Retro

MONTREAL--For the first time in maybe 20 years, I got a new cassette tape.

It's a bitchin' mix of 1970s funk tunes and it sounds delicious on my car stereo, which fortunately is old enough to be able to play it. But the best thing about this tape is that it came out of a vending machine.

Distroboto is a nonprofit network of machines in Montreal that have been retrofitted to sell works by independent artists. They spit out music, literature, and accessories, all for $2 a pop. … Read more

Mario's multilevel gaming style has endured for good reasons. It's simple, it's fun, and it's addictive. Once you've conquered the realms of Mario and other similar retro games, where do you go next? How about creating your own custom video game? That sounds great, but you'll need to brush up on your programming skills first. Unless, that is, Kickstarter project Pixel Press gets off the ground.

With Pixel Press, you just need the app, a piece of paper, a pencil, and your imagination to create your own game. No coding required.

Here's how it works. You start by printing out the gridded Pixel Press sketch sheet, along with the instructions. You can design five layers on the sketch sheet using certain elements like terrain, hazards, monkey bars, moving platforms, barriers, spikes, portals, and power-ups. You draw all these out onto the grid, with the aim of designing five progressively more challenging levels for your hero to conquer.… Read more

We've all seen the video of man's first step on the moon. NASA's medical team back down on Earth saw that first step in a slightly different light, in the form of Armstrong's electrocardiogram reading from the moment he set his foot down. That little 6-inch strip is going up for online auction at RR Auction.

The strip comes in a presentation frame along with an Armstrong autopen signature and various mission patches. "After the landing, this EKG report was saved by the Manager of Medical Administration for the Space Center. It was cut up into five pieces; four were presented to the attending physicians on the medical team," reads the description.… Read more

A quick history lesson for readers.

In 1989, British physicist Tim Berners-Lee invented what would be called the "World Wide Web." The first trials were held in December 1990 at the laboratories of CERN, the major research laboratory in Geneva that's better known today as the home of the Large Hadron Collider.

On April 30, 1993, CERN published a statement -- on the Web, no less! -- that made the technology behind the World Wide Web available on a royalty-free basis. (Specifically, this was the software required to run a Web server, a basic browser, and a library of code.)

And thus the modern public Web was born, at info.cern.ch. … Read more

I'm taking spring cleaning seriously this year. I've already Craigslisted a good chunk of my furniture and hosted a massive yard sale. Now, I'm breaching the depths of uncharted waters in my closets and desk drawer. I'm going after all those old gadgets I've been hanging onto for years. What wonders will I discover?

I have old cell phones. I have old computers. I have sickening piles of cords tangled about each other in knots that may never be unraveled. Why do I do this to myself? Do I really think I'm going to need to make a call on that 2002 LG VX-10 with the extended battery pack? It's time for it to go, along with all the other dusty old tech that hasn't felt a surge of electricity in years.… Read more

The next time you mash buttons on a video game controller, keep in mind that there's more than half a century of innovation behind the venerable input device.

To remind you of this fact, Pop Chart Lab's eye-catching poster, titled "The Evolution of Video Game Controllers," sheds light on the incredible technological progression of controller hardware. You'll probably never again see more joysticks, knobs, and buttons in one place -- well, unless you're hanging around CNET producer Stephen Beacham's retro video game console patch bay.… Read more

One man's junk is another man's treasure, but as you're about to learn, what Goodwill perceived as junk was actually a very valuable piece of video game history.

Kotaku tells the tale of a North Carolina woman who, upon visiting Goodwill, happened to come across a nearly sealed copy of the 1987 NES video game Stadium Events. She bought the game for $7.99 and walked out of the thrift store with something worth thousands more.… Read more

It's called Project Unity, and it's been the labor of love for the modder known as Bacteria. It's taken three years and 3,500 hours of work, but it's finally done.

Unity houses the original circuit boards from 15 classic consoles, all powered by a single PSU and outputting via a single Scart cable.

Most clever of all is the single master gamepad designed by Bacteria. The controller actually takes a custom-built cartridge, which maps out the control interface for the required system. So, to play a PlayStation 2 game, for example, you plug the PS2 cartridge into the gamepad and it'll behave like the appropriate controller. … Read more

Many classic video games end with the hero getting the girl. There's Mario, Legend of Zelda, King Kong, and, now, Michele's Quest. You probably haven't heard of that last one because it's so new. It's the creation of Redditor Marchaka, who built the game as the key to an elaborate marriage proposal.

Michele's quest is a Final Fantasy-style role-playing video game built using the $70 RPG maker VX Ace from the Steam store. It took Marchaka 164 hours to put the game together and fill it with classic video game references and jokes.… Read more