retro

I use Twitter. A lot. Twitterfon is likely the most-used app on my iPhone. I have a Twitter widget in my MacBook's dashboard. And Twitter itself is one of my browser's home tabs. I make sure I've got a Twitter client of some sort on all of my devices.

Now, thankfully, I can tweet from my Commodore 64 using the adorable app called Breadbox 64 (yes, guys can say "adorable"). Of course, your Commodore needs an Internet connection, but as developer Johan Van den Brande points out, it's all very doable. In a post on his site, … Read more

Congratulations! You've successfully made the switch from analog to digital TV. So is it good-bye to rabbit ears? Not quite!

Whatever your view of television, be it couch potato casual or flat-screen fanatic, Friday was a special occasion. And even if you didn't give it the kind of warm reception some Chicago students did on Friday night, complete with champagne toasts, you knew it was the end of an era, if for no other reason than all those incessant reminders we've been giving you, like "The Big Switch From Analog To Digital TV" or "Flipping The Switch To Digital TV".

In these days of cable and satellite, you probably thought it was time for a requiem for the old rabbit ears. Not so fast.

"The antenna is alive and well," said Michael Godar, who runs one of the nation's few handmade antenna companies out of a TV repair shop in Gilbert, Ariz.

And he says that, even at the dawn of the Digital Age, there's plenty of life in that old antenna.

"There was almost a sport (in) adjusting your antenna on your TV," Sieberg said.

"Oh yeah, battling it--you know, especially when you had a remote control," Godar laughed. "You'd change the channel and then get up, adjust the antenna!"

… Read more

Ignite Lite is a free, seven-level preview of the innovative platformer game Ignite, in which you control a flaming, jumping ember by the name of "Iggy the Flameboy," using your fiery nature to thwart the plans of the Water Warlords. In this unusual take on the platformer genre, some of the platforms that you jump onto will actually burn beneath your feet--which can be a good thing, like when you're trying to incinerate one of the Water Warlords' minions. The game's simple, touch-and-drag interface lets you jump either left or right, adjusting the trajectory (indicated by … Read more

Sure, we really liked the Nyko Wing Wireless Classic Controller for use with the Nintendo Wii, but if we could choose any controller to use with Virtual Console games, it would be the originals themselves.

Developer Komodo may have come up with a device that could pacify these desires. With the Retro Adapter (to be distributed by Innex), you'll be able to use original NES, Super Nintendo, and Nintendo 64 controllers with Wii Virtual Console games.

The adapter itself resembles that of a Nintendo 64 console and has three female ports for each system. It connects to your Wii … Read more

iPhone games have redefined the meaning of cheap--in ways both good and bad --but you still need to drop at least $200 for an iPhone or iPod Touch. For real portable retro gaming with street cred, may we suggest the Retro Mini Handheld, which for only $49.99 plays old NES cartridges (once you've blown the dust out of them).

Considering NES carts can be had for pennies at Salvation Army thrift shops, this little beauty might be the best way to play games for next to nothing at all. Compare, for instance, the cost of a $2.… Read more

CameraBag is a fun way to make great-looking iPhone photos with retro-looking effects. You can either take a picture from within the application's interface or you can pick a shot you've already taken from your image library. From there, you simply choose an effect from the drop-down menu on your touch screen, or swipe your finger to cycle through the 10 available effects to preview your image.

Image effects have names like 1974, which give your images that particular grainy quality, or Instant, which adds the familiar white frame along with that retro image quality. We think this … Read more

My first cell phone was an Ericsson CF688 on AT&T Wireless (original incarnation). I got it in roughly 1998. I bought this model instead of some of the flashier ones because it was small. I modified it with a new antenna and smaller battery to make it pocketable. I loved that phone.

Not many years before that, though, portable phones were large. We all remember the brick "Zack Morrison" phones, but do you remember the ads? They were fantastic.

Oobject has put together a collection of some of the best, with my favorite embedded above. Is … Read more

Concept designs usually look impossibly futuristic, but this one by designer Nikolay Komarov is the exact opposite. He envisions a Nikon Coolpix point-and-shoot camera that looks like it belongs in the last century and has named it Neoclassic.

Another model Komarov has come up with is the Good Grip. It has a more modern look and is supposed to be easier to handle. This will come with a reworked interface which, interestingly, tells the photographer how large a certain digital photo can be printed in centimeters rather than the number of pixels which doesn't really mean anything to most … Read more

Today is a very bright, sunny day in Seattle. I wore my sunglasses. My sunglasses are rarely used, yet badass. They are not, though, as badass as these variable aperture goggles we found on SmugMug. Change down the aperture and you get less light. They're awesome.

Sadly, they're a concept and not actually for sale, which is too bad. While I'm not a huge fan of the steampunk movement, I understand it. That being said, I would totally rock these, if I could get them in my prescription. I'm that much of a nerd.

I would, … Read more