Category: 50s to 90s

Came across a cool link tonight, pre-beta screenshots of the game Doom way before the shareware version was released. [Link]

I was meeting with this guy last week and we got into talking about the MSX computers (Sakhr). He asked me if I knew Microsoft was involved in the project. I told him no I didn’t know, I still have my MSX2 but I never knew that Microsoft had any involvement. He then told me if I knew how they came up with the name Sakhr. I told him no, he was like you would think it was an Arab but in fact it was the Japanese. He told me the Japanese had created a software that puts letters together and you can control how many letters you want and stuff and the software would combine letters that would be easy to pronounce. The software came up with 3 options, one of them was Sakhr.. although I have no clue how Sakhr is easy to pronounce.. So what does MSX stand for? Well there are many beliefs, some people believe it stands for Microsoft Extended, referring to the built-in MSX-BASIC programming language, specifically written by Microsoft for the MSX system. Other people say it stands for Machines with Software eXchangeability’. No matter what MSX actually means it played an important role in many peoples lives back in the 80’s here in Kuwait. Everyone I knew had one, either the white colored MSX1 (AX170) or the black colored MSX2 (AX370).

[MSX on Wiki]

During the Gulf War I had to leave the majority of my toys behind here in Kuwait because we had to flee the country. That incident scarred me for life I think because I seemed to have developed some kind of psychological issue where I am trying to buy back every toy I had. I spend most of my days flipping through pages of vintages toys and eBay looking for stuff I used to have and then hopefully buying them. So now I have decided to share the toys with you whenever I find any. Today I am gonna start with this “Le Chalet Suisse” toy. It was amazing, its like a classy version of Lego. Its using pieces of real wood and you can build various types of wooden chalets with them. There is no sticking or clicking, the pieces of the wood are shaped in a way that they would fit together and you just stack them up.

I was able to find it online brandnew for only $78. [Link]

This site has some classic arcade games as flash, my favorite is Space Invaders followed closely by Moon Patrol. [Link]

Remember the Duck Hunt game that came with the original Nintendo Entertainment System? You can now play it online as a flash game. [Link]

The other day I posted a link to a site with some cartoon intro’s from the 80’s, the site closed down but I managed to download 4 videos, here they are:

Bionic Six
Denver the Last Dinosaur
Pole Position
Robotech

I found this site that has the opening videos of some cool cartoons from the 80’s. There was one cartoon I really used to like but had forgotten its name, turned out it was called Pole Position. Here are some of the videos, a lot more on the site.

Bionic Six
Centurions
Dangermouse
Dennis the Menace
Denver the Last Dinosaur
The Gummi Bears
He-Man
Inspector Gadget
Pole Position
Rainbow Brite
The Real Ghostbusters
More…

Update: Site is now down due to heavy traffic. I downloaded a couple of videos will upload them later if site is still not working.

Yesterday I was talking to a fellow employe when we started talking about t-shirts. Then somehow out of the blue I remembered Hypercolor t-shirts. The guy hadn’t heard of it since he is young (20) and I am old (26). So I started telling him about the T-Shirts and how in theory they were supposed to change color when you touched them or with the weather but in reality you had to pull the shirt up to your mouth and breathe on it really hard to inspire any kind of color change. When you wore it in school all your friends with spend the whole day either touching you or blowing hot air on your t-shirt so it changes color. This was something really cool in the early 90’s (the t-shirt not the touching) and this was supposed to be the future.

The cool thing is you can still find Hypercolor t-shirts for sale on ebay! Anyway I also created a new category on this blog called “80’s & 90’s” where I will be adding some nostalgia stuff like these t-shirts.

You can now download all your favorite old games (from any system) from OldGames.nu. I just downloaded SimTower for the mac!! I love this game and its only 1.6MB! [Link]

Update: You have to create an account on the site to start downloading. When you start they give you 5MB worth of downloads.

Do you guys remember Ministeck? I used to play with them back in the 80’s and today morning I remembered them. I want to order a couple but Amzon doesn’t sell them and there isn’t a large collection on eBay. I am sure it would bring me back good memories.

I was reading Puss-In-Boots blog and she said she loves to collect rare stuff. But she didn’t say what stuff she collected. I know Nibaq likes to collect toy figurines, but what else does everyone collect? I personally collect 2 things. Wired Magazines (I have every issue since 5.01 and my oldest is 3.12), and also videogame systems. So since today is cleaning Firday, I decided to take out and shoot all my systems and then wipe the dust off before I put them back into the cabinets. Below is a list of all the systems I currently own and they link to their pictures.

Atari Jaguar
Atari Lynx
Coleco Vision
Commodore 64
Commodore VIC 20
Dingoo A320
Game & Watch – Chef
Game & Watch – Donkey Kong Jr.
Game & Watch – Mario Bros.
Microsoft Xbox
Microsoft Xbox 360
MSX2 (Sakhr)
NEO-GEO AES
Nintendo 64
Nintendo DS
Nintendo DS Lite
Nintendo Gameboy SP
Nintendo Gamecube
Nintendo Wii
Panasonic 3DO
Sega Dreamcast
Sega Gamegear
Sony Playstation 1
Sony Playstation 2
Sony Playstation 3
Sony PSP
Speak & Spell
Super Nintendo
Super Simon

I still have a couple of systems I would like to own, mainly a Nintendo Virtual Boy, a Sega Nomad and a Sega Saturn.

Before I got married and moved into my own apartment, I didn’t have any room to display the stuff in my old room so I had them all under my bed. Now though since I have my own place I have them all displayed in my cabinet (1,2) with the boxes and some accessories in the drawers and closests (1,2,3,4).

So what do you guys collect?