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Learning BASIC with the Marvel Super Heroes

Posted in 80s, books, comic books, nostalgia, pop culture, reviews with tags Book Report, books, comic books, computers, Marvel Comics, pop culture, reviews, technology on August 17, 2011 by Paxton

Yesterday I looked at the Star Wars Q&A Book about Computers. It featured a history of the computer (through 1983) and some awesome art by Ken Barr. Today, I’m looking at another awesomely vintage computer book, it’s the Marvel Super Heroes Computer Fun Book Two from 1984.

This book is LOOOOOOOOONG and it features A LOT of programs. I’ll just be looking at some of the more notable programs and artwork. You can check out my Flickr set to see more.

Here’s the cover to the activity book and the intro page telling you what to expect inside.

And here’s the Fantastic Four to tell you how to use this book (in case you weren’t already aware that you used it to, you know, program your computer).

Here’s Capt America reminding you to code your 900 lines. He gives you 9 examples (there’s another page of code I’m not showing you) of 900 lines from different BASIC environments like the Commodore 64, IBM PC and Apple II.

Here’s a program featuring Cap called Menace of the Gray Gargoyle. It’s a “fence busting” program. See the code here. Man, that Gray Gargoyle looks lame.

This program is called Iron Man to the Rescue. It’s a game in which Iron Man has to stop a ship from shooting missiles at a school filled with children. Hope you get them all or the deaths of thousands of small schoolchildren on your head. Is it just me or does that seem like a needlessly violent scenario for a kid’s computing activity book?

There are two other Iron Man programs. The first is called Robot Retriever. It’s awesome because the title page features MODOK and ROM: Spaceknight. The other is Iron Man’s Lock Problem. I like the artwork on the title page. I didn’t realize Iron Man was popular enough in the 1980s to get three programs in this book.

The article continues below the break…

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A look at the Star Wars Q&A Book about computers (1983)

Posted in 80s, books, computers, movies, pop culture, reviews, Star Wars, technology with tags Book Report, books, computers, movies, pop culture, reviews, Star Wars, technology on August 15, 2011 by Paxton

I love vintage kids books. I love vintage pop culture books. I also love vintage books looking at early computing technology. This week, I get all three wrapped into one. I’ll be looking at three early 80s activity books featuring awesomely retro computing technology. Being a tech guy and a pop culture guy sure pays off some days. The first book I’ll be looking at is the Star Wars Question and Answer Book about Computers from 1983. Yes, I know, mixing Star Wars and computer technology? Yes, please. And the book is filled with some of the most awesome artwork mixing R2-D2 and C3PO and computer machinery. The artwork in this book is by Ken Barr. Ken Barr is a comic artist. He’s done a lot of work for Marvel, especially back in the 70s and 80s with titles like Deadly Hands of Kung Fu, Doc Savage, Savage Sword of Conan and Rampaging Hulk. Most of that work being for Marvel magazines that showcase the really nice painted look of Barr’s creations. You can see a lot of that here, too. This book is mainly an information dump about computers, how they began and what they can be used for. Much of the information is surrounded by Barr’s gorgeous paintings. However there are also pages without artwork but instead use photographs of actual computer machinery.

Here’s the intro to the book explaining about computers. Next to the intro is another information page featuring a picture of an Apple II. Click the images to make them BIGGER.

Here are some pages talking about computers and video games. You can see an adorable picture of R2-D2 playing chess against a computer and both Artoo and Threepio playing an upright arcade machine. I’m seriously in love with that arcade machine painting. See it much bigger here. Continue reading →

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A Cavalcade of Collector Cups

Posted in advertising, fast food, McDonald's, movies, pop culture, Star Wars, Tron with tags fast food, movies, nostalgia, pop culture, Star Wars, Tron on August 12, 2011 by Paxton

I’ve talked about fast food collector glasses before. But that article covered collector glasses made of actual GLASS. There are also a plethora of plastic collector cups. A few weeks ago Nerd Lunch talked about super hero cups. So, I thought I’d throw my hat in the ring and talk about a few of my favorite collector cups that have been given away at movie theaters and fast food chains.

I have each of these cups in my collection right now.

This is the Capt America The First Avenger Tri-Color Coolatta Cup. My boy CT from Nerd Lunch discussed this back in July. There are three sides/sections. Each section holds the red (cherry), white (vanilla) and blue (raspberry) flavors of Dunkin Donuts Coolattas. You can see the second side here and the third side is here. The cup is sitting next to the stars and stripes donut that also promoted the Capt America movie. They were both good, but I won’t lie, after consuming both for breakfast it felt like Cap and the Howling Commandos were fighting World War II in my colon.

This was the collector cup given out at movie theaters in 2000 to promote the first Singer X-Men movie. I like the tapered base of this cup so it fits in your cup holder. Many cups now don’t do that. And check out the web address of the movie with all of those dashes. http://www.x-men-the-movie.com. Hello late ’90s.

Everyone remembers the Star Wars cup toppers from 1999 during the whole Episode I merchandising frenzy. There were 12 cups and figure toppers you could collect from KFC, Taco Bell and Pizza Hut. Well, those toppers were based on an earlier promotion for the Star Wars Special Edition in 1996-97. It was a set of 4 and featured C3PO, R2D2, Vader and a Stormtrooper. There were two versions of this set. Above left you can see the set that came from the Las Vegas FAO Schwartz store. They had setup their own version of the Mos Eisley Cantina including themed ICEE drinks (like Jabba Juice). I had visited Vegas in 1998 and was able to buy these at the store. Click the image to see it bigger and to see the commemortive FAO Cantina cup. The other version of this set on the right came from Pizza Hut and Taco Bell stores overseas (I don’t believe they were offered in the US). The toppers were exactly the same but instead of the FAO cup it had a blue cup with a picture of the character on it (see the Stormtrooper above). You can see how these influenced the Episode I cup toppers. For obvious reasons, only the R2D2 was reused in the 1999 Episode I promotion.

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Two unlikely movies celebrating 25 year anniversaries today

Posted in 80s, movies, pop culture with tags anniversary, movies, pop culture on August 1, 2011 by Paxton

Two diametrically opposite movies began playing in theaters on August 1, 1986, 25 years ago today.

The first movie was the infamous Howard the Duck. Featuring a woman falling in love with a duck and an early appearance of Tim Robbins. This movie nearly ruined Lucasfilm.

The second movie was Friday the 13th VI: Jason Lives. This installment is arguably one of the best movies in the Jason franchise. Jason had died in the last movie, so a lightning strike would revive him and begin the reign of “zombie Jason”. Plus it features the third actor to play the character of Tommy Jarvis.

Check out the trailer for both of these movies at Held Over.

The Cavalcade and Nerd Lunch assault the Tallahassee Auto Museum Part II

Posted in blogging, cars, nostalgia, pop culture, random with tags blogging, pop culture, random on July 20, 2011 by Paxton

A few weeks ago, I visited Carlin Trammel (of Nerd Lunch) in Tallahassee for an historic meeting of bloggy awesomeness. Together we witnessed the random awesomeness that is the Tallahasse Auto Museum, inhaled Double Downs at a local KFC and talked about all things nerdy (Star Trek, Star Wars, super hero movies, blogging, etc). Yes, a nerd connection was made.

Anyway, on Monday I discussed all the awesome cars Carlin and I peeped in the museum. On Tuesday, Carlin posted his recollections of our trip to the museum. I’m continuing the week long look at my sojourn over to the ‘hassee by revealing to you all the other randomly epic crap that was crammed into the “auto” museum that had nothing whatsoever to do with cars. You will be amazed.

Let’s start with…

Pianos. Yes, this place had a collection of about 10 pianos. This particular one looks like a Fisher Price toy made for a giant baby. I swear my 10 month old son has a piano very similar to this (only “normal” baby size).

Here Carlin is checking out the re-DONK-ulous gold piano that would be the perfect centerpiece to any room. And it is flanked by two tasteful life size gold lions. In my mind this is the piano that God is playing when you enter the Gates of Heaven. And he’s playing the theme to the movie Chariots of Fire. Or The Sting.

From pianos we move to…

Dolls. This place also had an entire section of collectible dolls. Amongst the Barbies and Skippers there were a few choice, geeky items. Here is a nearly full set of Mego’s 1976 Wizard of Oz figures. They are only missing a few Munchkins figures and the Witches Castle and Munchkinland playsets. I am in love with this set. It was this set that put Mego on the map and allowed them to get the Marvel and DC licenses to create their World’s Greatest Super Heroes line.