Atari
Christmas Lemmings!
My task, should I accept (and you did – Ed) was to write an article about Christmas Lemmings as a segue into Lemmings in general. The reason behind this, is simply to meet my brief [more…]
History
Commodore
The Home Computer Christmas Wars
Imagine you forked over US$30 (US$80 in 2018) or even more in Australia with its ‘luxury’ import tax for an ET cartridge to give little Johnnie for Christmas and he hated it! You would’ve been [more…]
Atari
A Bicycle Named Stella
The second prong of Bushnell’s two-pronged effort to bring arcade games to more children was a secret project codenamed Stella. In 1975 Atari had successfully converted its smash-hit Pong arcade machine into a home version, [more…]
Atari
The Big Cheese: How a Pizza Rat changed the image of video arcades from famously fiendish to family friendly
Atari co-founder Nolan Bushnell was facing a serious conundrum. His ‘video computer system’, a cartridge-based home video-game console designed to play versions of popular Atari arcade games, was certain to be a big hit, but [more…]
Computers
Pay By The Minute: The CompuServe Era
So, what if we made a really big Bulletin Board System, one that could be dialed-in to from any city, and where thousands of people could interact, rather than just a few? These days [more…]
Computers
BBSes: Partying Online Like It’s 1989
While the Internet would eventually bring computer-based telecommunications to the masses, by the late 1980s more tech-savvy individuals were already meeting new people and having all sorts of discussions ‘on-line’ – and in some cases [more…]
Consumer Electronics
Gadget Graveyard: Dot-Matrix Printers
You might have got the impression, upon entering Jane Smith’s house (sometime in 1986) that her husband was in the process of renovating their kitchen, the sound of a power tool growling and grinding away [more…]
Apple II
A Tongue-In-Cheek Look Back at Broderbund’s ‘The Print Shop’
In the early 1980s, if you wanted posters to advertise a yard sale or a party, your options were pretty limited. You could get some blank sheets of paper and some crayons or felt markers [more…]
Computers
Issue 4 Editorial: The Computers Are Coming to Get Us!
SOON, FOR HUMANITY, THE PARTY WAS GOING TO BE OVER. Successful science fiction preys on our fears of the future – nobody cares about watching a movie about the peaceful existence we’re all going to [more…]
Computers
The Lunar Code: Inside the Apollo Guidance Computer
The Apollo Guidance Computer (AGC) was a fascinating design for its time, and demonstrated many concepts that would take hold be used for many years to come. The 512Khz master signal (derived from a [more…]