Steven Leckart

Dating Tip #238: Find A Computer Demo Center

The Atari 800, with its 1.79MHZ 8 bit processor, was manufactured from 1979 until 1982 when the 1200XL took its place. Of course, the upgraded machine was considered a "bomb," says the Atari Museum, because it didn't have any expansion slots, an external bus connector and featured only 2 of the 4 controller ports users got with the 800 — which of course makes the 800 the ultimate console for double dates.

I'm sure Leonardo DiCaprio will cover this in the Atari movie.

[image via Fiction Romance via Retrospace Zeta via .tiff]

Brandon Boyer

Video: Greig Stewart's theremin-controlled Super Mario Bros hack

When last we checked in with Greig 'conquerearth' Stewart he was using his theremin-chic hacks to outwit Rock Band into thinking he was singing Portal theme Still Alive, and now, he's tricked his NES into thinking he's playing Super Mario Bros..

Adds Stewart: "Who needs a Natal when you've got a theremin!" [thanks Tiff!]

Brandon Boyer

One shot: the soulless, indifferent gaze of the NES R.O.B. Army

Detail of a promotional poster for the NES's automaton playmate R.O.B., recently sold on eBay. [via GamOver]

Brandon Boyer

The other Nintendo CD-ROM attachment that never was

Over at the LostLevels forum -- a haven for all things both retro and long forgotten (and subsequently re-surfaced) -- Frank Cifaldi's found early record of a CD-ROM attachment for the NES in development from UK outfit Codemasters.

The article says an adapter would have let you connect your NES to any audio CD player to load included games off the disc -- much the same as any early computer cassette drive -- presumably in an effort to both circumvent and compete against high-cost first-party cartridge manufacturing.

Said the March 1990 magazine:

One CD containing two or three games will be the same price as one traditional cartridge game, and one three-five meg game will cost less than a comparable cartridge game. Camerica currently plans to have six CD's available in July when the unit is released-three CD's with two games each on them, and three CD's, each with a three-five meg game on them.

Camerica distributed a number of similarly unlicensed Codemasters products during the NES's lifespan, including a number of 4-in-1 game carts, but the CD-ROM attachment, obviously, was an idea shelved for unknown reasons.

The idea would resurface in Nintendo's willingness to partner with Sony for a CD-ROM attachment for the SNES, which would, of course -- as you can hear recounted in exhaustive detail via this excellent recent Edge magazine article -- then dissolve into Sony's branching off to create the PlayStation.

[Credit for the picture above goes to the entirely unrelated but too-appropriate NES PC.]

Codemasters/Samsung developed CD add-on for the NES [LostLevels]

Brandon Boyer

More Meggy music: Darius Kazemi/Josh Brandt's MeggySeqSynth

Every new video weakens my resolve: Darius Kazemi has uploaded new video of his previously mentioned MeggySynth, only now, he's combined it with Josh Brandt's sequencer MeggySeq for a standalone programmable/freestyle device.

More videos are available via his flickr, including a few of Everyday Shooter creator Jon Mak making his own Meggy music.

MeggySeqSynth Demo [flickr]

Brandon Boyer

One shot: mousevomit's Nintendo Entertainment System Mouse

Sadly, purely a design concept created in foam.

Nintendo Entertainment System Mouse [mousevomit, via Tom]

Brandon Boyer

Video: Retro computers sing Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody

Not to be shown up by the Super Mario-singing laser cutter, an Atari 800XL, a TI-99/4a (my first gaming PC!), an 8" floppy disk drive, a 3.5" hard drive, and an HP ScanJet 3C walked into a bar... and there is no joke: they sang Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody together and it was beautiful.

Queen Bohemian Rhapsody Old School Computer Remix [bd594, roundabout via "Eric" Marcoullier]

Brandon Boyer

Donkey Kong in lights: Steven Read's Meggy Jr. Super Monkey Kong

Though Darius Kazemi's still the unspoken champ of Evil Mad Scientist's 8x8 LED portable Meggy Jr. RGB (having actually laid hands on and fallen a little in love with his Tiny Rogue during GDC [and made it further into its glorious glitched-out program-error netherworld than anyone apparently had before]), the newest heavyweight contender is Steven Read with his 1x1 sprite platformer Super Monkey Kong.

Wonderfully interpretive and surprisingly readable for a series of flashing lights, Super Monkey Kong is an 8x8 vertically-scrolling version of Donkey Kong, which completely sells itself with that giant purple Kong at the top of the level.

Head over to Steven Read's site for the (unfortunately unembeddable) video to take in the full new-retro splendor.

Super Monkey Kong [Steve Read, via Denki Games' twitter]

Brandon Boyer

The fawn-like future shuffle of EON Reality's immersive 3D room

Says IDEO Labs of EON Reality's immersive 3D 'cave' (which renders polarized stereoscopic imagery based on the position of the wearer's glasses):

A simple, featherweight headset, a 10' x 10' x 10' white room, and $600,000 worth of projector and computer equipment, combined with the smarts of the folks at Eon Reality, results in one insanely real experience.

Who knew once the future we were all waiting for finally got here it'd be so unbelievably disorienting? I get a little touch of motion sickness just watching him try and baby-step shuffle down the stairs. Where's the power fantasy in that?

AMAZING 3D IMMERSION TECHNOLOGY [labs.IDEO, via core77, via Nathan]

Joel Johnson

Video: Laser cutter plays Super Mario Bros. theme

Continuing our current family-wide obsession with industrial machinery playing music, Hacklab.to's laser cutter can now use its stepper motors to play a fine version of the Super Mario Bros. theme song. (Thanks, Leigh!)

Brandon Boyer

Playing with power: Matt Mechtley modernizes the NES Power Glove

Nintendo and Mattel's 1989 experiment to bring wearable VR control to the masses may have ended with a whimper, but Flashbang programmer Matt Mechtley is celebrating the NES Power Glove's 20th anniversary by trying to do it right:

I loved the Power Glove for what it represented -- a precursor to virtual reality, a way for humans to directly manipulate computers, like an artifact from some sort of alternate future Earth.

I realized one day that we're actually living in that future. It doesn't look the same as we imagined it, but the necessary elements are all there. It's been 20 years now since Mattel released the Power Glove, in 1989. Especially in the last few years, the availability of sophisticated sensing equipment to hardware hackers has grown by leaps and bounds. Technology like programmable microcontrollers, accelerometers, and Bluetooth are readily available -- and cheap. In short, the time is ripe to re-make the Power Glove -- and make it right.

Mechtley has "replaced the ultrasonic sensors with an accelerometer, the proprietary microcontroller with an open-source Arduino, and the wired connection with Bluetooth," but to what end? Currently he's feeding the device into Unity, or, more specifically, Flashbang's recently blogged iPhone boxing game Touch KO, which you can see in motion via the video above.

Make the Future You Imagined: The Power Glove -- 20th Anniversary Edition [Biphenyl, full Instructables write-up, via twitter]

Previously:
Touch-KO: An early look at Adam Mechtley's iPhone boxer - Offworld

Brandon Boyer

PlayPower turning NES/Famicom clones into learning tools for the developing world

This one might seem to fall slightly out of Offworld's purview, but PlayPower's Daniel Rehn is a new friend of the site, and they're actually doing something both a.) wonderful and humanitarian and b.) closer to home than you'd think.

The PlayPower organization's mission is to turn cheap, ubiquitous 8-bit 'TV computers' (read: NES/Famicom clones) into ~$10 games-enabled learning devices for the developing world (versus manufacturing custom hardware, as with the OLPC), and they're enlisting a lot of familiar names to help kickstart the program.

Namely, as Wired's excellent and exhaustive new feature points out, they've tapped the NES hacking resources of 8bitpeoples for help with programming and providing music for new learning games, specifically No Carrier, who helped program Alex Mauer's excellent NES-cart-album Vegavox (YouTube).

They're also tapping into Bob Rost's NES Basic compiler nBasic which he taught as a Carnegie Mellon course several years back -- student creation Dikki Painguin was co-written by World of Goo's Wii programmer Allan Blomquist, with fellow 2D Boy Kyle Gabler contributing music.

As you can see, then, all of the PlayPower crew have solid games-related backgrounds which they're using to giving the product more vitality and appeal, and they're currently seeking new designs for learning games: check the full wiki and the blog for more details on that, and the group expects to start releasing dev kits soon via MakerSHED.

$12 Computer: Playpower Wants to Save the World 8 Bits at a Time [Wired, PlayPower home]