Clint Basinger has covered retro technology and PC gaming since 2009 on his YouTube channel LGR. Basinger recently published a video covering the first Computer Chronicles holiday buyer’s guide episode from December 1985, where he was kind enough to reference my blog on that same program. Specifically, Basinger was intrigued by the discussion of Lotus Signal, which I only covered more in-depth in a separate blog post as well as an episode of the podcast.
Friend of the Blog 4 — Karl Kuras and the Video Game Newsroom Time Machine
October 1983 marked the 40th anniversary of the debut of Computer Chronicles as a nationally televised program on PBS stations in the United States. To celebrate, I spoke for more than three hours with Karl Kuras, creator and principal host of the Video Game Newsoom Time Machine, where we discussed the origins of Chronicles and the show’s early history. Since 2018, Kuras’ podcast has gone month-by-month through the key news headlines in the arcade, home video game, and computer game industries from 30 and 40 years ago (and often beyond.) He also publishes interviews with industry figures and other individuals, such as myself, who conduct research into the history of technology.
Friend of the Blog 3 — Kate Willaert on Mario's Popeye Origins
Kate Willaert is a video game historian and essayist. She recently released part one in a series of video essays on the origins of Nintendo’s famed mascot Mario. This first video looks at how Mario’s video game debut in the 1981 arcade hit Donkey Kong started out as licensed game based on the syndicated comic strip character “Popeye.”
Friend of the Blog 2 — Atari Archive by Kevin Bunch
Kevin Bunch is perhaps the world’s foremost historian of the Atari VCS–also known as the Atari 2600–and other 1970s home video game consoles. Since 2017, Bunch has produced Atari Archive, a series of videos available on YouTube that document the history of every VCS game in release order. More recently, Bunch authored the first in a series of books based on his video series, Atari Archive Vol. 1: 1977-1978 (Press Run, $34.99), which chronicles the first 20 games released for the system and provides additional information on Atari’s competitors during this time period, including Fairchild Semiconductor, Magnavox, and RCA.
Friend of the Blog 1 — Ethan Johnson on the Early History of Video Games
Ethan Johnson, a Chicago-based computer and video game historian, recently released the sixth episode in his Play History series, which chronicles the origins of video gaming all the way back to the 1940s. In this most recent episode, Johnson looks at the development of the first dedicated computer monitors in the 1970s and the pioneering work done at two organizations, Xerox PARC and the Stanford Research Institute, which should be familiar to any viewer of early Computer Chronicles episodes.