During the Tokyo Hobby Show I spotted a really interesting booth with displayed hundreds of old model kits produced by Japanese companies since mid fifties!  My super favourite kits are the ones made by Nichimo (now this company releases only big scale warship model kits but back then it was a plamodel powerhouse). More photo on Hobby Media and the next issue of our magazine Xtreme RC Cars Italia.
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PingMagazine made a great post about 8mm films that are my new mania after I spotted the new Gakken 8mm camera during the Tokyo Toy Show.
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(Geek.nz via Make) This DIY LaserTag game has been made using a cheap laser pointer combined with a toy gun and a PIC16F628A microcontroller that connects up to a piezo transducer. The 5 pin header plug at the bottom of the device is used to connect to a programmer for in-circuit programming...  Better than the original Laser Tag and way more geek!!

Our Japanese otaku idol photographer friend Julie has posted about a really cool retrogame called DON JOUAN. This videogame appears to be the very first dating sim produced in the west (way before my old friend Peter Payne started the localization of Japanese bishoujo games for the western markets).
DON JOUAN runs on the old Oric 1 microcomputer  and if you got a flashcard for your DS you can play it on the new DSORIC emulator!
It seems a really cool way to celebrate San Valentine for all retrogamers out there (and remember: with hentai games you don't even need to spend money on a date with your girlfriend)! Happy Valentine day and don't eat to much chocolate!!


Note: In the last few days Julie (aka Amano Ai) has been busy working as a model at the Osaka Automesse and as a Race Queen in several races so she couldn't update her Besidegames page ans slipped to number two spot in the Besidegames Highscore ranking so, as a San Valentine virtual present to our lovely idol photographer,  we should help her go back to number one trough clicking the score buttons in all the posts on her blog as many times as we can!

Today, after I posted about Halcyon on my Mixi blog, Aonami (a Japanese chiptune musician) sent me a link to Esh's Aurunmilla: a  Laserdisc Palcom game for MSX computers. Seems that a total of 11 MSX Lasergames (and 12 educational software discs) has been published in Japan. There are always some LD games on sale on Japanese Yahoo Auctions with a price range from 3/4.000 Yen to more than 30.000 Yen for super rare titles like Badlands (Konami). Finally I found a "new" System to put in my collection near the Laseractive (Palcom games and system is way more affordable than the super rare Halcyon that seems like the Adventurevision for the Lasergames collectors).

Raystorm is a classic shooting game from Taito and a Japanese gamer has found on Google Map what he thinks are the real settings of the game stages (inspired by the Roman Empire history with bosses mostly named for generals and leaders who warred against Rome). If you want to view it on Google Earth click here.

Few days ago our friend Julie (Japanese photographer and sexy idol) has posted an old Atari balsa airplane promotional toy on her Beside Games Blog.
(as always, If you visit her page, please don't forget to click many times on the score button!)

I just found Ahoaho-expo: a Japanese blog with tons of strange Japanese vintage books and magazines (like this Stereoscopic erotic magazine from the 60s!).
I'm sure that (super retro otaku) Patrick Macias will love this blog full of old gems!

Yesterday Linx Products has released  the Super Nicofami a new hybrid 8Bit/16 Bit console that will let you play  Famicom/Nes  games and  Super Famicom games.
There are already similar consoles on the market, but the Super Nicofami seems to be one of the best with a pretty cool retro design and an interesting price tag (7980 Yen)

Today I found this new book in a bookstore in Shibuya. Omnibot Fan Book, published by Mycom, has been written by Techn'o'taku a famous Japanese otaku who loves design, techno and toys.  The book covers the history of toy robots from the early sixties to the just released i-Sobot (that's the natural evolution of the Omnibots produced by Takara Tomy more than 20 years ago).
In the next few day will try to take some photos of the beautiful designed pages of this book.

(via Haimaki) Wow! It's impressive to watch how otaku culture  was already alive and kicking in Japan more than  20 years ago when the western geekdom was still trapped into the Marvel super heroes universe...  1985 was a special year for Comiket since in that year Yoshihiro Yonezawa established the Comiket Ltd. to better manage an event that was already getting big and in the same year the female presence among attendees started to rise thanks to the success of Yaoi phenomenon linked to Captain Tsubasa parodies...

"Japanese Retrospective Signs
This site carries a collection of enamel signboards, which were familiar from the 1930's to 1970's but are rapidly disappearing."

I just found Retro Kanban: a fascinating web site dedicated to old Kanban. The Japanese word "kanban" means "shop sign", "signboard" or "billboard".
I confess that I've been fashinated by Japanese memorabilia since I stepped for the first time in the Nakano branch of Mandarake collectors shop few years ago... in both Tokyo and Osaka there are several shopping centres that recreated the atmosphere of the post war Japan so whenever I feel "retro" I go there to eat okonomiyaki or some traditional street food...

Blip Festival 2007 http://www.blipfestival.org/

(via Retrothing/ Kenbakit) John Blankenbaker's KENBAK-1 was the first PC available on the market and it has just been re-released as a $999 KENBAK-1 Series 2 reproduction. This cool Star Trek-inspired machine was announced in the September 1971 issue of Scientific American, with a price tag of "only" $750...


KENBAK-1was designed before the microprocessor revolution, so the system logic was built around small and medium scale ICs. MOS shift registers provided a mere 256 bytes of memory. Just like i nthe original Star Trek the front panel featured a row of incandescent blinky lights instead of LEDs: pure retro hardware porno!! There are less than ten kits still available, so this is way more difficult to get than a Wii...


The above picture was made by placing a reproduction Kenbak-1 Series 2 PCB on top of the vintage Kenbak-1 PCB and shining a light at them.  The light passing through the holes proves that the reproduction PCBs are very accurate, down to the placement of holes!  The replica board is identical except for the text "Homebrew 2007" and "http://www.kenbakkit.com".  This is to help with counterfeit units.

(via UrbanRetro / Adverbox) This is a great idea to promote the Computer Game Museum in Berlin: use scaffolding to create a larger than life level of Donkey Kong. Next time I hope that Scholz & Friends agency will make the level playable!

Credits:
Agency: Scholz & Friends, Berlin
Creative Directors: Matthias Spaetgens/Jan Leube
Copywriter: Folke Renken
Art Director: Carlo Joest
Photographer: Tobias Kruse

(via Retrothing)  The Video Music was released in 1976 as an attempt to bridge the video gaming and home stereo worlds. It was a crude precursor to the modern visualization functions of mp3 audio utility and Jeff Minter psychedelic mastepieces...

Today I was reading the new issue of the japanese magazine RC SPORTS and I found the very first RC model produced in the world: Radicon Bus. This toy has been produced in Japan during the mid 50s. Anyway Google told me that this bus pretty famous among toys collectors... Cool thing that in Japan the word "radicon" is still used as the equivalent of "RC".

Frog Port is a new japanese retrogames online shop that has opened today! It's the first reasonable priced shop of this kind (almost if compared to some crazy Ebay bids) and there are a lot of masterpieces to discover (but of course not everything comes cheap especially for products imported to Japan from USA)!  Even if you are not an online shopper browsing trought Frog Port pages will introduce to many obscure retrogame treasures...

The japanese retrogamer Gyusyuabu has recently updated his net radio dedicated to
retro japanese PCs like the X68000, MSX or PC98. He got a superb selection of old computer games tunes and created a really cool interface for his net radio (he even implemented a "request"
  function so that any user can put his favourite songs in the request queque). For the copyrights paranoids ot there: Gyusyubu's radio playlist doesn't contain any JASRAC song and he ripped the music straight from the games (not from CDs) so this radio is should be 100% legal (almost in Japan).

Riceviamo dal nostro amico Madrigal e volentieri pubblichiamo l'annuncio della sua ultima creazione: una multicart per la leggendaria console a 8Bit Creativision! Verranno prodotti solo 100 pezzi quindi consigliamo a ogni retrogamer di affrettarsi a ordinare la propria copia!


Multicart V1.0
For "creatiVision" console/computer, made by VTech in 1981 (Hong Kong), distibuted in Japan by Cheryco in 1982
Limited edition, 100 numbered copies only produced!

Price: EUR 42,95 or US$ 57,95

Multicart informations

- the only existing homebrew cartridge for creatiVision
- deluxe full colour cardboard box with internal cartridge holder
- 12-page booklet featuring instructions for all included games
- 8 Mega-bit EPROM including up to 32 ROM games/programs
- professional PCB featuring a 5-way DIP Switch to easily select included ROM games/programs
- 100% compatible with creatiVision, Dick Smith Wizzard, Funvision, Rameses, Laser 2001 and Salora Manager
- specially designed plastic case with classic title stickers
- 6 cardboard joystick overlays, for use with all featured games/programs
- currently featured ROM games/programs:

Air/Sea Attack
Astro Pinball
Auto Chase
BASIC creatiVision 1982
BASIC creatiVision 1983
BASIC VTL V.1 1983
Chopper Rescue
Crazy Chicky
Crazy Pucker
Deep Sea Adventure
Ha.P. Monitor
Locomotive
Mouse Puzzle
Music Maker
Planet Defender
Police Jump
Soccer
Sonic Invader
Stone Age
Tank Attack
Tennis (Coca Cola)
Tennis (Dick Smith)
Tennis (Wimbledon)
Werben Informieren (German)
Werben Informieren (English)

          
         (prototipo di lavorazione)

Un classico video promozionale della Nintendo che rivediamo sempre con piacere!!

"Atariboy2600", un utente del forum di Atari Age ha postato dei bellissimi fake di copertine di videogiochi per Atari 2600 che non sono stati mai prodotti:  Battlestar Galactica, Incontri ravvicinati del terzo tipo,  The Black Hole...



"Have You Played Atari Today?"

Gli amanti del chiptune, come la nostra amica Pcna (geniale musicista chiptune e graphic designer italiana), saranno felici di sapere che Alex Mauer ha appena rilasciato il suo nuovo album Vegavox. Quello che rende unica questa ultima fatica di Alex è il fatto che l'album è registrato su una cartuccia del NES. Questo è un video di presentazione dell'album.

Bellissimo video della Tokyo anni 30 segnalato dal nostro amico Pico Pico.

Wired:   Fra la fine degli anni 70 e i primi anni novanta le industrie militari dell'allora Unione Sovietica (mentre l'occidente giocava con titoli come "Raid over Moscow" per c64) hanno prodotto circa 70 cabinati arcade che sono stati raccolti nel Museum of Soviet Arcade Machines aperto a maggio.