The ModRetro Chromatic Review - A High End Alternative GBC FPGA Handheld Solution?

The Game Boy and Game Boy Color systems have had a very active "afterlife." Screen mods, homebrew games and clone consoles are just some of the developments that have gained prominence in the past 10+ years. The idea of cloning a Game Boy or Game Boy Color is not a new one, hardware clones have been around for around 10 years. More flexible FPGA technology has resulting in two consoles which can play original GB/GBC cartridges, the Analogue Pocket (2021) and the Funny Playing FPGBC (2023). Now a new challenger enters the arena in the form of the Chromatic from a company called ModRetro. Let's see what it has to offer and how it measures up against the competition.

Game Boy Tetris New vs. Old - ModRetro Chromatic Tetris

The company ModRetro has released their Chromatic, an FPGA handheld console which simulates a Game Boy Color and plays Game Boy and Game Boy Color games. It retails for $199, which may seem rather pricey but to attract buyers ModRetro developed a new version of Tetris and bundled it with the console. This version of Tetris can only be purchased with a Chromatic, it is not available separately. Having bought a Chromatic I intended to review both the console and its game, however as the console review was already pretty long and the game review ended up being lengthy in its own right, I decided to split the article into two parts for easier reading. In this article I will review the Tetris games which came before ModRetro's, give an overview of ModRetro's features and gameplay and see how it stacks up against its predecessors and whether it offers good value to the Chromatic package.

Dracula the Undead, An Atari Lynx Tragedy

The Atari Lynx was a groundbreaking handheld console, as it was the first color handheld console ever made. Unfortunately it was not a great success but it was neither a footnote as 71 games were officially released during lifetime (1989-1995). One of its more unique games was Dracula the Undead, something of an adventure game retelling of the first few chapters of Bram Stoker's original novel, Dracula. Ever since I acquired a Lynx I was so entranced by the game that I felt compelled to beat it without the assistance of a walkthrough. Having accomplished that feat, I feel like this underappreciated game deserves a special review.

Sherlock Holmes and Copyright Term Expiration

Two attempts to murder Sherlock Holmes, the left much more freely usable historically than the right

Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle wrote and published Sherlock Holmes stories from 1887 to 1927, a span of forty years. That broad period has some unusual implications for the copyright of the stories and the character of Sherlock Holmes. This blog article intends to answer the question how did Sherlock Holmes enter the public domain and at what times did he do so?

SummerCart64 - The Open Source N64 Flash Cart

The Nintendo 64 has had devices (such as the Bung Doctor V64) which allowed games to be played unofficially almost from its release. The 2010s saw the introduction of the first flash cartridges for the console such as the EverDrive 64. Flash cartridges have come a long way and now can run almost any regular N64 cartridge game. Until recently there was only one flash cart readily available, the EverDrive 64 X7, but now it faces competition from an open source flash cart, the SummerCart64, which promises new functionality. In this blog article I will take a look at the SummerCart64 and go over its functionality.

Sound Blaster Live! Primer

The Sound Blaster Live! represented Creative Labs return to products which could compete with other sound cards designed for the PCI Bus. First released in 1998, the Live! was Creative's first "real" PCI sound card. Things had changed, competing chipsets had improved in quality, Windows 95's standardization meant that sound drivers did not have to adhere to proprietary hardware as they did with DOS and the use of wholly-digital sound leveled the playing field compared to the DOS era. Let's explore their Live!

D&D and AD&D Character Creation Historical Overview

Dungeons and Dragons in all its forms and editions requires you to create one or more characters to play the game. The process by which this has been done has changed over the years, gradually increasing in complexity edition by edition. In this blog article today I would like to focus on how it changed during the first twenty-five years of the game's life.

Tandy Deskmate - Tandy's Ace in the Hole

In 1984 Tandy released a software package called DeskMate. DeskMate was a basic suite of office productivity software and Tandy would bundle the software with its computers or sell it in Radio Shack stores and via mail order for a relatively low price. DeskMate, while little remembered today, was a key factor in putting Tandy computers in many homes. Let's take a look at how the suite did that and evolved over time.