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.

1984 Revisited

Not as confusing as Prometheus

On January 22nd, 1984, Apple Computer ran, what was at the time, the most expensive 1-minute television commercial ever produced, titled "1984." The $900,000 ad, directed by Ridley Scott, was shown only once during the third quarter of Super Bowl XVIII and it was immediately recognized as something special and unique, winning several awards and helping to kickstart the tradition of producing elaborate, over-the-top commercials for the Super Bowl. Apple's purpose behind the ad was to whip up enthusiasm for the company's next big product at the time, the Macintosh. As you may or may not know, the Macintosh computer introduced the concepts of the mouse and icon-driven computing environments in 1984 to a market who had been, up until then, operating their computers by typing in cryptic codes and commands via keyboard. After shaking up the advertising world with its innovative commercial, Apple successfully shook up the computer world with the introduction of its radical new machine two days later on January 24th, 1984.

Do you prefer brand X over brand Y?

Yesterday was the 30th anniversary of the commercial's original public broadcast and tomorrow will be the 30th anniversary of the introduction of Macintosh itself. When you get a chance, take a minute or two to watch Apple's little micro-epic and consider how much our world has changed in the years between 1984 and 2014. Thirty years may seem like a long time, but as the great philosopher, Ferris Bueller once said: life moves pretty fast, if you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.

Play Classic Nintendo Games on Your iOS Device for Free

GBA4iOS

You got an iPhone or iPad? You want to play Nintendo games on it but you don't want to jailbreak your phone to do it? Well it's easier and quicker than you might think. Pull this post up on your iThing of choice and follow these simple instructions:

1. Open SETTINGS app and go to GENERAL
2. Tap on DATE & TIME
3. Toggle off SET AUTOMATICALLY
4. Change the date to anything in 2012 (your Messages and data services will be disabled for a minute)
5. Tap HERE to go to the page to download the free GBA4IOS app
6. On the page tap the drop down and choose GBA4IOS and then tap INSTALL
7. Important: BEFORE you change back your dat & time setting, OPEN the GBA4IOS app and leave it up and running
8. Go back to SETTINGS app and toggle on SET AUTOMATICALLY to restore the date & time - your data services will be restored

That's it, the app has now been installed on your non-jailbroken device without going though the App Store! Crazy! Now, you'll need to download some game roms for your GameBoy emulator app but it's way easy too:

1. Your GBA4IOS app should still be open from before so go to it
2. Tap on the magnifying glass button at the top right of the app's screen
3. Tapping the button opens Safari and pulls up a web search with game rom sites, tap the first link
4. You'll be taken to a mobile site where you can download all the game roms you want - woo!
5. Pick a game and tap DOWNLOAD NOW which pops open a box asking you which app you want to open the download with, choose OPEN IN and then choose GBA4IOS
6. Wait a few seconds and you'll be taken back to the GBA4IOS app and your download should appear in the rom list

That's it, just tap on your rom and start playing!

I know it looks like a lot of steps, but honestly it took be about 2 minutes to complete, and it's worth it!

Woz Speaks at KansasFest 2013

Mt.Dew! (photo courtesy of nicholsphotography)

For you geeks that don't already know, KansasFest is an annual get-together for Apple II enthusiasts held at Rockhurst University in Kansas City, Missouri, and from what I understand, it's a bit like Comicon or GenCon albeit with a slightly (but not much) different fan base. Having been founded way back in 1989 the conference has played host to various notable tech-industry guest-speakers ranging from original Apple employees to early 8-bit software developers to magazine publishers. Well this year the attendees (of which I was not one - booo!) got an extra-special super-treat in the form of actual real-life inventor of the Apple II, Mr. Steve "Fucking" Wozniak, better known as Woz. Woz, along with that other Steve, co-founded Apple Computer in 1976, made a crap-ton of cash and then went on to become a legend in the history of personal computing and technology. You want to know more? Google it. Graciously, the folks at OpenApple have posted both the entire interview with Woz in audio format, and a 10-minute video excerpt on YouTube for the enjoyment of the world's masses. So go masses, go enjoy!!

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO THE COMPLETE AUDIO INTERVIEW WITH WOZ

CLICK HERE TO VISIT THE OFFICIAL KANSASFEST SITE

CLICK HERE FOR PORN

Vacation '83

When Chevy Chase was funny.

Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Anthony Michael Hall, Ms. Dana Barron and Mr. Chevy Chase in National Lampoon's Vacation. Guest starring, the mythical Bally Astrocade and venerable Apple II. Enjoy!

Foosball for iPad

CLICK FOR LARGER VIEW

As if there weren't already enough reasons already to buy an iPad, here's one more for you: the New Potato iPad Foosball Table. Just pop your iPad 1, 2 or 3 into this little sucker (iPad 4 has that wonky new connector so it won't work) and you're ready for some serious sweat-inducing, retro digital ball-kicking (ouch).

Check out some of the features:

• Tournament foosball rules and other challenging games.
• Classic foosball play fields and alternative foosmen and layouts
• Gameplay features 1-man and 3-man goalie options
• Working 2 axis control bars with tactile elastomer handles
• Celebrate every goal with real scoring markers at each end
• Unparalleled play and feel for iPad, using the power of iOS and 3D accelerated graphics
• One, two, three, or four person play
• 3D instant replay and recap the action.
• Realistic game table with folding legs for easy transport and storage
• Rugged construction and durability for zealous play
• Foosball table is also a charge and sync dock
• Powered by your iPad, no batteries or external power required.

And, what? It's only $99?! Well I've got that burning a hole in my savings account wife's purse pocket right now!

CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFO ABOUT THE iPAD FOOSBALL TABLE

BONUS VIDEO - SEE IT IN ACTION!

Broderbund's "Karateka" comes to iOS and Android

Karateka! How many teenaged hours did my friends and I spend huddled around my Apple II trying to beat this addictive but maddening game? "Not enough!" I say. A few months ago, when the iOS AppStore introduced a contemporarily-styled remake of this classic early side-scroller I was, to say the least, not amused. I didn't even bother to play more than a few minutes of it since all of the charm of the original had been replaced with a slick new cell-shaded graphics, pristine hifi sound and a modern 3D game engine (shudder). Well whoever fixes these sorts of errors in the universe has just earned their place in heaven by making sure that a proper port of Broderbund's ground-breaking 1984 game would eventually make it to both the iOS and Android platforms. Karateka Classic is now available for both at their respective stores for only 99 cents:

YOU CAN GET KARATEKA CLASSIC HERE FOR iOS

OR GO HERE FOR THE ANDROID VERSION

For those of you who don't already know, Karateka was a revolutionary, for its time, side-scrolling punch-up game that arguably kick-started the entire genre of games that led to Kung Fu Master, Double Dragon, Street Fighter 2, Mortal Kombat all the way up to modern games like the Tekken and Marvel  Vs. Capcom series. Jordan Mechner, the original designer of Karateka later went on to break even more boundaries in the genre by developing the first Prince of Persia game, which eventually went on to become a huge franchise, even spawning a recent feature film. Go get your copy now and relive a true 8-bit experience while sitting on the toilet.

BONUS VIDEO #1

ORIGINAL KARATEKA GAMEPLAY

BONUS VIDEO #2

ORIGINAL PRINCE OF PERSIA GAMEPLAY

iSteve: the first Steve Jobs Movie

Even though Hollywood bigshots like Ashton Kutcher and Aaron Sorkin figuratively falling over themselves to bring the Steve Jobs story to the silver screen, Funny or Die has taken their own 78 minute stab at it and having done so, now relish in the fact that they've done it first. Starring the fat guy from Lost and that snotty hipster from those "I'm a Mac" commercials, iSteve is a worthy watch for both its hilarious (and intentional) inaccuracies and its firstness. But you don't have take my word for it...CLICK HERE TO WATCH JUSTIN LONG AND JORGE GARCIA IN iSTEVE

Superbowl Retro-Mercials

Hey cats and kitties! With the big game coming up tomorrow I figured I'd post some classic Superbowl commercials of yesteryear. Oddly most of them seem to be for soft drinks.  Enjoy and gooooo Patriots! What, they're not playing this year?! Fine. Gooooo Green Bay! WHAT?!

iKelso

It's getting more and more eerie by the day as Asthon Kutcher further immerses himself into the title role of the upcoming independent film about everyone's favorite a**hole of tech, Steve Jobs. Let's just hope Ash doesn't take it too far and starts dropping acid and making prank calls to the Pope. Check out the pics below of Kelso himself along with co-star Josh Gad as the Woz.

Leisure Suit Larry Reloaded

One of the most popular computer game series of the 80s and 90s, the tongue-in-cheek (or hand-in-pocket) humor of Leisure Suit Larry in the Land of the Lounge Lizards was a hit with juveniles of all ages. The game began its life as a basic text adventure for the Apple II called "Softporn Adventure" released by Sierra Online in 1981. Digital titillation being a rather new form of entertainment in the early 80s, the game was, of course, a huge success, prompting Sierra to task now-legendary programmer Al Lowe with the honor of rewriting the game to utilize a graphics engine (read: digital boobs). The result of Al's hard work was perhaps greater than the sum as the oddly endearing protagonist of the game, Larry Laffer, or as he is better known, Leisure Suit Larry, unexpectedly became a very marketable property. Five sequels (some say six) and millions of 5.25 inch floppies later the original series finally came to an end in 1996. After many years of dormancy, several questionable Larry adventures eventually appeared on Xbox and Playstation but they lacked involvement from the original creators and dropped most of the naughty-but-not-dirty humor of the classic series by replacing any potential instances of "clever" with "cleavage." Good eye-candy, to be sure, but weak gameplay. As one would expect, these titles sold poorly (they wouldn't even take my copy of Magna Cum Laude at Game Xchange, true story) which sadly brought the entire franchise to a screeching halt. Boo. But here's the part where the little indie developer swoops in to save the day. From Wikipedia:

• In June 2011, Replay Games announced on their blog that they had acquired a license for the Leisure Suit Larry series. Replay Games plans to re-release the titles it has licensed for Windows, Mac, iOS, Android, XBLA, PSN, On-Live, and Steam. It is also announced that Al Lowe will be involved with the development of the new releases.

And then:

• In April 2012, Replay Games initiated the Kickstarter project Make Leisure Suit Larry come again! which finished funding on May 2, 2012 and secured a total of $674,598 ($655,182 via Kickstarter and $19,416 via Paypal) in funding compared to the $500,000 that was asked for. The "HD" Version of the game has a completion date of October 2012 listed, but it might be delayed to December 2012 or early 2013 since hitting the $650,000 mark. The $650,000 mark will add more story, dialogues and one more character.

Yup, they even got old Al Lowe to come back. Click on the links below. You know you want to.

CHECK OUT THE OFFICIAL SITE FOR ALL THE SLEAZY DETAILS

Bonus Video: Al Lowe talks about the rebirth of Leisure Suit Larry

1955-2011

www.apple.com

Ataris Ain't Cheap!

We all know that the cost of technology generally drops as it becomes cheaper and easier to produce, but the effect on the real world isn't always that visible to us lowly consumers. Luckily this infographic by artist Delano Taylor illustrates just how dramatic that effect can be.

CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFOGRAPHICS AND TO VIEW THE ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Beam Me Up, Portland!

Leave it Portland, Oregon to keep feeding us white, geeky, hipster news. The land espoused by SNL alum, Fred Armisen, as being a place where "the 90s never died" and "the tattoo ink never runs dry," has dipped a little further back into pop-culture's history to bring us a new summer pastime: Trek in the Park. Check out the video below - my apologies for the ad - for a glimpse of the Oregonian brother-sister duo, Adam and Amy Rosko, staging dramatic recreations of some of the original Star Trek's most-loved episodes to an audience of folks who are too hip to have cable.



CLICK HERE FOR THE FULL ARTICLE AND GALLERY ON CBS NEWS

Mad Ducketts: iPhone 1st Gen

Want an original 1st generation 2007 iPhone? Me neither, but someone sure does. If you go HERE you'll be taken to an eBay page where some lucky guy is selling one of these things new and sealed in its original packaging, and as of this post the bidding is up to $8,100! Luckily shipping is only $11 so that'll spare some pressure on the winner's wallet. $8,100! Can you believe it? I could pay off so many things with $8,100!!! You've got 2 days left to bid, GO GET IT!!!

Retro to the Core

The year was 1986. Steve Jobs had been forced out of his company 12 months prior and Apple was ready to get some real money flowing in now that the dirty hippie had been ejected and corporate sensibilities could finally take their rightful place in the fledgling fruit company. Up to that point Apple had already been known for their habit of creating custom t-shirts, which generally featured the names of projects employees were working on, or corporate events that had recently transpired (there's a whole book on it). But now Apple was in the thick of the "me" decade and what's more egotistical (and ideal for providing a low maintenance revenue stream on the side) than a full-featured, top-to-bottom clothing line? Absolutely nothing. Ask Mary-Kate and Ashley. To be honest, I haven't been able to determine just how long Apple's initial forray into custom duds lasted or how extensive the venture became, but you can still find selected bits of apparel branded with the iconic logo at various online outlets, just maybe a bit more tastefully designed than the dreck they tried to schlep on us back in the Max Headroom days. Check out the scans below for some selected cuts from the original catalog.