-
Dead End Game Development: There Is No Such Thing As Free Beer
Note: “Game Development Dead end” is new blog series where we tell the stories behind games that were never finished…
-
Ballad Of Atari: 1981
Ballad Of Atari: 1981 (part 1) Never Ending Walls Fall Down To My Bouncing Ball In Super Breakout …
-
Atari In the Wild No. 2: 2600, 5200, 400/800/XL/XE Carts
This is the second installment of “In The Wild”. In this series, I do first impression reviews of games I have…
-
Linkstorm!: 8bitrocket Retro Gaming News Update
IDW To Release Atari Themed Board Games IDW Games, designers and distributors of a multitude of games (including the magnificent The…
-
Ballad Of Atari: 1980
Ballad Of Atari: 1980 (part 1) VCS Breaks Through Sales Sky Rocket With Space Invaders Cartridge Ballad Of…
-
Review: Lucky Wander Boy plus Interview With Author D.B. Weiss
(note: An edited version of this review originally appeared on http://www.gamerdad.com in 2003) About 15 years ago, I ventured past the realm…
-
Fact Checkers Sharpen Your Pencils: Nolan Bushnell Interviewed For NPR’s “How I Built This” Podcast
Let me just get this out of the way, I LOVE Nolan Bushnell. He is the visionary without which we would…
-
Linkstorm!: 8bitrocket’s Retro Gaming News (Updated!)
Atari Box Art Finally Being Recognized Atari VCS box-art is very close to our hearts here at 8bitrocket.com. The recent…
-
Ballad Of Atari: 1979
Ballad Of Atari: 1979 (part 1) Rocks Floating In Space Insert Coin To Shoot. Collects Quarters By The Ton …
-
Review: Phoenix IV : The History Of The Video Game Industry By Leonard Herman
Phoenix IV : The History Of The Video Game Industry by Leonard Herman is the most well researched, historically accurate chronicle of…
-
Fultonbot’s 1983 Atari VCS Quest: The Checklist
Here is my quest. This has been bubbling under my skin for 34 years now, and this morning, while walking the…
-
The the Wild #1 – Retro 2600 Finds 2/20/17
The the Wild #1 – Retro 2600 Finds 2/20/17 This is a new feature we will be doing here on 8bitrocket.com,…
-
Ballad Of Atari: 1977-1978
Ballad Of Atari: 1977 TIA, RIOT and 6507. VCS Changes Everything Ballad Of Atari: 1978…
-
Ballad Of Atari: 1975-1976
Ballad Of Atari: 1975 LSI Home Pong A Chip Off The Coin-Op Block Sporting Goods For Nerds Ballad Of…
-
Gameband: Atari Now on Kickstarter!
Would you play remakes of classic Atari games on your wrist for $149? Gameband and Atari sure hope you will. …
-
Ballad Of Atari: 1973-1974
Ballad Of Atari: 1973 Fight Pong Copycats With Innovative Leisure: Space Race, Pong Doubles Ballad Of Atari:…
-
Listen Kids, This Job Won’t Exist When You’re My Age
The airline pilot was absolutely killing it. I was standing in the back of the room, waiting for my turn, and…
-
Ballad Of Atari: 1971-1972
The Ballad Of Atari: 1971 Slick Computer Space Machines all ready to dance But few know the steps …
-
Atari Haiku: Star Ship & Air Sea Battle
CX2603 : Star Ship In 1980 Atari yanked this game From it’s catalog Amazing box art Bait and switch for this…
-
Flashback Post! Review of PS2 Activision Anthology (2003)
Activision Anthology PS2 By Steve Fulton For A Change, Nostalgia Is Done The Right Way…But Will your Kids Care? The name “Activision” means…
-
Linkstorm! 01/17/2017 : 8bitrocket Retro Gaming News Update
News The Nintendo Switch will be released March 1st. No word on the Virtual Console transfers or whether we will have…
-
Atari 2600 Donkey Kong leaves doubts about Neuroscience Experiments
Atari 2600 Donkey Kong leaves doubts about Neuroscience (Image courtesy of Atariage) Neuroscience experiments, using a reverse engineering technique, to dig…
-
Atari 7800 Haiku
CX7805: Galaga 7800 Lovely Galaga Woke up early to play you Every morning Be damned high school For my passion awaits…
-
Atari To Announce GameBand/GameWatch On Feb. 1st?
A member of AtariAge Facebook Group (Andrew Ruth) posted this image (to the left) today that Atari Interactive had been circulating. It…
-
Viva Amiga: The Story Of A Beautiful Machine Documentary Now Available
“Amiga users make Macintosh users look like IBM users” -Viva Amiga Trailer After a successful Kickstarter campaign, the documentary “Viva Amiga”…
-
Podcast Review: Antic Interviews “Wild” Bill Stealy Co-Founder of Microprose Software
I’m a huge fan of Antic, The Atari Podcast from Randy Kindig, Kevin Savetz, and Brad Arnold. I’m especially fond of…
-
Linkstorm: Jan. 9, 2017 : New/Improved Retro Gaming News Update Now With C.E.S.!
News CES 2017 took place last week/weekend. Not a lot there any more for retro gamers. Certainly not if you recall…
-
The Exact Moment Nintendo Won The Video Game War: Feb 12th, 1985
( Since we are relaunching the site, we are periodically identifying stories we published during our “dark periond” from 2012 through…
-
RetroPie Tip: Network Discovery From Your Windows 10 Computer
This is a very simple tip, but also something that baffled me for a very long time. When I first…
-
Linkstorm Jan. 2, 2017: 8bitrocket Retro Gaming News Update
News The Making Of Activision Frostbite for the Atari 2600 on RetroGamer.net The Making Of Star Wars The Empire Strikes Back for…
-
Some Fireworks To Salute The End of 2016!
Thank God 2016 is Over! Here is a video of $49.99 safe and sane firework I bought for the 4th of…
-
8bitrocket.com New Year’s Resolutions
Play games with my family more often Spend less time on social media sites Spend less time worried about “likes” and spend…
-
“…and The Kitchen Is Stocked With Free Beer And Snacks!” : A Short One Act Play
Setting: Snack room in an anonymous pre-IPO start-up software firm. Boxes of candy bars and chips line a large, round table…
-
Linkstorm Dec. 29, 2016 : 8bitrocket Retro Gaming News Update
News Retronauts Get Serious: Jeremy at Retronauts said last week “I’d like to try and turn Retronauts into a true and…
-
Atari Haiku : Out Of Control
The Atari VCS was released with a slew of different controllers: The classic red-button joystick, the paddle controllers, the driving controllers,…
-
R.I.P. Carrie Fisher
Carrie Fisher died today at age 60. I’m currently reading her 2nd autobiography, The Princess Diarist which I started a few…
-
Atari Flashback Portable Game Player: Review
I’ve been waiting for a device like the AtGames Atari Flashback Portable Game Player for many many years. I’ve always…
-
The Wild Gunman (1976)
“A gun is never empty” my dad told me. He was looking straight at me. He was looking into my…
-
Never Let The Fire Die (podcast #1)
In this inaugural episode of “Never Let The Fires Die” The Official Podcast For The Alarm, we start at “the end”.…
-
Excerpt From The Diary Of An Atari Nerd
Note: Here is a piece of creative non-fiction. I’ve changed the names, and compacted some events, but everything is true that…
-
Atari Vault : Multi-Player Breathes New Life Into Age-Old Games
I spent much of last weekend attempting to get a multi-player games started with someone, anyone, on the internet. It was not…
-
8bitrocket Consulting Combines with Humdigital.com
8bitrocket IT Consulting has now partnered with HUMDigital.com to provide the full vertical in digital solutions. From ideas to finished product,…
-
MEAN Stack Primer
MEAN Stack Primer. MEAN – at its core, MEAN means Javascript. Unlike other technology platforms, the MEAN stack allows the user…
-
8bitrocket Launches New Consulting Service
8bitrocket IT Consulting brings together 25 years of web application development, project management, IT solutions architecture, and book publishing experience, along…
-
Old Crap From My Attic: Atari and Sega Extravaganza!
Old Crap From My Attic: Atari and Sega Extravaganza: Atari 400/400/xl/xe, Atari Lynx, Sega Game Gear storage space win! Well, not exactly…
-
Atari Bonanza – Old Stuff From My Attic. 2600 5200 7800 800 XL XE Jaguar ST
Atari Bonanza – Old Stuff From My Attic. 2600, 5200, 7800, 800 XL XE, Jaguar, ST I decided to do an…
-
The Dead Lexicon Of Classic Video Games (Ver. 1.1)
by fultonbot-Version 1.1 At the beginning of of the video game era, gaming nomenclature was yet to be coined. This…
-
Top-10 Classic Video Game Magazine Christmas Ads, Covers, & Content
By Steve Fulton Some of these are good, some are terrible, but all of them are memorable. Here is a…
-
1981 : Atari VCS Christmas
In the fall of 1981, just after starting junior high school, my brother Jeff and I tried to convince our parents…
-
Big Mouse And Little Mouse
Note: A story about ‘play’. Before LEGO, before Star Wars, before video games, there was just ‘Little Mouse’ and ‘Big Mouse’,…
-
Interview With Ralph Baer, Inventor Of Home Video Games (R.I.P.)
Note: Dec. 7. 2014: R.I.P. Ralph Baer, the inventor of video games. This interview was conducted in 2005 for gamerdad.com For…
-
Atari Nerd Chronicles: 1982-1983: Computer Lab
Note: I’ve been writing these little stories on the internet for the better part of the last decade. Out of…
-
My Top 100 Games Of All Time
I (sort of) keep this list running in my head all the time. It changes often, and usually one of the…
-
What Video Game Journalists In 2014 Could Learn From Electronic Games Magazine in 1983: Standards
Note: In the light of some more recent events in the gaming world, this seems even more relevant today than when…
-
What Indie Game Developers Can Learn From Jordon Mechner’s Book “The Making Of Karateka”
I’ve always been a huge fan of Jordon Mechner’s Karateka. Released in late 1984, it was one of the major games…
-
Atari 7800 In An Alternate Universe : Games I Would Have Loved To Play
In an alternate universe, Atari released the 7800 in 1984 In an alternate universe, Warner Brothers did not sell the Atari…
-
New Orbeezone.com web site (Producto Studios Project)
By Jeff Fulton (8bitjeff) – CTO Producto Studios Producto Studios provides a mobile makeover to Orbeezone.com. Orbeez, Maya Group’s best-selling product…
-
Strawberry Shortcake – Old Crap From My Attic
8bitjeff (Jeff Fulton) This time I do mean CRAP. While other things from my attic have been true gaming or music…
-
Bob Mould’s See A Little Light “CASSINGLE” – Old Crap from My Attic
By 8bitjeff (Jeff Fulton) When Husker Du went “KAPUT” in the late 80’s, both Bob Mould (lead guitar, song writer and…
-
International Day Against DRM is Tuesday, May 6th
Here at 8bitrocket, we fully support a DRM-Free world. A place where you control the content you PURCHASE. Yes, I said…
-
BASIC 50th Anniversary: Riding An 8-bit Rocket
I was 9 years old when I first touched the keyboard of an Apple II computer. It was 1979, and I…
-
Applesoft BASIC JavaScript Emulator: My First Game (from 1979)
I found this emulator the other day : Applesoft BASIC in JavaScript last week while at GDC, and it got me…
-
Final Mochi Comments and Flash Game License
Jeff Fulton (8bitjeff) In about 2005 I started this blog with help from 8bitsteve purely to experiment with game development and…
-
Happy St. Patrick’s Day!!! Play our old Flash Game Mission Leprechaun
Happy St Patrick’s Day!!! In honor of this day (and my Scotch Irish roots) plus the demise of Mochi (where this…
-
Goodbye and Thanks Mochi Media
On March 14th Mochiland, the blog that has been the mouthpiece for Machi Media since 2006, announced that the array of Mochi…
-
Celebrate the Web’s 25th Anniversary with O’Reilly – 50% off all Web Dev e-books
So you have been waiting to get your hot little hands on a new bo0k to compete in the emerging market…
-
Pennywise – Word From The Wise 33 1/3 7 inch Ep – Old Shit From My Attic
By Jeff Fulton (8bitjeff) Penny Wise – Word From The Wise 33 1/3 7 inch Ep – Old Shit From My…
-
To Coin A phrase: “Flappy Birded”
Phrase: Flappy Birded (Verb) Definition: Used when a the internet-at-large destroys an honest and earnest individual because said person had the…
-
Compile Me Baby! Dedicated to the 2005-2010 Indie Flash Game Underground!
Compile Me Baby! Dedicated to the 2005-2010 Indie Flash Game Underground! To all those that were through through the Mochi and…
-
Big Drill Car / Chemical People Yellow Vinyl Cheap Trick / Kiss Cover 45 RPM (all the crap in my attic)
By Jeff Fulton Big Drill Car / Chemical People Yellow Vinyl Cheap Trick / Kiss Cover 45 RPM (all the crap…
-
Torrents are killing the technical book industry.
Torrents are killing the technical book industry and making it really difficult for me to provide a decent holiday season for…
-
Monday Monday Monday (Cyber that is). – Save 50% on ALL O’Reilly Ebooks & Videos
By Jeff Fulton Monday Monday Monday (Cyber that is). – Save 50% on ALL O’Reilly Ebooks & Videos Today only, all…
-
Outpost 2 is quite simply the best free web game ever created!
By Jeff Fulton (8bitjeff) A couple old buddies of mine from the UK and Germany have created what I consider to…
-
Atari 8-bit Computer Demon Attack (1982) – Full Boxed Edition (all the old crap in my attic)
By Jeff Fulton Today we are going to take a look at one of a small handful of Atari 8-bit computer…
-
Minor Threat Salad Days 45 single with poster sleeve (all the stuff in my attic)
Minor Threat “Salad Days” 45 RPM single with poster sleeve (all the stuff in my attic) This is a three song…
-
Resetting what appears to be a dead Garmin Forerunner 210
Resetting what appears to be a dead Garmin Forerunner 210 (works for 110 also) The Garmin Forerunner 210 is a great…
-
The Dead Milkmen – Big Lizard in My Backyard Cassette (old crap from my attic)
The Dead Milkmen – Big Lizard in My Backyard Cassette (old crap from my attic) By Jeff Fulton In 1988 –…
-
1978 Close Encounters Trading Cards Sealed Wax Pack (old stuff from my attic)
By Jeff D. Fulton The old stuff from my attic is a new blog here on 8bitrocket.com where I rummage through…
-
RETRO: The Multi-Format, Throw-Back Video Game Magazine : Kickstarter
[iframe frameborder=”0″ height=”380″ scrolling=”no” src=”http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/socalmike/retro-the-multi-format-throw-back-video-game-magaz/widget/card.html” width=”220″][/iframe] We here at 8bitrocket.com are huge fans of the UK based Retro-Gamer Magazine. It…
-
Atari 8-bit Computer Games Played with The Syzygy Company’s new Classic 2 USB Stick
I received a review version the the new Syzygy Company’s Classic Atari 2600 stick a couple months ago. It was right as…
-
Gone Home : Is The Fullbright Company The New Infocom?
I just finished ”Gone Home”, a new, indie, PC game developed by the Fullbright Company. At $19.99 (through Steam) it’s the…
-
HTML5 Canvas (2nd Edition) Is Out, Goes Chinese!
Our new edition of HTML5 Canvas is out, and it’s getting some good reviews. We poured a lot of effort into…
-
My “Lost Age Of The The Pizza Parlour” Gets An Honorable Mention in 43rd Annual Easy Reader Essay Contest
A re-written version of my old 8bitrocket.com Eassy “The Lost Age Of The Pizza Parlour” was chosen as one of several…
-
Video: Chris Crawford On the “Good Old Days Of Games” From GDC 2011.
We are finally back with something interesting. Here is a link to a video Gamasutra just posted of a talk by…
-
Happy Mother’s Day
I entered (and won) a local writing contest for Mother’s Day with the following story about my mom. When she…
-
Coding By Google – AS3 to PHP with Simple MYSQL DB Query and Data Return Tutorial (Free Code)
By Jeff Fulton (@8bitrocket on twitter) Coding By Google – AS3 to PHP with Simple MYSQL DB Query and Data Return…
-
HTML5 Canvas Book Example Files
HTML5 Canvas Book Example Files Just in case these are not just available yet on the O’Reilly Site http://www.8bitrocket.com/html5canvas/2nd_edition_examples_2_4_8_9_10.zip http://www.8bitrocket.com/html5canvas/2nd_edition_examples_1_3_5_6_7_11.zip
-
Random Game Idea : A Twitter Feed To Spark Your Imagination
Over the weekend we were playing with Twitter Bots (why? Because.) and we created a Twitter account named @randomgameidea with a…
-
ATASCII Tile Sheets
ATASCII Tile Sheets So, I have been knocking around the idea of making some games that mimic the old Atari computer aesthetic in…
-
In Celebration of Day Against DRM (Fri, May 3, 2013) 5000+ titles 1/2 off including HTML5 Canvas 2nd Edition
In Celebration of *Day *Against DRM Save 50% on 5000+ Ebooks & Videos (Save…
-
The HTML5 Canvas Second Edition Has Been Released (Deal of the Day, 50% off)
The Second Edition (so the 3rd book) I have written with my brother Steve, The HTML5 Canvas was released today…
-
The Run Cycle – Boston Thoughts
I was thinking about this while driving in this morning (I just saw that Colbert said something similar last night, but…
-
Micro Tank Maze (From HTML5 Canvas 2nd Edition)
A game designed to teach basic A.I. from HTML5 Canvas 2nd EditionClick image below to try the game.
-
Comprehensive List of Lucas Arts Titles Released for Classic Atari Machines
By Jeff Fulton (@8bitrocket on twitter) To the majority of the public, Atari died in 1983 and is relegated to hipster…
-
Corona: Updating Mobile Game Content in Runtime
The Corona Labs Site has put up a tutorial I wrote on the basics of updating mobile content at run-time: Updating…
-
HTML5 Canvas + Web Cam + Chrome = HTML5 Video Puzzle Of You! (Demo)
We are finishing up an update to our HTML5 Canvas book, and I wanted to share one of new examples. …
-
Enthusiasts Plan Kickstarter Campaign To Buy Atari Assets And Run It Like It’s 1977 All Over Again
The current company that holds the Atari brand and assets is filing for bankruptcy and planning to sell everything to the…
-
Vectrex Regeneration + iCade: Proof That “Retro” Gaming Is Alive And Well In The Mobile Era
I believe technology has reached the point where “retro” game collections can move beyond mere curious nostalgia, and truly return players…
-
Book Review: Atari Inc. : Business Is Fun
My review of the new book, Atari Inc. Business Is Fun, by Curt Vendel and Marty Goldberg is up over…
