The cable of this Sega light gun for the Master System was damaged right under the grip: to repair it I had to teardown the entire unit. I took the opportunity to take a few pictures. Continue reading
Author Archives: Giacomo Vernoni
Atari 400 (1979)
It’s time to show some love for Atari since my VCS post is almost 4 years old. I took some pictures of my Atari 400, a North American NTSC model produced at the very beginning of 1983. Continue reading
IBM 5100 (1975)
Since the initial price of this computer was between 9 and 20 thousand dollars in 1975 (43 to 95 thousand dollars in 2018!), I didn’t expect to find it in a small town near the even smaller town where I live. A friend of my father-in-law gave him this IBM 5100 for free, probably because my father-in-law talked to his friend about my passion. This person ran a small repair shop, but sadly passed away shortly after and I never got the chance to ask him where this computer came from.
Continue reading
Sega Master System (1986)
Once a month I go to a local flea market where sometimes – not very often – I find something on the junk dealers’ market stalls. I have “rebuilt” the complete system in two months: the first month I found the main unit, a broken control pad and the power supply unit; the second month, from the same seller, I got the light phaser, a working control pad, and a classic cartridge of Sonic The Hedgehog. Continue reading
PlayStation controllers
Sony released four controllers for the original PlayStation, presented in this article in chronological order. Continue reading
Sanyo PHC-25 (1982)
In the eighties many companies tried to compete in the growing home computer market with one or more products. Some companies made history, other had a niche following, some others didn’t succeed or were successful in a few countries only. Continue reading
My book “Commodore VIC 20: A Visual History”
This book was funded by a Kickstarter campaign that I run in mid 2016. Printed in January 2017, it received enthusiastic reviews from the backers of the project. Continue reading
2015 Donations
I can’t always publish an article for every item I receive, so I would like to publicly thank all the people I still haven’t cited that contacted me during the last year to donate some material related to my passion. Continue reading
Staff C1 (Apple II clone)
One of the many Apple II clones, this was designed to look more professional, moving away from the “all-in-one” concept by having a more pc-like style with a central unit, double drive and a separate keyboard. Besides a small ad in an old magazine, I couldn’t find any information about this Staff company. Continue reading
Texas Instruments TI-99/4A (1981)
Very uncommon here in Italy, this system was quite successful in the US in the early Eighties. I thank Ciro from the TI99 Italian User Club for having helped me to find a TI-99/4A in good condition: the metal of the upper case can be scratched very easily. Continue reading