Mario Bros. (Atari 2600, Atari 5200)

Before Nintendo and Super Mario Bros. took over there world, there was Atari and Mario Bros. Of course, Nintendo still made the original arcade game but it was popular on Atari (and other) systems of the time more so than the NES. It was of course released for the NES also but by the time the NES gained popularity, the original Super Mario Bros. had the far better Super Mario Bros. to contend with.

Like Super Mario Brothers, Mario Brothers also feature the Italian plumber duo, Mario and Luigi. Even the turtles and pipes will look familiar. However, whereas Super Mario Bros. was a side-scrolling game with many varied levels, the original Mario Bros. was played on a single screen at a time on levels that really didn't vary all that much.

That isn't to say that Mario Brothers isn't any fun. It's a lot of fun in the way that many classic arcade games are. It's just that you aren't likely to spend nearly as much time in one sitting playing it as its sequels. It's a much smaller game in which score is more important than completion.

In the original Mario Bros., the goals are a bit simpler. There is no princess to rescue but just turtles and crabs and flies to knock over and kick. You must first jump up and hit below where they are standing to knock them over then you have a limited amount of time to kick them off of the platform before they right themselves. To progress to the next level you must collect a certain number of coins. This game introduced Luigi and when playing two-players, it is a competition to see who can collect the requisite number of coins first.

The ad and screenshots above are for the Atari versions of the game but it was released on a number of other contemporary platforms and more recently for the Wii, Wii U and Nintendo Switch so there are modern ways to play it as well. It's a fun game worth playing, just don't expect Super Mario level of quality here. I personally like it better than its predecessor Donkey Kong but I'm probably in the minority.

Sega Saturn

The Sega Saturn, successor to the immensely popular Genesis, was released in North America on May 11, 1995. This was somewhat of a surprise launch as it was four months ahead of schedule. This was done in hopes of getting a head start on the upcoming PlayStation. However, despite being technically impressive and having a head start, the Sega Saturn was a commercial failure and only sold about half of what the PlayStation sold during the Saturn's short three year life. Ultimately, while the Saturn only sold a little over 9 million units worldwide, the PlayStation sold more than 102 million and the Nintendo 64 sold nearly 33 million.

There were a number of reasons why the Saturn failed. First, despite impressive specs, it had a complicated architecture that was difficult to program for consisting of eight processors. These included the following:

• 2 x Hitachi SH-2 CPUs clocked at 28.6 MHz (56 MIPS)
• 1 x Motorola 68EC000 clocked at 11.3 MHz operating as a sound controller
• 1 x Custom sound processor including an integrated Yamaha FH1 DSP clocked at 22.6 MHz
• 2 x Video Display Processors (VDP1 and VDP2)
• 1 x Hitachi SH-1 dedicated to controlling the double-speed CD-ROM drive.
• 1 x System Control Unit (SCU) including a DSP clocked at 14.3 MHz

In addition, the system featured 16 Mbit of RAM, 12 Mbit of video RAM, 4 Mbit of sound RAM, 4 Mbit CD buffer, and 256 Kbit of batter backup RAM. Each CPU had 4 kB of cache RAM. It was capable of video resolutions of 320x224 and 704x224 and of displaying 16.77 million simultaneous colors. The VDP1 and VDP2 were essentially GPUs but each designed for specific functions. The VDP1 was designed to handle sprites and polygons while the VDP2 was designed to handle backgrounds and large objects. This was a complicated system to program and to make matters worse, available libraries were limited early in the life of the Saturn and most coding had to be done in assembly to avoid the severe performance penalty of programming in C. This situation improved somewhat later on with improved libraries but not enough.

Another reason for the Saturn's failure was the initial slow trickle of quality, high-profile first party games. In fact, Sega would fail to release an exclusive Sonic title on the Sega Saturn. The only Sonic titles released for the system were a slightly enhanced port of Sonic 3D Blast, a compilation of previous Sonic games (Sonic Jam) and Sonic R, a racing game. Sonic X-treme was the planned exclusive for the Saturn and it would have been the first 3D Sonic game. It was scheduled to be released in December 1996 but due to a number of development problems and delays, the game was ultimately cancelled.

In addition, the surprise early launch meant that there were only six titles available at launch. The surprise launch also worked against Sega in other ways as well. It alienated a number of retailers, some of which were not included and did not receive units for the launch. KB Toys went so far as to stop carrying Sega products. Also, the early release of the Saturn was muted by the fact that the price was initially $399 while the PlayStation launch price was $299. Third party titles for the most part were not ready until the originally announced launch date months later.

This dovetails into what is always the Achille's heal of systems that fail. Third party support. While there were ultimately a number of quality first party titles (though mostly arcade conversions), third party support was hampered by the complexity of the Saturn and poor development support from Sega. Sony offered excellent development tools and favorable licensing terms and this made all the difference. The Saturn still managed to have more titles than the Nintendo 64 but Nintendo's first party titles sold better than Sega's and the average game quality was higher. While Nintendo had Sega beat on average quality, Sony had everybody beat on quantity with more than 2,400 titles released for the PlayStation compared to a little under 600 for the Saturn and fewer than 400 for the Nintendo 64.

Still, the Saturn is a nice system to own, particularly if you are a fan of Sega arcade games from that era. Despite the commercial failure of the Saturn, there are still a number of unique and high-quality titles available for it. The successor to the Saturn, the Dreamcast, was a much better and more well though out system in my opinion but it was not able to erase the failures of the previous generation and gain back lost support.

Vintage Photos - Lot 6 (501-504)

The first two photos were processed in October 1969 and they show an anti-Vietnam War protest in downtown Lansing.

Vintage Photos - Lot 6 (501-504)

Digital Archaeology: Floppy Disk #14 – PHAMPLET.DOC

This post includes the contents of PHAMPLET.DOC. This file is dated September 2nd, 1985 and is in a subdirectory called TELEPSYC. I've posted several documents from this subdirectory and originally I was assuming that they came from Delphi since so much of the stuff I've posted from this disk (and others) have been from Delphi. However, based on a recent post, it looks like all of the files in this subdirectory came from a BBS that operated as a telecommunications counseling service. This document shows one of the menus which is a listing of pamphlets available to read on the BBS. Some of these were saved as files on this disk and have shown up in previous posts.

Digital Archaeology: Floppy Disk #14 – PHAMPLET.DOC

Vintage Photos - Lot 6 (497-500)

All of the photos in this set were taken in the 1960s and they were all likely taken in the Lansing, Michigan area.

The first photo was processed in April 1965 and is labeled 'YT Display 65'. The sign in the photo clarifies that this was the 'Youth Talent Exhibit & Science Fair'.

Vintage Photos - Lot 6 (497-500)

Home Alone (Sega Genesis)

Home Alone is a video game based on the popular Home Alone movie. In my opinion, the movie is one of the best holiday movies of all time. Unfortunately, the same thing cannot be said about the game. The movie was released in late 1990 to coincide with the holiday season while the game came out in late 1990 or early 1991 depending on the system.

Home Alone was developed by a few different developers for several different systems. The Sega Genesis version (along with the Sega Master System and Sega Game Gear versions) were developed by Sega of America. Again, depending on the system the games have slightly different plots though they all are based on the concept of stopping or evading the Wet Bandits (the antagonists from the movie). In the Sega Genesis version the player (as Kevin) must actually protect multiple houses in the neighborhood, fighting them off with a BB gun or other weapons that he finds. If he does this for the allotted time then the game is won. If all the houses are successfully robbed by The Wet Bandits then the game is over.

However, while the Genesis may have slightly better graphics than, for example, the NES version, all versions of the game are pretty terrible. This was clearly a quickly thrown together game to cash in on the immense popularity of the movie. It seems to be rare that you find a quality game that is based on a movie and this one is not an exception.

In addition to the Sega Genesis, this game was also available for the Game Gear, Sega Master System, NES, Game Boy and Super NES. There was also an obscure remake for the PS2 in 2006 that was released only in Europe and was even more terrible than this one.

Maximum PC (July 2005)

Maximum PC (and 'boot' before it) was my favorite PC magazine. It was a sister magazine to Mac Addict and both were enthusiast magazines for their respective platforms. The July 2005 issue of Maximum PC includes:

Maximum PC (July 2005)

Vintage Photos - Lot 6 (493-496)

All of the photos in this set were taken in the late 1960s and they were all likely taken in the Lansing, Michigan area.

The first photo was processed in December 1966 and is labeled 'Xmas 66'. This looks like a family Christmas dinner.

Vintage Photos - Lot 6 (493-496)

Zzap! (April 1990)

Zzap! (April 1990)

I spent a lot of time with a Commodore 64 growing up and it was primary gaming program from 1987 to 1993 even though I also had an NES and Super NES along the way. I wish there had been a Commodore 64 specific game magazine here in the U.S. but there wasn't. I didn't know about this U.K. published magazine until many years later. Though it covered the Amiga a little for a short time, it was always primarily a Commodore 64 gaming magazine. The April 1990 issue includes:

Vintage Photos - Lot 6 (489-492)

Vintage Photos - Lot 6 (489-492)

All of the photos in this set were taken in the late 1960s, and all were likely taken in the Lansing, Michigan area.

The first photo was processed in April 1968. This looks like maybe some kind of party. The two older women have flowers but I don't have enough context to know exactly what was going on.

The One (February 1991)

The One is a computer gaming magazine that was published in the U.K. in the late 1980s and early 1990s. While it would eventually become an Amiga exclusive magazine, in early 1991 it was still also covering the PC and Atari ST. The February 1991 issue includes:

The One (February 1991)

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Hyperstone Heist (Sega Genesis)

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Hyperstone Heist is essentially TMNT: Turtles in Time remade for the Sega Genesis. The controls are mostly the same, the gameplay is essentially unchanged, though the levels are somewhat different. There are five levels and they are a combination of new levels made for this game and others based on Turtles in Time and the original TMNT arcade game.

Between the two, the Super Nintendo version is really the better version. More colorful graphics, smoother animation and it’s neat being able to fling your enemies towards the screen. Having said that, there’s nothing wrong with the Genesis version and if you are looking for more of the same style game play as Turtles in Time then Hyperstone Heist is a good choice (assuming you have a Genesis of course). The reverse is true also. Hyperstone Heist only had about half the levels of Turtles in Time but they were much longer levels. The speed at difficulty level in Hyperstone Heist was a bit higher.

Both Hyperstone Heist and Turtles in Time were released by Konami in 1992. The arcade version of Turtles in Time has seen re-releases as a bonus in TMNT 3: Mutant Nightmare for the PS2, GameCube and Xbox. In 2009 a 3D remake was released via Xbox Live and the PS3 PlayStation Network. I’m not aware of any remakes or re-releases specifically of Hyperstone Heist. The images above are from Hyperstone Heist on the Sega Genesis.

Vintage Photos - Lot 6 (485-488)

All of the photos in this set were taken in the 1960s, probably in the Lansing, Michigan area.

Vintage Photos - Lot 6 (485-488)

Byte: The Small Systems Journal (November 1980)

You had to be pretty hardcore to be computing in 1980. However, Byte was there to help you along. It covered all kinds of systems and much of the content was highly technical. The November 1980 issue includes:

Byte: The Small Systems Journal (November 1980)

Mean Streets (Commodore 64)

Mean Streets was the first of a series of games featuring Tex Murphy as the protagonist. Mean Streets, which was released in 1989 by Access, was the only one in the series available on the Commodore 64. This was one of those games I always wanted but never got to play. What’s not appealing about a post-apocalyptic cyberpunk mystery? In addition to being available on the Commodore 64, it was also of course available on DOS based PCs where it was first developed. It was also ported to the Amiga and Atari ST but only in Europe for some reason.

The game is essentially a graphic adventure but there are other elements, including even a 3D flight sim. You, as Tex Murphy are investigating the mysterious death of a college professor who was seen falling from a bridge and had previously been working on a secret project. The police think it was suicide but his daughter is convinced it was murder.

The PC version was one of the first to support 256 color VGA graphics on the PC and also introduced a technique for creating digitized voices and other advanced sound using just the PC speaker without a sound card. The Commodore 64 version paled in comparison in these regards (though it seems they could have done better with the sound if they had wanted to). However, the consensus seems to be that the playability is nearly as good as the PC version and that’s what is most important. I’m not sure how the Amiga and Atari ST ports fared.

Sequels included Martian Memorandum released in 1991, Under a Killing Moon released in 1994, The Pandora Directive released in 2009 and Tesla Effect in 2014. The original was also remade in 1998 as Tex Murphy: Overseer. None of these made it to the Commodore 64 though.

Vintage Photos - Lot 6 (481-484)

The first two photos were processed in August 1979 and show people water skiing on a lake or river probably somewhere in Michigan.

Vintage Photos - Lot 6 (481-484): All of the photos in this set were take in in the late 1970s or early 1980s.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Tournament Fighters (Sega Genesis)

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Tournament Fighters was released on three different systems but it was essentially three different games as opposed to being ports of the same game. While the same basic concept exists in all of them, that is the turtles have to fight in a tournament, the story, characters, locations and controls among other aspects of the game vary greatly between the different versions. This game was released by Konami for the NES (the last Konami game for this system), Super NES and Sega Genesis between 1993 and 1994.

In the Sega Genesis version pictured above, the player travels throughout Dimension X fighting clones of themselves among other enemies. The general consensus seems to be that the Super Nintendo version is the best by a slight margin and the NES version is not surprisingly the worst but they are really all different games and all worth having if you are a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles fan.

Digital Archaeology: Fujitsu LifeBook N6420

The Fujitsu LifeBook N6420 is a Core 2 Duo based laptop that was released circa 2006. In an era when the laptop market was dominated by HP, Dell, Lenovo, etc., the LifeBook line by Fujitsu was somewhat less common. Unlike various Dell and HP models which came in a multitude of configurations, the LifeBook N6420 seems to have only had two basic configurations. Overall, it seems to have been a relatively high end model though not quite rising to the level of professional workstation or gaming powerhouse.

Digital Archaeology: Fujitsu LifeBook N6420

Vintage Photos - Lot 6 (477-480)

Most of the photos in this set were processed in the early 1980s and were likely taken in the Lansing, Michigan area.

The first photo is the exception. It is undated but is labeled "Playground - Marburg". It looks like it was taken in the 1960s and I'm assuming this is Marburg, Germany.

Vintage Photos - Lot 6 (477-480)

Byte (December 1985)

Byte was perhaps the best multi-format computer magazine there was, particularly if you wanted something more technical. Eventually, it mostly just covered the PC but that was just a reflection of the market. The December 1985 issue was huge at over 500 pages and includes:

Byte (December 1985)

Vintage Photos - Lot 6 (473-476)

All of the photos in this set were taken in the 1960s and were all likely taken in the Lansing, Michigan area.

The first three photos were all processed in August 1961 and are all labeled 'Bud Maries 61'. This looks like some kind of a party at the home of who I assume were friends of the photographer.

Vintage Photos - Lot 6 (473-476)

PC World (September 1986)

If you had an IBM PC or compatible in the 1980s or 1990s, PC World was probably the magazine you wanted. It was certainly one of the most popular and perhaps the best all around PC magazine. The September 1986 issue includes:

PC World (September 1986)

Vintage Photos - Lot 6 (469-472)

All of the photos in this set were taken circa 1974 and were likely taken in the Lansing, Michigan area.

The first photo was processed in February 1974 and was taken at a toddler's birthday party. Check out the homemade Winnie the Pooh cake.

Vintage Photos - Lot 6 (469-472)

Herzog Zwei (Sega Genesis)

Herzog Zwei was an early real-time strategy game released for the Sega Genesis in 1990. It actually predates and influenced the development of Dune II which is often credited with popularizing the genre. The player controls a flying mech from which they can purchase and deploy/redeploy and assign tasks to various ground units throughout various missions/levels.

Ironically, the game received pretty mixed reviews when it was released but retrospective reviews have been much better. For example, Electronic Gaming Monthly game the game a score of 4.25/10 upon release yet included it in its list of top 100 games (at number 43) in 1997. I think it was a case of limited experience with and not enough time to explore what was really a new genre at the time.

A sequel was planned on the 32X but that plan died with the early demise of the 32X. There have been no official sequels or re-releases since.

The One (January 1995)

The One is a computer gaming magazine that was published in the U.K. While it originally also covered the PC and Atari ST, by 1995 it was only covering the Amiga. The January 1995 issue includes:

The One (January 1995)

E.T. (Atari 2600)

If you were a member of the Atari Club, you could get this steaming pile for $5 off!

Seriously though, there really are many games that are worse than E.T. but perhaps none with such an abysmal hype/quality ratio. In those days, there was no internet so word of mouth was a little slower. Despite how awful E.T. was, it still became one of the best selling Atari 2600 games largely because so many people got it for Christmas. Despite this, there still really were many thousands buried in a landfill in New Mexico.

E.T. is largely credited with the video game crash of 1982/83 but really that’s giving it too much credit. No doubt being such a dud had an effect and maybe if it had instead been one of the best games of all time (i.e. lived up to its advertising and hype) things would have been a little different. However, the fact is that there was so much garbage and so many clones (often clones of the garbage) being rushed to market at this time that the crash was probably a forgone conclusion. Besides, the video game crash helped lead to the rise in popularity of home computers and my Commodore 64 was so much better anyway…

Rambo III (Sega Master System)

Rambo III was a game released in 1988 based on the Sylvester Stallone film of the same name and it is another one of those games that was available on a variety of systems but depending on the system had different developers and was a significantly different game.

The Sega Master System version (title screen above) was developed by Sega and was very similar to Operation Wolf. It is essentially a rail shooter in which you use the light gun (preferably) to shoot at on screen enemies. The game was also an arcade game (developed by Taito), available for the Sega Genesis (developed by Sega), and available for various computers including the PC (DOS), Commodore 64, Atari ST and Amiga among others (these were developed by Ocean). The Ocean developed games were completely different games than the Sega developed games and even games developed by the same developer for different systems have significant differences.

Spectral Associates: TRS-80 Color Computer (1982)

The Color Computer was a fairly popular and one of the longest supported computers of the 8-bit era. It was not at all related to the standard TRS-80 (Models I-IV) and used the relatively unique 6809 CPU which was pretty advanced for the time and had some 16-bit features. For some reason the Color Computer line never really gained a huge amount of third party software support as compared to others like Atari, Apple and Commodore but it had decent support from Radio Shack for more than a decade (and there was SOME 3rd party support).

The above ad by Spectral Associates, a retailer for Color Computer upgrades, accessories and software, is from 1982. There were three Color Computer models throughout the year but in 1982 when this ad appeared they were still on the original iteration. As you can see from the ad, 1982 was early enough in the life of home computers that software just being written in machine language (as opposed to BASIC) was considered a selling point.

Vintage Photos - Lot 6 (465-468)

The photos in this set were likely all taken in the 1960s or possibly 1970s in Michigan.

The first photo is labeled 'Jon Grad 64'. I started off asking ChatGPT about the uniform and the conversation eventually led to a probably identity of 'Jon J. Kipke, Central Michigan University, Class of 1964, Army ROTC'. If you are curious, see the ChatGPT conversation here: https://chatgpt.com/s/t_6abfdc42892c8191b3dc4104b5e6f98a Vintage Photos - Lot 6 (465-468)

Maximum PC (April 2006)

Maximum PC was my favorite computer magazine. It was a relative newcomer to the computer magazine world being introduced as 'boot' in 1998 before becoming Maximum PC a year or two later. This was a magazine for PC enthusiasts, those who liked to build their own PCs, PC gaming, etc. It was somewhat similar to another enthusiast magazine for the Macintosh called MacAddict. In fact, both descended from an earlier magazine called CD-ROM Today. The April 2006 issue of Maximum PC includes:

Maximum PC (April 2006)

Pokemon Snap (Nintendo 64)

What happens when you combine Pokemon with a first person shooter? You get Pokemon Snap. Only, in this case your gun is replaced with a camera and you throw apples vs. grenades or other weapons. Pokemon Snap was one of the first console based Pokemon games and a spinoff that is not part of them main series which is more RPG/adventure oriented and was originally based on the Game Boy.

Pokemon Snap had originally been planned for the 64DD Nintendo 64 expansion. This was a rewritable magnetic disk system (kind of like a Zip or Jazz drive) that attached to the bottom of the Nintendo 64 and plugged into the expansion port there. However, the 64DD was a commercial failure in Japan and never released in North America so it was instead released as a regular Nintendo 64 cartridge. Pokemon Snap had a mostly positive reception by fans and critics alike but if you are looking for a more in depth game then this is not the Pokemon game for you. Pokemon Snap was released on the Wii’s Virtual Console in 2007 and on the Wii-U’s Virtual Console in 2016. It’s a decent diversion if you are a Pokemon fan (or possibly even if you aren’t) but it isn’t a terribly long or involved game.

Vintage Photos - Lot 6 (461-464)

The photos in this set were likely all taken in the 1960s or 1970s in the Lansing, Michigan area.

The first photo is undated but was likely taken in the late 1960s or early 1970s. The sign makes it obvious where this was taken. Tecumseh Park is a park in Lansing, Michigan that provides access to the Tecumseh River.

Vintage Photos - Lot 6 (461-464)

Digital Archaeology: Floppy Disk #14 – INTRO.DOC

This post includes the contents of INTRO.DOC. This file is dated September 2nd, 1985 and is in a subdirectory called TELEPSYC. I've posted several documents from this subdirectory and I've been assuming that they came from Delphi since so much of the stuff I've posted from this disk (and others) have been from Delphi. However, based on this file, it looks like all of the files in this subdirectory came from a BBS that operated as a telecommunications counseling service. This document is a log of an initial logon and sign-up on this BBS so it has a ton of introductory information on how the service works. Previous documents from this subdirectory are most likely various 'pamphlets' that could be read on the BBS.

Digital Archaeology: Floppy Disk #14 – INTRO.DOC

Vintage Photos - Lot 6 (457-460)

The photos in this set were likely all taken in the 1960s or 1970s in the Lansing, Michigan area.

The first photo is undated but was likely taken in the late 1960s or early 1970s. It is labeled 'Lansing Shuffleboard Club'.

Vintage Photos - Lot 6 (457-460)