Photo credit: Vellosia
Just like the Dreamcast, the SEGA Mega Modem was ahead of its time. This accessory was first released in Japan on November 3, 1990 and designed for use with SEGA Meganet, which was an online service for the Mega Drive in Japan and later Brazil. It was SEGA’s very first pay-to-play online multiplayer gaming service.
Long before Bowser’s Castle arrives at Super Nintendo World, there was the Sharp SF1, a television set with a built-in Super Famicom / SNES. It was only available only in Japan when released on December 5, 1990, the SF1 came in two different various, each with different screen sizes: a 21-inch and 14-inch.
The Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird was far ahead of its time when the strategic reconnaissance aircraft debuted in 1966 to the public. It was capable of achieving speeds of Mach 3.2 at 85,000-feet, thanks to two Pratt & Whitney J58 axial-flow turbojet engines capable of generating a static thrust of 32,500 lbf.
Steve Jobs unveiled the first-generation Apple iPhone on January 9, 2007 at Macworld San Francisco. It was described as a revolutionary mobile phone, widescreen iPod with touch controls, and a ‘breakthrough Internet communications device with desktop’, all packed into a handheld device. One person kept their device sealed all these years and managed to sell it for the price of a new car at RR Auction.
Even Steve Jobs himself did not know what was in store for him just a few years after turning in this job application questionnaire. However, we do know that he was interested in electronics tech or design engineering at a firm near Hewlett-Packard in the Bay Area. It’s purportedly for a position at Reed’s psychology department to repair circuits.
At first glance, this Mazda suitcase car from 1991 appears to be a normal Samsonite that you’d see at an airport or department store, but it’s actually powered by a 33.6cc, 1.7hp two-stroke engine. There’s also handlebars and 4″-6″ diameter tires sourced from a pocket bike wrapped around wheels that could be slotted to the outside of the case, while the front wheel pops through a removable hatch.
Similar to the Hyundai Prophecy Concept, the Mercedes-Benz F200 concept car from 1996 also has joystick controls instead of a normal steering wheel. This just proves that the latter was far ahead of its time, especially after making its public debut at the 1999 Paris Motor Show. Nicknamed ‘Imagination’, the body itself was based partially on the S-Class of that time, while also previewing the CL-Class coupe that debuted in 1999.
Spacewar!, originally released in 1962, is officially the first known video game to be played at multiple computer installations, and it’s now playable on the Analogue Pocket. This Game Boy-style handheld game console had a port created using public domain open source code for openFPGA by a 3rd party developer. The original game was written for the newly installed DEC PDP-1 minicomputer at MIT by Steve Russell in collaboration with Martin Graetz, Wayne Wiitanen, Bob Saunders.
Photo credit: Supper Mario Broth
Nintendo released Super Mario World in Japan on November 21, 1990, which makes it exactly 1-billion seconds old today. For those who never owned a Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES), Super Mario World was actually the very first Mario game for the console and designed to showcase its technical features. This meant that the development team had more freedom compared to the series installments for the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES).
One gaming fan has spent the last 8-years sourcing SNES manuals from every nook and cranny of the internet, even going as far as digging through the wayback machine. Sometimes, only physical copies were available, so a scanner was acquired to digitize them. After all was said and done, this fan managed to upload the complete English-language collection SNES manuals to Archive[.]org.