Vintage and Antique Electronics
Could an Old-School Tube Amp Make the Music You Love Sound Better?
By Ben Marks — Like a lot of adults who attended too many rock concerts in their reckless youth, my hearing is not what it used to be. On more than one occasion, I remember stumbling out of Winterland in San Francisco after seeing high-watt bands like Hot Tuna or Pink Floyd, putting the key in the car’s ignition, giving it a turn, and then having no idea whatsoever if the engine had roared to life. That’s what four or five hours of standing in front of a wall of speakers pumping music at more than 100...
How Boomboxes Got So Badass
By Hunter Oatman-Stanford — Boomboxes are, by definition, excessive. With their deafening bass thud and dazzling chrome dials, these electric beasts are heavy enough to tone your biceps. Also known as "ghetto blasters" or "jamboxes," they rose to fame in the 1980s along with hip-hop, flourishing as a tool for sharing and mixing the latest beats. Yet despite their widespread popularity, the innovators who conceived of these devices are still largely unknown, consigned to anonymity by the corporations that manufactured...
God Save the Eight-Track
By Hunter Oatman-Stanford — Growing up in the 1970s, Bucks Burnett never even owned an eight-track tape: When his parents purchased their first post-LP stereo console, they went straight for a cassette player. "They were visionaries," he says. But that hasn't stopped Burnett from becoming the eight-track's most vocal champion, amassing an incredible collection of Stereo 8 cartridges, and opening the world's first museum devoted entirely to the format. Located in the Deep Ellum neighborhood of Dallas, Texas, Burnett's...
10 Great Retro Games for iPhones and iPads
By Daniel Bohm — Many of the best-loved handheld, video, and arcade games are defiantly old school. Indeed, there's something timeless about games like Pong, Pac-Man, and Donkey Kong, which today have found new life on iPhones and iPads as downloadable apps. Everyone from 30-something guys with fond memories of their first Nintendo NES to kids who've never even heard of Nolan Bushnell (he gave Pong its start) have taken to loading these retro games of the 1970s onto a new generation of electronic devices. We...