Category: Retro

Pac-Man, Galaga, and Dig Dug are three of my all-time favorite 8-bit arcade games. There are lots of ways to play Namco’s classic game at home these days, but how many of them are shiny and gold?

Proving there are few things more satisfying to watch than a job well done, YouTuber Rescue & Restore documents the process by which he carefully returns an original 1978 Star Wars X-Wing toy to its former glory.

You know what the problem with televisions is? They’re too big. In the quest for constantly larger screens, our scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should.

Back in the 1980s, I was a serious Atari kid. I had an Atari 2600, an Atari 800, an Atari 7800, an Atari Lynx, and an Atari 520ST along the way. I was even president of an Atari Users Group.

You know, I was just thinking the other day maybe I should start making my own liquor. I was just going to use the bathtub, but then I saw this 5 Gallon Pure Copper Alembic Still built by Copperholic and available for sale on Amazon (affiliate link).

Microsoft, probably known for always being at the forefront of fashion, is releasing another small series of ugly holiday sweaters to commemorate some of its products of yesteryear. Obviously, these will be my go-to tops for Zoom meetings this winter.

I basically grew up in video game arcades back in the 1980s. So it goes without saying that I have a place in my heart for classic arcade games. Among my proudest possessions is a full-size custom arcade machine that can play all kinds of retro games from the 1970s until the early 2000s.

What’s the first thing that comes to mind when you think of Christmas? Star Trek, right? I mean, how could it not be? So what better way to celebrate the holidays than with this $150 Star Trek U.S.S.

While you might not shoot your eyes out, you could certainly melt your retinas sitting too close while watching scenes from A Christmas Story on this giant 8-foot inflatable television yard decoration. Fra-gee-lay — it must be Italian.

These days, lots of people are replacing their bedside clocks with smartphones or other mobile gadgets which keep time. But there’s something about being able to just open an eyeball in the middle of the night and glance at the time that makes me still prefer a standalone clock.

Do you have an old Macintosh lying around gathering dust? While you might want to turn it into an aquarium, you could also update it to run a much more modern operating system. Modder Travis DeRose of Curiosityness shows us how he cracked open a Macintosh Plus and converted it into a permanent home for an iPad Mini.

Back in the 1980s, computers were largely shades of beige or grey plastic. While this look might seem dated by today’s standards of slim, glass and metal devices, there’s no question that these retro color schemes immediately bring back fond memories of the early days of personal computing.

Do you love retro arcade games? I certainly do. While the pixel art character sprites get a whole lot of love, the fonts used to display your score and life status deserve much more appreciation. Typeface designer Toshi Omagari’s book catalogs dozens of the chunky pixelated fonts used in arcade games from the 1970s through the 1990s.

Despite getting its start back in 1966, Star Trek continues to entertain, with new series like Star Trek: Discovery, Picard, and Lower Decks, all actively in production. Over the years, the franchise has certainly evolved, though in general, sticking to a formula that blends social commentary, science fiction, adventure, and humor.

Something is appealing to me about the aesthetics of old personal computers from the ’80s and ’90s. I know they’re not streamlined or sleek like the stuff that Apple is churning out these days, but I liked that those old machines felt more purposeful in their design.

Those of us who grew up playing video games back in the 1980s have a special place in our hearts for the pixel art characters from the 8-bit arcade and home console world. From Pac-Man to Dig Dug to Donkey Kong to Galaga, game artists had to really stretch their creativity and imagination to give us memorable and identifiable characters using the most primitive of blocks and limited color schemes.