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Recreated Commodore 64 User’s & Programmer’s Reference Guide

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We all owe Iain Bennie a lot of gratitude for painstakingly recreating the Commodore 64 User’s Guide and Programmer’s Reference Guide (and the Quick Reference Card)!

We recently had a notification in one of the Commodore 64 Facebook Groups that immediately piqued our interest. It was a post by Iain Bennie that advised the 24,000+ members that after restoring his breadbin 8-bit beauty, he wanted to complete the set with new copies of the (old spiral bound) C64 User’s Guide and the Programmer’s Reference Guide.

Instead of scanning the original guides, Iain re-wrote them from scratch, reconstructing every graphic, including the front and back covers, every register map, block diagram, and every table to then have a wonderful and pristine final result.

This whole process took Iain a number of months, which clearly shows in the end product. Iain also had his re-written guides printed, which we must admit, look amazing – see pics and stop drooling already!

Not surprising, these guides have garnered a lot of interest from the community, which took Iain by (a pleasant) surprise. Iain has kindly made the PDF guides freely available (here) for all of us, which is darn awesome if you ask us. Oh yeah, he even has tips on getting them professionally printed! We and the rest of the C64 community thank Iain for all of his hard work and generosity in making these guides and proving them for free! What are you waiting for, go get them now!

source: Iain Bennie via Facebook



Sinclair Book of Remembrance (SBOR)

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We received the following message from a friend on behalf of Jim (from SBOR – Sinclair Book of Remembrance) so we thought we would share with you all as we think it is a great idea for the community to share their memories of Sinclair’s computers and also remembering Sir Clive Sinclair.

The Sinclair Book of Remembrance (SBOR) is a project dedicated to the memory of Sir Clive Sinclair who sadly passed away on the 16th September 2021.

Moved as I was, SBOR has been a personal labour of love, to do something in honour of “Uncle Clive”. It is not a business project. It’s completely free and non-monetised.

The objective is to create a unique digital monument, composed of our shared Sinclair memories encoded together so that the final product represents each and every one of us.
For those thinking this is an NFT thing – it is definitely not! It is an opportunity for each of us to share a memory, and together create a unique dedication to Sir Clive.

I am asking that each of us contribute a Sinclair memory, by simply sending an email with your story (with up to 4 image attachments). By sending your email to [email protected] it will trigger the system to automatically create an entry to the SBOR site – for example: https://sbor.uk/m/1?code=41ce. You will receive a reply containing the link to your contribution, which I would urge you to share far and wide!

At a pre-determined date, say the 1-year anniversary of Sir Clive’s passing, all of the entries will be combined and encoded into a single unique value. This will be unique in the universe and will represent all of our combined memories of what Sinclair meant to us and something we can all share in.



It’s Going To Be An 8-Bit Christmas!

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If you think you have had enough of video games related movies, then you may want to look away. For those that lap up these types of nostalgia-inducing films, 8-Bit Christmas starting Neil Patrick Harris as a father looking back fondly at the late ’80s Christmas where he desperately did everything he possibly could to get an NES, will be right up your alley! Since we can relate to this tale (we also wanted a NES for Christmas in 1988, alas we didn’t get one then), we are definitely keen on giving this a watch and getting right into the Christmas spirit!

Check out the trailer below to see if 8-Bit Christmas will be on your viewing list his festive season.


source: Warner Bros. Pictures



 

Super Mario Bros. Light’em Up

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Remember the Tetris light you could build from tetrominos? Well, now there is a Super Mario Bros. light you can build too!

The Super Mario Bros Build A Level Light is a stackable 16 light-blocks set that features a host of familiar icons and characters from the much-loved Mario saga, which you can arrange as you wish. Each pixelated cube is double-sided and can be stacked in a whole host of combinations to create your own unique Mario level.

With Christmas around the corner, this is the perfect gift for gaming geeks and nostalgia junkies alike, that will brighten up their home or gaming space.

source: Firebox



story source: technabob

Awesome Pop Culture Art Works by Pappas Pärlor

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There is no shortage of awesome and talented artists in this world. The latest artist to capture our attention is Johan Karlgren, aka: Pappas Pärlor.

Johan’s creations are unique as they are refashioned framed art pieces injected with very clever pop culture themes and franchises, including popular Star Wars and video gaming characters.

Check out all Johan’s art works here. Here are our favourites:

source: Pappas Pärlor



The Rubber-Keyed Wonder: 40 Years of the ZX Spectrum

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If you are fans (like us!) of the From Bedrooms to Billions film series then you will absolutely love their latest documentary film, The Rubber-Keyed Wonder: 40 Years of the Sinclair ZX Spectrum. To make Anthony and Nicola Caulfield’s film come true, go and check out their Kickstarter!

Coinciding with the ZX Speccy’s 40th anniversary next year (2022), Anthony and Nicola are aiming to release the film by Christmas 2022 – make sure you let Santa know! The Caulfield’s are aiming to make a thorough and definitive film on the ZX Spectrum, going into all the finer details of how and why the ZX Spectrum was created, what impact the computer had as well as the various versions that followed right the way through to the latest iteration of the system with the ZX Spectrum Next.

The film aims to reunite as many of the original ZX Spectrum hardware team and of course many legendary game developers, artists and musicians, and also talk to fans of the ZX Spectrum as to understand the significance of the machine with the masses.

This Kickstarter campaign once again has some stunning artwork from Oliver Frey available as well as some wonderful posters and other add-ons to get your nostagia gland pulsating!

Now, we are Commodore fans, but we are also aware of the significance of the Sinclair ZX Spectrum, so we are quite excited to support Anthony and Nicola on their new project!

image source: The Rubber Keyed Wonder – 40 years of the ZX Spectrum



Reset64 Presents – Chuckie Egg (VIC20)

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This is so awesome to see – Chuckie Egg can now be played on the VIC20! Oh yeah, it can also be played on the TheC64/TheVIC20 or your fave VIC20 emulator. So those ZX Speccy, BBC Micro and Dragon 32 folks can stop gloating, us Commdore gamers can now play this classic game too! Big shout out to Reset64 Magazine and Derek for keeping us gamers entertained with brilliant (and quite nostalgic) video games!

For more information on (and instructions on how to play) Chuckie Egg (VIC20), and to download the game, go to the Reset64 Magazine itch.io page now! What are you waiting for, Hen-House Harry needs your help!!!

image source: Reset64 Magazine itch.io



Casio x Pac-Man Vintage Limited Edition Unisex Watch

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Casio sure knows how to tug on our nostalgic strings! Their vintage classic line of watches brings back the 80s, and nothing screams 80s more than a Casio Pac-Man watch!

The A100WEPC-1B Casio x Pac-Man watch is a collaboration between Casio Vintage and Bandai Namco which aims to immerse you in the nostalgia of one of the world’s first blockbuster video games. Details on the watch glass hint at the exciting chase about to unfold as Pac-Man, surrounded in the square LCD display ghost house, is poised to start running.

Laser engraving on the black ion-plated metal band lays out the game maze. The game begins above the watch face with Pac-Man eating dots as he runs away from the ghosts and continues below the face after he’s devoured a power pellet and turned back to chase them!

The Casio x Pac-Man watch is retailing for AU$299.00! We bet these go fast!

 

source: Casio Watches



Vectrex Tournament: Vector War XI 2021

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Vectrex Tournament: Vector War XI (30th Oct – 6th Nov 2021)

Eleven years ago, a well known peep in the retro scene, Rob Maerz, started the Vector War. The Vector War is an annual Vectrex game tournament where Vectrex players all over the world compete. For this year, Vector War XI (VW11) runs for one week, from October 30 till November 6 2021.

The Vector War is for all player skills levels, from beginners to super expert players. In the Vector War you participate and compete with others. This is also a great opportunity to play the Vectrex games more extensively and get to know new games (and other peeps!).

For more information on the Vector War XI games list, competition rules and prizes, head over here and get ready! Good luck Vectrexians!

Thanks to RetroTuesday and Angela for making us aware of this Vectrex tournament!



The Retro Gaming Vault – September 2021

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It’s spring time! What better way to welcome the warmer weather than to delve into a deep corner of our retro gaming vault and dig up a few nostalgia inducing images from our past!

For September, we have your nostalgia covered with Neo Geo, Vectrex, PC-Engine, Commodore 64, Atari Jaguar and old school Nintendo items to name just a few! Enjoy the trip down memory lane and we’ll see you next month for more vault shenanigans!

All images are copyright of ausretrogamer