Archive for: atari
An Atari 2600 is seen by many gaming enthusiasts as a great piece of Americana. Retro gaming consoles are a huge draw for collectors and geeks alike. And while we had to see classic pieces of art such as the Atari 2600 ripped apart, we admire and appreciate Daniel McLeod of Black Mountain Audio for taking the old and making it new (and useful) again.
Daniel replaced the innards of your standard Atari 2600 with two speakers and a subwoofer as well as modding an old 2600 cartridge into a 30-pin iPhone/iPod compatible charging device. The end result is perhaps the best custom iPhone dock we’ve seen to date; no flashy lights, gimmicky additions, or tacky colors. Just original, simple, Atari + Apple love.
Think it’s worth $100? You can buy it over at Daniel’s Etsy page
- September 6, 2011 10:51 am
Hopefully those of you who are old enough to remember the 70′s to early 80′s gaming revolution, remember a special little peripheral – the Atari Joystick. No matter how many consoles are released, the controller pads are pretty much the same old thing. Yes we have added slightly more comfortable areas to hold or even created a wand like piece to swing about in your living room. But that pesky joystick has been there since the beginning. Some have tried to create a joystick add-on for their consoles, but nothing has mirrored the pure innocence and simplicity of this magnificent device.
Anyways, nostalgia aside – Atari is at it again! With hand held gaming a huge push for developers, iOS being a huge drive for the generation, Discovery Bay Games has decided to add on to the incredible iOS release – Atari’s Greatest Hits. I have this game on my iPhone, and even with the smaller screen, the game is quite fun. Now if I had an iPad and this peripheral for it I would be in heaven – magical gaming heaven. The joystick hasn’t actually been announced, but was uncovered in the last update for the iOS game linking it to Discovery Bay Games Duo Controller.
The website gives no price, only gives an Available Soon, not really giving us much information. But the peripheral works with your iPad/iPad 2 and will give you the upper hand against those pesky Asteroids. We’ll update you on when this incredible device is available, and maybe, just maybe, if we can come by another iPad to review, we’ll be able to review this joystick, and by review I do mean play for hours and piss off our wives.
Are you in love with retro games? I mean really, really in love? How often can you say you get to see or touch “your love” in every aspect of your life? For many people, their fascination is relegated to “hobby” status as life and the 9-to-5 grind consume a fair chunk of our daily rituals. But for retro gamers, a bone has been thrown in the form of salt and pepper shakers.
Not just any salt and pepper shakers but Space Invader shakers. How sweet would it be to stroll into someone’s house, plunk yourself down at their table, and then get welcomed by two of these beauts staring back at you? If it were close friends that I was on joking terms with, I’d totally take them if I could, enjoying both the joke of “where’d they go” and secretly enjoying them back in the safe confines of my own humble living quarters. How much do you love Space Invaders? Enough to let them eat with you day in and day out?
Geeky-Gadgets > LikeCool
Running a modern Crysis-like game at 1920 x 1200 is no doubt a thrill if you have the required hardware to do so. But for all the eye candy that bombards gamers today, sometimes a “simpler life” is being sought out. The good ‘ol days of gaming with graphics measured in bits instead of MHz or RAM allotment cater as some would call it, to a more “real” or enjoyable sense of gaming. Getting this classic fix in the modern age has been made possible thanks to countless emulators and ROMs. But the process of downloading the emulator and individual ROMs can be a pain at times as can actually getting everything to run correctly. That’s where “PuppyArcade” comes in.
This disc-based OS is developed specifically for running ROMs and classic games. Games from classic systems such as Amiga, Atari, Commodor, and even more modern systems like NES, PS1, and Gamecube among others all have a spot at this table. A slightly more expanded, though certainly not final list of supported systems include:
Amiga (500, 1000, 2000), Atari (ST, 800, 800XL, 130XE, 5200), Amstrad (CPC, Plus, VEB), Arcades, Colecovision, Commodore (64, 128, VIC20, PET), GameBoys (GB, GBC, GBA), GameGear, Genesis/MegaDrive, MasterSystem, MS DOS, N64, NeoGeo, NeoGeo CD, NES/Famicom, PC Engine/TurboGrafix, PSX, ScummVM, SNES and ZX Spectrum (16k, 48k, 128k, +2, +2A, +3) & more!
If a single system just won’t cut it and/or your consider yourself a video game connoisseur, it’s be in your best interest to check out this link and pick up PuppyArcade. I’m downloading as we speak to give it a fair shot. In the meantime, give it a try yourself and let us know how it goes.
CrunchGear
How about a little R&R time after a busy day? For some, R&R means a good book, a glass of wine, and a comfy chair. For others it simply means a nap. In reality there are almost endless ways to get some much needed rest and relaxation from the toils of daily life.
Being a gadget minded person myself, doing pretty much anything with a gadget or electronic is enough to get my nerves calmed and primed for another day. Speaking of which, getting “primed” and ready via alcoholic intervention can also be a good stress reliever. And with the Atari themed shot glasses above, anyone can suck down that liquid satisfaction and take advantage of yet another opportunity to show off their geeky sides.
It’s a win win — a nice stiff drink and some geeky nostalgia. $16.99 for 6.
[Product Page]
Nerd Approved > Technabob
- November 24, 2009 6:16 am
When looking for new and innovative ways to slaughter time, games often enter the foray. But such treats in life often come with some sort of paywall. There are tons of websites that do offer up free gaming. But could one ever strike a cord as personal as an Atari gaming site? If you’d like to test that theory for yourself, head on over to Atari’s new site which offers up some pretty sweet features, namely free browser based games of classic Atari originals. What originals exactly? I mean, Atari released a boat load of games back in the day. If you were one of the nerds who possed (and maybe still posses) an Atari 2600, you may recognize Adventure and Yar’s Revenge. If you were instead an arcade junkie, perhaps Battlezone, Crystal Castles, and Lunar Lander are more along your lines no? Either way, the games listed previously are now all available on Atari’s site (linked above) so that you can relive the classics. I’m sure that as time progresses, Atari will push out more games to keep people coming back. It’s certainly in their best interest don’t you think? Stop by, give it a go, and let us know what you think.
Joystiq
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For some, the games of today while visually dazzling and at times deeply involved just don’t have the same pick-up-and-playability of the classics. Back in the 8-bit day, sitting down and starring at a dude on the screen comprised of a dozen blocks was high tech back then. Similarly, the sounds and “music” that accompanied these wonders of science were something else themselves. If those beeps, bops, bams, and slams were sweet sweet music to your ears, the Atari Noise Maker may be just the device to make your life complete once again. Carry it with you and annoy your friends. Show off at family events. The possibilities are endless. All you need is $45 and long enough to stop by Etsy in which that $45 magically disappears never to be seen again. However, in return you get some sweet old gaming music. Ya dig it?
Source: Geeky-Gadgets, Technabob, Coolest Gadgets
All of the people who follow the gadget/gaming world know how much of a public backlash EA received after introducing a Spore, a game with months of hype leading up to release. The only problem is they laced Spore with a new type of DRM that they were hoping to incorporate into all of their future products – and the public didn’t take too kindly to that. You see, Spore’s DRM required online activation before it would work and only allowed 3 activations before you would have to physically call EA and talk to a real human being in order to state your case as to why you needed another activation. After all of the negative media attention and consumer angst that was vocally voiced all over the web, it seems as if Atari either doesn’t own an internet connection or read any type of news, or is trying to go out of business with a bang as they are adopting a very similar method of DRM.
