Awesome Retro

This unique tabletop clock from Iain Gellatly’s Retro Gear Laboratories displays the time on a pair of backlit analog gauges, accented with a bright Nixie tube pilot light. The Industrial version has a wood case and a steel front panel, while the Steampunk version has a vintage wine case with a brass face. It even automatically sets its time with a Wi-Fi connection.

Fumi Games’ FPS combines the black-and-white, rubber hose animation style of 1930s cartoons with high-intensity action. Think Cuphead meets Serious Sam. It doesn’t drop until 2025, but this early gameplay footage is promising. Add it to your Steam wishlist today. In case you’re wondering, Mickey’s Steamboat Willie look loses copyright protection in 2024.

Love the grainy look of real 35mm film? It turns out you can still get compact film cameras from Ilford. The reusable Sprite 35-II Film Camera has a fixed-focus 31mm f/9 wide-angle lens and fixed 1/120s shutter speed, providing boundaries to challenge your creativity. It comes in silver/black, black/black, and silver/red versions and has a built-in flash.

ChatGPT is one of the most talked-about subjects of the decade. Despite its questionable accuracy, it does an amazing job of creating human-sounding text. Squirrel Monkey set their time machine to 1988 to see what the AI might have been like had OpenAI released the tech 40 years prematurely. Offline mode would have been particularly awful.

Now you do what Robotnik told ya. Chiptune musician fxsnowy took Rage Against the Machine’s track Killing in the Name and programmed it to play with the 16-bit sounds of the SEGA Genesis game console. It’s time for Sonic and Tails to rise up and take the power back.

It’s been a long time since we needed floppy disks to store data. But we still enjoyed watching this retro factory video posted by StirlingEngineering, which shows how they used to produce 3.5″ floppies. It’s a satisfying 5-minutes sequence of mechanical ear candy.

There was lots to love about the 1980s, like Max Headroom, VHS tape boxes, and this McDonald’s training video, created to familiarize the crew with Chicken McNuggets and their sauces. What we got was a hilariously surreal short film with googly-eyed Big Macs and french fries welcoming their new friends to the menu. Brought to you by Tony Pepperoni.

These unique dice from Aether Objects are made from cassette tapes. Each die has strips of vintage cassette tape preserved forever inside see-through resin. Their embossed numbers are painted with a vibrant yellow inspired by ’80s cassette graphics. Sold in a set of seven dice and packed in a cassette-style storage box.

This retro-inspired bluetooth speaker from Bumpboxx looks like a gigantic cassette tape in the shape of a boombox. It has two 5.25″ mid-bass drivers and four 2″ tweeters, and its amplifier outputs up to 175 watts and it comes with a wireless mic for karaoke sessions. It comes in white, red, yellow, neon blue, black, and magenta.

If you were around in the 1970s, you might recall those compact cameras that used 110 film cartridges. Maker Wesley Treat shows us how he made a coffee table based on the popular (but grainy) film format. He built the super-size Kodacolor cartridge from wood using kerf bending techniques to make the curved sides. Also, his wooden Gonk Droid is awesome.

Created by Bavaria’s eLegend, the $890,000 EL1 is an all-wheel drive electric sports car with a design inspired by the 1980s Audi Sport Quattro rally car. Dual motors output 816 hp, launching it from 0 to 62 mph in 2.8 seconds. Its carbon fiber monocoque chassis is designed to minimize aerodynamic drag. Only 30 examples will be made.

Before digital synthesizers and drum machines, instruments like the Mellotron used pre-recorded tape loops to play short sound samples. Musician Hainbach got his hands on a Bandmaster Powerhouse, a 1970s analog drum machine that used custom 8-track tapes to play drum loops. Its now well-worn tape cartridges produce some fantastic lo-fi sounds.

It’s time to play the music. It’s time to light the lights. Did you know that The Muppet Show had a German version of its famous theme song? Nope? Neither did we. Until today, that is. RoadRunnerCoyote2015 compiled this collection of intros from the German version, Die Muppet Show, for our enjoyment. (Thanks, Rusty!)

This miniature replica of a 1980s boombox plays music from your phone via Bluetooth. It has two full-range speakers and a 10-watt amplifier, so don’t expect it to sound massive. While it’s made mostly from plastic, it does have shiny zinc alloy accents and a working AM/FM radio. It’s even got a tiny telescoping antenna, just like the real deal.

Most USB-C docks are pretty nondescript. But RayCue’s retro docks borrow their looks from the OG Apple Macintosh. The 128K Dock looks like a 1980s Mac, and packs USB-A, USB-C, HDMI, Ethernet, and headphone jacks. It’s also a Bluetooth speaker, a memory card reader, and a digital photo frame. The simpler Pocket dock looks like a tiny Mac keyboard.

Over the years, there have been numerous different ways of storing data on physical media. The 8-Bit Guy went all out, finding more than 100 different information storage media, from early wax cylinders to punch cards and gigantic tapes used for mainframe computers. That 16″ vinyl record is crazy.

Toy companies have always liked making kids’ versions of adult products. After showing off the 2000s Hit Clips music player, Techmoan got his hands on the Mighty Tiny, a 1960s attempt to make a miniature record player. It required a bit of repair work, but he eventually got it to play some tiny vinyl discs. Ohio Art – of Etch-a-Sketch fame – created the gadget.

Timex time traveled back to the 1970s for inspiration when designing its Celestial watch. The 36mm stainless steel watch features a retro-fabulous style with a gold-on-blue night sky face with sparkly crystal stars and a stretchy expanding metal band. It comes in a flashy goldtone or a subdued blue model.

Technology advances quickly, so the difference between today’s gadgets and those you could buy in the 1980s is dramatic. That said, the decade did give us early cell phones, portable tape players, VCRs, and personal computers. Twenty-something YouTuber Liam Thompson wanted to see what it would be like to live using only tech from the ’80s for a week.

The 1980s and the 1380s were pretty different times. The era of big hair and Rubik’s produced some great synthpop and arena rock, and those tunes sound surprisingly good when played on medieval instruments. This 90-minute medley features bardcore versions of 22 classic ’80s tracks, including Don’t Stop Believin’, Smooth Criminal, Eye of the Tiger, and more.

The Atari 2600 is back and better than ever. The Atari 2600+ plays both 2600 and 7800 game cartridges and has an HDMI output for modern displays. It’s got a widescreen mode, an less finicky cartridge socket, and a light-up Atari logo. It comes with a CX40+ joystick and a 10-in-1 game cartridge w/ classics like Adventure, Missile Command, and Yars’ Revenge.

Artist Eric Blackwell makes unique home decorations, mostly using upcycled scraps from a guitar factory. His collection includes these cool wooden clocks that incorporate mid-century modern aesthetics, including starbursts, satellites, and abstract shapes inspired by Googie architecture. In his Etsy Shop, you’ll find a mix of tabletop, mantel, and wall clocks.

Casio presents a new digital watch inspired by the vintage 1970s 52QS-14B. The A1100 series features a stainless steel case, a metal link band, a retro-style LCD screen, and four front-mounted buttons for setting, changing modes, and turning on its light. It’s available in stainless, goldtone, and a black finish with a green LCD.