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It’s On Like Donkey Kong – The Amazing PC Case

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Sometimes there is a huge pay off being in Facebook creator / modder groups, like the PC Builders Community group, which as the name suggests, is where clever peeps share their creations and modifications.

On this occasion, group member, Dennis Riese shared his custom Donkey Kong PC case, which as you can see in the photos, is mind-blowingly amazing!

Impressed with the PC case? You should be! The intricate level of detail is so spot on, this would pass as a Nintendo first party PC case – it looks that good. So what’s powering this liquid-cooled beast under the hood? It’s just as impressive as the case:

  • Motherboard – ASUS ROG Maximus XII Hero
  • Processor – Intel i9 10900
  • Graphics Card – NVIDIA GeForce 3080Ti Founders Edition with Corsair Hydro X water block
  • RAM – 32GB Crucial Ballistix MAX
  • OS – Windows 11 Pro
  • Storage 1 – WD Black 500gig M.2 NVme
  • Storage 2 – Samsung 970 Evo+ 2TB M.2 NVme
  • Cooling – 2 Corsair Hydro X water loops

Dennis says that,

Fun build and completely overkill for me to play Minesweeper on it but I am big on future proofing.

This Donkey Kong PC case is just next level awesome!

image source: Dennis Riese via Facebook



Taito Egret II Mini Arcade To Get An Update

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TAITO EGRET II MINI OWNERS: There will be an update that can be downloaded starting September 5th!

This is awesome news for those of you that were lucky enough to snag the Taito Egret II Mini. To commemorate the half year anniversary of the Egret II Mini, a commemorative program will be broadcast live on Famitsu Tube.

This live web broadcast will be delivered by the editorial department of Famitsu.com – a Japanese gaming and entertainment information/magazine site. Celebrities known for their love of games will serve as MCs and introduce the appeal of the latest games together with the Famitsu staff.


source: FamitsuTube

Voice actor Miyu Takagi will be the Master Of Ceremonies of the live broadcast this Friday, September 2nd.  There is much excitement in anticipating what will be revealed this Friday in relation to the half-year anniversary of the Taito’s Egret II Mini. Some of the updates that Taito has disclosed for the Egret II Mini ( available on September 5th) include:

  • Game Adjustments including controls (including spinner controller)
  • Bug Fixes on 8 titles
  • Display Adjustments whereby the aspect ratio of all 50 titles displayed on the main unit to be changed to 4:3, also changing the aspect ratio to 4:3 for screen display via HDMI output. Resolution of the title wallpapers will also be lowered to improve game performance while connecting to a TV via HDMI

You will need an SD card (or micro SDHC card with a SD conversion adapter) to transfer the update from your computer to the Egret II Mini. You will need at least 512 MB (FAT32) to store the update. We can’t wait!



story source: Taito

Elden Ring Reimagined as a Tiger Electronics Game

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Good ole Tiger Electronics, they were quite late to the handheld game (pun fully intended) with Nintendo well and truly taking that crown with their Game & Watch series.

Nevertheless, Tiger were prolific in releasing many classic titles on their handheld platform, with the likes of Double Dragon, Sonic The Hedgehog and Street Fighter II to name just a few, getting the Tiger Electronics handheld treatment. One key feature of Tiger games was that they were particularly frustrating and almost unplayable, but we still loved them.

When we came across Robert Penney’s (aka: Penney Pixels) reimagined Elden Ring getting the Tiger Electronics handheld treatment, we knew we had to let you all know about it! Robert’s novelty creation is part of his hobby of making fake retro game animations, with this particular creation being quite clever in capturing the Tiger Electronics look and feel.

We asked Robert to tell us more about his Elden Ring Tiger Electronics creation, especially how long it took to make, this is what he had to tell us:

“It took roughly a month to put together, but hard to say exactly. I would do bits and pieces on it in the evenings in small chunks. But the core animation was only a few weeks. I got a bit caught up in the texturing and trying to make it look as authentic as possible which took longer than it should have, but it was a labour of love so I enjoyed that aspect of it in a therapeutic way.
The concept itself was based on the humour of a lot of my game animations. In this case it was aimed at Tiger Electronics ports. Those handheld games are certainly charming to look back on now, but most would agree they left a lot to be desired in comparison to the original versions. So I took that concept to the extreme by taking the highly detailed, complex and vast world of Elden Ring and crushing it down to a shell of its former self. 99% of the original game was stripped away (It’s just Limgrave and a few basic trash mob enemies while the real Elden Ring has over a hundred bosses) and I kept the RPG elements, a spirit summon and the levelling up system. Elements all far too intricate to include properly in a little LCD handheld meant for short car journeys. I also wanted to juxtapose the difficulty between the real version and my terrible fictional port. While Elden Ring is challenging in true FromSoftware spirit, this Tiger Electronic is difficult in another way. It’s hard to see what’s going on, has fiddly controls, minimal animation frames and just downright unfair.”
We reckon Robert has definitely nailed it! Check it out!


source: Penney Pixels



GoldenEra – A Documentary about GoldenEye for the N64 will screen at the Astor for 1 night only!

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For all Nintendo 64 GoldenEye 007 fans in Melbourne, mark yourself busy, as Melbourne produced documentary, GoldenEra, will be screening at the prestigious Astor Theatre on the 10th of September for one night only!

Just in case you have been living off the grid, GoldenEra is a documentary film about one of the most influential video games of all time – Goldeneye 007. Celebrating its 25th anniversary, GoldenEye 007 on the Nintendo 64 holds a special place in history and defined a generation of gamers. Made in the mid 90s at the birth of the 3D era, GoldenEye sold over 8 million copies, making a huge cultural impact on a generation of gamers due to its innovative mechanics and beloved multiplayer features.

The game was made by an inexperienced group of graduates from countryside England and went on to be a system seller for the Nintendo 64, outselling 1st party titles like Zelda. Most notably Goldeneye would set the stage for the FPS genre to dominate the gaming industry, ushering in a new era of console gaming.

This film celebrates a watershed moment in gaming history and explores the creative process behind the game, the culture in which innovation thrived, and the team from countryside England whose ambition, innovation and ingenuity resulted in countless hours of joy for players around the world.

Get your tickets now before they sell out!



You Can Now Play OutRun on Atari 8-Bit Computers!

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Say what?! Yep, OutRun can be played on your Atari 8-bit (A8) XE/XL computers!

This is a Work In Progress (WIP), so there is more content/improvements coming, but for now, it is still looking and sounding pretty darn good!

Read up on the development/progress of OutRun on the AtariAge forum and download the WIP file direct from here. Brush the dust off your A8 computers (grab your Atari MAX cart) and get some OutRun into ya!


source: Atari 8-Bits Forever



Bookends From A Galaxy Far, Far Away

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Social media scrolling at 4am is usually fraught with danger as you flick your finger up the screen. We are happy to report that on this occasion, it wasn’t all doom and gloom!

We stumbled upon these very cool Star Wars inspired bookends, which are quite clever in capturing the spirit and theme of Star Wars.

Which one is your favourite?

This Star Wars fan desperately needs some of these bookends 😉
source: Star Wars always via Facebook



The Ultimate Pinball Machine Coffee Table

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Centaur pinball coffee tableThis creation has to be seen (and played) to be believed!

This Centaur pintable (pinball machine coffee table) is no ordinary and boring coffee table. Designed and made by Loren (BuildXYZ), this amazing creation consists of a real fully functioning Centaur pinball playfield, albeit in a coffee table format. Loren created this in time for Rockler Woodworking and Hardware’s 2021 .

Ahhhhh, feet-up on the glorious Centaur pinball coffee table
Centaur pinball coffee table

The different skills and disciplines required to make such a labour-intensive creation should not be underestimated. From the beautiful carpentry, artwork and playfield restoration, to the coding, engineering the custom score decoder chip, Loren left no stone unturned.

We reckon BuildXYZ could not have picked a better classic pinball than Bally’s 1981 early solid-state machine, Centaur. The labour of love is evident in every little detail on this one-off coffee table. To be able to use it as your lounge room’s coffee table and be able to play Centaur, we reckon it doesn’t get any better than this!


source: buildxyz

Popping the hood! Be sure to not spill your coffee!

Rotisserie, baby!
Rotisserie pinball playfield

Ooh la la, this is a beauty!

We’d be proud too if we created such a masterpiece!

story & image source: BuildXYZ



Our Fun Factory Gets a RPI2DMD Retro Arcade Wall Clock

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We have always admired the Run-DMD clock and RPI2DMD arcade wall clocks, but getting one always proved elusive.

In October last year we serendipitously stumbled upon a new post on a UK pinball forum advertising a limited run of these DMD retro arcade clocks. We immediately registered our interest and the rest as they say, is history! The maker of these was going to do a run of about 30 units, so we definitely got lucky, as they got snapped up within minutes of the post going live!

Let the build begin!

We received our meticulously handmade RPI2DMD Retro Arcade Wall Clock in early January, which was amazing, considering all the international shipping disruptions due to the pandemic.

We must say, this amazing DMD panel is eye-poppingly gorgeous in real life and is quite large – which is a good thing. The DMD clock is connected via WiFi (it also has an Ethernet/RJ45 port), allowing us to login and configure our location (for time and weather information) and the animations we want to cycle through.

Speaking of animations, this thing is loaded! It has 5235 animations to be exact. The animations range from arcade and pinball attraction screens, logos, consoles, computers, to Christmas and Halloween GIFs to name just a few. There were also some *ahem* questionable adult animations, but we switched those off for obvious reasons.

Setting up the RPI2DMD

DMD Wall Clock

Specs of the RPI2DMD Retro Arcade Clock include:

  • Built on Raspberry Pi, Custom software, Colour panels, Remote accessibility and settings
  • Brightness settings dependant on the time of day (so it can go dim at night, and then on bright at 8am for example)
  • Edit the display duration (or switch the individual function off!), choose different fonts & background images
  • Display a 7-day weather forecast (using an API key from OpenWeatherMap)
  • WiFi and Ethernet connection
  • 5000+ animations across 14 categories

And of course, to do all of this, ideally you would need a Wifi Connection, or wired Ethernet (although not essential, highly recommended – the Weather forecast does NOT work without an internet connection).

The wait to get one of these was definitely worth it. It looks absolutely amazing and is always a great conversation starter.

Testing the RPI2DMD

Shinobi on DMD Wall Clock



Get Your DOS Gaming Fix With eXoDOS 5

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Are you of a certain vintage that you can recall battling archaic and extremely frustrating requirements/configs to get your DOS games playing on your PC?

If you answered yes, then eXoDOS (version 5) is here to help make things a lot easier. In a nutshell, eXoDOS obtains and catalogues games to make them playable for DOS and PC Booter platforms.

The eXoDOS v5.0 games collection is vast and can be played on any modern Windows PC without the frustrating configurations we used to endure and deal with back in the 286/386/486 days!

This platform is really cool, with awesome features like CD audio and 3dfx support. To play any game in the library, you just click on the title, and that’s it! Oh yeah, there is also a cool physical big box version too! Go on, go and have some DOS gaming fun.



A Rare 1990 ATARI STe Computer Promo Film

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If you were in the market for an Atari STE and were stumped on how to use, then this 28 minute promo film from 1990 may help!

The cheese factor is off the scale in this video, but we couldn’t look away, as there were some things we actually learned or were reminded of that we had forgotten about our 16-bit Atari!

Watch it, as you may learn something new too (or at least rejog your memory) 😉


source: Computer History Archives Project