For those unfamiliar, MAD Magazine The Board Game, or simply put, MAD was a once in a lifetime 1979 release (there were no reprints) that was quite similar to Monopoly except that instead of buying properties and winning the bank money, MAD’s objective was to lose money!

Such a classic board game cover with Alfred E. Neuman and various art from all MAD contributors including Don Martin!

In the similar Monopoly fashion players would have to tour the board game tiles performing actions that allowed them to gain or lose case. Instead of a Jail tile, MAD had “Tough Luck” where if a player landed there, he or she would have to collect a stockpile of money that players would deposit throughout the play time.

The game was made even more interesting because players could switch seating arrangement (and thus switch money), perform party stunts to lose money, and, if anyone was caught rolling the dice with the right hand, everyone had to give that person $500 in play money.

Perhaps the most hilarious item in the game was the green One Million Three Hundred Twenty Nine Thousand and Sixty Three Dollar Bill. It wasn’t used in-game but, as the sly kid I was in grade school, I’d always tell my friends that the goal of the game would be to gain the most money, just like in Monopoly and my friends would gladly take the green bill. Of course, the joke would be over after I tell them the real objective of the game.

This retro classic is, as I said no longer in print and you’ll probably be able to find a copy at a garage sale where there were kids born in the 80′s.

MAD Magazine: The Board Game isn’t going to win any awards in the gaming scene, but it sure had a special place in my childhood as a huge nostalgia trip. It was perfect for its time.

I don’t think they will sell a huge amount of it, but there certainly is a niche group of hardcore Commodore fans. The fact that the case is the same as almost 30 years ago and it comes with Ubunto, makes it the perfect product for die hard unix coders or a Commodore aficionado.

Being only two years old when Commodore 64 was first released I never saw one, let alone use one. I would love to try one out today, even though it’s now with current technology.

The new Commodore 64 is a modern functional PC as close to the original in design as humanly possible. It houses a modern mini-ITX PC motherboard featuring a Dual Core 525 Atom processor and the latest Nvidia Ion2 graphics chipset. It comes in the original taupe brown/beige color, with other colors to follow.

If you have an old good working CRT monitor lying around you are set with the retro computer setup that meets today standards. Well with the exception of the CRT monitor which doesn’t hold up a candle to today’s LCD and TFT screens.

Anyone reading this who is a huge fan of Commodore and would consider buying one?

See the Commodore 64x Selection prices.

It has become a pass time of mine, when I’m on public transportation to count how many old skool mobile phones I can spot. I remember three years ago it was cool to spot the first iPhone and now you see more iPhones then you can count. If you don’t like to be like everyone else and like to stand out, you can now buy a brand new old skool mobile phone.

Lëkki™ a French brand sells the Nokia 3210 and the Motorola StarTAC. It’s totally back to the 90′s with these two phones. Plain old mobile phone with black and gray screen, no camera, no internet only calls and SMS messages. You can choose amongst different colors, like green, yellow, and black.

Starting at 95 euros you can own a brand new Nokia 3210 that is sure to raise eyes in a iPhone and BlackBerry dominated world. It is also an ideal gift for people who shun all the latest technology.

The StarTAC I remember well, it was the first mobile phone we owned back in 1998. I used to take it with me when going out at night. I still remember how thin the pull out antenna is.

The original starTAC costs 150 euro while a brandless one costs 130 euros. What a difference compared to what they where worth back in the 90′s.

Probably EMS.

The latest exciting DIY project from the labs is edible Asteroids.

I’m sure it’s happened to you: been getting all nostalgic with some old video games, totally lost track of the time, and then realised you’re famished.

The solution? Keep on topic with these Asteroids cookies.

Lovingly hand-crafted, naturally.

The penultimate comment: “Serve carefully arranged, on a dark background.”

Take a photo, though, because they ain’t gonna last for long.

Via

Playing Flash versions in a browser window is old hat, so how about using the browser windows themselves as the ball and bats?

That’s what the developers at stewdio.org have done.

Browser Pong has been written to take advantage of the latest HTML 5 specification, which is why it doesn’t work in standards-mashers like Internet Explorer.

Graphically advanced it’s not, though if you fancy cheating it’s pretty easy — just expand one of the “bat” browser windows fully vertically. Easy.

Browser Pong (Via)

Chances are it was the early- to mid-90s.

The best thing about the cassette tape for a long time was the fact that it was so easy to record your own audio onto it. In fact, we still talk about the “mix tape” even though now you can burn it to a CD or DVD or simply store it digitally in iTunes or stream it from Spotify.

Looking back, though, that was about all that was good about the tape (if you’re feeling nostalgic, take a look at some Walkman photos back in the day when they played tapes).

The quality was inferior to vinyl, right from the start, and it deteriorated the more you played them. Try to play a duff tape in a dodgy player and it soon turned into brown ferric spaghetti.

Some manufacturers must think that there’s still some demand for the cassette. Take Pioneer, still making its CT-W606DR double auto-reverse cassette deck available.

Yeah. Double. High-speed dubbing FTW!

Perhaps there are people who still have cassettes lying around. My advice would be to get them transferred to digital storage as soon as possible. Maybe Pioneer’s solution is the way to do it, but at $229 it’s not a cheap way of doing it.

Other features include a ton of Dolby noise reduction, a music search (ahhh, the whirring of cassette tape being fast forwarded or rewound).

The nineties flavour continues:

“includes CD-Deck Synchro for easy recording from a CD player”

Yes, recording from a CD player.

Tape lives!

Product page (Via)

Although I am big fan of the simplicity of Field Notes, and actually a plain boring notebook use, I love the concept of this retro floppy disc notebook.

Maybe not as simple or practical to put in your pocket as Field Notes, this one’s got the looks. More than just the front, the back of the notebook looks totally ace (pictured below).

Biggest minus point about this 6cm by 6cm notebook is that it only 60 pages has and a whopping €8.50 costs. Still, the look of it is ace!

Great idea, quite a few submissions (check out the Vimeo channel). Here are my favorites:

Pac Man romantic meal spoiled

Retro love

Over 9,000 points!

Old Pac-Man

One solution (after you’ve turned your video player into a toaster) is to create a table lamp or two.

Made from seven VHS tapes, it has to be used with CFL bulbs so that it doesn’t overheat.

I suppose if you get bored and still have a player, you could prise these lamps apart and try playing one of the tapes.

Etsy (via)

If these were still available they would be on the shelves among the Pockies, Wispas and Pot Noodles in the indie coffeeshop I _also_ manage.

Via Jason Liebig who does an awesome job archiving pictures 80s packages on his Flickr.