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So what do you do when your TI-99/4A system is expanded as far as possible? Simple, start another system! I'm not sure where I'll take this one next, but so far... .. currently my beige "portable system" has a TIPI/32K with RPi ZERO W and a speech synthesizer. Hopefully someday the F-18A MK2 will finally hit the market. This entry will be updated if/when anything changes!

What drives a guy to use a computer that is 40 years old? Nostalgia & fun are two reasons. Back in 1981 or 1982 I got myself a TI-99/4A console, later Extended BASIC a "Program Recorder" (Cassette player) and then built it up little by little. This was what my system looked like in 1985... The peripheral expansion box (as shown above) only had a 90K disk drive, 32K and RS-232 card. By today's standards that's laughable! By 1987, I had to "downsize" due to my firstborn taking over my den space. So I built a hutch, popped the 19" monitor inside, added a lighted

Dreamfall Chapters is an episodic adventure game developed by Red Thread Games and Published by Deep Silver. It came out for PC, Mac, Linux, PS4, and Xbox One. It is apart of the game series The Longest Journey. ( I haven't played the previous games yet but I bought them recently) I discovered this game in 2018 and absolutely fell in love with it. From its Amazing Soundtrack. (Soundtrack YouTube) To its Beautiful Sci-Fi Futuristic level design and environment. (Which I enjoyed exploring every inch of) All the way to its core. Its Chose your own adventure style gameplay gives it a high repl

The almighty hamburger. A hot sandwich starting with a beef patty, topped with trimmings like lettuce, tomatoes, and cheese, and smothered with ketchup and mustard. A monetary staple for fast food drive-ins and a popular item to cook for some outdoor grillin'. It's also one of the easiest food items to cook where almost anything on it will compliment it. Almost. That is until you come across evil food. Hot dogs, eggs, and pickles are tired of being on the menu and have gone on strike! That is the formula it takes to have a little video game called BurgerTime. The object of the game

So it sucks having to put a mask on every time we go out. Sucks but important. There is no reason however we can't make it a little fun. STRONG LANGUAGE

What to write about? I know I want to write about the 2600 but I just don't know where to begin. Do I talk more about the iconic woody console or the Junior model? I don't have much to say about controllers because it's either paddle, driving, keypad, or more joystick designs than anyone could fathom. Games? Do I talk more about games that I have managed to pick up since my last post? I might have to think on this a bit more. While I'm thinking... As I sit here writing this there is a 2600 Junior model sitting in front of me. Recently acquired in unknown condition I spent the bett

By the beginning of 2015, I had upgraded to a Lotharek HxC and an F18A, dropped on a Lantronix UDS-10 and started hitting Heatwave BBS... By the middle of 2015 I added a PS/2 keyboard, and an extra disk drive and WiFi capability to my UDS-10... Around the middle of 2016 I had a modem, which was not used much, and I think the HDX card (which has since been removed). It was around this time that I obtained a TI compatible Wico trackball and customized it to match the TI. I also added a custome control panel with digital thermometer showing the TI's running temperature.

Whoa! It's been a while since I last blogged! Sorry about that, readers! Today is a special day indeed. It's the one-year anniversary of when I first got my Atari 2600s! I thought I'd post a little something here about my systems in particular. I already made a very long status update about this (which I'll archive here at the end of the blog so it doesn't disappear forever), but here in this blog entry I'd like to touch on the history of these systems from what I have heard through the years from my "ancestors". There were two "dream systems" that I had always wanted, a Game Boy of

Recently, I have been thinking of my favorite games on the Atari VCS and coming to the realization that I have some pretty unpopular tastes. Pac-Man, the "worst video game ever", in my number two spot? Donkey Kong closely behind at number three? Artillery Duel in the top-ten? Video Chess near the top of my most-wanted list? These are some pretty unpopular, if not downright hated games. What's more, some of the 2600's most beloved games, like Yars' Revenge, Adventure, and Pitfall!, aren't near the top of my list. Not that I dislike these games; quite the contrary. I just have some that I prefer

The recently released Super Mario Bros Game and Watch scores a Solid 7/10. When compared to the original Game and Watches its missing some features but there is a lot of goodies that sort of make up for it and it will bring you hours of joy. To start the box has a protective sleeve over it with a neat design on it. (Pictures below) But lets get into the meat of the Handheld the clock has Mario running through a level which you have 3 level faces to choose from that you are able to pick by pressing the Time button. While on the clock screen you are able to interact with the computer Mario that

This January I finally completed my North American Nintendo Game Boy launch lineup. I have said in the past that I have been collecting games for the original Game Boy since August of 2015, though that's only half-true. In August 2015 I bought my first DMG Game Boy game on 3DS Virtual Console. Not a physical cartridge, though since I did pay money for it, it sort of counts in my eyes. The first game I got on 3DS was not any of the GB NA launch games, rather it was a very late release, Game and Watch Gallery. Later in September I bought the amazing Metroid II: Return of Samus (Lots of backstory

Gates of Zendocon gets a solid 10/10 . I never got to experience this game on original hardware but I've been playing it on and off the last few days on my Evercade and have been having a blast. I'm usually not the biggest fan of Space Shooters, Shoot 'em ups or Horizontally scrolling shooters, but this game has held my attention where others have failed. From cool looking enemies to explosions and safe spots like the awesome looking base, this game has it all. This game was released in 1989 and developed by Epyx and published by Atari Corporation in North America and Europe exclusively for t

I'm not a big comic book fan. I remember reading some DC comics (Detective Comics comics?) that came out of a box of cereal when I was around seven or eight and being too bored to finish it. All of my subsequent efforts to get into comics have more or less ended the same way. Most recently, I got some comic books with my 2600 stuff back in March. Four vintage Superman comics were mixed in with the manuals, from around the same time the movies were coming out (as there were a few advertisements in there for them). I never did finish them, but I did look through the ads. I should give them a sec

So this blog entry is a little special. Today, I will be covering a video game that I got through the I/O on the I/O! I bought this game and a few others from the one and only @chas10e a few weeks back. He's a great guy to deal with. When you think of classic arcade titles from the golden age, several come to mind before others. In my mind, there are divided into several tiers based off of popularity. Allow me to go off on a little bit of a tangent, but I feel that I need to list them. This is the top tier of popular classic arcade games. Not necessarily my absolute favorites, but I

So the other night my family and I sat down and watched the hit 1997 film Titanic. My parents always talked about how much they hated it, but last night is when us kids finally got the chance to see it. I will say, parts of the movie are really well done. I have always thought the Titanic disaster was interesting, and my mother has as well. She knew a lot about it, to my surprise, and pointed out a few Easter eggs in the movie that would have gone over my head otherwise. For instance, there was one scene where the ship designer (I believe it was him) was staring into a fireplace or somet

Today's entry of GFBMT is going to be a little different. Today, I will be ranking the Classic 2D Super Mario games from best to worst. I won't be going in-depth here, just listing the games. We'll be ranking the pre-NSMB (New Super Mario Brothers) era Super Mario games that appeared on Nintendo systems (Sorry, Super Mario Brothers Special!). We will also only be talking about the mainseries Super Mario games, not any of the spinoffs. Mainly, Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island and Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3 won't be included here. These are just my opinions. I do plan to review most

BurgerTime for me is a solid 9/10. BurgerTime is a arcade game created in 1982 by Data East. In this game you have to help Peter Pepper create hamburgers while trying to avoid Mr. Hot Dog, Mr. Pickle, and Mr. Egg. The easiest way to do this is by just focusing on the top buns. You can score extra points by crushing Mr. Hot Dog, Mr. Pickle, and Mr. Egg under a falling ingredients, or by dropping an ingredient while they are standing on it. You can use pepper shots to help stun enemies for a few seconds but beware you only have a limited amount of pepper shots. 5 pepper shots and 4 life's to st

So yeah, hair care IS a thing since we cannot go out and social distancing blah blah. I just recently SHAVED my beard off 😮 because I like to "reset" every now and then, let my face breath etc, it's cool, I will have 5 o'clock shadow by 3 o'clock again 🙄 I mention this only because I am posting these silly low res images I took in Linux on one of my low end craptops recently and so you can see my before and after. I used a webcam effect in the after image because I was MAD LIKE HULK or something 😆 Now, as for the hair on my head well, who knows? We don't have clippers and I am not hacking away

Hi and welcome to Lance’s Laboratory! This is the first post of what will be my personal blog sharing small slices of life with you from within my Lab. For those of you who are just getting to know me for the first time, my name is Lance, I’m from Minnesota, and for nearly 40 years I’ve been in the Atari business operating Video 61, one of the last surviving original retail Atari distributors. We started in the video business as a local chain of video rental stores serving the Twin Cities area with locations along U.S. Highway 61, the road that musician Bob Dylan referred to in the album

A common sentiment found among retro-computing enthusiasts is that there's nothing quite like the real thing. It's understandable, computers and game consoles (i.e., computers disguised as toys and appliances) are physical items and our happy nostalgic memories are complimented by recollections of touch and heft: the feedback of button clicks, shunting cartridges into slots, and so on. However, there's a particular aficionado - we've all met him, he's a member of every fan group and forum - whose affection for real hardware gives way to an unpleasant snobbery. A "true fan" would never emulate,