Nostalgia Nerd

Remember Hexen, Heretic, those early FPS games that brought us into a fantasy world for the first time? Well some of us couldn't get enough of it, and I was one. Thankfully, there are some developers out there who felt the same, and so we have games like Graven ~ An FPS Boomer Shooter that is completely inspired by Hexen and those early other titles. Let's get involved.

Arcades were an exciting yet mysterious place back in the 80s and 90s. All those glorious arcade games to play, yet, how did they get there? Who maintained them? How did this world of wonder actually work? Well, behind the scenes there was a lot going on, made easier by JAMMA cabinets. JAMMA arcade machines came with their quirks though, including secret games that we never actually got to play.

CRTs have always been special. That comforting glow late into the night, you can't quite beat it. So, it's about time we took a look at the biggest consumer CRT TV to ever grace our shores; The Toshiba 3787DB. At a whopping 37", it's vast, and it's currently sitting in the corner of Barcadia. So let's take a look, and see how vast this thing really is.

Aspect ratios! It's important. The world seemed to shift dramatically from 4:3 to 16:9 aspect, but the question I often ask is why? Why did we all do that? Like a bunch of zombies walking brainlessly towards the goal. It's kinda wrapped up in the swap from CRT screens to flat panel, but it's a little more intricate than that. So, let's investigate.

Screen resolutions have changed a lot over the years. We started out with a set number of horiztonal lines with early television, before jumping to digital and onto HD, but why oh why is HD 1080p? Why is that the resolution we settled for on both TV and computer?

In 1992 a virus threat rose up that had the world panicking. That virus was called The Michelangelo virus, and it was poised to knock out 5 million computers around the world. Only John McAfee could save us.

Sub notebook PCs or Ultra Mobile PCs (UMPC) were supposed to be the future. Tech was getting smaller, and it made sense for PCs to do the same. The Vulcan Flipstart was one of the machines which tried its best to change things, and with Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen behind it, people were hoping for something incredible. Thankfully, that's exactly what we got.

I happened to be playing around with an old 286 PC the other day, when I found a piece of software within that I really wasn't expecting to. Join me on this adventure that includes discussing 286 PCs in general, Hercules graphics, amber screens and that bit of interesting software stored within!

The Sega Master System was the console of choice for many Europeans (and some Americans) in the late 80s and early 90s, but for some people, IT STILL IS. IT NEVER WENT AWAY. So let's take a look at TecToy and the TecToy Master System Evolution; a Master System that you can STILL purchase today!

It's the perfect meme for the age... Mom, can we get Game Boy?... No, we have Game Boy at home... Because some of these knock offs were ATROTIOUS. Well, let's look at what those GameBoys looked like, how they played and how they made us feel. From the Watara SuperVision, to the Hartung GameMaster, Mega Duck and even the GameMate from Bit Corp.... Let's get down and dirty with these handhelds.

We've been waiting two years for the Checkmate Display to get here. I mean, I have at least, and now, I finally have my hands on a production model. So, in this video, I have a chat with Steve, the guy behind Checkmate, we take a look at the monitor and then I do a light bit of testing to make sure all is in order. By the way Steve is an absolutely lovely guy, I haven't been paid for talking about this product. I just think it's superb.

Think of the iconic video game consoles of the 80s, and you may not think of the Vectrex, but you should. The first vector based video game console, this thing was a work of art, and is just as much fun today as it was back in 1983.