Retro Articles on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog

Origin Stories: Vectrex offers nostalgic gameplay

by Victor Agreda, Jr. (May 2nd, 2013)

If you were a kid in the 1980's you may remember the oddball consumer gaming console called the Vectrex. Notable for it's use of vectors instead of bitmapped graphics (like every other console), the Vectrex never quite took hold but before it was discontinued a number of fun retro games were made ...

Flickr Find: Transferring games from iPad to Apple II

by Steven Sande (Apr 8th, 2013)

This is a little on the old side, circa late 2011, but it's still incredibly cool. Reader Ken Fager posted a photo of an iPad being used to download games from the Apple Game Server Online onto an Apple //e. Fager explains what's happening in the photo above by saying, "The iPad is connected ...

Daily iPhone App: bit Dungeon is a retro RPG done well

by Mike Schramm (Apr 3rd, 2013)

bit Dungeon arrived on the App Store a little while ago, and if you missed it then, you'd do well to try it out now. Quite a few games have used the old 8-bit, top-down RPGs as a rubric, but bit Dungeon is probably the best example I've seen of all of them. You simply go from room to room, ...

Daily iPhone App: QuestLord is a retro RPG trip back in time

by Mike Schramm (Feb 20th, 2013)

A lot of apps these days show that developers are always thinking about what they can do in a new way: How can we change up controls for a touchscreen device, or use the power of the iPhone to create a new experience? QuestLord, however, is very decidedly old school. It's an RPG from the ...

Sega's After Burner Climax flying over to iOS

by Mike Schramm (Feb 5th, 2013)

After Burner Climax is a 2006 update of the popular old-school arcade game. It arrived in arcades upon first release and was later ported over to Xbox Live and the PlayStation Network. Now, Sega has announced it's bringing the game to iOS. There's no release date yet, as Sega has simply said ...

ThinkGeek's 8-bitty controller isn't bad, if you already want one

by Mike Schramm (Oct 31st, 2012)

ThinkGeek's iCade started out as an April Fool's joke. In conjunction with the folks at Ion Audio, that product actually came to be, and it's been so successful that it's launched a whole line of different controller products, most of them from Ion. But ThinkGeek isn't done with this brand yet. ...

Daily iPhone App: Penny Arcade's On The Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness 3

by Mike Schramm (Oct 30th, 2012)

I've become a big fan of Zeboyd Games recently -- their last title, Cthulu Saves the World, is a really well-designed (and funny!) love letter to the Japanese RPGs of yesteryear. Penny Arcade is a very popular video game and pop culture webcomic that's released three games now, and Zeboyd was ...

iCade's 8-bitty controller now out

by Mike Schramm (Oct 10th, 2012)

That "8-bitty" wireless controller announced by ThinkGeek a while ago is now available in the company's online store. For US$29.99, you can grab hold of an NES-style retro controller, with not two but four buttons designed to work with iOS games across the iCade protocol. This is not an Ion ...

Rare Newton-based Siemens NotePhone up for grabs on eBay

by Steven Sande (Sep 4th, 2012)

Anyone with a museum of rare Apple antiquities should head over to eBay, where an extremely rare Siemens NotePhone is on sale. As noted by the seller "yennyman," the NotePhone was sold in Europe in 1994 for a very short time. The NotePhone was essentially a modular speakerphone for office use ...

Turning an old Apple mouse into a modern Bluetooth mouse

by Mike Schramm (Aug 14th, 2012)

This Instructable is a pretty sweet project that some of you might want to take on this weekend: It'll teach you how to combine an 80s-era Apple mouse body with the innards of a modern Bluetooth wireless mouse, thus turning Apple's user interface innovation into a device usable with almost any ...

Daily iPhone App: Wizorb turns Breakout into an RPG

by Mike Schramm (Aug 9th, 2012)

Wizorb is a title that originally came out on Steam, but it just recently arrived on iOS, and it's a nice one to have in our gigantic library. The game is a mix of breakout and the old 8/16-bit RPGs, and the combat is essentially the old Breakout game. You use a paddle at the bottom of the ...

iPhone 5th anniversary: I stood in line all day for an iPhone and I also got this lousy t-shirt

by Steven Sande (Jun 29th, 2012)

Five years ago today, on June 29, 2007, I spent the entire day sitting in front of the Aspen Grove Apple Store in Littleton, Colorado. My mission? To be one of the first people to own an iPhone. I got the iPhone, and also a little souvenir that fortuitously appeared in my dresser this ...

Apple II torn down, restored to glory

by Kelly Hodgkins (Jun 5th, 2012)

Todd Harrison got his hands on an old Apple II and meticulously restored the computer to working condition. He details the process in a lengthy blog post that covers everything from cleaning the external case to inspecting the layout of the logic board. It's more than just a simple tear-down, ...

Snap! camera case for iPhone has working shutter button

by Kelly Hodgkins (May 24th, 2012)

Do you use your iPhone like a camera and want an authentic look and feel? Then you should check out the Snap! case from Bitplay. As noticed by Swiss Miss, the case mimics the outer casing of a retro camera and even has a working shutter button. The backside of the case has dials and buttons ...

Found Footage: MacPaint introductory video

by Kelly Hodgkins (May 16th, 2012)

Vintage Apple fans should check out Matt Pearce and his "Matt's Macintosh" YouTube channel. Besides current content, his channel is full of videos featuring his 1984 Macintosh 128K. He has a quick tutorial from earlier this year that showcases MacPaint and a more recent video of an Iron Man ...