Features
The 3D Imager and the Light Pen: Vectrex’s Wild Accessories
A spinning wheel that conjured colour and 3D from a monochrome tube, and a pen that turned the screen into a sketchpad and a piano: the Vectrex’s wildest hardware.
Author: Hank Mercer
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.
Features
Plastic Rainbows: How Screen Overlays Gave the Vectrex Colour
Tinted plastic as display hardware: how the Vectrex’s printed overlays carried colour, coded information and turned a monochrome tube into a theatre of light.
Features
Atari ST in 2026: The Complete Buying and Collecting Guide
520ST to STE, TOS versions, Gotek and UltraSatan storage, SM124 and SC1224 monitors, a five-check buying checklist and hedged 2026 prices.
Features
The MIDI Machine: How the Atari ST Became the Studio Standard
Two five-pin sockets on every ST rewired music production: Cubase, Notator and the sequencer revolution that started in a beige box.
Features
The RAM Cart Wars: How Memory Expansion Gave the Saturn a Second Life
The 1MB and 4MB carts turned the Saturn into the arcade-perfect fighting machine: how a slot in the back of the console built its proudest library.
Features
Original Xbox in 2026: The Complete Buying and Collecting Guide
Revisions 1.0 to 1.6, the clock capacitor that eats motherboards, hard-drive and softmod basics, Insignia’s Live revival, picture options and what the key games cost.
Features
The Modchip Years: How the Xbox Became the First Great Media Centre
The Xbox was a subsidised PC in a walled garden, and its owners noticed: modchips, XBMC and the homebrew culture that reshaped what consoles became.
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Steel Battalion: The $200 Cockpit and Gaming’s Most Excessive Controller
Forty buttons, three pedals and an eject button that deletes your save: the story of Capcom’s metre-wide mech cockpit, gaming’s most honourable excess.
Features
The Duke: The Story of the Biggest Controller Ever Made
How Microsoft’s enormous first gamepad happened, why it was better than the jokes, and how the most mocked controller ever made became a beloved one.
Features
Sega Game Gear in 2026: The Complete Buying and Collecting Guide
Recap first, then revisions, screens, power and the region-free library: the complete 2026 guide to buying a Game Gear that will outlive us all.