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Awesome Retro

Mini Oselli Edition

Mini Oselli Edition

UK custom car maker David Brown Automotive celebrates 60 years of Mini with this “remastered” version of the tiny car. It has a 1450 cc engine that makes 125 hp, racing brakes, and an updated interior with racing seats, harnesses, a roll cage, and more. Just 60 units of the car will be made in either right- or left-hand drive.

Transforming Virtual Pinball Machine

Transforming Virtual Pinball Machine

BuyStuffStore is working on something truly awesome – a TV stand that can transform from an arcade machine with a 50″ screen into a horizontal pinball table in seconds. It’s shown here with the AtGames Legends Gamer Pro. It’s not in production yet, but they are accepting a small number of participants for their beta tester program.

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GrubHub in the 1980s

GrubHub in the 1980s

We rely on food delivery services like GrubHub and DoorDash way too much these days. Can you imagine what it would have been like if tech companies tried to launch such a service back in the 1980s? Squirrel Monkey envisions a rudimentary version of GrubHub that shipped on floppy disks and ran on MS-DOS.

Modern Retro LCD TV Cabinet

Modern Retro LCD TV Cabinet
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Etsy seller AstroVintageWood puts modern LCD TV screens and soundbars inside of 1960s-style wooden television cabinets. We love the mid-century modern details like the cloth speaker grille and “Selector” knob on the front. Each set is custom built to order and can be equipped with a 19″, 24″ or 32″ display.

Evercade VS Game Console

Evercade VS Game Console
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Building upon their great single-player handheld, Evercade is back with a 4-player home game console with dual cartridge slots. It plays over 280 licensed titles that come on multi-game cartridges, and runs them smoothly thanks to a quad-core processor and 1080p HD resolution. Pre-orders start 5.28.2021 for 11.2021 delivery.

MTC 2401 Storage Cabinet

MTC 2401 Storage Cabinet

Artist Love Hulten is back with another awesome retro-inspired piece. The MTC 2401 is a custom cabinet that looks just like the IBM 2401 Magnetic Tape Unit – a computer relic that dates back to the mid-1960s. It features blinking lights, spinning tape reels, and it makes vintage computer noises. Every office needs one.

Havit Retro Mechanical Keyboard

Havit Retro Mechanical Keyboard
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This compact 89-key mechanical keyboard squeezes in a full set of function keys, a numeric keypad, and directional keys in a compact footprint. We dig the tan, orange, and grey color scheme, which brings back memories of old mainframe computers. It features easy-clicking Red switches and PBT keycaps for durability.

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Japanese + Chinese + English Typewriter

Japanese + Chinese + English Typewriter

With just 26 letters in our alphabet, English speakers have it easy. When it comes to Japanese and Chinese, there are literally hundreds of characters. In this video from Typewriter Collector, they show off a rare Toshiba typewriter that can type in all three languages. It uses a spinning drum on a moving carriage to select letters.

Selectric Typewriter Slow-Mo

Selectric Typewriter Slow-Mo

From the 1960s to 1980s, the IBM Selectric was the typewriter to get if you wanted to type quickly and accurately. This slow-motion footage from the Hursley Museum and Chronos Cameras shows how the Selectric’s innovative ball rapidly rotated to the correct position, and could type at speeds up to 14.8 characters per second.

EleksTube IPS Glow Tube LED Clock

EleksTube IPS Glow Tube LED Clock

This clever modern take on vintage digital clocks replaces the Nixie tubes with tiny 16:9 LCD screens inside of glass tubes. The screens can display the time in a multitude of fonts as well as custom image uploads via Windows. The clock offers an intuitive configuration process that shows its settings on its individual screens.

Retro Tech: Magnetic Tape Viewer

Retro Tech: Magnetic Tape Viewer

Techmoan examines an unusual bit of retro gadgetry which lets users see the precise arrangement of magnetic particles on tape recordings. You can find a modern-day version of the tape viewer from Arnold Magnetics. It’s basically a round version of those Wooly Willy toys.

Instacart in the 1990s

Instacart in the 1990s

Offering same-day grocery and deliveries in many places, Instacart is one of life’s many modern conveniences. But what might the Instacart experience have been like had it come out on a floppy diskette and run only on Windows 95? Squirrel Monkey has the answer.

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Firebird Nixie Watch

Firebird Nixie Watch

This wristwatch combines vintage tech with modern styling. It displays the current time and date on a pair of 1970s military-grade vacuum tubes, driven by a Swiss real-time clock module. Its body is machined from aluminum alloy, and its tubes sit beneath a protective sapphire crystal. Available in black or silver.

iOS Old School Icons

iOS Old School Icons
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Artist Ben Vessey created this awesome set of icons that transform iOS devices into a classic Apple Macintosh. The set includes more than 110 monochrome pixel icons in dark and light themes and six wallpapers. While the set covers many popular apps, Ben also offers a premium edition that includes five custom app icons.

Replicade 1942 and 1943 Machines

Replicade 1942 and 1943 Machines
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New Wave Toys expands its collection of 1/6th-scale arcade machines with a duo of vertical scrollers. The Romstar low-boy 1942 machine is pristine, while the 1943 Overhaul Edition has a battle-worn coin door. Both cabinets play both games and include a mini arcade stick for 2-player action. Pre-order by 3.17.21 and save $20.

The Most ’80s Ad

The Most ’80s Ad

Ready for a trip back to the 1980s? The guys at We Are the Mutants spotted this gem of a commercial that perfectly captures the sci-fi aesthetics of the era. This big budget ad spot that implies General Electric’s cassette tape players will free the oppressed was obviously influenced by Apple’s famous 1984 Super Bowl spot.

ASCIIDENT

ASCIIDENT

This upcoming open-world sci-fi game from developer Andrey Fomin has a retro vibe inspired by early computer games, like those on the TRS-80. The characters, backgrounds, weapons, and objects are made entirely out of ASCII characters. Play an early demo in your browser here, and sign up for Early Access on Steam.

Arcade1Up PartyCade Portable Arcades

Arcade1Up PartyCade Portable Arcades
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Arcade1Up created these retro video game systems that you can put on a tabletop or mount on a wall. Each one features a 17″ color LCD screen, arcade-quality joystick and buttons, and comes loaded with eight licensed games. QVC sells the Asteroids, Pac-Man, or Ms. Pac-Man variants, while HSN has a Centipede version.

The Evolution of Game Console Startup Sounds

The Evolution of Game Console Startup Sounds

Following up on his extensive Evolution of Game Music, violinist Rob Landes is back with a much shorter tribute to video games. This time, he’s focused solely on the console startup music from the SEGA Genesis through the Nintendo Switch. He skipped the PS2 and string-tuning PS3 startups for some reason though.

Retio Radio Speaker

Retio Radio Speaker

This clock radio is a beautiful tribute to retro technology. It combines a clock, an AM/FM radio, and a high-quality Bluetooth speaker in one. Each handmade radio is built with warmly-glowing vintage nixie tubes to display the time and an American black walnut enclosure with a 360 brass bezel and knurled knobs.

Dropping Snow Like Klax

Dropping Snow Like Klax

’80s kids might remember an Atari arcade game called Klax, a puzzle game where bricks dropped down the screen sort of like Tetris. Boing Boing’s Rob Beschizza thinks this house remembers the game too, as it satisfyingly drops snow off its roof in perfect brick-shaped pieces.

MCP Cassette Player

MCP Cassette Player

Artist Love Hultén is a master at creating interactive electronic works inspired by retro technology. While the MCP Cassette Player isn’t as complex as say, his VOC-25 synthesizer, it’s still a fun piece. It’s basically a tape player that looks like a wind-up toy and lets its user control the tape’s playback speed with analog control.

Q Timex Reissue Watch

Q Timex Reissue Watch
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Replicating every detail of the 1979 classic, this 38mm wristwatch even has the period-accurate woven stainless steel band. Like the original, it features a rotating outer ring, luminescent hands, and dial markers, updated with a modern quartz movement. It’s available in eight colorways, but we love it in the classic blue and red.

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