When I was a kid we had an Atari 2600 in a box in the basement left over from either my Dad or my sisters’ curiosity in video games from a time before I was born. I played it some when I was little and my sister took our (or her) NES to college. There were also a few stores in my hometown where Atari games could be found for dirt cheap, so there’s always been a weird, it’s-better-than-no-video-games kind of nostalgia in my heart when it comes to Atari.

A few years back I found this little booklet at my Mom’s house and stashed it in one of my many junk boxes. I recently dug it out and I knew I had to scan the pages and post them here on the site. With Atari graphics being so horrible, they had to rely on these cool watercolor illustrations to advertise the games, and it’s really fun to look through. So here is, in full, the 1981 Atari Video Computer System™ Catalog.

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If you’re interested in geek art, you have probably seen some of the awesome work from Signalnoise (aka James White). I’ve been following James on Instagram for a long time, and have always been a fan of his art. Checking out his poster designs for Terminator 2 and The Thing will give you a good sense of his style.

Over the last couple days, James has been Instagramming some very cool illustrations of vintage video game consoles, and today he posted them all on his blog. He illustrated the iconic designs of the Atari 2600, NES, Game Boy, NES Zapper, Super Nintendo’s controller, and the Commodore 64. They’re all great and I’d love to have them all as prints in my office.

I hope James continues with these illustrations, especially if it means seeing some Sega hardware. I’m sure his take on the Genesis would be awesome.

Make sure to head over to his site to read more about his process.

Ready Player One is a futuristic novel by Ernest Cline (writer of Fanboys) that presents a dismal future in which most of the population spend all the time inside a vast virtual world called the OASIS. The eccentric inventor of the game was obsessed with 80s pop culture. Upon his death he devised a game to pass off his massive fortune to someone who could beat a series of challenges designed to test the player’s knowledge of the geeky bits of culture he was so obsessed with. Join Rob, Tim, and Tommy as they discuss the book, including spoilers, and try to decide if the pop culture references make the book unique or ruin the whole story.

Retro Thing is a great blog about all things retro, with a slant towards gadgetry and gaming. Now they are getting into the hardware business with the Retro Thing USB Controller.

They had this designed and manufactured here in the United States, it lights up blue when plugged in via USB, and they even took some extra steps to make it extra hackable for the DIY crowd. It’ll work on Atari, Amiga, and Commodore emulators, or as a controller for your very own MAME cabinet (which is something I’ve been meaning to do). For $30, it’s a steal.

Check out the full story at Retro Thing or jump straight to the order page and support the geek cause.