Just saw something awesome on Game Set Watch: A cool Flickr album loaded with vintage shots of arcades from 1979-1989. Definitely worth checking out; hopefully we'll be able to use some of this in our forthcoming Gameplay Forever movie. See it all below, and if you have some of your own photos of the era, be sure to upload them to the Flickr group.

Armchair Arcade is proud to present its first official episode of Armchair Arcade Radio! This episode, hosted by Matt Barton, features material from each member of AA's staff: Bill Loguidice, Mark Vergeer, Christina Loguidice, and Chris Kennedy. Enjoy the episode and don't forget to tell all your retro computing and gaming friends! Stay tuned to Armchair Arcade for future episodes.

Episode One 48K version (23 Megabytes)
Episode One 128K version (60 Megabytes)

Microsoft Game Room ImageAccording to a Microsoft Press Release and confirmed at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Microsoft will be releasing something called the "Microsoft Game Room" some time this spring, and, within three years, will see the release of over 1000 classic videogame titles, including arcade, Atari and Mattel Intellivision games, the latter of which was confirmed by Facebook friend Keith Robinson of Blue Sky Rangers fame as one of the available launch systems (other systems TBC). Apparently this area will be avatar-based, where your Xbox avatar will roam an arcade-like setting to find and play games (a bit like Sony's Home on PS3). There's a two-tier price structure, with one being an outright purchase of the game in question, and the other being a low cost, single play option, just like putting a quarter in an arcade machine in the days of old. We'll keep you posted as more news develops, but this is great news for those of us - like the readers of Armchair Arcade - who are passionate about classic gaming. The more love the current three consoles give (and each already has given a lot) to gaming's past, the better it is for all us as gamers, particularly since it looks like this is going to be a long generation with the big three. It's unclear how this will work with the PC as of this writing, but the fact that PC gamers are being invited to the party just makes it all the better, as well as the fact that owning it on one gives you access to it on the other.

I've been to the previous year's event, and it was well done. I'll definitely try to make it this year as well. From the press release:
Vintage Computer Festival East 5.0 - Saturday, Sept. 13th and Sunday, Sept. 14th, InfoAge Science Center, Wall Township, New Jersey.

The 5th annual Vintage Computer Festival East will be held on Saturday, September 13th and Sunday, September 14th, at the InfoAge Learning Center at Wall Township, New Jersey. The event is sponsored by MARCH and VintageTech.

The exact daily schedule will be announced shortly. Admission is $15 for two days, $10 for one day. Free for ages 17 and younger. Parking is free. For more information http://www.vintage.org .

Well, after going almost a year after moving into a bigger house, I've finally finished unpacking my whole collection of vintage and modern computer and videogame systems, software, literature and more. I didn't bother to go into much photographic detail or move anything on the shelves (or describe anything in the photos at this point - sorry). Some point soon, I"ll do a video feature on this stuff, then begin to go into much greater detail with articles and in-depth video features. Regardless, this is a huge weight off my back to finally get this stuff out to a reasonable point of access for me. Just in time too, as I needed to start taking photos again for my upcoming book anyway and the publisher all but threatened to take a hit out on me...

The list of my systems here, where yes, I do stretch the definition a bit of what constitutes a "system".

The link to Flickr with all (185, linear) the photos, here.

This is just a reminder that VCF East 4.0 will be held this coming weekend in Wall Township, New Jersey. There will be talks with some past Commodore greats from around the PET era, plenty of displays and a flea market. I'm going to try and make the Saturday session if all goes well.

http://www.vintage.org/2007/east/index.php
From the Website:

The Warp Factor (SSI, 1981): Front of box image from an eBay auctionAh, the wonders of eBay. While you can occasionally get a hard-to-find game for a low price with lots of luck - say maybe $35 with shipping - other times you'll see boxed software go for ridiculous prices that no mere mortal can afford, like SSI's classic "The Warp Factor" for the Apple II, with a very recent final sale price before shipping of $449.44! Even though it's sealed, it's still an amazingly over-the-top winning bid. As is usual with SSI games - particularly pre-1986 SSI games - the cover artwork is beautiful and there are nice extras inside the oversized box. A fine specimen or not (though this one is actually a bit crushed!), average-to-good game itself or not, it can't help but make you reflect on the meaning of collecting, particularly as it applies to our hobby.

Commodork book coverRob O'Hara's new book, Commodork: Sordid Tales from a BBS Junkie, has recently been restocked and is available again directly from his Website. The book is a collection of Rob's stories and memoirs that took place during the classic computer Bulletin Board era, which for those who haven't experienced BBS's directly, should be familiar with the concepts from past Armchair Arcade articles and discussions. These were the heady times in mainstream personal computing before the Internet became of public interest and there was nothing really resembling the World Wide Web, save for proprietary and closed online services that generally charged (gouged) by the hour, like CompuServe and GEnie. BBS's were bulletin board systems that users would host on their computers and others would dial directly into and were generally free (unless you were calling long distance), enabling file sharing, discussions and game playing, among other things. Comparitively primitive versus what we have today, but still amazingly robust, the best setups with multiple lines in and lots of members could still impress.

Commodore's SuperPET: From the collection of Bill LoguidiceIt was back on February 7, 2006, that Matt Barton and I collaborated again publicly for the first time since early 2005. Of course we were working together behind the scenes to kick-start Armchair Arcade's rebirth prior to that, but the now defunct Computer Collector Newsletter's 100th issue was where some of the more observant Armchair Arcadian's would first catch a glimpse of what was to come again. In the interest of historical preservation, I present what was eventually published in that newsletter's 100th issue, complete with edits and changes by newsletter editor, Evan Koblentz: