History

Commodore 65: The Holiest Of Holy Grails

16/02/2015 By ausretrogamer

If you needed evidence in how desirable a rare retro computing item could be, then surely the auction result for the holiest of holy grails, the Commodore 65, is a great case in point – selling for a record €20,050 (Ed: that’s $26,915AUD!), it’s rarity and desirability is assured.

Being just a collector is not enough to be able to compete and procure such extremely rare and very expensive items. Hardcore collectors or collectors backed by some very generous benefactors are the only ones that can hunt and end up with these precious pieces of computing history.

The Commodore 65 is definitely the epitome of rare – created by Fred Bowen and his buddies at Commodore Business Machines at the beginning of the 1990s, the computer never saw the light of day and was subsequently canned. When Commodore met its demise in 1994, a number of prototype C65 computers were sold on the open market. For those that picked one up, well, let’s just say that they were investing in a goldmine which would reap benefits in the future – and that it has on this occasion!

Source: Thomas Conté | Zed Yago | eBay

A Brief History Of Graphics: Pixels, Sprites and Polygons

16/01/2015 By ausretrogamer

If your New Year’s resolution was to learn more about video game graphics, you are in luck. For those of you with limited time to spare, I present three videos by Ahoy, providing a brief history of graphics; from pixels and sprites, to those super cool polygons! Are video games all about graphics? Of course not! Feast your eyes and ears right now, you may learn something.

Part 1: Pixels Pioneers

Part 2: Sprite Supreme

Part 3: Polygon Realm

source: Ahoy

ABC Radio National – A Short History of Video Games

07/01/2015 By ausretrogamer

It is always great to find video games based articles and programs published by major media outlets. This time around, our beloved Aunty (ABC Radio National) has got in on the video gaming action with an interesting piece on ‘A history of video games in five anecdotes’ by Dan Golding. The article is part of the A Short History Of Video Games program.

So what do the Australian Human Rights Commission, Alan Turing’s chess game, Toru Iwatani’s Pac Man and Australia’s first hit video game have in common? You’ll have to read Dan’s story here to find out.

While you are exploring the ABC Radio National’s ‘A Short History Of Video Games’ program, you may also want to listen to the accompanying podcasts. Listen to them, as you may learn something. Hit play and immerse yourself in a bit of video gaming history. Thank you Aunty.

source: ABC Radio National

Smells Like Christmas 1992/1993

05/01/2015 By ausretrogamer

Ah yeah, I remember the festive season of 1992/93 quite well. Shane Warne was mesmerising the opposition with his leggies and Sharon Stone was uncrossing her legs in Basic Instinct.

On the gaming front, it was all about the 16-bit beasts from Sega and Nintendo, but there was still some fighting spirit left in the 8-bit consoles. The Australian gaming charts for December/January 1992/93 show that it was Sonic 2 kicking ten shades out of the opposition on the Sega consoles, while the usual suspects were doing their thing on the Nintendo systems.

Who could forget the Sega Powerline – the guys on the hotline were there to help you beat Robotnik with a ‘Super Dash Attack’ – they did warn kids to seek their parents permission to call, as the 70c per minute was highway robbery.

Oh yeah, there was also the Sega Club. The Club was created to entice you to become a member and get your hands on some tasty exclusive Sega gear! With an annual membership cost of $20, it was well worth sending in your credit card details.

As per usual, Ocean was peddling their latest videogame film tie-in, Lethal Weapon. Slated for all 8 and 16-bit computers and consoles, the Master System version mysteriously didn’t make it due to unknown reasons – perhaps a blessing!

Still on the Ocean bandwagon, their wares were still going strong in the early 90s. The Dream Team consisted of games that transcended popular culture, from The Simpsons and wrestling, to the T800 Arnie becoming a good guy. I won’t be back to play!

Being the festive season, Sega was eager to cash in on the Christmas rush and wrestle you away from the Game Boy and buy their newfangled handheld, the Game Gear – the ultimate escape kit. Who could resist a bit of Streets Of Rage on the go!

With grunge popularity at its peak and the video gaming industry pumping out awesome games to keep us entertained, it definitely smelled like a great Christmas in 1992/93.

A 1972 Magnavox Odyssey Promo: I Like Them Cheesy

02/01/2015 By ausretrogamer

Prior to super-slick marketing videos, there was cheesy (and endearing) promotional films, just like this rare 1972 footage telling you all about the ground breaking Magnavox Odyssey video game system – the electronic game of the future!

Since there was no YouTube back then, this super-8 film was distributed to TV dealers in the very obscure Magi-Cartridge film-loop format, which could be viewed on special display devices in the dealer showroom. Would this video have got your attention? I know this promo would have sucked me in to getting Mr. Baer’s Odyssey, but that’s because I like my promotional videos to be big and cheesy.

source: yorkie2

Top 5 Games Charts: September 1997

03/12/2014 By ausretrogamer

The start of September in 1997 was tinged with sadness with the passing of Mother Teresa and the funeral of Diana, Princess Of Wales. With Elton John’s Candle In The Wind song topping the music charts, we were also introduced to another hit song, Tubthumping from Chumbawaba. In the video gaming sphere, Electronic Arts was pervading the top 5 games charts on a number of platforms, from the PlayStation and Saturn, to the ubiquitous personal computer.

I recall hammering V-Rally to death on my PlayStation and loving the politically incorrect and gruesome Carmageddon on the PC. What were your favourite games from September 1997?

	1) V-Rally (Ocean)
	2) International Superstar Soccer Pro (Konami)
	3) Syndicate Wars (Electronic Arts)
	4) Rage Racer (Sony)
	5) Fade To Black: Platinum (Electronic Arts)

	1) King Of Fighters ’95 (SNK)
	2) Fighters Megamix (Sega)
	3) Manx TT Superbike (Sega)
	4) FIFA ’97 (Electronic Arts)
	5) Shining The Holdy Ark (Sega)

	1) Dungeon Keeper (Electronic Arts)
	2) Carmageddon (SCI)
	3) FIFA Soccer Manager (Electronic Arts)
	4) Command & Conquer: Red Alert (Virgin)
	5) Theme Hospital (Electronic Arts)

‘Atari: Game Over’ – Setting The Record Straight

22/11/2014 By ausretrogamer

When I first heard that Fuel Entertainment and Xbox Entertainment Studios were going to make a documentary about the so-called Atari landfill urban legend, I thought, “everyone knows that Atari dumped their stock in Alamogordo. So what?“. So what indeed. A lot of people still believed that it was an urban legend that Atari dumped millions of E.T. cartridges. Well, my scepticism about the documentary and how it would present the material was totally unfounded. My scepticism had been smashed out of the park. Take a bow Mr. Zak Penn.

The documentary interweaves two storylines within an hour of compelling viewing. There is the lead up to the Alamogordo dig and the rise and fall of Atari. The interviews with key Atari people, including its co-founder, Nolan Bushnell, former Warner Communications Inc. Co-Chief Operating Officer, Emmanuel (Manny) Gerard and Atari games developer, Howard Scott Warshaw, add that extra credibility to an already well produced documentary. (Ed: SPOILER ALERT!) There is an emotional moment in the documentary when Howard is asked by a media crew on how he felt about the dig. We promise you, you will shed a tear too.

Atari: Game Over sets the record straight about the Atari burial myth once and for all – do yourself a favour, and watch it right now!

Screenshots from Atari: Game Over

Celebrating the Atari Lynx

03/10/2014 By ausretrogamer

It may have started life on a napkin back in 1986, but it wasn’t officially released to the gaming public as the world’s first 16-bit colour handheld till October 1989 (Ed: the Atari Lynx was officially released on September 1 1989, but it wasn’t available for retail till October of that year). The Epyx Handy, which would eventually become the Atari Lynx, celebrates a significant milestone – it’s another year older and it is still kicking nostalgic goals!

The Atari Lynx may have been decimated in market share by the Game Boy juggernaut, but it’s place in history is undeniable. It didn’t bask in the same glory as Nintendo’s little pocket rocket, let’s face it, no other handhelds did, but with 16-bit colour graphics, support for hardware scaling, great arcade conversions and the ability to link up with friends, the Lynx was still a force to be reckoned with. With two system variants, the Lynx provided many hours of fun – as long as you were stocked to the teeth with AA batteries.

We wrote about the Lynx’s history (Ed: you can read that here), which in typical Atari fashion was quite colourful, with lots of twists and turns. This feature celebrates everything about the mighty 16-bit colour handheld – its hardware revisions, its awesomest games and some very interesting facts.

The Lynx was truly ahead of its time. Long live the Atari Lynx!

Hardware Comparison:

Game Cards – Curled vs Flat:

Awesomest Atari Lynx Games:

Interesting Atari Lynx Facts:

It was initially going to be the Atari Portable Entertainment System. But once it was pointed out that the acronym would be APES, the name change was swift;
The Lynx was christened many names before Atari settled with the name we now know and love – it went from being the Epyx Handy, APES, Nuclear Toaster to finally, the Lynx;
The model name was chosen due to the system’s ability to link up with multiple machines. It wasn’t in reference to the big cat of the same name;
It was the first home system to support hardware scaling, just like After Burner and Pit Fighter in the arcades;
Mikey was the first sound chip in any console to provide specialist sampled sound support on all four channels;
Game cards could store up to a maximum of two megabytes;
The 8-bit CPU was paired with a 16-bit math co-processor – this took a lot of the cycle load off the CPU and allowed the Lynx to provide super fast game play;
It was the first colour LCD with a 16-bit graphics chip (Suzy) – providing 4,096 colours to choose from with a maximum of 16 per scanline.

Activision: Happy 35th Birthday

01/10/2014 By ausretrogamer

What do you do when the company you make video games for does not want to recognise nor pay you royalties for your efforts? You become disgruntled and leave that company with a few of your programmer co-workers and form your own company. Well, that is pretty much how Activision was created – to break the shackles from Atari and recognise the programming geniuses behind some of the most beloved video games of all time.

In creating Activision; David Crane, Larry Kaplan, Alan Miller, and Bob Whitehead became the world’s first third-party video games developers. So thank you to the courage of these men, we can only speculate (Ed: shudder to think!) what would have happened if we didn’t have a third-party video games developer community.

Activision has changed over the last three and a half decades, as has the video games market, but its legacy will not be forgotten. We still love playing their creations from all those years ago, from Pitfall! and River Raid on the Atari 2600, to breaking joysticks with Decathlon on the C64. Ah, those were the days. Happy 35th birthday Activision!

Retro Gaming: Solid State Media

25/09/2014 By ausretrogamer

There is no point in pretending that I am a fan of downloadable content (DLC) – just for the record, I am not a fan! However, I can’t deny that it is the way of the future, unfortunately.

There is a sense of gratification when holding something precious like old school video games in your hands. That tactile pleasure is not the same as hitting the ‘Download Now‘ button. As solid state media becomes extinct, the pleasure of holding games in your hands and looking at the back to “check out the graphics” will become a thing of the past – something to tell your grandchildren.

Just like books adorning your personal library, there is an intoxicating atmosphere of nostalgia when you are able to view and touch your retro gaming collection. There is a sense of cultural importance in preserving these collections. Be proud of your gaming cartridges, diskettes, tapes, CDs, cards, DVDs and Blu-Rays. They may be going the same way as the dodo bird, but our passion for preserving these artefacts will ensure that they are enjoyed for generations to come.

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