Awesome Retro

Techmoan dug up another relic of unusual tech from the 1980s, a boombox from Japanese electronics company National that sported not one or two tape decks, but three. It’s basically the “this one goes to 11” of cassette players. Also, once he cracked it open to perform some repairs, he discovered a mechanical nightmare.

Telegraphs were once the fastest way to send messages over a distance. While they’re long since obsolete, DIYprojects decided to build a modern take on the paper strip telegraph, using an Arduino Mini, a motor, wood, and a pen to write down text messages. Build guide here.

Arcade1Up’s 3/4-scale replicas of classic arcade machines are fully playable, with real arcade controls, a 17″ display, and multiple licensed games loaded on each unit. They’re designed for standing or seated play, and can also be fitted with a riser. The 12-in-1 model offers the most bang for the buck.

Video game nerds, sit back, relax, and enjoy Dave Freeman’s hour-long commercial break featuring dozens of TV ads for classic games from Pac-Man to Space Invaders from the Atari 2600 to the Intellivision. The Toys ‘R’ Us music almost made us cry.

Check out this amazing bit of arcade history. This 1973 SEGA Moto Champ machine had no screens, buttons, or a joystick. The electro-mechanical racing game had a group of magnetically-attached motorcycles which rolled over a treadmill-style “road,” as a spinning cylinder cast images onto the moving mat.

Gadgets from the 1980s were lots of fun, but the plastics they used back then had a tendency to yellow, and look awful over time. Watch in awe as Odd Tinkering takes a grubby old Nintendo Game Boy and makes it like new. That soldering iron trick to fix the lines on the screen is nifty.

We’ve seen lots of clocks that use Nixie or other illuminated vacuum tubes. But we really dig this version where the entire time is displayed on a single tube. Pandicon’s IV-18 clock uses a new, old stock VFD tube to emit it’s greenish-blue glow. You can find more IV-18 clocks from other Etsy shops.

An officially-licensed scale model of the classic Volkswagen Type 2 Bus that doubles as an accent light. It’s solid white on top and has color-changing LEDs inside its bottom half. It can be powered by AA batteries or via a USB cable, and measures appx. 9.8″ x 5.9″ x 5.1″.

New Wave Toys adds to its collection of tiny, working arcade machines, with this 12″ tall (sixth-scale) replica of the Atari classic Tempest. Its wood cabinet is accurate to every detail, with a screen optimized for vector-style graphics, and a rotary control with swappable caps. Save 16% in The Awesomer Shop!

TAITO celebrates 40 years of its 8-bit arcade shooter. The board game asks players to use cards to target an army of aliens headed for their bases. Available in a standard or deluxe edition, or with an awesome limited edition diorama signed by Invaders’ creator Tomohiro Nishikado.

Artist Ditty Laser Designs creates cool works of art for fans of arcade games. Their Etsy shop offers small laser-etched wood panels featuring imagery from classics like Space Invaders, Dig Dug, and Donkey Kong. They also make a series of fun laser-cut Pokémon cards.

Douk Audio’s unique desk clock uses an old-school vacuum fluorescent display (VFD) to produce a cool greenish glow. It shows the current time using analog-style hands, and has an optional second hand. Made from sturdy CNC molded aluminum, and measures 2.87″ x 2.28″ x 0.87″.

Gervais Merryweather describes his animated short as a “love letter to the 1980s,” and we think he nailed it. From the kids in the video arcade, to the giant hairdos, and TV store window displays. What pushes it over the edge is the synthwave soundtrack by Mitch Murder.

The Rolling Stones are definitely getting up there in age, so it’s easy to forget what they were like in their youth. This 1964 newsreel is a perfect time capsule of the early days of the band. Is it just us, or was their entire audience 10 years-old?

This hilarious vintage newsreel footage features “Professor I.M. Nuts” showing off his invention, a cap designed to protect you from getting squirted in the face when eating grapefruit. We’re surprised this thing hasn’t turned up on Kickstarter or Indiegogo yet.

The New Order tune Blue Monday isn’t exactly contemporary – it’s nearly 40 years old. BBC Arts’ Orkestra Obsolete took it back even further, envisioning what the track might have sounded like had it been recorded in 1933, using instruments that were in favor at the time.

Love Hulten’s Yesterday Vision is an HDMI monitor with an enclosure that looks like it was made in the 1960s or 1970s. It has a built-in Raspberry Pi that’s loaded with a retro video game emulator. By default, it comes with a 19″ 1280×1024 display, but you can commission larger builds.

Build your own Nintendo Game Boy games without writing code. GB Studio is a free, easy-to-use visual editor lets you load in graphics and audio files, create levels and logic, then export it all as a ROM playable on Windows, MacOS, Linux, in a web browser, or even an actual Game Boy.

Diablo meets 1980’s suburbia and a sweet synthwave soundtrack in Kingdom of Night. This retro action RPG has you slaying demons in your neighborhood. Choose from three specializations, each with three classes. Coming to PC, Xbox One, PS4 and Switch.

The retro console craze continues. The Capcom Home Arcade is a plug-and-play console shaped like the company’s logo. It’s has real Sanwa arcade controls, and comes loaded with 16 true arcade games, including Darkstalkers, Street Fighter II, and Alien vs. Predator.

Antstream is an upcoming streaming subscription service that will let you play fully licensed classic games on Windows, Mac OS, tablets, and the Xbox One. It will have over 400 titles on launch, with thousands more on the way. A smartphone app is also in development.

This 1968 newsreel from British Pathé films is almost like YouTube existed 50 years ago. It features a clever dog who helps move beer kegs, and a bar patron getting sprayed in the face with a bottle of seltzer water.

While it’s unlikely to be the loudest or most high-fidelity speaker every day, we’ve gotta hand it to Suck UK for cramming a Bluetooth speaker into the case of a classic cassette tape. We don’t recommend sticking this thing into your old tape player.