While you probably don’t have a need for a Rubik’s Cube in your house these days, you definitely need to take a bath from time to time to keep from stinking. So why not make it fun, and grab this Rubik’s Cube soap block, from DigitalSoaps?

This thing is a dead-ringer for the original puzzle, with all the perfect grooves and 54 colorful stickers hand-applied to the underlying form. Only the bottom is a little different (it’s completely flat), presumably because that’s how the soap molding process works. Still, it’s got yellow stickers on it, but you probably don’t want to show off that side.

Just like the original Rubik’s Cube, you’ll need to peel off the stickers to solve this puzzle – unless you want a bunch of stickers stuck to your bottom when you get out of the tub. Unlike the original Cube, this one smells like grape soda. This was only the case with the original if your little brother got out those Mr. Sketch scented grape markers and drew all over yours.

If you’d like a Rubik’s Cube soap for yourself, head on over to Etsy, where you can grab one for $22 (USD).

I like to think about this retro-style mouse as the Volvo of mice. Sturdy, utilitarian. Not necessarily sporty or comfortable. At least they updated this model by giving it a USB connection instead of ADB or PS/2, an optical sensor instead of one of those balls that you constantly had to clean to get the cat hair out of your mouse. They’ve also given this retro mouse Three Buttons and a Scroll Wheel, which I believe was a 1980s movie with Tom Selleck, Ted Danson and that guy from Police Academy, and directed by Spock. (Seriously, I’m not making that part up.)

If you’re just desperate to relive the early days of mousing, then head on over to ThinkGeek, where you can get the Retro USB mouse for $19.99(USD).

Looks like Pac-Man is doing a pretty good job staying away from his ghostly nemeses, though it doesn’t look like he’s really made much progress yet.

While it would be way cooler if you could actually play Pac-Man by stepping on it, at least it’ll keep your shoes clean before they go stomping around your maze house. The Pac-Man doormat is available from OOO My Design for €30 (~$40 USD).

P.S. I think this thing should be renamed “Pac-Mat.”

I might have to make the image below my new desktop wallpaper on my 27-inch iMac. Is it just me, or was Nyan Cat actually inspired by these t-shirts?

The guys over at MacMothership dug up these awesome retro images of the catalog, filled with wondrous rainbow-colored Apple swag from the 80s.

While the t-shirts and coffee mugs are pretty great, I really wish I knew where I could find the Apple logo latch-hook rug, or the already-assembled wall-hanging version for my office.

Or how about a nifty smoked plastic caddy for all your Elephant and Verbatim 5-1/4″ floppies? I think I still have a few of those kicking around my basement somewhere. (I like how they have to point out that the $26 price does not include the computer system.)

The catalog also featured everything from Apple tie-tacks to a belt buckle and pendants.

They even had an official Apple kite. Sweet. Given the popularity of the brand, Apple really should consider slapping their logo on some new gifties for the 2011 holiday season. I’m sure they’d sell a literal crap-ton.

Check out the rest of the 1983 Apple Gift Catalog, along with tons of other classic Apple memorabilia over at MacMothership.

[via SignalNoise via Bit Rebels]

What you’re looking at here is a Roland Jupiter 8 synthesizer, built from LEGO bricks.

While it doesn’t have quite as many buttons and knobs as the classic 1980s synth, it definitely captures the spirit.

It was assembled by a guy going simply by the moniker “percussives“, and there’s not much more detail than that available about the build.  The little LEGO jacks and ports on the back are a nice touch too. I’m pretty sure those XLR audio and arpeggio control connectors are actually from a Star Wars LEGO set, but I could be wrong. The one on the left sure looks like the Sith logo.

I’d love to see LEGO come out with a whole series of classic gadgets and electronics in kit form. I’d be the first one in line for those, as I’m sure many of you would too.

[via Matrixsynth & Obvious Winner]

According to the image, the 2011 Atari ST2 is supposed to come with a powerful Intel Core2 Quad CPU, 8GB RAM, Geforce 460 GPU, 1 TB hard drive, 7.1 surround sound, and a cool backlit blue keyboard. It even comes with a (misspelled) Blueray player, and bluetooth. This thing has the blues.

Unfortunately, so do I now that I realize the whole thing is just a concept design by 3D illustrator ~svenart, designed and rendered in Lightwave10 (wireframe here). But an awesome concept design it is. And given the fact that somebody has started selling Commodore 64′s again with modern PC innards, I don’t see why someone can’t run with this idea too.

For now, retro geeks will just have to sit there and drool until someone at least gets out an old Atari ST and mods it to match ~svenart’s design.

From the EPCOT center-like fonts to the cheeseball announcer, to the appearances by B-list celebs like Vicki Lawrence, Jefferson Starship and Dom DeLuise, it’s priceless. You’ll have to sit through a 15 second commercial before you can watch it, but it’s well worth the time investment:

What’s your favorite part? I can’t decide if Dom DeLuise falling off the light cycle or Santa being annihilated by a light disc is mine.

The guys over at Colorcubic dug around the bowels of the Atari Museum to find this veritable treasure trove of Atari system concept sketches which truly read like an early 80′s capsule. While some of the sketches eventually served as the basis for the Atari 1200, most of the designs never saw the light of day. These particular drawings were created by industrial designer Regan Cheng, and they all look like they would have fit in nicely alongside the later 8-bit systems which eventually did ship from Atari.

What do you guys think of the designs? Do they stand the test of time, or are you glad computer design has marched on?

[via ISO50, Retroist and Kotaku]

I definitely recognize my Speak & Spell, NES controller, Casio calculator watch, Etch-a-Sketch, ViewMaster, Atari joystick and Rubik’s Cube. Heck, I think at some point I possessed every single object on this thing except for the My Little Pony and that creepy little Troll Doll. This awesome design measures 19.7″ x 27.5″ and each one is laser cut from heavy tangerine Cranford board. They look especially great matted and framed, like against the black background shown below:

Unfortunately, cutoutpaper is only offering a limited edition of 20 of these, so you’d better chop-chop on over to Etsy and pony up your $69 if you want one. Last I checked, there were just five left!

[via Design You Trust]

The DeLorean is a real car, we already have a hoverboard, and if you’re sufficiently geeky and have some free time and a penchant for really ugly footwear, you can rig up your own self-lacing shoes too. Instructables has a full DIY project that involves wires, servo motors, and the ugliest pair of Nike shoes ever constructed.

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

When all is said and done, you have a massive motor thingy hanging off the back of the shoes and the laces self tighten. Yeah it’s a cool project, but  Cindy Lauper called, and she says she wants her shoes back.

Once fully charged with black light, Thretris‘ modded NES really comes to life, glowing with a brightness that could only be bested if it were electroluminescent. For added effect, Thretris added some cool blue LEDs behind the power switches. The mod also has a pair of 1/4″ audio jacks so you can hook the console up to a stereo system (even though the sound is still mono).

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

The glowy stuff used to create the TRON circuit design not just reactive to UV and black light, it keeps glowing for quite some time after the light source has been removed.

Too bad they never made a TRON game  for the NES. Thretris, you’d better get working on that glowing Intellivision.

[via GoNintendo]

As you might have guessed, this crazy jungle gym is a relic from 1984, one that I would have loved to play with. There’s even a speeder bike swing. How cool is that?

There’s a bunch of other stuff, like an electronic console with 4 great sound effects! For some reason, it reminds me of the AT-AT or the Mon Calamari cruiser Star Wars toys that I always wanted. I actually bought a Slave 1 (Boba Fett’s ship) a while ago, which has always been my favorite Star Wars ship.

Too bad they aren’t still making these. For now, you’ll have to troll the aisle of your neighborhood flea market or eBay if you want one.

[Boing Boing via DVice]

Shaggy ripped out the guts of the old Compaq, and replaced the circuitry with the boards from his PlayStation 3. While he was in there, he had to remove the crummy old green-screen CRT monitor and swapped it out with a 7-inch color LCD. He also found there was so much spare room in the case, he was able to add a retractable drawer which provides chargers for his controllers.

Even though the mod is designed to be “luggable,” it does still retain an HDMI output so he can hook it up to an external HDTV too. Check out the pics below to see the CompaqPS3 build as it evolved.

Looks like he also managed to misplace his digital camera somewhere along the way, and instead provided these grainy pics taken with his Blackberry (did he drop it in the toilet and run it over with his car too?)

[via Ben Heck Forums]

Thanks to a partnership between TakaraTomy A.R.T.S. and Nintendo, we’re now getting these Game & Watch minis. Each game is a faithful miniature reproduction of its original version. Unfortunately, they’re not actually playable (boo!), but they do offer the authentic LCD animations from the originals. As an added bonus, the mini Game & Watch titles have a built in solar panel, so you never have to worry about batteries.

At this point, the titles available are Parachute, Octopus and Chef, so if you’re looking for Donkey Kong of Mario Bros. you’re outta luck for now. And despite the fact that they’re not actually playable, they’ll still look pretty cool hanging from your keychain. Here’s a little video showing them off in action:

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

They ship this April, and you can pre-order them all now over at Strapya World for just $11 (USD) each. What do you think the valet will think when I hand over my car keys with one of these hanging from them?

[via Gigazine]

The set of 6 shot glasses includes graphics from six retro Atari arcade games: Asteroids, Centipede, Pong, Breakout, Missile Command and the aforementioned Battle Zone. The flip side of each glass features a color-coordinated Atari logo. Each class holds a perfect shot of your favorite liquor, or is perfect for catching quarters during your drinking games (and save ‘em for later for some arcade play.)

You can grab the full set over at Amazon for $16.99 (USD). Whiskey not included.

[Have more than 5 drinking buddies? Then grab a set of these Pac-Man shots to go with.]

This tablet was named Bashful, which seems kind of strange. Apparently, it’s a reference to Snow White. It was supposed to be an extension and companion for the Apple IIe.

Frogdesign created these mock-ups and dug deep into their archives to show them to everybody. With Apple ready to unveil it’s own tablet on Wednesday, this blast from the past lets you know just how prescient Apple was back then.

Unfortunately(?), Bashful never made it to the market. There were some different variations, one had a phone, others were operated with a stylus, while one even had a 3.5-inch floppy drive.

[via Wired]

Chiptune musician Rush Coil has put together this full-length digital album of classic Christmas tunes, rearranged with the inimitable sounds of classic 8-bit sounds of 1980s video games. It’s lots of fun, and Rush tells me it’s “especially useful for annoying house pets and in-laws.” My personal favorite is We Three Kings, perfect for “tried to smoke a rubber cigar” sing-alongs.

The entire album of retrolicious holiday MP3s can be streamed over at www.8bitchristmas.com.

[thanks for the tip, Rush!]

The TELETIME cartridge features ten original electronic compositions that use the NES’ inimitable sound chip, accompanied by a variety of entertaining and whimsical 8-bit pixel graphics like the one shown above. Here’s a sneak preview of the cart in action…

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

Animalstyle plans on releasing the cartridge in the next couple of weeks, and is accepting pre-orders now for just $30 (USD). He plans on making only about 50 of these suckers, so if you want one, you’d better get crackin’ and place your order now.

Nanotech’s Multipin is a digital pinball simulator, mashed-up with the physical look of a classic pinballer. The game is a full-sized pinball machine that provides electronic renditions of 17 pinball machines in a single cabinet. The system comes loaded with a number of original pinball games, as well as several modern remakes of classic Gottlieb pinball titles from the 1970s and 80s. And if 17 games aren’t enough Nanotech plans on offering upgrade packs with additional tables you can load in later.

Games are played on a large 32-inch 720p high-def LCD monitor that’s set into the playing surface under glass. Multipin not only looks like a pinball cabinet, the game is controlled with all of the classic trappings, a mechanical plunger, clicky flipper buttons, and a realistic audio experience which includes all of the sounds you’d expect to hear coming from a mechanical pinball machine. There are even digital motion sensors in the cabinet that let you nudge and shake the ball around (and eventually tilt the machine if you go too far). There’s also a second LCD screen under the machines backglass that’s used for displaying scores, game graphics, and the occasional mini-game.

Here’s some video from a recent episode of NBC’s TechNow showing off the Multipin in action:

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

The best thing about the Multipin? You can buy one for yourself – now. This isn’t vaporware, it’s a real thing. The $6000 (USD) machine is available now over at Hammacher Schlemmer. Sure, you’ll need some seriously deep pockets to buy one, but if you’re a serious pinball addict, you might want to put Multipin on your Christmas list this year.

Modder Cuzza picked up this old Sega at a junk shop for just $4 bucks, and by the end of his rebuild mission had spent about $800 to gut rehab this bit of (not so) classic PC history.

Specs for the new PC include a VIA Epia Nano-ITX NX15000G motherboard, with VIA C7 CPU running at 1.5GHz, VIA IGP, 1GB of RAM, and an 80GB Hitachi 2.5″ hard drive. There’s also a slot-load DVD combo-drive that he swiped off of an old iBook G4.

He even managed to preserve the original Sega keyboard, with a bit of clever rewiring through using an X-keys matrix board. And while the guts of the Sega PC aren’t the prettiest thing you’ve ever seen, there sure is a lot of hardware crammed into such a relatively small box.

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

Want to build your own Sega PC? Check out Cuzza’s complete build log over on techPowerUp! Personally, I’m waiting to build the TI-99/4 or Vic-20 PC.