Game Boy Oddities

When Nintendo released the original Game Boy twenty years ago next week, wheels of capitalism and creativity immediately started turning in noggins across the globe.  From artists mesmerized with the gaming gadget’s iconic status to inventors who saw it as a way to make the world a better place to folks who just wanted to cash in, the Game Boy has inspired weird accessories, variations, and tributes.  After seeing the items I rounded up for this extravaganza, you’ll probably agree that the public’s infatuation with this classic handheld has grown far beyond Nintendo’s wildest dreams.

Smallball! Handheld Sports Games of the 1970s and 1980s

When it comes to sports simulations, there’s an inverse relationship between realism and charm. The handheld sports games that toy companies cranked out in the early days used a single LED to represent each player, not thousands of polygons, but they had more personality than today’s console titles–and they were plenty addictive, too. This slideshow skews towards baseball (hey, it’s only a week until opening day) and football (unquestionably the most popular handheld-sports sport), and focuses mostly on games from Mattel and Coleco (the major leagues of handheld sports). It celebrates them through patent drawings, packaging photos, and original commercials. If you’d like more–a lot more–of this stuff, check out Rik Morgan’s wonderful www.handheldmuseum.com, where some of the images in this show originated.

Ten of Microsoft’s Ten Thousand Patents

Microsoft is making hay today over the news that it’s received its ten thousandth patent (which you can see here). I’m kind of addicted to rummaging through Google Patents and finding old filings with drawings that are fun for one reason or another–either because they’re of things we’re all familiar with, or because they depict stuff that never went anywhere. Microsoft is, of course, a software company first and foremost–and most software patent drawings are mundane diagrams, even when they depict something new and significant. So the ten images that follow skew towards Microsoft’s sideline business of hardware. I like ‘em anyway–and I didn’t repeat any pictures from our gallery of patents relating to anthropomorphic “assistants.” You can view the original patents by clicking the filing dates.

Atari’s 1984 Touch Tablet: A Retro-Unboxing

The next time you use your shiny new Wacom tablet and Adobe Photoshop CS4, think back to a time before time–a time before blends, morphs, heal brushes, and 10-megapixel images.  A time like 1984, which, for computer graphics, was darker than the Dark Ages. It was a time when you could buy an $89.95 Atari CX77 Touch Tablet for your Atari 8-bit home computer.  Luckily, I bought mine for considerably less last year, although it was still in new, unopened condition.  Safely sequestered in the official Vintage Computing and Gaming computer lab, I recently began the task of unpacking the antique peripheral and documenting the process.  Here’s an account of the experience.

Tweetstars: A Guide to Celebrities on Twitter

It’s rude to buttonhole a famous person in public and demand chit-chat from him or her. It’s also arguably gauche to friend one on Facebook unless he or she is, in fact, your friend. But famous people on Twitter? They’re there to be followed, and if you send an @reply their way, they just might respond. Here’s a decidedly incomplete look at noted personages from outside the tech world who tweet; feel free to follow any or all of ‘em–some have tens of thousands of Twitterpals already, but a few could probably use the companionship. (Hey, I know I could: I’m @harrymccracken.)

Disclaimer: I think these are all the real accounts of the folks in common, but I’ve never laid eyes on any of them at the keyboard…

The Secret Origins of Clippy: Microsoft’s Bizarre Animated Character Patents

Of all the peculiar ideas that Microsoft has pursued over its almost 34 years in business, I can’t think of many that are more inexplicable than its long-standing interest in using animated characters to provide help to users of its software products–an aberration best known in the form of Clippy, the “Office Assistant” paperclip who was introduced in Office 97 and only departed the scene completely when the company released Office 2008 for the Mac a year ago. It’s hard to take Clippy, Microsoft Bob, and Windows XP’s Search Assistant doggie seriously. But a dozen years’ worth of patents relating to the basic idea shows that Microsoft takes it very seriously indeed–and I’m convinced that someone, somewhere within the company is still working away at it. Herewith, some images from those patents (click on the filing dates to see the filings in their entirety at Google Patents).

Patentmania: The Golden Age of Electronic Games

The first three decades of digital gaming saw a flurry of concepts, technologies, and products that were groundbreaking in their era and still matter today. And the drawings their inventors used to document them in patent filings are a nostalgic, charming blast. Here are thirty-two of those sketches–including ones for some the most successful games ever and a few which I’m not sure ever made it to market at all.

As with my earlier patent galleries, I couldn’t have done this one without the wondrous research tool known as Google Patents. The filing dates that follow link to the full patent documents there.

Whaddaya Want? The Technologizer Wish List

Earlier this month, we asked for nominations for a Technologizer community wish list for 2008. We got scads of them–and this slideshow consists of some of the highlights, with comments by readers who submitted each item. There’s a lot of stuff here, from brand-new gizmos to products which have been obsolete–in theory–for years. Thanks to everyone who contributed–and congratulations to Josh Rose, who won our OLPC XO laptop giveaway.

The Santaland Patents

Once you start digging through Google Patents, as I did for our recent slideshow of thirty-one years of Apple patents, it can be hard to stop. And if you’re doing your digging in December, you might find yourself choosing to luxuriate in the wealth of Christmas-themed patents that have been issued over the past 125 years or so. I just did, anyhow. Jolly Old St. Nick pops up again and again in the patent files, and while I don’t know if any inventor has ever found his fortune with a Claus-related innovation, I found them interesting enough that I wanted to share some of the ones I found with you. (The title of this slideshow is, of course, a David Sedaris tribute.) May your days be merry and bright…

iFrauds: The Fakest iPods Ever!

Last week, I went to a “liquidation sale” in San Francisco. Along with the alarming 64-ounce bottles of perfume, leather jackets made from the skins of unspecified animals, and Shamwows, the show’s dealers offered music players. Ones that shamelessly rip off the iPod. Scads of them. I took crummy pictures with my iPhone–and, I’m ashamed to admit, bought an iFraud of my own.

The 12 Biggest Tech Stories of 2008

Techwise, I’m still not sure whether I’m grateful 2008 is almost over or sorry to see it shuffle off into the past. I do know that it was a strange, eventful year–and that much of the biggest news involved Apple, Google, Microsoft, and various combinations thereof. Here’s a recap of the year’s biggest stories, as judged by a blue-ribbon panel consisting of…well, me. Feel free to counter my choices in comments if you disagree with ‘em–actually, I’d be grateful if you would.

Technologizer’s First Annual Game Awards

It’s hard to sum up the year in video games with one adjective. In some ways it was admirable, with megapublisher Electronic Arts betting on new franchises instead of just peddling more of the same. “Tumultuous” is also a fair description, as the economic meltdown left a chink in the industry’s “recession-proof” armor. But mostly, it was good, leaving quite a few “almost masterpieces” on our shelves as the holiday season winds down. Which game rose above these exceptional titles? Read on to, and you’ll find out.

Apple Patentmania: 31 Years of Big Ideas

Apple may be famously secretive, but there’s one guy the company has been confiding in for more than three decades now. That would be its Uncle Sam, in the form of the U.S. Patent Office. The company’s patent filings are a remarkable record of Apple’s brainstorms, from its biggest blockbusters to its most humbling flops to concepts that never got off the drawing board. The thirty-eight images that follow include multiple examples of all of the above. Click on the filing dates, and you’ll go to the patents where the drawings originated, mostly at the indispensable and addictive Google Patents.

The Best of Frenemies

Frenemy: Someone who is both friend and enemy, a relationship that is both mutually beneficial or dependent while being competitive, fraught with risk and mistrust.

–Urban Dictionary

That’s not a bad first stab at a definition, but let’s expand on it: A frenemy can be a friend who evolves into an enemy. Or an enemy who morphs into a friend. Or a friend who seems to be an enemy, or an enemy who seems to be a friend. Or someone who teeters precariously between friendship and enemyhood, sometimes over the course of decades. One thing, however, is undeniable about frenemies: The technology world has always been rife with them. Consider these twelve outstanding examples–past, present, and future.

The Mouse That Soared

On December 9th, 1968, Stanford Research Institute scientist Douglas Engelbart demonstrated his unique invention–the computer mouse–for the first time in public. It took another decade and a half for it to catch on, but once it did, computing was never the same. And today, it’s hard to imagine using a desktop or laptop computer without a mouse (or one of its latter-day substitutes such as the touchpad). In celebration of the anniversary, here’s a gallery of some of the mightiest mice of the last four decades.

Microsoft’s Latest Innovation…T-Shirts!

A billion people may use Microsoft products, but until now, just about nobody has worn them. All that changes–maybe–starting December 15th, when the company’s retro-themed Softwear by Microsoft T-shirts hit the market. Including some designs by rapper Common, the line celebrates the much-missed era when floppy disks were actually floppy and 640KB did indeed feel like all the memory anybody would ever need. Here’s a little fashion show of the initial shirts, which come in four sizes: Basic, Home, Business, and Ultimate. (Kidding!)