Funny computer commercial

Back then when PCs were bulky and slow, the commercials for them were really funny. Take this one for example: it's about the Portable 2 Compaq PC. Because it was marvellous comparing it to another PC wouldn't have been fair. So it could only be compared to a fish. Now say, what would you choose between a 4MB old "Portable" or the fish, which, unfortunately, can't remember a thing?

Game controller Ornaments

If you're a real gamer then you'll definitely want to decorate your Christmas tree with something to remind you of your dear Xbox (or Wii, PS3)... Now you can have tree ornaments that look like game controllers! They are made of nicely cut plastic and they come in various colours. Old consoles were not forgotten: there are also ornaments shaped like N64, Dreamcast, NES, PS2 and Sega Genesis controllers.

Read more on Etsy

8-bit Daily

8-bit songs, or chiptunes have become very popular nowadays. It might be because they remind us of our childhood or simply because most of the songs are happy and refreshing. Many sites host chiptunes, but they are flooded with user content and they don't bother to select only the best. The result is a site with thousands of 8-bit songs, most of them of a very low quality. A big chiptune fan decided to change this thing and started his own 8-bit site. Every day he (or she) carefully selects a chiptune and posts it, along with a short description. There are no bad chiptunes on this site, you can be sure of that!

Click here to be teleported to 8bitdaily

Caps

Caps is an old game with a new touch. Remember the classic Peg Solitaire? Well, Caps is the same game, just instead of pegs you remove caps. What is so nice about it is the atmosphere. The music is relaxing, the caps are colorful and the background is made up of old newspaper pages. There is a puzzle shaped like a butterfly, one as a crab, a yin-yang and many other nice shapes.

Play it on ArmorGames

SNES emulator for N900

Nokia usually makes quite powerful high-end phones and the N900 is no exception. To make us truly understand just how fun a N900 can be a Nokia employee remembered how much we love the SNES and made an emulator for it. He also added WiiMote support and, if you want to play at home, it can be connected to the TV. Sounds like the perfect phone to me...

Read more on the creator's blog

Recreation of Monkey Island 2 using CryEngine

I've never thought that a 3D conversion of Monkey Island could keep its appeal, until I've seen this video. Appell Hannes is the artist who turned the 2D environment into 3D, by using Maya and exporting the models to the CryEngine Sandbox editor. He even put a character in his video, to show some interaction. I wish a new Monkey Island came out with these graphics and some magic from the original team...

Nixie concrete clock

Clocks have been around us for some time, but never before had anybody decided to make one out of a concrete block with embeded nixie tubes. Daniel Kurth is the artist behind it and he's considering this to go into production. This is one clock you won't want to throw in the morning when the alarm goes off.

Hit the link for more info and pictures.

Apple - yesterday and today

Let's have a look at one of the most important and successful brands ever - Apple.
Today they offer elegant and powerful mp3 players (the iPod), state of the art mobile phones and slick personal computers and laptops. But... this big company had to start small... some time ago...
The first product they marketed was the Apple 1. This personal computer was designed and hand-built by Steve Wozniak and went on sale in July 1976 - Steve Jobs, a friend of Wozniak had the idea to produce and sell it. I really don't know who on earth would buy for $666.66 a printed circuit board, a bag of parts and a 16-page assembly manual. The user had to provide his or her own keyboard, power supply and monitor. Despite this, people bought it enough to raise funds to start Apple Computer.

Kool-Aid

This is American
This is retro
This is Kool-Aid
It represents a part of old American culture. It's an artificially-flavored drink usually colored in red and it has been there for some time. I personally like the the Kool-Aid Man (it's mascot) who's a big frosty pitcher with arms and legs. He often says "Oh Yeah!"
Watch the commercial below and others, but be careful not to expose yourself too much to it...

Planet of the Apes

Planet of the Apes is a 1968 science fiction film directed by Franklin J. Schaffner loosely based on the novel La planète des singes by Pierre Boulle.
It's here on this site because it's a very valuable piece of retro culture. It's very interesting when you look back at the plots of old science fiction movies.
The film was well received by critics and audiences, launching a film franchise, including four sequels, as well as a short lived television show, animated series, comic books, various merchandising, and eventually a remake in 2001.

I found the original movie splitted in 3 parts on YouTube. Here's the first part:



The second



And the third

Chiptunes & 8bit music

This article is for those who loved music that was coming out from the Amiga/ Commodore 64/ NES or any other old console.
Chiptunes are found in most cracktros/intros/demoscenes or games. They consist of basic waveforms such as: sine waves, square waves and sawtooth or triangle waves, and basic percussion. According to wikipedia: The "golden age" of chiptunes was the mid 1980s to early 1990s, when such sound chips were the most common method for creating music on computers.
Crackers would release a cracked version of a software/game accompanied by a small executable through which they could demonstrate their programming skills. Such executables are called cracktros (crack-intro) and they use visual effects and chiptunes. The first cracktro I enjoyed listening was one from the group named CLASS and the soundtrack is composed by Maktone. Cracktros released by him can be found on his official website (see below).

Chiptune friendly links:
http://www.last.fm/tag/8bit - listen to some tracks online and download them if you like
http://www.last.fm/music/Maktone - read about Maktone (my hero and the first composer I've ever head a chiptune)
http://www.maktone.tk/ - Maktone's official website with cracktros and music in different formats
http://www.chiptune.com/ - retro site with a very cool old computer interface and tons of chiptunes
http://chiptunes.free.fr/ - not too stylish but usefull
...and last bot not least: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiptune from where you can document yourself

Sam & Max

In 1987 Steve Purcell created two comic book characters, named Sam and Max. Later on, these characters appeared in 1993 in the computer game Sam & Max Hit the Road, in 1997 in the animated series named The Adventures of Sam & Max Freelance Police and more recent in the episodic adventre games.
The Sam & Max universe was a parody of the american culture. Sam is a biped dog wearing detective's clothing and Max is a "hyperkinetic rabbity thing". They are both private investigators calling themselvs "freelance police".
Enjoy one of the episodes:

Here is the official webpage of TellTale Games, the ones who made the episodic games for the PC featuring the two heroes: http://www.telltalegames.com/samandmax

The Fallout Universe - Part 1

This is the first part of the article dedicated to the Fallout Universe. But what is Fallout anyway? My definition sounds like this: "the best role playing game I have ever played" and I'll tell you why later. The first Fallout was released by Interplay in 1997 after the guys from Black Isle finished working on it. The game has a post-apocalyptic setting in the late 22nd century, though its story and artwork are heavily influenced by the post-World War II nuclear paranoia of the 1950s. Fallout is also known as the "post-apocalyptic role playing game".

Plot
"War. War never changes." Humanity has been wiped out of the face of the earth due to a massive nuclear war known as The Great War. You are an inhabitant of an underground nuclear bunker known as Vault13 (the USA government buit underground vaults in case of a nuclear war). The water chip responsible for the water recycling and pumping machinery, has broken so you're asked by the Vault Overseer to leave the safety of the vault and find another water chip.

Starting the game...
You get to choose your character or make one of your own (I made my own). The traits of your character will influence almost anything in the game because if you are very agile you can run alot and avoid conflicts and if you're not very intelligent most people won't even talk with you. You get some character points to start with and you can freely use them into your Strength, Perception, Endurance, Charisma, Intelligence, Agility and Luck. You also get to choose some skills traits and perks. After doing this an intro will popup and you get to play the game. You main goal is to find a water chip in 150 days, but the time limit can be extended... The main problem is that you are a complete stranger to the nuclear wasteland beause you were raised in a vault and finding a water chip will proove a bit difficult... (Spoiler: you don't finish the game after you get that chip)
The gameplay consists of exploring the world, talking and interacting with people and taking on quests. You can talk to almost anyone, barther, kill, steal, picklock doors, heal people, repair stuff, skin animals and almost anything...

The best parts of Fallout:
+ the game has a great plot; the sidestories and sidequests are wonderful
+ you can finish the game in very many ways depending on your actions and your starting characters abilities and perks
+ the game is very humorous (bottle caps are used as currency; you can find Godzilla's footprint with a crushed villager in it; you even get to meet Robin Hood)
+ even if you're good or bad you can finish the game in 29 minutes or 3 months (that depends on your agility and luck)
+ events are randomized in the game
+ you don't get to fight with the same old orcs, elves, undead creatures, knights, demons, dragons, fishpeople, golems or any of that...
+ the action doesn't take place in the middle ages; that's right, you don't have swords, bows or magic stuff