In 2007 Richard Page of videopac.org released the first version of Route 66, a homebrew racing game by Rafael A. Cardoso da Silva and René van den Enden, as Videopac 66. Unfortunately Richard disappeared from the scene shortly after, so only very few copies of the game were really shipped.

In the following two years, Rafael and René improved the game and added high resolution background graphics for the Videopac Plus machines. Now the new version of the game is again available on cart, and this time 100 copies have been made, so that every Videopac/Odyssey2 collector can get one. It was the wish of the authors to make the game available in both Videopac and Odyssey2 styles, so every copy of the game will be shipped with label, manual and inlay/index card in both styles.

The Plus version of Route 66 was released at Eurocon/Retrobörse on 24th October 2009 in Vienna and is available via mail order since 8th November 2009. I hope you all like this improved version by Rafael A. Cardoso da Silva and René van den Enden. More info on my Videopac page.

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Eurocon celebrated its 10th anniversary in Vienna, Austria, from Friday 23rd until Sunday 25th October 2009. The convention was held in the Wombat’s The Lounge city hostel in the Mariahilfer Strasse. The preparations required much more work than those for Austrocon seven years ago, but the result was worth it. We think we had a diversified, interesting program and hope that all the attendees liked it.

I have made a page with the list of participants, my photos, four short video clips of the live bands and links to the photos of other attendees. Enjoy!

Eurocon, the annual meeting of classic gaming enthusiasts from all over Europe (and beyond) celebrates its 10th anniversary! This year we will meet the 9th time in 10 years. After 2002 this is the second convention that will take place in Vienna, and for the second time I am part of the organisation team. Date will be the weekend from 23rd to 25th October 2009, location will be the Wombat’s city hostel in the Mariahilfer Strasse, one of the most famous shopping streets in Vienna.

On Friday the participants will arrive during the day, so there will be already a lot of chatting with old and new friends. In the evening we will visit the famous Prater for gaming in the arcades, having food and drinks, and maybe visit the Praterdome discotheque. On Saturday there will be a Retrobörse in the Technical University. The Retrobörse will be open for the public, but the first hour in the morning will be only accessible for Eurocon participants. Saturday evening there will be a Retroparty at the Wombat’s, open for the public, with 80’s music, live bands (electronic music), retro videos and retro games. Sunday the Eurocon program will continue with Show & Tell, contests, an auction and much more …

For detailed info please check out the official websites of the Eurocon and the Retrobörse.

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Winnie Forster has released the third German edition of his first Gameplan book “Game Machines and Home Computers”. The latest edition has 240 pages with 700 illustrations and photos.

The book has been updated, some sections have been expanded, a few new photos can be found, as well as more entries in the indices. Of course all sections of the latest hardware generation have been updated and now contain all hardware variations that have been released since edition two of the book (2005), like Apple iPhone and Nintendo DSi.

The third edition of Gameplan 1 is available for 27,80 Euro. www.gameplan.de

Made a three day trip to Paris with the missus, and of course we had a walk through Quartier Latin, one of the oldest parts of Paris and also the university quarter. By chance, we stumbled across two artworks by “Invader”, a street artist who “invades” cities all over the world with characters inspired by first-generation arcade games, especially Space Invaders. He makes them out of tiles, so he can cement them to walls and keep the ultra-pixelated appearance. Looks really great in my opinion!

Invader started his work in 1999 and traveled to 35 cities on all five continents so far. You can visit his website at www.space-invaders.com, it’s well worth a read!

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Ever heard of M-Network games for Apple II and IBM PC? Ever saw pictures of the boxes for those unreleased games? You can see them now in our short interview with former Intellivision programmer William Fisher, the creator of Space Hawk and co-author of a few other Intellivision games.

Many thanks to Alessandro Pace in Italy for sending us his notes from his conversation with Mr. Fisher, they were the basis for this short interview.

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Over 30 million people world wide saw this smash hit musical since its 1999 London premiere, more than 100 000 of them attended the 45 sold out shows in Vienna three years ago. Now Mamma Mia is back in Vienna, from 15th January to 22nd February 2009 in the Stadthalle.

Somehow I missed the Vienna shows in 2005/2006, but being a huge ABBA fans since the late 1970s I had to watch it this time and bought tickets for the premiere on the 15th January. Let me tell you that it was a blast! The story is simple: On the day before her wedding, 20 year old Sophie wants to know which of three possible candidates is her father, so she invited them onto the Greek island where she is living with her mother. Core of the show are of course the 22 top hit songs by ABBA. The story is built so perfect around those songs that one could believe they were intentionally written for the musical.

Vienna sees the original English version as part of the international tour, with a terrific acting Donna (Sophie’s mother) and her two friends Tanya and Rosie (“Donna And The Dynamos”), as well as a brilliant singing Sophie, who sometimes comes close to Agnetha’s unreachable voice.

If you like the songs of ABBA or generally 70s/80s music, you should definitely get tickets for the show in Vienna or somewhere else around the world. You won’t be disappointed!

Winnie Forster’s latest book brings you all the info you need about video and computer game programmers, designers and producers, teams and companies. This encyclopedia portraits them all, describes success and failure, rise and fall of legendary companies like Atari, Sega, Nintendo, Activision, Microprose and Sierra. Games People contains:

- 1500 lexical entries
- 220 biographies
- 1300 portraits of companies around the world
- 4500 computer, video and arcade games, assigned to their creators
- 650 web links

Games People has 400 pages, with tables, indices and more than 100 images. Please note that the book is only available in German language. In Austria you can order it via Classic Consoles Center. The price is 27.80 Euro. Shipping within Austria is 4.80 Euro. Please ask for shipping costs to other countries. If you have any questions or want to order your copy, please use our contact form.

A few years ago I won a boxed copy of Telesys’ Coconuts on ebay.com. When opening the box I found not only the expected cart and manual inside, but also a small piece of coloured paper. It was a christmas present tag, “to Grandpa from Shannon” written on it. I was really affected. Could it be that the game was indeed a christmas present, not from a grandpa for his granddaughter, but vice versa? Of course the present tag could have belonged to an other present and somehow found its way into the game’s box, but still the thought of an early 1980s Christmas with this game as a present for some unknown video games fan brings happiness into a retro gamer’s heart :)

Today I stumbled upon the photos on my harddisk and thought it would be a good time to share it with you guys. Happy Christmas time to you all!

So you always thought there are no funny things flying around in space? You thought Megamania is pure fiction? You’re wrong! At mission STS-126 with Space Shuttle Endeavour, mission specialist Heidemarie Stefanyshyn-Piper lost her handbag, err toolbag, on 18th November during a space walk.

The bag is now orbiting the Earth near the ISS, a few minutes ahead of the station, and can even be seen with binoculars as a small dot for a few minutes every night. The SpaceWeather Satellite Tracker shows position and time, depending on your location on Earth. It is listed there as “ISS toolbag” amongst other satellites.

Someday, however, the bag will die down when entering the atmosphere. At the moment I have no information from the NASA if anyone will be rewarded with special bonus points then.