Video Retro Computers and Classic Consoles are my Passion when it comes to YouTube

Today on Tech Retrospective we continue our never-ending coverage of the Atari 8 bit line of retro computers. Up today is the Atari 1200XL, possibly the most polarizing of the Atari 8bit line. The Atari 400 and Atari 800 were moderate successes, but the Sweet-16 project led to the cray cool Atari 1000 and Atari 1000x. Which would have been great, except we never got them. No instead we got the 1200XL..... it's a mixed bag. But with competition from the TI99/4A and ESPECIALLY the Commodore 64, could it keep up?
Click to expand...
 
I go over the SG-1000, Sega's first real entry into the home console market. I also look at 24 games from its library and a few of the variants that saw release elsewhere in the world.
Click to expand...
 
DEC - the PDP 11 computer was my first introduction to video games. Adventure and Super Star Trek on my dads PDP 11 plus all the Basic games I was playing games before just about anybody. Nobody else had a mini computer PDP 11 in their house in the 70s except for me :)

Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) was at one point the 2nd largest computer company in the world. Defining the mini computer, with its PDP range. It would eventually go one the create the VAX line of computers and its VMS operating system, and well as the Alpha processor. Its time to look at the history of DEC, and its PDP line of machines, and build the PDP-11 replica kit the PiDP-11
Click to expand...
 
Last edited:
I used to have a 3DO back in the day and I always loved it! It had some great games it was just way too expensive to ever catch on. It was a great Console though and this video goes through the Hardware Architecture and is very interesting!

 
I never had a Neo Geo. Always wanted one but never could have afforded the games anyway. I love the way it uses the Z80 just for sound. That is great!

The SNK Neo Geo AES released in 1990 and for the first time , brought the exact arcade experience to the home. In this episode we take a closer look at the Neo Geo and why it was so far advanced that its competition at the time.
Click to expand...
 
The Famous Zero Wing - All your base belong to us with the correct text! :)

 
Slides and example code: https://bit.ly/3l0Ts1G The Atari 8-Bit computers such as the Atari 400 and 800 were affordable, fun, and capable machines for their time. Despite the 1 megahertz CPU, scarce memory (between 8 and 128 KB), programmers, especially game developers, could get a lot out of these machines.
Click to expand...

Long video with a ton of information about the Atari 8 Bit line of computers, technical information and programming.
 

These videos are great really showcasing the games that actually looked good or were realistic or super deep showing what the Atari 2600 could really do when pushed.
 
So cool to see new games still coming out for the Atari 8 bit line!
 
Attack of the PETSCII robots has been ported to a bunch of different systems including the Atari 7800. This is an interview with that versions developer at the 2022 PRGE - Portland Retro Gaming Expo.
 
Cool little system and actually quite awesome mobile technology at the time! It turned into one of the best sold handheld units in history.
Click to expand...
 
Unboxing and testing the Plusdeck 2c, an audio cassette player for desktop computers! It fits into a 5.25-inch drive bay and offers the ability to play and capture tapes to digital files. Including MP3s, ooh. Let's install and try it out using the serial port on a Windows 98 PC!
Click to expand...
 
Probably the coolest one-off computer ever designed. It is an absolute work of art and was so cutting-edge for the early sixties!
Click to expand...
 
Let's take a extended look into the new Super Console X G6 PC Emulation Botacera machine from ali-express. Is this the machine that plays everything?
Click to expand...
This thing is like 899 dollars as of this post. It has some serious specs!
 
Last edited:
Breakdown and repair of a rare portable Commodore 64.
 
Explores the early CGA card options including obscure tech such as the Plantronics showing on real hardware and a little EGA stuff.
 
I had a 3DO back in the day and I loved that console. This was supposed to be the next generation of that hardware but ended up getting bought out by Panasonic for a presentation kiosk which is the subject of this video. Good Stuff!
 
One of the more accurate Atari Jaguar histories. Not much new here but giving props to what I see as accurate reporting.
 
Last edited:
Never heard of the Sol-20 a 1970s home computer that was very ahead of its time.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
General chit-chat
Help Users
  • Varine Varine:
    A probate is usually done with a will, yes? If so I am sorry for your loss
     +1
  • The Helper The Helper:
    Yeah Tom, me too sorry for your loss buddy my mom told me she finds out her olds friend died from Google searching them. She had not talked to one of her old friends in a year and found out she died from Google. Also another one in the same session. RIP all of them my sincere condolences Tom
     +1
  • Varine Varine:
    We have some elderly guests that regularly come hang out at the bar at the end of the night, and every once in a while we don't see someone for a few weeks and then someone shows up with their obituary.
  • Varine Varine:
    We usually let them do their memorials there in the morning if they want to and I'll make them some snacks and drinks. There was one guy named Tom that came in like every night and would sit by himself and get a bunch of soup and a glass of wine. idk why but he LOVED our fucking soup, like he would order a fucking quart of it at a time and would always get so sad when we stop doing it for the summer.
     +1
  • Varine Varine:
    But he also loved our calamari, which is another thing I hate but it sells super well so I can't change it. There was one day he came in and was asking me how to make it, because he tried to at home once in the off season when we stop running it and he really wanted it lol
  • Varine Varine:
    I think he's one of the only people I've made recipes for for free because he really wanted a broccoli cheddar, and it was like dude I don't have a recipe, it's just whatever I have, but here, this is how you do it
  • Varine Varine:
    I don't think he ever figured out how to do the calamari in a pan though, like idk how to do that either. He was afraid of the at home deep fryers though and it's like yeah, that's fair, I am too
  • Varine Varine:
    He was just such a sweet old man, we had two servers pregnant and they held a baby shower together, he was soooooo fucking excited to get to see a baby. Unfortunately he died a month or so before they were born
  • The Helper The Helper:
    So I decided to Google some people that I had not seen or heard from in a while and sure enough one of my old best friends, we had a falling out years ago but whatever, find out he died of Pancreatic Cancer in January. I have also lost a few of my closer acquaintances from growing up the last year. Getting old - people die - I kinda thought it was going to be this way a few years ago....
     +2
  • The Helper The Helper:
    Forum running super slow again
  • Ghan Ghan:
    Not really clear from the stats as to what is causing the slowness.
  • Ghan Ghan:
    We get a lot of guest traffic so it may just be the load is getting too high and not from any particular source.
  • Ghan Ghan:
    Looks like the server is maxed out on CPU.
  • Ghan Ghan:
    Oh it looks like a lot of the traffic is Silkroad Forums. That domain isn't protected by Cloudflare.
  • Ghan Ghan:
    But the old Silkroad site is still on its own server. I just had a test site set up on this server for it.
  • Ghan Ghan:
    I just disabled that test site. Let's see if that helps the load.
  • Ghan Ghan:
    Looks much better already.
  • The Helper The Helper:
    I had actually forgot about the Silkroad site. I had asked
  • The Helper The Helper:
    SD Ryoko about it and he said the couple of people left on there really like it, that was a few years ago, maybe I should check back
  • jonas jonas:
    I guess when you're getting old, and the last day of soup season draws near, you start wondering
  • jonas jonas:
    will I make it to the start of the next season? or was this the last time I'll ever have my favorite dish?
  • The Helper The Helper:
    I am doing my first Vibe Coding project. In installed the environment and tools according to instructions but it is all chat doing this for me at my direction. It is fun really and holy shit I might finish in 2 hours what it would have taken a day to in my Access and this would be an electron app complete new
  • Ghan Ghan:
    Good stuff.
  • Ghan Ghan:
    Just make sure it is secure. :)
  • The Helper The Helper:
    It will only be on internal network

      The Helper Discord

      Members online

      No members online now.
      Online now:
      504 (members: 0, guests: 504)

      Share this page

      Affiliates

      Hive Workshop NUON Dome World Editor Tutorials
      Top