Tag Archives: games

70 bits of gaming goodness

mignonette - 04

The Mignonette is a minimalist handheld gaming platform that we helped to design in a collaboration with Rolf van Widenfelt and Mitch Altman.

The Mignonette is based on an AVR microcontroller (either the ATmega88 or ATmega168) hooked up to drive a 5×7 bicolor red/green LED matrix display, for a grand total of 70 bits of gaming goodness under your total control.

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Resurrecting Tennis for Two, a video game from 1958

Time exposure

In the year 1958– fourteen years before the 1972 debut of Pong— a physicist named William Higinbotham demonstrated a remarkable video game called Tennis for Two.

Higinbotham, head of the Instrumentation Division at Brookhaven National Laboratory, designed his game as an exhibit to improve what was an otherwise lackluster visitors’ day at the lab. Tennis for Two presented a tennis court– shown from the side– on an oscilloscope screen, where handheld controllers allowed the two players to toss the ball to each other. Each controller had two controls: a button and a knob. With the button, you could hit the ball at any time of your choosing when it was on your side of the net, and with the knob you could choose the angle at which the ball was hit.

The game was based on the best contemporary technology: analog electronic computers built out of op-amps, relays, and the occasional transistor. It took Higinbotham and his technicians several weeks to design and build the game. Of course, some things have changed over the last 50 years. Using convenient modern electronics, we have designed a functional and playable replica of the original that can be put together by a hobbyist in a couple of evenings. You can watch the video of our recreation on YouTube or embedded here:

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Galaga Quilt by Carolina Patchworks

This Galaga quilt from Carolina Patchworks would make the perfect present for the retro arcade game fan. According to the etsy listing, it “is fully compatible with the XBox 360, Wii, PlayStation III, all high-definition televisions, most models of fireplace, and a wide variety of good books.”

However, only one lucky geek in the world is going to get this seriously underpriced masterwork as their Christmas present this year, so make sure your trigger-finger skills are in tip-top shape before you head on over to etsy.

Thanks, Sean!

Related: QuiltBert