Atari Flashback Portable

Fellow retro geeks, nostalgic nerds and dated dorks, as far as I am concerned, this is the Holy Grail of portable gaming and I've wanted this for as long as I can remember.

It's the friggin' Atari Flashback Portable.

Badass

Even as a child back in the Dark Ages, I recognized that technology was getting smaller, faster and cheaper and I often pondered how long it would be before the industry would eventually get to the next logical place and release a hand-held Atari, Colecovision or Intellivision system. I recall spending far too much time in my bedroom sketching and designing what I thought such a system might look like but of course, it was all just a bored kid's fantasy.

Now the good folks at AtGames, who previously brought us a slew of retro machines like the SEGA Classic Gaming Console, the Intellivision Flashback as well as the venerable Atari Flashback, are planning to release the Atari Flashback Portable, first officially licensed hand-held Atari 2600 game system. The unit should be out November 2016 and here's some marketing verbiage from their site:

• LCD screen
• Video out port (cable not included)
• Rechargeable battery included
• SD slot for downloaded games
• A travel-friendly MUST HAVE for the avid gamer
• 60 Legendary Atari 2600 hits including: Millipede®, Pong®, Missile Command®, Asteroids®, Centipede®

If AtGames follows their previous pricing from the SEGA Portable, which was updated earlier this year, then the Atari Flashback Portable should be priced around $50. Not too shabby.

The big selling point for me is the built-in SD card slot. In the past, the Flashback consoles have been limited by the built-in games that the producer was able to license for that particular version of the machine. So for example, the Atari Flashback 2 may have had a few more games built into it than the Flashback 1, but it may no longer have included a couple of your favorites due to the ongoing legal challenges of trying to license early computer-game technology from companies that often no longer exist or others who have now grown so large, their licensing fees have become too prohibitive for small companies like AtGames to tackle. Hell, I'm still not sure if there's ever even been a Flashback console released that has included Activision's top-seller, Pitfall, arguably the most popular 2600 game ever made!

But now we finally have a Flashback system with an SD card slot that lets you load up your own downloaded Atari 2600 roms, meaning that you're no longer stuck just playing the same included games over and over again. Better yet, you can most likely fit the entirety of the 2600 library on one inexpensive SD card enabling endless hours of retro-gaming Atari goodness on the go! That, to me, is worth the price of admission.

CLICK HERE TO VISIT ATGAMES ATARI FLASHBACK PORTABLE PRODUCT PAGE

WATCH THE VIDEO ANNOUNCEMENT FROM "THE NO SWEAR GAMER"

BONUS VIDEO: ENGINEER-EXTRAORDINAIRE BEN HECK'S HAND-WIRED PORTABLE ATARI 2600

The Art of Atari

As you all pretty much know, when I was just a wee tot living in suburban Wisconsin, milking cows and drinking beer, I spent a lot of cold winters sitting in front of our (alarmingly) warm TV set playing classic Atari games like Missile Command, Adventure and Asteroids. Games that, when played on a home console in 1981, looked pretty much like ass. The graphics, as some of you will recall, were embarrassingly simple -- one game's soccer ball was another game's ICBM missile. The sound of an explosion in a space shooter might double as the sound of a crowd cheering on a football team. What I'm getting at here folks is that the narrative power of these 2-kilobyte game programs was extremely, extremely limited, so we had to actually use our own imaginations while playing our video games back then. Which, ironically, was something that I think was lost on many parents of the time, as they often lashed out against this wicked new video-technology that would most assuredly eat their children's souls and melt their brains.
But how do you market and sell a game that contains only a dot, a line and a wall of bricks to millions of sweaty, greasy teenage kids who can't wait to hop into their station wagons and cruise on over to Kay Bee Toys to pick up the latest radical game cartridge?

Like this:

Not real, but an incredible simulation.

Nope, not what you're thinking about at all when you're eight years old and spinning a paddle in your hand -- sorry, that sounded weird. But believe it or not, this approach ended up working well for Atari and having been initially run by a bunch of stoners and hippies anyway, they were very up on the idea of dedicating a fair amount of cash and resources to art and design right from the start.

So wouldn't you know it, some forty-odd years later and long after the original company imploded, someone has finally put together a book chronicling this hitherto overlooked aspect of our favorite video game behemoth, and it's available today in hardback.

Penned by Chicago-based designer, Tim Lapetino, The Art of Atari gives the reader a comprehensive overview of the various design initiatives employed by Atari over the course of its entire history and reveals the stories behind them as well.

From the official site:

"THE ART OF ATARI is the first official collection of such artwork. Sourced from private collections worldwide, this book spans over 40 years of the company’s unique illustrations used in packaging, advertisements, catalogs, and more.

Includes a comprehensive retrospective collecting game production and concept artwork, photos, marketing art, with insight from key people involved in Atari’s rich history, and behind-the-scenes details on how dozens of games featured within were conceived, illustrated, approved (or rejected), and brought to life!"

Pick up your copy for only $39.99 from their site by clicking the link below!

VISIT THE MAIN ART OF ATARI SITE HERE FOR MORE INFO

BONUS VIDEO: INTERVIEW WITH THE AUTHOR, TIM LAPETINO

Fix-It Felix Jr. Mini

You can't tell, but this is tiny.

Disney's 2012 animated epic, Wreck-It Ralph, paid tribute to many classic video games from the '80s and '90s by bringing to life some of the most beloved game characters of all time such as Q*Bert, Pac-Man and my personal fave, Tapper. However the main story centers around a fictional creation of Disney's called Fix-It Felix Jr., a game that most likely took inspiration from the legendary Nintendo hit, Donkey Kong. In it, our titular hero takes on the task of repairing a crumbling building while avoiding the wrath of the evil Ralph, who tries to take out Felix by hurling rocks, or clumps of dirt or something at him...you know these 8-bit games make it tough to tell, sometimes.

It's not a bad little game and I know because Disney went the extra mile of actually designing and programming the concept into a playable game which you can download for your iPhone, Android or Windows phone -- sorry Blackberry (kids be like, wtf is a Blackberry?) You can even play it on your home computer, as long as you have Flash. (kids be like, wtf is Flash?)

But because it was never actually a real arcade game, you retro game collectors out there can forget about getting your hands on a working model, unless one of those kit-bashers, game-hackers or MAME-floggers that live in your web browser decides to build one. I'm looking at you Ben Heck!

But until that day arrives, what you can do is stop by eBay and pick up a (relatively expensive) mini-replica of the arcade game itself. This decorative miniature doesn't actually let you play the game, but it does feature an LCD screen with a video loop and sound effects and would be a worthy addition to any geek's man-cave. The bidding starts at $70, which I think is a little steep, but if you're a fan of the film, this is one collectible that you probably won't find anywhere else.

CLICK HERE TO PAY BIG BUCKS FOR A FIX-IT-FELIX JR. REPLICA

CLICK HERE TO PLAY THE GAME ONLINE FOR FREE

VHS Camcorder App

Rad!

High Def is for suckers.

You wanna be like Marty McFly and document your time traveling adventures in true 80s style? Then pick up this bitchin’ app and you’re halfway there, minus the DeLorean Motor Car.

VHS Camcorder is a $3.99 app for iPhone, iPod and iPad that lets you go back to the days when 333 lines of video resolution were more than enough to capture all those awkward coming-of-age moments that you still spend each waking moment of every day trying to burn from your mind. Everything you need to create convincing historical video is included in the app right down to the ubiquitous time stamp feature with that wonky raster font.

And if you have any retro or retro-style videos with that you'd like to share with the world, send them to me so I can post them here on the site. Enjoy!

CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFO ABOUT THE "VHS CAMCORDER" APP

8-Bit Cinema

Stolen from Deviant Art. How's THAT for deviancy?

Ever wish you could see your favorite movie or TV series remade into an old school Nintendo-style video game? Well now you can with CineFix's 8-Bit Cinema series on YouTube.  A partial list of their remakes includes Jurassic Park, Big Lebowski, Terminator 2, Happy Gilmore, The Shining, Frozen (for the kiddies) and even The Walking Dead. While a more anally-retentive nit-picker would point out that some of their productions tend to lean closer to the 16/32-bit era art-style, I won't do that here.

Whoops, sorry.

So enjoy the videos and check out the links below for even more CineFix craziness. Sorry for the pre-roll ads, Google are greedy bastards.



CLICK HERE FOR MORE 8-BIT CINEMA

CLICK HERE TO VISIT CINEFIX

A-Bit of Doctor Who

8-Bit musician Joe Jeremiah mixes it up with some Doctor Who. You can check out some of his original music here: https://soundcloud.com/joejeremiah. Enjoy!

HISHE: Tron Rap

An example of early computer animation.

If you're a dork like me, you'll love this. Although I still would have preferred a more old-school rap style for this particular video, like UTFO.

eBay Watch: Mini Arcade Replicas

Not real, but an incredible simulation.

Some amazingly cool U.K. artist is selling super-awesome mini arcade machine replicas on eBay for pretty darned cheap. These hand-made little gems are non-functioning and are for display only, but feature some amazingly precise detailing and very faithful cabinet design. For around $60 U.S. you can pick three designs from over 100, including all of your favorites like Pac-Man, Tempest and Paperboy, and they'll arrive fully constructed, signed and numbered by the artist himself. And since the replicas stand around 6" tall, they're a perfect match for your nerdy action figures!

CLICK HERE TO CHECK OUT THE TEENY TINY ARCADE GAMES!

The Animated Adventures of Indiana Jones

"Soooo are you still up for doing Indiana Jones 5?"

Quick! What could be better than watching Steven Spielberg's classic adventure, Raiders of the Lost Ark, right now on your Multimedia PC for free? Well, not much, but this animated version from Squirrels Ink Productions is pretty awesome. Happy Friday and enjoy!

The Division Bell 20th Anniversary

Some of the many variations of the Division Bell album cover.

It's hard to believe that it's been 20 years since the last Pink Floyd studio release, The Division Bell, which also ended up serving as their swan song. Since then the band have continued to pay for their wait-staff and limo drivers by repackaging and reselling their extensive back catalog as well as releasing the occasional live album every few years. In celebration of this David Gilmour solo album  classic Floyd album, the surviving members of the band have issued a special 20th anniversary boxed set full of all kinds of crap that only a collector will find of any value, plus a remaster of the original CD. Here's a recap of the entire contents from Rolling Stone:

The set boasts a two-LP, 180-gram vinyl edition of the album, remastered from the original analog tapes by Doug Sax and filled with all the original full-length tracks, which were initially shortened to fit on a single LP. The vinyl will also be available as a separate purchase from the box set.

The box set also includes a version of the album mixed in 5.1 surround sound on a Blu-Ray disc that also contains an HD stereo mix of the album and a brand new video for "Marooned." Directed by Aubrey Powell, the clip opens with digital footage of an ostensibly abandoned space station, before returning to Earth where the camera follows a man as he runs through ruins, which still bear markers of the Soviet Union. The clip was shot in Ukraine during the first week of April, and is streaming below.

The rest of the six disc set will include a CD of the 2011 Discovery version of The Division Bell, plus three replica colored vinyl: A red 7-inch single for "Take it Back" with a live rendition of "Astronomy Domine" on the B side; a clear 7-inch with edits of "High Hopes" and "Keep Talking"; and a blue 12-inch disc with the full versions of "High Hopes" and "Keep Talking," plus a live version of "One of These Days" (the flip side of that last disc also features a laser-etched design).

To top it off, the set will come with five collector' art prints designed by Hipgnosis/StormStudios, who also designed the 180-gram LP's gatefold sleeve.

In addition, Floyd has also released a brand-new video for the Division Bell instrumental, Marooned, which you can check out below.

CLICK HERE TO VISIT THE DIVISION BELL MICRO-SITE

Retro Reading

My kids think magazines are broken iPads.

If you really want to get your retrogeeking on, you've got to put down the mouse, walk away from your computer, and sign up for a subscription to the newest retro-gaming magazine on the newsstands -- yes I said "magazine" and yes I said "newsstands" -- titled simply Retro. Although now that I think about it, you'll probably have to sit back down at your computer to actually set up the subscription. So forget what I just said. Anyway, this Kickstarter-funded publication is now on its fourth issue and as a subscriber myself, I can attest to its retro-goodness. Led by native-Californian and founder of GameGavel.com, Mike Kennedy, Retro features a team of video-game experts whose talent and experience spans a whopping three decades and promises to be your next go-to source for all things digital and retro. Check out their Kickstarter video below to hear more about it!

CLICK HERE TO VISIT THE HOME OF RETRO MAGAZINE

Retro Round-Up

Lordy have we got a lot of retro-geekin' news for you on this lovely Tuesday! Today's Retro Round-Up includes Amiga computers, acquitted murderers, new Star Wars and old Star Trek, what more could you ask for? Check out the links below before you get any older, gramps.

Lando Calrissian Returns in Star Wars: Rebels Animated Series
Dissed by Abrams but still loved by Disney, our favorite space-scoundrel-turned-malt-liquor-pimp strikes back!




The City on the Edge of Forever #1 Out This Wednesday
The classic Harlan Ellison-penned original series Star Trek episode gets its own graphic novel this week.




Turn Your Old Mac Into a New Amiga
Got some old Amiga software? Got a PowerPC computer you're not using? Well then, you're probably the only person you know who'll enjoy this.




It Was 20 Years Ago Today: The OJ. Chase
Relive the excitement of television's first combination live celebrity car chase and Ford Bronco commercial!

Star Wars VII Cast Announced

No Lando?

If you haven't already heard, the cast for the upcoming Episode VII of the Star Wars has finally been announced: John Boyega, Daisy Ridley, Adam Driver, Oscar Isaac, Andy Serkis, Domhnall Gleeson, and Max von Sydow. And as expected, original trilogy stars Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, Mark Hamill, Anthony Daniels, Peter Mayhew and Kenny Baker have all been confirmed as well.

CLICK HERE TO MEET THE NEW CAST

Breaking: E.T. Atari Cart Landfill Legend

Instant Karma Got Atari

There are tons of posts from other bloggers on the web that talk about the infamous "worst-game-ever" from former king-of-the-hill game-maker, Atari, so I'll spare you the personal experiences this time. 

Here's the brief: Around Christmas '82, Atari released a rushed E.T. game for their 2600 home system. The game blew so it stopped selling and the company was left with tons of unsold inventory on their embarrassed hands. About a year later the media reported that Atari would be dumping 14 truckloads of games and other gear into a landfill somewhere in New Mexico so that they could write off the loss. Of course, rumors immediately sprang up speculating that thousands of leftover E.T. carts were part of the burial. Not too long after this incident, the entire video-game market crashed hard and of course, people eventually began to point to the shamefully horrible E.T. game as one of the many nails in the Atari coffin.

But now, today in fact (April 26, 2014), this enduring mystery may finally be solved. A group of filmmakers are currently in New Mexico digging up the infamous site in hopes to finally get an answer to this 30 year-old legend.

CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE STORY AT THE GUARDIAN

---

UPDATE: E.T. CARTS FOUND!! WATCH THE VIDEO BELOW!

People We'll Miss: Harold Ramis

Harold Ramis 1944-2014

Comedian, actor, writer, director and producer Harold Ramis died yesterday, February 24, 2014. He has left an enormous legacy behind him having worked on countless films, television shows and even radio shows, where he got his start on National Lampoon's Radio Hour. You can read all about Harold's achievements on the web as he was an active force even up until his final days, but I won't go into any of that here. Suffice it to say that while he was alive he made many, many people laugh either directly or indirectly. So in tribute to this comedy legend, I present to you one of my favorite scenes from one of my all-time favorite sci-fi movies, Heavy Metal (1981), in which Harold starred along with some his fellow SCTV alums, including John Candy, Eugene Levy and Joe Flaherty.

The Voice…Not.

That's British for "you suck."

Something happened to pop music singers between the 1980s and the 2010s. There was a time not too long ago (or maybe it was) when you could flip on your car radio (car radio?) and get a blast of alterno-caterwauling from someone like Robert Smith of the Cure, Perry Farrell of Jane's Addiction or David Burne of the Talking Heads, and you wouldn't feel one bit bad about trying to sing along with them. These folks may not technically have been the best vocalizers in the world of pop-rock, but they managed to stand way out and neatly fit in all at the same time. Their lack of technical perfection was in fact, part of the charm and appeal of their music. Can you imagine Just Like Heaven or Burning Down the House being sung by Robin Thicke or Rihanna? Yeah, that ProTools experiment might be interesting for about half a minute, but the final result would be A) nowhere near as good as the originals, you know it, and B) devoid of any human character, you know that too. Suffice to say, Smith's all-over-the-place vocals and Farrell's raspy whine were artistic statements as much as they were instruments that served the music. So put on all of the meat-suits and funny glasses you want, Gaga, your songs are still pablum.

So there we are in late '89, trucking away to the sound of Van Halen slowly turning into the worst band in the universe, and along comes the 90s. Then suddenly, for some unexplained reason, every male lead singer between the ages of 18 and 35 decided that it would be better if they sounded exactly like Eddie Vedder, even Scott Weiland. Sadly this trend contaminated the genetic lineage of pop music so thoroughly that even today, bands still crop up at random sporting a Vedder wannabe at the mic. Things only got worse when a little band called Green Day came out of nowhere and decided to screw up punk rock forever by putting a professionally-trained singer at the helm. (wtf?) Luckily, Billy-Ray Arrmstrong's over-the-top SoCal accent caused so much confusion amongst the masses that nobody even noticed. "Is he trying to sound British?"

But then, in 2002, the game changed forever. After a decade of everyone complaining about how pop music and its associated artists no longer had any heart and had just become part of a massive manufacturing process which removed anything remotely human from the source talent in order to form it into the perfect plastic product, along comes Simon Fuller with American Idol. Bastard. This Gong Show retread took the world by storm and slowly killed off the notion that anything less than utter perfection in a vocalist was desirable. The inevitable imitators followed en masse and now every kid that's grown up in the last decade thinks Daughtry is the pinnacle of rock and roll.

Digital perfection. That's all popular music is about now. No heart, no earth, no whimsy. Just Taylor Swift.

So since there's no longer anything worth listening to on the radio (was there ever, really?) I'm going to put on some Talking Heads. Enjoy and have a good weekend.


Talking Heads - Once In A Lifetime by hushhush112

Star Trek Continues

Star Trek: The Re-Reboot

Who needs big budget reboots when you've got fans? While J.J. Abrams' 2009 reboot of the original Star Trek breathed new life into this venerable 60s television property, fan remakes, created with arguably more authenticity and unquestionably more love, have have been circulating the internet for years now. For hardcore Trekkers and casual fans alike, these independent remakes, such as Starship Exeter and Star Trek: New Voyages (later renamed Star Trek: Phase II), have provided new windows into creator Gene Roddenberry's futuristic world, which franchise-owner, Paramount Studios, would never consider producing due to their potentially limited appeal. The more successful of these fan-made series nearly always hark back to the original 1960s incarnation of the show, closely mimicking its style by employing more subtle special effects and exploring social, political and philosophical themes.

The latest entry into this sci-fi sub-genre is titled Star Trek Continues, an off-Hollywood but fairly professional attempt to continue the original five-year mission of the starship Enterprise and her loyal crew. Featuring one of James Doohan's own sons, Christopher, reprising his father's role as Scotty, the ship's hard-drinking, fist-throwing engineer, Star Trek Continues does an admirable job of emulating the Crayola-color lighting, the oddball camera angles and the quirky TV dialogue of those late-1960s Desilu productions and even manages to make you forget you're watching a fan-flick, most of the time. Although I'd say the casting could use some tweaking, and some of the acting is, well, bad, the impressive attention to detail and the bonus inclusion of original series guest star, Michael Forest, who played Apollo in the episode Who Mourns for Adonais?, makes the whole affair a worthy homage to an American science fiction classic. Check the video below for a look at the very first episode, Pilgrim of Eternity -- and to you mega-geeks out there, make sure to watch (and listen) for some quick but notable cameos by some space-opera royalty including Marina Sirtis from Star Trek: The Next Generation. Go ahead, watch it. What else you doing on a cold-ass Saturday afternoon?

CLICK HERE TO VISIT THE HOME OF STAR TREK CONTINUES


Star Trek Continues E01 "Pilgrim of Eternity" from Star Trek Continues on Vimeo.

Happy Birthday Mac!

It's the Mac's 30th birthday today and in true Apple style, I'm celebrating minimalistically. Now watch this video from 1986's Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, which features my favorite on-screen appearance by today's birthday-box, second only to that scene from Zoolander where Wilson throws the iMac over the balcony. Here's to another 30 years.

Cassettes Come Back

Courtesy of stealing from the internet.

You gotta love hipsters if only because they do nothing without being ironic. They drink the worst beer on the planet, they wear t-shirts from bands they don't listen to, they love dorky outdated glasses that no one in their right mind should find appealing (even after drinking several of those crappy beers) -- and now these hipper-than-thous have somehow managed to bring back…wait for it...the compact audio cassette, known the world over for having the lowest fidelity and reliability of just about any audio format invented since the 1960s. Yikes. Actual real-life bands have even started releasing their albums on this completely outdated format. Granted, the appreciation of any sort of retro technology makes me smile inside, but I could do without the irony. Check out this video for a look at this recent phenomenon. God help us if those hipsters discover VHS, God help us all.

Little Professor Calc for Android

…with a REAL computer inside!

Before the Speak 'n' Spell, which became an official 80s icon by its inclusion in the movie E.T., there was the Little Professor Calculator that was invented by one-time computing powerhouse, Texas Instruments, in order to finally bring a happier, friendly face to the blood-sucking horror that is modern mathematics. Oh I know that math has brought us countless innovations from toasters that enhance our breakfasts to the latest and greatest supercomputers that spend all day planning military strategies, but let's face it, most kids find it pretty boring. Luckily for rich Western children, TI introduced this educational calculator dressed up as a cartoon professor back in 1976, which was born from the (then) dream that through the use of technology, the human condition could be improved upon and utopia would finally be within mankind's reach. So people started cramming microchips into everything they could get their hands on and now here we are today.
Aside from the kiddy artwork that adorned the casing, the Little Professor was a fairly standard calculator except that it also functioned as a basic quiz game, randomly generating simple equations to which the operator would presumably input the correct answer, resulting in hours and hours of fun and learning. For example: 6 x 9 = ? And the answer is 42. "ERROR!" The Professor would then shame you with stark computer-speak displayed on its LED screen and then give you another chance to enter the correct answer. At the end of a round of questions you got to see your total score which let you know if you were going to be a Humanities student or not.
For those of you old enough to remember this little gem and who perhaps would enjoy sharing childhood memories with your own modern iPad/Netflix electro-children of the 21st century, you can now pick up an app-ified version for your Android device from the Google Play store and (as far as I can tell) it's free. Check out the video demo below and then click the link to visit Google Play and pick it up. Enjoy!

THE LITTLE PROFESSOR CALCULATOR APP FOR ANDROID