Oh! Gizmo

By Andrew Liszewski

Here’s a great post from the people at Mightygodking.com who claimed to have found a genuine working-condition Atari 2600 at a garage sale, complete with a huge stack of classic games that they’ve scanned for our enjoyment. In reality, it’s a huge post of classic video game artwork that’s been updated with titles and descriptions that more accurately reflect what’s being depicted on the cover. If you’ve ever looked at an old video game and wondered how the artist came up with those over-the-top covers when the games barely featured a few pixelated sprites you’ll find these pretty amusing. And really, do you have a better way to spend your Saturday morning?

[ Fun From Yesterday! ] VIA [ Fazed ]

By Andrew Liszewski

I have no problem with kids playing video games, as long as they spend part of their days doing something more creative so their imaginations don’t atrophy. Besides building toys and stuff like Lite Brite, I also remember having a Muppets themed Colorforms set when I was a kid. While I don’t think the Muppets are as popular as they were in the 80’s, I do think today’s kids would still enjoy Colorforms, even though they seem pretty hard to come by these days.

Thankfully as part of MoMA’s Color Chart: Reinventing Color, 1950 to Today exhibition, the MoMA Store is now selling an exact replica of the original Colorforms set from 1951. The kit includes 350 brightly colored vinyl shapes that will stick to any glossy surface, or as I recall, to each other. At $35 this replica Colorforms set isn’t exactly cheap, but finding all the little pieces strewn across your house? Priceless.

[ MoMA - The Original Colorforms Set ]

By Andrew Liszewski

I have fond memories of my childhood (minus the noodle incident) and for a gamer, nothing says the early 80’s like Atari. So if you’ve got a few minutes to spare and fancy a trip down memory lane, check out these scans of a 1981 Atari Catalog on HuguesJohnson.com. The catalog was actually found by a friend of his while moving, and Mr. Johnson was kind enough to put it online for the rest of us to enjoy. While a lot of the games in the catalog have become classics, the fun part is looking through the lavish illustrations that barely resemble what the actual gameplay was like.

And if Atari was never your thing, you might want to check out the ‘Scans’ under the ‘Video Game Features’ section of HuguesJohnson.com where you’ll find copies of old Sears, Intellivision and even Coleco catalogs and flyers.

[ 1981 Atari Catalog Scans ] VIA [ Fazed ]

By Andrew Liszewski

Nintendo-centric news site, Nintendic, recently published a look back at the company’s infamous Virtual Boy system. Believe it or not, the VB was created by Gunpei Yokoi who was also responsible for the Game & Watch, Metroid and the ridiculously successful Game Boy. That’s a pretty solid track record, but unfortunately as we all know, the VB wasn’t exactly a runaway hit.

Nintendo planned to sell 1.5 million Virtual Boys by the end of 1995, but the $180 system only ever sold about 770,000 units throughout its entire lifespan. As a result it was never released in Europe or Australia, and Gunpei Yokoi was ‘forced’ to resign from the company the next year. If you’re interested, you can head on over to Nintendic to read about the whole saga.

Unfortunately due to a broken clip on the legs, my Virtual Boy (which I picked up brand new for about $20 back in the day) still sits in the closet, waiting for the day when I get a hankering for some 3D tennis again. And if anyone has a pair of Virtual Boy legs in good working order they’d like to get rid of, please let me know.

[ Nintendo’s forgotten console: The Virtual Boy ]

By Andrew Liszewski

How do you prove you’re truly a hardcore Star Wars fan? I would say that spending $5,950 for a life-size C-3PO figure, and $5,450 for his astromech sidekick R2-D2 would be more than adequate. Sideshow Collectibles now has both of these droids available for pre-order and they’ll actually ship sometime in the third quarter of this year.

Besides being incredibly accurate reproductions, both figures are made from fiberglass and feature lights and sounds powered by a set of AA batteries. They each come with their own display base as well as a magnetically attached restraining bolt to keep them in check. I can only assume that both droids will be available in limited quantities, so if you’d like to pre-order either one you’ll need to cough up a $950, non-refundable deposit.

[ Sideshow Collectibles Life-Size R2-D2 & C-3PO ] VIA [ TheForce.net ]

By Andrew Liszewski

What better way to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day than with a creation by Ireland’s most famous inventor? (Who cares if Thomas Edison was actually Dutch? On March 17th everybody’s a little bit Irish.) This build-it-yourself phonograph kit comes with everything you’ll need to recreate Edison’s waxed pipe experiment, except that since waxed pipes have gone the way of HD-DVD, it uses plastic cups to record your message.

The only thing you’ll need to provide are a Philips’ head screwdriver, some scotch tape, scissors and a D-cell battery to power the motor. And by recording your own music you’ll never have to worry about the RIAA busting down your door, unless of course you start transferring your CD collection to plastic cups, as I’m sure that doesn’t fall under fair use rules.

[ Cup Phonograph Kit in Edison Style ] VIA [ Wired Gadget Lab ]

By Andrew Liszewski

A guy with the alias ‘Boomerjinks’ (aka Kevin) has started a thread on the NASIOC forums (North American Subaru Impreza Owners Club) to showcase his 2003 Subaru Outback which he’s converted into a slightly smaller version of the Ecto-1 seen in the Ghostbusters films. While the Outback isn’t exactly one of the coolest cars on the road, this particular one not only turns a lot of heads but also wins a lot of ‘unusual entry’ trophies at various car shows.

I’m not sure how much the Ecto-1 conversion actually cost, but on the forum he mentions the print job for the vehicle’s graphics runs about $200, while the orange flashing lightbars were $430 each. The rest of the decorative materials were bought from Home Depot, but you also have to consider the man hours that went into putting it all together.

Unfortunately the original Ectomobile, which was built on a 1998 Subaru Outback, was rear-ended by a semi-truck 5 days before Hallowe’en. The car ended up being a write-off, but Kevin was able to transplant the ghost-hunting accessories to a 2003 Outback, so the Ectomobile lives again. If you’re curious to see how a geek trips out his ride, head on over to the NASIOC forums where Kevin’s posted a good collection of photos and stories about the car.

[ Ectomobile Thread @ NASIOC ] VIA [ NOTCOT ]

And if you were wondering, the Ectomobile even has the same siren used by the real Ecto-1 in the Ghostbuster movies, and I’ve included a video of the car doing a drive-by after the jump.

Read the rest of this entry »

By Andrew Liszewski

While G.I. Joe and Transformers served me well as a kid, I can safely say I spent most of my childhood pouring through containers of LEGO pieces. And since the company has been around since 1958, I know I wasn’t the only kid to grow up with them. To celebrate the 50th anniversary of the LEGO brick the company has commissioned a ‘LEGO Collector’ guide that includes full color photos of every single LEGO set ever produced between 1958 and 2008. (At least the first half of 2008.)

The catalog is being published by Fantasia Verlag, a German company who is well experienced in creating collector guides. The book will be about 800 pages long and will include photos of close to 8,000 different sets. To make it easier to find the sets you grew up with the guide is broken up into chapters based on years, and also includes a comprehensive index in the back. Each set is even rated on a scale of 1 to 6 LEGO bricks depending on how rare it was.

The book is expected to be available in Germany around May for about $35. And Joel over at Boing Boing Gadgets not only managed to dig up these scans of the book, but also got confirmation that the guide will be available in North America later in the year.

[ Boing Boing Gadgets - LEGO Collector: A Catalog of Every LEGO Set Ever ]

By Andrew Liszewski

While the era of dragging out the slide projector and screen to show off your vacation photos is thankfully long gone, it was at least better than having to pass around a low-res LCD picture frame or even worse, the digital camera itself. But if your friends grew up in the 70’s or 80’s they’d probably jump at the chance to peruse your holiday shots with a classic Viewmaster. Image3D has been creating custom Viewmaster slides for corporate clients for years now (a local restaurant uses them for their dessert menu) and the company is now offering the same service to Joe Consumer.

Of course since most amateur photographers don’t have a 3D camera the results will only be in 2D, but the company seems to offer a handful of 3D conversion services if you’re really hung up on the effect. I personally think the novelty of seeing your own shots through a Viewmaster is cool enough. As for the cost? The slides run $10 each which isn’t that bad, but there’s a minimum order limit of 10. And I’m not sure if that means 10 unique slides with different photos on each, or 10 copies of the same slide. They also sell the Viewmasters themselves for $3 but your old-school model from when you were a kid should work just as well.

[ Image3D ] VIA [ DVICE ]

By Andrew Liszewski

If you’re tired of the console wars and wished that all the players could just get along, this hoodie from Fifty24SF will show people it is possible. The design features a veritable melting pot of current and past game controllers all living in harmony against a white background.

But something tells me this particular hoodie was designed well before the final version of the PS3 was released or even unveiled because it still seems to include the old boomerang style controller. Also there appears to be no love for the original XBox or the 360 while the Nintendo is represented with 6 different controller designs. So I take back my original statements since it seems like this hoodie might actually spark a new console war.

You can get it from Upper Playground in XX-Large only for $90.

[ Fifty24SF Controller Hoodie ] VIA [ technabob ]