The Pop-Culture E-Zine
If you have aged like a fine wine, you’ll remember Commodore’s PET (Personal Electronic Transactor) line of home/personal computers produced in 1977 by Commodore International.
For those of you longing for some Commodore PET computer action, here’s 340 (at the time of publication) Commodore PET programs that you can run in your browser!
Tony Temple needs no introduction for anyone that is into the classic arcade video games scene. Tony’s The Arcade Blogger site is a treasure-trove of arcade’s past, including finds like arcade coin-op promotional videos from long gone heavyweights of the arcade industry.
Tony’s latest feature looks at the promotional videos Williams Electronics used to tempt their distributors and operators with their then latest and greatest offerings, from Defender and Joust, to Robotron, Sinistar and beyond. Grab some pop-corn and check out the promo vids – BE WARNED, some are cheesier than others 😉
Defender promo video
Robotron:2084 promo video
Sinistar promo video
To check out the rest of the Williams Electronics promotional videos, head on over to The Arcade Blogger now!
[YouTube video source: duncanfbrown and Mylstar Electronics]
You guys know that we are huge STAR WARS fans yeah? And we hope you know by now that we are also massive PINBALL fans, be it the real or virtual kind.
With the news that Zen Studios’ Pinball FX3 will add The Mandalorian pinball machine to the platform is darn awesome news! The Mandalorian will be their 20th Star Wars themed pinball machine, featuring story-based missions following events of the first season from the hit Disney+ series.
Before you ask (or if you’ve already seen the above pic), of course cute baby Yoda will be featured! Now roll on Spring (aka: Autumn for us!) 2021!
As the great Kuiil said, “I have spoken”!
source: Zen Studios
We are suckers for these time lapse based graphs. Press play an be in awe as you see your favourite video games rising in the top 10 and then falling before the winner takes it all!
A word of warning, it becomes quite grim for us retro gamers once the 2010 decade hits!
source: Gamology – The Best of Gaming
The Video Game History Foundation (VGHF), a nonprofit that brings old video games back to life by preserving, celebrating, and teaching their history, has recently unveiled the Video Game Source Project, an effort to save and study source code and related development materials before the stories around these games’ creation are lost forever.
“For a video game historian, an archaeological dig through source material is the next best thing to time travel,” said Frank Cifaldi, founder and co-director of the VGHF. “Unfortunately for us, most of that material — especially from our earliest days — has been lost forever. The Video Game Source Project will help us surface more of this material and normalize its use as an educational tool.”
To jump-start this initiative, the VGHF is putting out a call to developers, publishers, and anyone else in possession of source code, documentation, concept art, demo builds, or other materials that can help tell a game’s origin story. Donated materials will be maintained in the VGHF’s Northern California archives and made available to video game historians.
The first games to benefit from the Video Game Source Project will be Lucasfilm Games’ legendary point-and-click adventure The Secret of Monkey Island, which celebrates its 30 year anniversary this month, and its sequel Monkey Island 2: LeChuck’s Revenge.
The VGHF’s staff and volunteers have spent the past several months studying the Monkey Island games’ source code, uncovering unshipped secrets, and even reconstructing cut rooms and cinematics. Much of this content will be shown for the first time on October 30 when Ron Gilbert, the creator of Monkey Island and of the SCUMM game engine, joins Cifaldi for a livestreamed “fireside chat” and Q&A. Tickets for “The Secrets of Monkey Island” are available for $10 with sales benefitting the VGHF.
“Monkey Island is a special game to me and the creation of the SCUMM system is a large part of that. Looking at the source always jogs my memory and now gives me a chance to answer questions people didn’t even know to ask,” says Ron Gilbert. “As a developer, I see real value in preserving and learning from the work that we never imagined people in the future would care about. I’m glad the Video Game History Foundation is making this a priority while there’s still time to salvage history that’s becoming scarcer by the day.”
Beyond Monkey Island, members of the VGHF are currently studying source material from a beloved 16-bit RPG, abandoned Sega hardware from the 1990s, and a never-before-seen follow-up to a legendary arcade game. Historical analysis and content related to these games and others will be unveiled in the coming months. The VGHF has also established an advisory committee of developers, publishers, academics, and historians to tackle the problems related to source conservation and to encourage industry participation.
To learn more about the Video Game Source Project and sign up to receive email updates, visit the Video Game History Foundation website.
image source: VGHF
What do you get when you dig out a huge playfield with Caterpillar heavy machinery and then play one of the most iconic arcade games of all time celebrating its 40th anniversary?
You get Cat Trial 9: PAC-MAN, an awesome real life PAC-MAN game with huge Caterpillar earth movers. Who wouldn’t want to play this?! This just oozes coolness!
source: Cat® Products
Straight from the planet Funkotron comes the funkiest, custom SEGA Genesis / Mega Drive game ever to hit your CRT TV! Complete with light-up LEDs, moving arrow, and sound effects, this brass elevator replica will amaze your friends on the included display stand or played in a real SEGA Genesis / Mega Drive!
You now have the chance to grab this one of a kind creation via the current charity auction on eBay. This charity auction will see 100% of the sale proceeds going to the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. So not only could you win this super funky cartridge, but you can also help a great charity!
Happy bidding!
source: MID49
With all the attention being on this year’s Virtual Pinball Expo ’20 (which is on right now!), we thought we’d share an amazing custom creation by Pinball Depot from 2019 to celebrate the 35th anniversary of Pinball Expo.
Pinball Depot rethemed an unsalvageable Gottlieb Buccaneer electro-mechanical pinball machine for the 35th anniversary celebration, complete with alternate backglass to mark the anniversary and also a general Pinball Expo one.
We absolutely love this custom retheme and can’t even imagine how much effort and hard work went into this project. As a matter of fact, Dino Gaspari has told us that it took between 6 to 8 weeks to create this marvel, which is quite impressive in itself. This whole idea came about when Pinball Depot thought that it would be a great idea to make a custom pinball machine to honour and celebrate Rob Berk and his team for spearheading the longest running pinball trade show event, while also generating a new retheme custom pinball business – a win, win! Dino assures us that all rethemed pinball machines are only done on playfields that are deemed unsalvageable. Oh yeah, the playfield artwork is one of a kind airbrushed by hand and clear coated 12 times for longevity.
The Pinball Expo 35th Anniversary machine will also be streamed during the current Virtual Pinball Expo with pre-recorded gameplay, so make sure you tune in on Twitch. In the meantime, check out the photos Dino has shared with us of this machine. If this custom pinball looks this good in the pics, imagine how gorgeous it must look in person! Thanks to Dino Gaspari for sharing this with us!
PS: Pinball Depot has also soft launched shipmypinball.com, which is a self-serve site with real time quoting for shipping pinball machines without the need to sign up. Go check it out!
Let the creation begin!
Prepping the playfield
Nothing like some sunshine to dry the playfield
Hot pink legs!
Looking darn awesome!
Wish we could play this awesome custom built pinball machine! Note the Pinball Expo 35th anniversary backglass
The alternate Pinball Expo backglass looks just as cool!
Check out the playfield! The see-through plastics are darn gorgeous on this machine!
That wedge-head backbox is sublime
Wow, even the back of the machine gets the custom treatment!
image source: Dino Gaspari / Pinball Depot
The LEGO Ideas keep marching on with more and more cool new ideas which we hope will garner enough support for them to become products we can purchase off store shelves.
This Classic Two Player Arcade Racer LEGO Ideas entrant by BricksDownUnder is another that piqued our interest. The 80s era classic arcade aesthetic and intricate attention to detail is pretty impressive, from the player steering wheels to move their racer left and right on the racing track, to the motorised track moving under the racers to simulate motion, this is pretty darn cool. Oh yeah, there is also a speed changing lever to really get your heartrate going in ludicrous mode – twice the speed for twice the excitement!
Impressed? If you are (and we reckon you should be), go and vote for this pretty cool LEGO Ideas entrant!
image source: LEGO Ideas
For those new to pinball, Pinball Expo is an event that is held annually in Chicago. Pinball Expo has been running since the mid 80s and is one of the pinball industry’s most celebrated events. This expo always attracts the major pinball manufacturers, pinball industry professionals, pinball players, collectors and enthusiasts from all around the world.
Since 2020 is no ordinary year, Pinball Expo will be run virtually this time round. The Virtual Pinball Expo kicks off this Wednesday, October 14th, at 7:00pm (Chicago time – GMT-5) for a live broadcast on Twitch, and then continues for three days with heaps of tournaments, guest speakers, seminars, latest news in the world of pinball and all sorts of other pinball fun for lovers of the silverball game.
The best part of this year’s event is that it is totally free to view on Twitch, so make sure you bookmark www.twitch.tv/pinballexpo! Hope to see you all online at Pinball Expo 2020.
image source: Pinball Expo