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There's a nice association in southern France that serves as a museum, called Silicium.

Their site is under heavy rewriting but you can check their inventory, full of nice computers and not so nice or terribles ones, each with an article.
Here's the French stuff specifically :), you may check out the Matra Alice as an example of a terrible computer with almost no software, and maybe learn a few derogatory terms in French. Some stuff looks pretty classy such as the Exelvision and Goupil. And, there's an entry on the minitel.

http://silicium.org/site/index.php/Table/Catalogue/France/

The full-tower PS/2 models had a great handle that folded into the top of the case.

Now that was a SOLID case, must have been bulletproof. Google tells me they weighed ~24 kilograms.

http://www.silicium.org/ibm/ibm/ibmps2mod80.htm

http://www.oldcomputers.arcula.co.uk/intl1.htm

Already done here and specially here.

First thing I played around with was the Apple ][ and later the ][+, those were in the Library when I was in sixth grade, but when my pops bought me a machine for home, it was the venerable Apple //e

http://www.silicium.org/apple/apple2/apple2e.htm

64k, with the additionaly 80 columns "graphics" card, along with the shown Apple /// monitor. I played around with BASIC and ran tons of "copied" games from friends. The first computer I really learned programming on was the Commadore PET

http://www.smithsonianeducation.org/educators/less on_plans/carbons/images/comp8t.gif

with it's 'chicklet' style keyboard. programs were saved to Cassette tape!

Then, after Softmore year of High School I started my 10 year love affair with my art; pressed on until I got my BFA. Years of working in galleries I eventually wound up selling tickets for the saint louis symphony where I learned about the Unix ticket sales softare...and that led me to (back) to the tech/geek side to build a career on.

uhh...what was the question?

>The article confuses "analog" and "digital",
>claiming that the Atari 2600 joystick was not "analog" "because it only had 8 directions".

So was the atari joystick analog or not? I doubt it. I know it was right-handed though.

> The NES cross pad was hardly looked at as an improvement at the time.

For some reason it's on the left side.

As far as I can tell from browsing arcade images, most arcades prior to 1985 had two sets of buttons on each side of the joystick. Look at the the Atari 2600 joystick, the red button is on the upper LEFT. Intellivision and Coleco controllers both had pads up top, allowing ambidextrous use, and Coleco had fire buttons on *both* sides.

I was only 10 when NES came out, but I remember being shocked at the TV commercials. The only parallel I can think of for playing with the left hand is driving a car.

My favorite controller:

* Coleco Action Controller - Big joystick with *4* color-coded fire buttons, 12-button keypad, a comfy hand grip AND scroll wheel! Playing baseball with a throw button for each base was....a revelation.

I've always loved handhelds. Due to the whole idea that a handheld system is designed both for quick sessions (on a bus, for instance) and long playing periods (such as on a plane or in a hotel room), I think handhelds force developers to adhere to what I consider the ideals of video gaming: both instant playability and depth that inspires replay.

Obviously, puzzle games are the perfect match for this. I don't quite agree with some of 1up's puzzle game highlights. Tetris and Klax are true classics, but I'm not convinced that Meteos and Lumines are of the same calibre. Meteos times every game mode except for one, tilting it far in favour of quick sessions. It just isn't that enjoyable for a long period. Lumines falls victim to the exact opposite - the time attack modes aren't much fun but the normal mode is very addictive. The only problem with normal mode is that a typical single session often lasts more than half an hour!

Puzzle games aside, some of their choices and omissions are quite odd.

Donkey Kong on Game Boy is an expanded version of the arcade original, with 100 puzzle-heavy levels. It turns a classic arcade game into an even better home game. I think it's one of the finest games ever made. Mario vs Donkey Kong is a pseudo-sequel to the Game Boy one, but it doesn't quite live up to its predecessor. It's decent but far from being a true classic.

Final Fantasy Adventure, also on Game Boy, is Seiken Densetsu 1 renamed to cash in on the Final Fantasy name. Seiken Densetsu was also renamed for the western market, to Secret of Mana. Yes, Secret of Mana is a sequel to this Game Boy game. And this Game Boy game is the best action/rpg the system has to offer - edging out even The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening (which is also a fantastic game and a must-own). Too bad the GBA remake, Sword of Mana, was awful.

Besides Klax, the Atari Lynx had quite a few other arcade ports. Roadblasters is a lot of fun. Robotron 2084 isn't perfect (due to the Lynx lacking a way to duplicate the original dual-joystick control system) but is still decent. S.T.U.N. Runner looks fantastic on the handheld and is the best home port of the game we ever received, even if it does use sprite scaling instead of polygons. Speaking of sprite scaling, Blue Lightning is an Afterburner clone with better graphics than any of the pre-32X home ports of Afterburner. The gameplay measures up, too. Chip's Challenge, another original design for the system (though it was ported to plenty of other systems eventually) is a very fun action/puzzle game like The Adventures of Lolo. It also has a geeky love story plot that I'm sure most Slashdotters will appreciate :)

The Game Gear was perhaps the most lacking of all mainstream handhelds (ignoring utter shit like the Gamate and Watara Supervision), but even it had some very good games. Crystal Warriors and Shining Force II: The Sword of Hajya are an excellent pair of strategy-RPGs with amazing depth for 8-bit handheld games. Bubble Bobble had a great port on GG (not

I have to agree, it was a little too large... actually it was no more "portable" than the portable dreamcast, but well this is really an example of exotic hardware ;-)

Also, the SuperGrafx was never released domestically. It had six games (seven if you count the hybrid). The console sold for around $400 and the games were about 9800 yen ($110 at the time).

The PC-FX was essentially an NEC PC converted into a gaming console.

I had one of those! Sinclair ZX80 Wow, that brings back memories. The thing had 4KB of RAM (not 4MB, 4KB!). My dad was trying to write a backgammon game; got as far as a cool animated dice-rolling routine before he ran out of memory.
Wish I knew where it was, I think it was lost in a move several years ago or something.

poke 65497,0

THAT was overclocking.
Boost a TRS80 coco3's 68B09E from 0.895 et 1.78 MHz

The only thing I did not know was that there WERE some heat issues involved, according to this guy.

The history of computers is an interesting topic isn't there a project cataloging all the different parts of computer history going on?

There most certainly is! Perhaps you missed the story on the Vintage Computer Festival the other day? There are a lot of people involved in preserving the quickly disappearing history of the computer industry, including myself. Check out some of the others, such as:

• Blinkenlights Archaeological Institute
• The Computer Museum of America
• Retro-Computing Society of Rhode Island
• The San Francisco Computer Museum
• and even the Microsoft Museum

or, for a more international view, try:

• Ullrich von Bassewitz's Collection of Old Computers (Germany)
• Silicium: Le musee de l'informatique (France)
• National Archive for the History of Computing (England)
• Bletchley Park (England)
• Australian Computer Museum Society
• The First Computer Museum of Nova Scotia
• Belgian Microcomputer Museum

For tons more, check out the links page at the Vintage Computer Festival, or better yet, come to the VCF at the end of September and experience history in person!