Hey kids! You know, before computers, we used to spend a lot more time outdoors, instead of sitting around indoors! Do you know why? Because sitting indoors sucked, that’s why. But at least we had the phone to play with! Find out about all the fun you missed in my latest Mad Ned Memo, dedicated to phone shenanigans.
Picked up a childhood memory, this Mattel Football game from 1978. From a strange brief time in the late 70s when computer chips were cheap but LCDs had not been invented.
The idea of using only the horizontal bars of a 7 segment LED digit display to represent the players was genius! These tiny LEDs were cheap at the time, but power hungry.
This game has a surprising level of detail in the gameplay, including running and passing plays, interceptions, punts, and even sacks.
Some memories of when Radio Shack was a thing…
Five electronic games from a time when computers were cheap but displays were not.
Rows of vacuum tubes in the IBM 701 computer. (1952)
Building a ‘magic magnetic theater’ from a 1979 HP pen plotter driven by an RPi3. The pen here replaced by an electromagnet. Can track and move various objects that are placed on the (eventual) stage
Eugene Jarvis next to his 1981 arcade masterpiece, Defender.
C.E. Wynn-Williams’ Thyratron-based “scale of two” counter used to detect Alpha particles. This device played a role in the discovery of the neutron by Sir James Chadwick in 1932.
MIT’s TX-0, “Transistorized Experimental Computer Zero” from 1959. A solid-state implementation of the Whirlwind computer, out featured a vector display and could play Tic Tac Toe.
Built a sound box so our dog could tell us stuff. Not sure it’s the best idea.
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