Modern Retro computing 201
Sebby writes "This is pretty neat - the folks over at retrosystem rebuild old computers/consoles with new guts inside. They have Amiga 1000, Atari 2600, and also NES systems, with lots of options for configuration. If they only made a Sinclair ZX81 with the same specs, I'd be sold!" I mean, who wouldn't want a PC in an
NES box ;)
How about... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:How about... (Score:1, Offtopic)
Of course, I used to have the "Click here to crash Windows" sig. That really pissed people off.
Re:How about... (Score:1, Insightful)
The Slashdot system is broken, IMO, in this respect. The informativeness/funniness/offtopicness needs to be scored in a global and local sense.
I get marked down all the time for responses like this. It's offtopic to Modern Retro computing, but ontopic to your question. It's all a matter of what you're trying to promote on the site, strict adherence to discussion about the main topic, or discussion in general.
you've got it all wrong. :( (Score:1)
Re:you've got it all wrong. :( (Score:1)
Re:you've got it all wrong. :( (Score:1)
isn't there a select in there somewhere?
Re:you've got it all wrong. :( (Score:1)
U,U,D,D,L,R,L,R,B,A,SEL,START
but 1 player is as stated above...
ah.. Contra, still fun!!
Re:you've got it all wrong. :( (Score:2)
Re:you've got it all wrong. :( (Score:1)
I could only see this (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:I could only see this (Score:4, Funny)
Oh, and if you aren't familiar with the concept, here's a link [dictionary.com].
Re:I could only see this (Score:2)
Re:I could only see this (Score:2, Insightful)
Nostalgia is playing KC Munchkin on my Magnavox Odyssey 2, not ripping out its guts and shoving in the contents of my laptop. That just does both of them a disservice.
Re:I could only see this (Score:1)
I use an old 8088 case (Score:1)
Re:I use an old 8088 case (Score:1)
cool (Score:1)
Okay, I'll admit this is pretty cool. But a Celeron in an A1000? Why not a 2 gig P4?
Re:cool (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:cool (Score:1)
Re:cool (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:cool (Score:4, Insightful)
Now, I'm hardly a purist. Things don't have to have original condition. I'm fine with PPC's in a1000's, linux on amigas, someone doing a messy hack that gives it more ram. If you want to see a real A1000 hack, ask for pictures of the FrankenThousand on comp.sys.amiga.hardware. But don't pull this shit. This isn't retro-computing, it's vivisectiony at its most sociopathic.
Go ahead, mod me down. Claim I don't know what I'm talking about. But don't come begging when you want to buy a 20mhz overclocking kit for your sinclair 1000.
Re:cool (Score:2)
What bugs me is people modifying NeXT cube cases. They do awful things like put PC motherboards in them. One I saw had a plexiglass front, spray-painted silver, and with blue fluorescent lights. It was ghastly and they though they'd done the l33test thing possible. They'd really just destroyed a beautiful piece of history (that's still very useful as-is today!)
Re:cool (Score:2)
Nor can you open up the case of a virtual machine, and take a peek inside. Or upgrade it. You see, someone like myself likes the amiga for alot more than just being able to play games.
But, if you absolutely HAVE TO HAVE uae, why the fuck do you have to butcher an a1000 just to run it?
Lots of small form factor boards coming... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Lots of small form factor boards coming... (Score:3)
http://www.idot.com/TheStore/Desktop/551Spec.as
PDA (Score:1)
Re:PDA (Score:2)
Where's the CDROM? (Score:2)
I really recommend these external firewire IDE drive bays by ADSTech, they're so useful when I go out on a service call with my laptop and this portable drive bay, I can do things like drive imaging and software backup at lightning speeds for my clients. They're a geek's best friend.
Now I can use it to emulate my old A2000 that was surrounded by bizarre periphirals back in the day!
Bork!
Re:Where's the CDROM? (Score:1)
Re:Where's the CDROM? (Score:2)
I swear, if any decent company ever bought the OS, it could still rise up and kick M$'s ass. *sigh*
Bork!
Re:Where's the CDROM? (Score:1)
A Better Idea (Score:2)
How about working on emulators so the tons of old game cartridges you see at flea markets and swaps can be used again.
The hardware of an Atari2600 or an original Nintendo system were only fairly or moderately impressive when they were state of the art. However, the programming involved to eek every ounce of performance out of the hardware is simply gorgeous. Yeah, the graphics sucked, and were made worse when you pumped it through a modulator and rf generator to display it on channel 3, but impressive nevertheless.
It's fun to play these games because they programmers didn't have unlimited memory for use nor to store the finished result.
Barbarians (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Barbarians (Score:1, Funny)
Yeah, but wouldn't it be sweet to tell your buddies, "Dude, J00'r3 50 W33k, I can smash you using an Atari 2600!"
The look on their face when you actually do it: Priceless.
Oh dear (Score:5, Insightful)
Is it just me, or does anyone else find this a bit disturbing?
Re:Oh dear (Score:2)
Re:Oh dear (Score:2)
Prior Art (Score:2)
Re:Oh dear (Score:2)
You would think that someone smart enough to consider a patent would also understand that the sort of people who would appreciate this sort of thing are also ones who see a lame patent for what it is. I am not buying anything --why bother? I can make my own and that is just how silly this patent would be.
Anyone that licenses anything from these people is wasting their time. Pick a different console, make it better, let the buyers decide who deserves the reward, not the lawyers....
Re:Oh dear (Score:1)
You can't patent the idea of putting new stuff in retro boxes, so what could they possibly be asking the government for monopoly on? Their special mounting bracket process? Heh.
I've got $100 that says that these people were probably suckered by some stupid/greedy lawyer, and that the patent has no... er... little chance in hell of being granted.
--
Re:Oh dear (Score:1)
Re:Oh dear (Score:1)
Re:Oh dear (Score:1)
Re:Oh dear (Score:1)
Oh shit. OK, maybe we should panic.
Airflow/Heat (Score:3, Insightful)
I seem to recall my those systems could get a little warm just playing their cartridges.
Cool idea, though.
Re:Airflow/Heat (Score:2)
If someone knew what they were doing, it would be incredibly easy to take advantage of the existing vents and airflow that is there, and improve it by adding some little old CPU fans at each vent. Or, with some real ambition and tinkering, you may be able to fit a water cooling system inside one, but you'd have a tough time finding a small pump and a place to put it.
What I'm more concerned about is power. Did they get an internal power supply small enough to fit in it? Or did they just use an external power supply like the NESv1 [fast-mhz.com]?
Re:Airflow/Heat (Score:1)
I found out the hard way how hot these got when I was a kid. I'd bought a NES secondhand and only had one game (Super Mario Bros 3).
When bored one afternoon I took of the top half of the case, squished all the innards down, and screwed a replacement lid of solid polished wood onto it.
It looked great even though it was impossible to change the game - I think the ability to rest mugs of coffee on the machine made up for that!
It died a few months into it's modded life. I suspect it was the heating that did it.
Timex Sinclair (Score:1)
My key memory of it was actually writing programs that used all of the 4k + 64k RAM expander
Re:Timex Sinclair (Score:2)
I used to own a TS-1000, with the 16K RAM expansion. (I believe you couldn't go larger than that using anything sold by Timex/Sinclair. As I recall, there was a popular 3rd. party expansion cartridge made by MemoTech or somebody like that.... Those went up to 32K or 64K.)
I even had the plastic Sinclair carrying case. I had to order it via direct mail. Apparently, only 2,000 were made or something... Supposed to be sort of a collector's edition item. It held all the cables and AC adapter, TS-1000 itself, memory pack, and 4 cassette tapes.
The Timex/Sinclair 1000/ZX-81 had a flat membrane keyboard though, not even a "chicklet" keyboard. It was horrible, but back in the day, it seemed cool enough to me.
My brother eventually bought a newer Timex/Sinclair. Can't remember the model number anymore... might have been a 1500 or 2048? Anyway, it was a silver plastic case and real chicklet keys, and I believe more standard RAM in it. I think it's the only one I ever saw, other than in magazine photos. (We used to subscribe to a Sinclair magazine called Sync.)
Wow - that goes back a ways! I remember shopping for software on cassettes tape at the local K-Mart store, back when they had a "computer center". The Timex/Sinclair stuff was always behind the glass counter though and you had to ask for it. They had an Atari 400 on display too, also with sort of a membrane keyboard (but full-sized at least).
Kinda like (Score:4, Funny)
or maybe just a bar [arizona.edu] or how about a fridge [planet.nl]
What the hell... (Score:4, Funny)
It's just for the sake of cosmic karma balance.
Yoshi's Boxx from TechTV (Score:1)
This isn't anything new... (Score:1)
How about putting a PC into this? (Score:1)
picture 1 [netcolony.com]
picture 2 [netcolony.com]
picture 3 [netcolony.com]
picture 4 [netcolony.com]
picture 5 [netcolony.com]
picture 6 [netcolony.com]
picture 7 [netcolony.com]
picture 8 [netcolony.com]
A bit pricey... (Score:3, Interesting)
Their pricing is quite expensive @ $999-1099+
I'd recommend getting a mini ITX form factor motherboard like VIA's eden. (Go check the specs on the motherboards vs. the console boxes because I'm not sure if they'll fit exactly)
So for ~$150 for the motherboard
~$60 for the VIA CPU
~$5-10 for an old NES / Atari system
~Old PC Components
You'd have a pretty decent setup. (Not to mention you'd be saving around $700!)
If you need some motivation look at Project Jellybean:
http://www.viaarena.com/?PageID=120 [viaarena.com]
Keyboards and Monitors? (Score:5, Interesting)
In middle school, we had these Apple IIe computers with green-screen monitors that tilted up and down in a stationary case. Those were sweet. At the time, we had a computer at home with a color screen (CGA graphics, baby). Even though the CGA screen was technically superior to the Apple's, I thought the Apple monitor was way cooler. Now I have a 19 inch Viewsonic monitor and its infinitely more useful than the old Apple screen -- but the Apple monitor is still cooler.
Likewise, I miss those big-ass keyboards that click when you type. These flimsy, wussy keyboards that come with modern PCs are terrible! My favorite keyboard was an old IBM AT keyboard from 1984. My dad found it at work, and I used it for several years. The keys are covered with plastic caps, which are what the letters are printed on -- if you want remap your keyboard to Dvorak, you can reposition the printed letters by removing and rearranging the little caps. Pretty sweet. I had to retire it when, while moving from one dorm room to another, I broke off some of the caps that cover the keys. I've still got it in my closet, though.
I guess my point is that, while this is a cool idea, it's somewhat misguided. Creating a retro look and feel is much more important than having a retro case, which you're just going to shove under your desk anyway. And to have the retro look-and-feel, you need cool-looking screens and clicky keyboards.
Steve
Re:Keyboards and Monitors? (Score:2)
Incidentally, you can often find those old keyboards at local computer salvage shops, if there are any in your area. I found one selling them for only a couple of bucks apiece, so I bought two...one for just in case.
Re:Keyboards and Monitors? (Score:1)
Where I work we have a few of the old keyboards that are of that style. I think they came from some old IBM machines we used to have. They don't replace the keyboards on new computers we get, but I use them for my own use. I ran one over with a car and it still worked fine. I don't think the same could be said for modern keyboards. There's just something nostalgic about the "klack-ching" sound they make when you press keys.
Re:Keyboards and Monitors? (Score:1)
Re:Keyboards and Monitors? (Score:1)
I missed them too, so I bought myself one from pckeyboard.com [yahoo.com], who apparently bought the rights/tooling/whatever from IBM/Lexmark, and still make keyboards that "click" (aka buckling spring). Hey, it looks like they even have a Linux version [yahoo.com] now!
Re:Keyboards and Monitors? (Score:1)
You mean like the one I use every day at work? Vintage 1993, with the Blue "IBM" logo (it has drain holes) $5 at goodwill - oops, $3.75 at 25% off.
"I had to retire it when, while moving from one dorm room to another, I broke off some of the caps that cover the keys. I've still got it in my closet, though"
Key caps are still available from IBM. Actually, so are the original keyboards, although the manufacturing plant was bought by someone else.
Live the dream - resurrect your old IBM Model M?
Re:Keyboards and Monitors? (Score:1)
Not quite as big-ass as the old IBM keyboards, but quite nice.
Re:Keyboards and Monitors? (Score:2)
The dust cover is somewhat useless. Unless you mount your monitor on an 8" pedestal, you will remove the dust cover when you use the keyboard. Invariably, you will put the dust cover on a chair. At some point in time, either you or someone you know will sit down on that chair while the cover is there. *SNAP* Dust cover is now in 2 pieces and is practially useless. Anyway, the keyboard will last far longer than the dust cover.
Re:Keyboards and Monitors? (Score:4, Informative)
Well, to be honest, such keyboards are still sold as new [pckeyboard.com] (I doubt they are still manifactured, but there are plenty in stock). You can also order replacement parts there (after all, it's the ex-keyboard division of IBM and Lexmark).
Re:Keyboards and Monitors? (Score:2)
Re:Keyboards and Monitors? (Score:1)
I *need* the split keyboard layout - there's no way I can go back to the wrist-twisting rectangle layout.
--
IBM Keyboards (Score:2)
Likewise, I miss those big-ass keyboards that click when you type. These flimsy, wussy keyboards that come with modern PCs are terrible! My favorite keyboard was an old IBM AT keyboard from 1984.
Check your local university's [ou.edu] surplus department. I know here at OU, we have a decent surplus department with lots of old stuff for sale. (Anybody need a VAX? There's one down there.) Among other things, they have a large bin (i.e. large hotel laundry bin) full of keyboards, many of them IBM PS/2 (the computer PS/2, not just the 6-pin mini-DIN connector) models. About eight pounds apiece, nearly indestructable (very handy when you can't find that last bug, get pissed, throw the keyboard across the room...), and great feel. You'd be surprised what turns up at University Surplus.
Re:Keyboards and Monitors? (Score:1)
Re:Keyboards and Monitors? (Score:2)
There's an interesting project to build a modern version of the Commodore-64 called the CommodoreOne [geocities.com] from scratch. This one is far from a simple case mod! It features a 20MHz 65816 processor, a VGA display, 32MB RAM, and full hardware Commodore-64 compatibility.
Cheating. (Score:3, Insightful)
As far as appeal goes, consider you're intentionally purchasing a machine with limited upgrade options. In order to minimize the footprint, the boards won't have many PCI slots, and its debatable if they could be used anyway in that case. While old computer cases can probably be picked up for free, or very very cheap, there's still the labor cost of adapting them to fit modern components. That's going to jack the price a bit, not to mention a power supply will still be required, which is typically a good percentage of the case cost.
Of course, people buying one of these are probably doing it for the novelty purposes and not because they're concerned about cost or usability.
-Restil
How about... (Score:2, Funny)
Console switching pc case..??? (Score:2)
I am sure that you could rip apart a Gamecube, PS2, and an Xbox and fit them all in one system with a 400-600 watt power supply(modified) (or just use the ones that the systems came with). I have s Supermicro S-760 case that I know would fit the guys of all of them.
That would be quite a system to show off, better yet, rackmount it in a 4U case... or even better make 1U rack products of each of the systems, with supercool looking faceplates, with an LCD on each to show the game name, or something about the system status at least.... Now that would be cool to have in the server room...
Re:Console switching pc case..??? (Score:3, Interesting)
Gamecube, PS2, NES, Atari 2600, PC and an Xbox all in a big ass Lian Li case.
What, no TI? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:What, no TI? (Score:2, Interesting)
NES Controllers (Score:1)
Not quite cool enough... yet. (Score:2)
I think that they can do better than this. How about a mini-itx board, a laptop hard drive, and an NES-on-a-chip connected to the cartridge and controller ports? If you want to make it come up as a computer, flick a switch, and video output comes out of the PC video card.
There should be just barely enough space in the original US NES case to pull this off, although it would certainly be tough to do.
Re:Not quite cool enough... yet. (Score:2)
Of course, you might end up selling a few, but still....
Re:Not quite cool enough... yet. (Score:2)
At least I'm fairly certain you can, since there are all those knockoff NES systems that look like an N64 controller with A/V out. The only trick is that those don't rely on cartridges.
Presumably, you can purchase the chip from somewhere, or just gut one of the bootlegs. Either way, it's not about "just running the emulator," it's about the proper feel. Sure it's more expensive and complex. That's the fun!
Re:Not quite cool enough... yet. (Score:2)
Fuggin cool.
And I do understand the hardware hack aspect.
SILICON GRAPHICS Indigo (Score:2)
Maybe I can fit this with some kind of Passive PCI plane, and add multiple Single-board computers...
HMMMMmmmmmmm....
How annoying, and no way I would order one. (Score:3, Insightful)
I was really disapointed that there were no photo galleries for the Atari and NES cases. I mean for all we know those are just mockups and there are no pc parts inside.
You also got to be kidding me with those systems specs. What brand of cpu is it? What speed is the Hard drive? What kind of Ram is that? What video card is in there and how much ram does it have? What type of warranty does it have?
There is no way I would drop $1,200 with so little info, especially via Paypal.
Re:How annoying, and no way I would order one. (Score:1)
It sucks that they're not more obvious, but I found these pictures of the 2600: atari2600-1.jpg [retrosystem.com], atari2600-2.jpg [retrosystem.com], atari2600-3.jpg [retrosystem.com].
Poor Amiga (Score:1)
The real question is: (Score:2, Interesting)
I had a bad floppy drive in a 1000 once...talk about Proprietary hardware...
Kermit Woodall runs retrosystem! (Score:1)
Re:Kermit Woodall runs retrosystem! (Score:1)
One Idea I've Been Poking Around... (Score:2)
Re:One Idea I've Been Poking Around... (Score:1)
Not retro enough for me.. (Score:1)
MadDad32
C64 (Score:1)
Download ZX Spectrum Emulator in Java: (Score:2, Interesting)
You can download ZX Spectrum Emulator in Java from Java Developer's Journal:
ZX Spectrum Emulator [sys-con.com]
Introduction [sys-con.com]
Wicked! (Score:1)
Doesn't get much better I think, even get the signatures of computing pioneers with the deal.
Re:Damn, they beat me to it! (Score:2)
Re:Lame idea (Score:2)
I'll admit to doing things to enhance my CoCo 3s, like putting in a 6309, using an AT keyboard interface, adding SCSI and IDE cards and eventually putting at least one in a PClone case, so that from a strict preservationist point of view I suppose I'm sinning...but those mods at least preserve the spirit of the machine rather than turn it into just another (insert favorite expletive) PClone under the hood.
Re:Lame idea (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Lame idea (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Lame idea (Score:2)
I'm really surprised at the negative reaction the slash crew is giving this. Of course you can't really upgrade them, and they're a nostalgia/retro kick, but what's so wrong with that? How is this any lamer than someone putting a MAME PC into an old arcade cabinet?
They're basically cool, somewhat underpowered, $1000 PCs. If I were in need of a second system, I'd probably go for one.
Re:Lame idea (Score:2)
Re:"Supercharged" (Score:2)
~Philly