The Unofficial Enhanced NESs - Continuing On where Nintendo Left Off

As we all know, Nintendo introduced the Famicom in 1983, ported it to the west as the Nintendo Entertainment System in 1985 and after the last licensed games were released in 1993-94 Nintendo retired the system. But that does not mean that the hardware underlying the system was dead, the hardware was widely cloned and cartridges were still being made for it. Some companies decided develop the hardware further by adding new capabilities, such as new graphics modes and more sound channels, to work with games that would look less primitive than those that could only take advantage of 1983-era chip designs. Let's take a look at some of these approaches in this blog article.

PCE 2.4g vs. PC Engine Mini Controller - Battle of the New PC Engine Controllers

The PC Engine has had something of a reemergence in the past few years. In 2019 Konami announced the PC Engine Mini and TurboGrafx-16 Mini consoles and miraculously released it in 2020. Also in 2020 8bitdo released their PCE 2.4g Wireless Gamepads and Analogue announced the availability of the Analogue Duo, an FPGA console designed to play the original HuCard and CD games. Having acquired both a controller which was sold for the PC Engine Mini console and the 8bitdo PCE 2.4g controller, I can give an opinion on their strengths and weaknesses.

Is that a Cricket I Hear? - Contemporary Sound Options for the Apple IIc

The "c" in the Apple IIc stood for compact. The Apple IIc was designed to be the epitome of the Apple II series, providing the options most people used in a realistically portable form factor but sacrificing the internal expansion slots which made the predecessor models in the Apple II line so popular. While sound cards like the Mockingboard were not the most popular of expansion cards, about three dozen games and music programs supported them. As there was nowhere to plug in a Mockingboard into a IIc, that left the IIc with only the internal speaker for audio output. But at least two sound products were made specifically for the Apple IIc, and I will take a look at one of them, the Cricket, in this blog article.

Attack of the PETSCII Robots - Review of a New Action Strategy DOS Game

Attack of the PETSCII Robots MS-DOS Version Cover (Partial, Courtesy of 8-bit Guy)

Back in 2018, David Murray, better known as The 8-Bit Guy on YouTube, released a newly developed game for the DOS-compatible PC called Planet X3. I eventually bought a copy and reviewed it. In more recent years he has designed a new game, Attack of the PETSCII Robots, which was released in 2021 for Commodore computers. The game has since then been widely ported to many home computer and console platforms, including MS-DOS earlier this year. I decided to buy the MS-DOS port, and after trying it out I will give my review here.

NuXT 2.0 Motherboard - A New 8088 Motherboard for your DIY PC Clone

In the recent past I have discussed the Book 8088 and the Hand 386, which are newly made vintage computing systems.  I concluded that those products, although not uninteresting were rather flawed.  The Book 8088 was by far the more disappointing of the two devices.  I have also been made aware of a project which tries to fulfill a similar niche, the NuXT motherboard. The NuXT is an 8088-based motherboard you can buy brand new and can really fill that IBM PC-clone hole in your vintage collection. While I do not own one of these, I have read and seen enough about it to give my thoughts on whether this product would be right for you.

The Avengers Series 4-6 Blu-ray Upgrade

In a recent blog post, I discussed "upgrading" the videotaped half of The Avengers from Region 1 DVDs to Region 2 DVDs. The TLDR version of that entry was that the upgrade was worth it. Now I have obtained the Region B Blu-rays of Series 4-6, I intend to offer my thoughts on them versus the Region 1 DVDs as a sequel of sorts to the prior blog entries.

Would you Like a Book 8088? Or How About a Hand 386?

Fairly recently (May, 2023) there has been made available for sale a retro-themed laptop called the Book 8088.  The Book 8088 is a real PC running a fair amount of vintage hardware and was made in China by a company called DZT.  Additionally this company has also made a portable PC called the Hand 386.  However, the Book 8088 is also the subject of controversy and reviews have been mixed on both products.  Although I do not own either and have no intention to buy either I have researched and viewed enough YouTube reviews of the device to offer some relevant insights on these devices.

The Avengers Seasons 1-3 DVD Upgrade

Being an American fan of the quintessential British TV show The Avengers has not always been easy.  The Avengers, that 1960s crime drama/spy series with British secret agent John Steed and a host of assistants tends to be overshadowed by a certain superhero group sharing the same name.  Getting the series in America has been afflicted by times of plenty followed by long periods of drought.  In this blog let me talk about the first half of the series and the ideal means to watch it today.