Retro Gamer Retro gamer - Ultimate retro hardware guide

As much as we love playing videogames it’s important to remember that it’s impossible to enjoy them without the very machines they appeared on. Ever since the late Seventies various companies from all around the world, including Sony, Atari, Nintendo, Sega, Sinclair and Commodore, have been in an arms race to create the most exciting, most powerful games machines of all time. Some of these systems have fallen by the wayside, forgotten by all but the fiercest of fans, while others have gone on to shape our childhood memories and help define the industry itself. Our latest book not only looks at some of Retro Gamer readers’ most favourite consoles and computers but also goes one better, examining some of these classic systems and revealing how they were created. You’ll…

We love videogames, games are fun. They can take you to far-off worlds and let you shoot down entire space fleets; they allow you to find ways to save mankind or ways to quash it, and they let you play the hero, or the villain. For many of us they have helped define our childhoods, or even led us to our careers. And yet videogames would be nothing without the hardware that they run on, so we wanted to kick off our first issue of 2018 by celebrating the greatest game systems of all time. We asked you to rank your top ten favourite gaming systems, and the results were interesting with 94 systems voted for from 35 different manufacturers. The top five manufacturers will come as no surprise to long-term…

Given Apple’s gargantuan profits and global reach, it’s easy to forget it started life as two people in a garage. Much of the tech wizardry back then was down to Steve ‘Woz’ Wozniak, while Steve Jobs was tactician and visionary. The first breakthrough occurred in 1976, with what would become the Apple Computer 1 (later referred to as Apple I). The machine was offered to HP, which declined, and so Apple Computer was born. Apple already was ‘thinking different’, its debut hardware being the first single-board computer, sold fully assembled and utilising a television for output. But Woz was thinking bigger. Inspired by his work on arcade games, he wanted to create a computer that was faster, more colourful and noisier than anything else. Ultimately, as he recalled in a 1986 interview…

1 APRIL 1976 The now-corporate giant that is Apple is founded by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Ronald Wayne. 11 APRIL 1976 Apple Computer 1 (later known as the Apple I) is released, each unit hand-built by Steve Wozniak. 10 JUNE 1977 The Apple II is launched, and its success bankrolls Apple for a decade, giving the company breathing space. 19 MAY 1980 The Apple III hits the market and fares poorly, not least due to iffy Apple II compatibility. It was later reintroduced in 1981. 19 JANUARY 1983 The Apple Lisa launches. The UI was revolutionary, but the computer was sluggish, and the sales were poor. 22 JANUARY 1984 The Ridley Scott-directed 1984 ad plays at Super Bowl XVIII. It’s hailed as one of the best adverts of all time. 24 JANUARY 1984 The first…

STEVE ‘WOZ’ WOZNIAK Cofounder, engineer An amazing engineer, Woz was the brains behind the Apple I and Apple II computers. Although still technically an Apple employee, Woz has had little to do with Apple since the mid-Eighties. STEVE JOBS Cofounder, CEO Steve Jobs saw the potential in Woz’s work, and became Apple’s vision and taste arbiter. Ousted in 1985, he went on to found NeXT, he then triumphantly returned to Apple as CEO in 1997, reinvigorating a then-flailing company. JEF RASKIN Interface expert Although many people were responsible for the original Mac, Jef Raskin instigated the entire project, noting computers at the time were for geeks, and wanting to create something that was much more usable and friendly. SUSAN KARE Graphic designer Graphic designer on the original Mac computer line, Susan Kare created the icons, typeface and…

Apple Macintosh The Macintosh was a huge influence during the Eighties, and has continued to evolve. At the time it was the first commercially succesful computer to feature both a mouse and a GUI. Apple II The Apple II was first released in June 1977 and had various revisions. Many American developers, such as John Romero, Richard Garriott and Jordan Mechner learned to code on it. Pixar Formed in 1979 as the Graphics Group, Steve Jobs bought Pixar from Lucasfilm in 1986, eventually selling it to Disney for roughly $7.4 billion, making him Disney’s largest shareholder. iPod The iPod not only revolutionised the way we listened to music, but also the music industry itself. As with many Apple products it was continually refined over the intervening years. iPhone The iPhone had a massive impact on the mobile phone market,…