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Welcome to the end-of-year roundup, an annual traditional where I (sort of) provide updates but mostly ramble about the state of things! I feel like I can almost start off by a copy/paste of last years update... once again I didn't keep up news updates and reviews quite as often as I would have liked. Sorry. But, a lot did get done behind the scenes in a very busy year. Some new features to the codebase have been added, including a spot for some hints and tricks (see the walkthrough for Jupiter Mission 1999 as the first example for this). A better process for noting which magazines marketing materials and more came from is in the works as well. And early this year a feature for technical specs to list video resolutions utilized was finally available. The database is slowly being update to fill in blanks with all the new features and old ones as well. So it's back to work, and I hope everyone enjoys the holiday season!

Long before home computers were a thing, Avalon Hill began publishing board games out of their headquarters in Baltimore, Maryland. Their main successes were in strategy and wargames with many common wargame designs (such as the hexagonal grid) having been of their creation. In 1980, Avalon Hill finally made the leap to computer games with their Micorocomputer Games division. Naturally, most of their games continued their strategy and wargame concepts that had worked so well as board games; many were even computer adaptations of some of these same games. There were original titles too, and they did release a few games outside of their usual wargame and historical simulations genres. I'd like to take a look at one of these titles this time around: Jupiter Mission 1999 for the Atari 400/800 (there is also a Commodore 64 version which is more or less the same outside differences due to hardware).

New Trixter video just dropped! Jim Leonard, better known as Trixter, is is among the most knowledgeable PC game historians out there. He also has quite a talent for putting together well researched videos with extremely high production values; I've linked to a few before including his in-depth look at the IBM PCjr. Trixter is also a collector of games and PC related hardware, and in his collection is the insanely rare Mindscape Music Board. What, exactly, is this historical curiousity? This card is essentially a copy of the Mockingboard for the Apple II and generates sound from two General Instruments AY-3-8913 sound chips to provide you six channels of sound and noise. It was included with the program Bank Street Music Writer, and unfortunately never went further than that. For more details and answers to even more questions, check out the latest YouTube video, Do you own the rarest PC sound card in the world?. You'll learn about the card's history, there are interviews with some of its creators, and perhaps most importantly demonstrations so you can hear the card in action (you won't find any emulators supporting this one, at least not yet)...