Retro Computers

If you want more detail about the RatecaPUTER than is available... anywhere else, Oh! Ishi, who was able to do a teardown of one of the very few units that exist. (It was invaluable when fixing my alt-text.)

teaching an old paperclip new tricks

In an ad that was printed on special flourescent paper to give it a "radioactive" green gradient (meaning, it scans very poorly), Commodore advertises a first party adventure game: "QUESTPROBE: THe Hulk: A Marvel Adventure." Screenshots show Bruce Banner looking in the mirror, the Hulk looking in a morror, and a transformation scene.

THE HULK HAS GONE SOFT

The Sharp Rateca Puter. Up top, left to right: a collapsable TV/radio antenna, brightness and contrast dials, a giant speaker, a smaller speaker, and input for the tapedeck, with the play counters that were more common on the day. Face, left to right: A 4.5 inch CRT (behind a plastic guard), VHF/UHF and radio dials, channel and band selectors (TV/COMP, FM, Shortwave, and Middlewave), the "RATECA PUTER' logo on the battery gauge, AFC switch, mode selector, tape deck controls, audio controls for balance, bass, treble, and volume, and a mollyguard to prevent dials and switches from being mashed (the mollyguard being a signature of Sharp's boomboxes of the time). Face, low: the collapsable carrying handle that doubles as a stand; computer power button; slide-out chiclet keyboard based on Sharp calculators of the day, with number pad; an LED clock, clock controls, alarm controls. Right side: mic jacks, earphone jacks in two different sizes, beat cut switch, fan exhaust, DC and AC power plugs, and a printer port (!). Help I'm trapped in an alt text factory

Only 200 were made. But that hasn't stopped everyone who walks into Sharp's industrial design museum from wanting to walk out with one of these beauties.

Up top, the headline: "SANYO FIRST OFF THE BLOCKS WITH A CD-ROM AMIGA 500? A combined CD-ROM/Amiga had already been developed in Japan as early as last August, the Express can reveal." The article describes how the specs resemble an Amiga 500, but the case resembles an Amiga 2000 with a Sanyo badge; while Commodore US knew nothing and Commodore Japan did not respond (not terribly good signs), the quote from the lead engineer Nakamura stated they were looking forwards to porting Amiga home titles to the Japanese market. But don't go looking for one at your local used game shop. Instead, this deal would fall through and they would spend 1990 shovelling out the C64 "Games System" (like a C64 you can't program, but more expensive!) and spend further development money reinventing this working Amiga with the CDTV (1991, 2 years later, 60000 units sold) and the CD32 (1994, 4 years later, 125000 units sold).

Despite a strong opening act, Commodore made multiple errors through the 80s. Perhaps one of the biggest ones was the Sanyo Amiga CD-X. The CD-X was set to use the established Amiga 500 electronics and receive Japanese arcade ports from Taito, Capcom, Sega, and Konami... in 1989. (Source.)

Ace forever!

Up top, the slogan: "If flying your IBM® PC got any more realistic, you'd need a license." Upper half, dense ad copy with headings like "The plane inside your PC," "The world beneath your fingers," "The learning curve," "The Ace in your soul," and "Throttle on." At the end of the ad copy, the MICROSOFT "pixel earth" logo, with the slogan: "Better Tools For Microcomputers." Below, the viewer is put behind a tilted art-deco airplane control panel, looking towards a vaporwave horizon; the plane is lining up for Runway 18. The registration on the dash, N4081L, belonged to a real Piper PA-31 Navajo in the 80s, and the instrument panel is (with some artistic license) what it would look like if you were sitting in the copilot's seat.

If flying your IBM® PC got any more realistic, you'd need a license. (Source.)

ROGUE: The Adventure Game. The game of Rogue was originated by: Michael C. Toy and Kenneth C.R.C. Arnold Adapted for the IBM PC by: John Lane. Significant design contributions by: Glenn Wichman and scores of others. Public Domain Software - 1984, not to be sold. Rogue's Name? Player

Rogue (DOS, 1984)

The Bard's Tale III. Wasteland. Wolfenstein 3D. Jazz Jackrabbit 2. Out Of This World. Baldur's Gate II. Neuromancer. Battle Chess. Rock & Roll Racing. And, let us not forget: Super Noah's Ark 3D!

Rebecca's work is everywhere in this industry, and she deserves our support and our love.

an panel from "Shogakukan Encyclopeida 191: You Can Make It Too! Famicom Games" showcasing a screen from the Famicom: "NS-HUBASIC v2.1A © NINTENDO/SHARP/HUDSON 1982 BYTES FREE OK". To this, the kid typed in: "Let's play some cool games!" The Nintendo replied with: "?SN ERROR OK" The boy's eyes are bugging out, saying "WHAT IS THIS?" and the girl is replying, "There's no games coming out!" Any transcription errors are mine.

Don't get upset, it's just a syntax error. (Source.)

From Popular Computing Weekly for 20 Jan 1983, the article "Juipter Ace revisited." Three images (all of the Ace) fill up space, while an extremely commented article gives the listing for a Galaga knockoff, 'Alien Swarm' - then reveals the 35-line program is 'as complex as the limitations of memory allowed'.

Let's revisit the Jupiter Ace, and see why even in those days it was unlikely to carry the good name of Forth forth.

In an ad from Compute! Gazette, April 1988 (shortly before skating became Absolutely Huge), this extremely 90s ad features a skater doing a hand plant in a technicolor maelstrom suggesting palm trees. Headings read "The Wildest Multi-Event Game Ever!" (above the graffiti logo), "Mad Max on Wheels" (by a half-pipe screenshot), "Skate & Destroy" (in the top-down overworld), "Rodney's Skate Shop" (speaking to a lawyer-safe punk rendition of Rodney Dangerfield), and "Lester" ("Free 'Lester' sticker in every package!"). "Software by David Bunch, Michael Kosaka, Stephen Landrum." By Electronic Arts, with their classic ECA logo.

SKATE OR DIE

Up top, the title of the game, Knights of Xentar. Bottom, the status of Demond and Rolf, the part's members, along with menus (Item, Magic, Status, Equip, File, System) and currency (6873 Sovereigns). In the middle of the screen the head of Rolf (a blue-haired well-bearded man) says: "Hey, do you have a sudden urge to sing Culture Club songs?"

Knights of Xentar (1995) (Source.)

Computer & Video Games Magazine #112, a UK game magazine from March 1991. The cover is framed in red "Danger" markings. Up top, it lists "AMIGA MEGADRIVE ST SUPER FAMICOM C64 SEGA SPECTRUM SEGA AMSTRAD PC ENGINE PC NINTENDO" (in that order, yes I know there's repeats) The title is yellow in a red circle; below, Poison (a redhead fighter in a Shadoloo flight cap, wielding a knife and handcuffs, and wearing a gold coffin earring) looks at you, to a backdrop of Vegas neon. Bottom left, a first-person racing game screenshot is subtitled "SUPER MONACO GP: US GOLD'S BEST CONVERSION YET?" The footer states "REVIEWED! FAMICOM SUPER MARIO WORLD, TURRICAN 2, SOLAR JETMAN, SNAKE RATTLE 'N' ROLL, PRO TENNIS TOUR 2" and "WIN!! EXTERMINATOR COIN-OP SUPER FAMICOM AND CONSOLES GLAORE!"

STILL ONLY ₤1.30 (Source.)

Monospaced text on a red-brown background reads: "THE COURT LOANS YOU 2000 GOLD. You promise to find a new world and return with gold and glory for the crown. Ahead lies the unknown. It is your chance to find fame and fortune. Your expedition includes: 4 ships 100 Men 52 weeks of food 300 trade goods (Press Button To Continue)"

The Seven Cities of Gold (Amiga, 1985)

To the side, in a pink sidebar: "PC IBM, Tandy, PC Compatibles." Up top, in small yellow font: "After years of being passed over for languages supposedly faster and sleeker..." Middle of the page, a sunset with a home computer framing it; two men are enveloped in the glow of the monitor 'sun'. Bellow, in big rounded font: "BASIC IS BACK" The article is credited to Tom Campbell.

After years of being passed over for languages supposedly faster and sleeker... BASIC IS BACK (Source.)

A Utopian Scholastic style ad that shows a computer. The title: "For the first time, a community has banded together to design their next computer. A revolutionary new computer, conceived by you. The MM/1." Many dense articlets follow, including: Power, Support, Smart, Free, Compare, For $779, Systems, Extras, Giveaway. It's credited to Interactive Media Systems of Davidson, NC.

When Tandy cancelled the OS-9 line, fans in 1990 tried to step up. The MM/1 beat the Amiga, Mac, and most PCs on price, but with less than 500 units made - and only 8 ever sold, not including the giveaway mentioned in this ad - there was never going to be the software needed. (Source.)

A sleek grey box with a CD rom popup on the left, a floppy drive (!) on the right, and two controller ports and AV ports out the front (!). The grey controller has a D-pad, A/B, Select/Start, far fewer than its companions.

FM Towns Marty (Fujitsu, 1993)

The cover of the July 1991 issue of Compute. Up top, the lead story: "Complete guide to over 200 jumbo hard drives!" Page middle, a egg hovers in a vaporwave field of blue, the 'yolk' glowing as it cracks open. Additional stories are in the center: "Ten Tips for Tech Support," "The Body Silicon", "Robots In The Line Of Fire." Art by "Hiromasma Sugiura" (sp?), developed on a NEC.

COMPLETE GUIDE TO OVER 200 JUMBO HARD DRIVES!

The Excel superstars throw down in Vegas Microsoft Excel is arguably the world’s most important piece of business software. Can it also be a sport?

Microsoft Excel was released on September 30, 1985.

40 years later, an elite handful of analysts, actuaries, and accountants converge annually in Las Vegas for the Excel World Championship.

I did not mean for this bot to be timely.

If I knew better Russian or Chinese, I could probably make a whole field day about the fake "BASIC" books that were on sale in Russia and China by authors who never owned a computer.

Unfortunately, Chinese and Russian retrocomputers will have to be their own bot because I do not.

The cover to "Programming Your Own Adventure Games in Pascal" by Richard C. Vile, Jr. In the distance, a castle appears. In the mid-ground, a red dragon blocks the path to the castle; nearby, an Indiana Jones-type character shoots at the attacking dragon.

I could make a whole sub-bot based just on programming books with dragons on the cover. (Source.)

Up top, a bored bemused businessman looks at the cameraman, while the IBM PC he is sitting at reads: "DISK DRIVE IN OPERATION." Below, the ad quip: "Microsoft's RAMCARD™ with RAMDRIVE™ takes the whir, click, and wait out of the IBM PC." Dense ad copy follows, with headings "Solid State Disk," "Fast and easy.", "64K to 256K", "A complete subsystem", "More Tools For IBM," and "See for yourself." At the very bottom is the Microsoft "pixel earth" logo, with the slogan: "Better Tools For Microcomputers."

Microsoft's RAMCARD™ with RAMDRIVE™ takes the whir, click, and wait out of the IBM PC. (Source.)

A man stands, holding the globe in his hands. Behind him, a satellite shoots lasers at missiles; further behind that, a nuclear bomb goes off in the distance. Labelled "The ARMAGEDDON Man: Martech, For the COMMODORE 64/128 CASSETTE." The art is signed 'Steiner.'

Sixteen nations have their hands on the nuclear button. As Global Commander of the United Nuclear Nations, you must stage satellites, intercept communications, perform inspections, negotiate, scrutinize, and try to save the world from nuclear fire. This is THE ARMAGEDDON MAN (C64, 1988).

An old school HP terminal, featuring CRT monitor, tape drive (internal top left), thermal printer (internal top right), keyboard (with 32 function keys and a keypad loosely based on HP calculators).

HP 9835A (1979)

inside view of Apple Macintosh IIcx/ci case with components removed, showing designer and engineering team signatures etched into metallic-coated plastic surface.

@retrocomps.bsky.social
Apple Macintosh IIcx & IIci, 1989 (too soon?)

Designer (me) and mechanical engineering team’s signatures are etched inside.

I hope you REALLY liked that theme song.

Yes and yes.

(solemnly) You've had mail.