challenge here until recently. The town library is still open just three hours a week, and I was told that it has only a few hundred books. To compensate for this, satellite TV dishes have sprung up in many barnyards, alongside ubiquitous hand-pump wells and broken down farm machinery. The village is also wired for cable television and broadband Internet. When my sister isn’t kayaking, cross-country skiing or making furniture in her barn, she works from home as a consultant in epidemiology. She does almost all of her work online on a laptop computer for clients ranging from a nearby clinic to a public health department in Washington State. Currently she is coordinating an interdisciplinary research project on the effects of antibiotics in cattle feed on human health.

Monica is certainly not the only wired professional in the village. One day she took me to the town selectman’s office, located in one of the newer buildings (built in 1903) on the village green. In a tiny office on the second floor, across the hall from the town’s one-man police department, the town clerk sat beside a propane stove working on an Excel spreadsheet. As she helped Monica research some land for sale, the clerk spoke with deep disdain of a nearby county office that does not have its records online.

Another day, Monica took me to visit a nearby Shaker museum. I always assumed that Shakers were severe traditionalists like the Amish or the Mennonites, but the tour guide here set me straight. Although Shakers believe in a simple life and are traditionalists in some areas such as dress, they have always been quick to embrace new technologies that can make work easier and increase the quality of their famous products, such as furniture and wooden storage boxes. Shakers believe that striving for perfection in their work is a religious duty and also that the less time work takes, the more time they can devote to religious meditation. The guide told us about several labor saving devices invented by Shakers in the 19th century, including a circular saw and one of the earliest patented mechanical washing machines. He told us that the few remaining Shakers, who all live in a village in Maine, today make use of computers, cell phones and other modern devices they see as enhancements to their traditional lifestyle.

Shaker inventor with a vacuum pan evaporator for distilling medicinal herbs

Later that evening Monica told me about a different community where traditional ways and new technologies meet in stark contrast. She and Todd were traveling recently in the Himalayan region of India, were they observed many homes where heating and cooking were done with indoor fires. None of these homes had fireplaces or chimneys, however. Smoke simply filled the living quarters until it seeped out through cracks in the ceilings. A few buildings, such as a café where they stopped for refreshments, had woodstoves equipped with chimneys, but their owners apparently had no idea how to use them. People shoved long logs into them, leaving the stove doors open so that, without proper draft, smoke poured out and filled the rooms, just as in the homes without stoves. Monica remembers coughing and rubbing her eyes constantly, as did the other inhabitants of the café. Ironically, this place was a sort of INTERNET CAFÉ where people were working on laptops and talking on cellphones! People in this remote mountain region had no problem adopting technology only a few years old but had yet to come to terms with other technologies that have been around for centuries.

Finally, at our family reunion in Manchester New Hampshire on Thanksgiving, I talked to an elderly relative who simply refuses to accept Internet technology. She complained that her children had forced her to get a computer so they could communicate with her by email. Now, she said, she is getting ten, fifteen emails a week from all sorts of peope, and she doesn’t know how to cope with them. I tried to give her advice, but she lampooned everything I said until I finally advised her to take her computer out to the dumpster, throw it in and be done with it. This was the only answer that pleased her. I picture her now, writing a letter or two as she sits by her fireplace – presumably one with an excellent chimney. High tech may be fine for New Hampshire farmers, Shakers and Himalayan villagers, but it’s not for everyone.

………………………..

One of this week’s weblog assignments was to write about a new technology we have adopted. The most recent technology I have adopted is digital still photography. I had a nice film camera many years ago, but gave it up when I started shooting video. I found shooting stills on film to be nerve wracking because I always seemed to press the trigger about three seconds too late, and never knew what I had really shot until I got the film back from the lab. Often I would be disappointed because my exposure would be off. Video was exciting when it became affordable in the 1980s because I could capture action continuously, and although the early viewfinders were black and white, I could pretty much see what I was getting and whether or not it was exposed properly.

Using Rogers five stages of adoption, my history with digital photography runs as follows:

1. KNOWLEDGE: I began to see a lot of people using digital cameras. When I got a computer-based video editing program, I realized that I could use my video cameras to shoot still images and then edit and print them through my computer. It was thrilling to be able to create still images this way and incorporate them within documents and emails.

2. PERSUASION: I realized that digital cameras have a lot of the same features that I like about video cameras, including auto exposure, a viewfinder that shows you pretty much what the final image will look like (WYSIWYG) and the ability to shoot lots of images without incurring large costs. What I did not like about the early digital cameras was the several-second delay after pressing the trigger. When I heard that this problem had mostly been solved, it weakened my resistance to trying this new technology.

3. DECISION: When I blew up stills from my video cameras, I realized that I was getting much lower resolution than I could achieve with even a cheap digital still camera. So I took part of my pay from a video production job and bought a pretty nice Canon point-and-shoot.

4. IMPLEMENTATION: I tried this camera out on a trip to Las Vegas with my best friend Jennifer, who, sadly, had recently been diagnosed with terminal cancer. Shooting pictures of her at night on the Strip, I quickly realized that I preferred shooting with available light, instead of shooting with a flash. When I got back from the trip I was disappointed that many of my night images were blurry. Then a friend told me about still cameras that have digital image stabilization – just like my video cameras – to correct for hand movement during the long exposures needed in low light. So I upgraded to a Canon with this feature.

5. CONFIRMATION: Although the new Canon had lower resolution than the first one, my low light pictures turned out better. One of my favorite resulting pictures was this image of Jennifer, taken under very low light during a Christmas party at the restaurant where I work. I added paint filters in Photoshop and used it for Christmas cards last year.

Later I realized that I could also shoot short video clips with my new still camera. I began using it to shoot video on many occasions when it was not practical to bring along a larger video camera. When Jennifer’s father came to visit, shortly before she died, I was able to capture their last moments together in video thanks to my digital still camera. This footage became an important part of an hour-long documentary I made for Jennifer’s family about the last two years of her life.

I love the fact that I can now shoot pictures casually, just for the heck of it, instead of being filled with anxiety as I was whenever I shot stills in the old days. Now I am even thinking about getting a digital SLR so that I can get better manual focus control.

………………………..

Our other blogging assignment was to write about how we used digital technology to cope with the recent snowstorm in Seattle. I first learned about the “storm” when I looked out the window of the airplane that brought me back from New England and saw snow on the ground. Knowing that Seattle has virtually no ability to cope with snow, and that what constitutes a nice winter day in New England can be considered a “state of emergency” here, I simply put on my warm cap, started humming Christmas carols and knew not to expect to get anywhere very fast. The only time I used digital technology during the “storm” was when I took out my digital camera to snap a picture of my cat sniffing some dried weeds I brought from New Hampshire and stuck into the snow on my lawn.

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Edwin Black is the award-winning, New York Times and international bestselling investigative author of IBM and the Holocaust

2006-12-03T09:42:00.001-06:00

Edwin Black is the award-winning, New York Times and international bestselling investigative author of IBM and the Holocaust (Crown Publishing and others worldwide 2001), The Transfer Agreement (Macmillan 1984 and Carroll-Graff 2001), War Against the Weak (Four Walls Eight Windows and others worldwide September 2003), and a novel, Format C: (Dialog Press and others worldwide 1999). His latest book is Banking on Baghdad (John Wiley & Sons and others worldwide).

In the past several years, Black has won numerous prestigious awards. In 2004, he won the coveted Rockower Award for Investigative Journalism--First Prize from the American Jewish Press Association for his syndicated investigation of the Ford Foundation's systematic funding of hate groups.

In 2003, Black received the International Human Rights Award from the World Affairs Council for War Against the Weak. Plus, in 2003, he received the top two editorial awards from the American Society of Journalists and Authors: Best Book of the Year for IBM and the Holocaust and Best Article of the Year for "IBM in Auschwitz" in the Village Voice. Editors have nominated Black for the Pulitzer Prize eight times, the most recently for Banking on Baghdad. In addition, Black received the Carl Sandburg Award for The Transfer Agreement as well as two Folio Awards and a Computer Press Association Award for excellence in magazine publishing.

Black's enterprise writing has appeared in numerous newspapers across the United States and Europe, from the Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, New York Daily News and Los Angeles Times to Sunday Times (England), Frankfurter Zeitung (Germany) and Jerusalem Post (Israel). The world's leading magazines have also carried his work, from Playboy and Reform Judaism to Der Spiegel and L'Express.

Black's latest book is Banking on Baghdad, which chronicles the tragic and turbulent 7,000-year history of Iraq. Banking on Baghdad is the first history of Iraq from a global stage, as determined by the corporate boardrooms and governmental war rooms of London, Paris, Istanbul, Washington and the other centers of commercial and political power that coveted its geography and geology. Black led a team of thirty researchers in five countries, accessing more than 100 repositories and securing some 50,000 documents. Black was granted access to the corporate archives of numerous oil companies involved in Iraq and the Middle East. Sir Martin Gilbert wrote, "Every hour spent reading Banking on Baghdad will be well rewarded. The historical detail is fascinating; Edwin Black's mastery of it reads like a detective story and thriller combined, and the relevance of the past has seldom been so graphically portrayed. This is a gripping expose... this is fact not fiction, more endlessly intriguing and absorbing than any novel could be." Banking on Baghdad has been nominated for a Pulitzer. More information on the book can be found at www.bankingonbaghdad.com.

Edwin Black is probably best known for IBM and the Holocaust, an international bestseller documenting the previously unknown twelve-year strategic relationship between IBM and Hitler's Third Reich. IBM developed custom-made data processing programs, using punch cards, to organize and accelerate all six phases of the Holocaust, from identification, expulsion and confiscation to ghettoization, deportation and extermination. IBM and the Holocaust was simultaneously released in 40 countries in nine languages on February 11, 2001 to international acclaim and worldwide headlines. It immediately became a bestseller on the New York Times list as well as those in many other nations such as Canada, Germany, Italy, and Brazil. The work is now available in 60 countries in 13 languages and 27 editions, and it has been optioned for film. Black has lectured and toured on the topic, from the Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles to the Royal War Museum in London to the Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw. The author's writing on the subject has appeared in publications from the Los Angeles Times to Der Spiegel to the Jerusalem Post. His interviews for the book have included scores of network TV and radio shows from NBC's Today Show, Dateline, and NPR to England's BBC, Germany's ZDF, and France's TF-1. In May 2003, IBM and the Holocaust received the American Society of Journalists and Authors top two awards: best nonfiction book of the year; plus an excerpt with additional information about IBM in Auschwitz appearing in the Village Voice received the award as the best newspaper investigative article of the year. The book also received a Pulitzer nomination from Crown Publishing. More information on the book can be found at www.ibmandtheholocaust.com.

War Against the Weak chronicles the gripping story of America's decades-long campaign to create a white, Nordic master race through a sham science called eugenics. Some 60,000 Americans were forcibly sterilized in eugenic campaigns organized by American corporate philanthropic organizations such as the Carnegie Institution and the Rockefeller Foundation. The program was then transplanted to Germany where the Rockefeller Foundation and American eugenicists founded and funded Nazi eugenics. To assemble War Against the Weak, Black headed a team of some 50 researchers, working in dozens of archives in four countries, and accumulating some 50,000 documents. Hailed as a “gripping account” by historian Paul Weindling and “astonishing” by Abraham Foxman, War Against the Weak launched September 7, 2003. The New York Times called the book “chilling,” Esquire called it “scary and necessary,” and Library Journal dubbed it a “bombshell.” War Against the Weak received the World Affairs Council's award for Best Book of 2003 for International Human Affairs. More information on the book can be found at www.waragainsttheweak.com.

The Transfer Agreement, originally published in 1984, was Edwin Black's first book. It documents the dramatic story of the pact between the Third Reich and Jewish Palestine in which the Zionist Organization agreed to break the worldwide, Jewish-led anti-Nazi boycott in exchange for the transfer of some 60,000 Jews to Palestine along with millions in their assets converted into German merchandise. The Transfer Agreement, operating from 1933 to 1939, helped seed the Jewish State. In April 1998, Black was honored by Spertus Institute at a special ceremony in Chicago for donating the 35,000 archival documents gathered in the original research. Republished continuously, the latest edition was released in 2001 by Carroll & Graf with a special introduction by Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League. Black has written about the Transfer Agreement for a diverse group of publications, from the Washington Post and Chicago Tribune to Reform Judaism and B'nai B'rith Monthly. He has lectured on the topic extensively around the United States. He was interviewed on numerous television shows such as the CBS Morning News and was the subject of a half-hour NBC documentary. The Transfer Agreement won the Carl Sandburg Award for the best nonfiction book of 1984 and was nominated by MacMillan for a Pulitzer; it has been recently optioned for film. More information on the book can be found at www.transferagreement.com.

Edwin Black's first novel, Format C:, a kabalistic, technological thriller with echoes from the Holocaust, was met with critical acclaim. The Cleveland Plain Dealer called Format C: a “gripping, fanciful, fast-paced tale.” Kirkus Reviews wrote: “Massively conceived, neatly chiseled... Black throughout shows great smarts and at times displays virtuoso rhetoric.” Bookbrowser called the novel “a brilliant allegorical thriller.” In 1999, the author toured twenty cities and lectured to groups and appeared on media throughout as the millennium approached. More information on the book can be found at www.formatnovel.com

Edwin Black began his career as an aggressive enterprise and investigative reporter and editor in the competitive Chicago journalism scene of the late seventies and early eighties. He was editor of the award-winning investigative magazine Chicago Monthly and wrote extensively for all four daily newspapers of the day: Chicago Tribune, Chicago Today, Chicago Daily News and Chicago Sun-Times, as well as the weekly Chicago Reader and Chicago Magazine. Nationally, he wrote for leading magazines and newspapers, such as the Washington Post, Playboy, Journal of the American Bar Association, and Sports Illustrated. An avid movie music reviewer, he has written on soundtracks and music for Chicago Tribune, Chicago Reader, Downbeat, International Musician, and many other publications in America and Europe; he has interviewed such leading composers as Dimitri Shostakovich, Aaron Copland, Jerry Goldsmith and Hans Zimmer.

In 1984, Black began “The Cutting Edge,” a weekly enterprise column syndicated to newspapers in 50 cities, first from Chicago and Washington D.C. and then as a foreign correspondent in Jerusalem. “The Cutting Edge” was nominated for two Pulitzer Prizes. His hard-hitting enterprise articles include exclusive interviews with Minister Louis Farrakhan, Bishop Desmond Tutu, and Chicago Mayor Harold Washington. The column was noted for breaking stories on the Skinheads, the Aryan Brotherhood, the Black Hebrews, and Israeli religious strife. Black was the only non-Israeli print journalist to accompany Shimon Peres to his surprise February 1987 summit in Cairo. For the column, Black also accompanied the South Lebanese Army on patrol in Lebanon, and the Jerusalem Bomb Squad during an outbreak of terror bombings.

As an investigative journalist, Black has investigated HMOs, the homeless, the Jonathan Pollard spy scandal, corporate misconduct, Microsoft antitrust activities, hate crimes, the infamous Kathy Webb rape case, and the abduction of journalist Terry Anderson. His exclusive investigation of the worldwide Bramson insurance empire led to numerous arrests and convictions as a direct result of his disclosures. His investigation of Minnesota's powerful Senator David Durenberger ultimately led to his indictment. Black often worked undercover. His internationally syndicated investigation of the Ford Foundation financing of Mideast agitation groups, called “Funding Hate,” resulted in Congressional investigations and sea change in American private donations to Palestinian groups. For his articles, Black has appeared on Oprah, America's Most Wanted and numerous other TV and radio shows. For his articles, he has appeared on Oprah, America's Most Wanted and numerous other shows.

Edwin Black is represented worldwide by Lynne Rabinoff Associates and B'nai B'rith Lecture Bureau.

Awards

American Jewish Press Association 2003 Rockower Award for best investigative article of the year, for the series "Funding Hate: syndicated internationally by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

World Affairs Council–Great Lakes, award for Best Book of 2003 for International Affairs for War Against the Weak.

American Society of Journalists and Authors, 2003, best nonfiction book of the year for paperback edition of IBM and the Holocaust.

American Society of Journalists and Authors, 2003, best article of investigative journalism on IBM at Auschwitz, entitled “Final Solutions,” in the Village Voice.

AOFAS Roger Mann Award, 1996, honorable mention for best article on healthcare.

Folio Award, 1995 for publishing excellence.

Folio Award, 1995, for an undercover story on the homeless.

Computer Press Association, 1994, best new computer magazine.

Rockower Award, 1988, excellence in Jewish commentary for a turning point commentary on the Jonathan Pollard Affair.

Smolar Award, 1987, excellence in public affairs journalism for an article on Jews and Hispanics in B'nai B'rith Monthly and the Chicago Tribune Sunday Magazine and then syndicated via the “Cutting Edge.”

Carl Sandburg Award, 1984, best nonfiction book, The Transfer Agreement.

Eagle Award, 1978, excellence in editing.

The Chicago Award, 1978, best feature article in the Chicago Reader for exclusive interview with Jewish attorney representing Nazis seeking to March through Skokie.

Past Nominations

Pulitzer Prize--seven times: Once by Macmillan in 1984 for The Transfer Agreement; twice between 1986 and 1987 by various Jewish newspapers for investigations of terrorism and interviews with Louis Farrakhan; once in 1990 by the American Jewish World in Minneapolis for the investigation of Senator David Durenberger (which led to his indictment); once in 2002 by Crown Publishing for IBM and the Holocaust; twice in 2003, once by Four Walls Eight Windows for War Against the Weak, and once by the JTA for “Funding Hate.”

SDX Service Awards--twice: once by Playboy in 1987 for the investigation of the Gary Dotson-Kathy Webb rape case; once by the American Bar Association Journal in 1994 for investigating attorneys associated with a global malpractice insurance scam.

IRE Award--once: by Staff Publications for the Bramson insurance investigation.

ASJA--Best Book of 2003 for War Against the Weak and Best Investigative Article of 2003 for the NY Sun series “Funding Hate” syndicated by JTA.

Rockower Award, 2003, for “Funding Hate” syndicated by JTA

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"Format C:" Format C:

2006-12-03T09:42:00.000-06:00