Happy 1985 Everybody!

2015? Who needs it? 2014 was all military invasions, plane crashes and beating your wife in elevators, what makes you think next year will be any better? Yeah, that's what I thought. Instead, let's celebrate the closing out of a way more excellent year, 1984, with superstars Lily Tomlin and Chaka Khan! And if you don't know who those people are, go back to Reddit or nickjr.com and ask someone. Word up!

Betamaxmas: Updated for Mobile

Is it real, or is it Betamaxmas?

It's that time of the year once again and as always, the Retrogeeker likes to turn to his favorite Holiday-themed site and bask in the warm glow of yesteryear's CRTs and cheap Korean animation whilst waiting for the pop-corn machine to warm up. Yes that's right, it's time for Betamaxmas.com, the site that let's you slip back onto that basement couch parked in front of a 4:3 TV and watch all of your favorite 80s Christmas shows and more! Of course, even Retrogeeker's can't live in the past forever (although we do try) and thus, the mysterious web coder, known only to me as Jeffery, has overhauled the entire site to comply with today's modern mobile web standards so that you no longer have to remain tethered to your desktop or laptop in order to enjoy a slice of 80s cheese. That's right, Betamaxmas.com is now 100% Flash-free and mobile-friendly. So fire up your iPad or Galaxy Tab, squeeze into your favorite pair of Underoos and enjoy some Christmas cheer while sitting on the toilet.

CLICK HERE TO VISIT BETAMAXMAS.COM

The future is retro

♫ Make new friends, but keep the old, one is retro and the other's not ♫

One thing I've noticed about the my most fiendish Retrogeeker friends, they're some of the most cutting-edge mofos I know. If the idea of a retro computing nut makes you think of that dad–the one who spent countless evenings typing in basic programs from magazines on his C-64, to store on C-90 compact cassettes–but then stopped using computers altogether by 1986–think again; this ain't your grandfather's retro. Every true retrophile I know today is also a true technophile. (Which I guess makes them/us retro-techno-philes?)

Examples are all around me, incidentally with dudes who've been my friend for 20 - 30 years:

• Mark, the guy who runs retrogeeker.com is already running iOS9 on an iPhone 7 (impossible, right?) but he also has a basement full of Performas and 8-bit Atari computers that he still puts to good use.

See 43 weird articles of
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• My friend KevinO is the first person in the known universe to start geocaching, yet when asked about the upcoming release of the Apple Watch, said, "I got an Apple Watch btw. No big whoop."

• I use my quad-core i7 Mavericks machine to automate the most menial tasks, recognize my voice commands over the telephone, and flip on and off light switches in Bangkok. Yet few would believe that I sent my first e-mail in the summer of '81, coded my first webpage in 1993, and was the first person to register kate.com back when domains could be registered at no cost. And yet, my latest purchase was a dusty old Pong machine - a chip-for-chip clone of Atari's 1972 coin-op hit released by Allied Leisure in March of 1973 called "Paddle Battle."

I've been reflecting on stuff like this a lot lately, and today stumbled upon this essay reflecting on our brief tech history and how it intersects with our humanity. Highly-recommended 23-minute read:

Networks Without Networks

Accept Girls into your Midst, Nerdmen!

Can you pick Ally Sheedy out of a lineup?

Today's retro quiz - go back to 1975 and tell me - which of these three young ladies is the real Alley Sheedy, the one you later came to adore in 80's classics like Short Circuit, The Breakfast Club, and WarGames?

This is a difficult task so we'll give you the advantage of placing your answer 40 years in the future. No cheating!