Before the mouse, there was the trackball. Built for DATAR in 1952, DATAR turned out to be a complete failure. The next user interface device that used a ball was the mouse at Xeroc Parc in 1972. Trackballs are a dying breed of interface devices. But sometimes a trackball just seems more natural choice for certain applications - not so obvious for others. Would you sit on one?
posted by bigmusic on Jun 17, 2009 - 65 comments

Retro arcade photoset. God bless the gentleman who saved these photos from a 1980's arcade. You will cherish the garish and mock the hair, but this one hits the sweet spot of nostalgia for me.
posted by jeremias on Jul 15, 2005 - 28 comments

Pongmechanik is a fascinating physical incarnation of the classic video game.
posted by riffola on Sep 21, 2004 - 6 comments

Supersonic RC a shockwave game from LEGO.
posted by riffola on Sep 15, 2004 - 10 comments

Sometimes beautiful games just get screwed in the sequels... But thanks to obsessive fans, it doesn't have to be that way anymore!
D1X and D2X are OpenGL/SDL updates of (in my opinion) the best first-person-shooters of all time.
Xenocide, still in progress, and UFO2000 are overhauls of the classic X-COM, UFO Defense.
And finally, Anacreon Reconstructed is a graphical update of Anacreon: Reconstruction, an amazing old ASCII game about inter-galactic empire building.
Know any other good Indie overhauls of classic games?
posted by kaibutsu on Aug 28, 2004 - 19 comments