Hardware desk. If it has a cartridge slot, an FPGA board or a weird controller, Hank has opened it up and put it back together — usually better. Writes the gear reviews and hardware spotlights.
Colour screen, backlight, hardware scaling, sixteen-player networking — in 1989. The complete story of the Atari Lynx: the Amiga engineers’ secret Handy, the $179.99 bet, and the small, superb library that outlived its maker.
Designed in 1983, announced in 1984, then warehoused for two years while Nintendo took the industry. The complete story of the Atari 7800 — GCC’s arcade pirates, the first backward-compatible console, and the afterlife that proved its big idea right.
Mocked as a purple lunchbox, outsold by everyone — and home to Metroid Prime, Resident Evil 4 and The Wind Waker. The complete story of the GameCube: the balanced engineering, the canon built in a losing cause, and the controller players still demand by name.
Born from Nintendo’s 1991 CES humiliation of Sony, the PlayStation answered with cheap discs, courting developers and 102 million sales. The complete story — Kutaragi’s grudge, the $299 punchline, Final Fantasy VII’s defection, and the fifteen-block memory card.
The weakest machine of 1989 beat the colour rivals, ruled the playground for a decade, then got a second life from Pokémon. The complete story of the Game Boy — Yokoi’s withered technology, the Tetris deal, Link’s Awakening, and the homebrew carts still shipping today.
Thirty-eight years ago today, Sega launched the Mega Drive in Japan with two games, no pack-in, and Super Mario Bros. 3 six days old. It finished third at home — then crossed the Pacific, became the Genesis, and started the console war.
Walk into an electronics shop in São Paulo today and you can buy a brand-new Master System. Not a vintage unit, not…
April 1977, San Francisco. The first West Coast Computer Faire had packed some 12,750 hobbyists into the hall — rows of bare…
Mini consoles had a good run, but they always had a lie at the centre of them: a Commodore 64 with a…
A solderless optical drive emulator for every PlayStation 1 — including the PSone — that works by imitating the laser itself. €150, back in stock November 2026. Our full rundown, with the honest catches.