Matt Chat–The YouTube Channel You Should be Watching if You Played Video Games in the 80s or 90s

Nerd service announcement:

If you played video games in the 80s and/or 90s and have never heard of, or watched Matt Chat, you you are in for a treat. One of my friends aptly described it as, “Behind the Music for vintage video games.”

Matt Barton (College Professor and Author) debuted Matt Chat in February 2009 with a low-production-quality, but loving, retrospective of SSI’s classic AD&D CRPG, “Pool of Radiance.” Since then, Matt has produced an additional 100 episodes, and has made leaps-and-bounds in production value. In addition to his editorial retrospectives, Matt began doing interviews with game developers around episode 40.

To whet your appetite, here is a listing of the first 101 episodes of Matt Chat :

1: Pool of Radiance
2: Myst
3: Defender of the Crown
4: M.U.L.E.
5: Elite
7: The Sims
8: The Secret of Monkey Island
9: The Oregon Trail
10: Lemmings
11: Civilization
12: Metroid
13: Adventure
14: The Lost Vikings
15: The PLATO Computer System
16: Lode Runner
17: Ultima VII, The Black Gate
18: Summer Games
19: Gauntlet
20: Worms and Artillery Games
21: Super Mario Kart
22: Deja Vu, Uninvited, Shadowgate, and MacVentures
23: Planescape Torment
24: Star Control II and the Spacewar Legacy
25: Knights of the Old Republic
26: David Crane's Ghostbusters
27: Autoduel
28: Maniac Mansion
29: Wizardry
30: Fallout
31: A Rockstar Ate My Hamster
32: Tomb Raider
33: Jade Empire
34: System Shock 2
35: Alone in the Dark
36: Starcraft
37: Syndicate
38: Legacy of the Ancients
39: World of Warcraft Part One
39: World of Warcraft Part Two
40: Sword of Fargoal with Jeff McCord
41: The History of Cinemaware with Bob Jacob
42: Dragon Age Origins
43: Archon
44: Ralph Baer, the Father of Videogames
45: Rogue
46: Choose Your Own Adventure with R.A. Montgomery
47: Quest for Glory
48: Dungeons of Daggorath
49: Nancy Drew featuring Jessica Chiang
50 Part 1: Leisure Suit Larry featuring Al Lowe
50 Part 2: Leisure Suit Larry featuring Al Lowe
51: Interview with John Romero (Early Days)
52: Wolfenstein 3D with John Romero
53: Doom with John Romero
54: Quake with John Romero
55: Daikatana with John Romero
56: Ocarina of Time
57: Tunnels of Doom
58: Heroes of Might and Magic
59: The Settlers
60: X-COM, UFO Defense
61: Sid Meier's Pirates
62: Chris Avellone's Early Days
63: Planescape Torment with Chris Avellone
64: Sean Cooper's Early Days
65: Syndicate with Sean Cooper
66: Fallout with Tim Cain, Pt. 1
67: Fallout with Tim Cain Pt. 2
68: Arcanum and More with Tim Cain
69: Howard Scott Warshaw's Early Days
70: ET and Yar's Revenge with Howard Scott Warshaw
71: The Bard's Tale
72: Deus Ex
73: The Dig
74: Dune II
75: Interview with Megan Gaiser and Rob Riedl of Her Interactive
76: King's Quest
77: Darklands
78: Arnold Hendrick Interview Pt. 1
78: Interview with Arnold Hendrick Pt. 2
78: Interview with Arnold Hendrick Pt. 3
79: Scott Adams' Early Days
80: Adventureland with Scott Adams
81: Questprobe and More with Scott Adams
82: Interview with Rebecca "Burger" Heineman Pt. 1
83: Rebecca Heineman Pt. 2
84: Rebecca Heineman Pt. 3
85: Rebecca Heineman Pt. 4
86: Bard's Tale IV and Wasteland II with Rebecca Heineman
87: Twilight Scene it with Don Kurtz (censored)
88: The Donimator Gets His
89: Bard's Tale and Wizardry with Brian Fargo
90: Wasteland and Fallout with Brian Fargo
91: The Fall of Interplay with Brian Fargo
92: Mail Order Monsters
93: Scratches and Asylum with Agustín Cordes
94: Interview with Agustín Cordes Pt. 2
95: Skylanders and more with Paul Reiche and Fred Ford
96: Star Control and More with Paul Reiche and Fred Ford
97: The Horde and More with Fred Ford and Paul Reiche
98: Scott Miller Interview Pt. 1
99: Duke Nukem with Scott Miller
100: Scott Miller will Live Forever
101: Baldur's Gate

The Mythology of Commodore Told in about 15 Minutes by Jim Butterfield

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I was cleaning up the data drive on my computer tonight and I came across this gem, which is also hosted on blip.tv:

Click To Play

Many of us owe our career to Butterfield, and the father of the 65XX - Chuck Peddle.
If you are interested in the history of Commodore, please check out Brian Bagnall’s: Commodore: A Company on the Edge.

 

Vectrex

I finally got my hands on a Vectrex via ebay complete with 12 games, manuals, and overlays. My neighbor had one of these when I was a kid, and I've seriously been lusting after it ever since. I spent many hours playing Scramble and Star Trek on one of these in my youth.

The Vectrex has to be one of the most unique early 80s game systems. It's a vector graphics based console that came with its own CRT monitor. It had one built-in game (Minestorm) and a cartridge slot for purchased games. The screen displayed black and white vector graphics but used transparent overlays that were placed on the screen to add color and other graphical elements. In my opinion, it remains the best way to recreate vector graphics arcade games at home. Emulation is great, but nothing can beat seeing these graphics on a CRT.

Here is the system I acquired:





My camera's autofocus had a hell of a time dealing with the CRT's refresh rate. It tended to snap some trippy pictures. Here is the cleanest picture I could snap of Minestorm in action:





Here is one of the trippier interpretations my camera made of Minestorm:




If you are a fan of vector graphics, but are unfamiliar with the vectrex, you owe yourself a peek at the following video from Classic Game Room:




Here is a great retrospective video of several classic Vectrex games. This video is done via an emulator and I'll think you'll see that quite a bit of sparkle is missing. It's still cool nonetheless.





Finally, just to prove that the Vectrex was the shizzle back in the day:

Autoduel

For those who aren't familiar with this game, Autoduel is a classic computer strategy/RPG conversion of the Car Wars table top game. I've been hunting for an affordable good condition copy of Autoduel for quite some time now. One with a decent BIN price showed up on ebay late last week. I couldn't resist. I used to have this as a kid and I wanted to get a physical copy back into my collection. The awesome box art and cool map that comes with the game make this worth having.

Coincidentally, this week's episode of Matt Chat is on none other than Autoduel!

Hello C64 From Ebay. Will You Be My PAL?

I finally managed to get my hands on a PAL C64. It came with a light gun, tension adjustable joystick, Datasette, and several games on tape. I have a NTSC/PAL S-Video to VGA converter box, but unfortunately the results were pretty horrible. I'm going to have to get myself a PAL capable monitor ASAP.

Breadbox64 - The Commodore 64 Twitter Client

As unbelievable as it may sound, there is now a Twitter client for the C64. It is called Breadbox64 and it was written by Johan Van den Brande. It is built on top of the Contiki network stack and requires a RR-Net compatible Ethernet card.

I have sent my first tweet from my C64 and it was good.

If you don't believe me, see for yourself. Here is a video from the author of the software:

Did You Know That New Games Are Still Being Released For The Commodore 64?

It may surprise you to read this, but the venerable Commodore 64 is still getting new commercial game releases in this day and age. Although 99.99999% of the software industry left the C64 behind in the early 90s, there are a few independent developers and publishers here and there that still put out releases. One such label is Psytronik Software. Psytronic specializes in creative conversions and re-releases of classic 8 bit hits, and the development of new titles. Their most recent project, "Knight'n'Grail" has been getting a lot of positive buzz in the C64 community, and all indications point to the possibility of an instant classic. Check out this pre-release video:



More information about Knight'n'Grail can be found here:
http://psytronik.blogspot.com/2009/04/quest-for-holy-grail.html
http://www.binaryzone.org/retrostore/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=473

I've Got Pac-Man Fever

If you grew up in the Atari age you'll undoubtedly remember the top-ten hit Pac-Man Fever. Pac-Man Fever was a single (1981) and album (1982) by recording artists Buckner & Garcia.



My fiancee happened to have a copy of the 1982 album which I've become rather reattached to since I recently got a Technics SL-1200MK2 Turntable. If you like Weird Al, you may find this album to be liquid crack. Unfortunately her copy has all signs of being owned by a child back in the day, so I set out on a hunt to get an archivable copy. Of course, the first thing I did was look to see if it made it to CD. I found it had been released on CD as a rerecording. Sadly the rerecording just doesn't do it for those nostalgic memories as the voices have aged and the original sound effects were not able to be re-licensed. Luckily I was able to import a "sealed" copy via gemm.com. It arrived from a record shop in Italy still in its wrap, but the seal was not 100% unbroken. Therefore, it had some mold/mildew on it that creeped in over the years, but otherwise it was untouched. I've managed to clean it up and I hope to digitally archive it ASAP.

Track listing

1. "Pac-Man Fever" (Pac-Man)
2. "Froggy's Lament" (Frogger)
3. "Ode to a Centipede" (Centipede)
4. "Do the Donkey Kong" (Donkey Kong)
5. "Hyperspace" (Asteroids)
6. "The Defender" (Defender)
7. "Mouse Trap" (Mouse Trap)
8. "Goin' Berzerk" (Berzerk)

Yes, I'm a Cultist.

According to Infoworld.com, I'm a member of one of the biggest tech cults of all time:
http://www.infoworld.com/d/adventures-in-it/true-believers-biggest-cults-in-tech-433?page=0,4

New Goodies

A few new goodies have shown up over the past few weeks.

First up is a copy of Elementary Commodore 64. This book is very unique because the book is littered with some very trippy 80s artwork interpretations of computer language concepts. I may devote a future post to the artwork in this book since I didn't have time to take many photos today.








My 1541ultimate with Ethernet arrived last week. This is an amazing cartridge which offers full 1541 emulation while reading/writing to a SD card. It even has an audio out which sends audio that mimics the sound of a 1541. It also has a flashable cartridge ROM and many other very cool features. The current feature set can be found here. Apparently SuperCPU emulation is coming soon too, which is something I am very excited about.




Other notable recent items include a pleather dust cover for my main 1541 and JiffyDOS sets for 2 of my C64s, 1 1541, and 1 1541 II.

The Kindness of Strangers Near and Far

Last night I received a private message from a fellow lemoner who lives in the Toronto area that the Peggy Kelly Media Arts Studios had a Commodore 64, Commodore 1702 monitor, Commodore 1541 floppy drive, and a Star SL-10C printer that they were trying to find a home for. The manager of this arts center had posted to a mailing list that my internet acquaintance reads. Thankfully he remembered that I live in Saint Paul, MN.

I left a message with the arts center last night to let them know that I was interested. I received a call this morning that I could come and pick it up. Since I had the day off, I decided to make the drive across the metro area to save these retro goodies from ending up in a landfill. While I was there, I was shown around the the studio. The studio has a training area for electronic media production, a photography studio, a media conversion room (photos/VHS/Film to DVD, PAL to NTSC conversion, etc...), and a sound booth/audio recording facility. The art center that houses this studio also has an art gallery, coffee shop, and a shop with jewelry and other crafted items. The center is located in Edina and I recommend any readers in the area to check it out.

My thanks go out to both Golan and Phil for their kindness.

... and of course, the obligatory photos:








As you can see, both the printer and the drive appear to have never been used. The monitor is lightly used and in good condition. The tube appears to be in better shape than the 1702 that I've been using over the past year. The C64 is in good cosmetic condition, but unfortunately it boots to a blank screen. This is a very common issue with C64s that can be caused by several different failures that are usually easy to fix. I have a stack of dead C64s that I can use for parts, so I am pretty sure I can bring this one back to life with a chip swap or two.

The History of the Commodore 64 VH1/I Love the 80s Style

I stumbled across the following rather entertaining video via the following blog post: http://www.bebizzy.com/blog/?p=233

Asheron's Call 100th Update Goes Live August 26th

As reported in June, August brings the 100th content update to the venerable MMO, Asheron's Call. The game servers will go down on August 26th at 7am Eastern time for the update. When they come back up at 2pm, users will be greeted with a slew of new content and functionality which is outlined in the update's release notes. In a recent video interview, AC Community Manager Andy Cataldo revealed that this update will be about the size of a retail expansion pack.

Highlights include:

Three lore-related player/creature factions (Good/Neutral/Evil)

PvP/Faction land control over two new PK Towns

New Loot Tier

Level 8 Spells

A new landmass called Freebooter Isle, a new area called the Moarsman City, and the expansion of the already existing Graveyard area.


More information can be found at: http://ac.turbine.com

Infocom Aquisitions Round 4

I'm getting fairly close to having a complete collection of Infocom titles excluding the later years after the brand was purchased. I hope to have a more comprehensive post about this soon, but in the meantime here is what arrived since my last post on the subject:












Round Three
Round Two
Round One

Infocom Aquisitions Round 3

It turns out that I am still collecting Infocom titles. Here are the recent arrivals.





I managed to get my hands on another "big box" package like I did for Sorcerer.






Unfortunately, like my copy of Stationfall, Planetfall turned out to be a bit of a dud as the box is in poor shape and it is missing some feelies.




I'm pretty excited about this one because I never played it back in the day and I am a Sherlock Holmes fan. Also, as an added bonus, it is sealed.

Random Acquisitions

I've collected a few notable items over the past couple weeks, all of which are a lot of fun.

I'm still working on building up a comprehensive C64 book library. Here is my latest addition:




The second Commodore 64 related item this week is a game that is near and dear to my geek heart. This is the first game I ever played that attempted to translate the pen and paper experience to the computer screen.






The third Commodore 64 related item that arrived is a HardSID4U device. This is a little usb device that houses four Commodore 64 sound chips which are known as the Sound Interface Device. This unit can be used to give you authentic sound when using an emulator, however it's primary design is to be a synth device that can be controlled by modern recording software and can be used in music production.






Finally, here is something to help me ramp up for Fallout 3.

Infocom Acquisitions Round 2

Here's what I've accumulated via ebay and Amazon on the Infocom front since round 1.




























I am especially fond of this last one. I purchased it used on Amazon and had no idea it wasn't going to be the standard grey box edition. Heck, I didn't even know there was a folio version.

Infocom Acquisitions Round 1

New In box 1541 II and Other Goodies Arrive

What better to match my NIB C64C than a matching drive?