The Commodore 64, introduced at the 1982 Winter Consumer Electronics Show, was a significant improvement on the VIC-20, and would become the best-selling computer model of all time. In early 1981, Commodore-subsidiary MOS Technology began [more…]
During 1983 a home console revolution started in Japan with the release of the Nintendo Famicom. Short for Family Computer, this new console was designed to take video games beyond the giant pixels and beeper [more…]
Released in 1980, the VIC-20 was the world’s first low-cost computer, at a list price of under US$300. Compared to other computers of the time, the VIC-20 had a tiny memory (5 kilobytes) and an [more…]
The limited release of the Nintendo Classic Mini in 2016 revived the market for “retro-clone” consoles as people flocked to re-live the video games of their youth. Paleotronic acquired a couple of common clones from [more…]
What do Steve Wozniak and George H.W. Bush have in common? They’ve both been seriously into Tetris! But who can blame them? The object of the game (as if you didn’t know) is to complete [more…]
Marty’s camera in Back to the Future is one cool piece of gear, but his JVC GR-C1 VideoMovie was actually over four years old at this point – an early version of it had been [more…]
Before MS-DOS, Microsoft’s biggest product was arguably BASIC. Variants of Microsoft BASIC shipped in most 1980s home computers, including the Commodore 64, Tandy Color Computer and the Apple II (as Applesoft BASIC). Standing for “Beginners [more…]
The 1990s saw the rise of handheld portable video-gaming, with the three dominant console manufacturers, Nintendo, Sega and Atari all coming out with their own take on gaming-on-the-go. Could Nintendo’s monochromatic Game Boy fend off [more…]
Paleotronic had a chat with archivist and documentary film-maker Jason Scott (Get Lamp) about his efforts to preserve Apple II and other vintage computer software… Firstly, could you give a little background on how the [more…]
Why did you choose to start aggressively de-protecting, archiving and re-distributing Apple II software? It’s tempting to rewrite history and give myself some noble purpose for starting this hobby, but in this case the truth [more…]
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