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Before ChatGPT: Exploring The Internet Archive’s Vintage AI Collection

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Artificial Intelligence might be the buzzword of the 2020s, but retro computer enthusiasts know the concept has been captivating developers for decades.

The Internet Archive has recently unveiled its Vintage Artificial Intelligence Collection, a fascinating archive of more than 100 pieces of software from the 1970s through to the 1990s. These programs attempted to simulate intelligence long before anyone was carrying around an AI assistant in their pocket.

From experimental chatbots and digital therapists to computer opponents and educational software, this collection offers a unique glimpse into how early programmers imagined thinking machines would work. Some titles may look primitive by today’s standards, but that’s exactly what makes them so compelling. These developers were exploring ideas that were decades ahead of their time, often working with just a few kilobytes of memory and hardware less powerful than a modern calculator.

Among the highlights are numerous versions of ELIZA, the famous chatbot originally created by Joseph Weizenbaum in the 1960s. ELIZA’s simple pattern-matching approach gave users the illusion of a meaningful conversation, making it one of the earliest examples of software that felt almost human.

Other entries include curious experiments such as Alter Ego, Little Computer People, The Dream Machine, Talking Sam, and even games where the challenge comes from facing what developers hoped would feel like an intelligent opponent.

What makes this collection particularly fascinating is the historical perspective it provides. Many of these creators envisioned a future where humans would regularly interact with intelligent machines. While their implementations were limited by the technology of the era, the underlying ideas were remarkably forward-thinking.

For retro gamers and computing enthusiasts, the collection is also highly accessible. Thanks to browser-based emulation, many titles can be launched and experienced directly through the Internet Archive without requiring original hardware.

It’s a wonderful reminder that the roots of today’s AI revolution stretch deep into the history of personal computing. Long before ChatGPT, Copilot and modern large language models, there were hobbyists and programmers experimenting with digital personalities on Commodores, Apples, Atari computers and other classic systems.

If you’ve ever wondered how yesterday imagined the future, the Vintage Artificial Intelligence Collection is well worth exploring.

Have you tried any of these early AI programs back in the day? Let us know which ones you remember most!

The Vintage Artificial Intelligence Collection is available via the Internet Archive and contains more than 100 emulated software titles spanning several decades of computing history.

Atari THE400 Mini Pre-Orders Now Open!

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Whoa, I am late to the party, but just in case there are others that aren’t aware, Atari announced that the Retro Games Ltd. made THE400 Mini pre-orders are now open – but only to US residents (boooo)!

For our Australian friends, don’t fret, cause you can also pre-order THE400 (Atari) Mini system right now at The Gamesmen site (The Gamesmen have exclusive retail rights in Australia)! Priced at AU$189.95 and shipping in late March (March 28th, 2024), this is a pretty cool system to pick up.

For everyone else, Amazon is also offering pre-orders on the THE400 Mini right here.

So, who is getting one?



The Secret History of Mac Gaming: Expanded Edition – Review

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We have known Richard Moss, the author of The Secret History of Mac Gaming: Expanded Edition (TSHoMG-EE) book, for quite a while now. To say we have great admiration for Richard would be a gross understatement.

Speaking to Richard in the past, it was quite evident where his love and passion was focused when it came to retro computing – the Apple Macintosh. Being an award winning journalist and avid game historian, we were glad to see Richard having his book published, as it’s just brilliant, even if you aren’t an Apple Macintosh fan – if you are remotely into retro computing or old school games, then this is a great read!

Let’s start with the physical aspects of the book. The look, feel and presentation of this tome oozes quality everywhere, as we come to expect from Bitmap Books – from the hardback cover (and use of colours) hitting the nostalgic bit of our heart, to the gorgeous blue coloured page edges, it’s truly stunning! The 480 pages are filled with edge-to-edge high quality lithographic print, with sewn binding for enduring quality and the ability to lay the book flat, which is ideal for double-page image viewing.

Richard goes into detail in how the Macintosh changed video games and how it challenged the medium to be more than child’s play and quick reflexes. With human design in mind (as with contemporary Apple products!), TSHoMG-EE informs the reader in how the Macintosh made human-computer interaction friendly, inviting, and intuitive. Of course, one would argue (as the author does), that Mac gaming led to much of what we now take for granted as PC gamers, with the old Apple spawning some of the biggest franchises in video games history — including Myst, Halo, and SimCity.

The Secret History of Mac Gaming: Expanded Edition draws on a combination of archival material and around 80 interviews with key figures from the era to tell the story of those communities and the game developers who survived and thrived in an ecosystem that was serially ignored by the outside world. It’s a book about people who followed their hearts first, and market trends second – showing how clever, quirky, and downright wonderful video games could be.

This newly-expanded edition adds around 70 pages of extra content, including a foreword by The 7th Guest co-creator and id Software and Apple alum Graeme Devine, plus an annotated timeline, over 60 extra images, an icon gallery, and more than 6,000 extra words added to the chapter narratives — on top of the 115,000 words from the 1st edition — covering a variety of additional game and developer stories, including the tales behind Snood, Chaos Overlords, The Dungeon of Doom, and more. It also revises and updates the design, based on reader feedback, to provide a better reading experience. A nice touch is the “Where Are They Now” section in each chapter – giving insight into the career path of key people.

We are suckers for books that delve deep into their subject matter, and this book is no exception. It is beautifully presented and written to draw the reader into the world of the Apple Macintosh and its library of video games that became iconic. We highly recommend The Secret History of Mac Gaming: Expanded Edition book, as it is informative, fun and engaging, the three key ingredients of any great book. This tome deserves to be on your bookshelf.

Availability



Disclaimer: The Secret History of Mac Gaming: Expanded Edition book was kindly provided by PixelCrib for this review.

A X68000 Mini Is Coming

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Now here is one out of left field! Not to be outdone by the likes of Nintendo, Sega and a plethora of other minis on the market, Mizuki (a one-stop service provider from planning to mass production of electronic products) teased on their Twitter account that they are planning to produce a X68000 Mini, which by the look of the photos, looks pretty darn awesome!

It looks like the product will have a pop-up carrying handle on top of the main body, just like the real Sharp X68K! Complete with a mouse that is also a trackball and a LED keyboard, which they are considering to add a keycap exchange gimmick – so clever!

Is your mind blown yet? Ours definitely is. No other official announcements have been made, but let’s just say that WE WANT THIS ASAP!

source: Zuiki Inc. on Twitter



2022 Reset64 4KB Craptastic Game Comp Preview

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Development for the 2022 Reset64 4kb ‘Craptastic’ game competition is in full swing. Deadline is fast approaching (June 30th) so we thought we’d give you all a quick look at what some of the devs are up to for the comp.

Best of luck to all the competitors and we can’t wait to try your craptastic creations!


Title: Catch 22 *
Author: Cout Games (Cout)
Status: Submitted
Synopsis: The aim of the game is to catch 22 instances of the number “22” from a maze, however the ‘catch’ is you can’t go back where you have walked.

Title: Hard Foam *
Author: TWAiN PAiN Games (Alexander Paalvast)
Status: In Progress
Synopsis: “HARD FOAM” will be a card game like Hearthstone in PETSCII. It has 32 different cards split over 4 suits: Goblin (black), Polystyrene (white), Candy (red) and Soap (cyan) with various mechanics. It has keyboard and joystick and works on PAL and NTSC.

Initially I was developing this for the “C64 Cassette 50 Charity Competition” but keeping it all below <$1000 was a bit too much. But right now it looks quite promising, hitting around 3500 bytes.

Title: Skiddy
Author: Design/Chaos
Status: In Progress
Synopsis: Our game is currently called Skiddy and supports 1 or 2 players – the game is finished and is 4066 bytes. I will hold on to it for a while yet as there is still plenty of space to make adjustments.

Title: Poke *
Author: Protovision (Code: Oziphantom, Graphics: Lobo, SFX: Saul C)
Status: In Progress
Synopsis: The kingdom is under attack, you must defend the realm from these invading bubbles.

Title: Morubotto *
Author: Cogitare Computing (Alexander Martinelle)
Status: Submitted
Synopsis: Morubotto – An amalgamation of the Japanese words morumotto (guinea pig) and robotto (robot).

Dangerous, radioactive, exploding asteroids are descending upon earth. Only Morumotto can save us!

Morubotto is a variation of missile command where instead of controlling crosshairs you control a robotic guinea pig and have to bounce around the level and try to collide with as many asteroids as possible to minimize the amount of damage that the asteroids do to the world.

Title: Infinirail
Author: Goerp
Status: In Progress
Synopsis: A simple tactical game I hope to get finished in time. Technically no challenges, but hope to keep it small enough to be able to add some sound.

No humour or weirdness this time, so it has to be fun to play (uh oh!).

It’s going to craptastic!

Title: Snake Break
Author: Encore (Mikkel Hastrup)
Status: In Progress
Synopsis: The idea is to combine two classic games into one. Progress is about 66%, each of the games have mostly been written, but the big task left is to work on the gameplay, visual effects, write original music and package it all.

Title: Top Hat Challenge
Author: Gazunta (Cameron Davis)
Status: In Progress
Synopsis: Top Hat Challenge (final name TBD) is four kilobytes of collecting top hats, delivering top hats and avoiding falling obstacles! No screenshots yet as I’m keeping the development exclusive on Patreon until release, but I can guarantee it features the most handsome hero sprite ever seen!

Title: Old Mine Hoist *
Author: Geir Straume
Status: In Progress
Synopsis: The objective of the game is to lower a small hoist cage as deep as possible into an old abandoned mine.
The hoist cage swings from side to side, and there are wood obstacles on both sides which must be avoided to prevent damaging the cage. When the cage gets too damaged, it will break off the hoist cable and fall into the abyss, ending the game.

The hoist moves downwards at a constant speed, but you may halve or double its speed by pushing the joystick up or down.

Beware: Some of the deeper mining levels contain old and unstable dynamite, which may explode and severely damage the hoist cage!

Title: Mike Quarter (The Kitchen Porter) *
Author: Arlasoft (Nick Sherman)
Status: Submitted
Synopsis: You are Mike Quarter, a newly hired kitchen porter. Can you keep your job?

Title: Little Nippers 4K *
Author: Richard Bayliss
Status: Submitted
Synopsis: Little Nippers is an animated single button challenge with a difference. It is a casual fun for five minutes challenge in which people are running across the screen. Your task is to launch grumpy crabs from out of the bucket and nip the runners. Scoring will be based on the distance in which the person is running.

Title: Brownfinger *
Author: Megastyle (Docster)
Status: Submitted
Synopsis: The aim of the game is to catch the toilet paper coming from either right or the left side, before it hits the fire. If it hits the fire it’s game over. If a toilet hits you, you are “teleported” to the opposite side as you where.

Title: Delve!: The Goblin Grotto *
Author: Ant Stiller (coding and design), Cal Skuthorpe (art)
Status: In Progress
Synopsis: Delve!: The Goblin Grotto is a procedurally generated rogue-like with a unique 3D view, all created with PETSCII characters. Goblins have holed up in a nearby dungeon so, before the nasty blaggers start eating the local cats and making the milk curdle, you have been tasked to strike terror in their gobliny hearts by fighting your way down to the lowest levels (no-one’s actually discussed how you get back out but you assume that’s just a clerical oversight). This game is impossible to squeeze into 4k so I expect we’ll be cutting more features than you can shake a catapulted orc at.

* game entries with screenshots

So there it is. We hope you enjoyed this Craptastic preview and we look forward to being able to play these amazing looking games after deadline. Of course, there are more registered entries and some real Craptastic surprises that weren’t previewed as well!

As usual, a big thank-you to our sponsors and supporters. Please visit their sites and show them your support:

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Transforming a 90’s Hot Wheels PC into a Modern Gaming Beast

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We have always been impressed by Shank Mods’ creations, like transforming the Virtual Boy in the Real Boy handheld!

Hold onto your hats folks, cause Shank Mods’ has now transformed a 1999 Hot Wheels PC into a high performance gaming beast! The eye-watering specs are impressive as they are expensive.

Before Specs:

  • Intel Celeron 500MHz processor,
  • 10GB hard drive,
  • 64MB of memory,
  • 56k modem,
  • 40x CD ROM drive,
  • 15″ CRT monitor and ran Windows 98

After Specs:

  • AMD Ryzen 9 5950X processor,
  • Gigabyte X570 Aorus Mini-ITX motherboard,
  • ASUS X570-I ROG Strix Mini-ITX motherboard,
  • EVGA NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 XC graphics card,
  • G.Skill Trident Z Neo Series RGB 128GB (4 x 32GB) RAM,
  • Samsung 980 Pro 2TB SSD, and an
  • LG WH16NS40 16x Internal Blu-Ray Rewriter.

This is pretty darn awesome!


source: Shank Mods



An Atari ST That Has Been Running A Campsite Since 1986

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Imagine still using an old school computer to run your business? Well imagine no more, as Dutchman Frans Bos is still using the Atari ST 1040 he purchased in 1986 to help run his campsite business, Camping Bohmerwald.

During the mid ’80s, the ST had impressive specifications, with 1MB RAM and a 70Hz monitor. Most PCs of that era only had 512KB RAM and were notoriously expensive. Even though the Amiga 500 was the dominant 16-bit computer at the time, the ST enjoyed popularity in Europe, where the machine was seen as a serious professional computer (as well as a decent music/MIDI and games machine).

Frans purchased his ST computer to manage bookings on the site and register guests. Not entirely happy with the software, Frans then proceeded to write his own program to manage his business better. The ST is a workhorse, which is heavily used during six months of the year when the camping site is open. If you pay attention to the below video, you’ll hear that Frans notes that he likes using the ST because it starts up quickly! Now imagine running a business on a computer that is almost 40 years old – totally mind-blowing!


source: Victor Bart



C64: Crazy Dog Racing

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As you all may know by now, we love overhead / isometric racing games! So when we saw that Krissz (of Pac-Wor fame) created a cool looking racing game of the Commodore 64, we stood up and took note! Crazy Dog Racing was released years ago, but it had slipped past our radar somehow, so we are glad we have found it now!

The controls take a bit of getting used to, but practice makes perfect. If like games like RC Rro-Am, Super Sprint and the like, then give this one a shot too!

Download and play Crazy Dog Racing from here and have fun!



PAC-WOR: A Pac-Man & Wizard of Wor Mashup For The C64

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What do you get when you cross the two classic arcade titles, Pac-Man and Wizard of Wor? Give up? You get PAC-WOR!

If you are a fan of Pac-Man or Wizard of Wor (or both), this Commodore 64 mash-up by Krissz will be right up your alley. The mix of gameplay is closer to Pac-Man than Wizard of Wor, but that just makes it more exciting and devilishly harder. Playing as Pac-Man (Pacwor) means you can’t shoot the Burwors/Garwors/Throwors, instead you have one power pill (poWOR) per dungeon which enables Pacwor to chew these evildoers within a limited time frame. Clearing the dungeons is usual Pac-Man fare, eat all the pills!

This is a cool mashup which we like, but we just wish there was more than one power pill per dungeon, especially in the latter ones where the Burwors and their evil mates speed up their movements!

Download and play Pac-Wor for free via CSDB.



Documentary: Lemmings 30th Anniversary

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For all of you that are fans of Lemmings (us included!), set aside 2 hours and watch this awesome free documentary, Lemmings: Can You Dig It?

This true story of the creation of Lemmings features all the talented people involved in bringing this classic title for us to enjoy. From the computer rooms in Dundee to the world-changing UK games scene that exists today; through the voices of those who were there at the time and those who grew up playing it, watch and enjoy Lemmings: Can You Dig It?!


source: Exient