Phosphor Dot Fossils

Through the end of April, theLogBook.com Media is offering major discounts on bundles and combos of our Phosphor Dot Fossils and Classic Gaming Expo DVDs: Every CGE DVD for $80 (US/Canada) or $90 (anywhere else) All CGE + PDF DVDs for $100 (US/Canada) or $115 (anywhere else) Best of CGE '03 + Best of CGE '05 for $45 (US/Canada) or $52 (anywhere else) New permanent price drop on the Phosphor Dot Fossils Brown Box DVD set We've also massively revamped the ordering system to keep all of the ordering links in one place for ease of use; you can now fill a cart before placing your final order, rather than having to place multiple orders. If you haven't picked up any of our DVDs before, there's never been a better time!

We're now running a special bundle deal on all of the CGE DVDs in one package for under $100, or all of the CGE DVDs plus the Phosphor Dot Fossils DVDs - check the prices here.

I've got a write-up on the event with quite a few pics here for everyone's amusement. I just wanted to give a big shout-out to Crossbow for the smoothest OVGE yet (at least from the vendor perspective) at a dandy new venue. Also, a big thanks to everyone who bought anything from me during the day - I had a very busy booth, and believe me when I say I was glad of it! I was surprised to see how much of my non-game items went - who would've thought that I'd empty out my Star Trek Christmas ornament collection at a video game covnention? - but speaking as someone who's had a hellacious time trying to find a job lately, I was grateful for everyone who bought anything. So when's the next one?

Here's a PDF with a list of games and prices for the Phosphor Dot Fossils booth this weekend - see you in a couple of days!

NOM NOM NOM NOM!

FYI: pre-orders for the PDF and CGE DVDs for OVGE close on Monday - if you want a reserved copy of anything, get your order in by Monday night! Thanks to those who have placed their orders already.

FYI: pre-orders for the PDF and CGE DVDs for CCAG close on Monday - if you want a reserved copy of anything, get your order in by Monday night! Thanks to those who have placed their orders already.

Announcing theLogBook.com Media's final video game history DVD project of 2009 - Best of CGE '05! Here's a rundown of what's on this 2-disc, 6-hour set: Activision vs. Imagic – a unique gathering of the third-party software masters. The creators of such hit Atari 2600 games as Pitfall! and Atlantis talk about what drove them from Atari to start their own companies, and their view of the state of the video game industry as of 2005. Over an hour of lively discussion! The Atari Engineers – three of the hardware wizards who were there on the ground floor at the beginning of Atari discuss the early days: competition, innovation, and working with Nolan. Jerry Lawson – meet the man behind the first cartridge-based video game system: the Fairchild Video Entertainment System, introduced in 1976 (and later renamed Fairchild Channel F after the introduction of the Atari VCS). Bill Kunkel – along with Joyce Worley and Arnie Katz, Bill Kunkel was a pioneer of video game journalism and helped to launch Electronic Games Magazine. He recounts the journey from “why would anyone publish a magazine about video games?” to EG’s heyday. The Atari Programmers – a gathering of some of Atari’s greatest video game designers talks about their time at the company, from the Nolan Bushnell era through the Warner era, competing with their former co-workers at Activision, and the perils of licensing arcade and movie titles for video games. It’s a surprisingly frank discussion of the state of the industry, then and now, lasting nearly an hour and a half. Bonus features: CGE ‘05 Raw Footage – raw, unedited footage from the show floor and the CGE museum. It’s CGE as seen from an attendee’s perspective! All of the video shot for Best of CGE ‘05 was shot in standard definition 16:9 widescreen; both discs have been authored in that aspect ratio. Disc one is a dual-layer disc with four hours of video, while disc two is a single-layer disc with two hours of video. Since we have to special order the dual-layer discs, Best of CGE ‘05 is slightly more expensive than Best of CGE ‘03 – but it’s also two hours longer! Go here to order. OR... If you're going to OVGE in Tulsa or CCAG in Cleveland on October 24th, Best of CGE '05 will be making its "live" debut at both shows simultaneously, and until October 12th, you can pre-order Best of CGE '05 and any of our other DVDs at the show floor price (no shipping!), and your DVDs will be reserved for you to pick up at the show. Click here for more details on that. Discs will start shipping toward the end of October!

Lookee here at what I finished up today... Don't forget, you can pre-order your DVDs for OVGE or CCAG.

Ah - sorry, I got confused there. The content on the site is always evolving - the entry on arcade Pac-Man that's there now is significantly different from what it was a few years ago. New reviews pop up in clusters, and the more fluid database-driven version of the site makes it possible to search for stuff by publisher, controller type, year, platform, you name it. It'll probably never really be "finished", but that's the fun of it! I'm working on some ideas for a book based loosely on the site, possibly for late next year. Where the challenge in the site is to keep generating new material, the challenge in a book is to organize the material and to tell some kind of a story about the evolution of the industry with a straight through-line...and to do it in a way that hasn't been done before. There's no shortage of competition in that category either, so doing a book will be quite a challenge - making it look and read as good as possible, and hopefully to make it a reference that can be useful for quite some time.

Nope - the 2-disc set consists of the Phosphor Dot Fossils and PDF Level 2 DVDs that already exist, just in one package; the content of each disc is unchanged. I've had thoughts about going back and redoing the first PDF DVD, knowing what I know now about putting this sort of stuff together for DVD, but ultimately I wind up deciding: nope. The Best of CGE '03 and Best of CGE '05 DVDs mentioned in another thread each have a "mini-PDF" presentation that acts as a glossary to the games mentioned in those DVDs' keynote presentations, but other than that I don't have any new PDF DVD projects in the pipeline, either new or revising the earlier ones. One main reason for this is that I, personally, hate it when major publishers go back and re-release the same stuff on DVD/BD a kajillion times, just because they've made some minor change to it. I hate it when they do that (and I don't buy into it either), so I'm not going to do it to you guys. I'm not going to throw an endless string of "revised!" / "updated!" / "remastered!" / "repackaged!" variations of the same thing at you. Level 2 has been out since April, and will continue to be available on its own through the end of the year; after that I'll be doing 2-disc sets only.

Level 2 is a whole different thing - it repeats no material from the first volume at all. I've still got several individual copies of Level 2 around, though after the end of this year both volumes will be available as a two-disc set.

Just a heads-up - we're giving away a complete PDF Brown Box 2-DVD set. All you have to do is become a PDF fan on Facebook, and then find the recently-posted 700th review on the Phosphor Dot Fossils web archive. Post your guess as a reply to the CONTEST! status update. There's already one hint posted.

Here's a preliminary table of contents (and very preliminary cover art) for the upcoming Best of CGE '05 set... Disc 1 Activision vs. Imagic – 1 hour, 7 minutes The Atari Engineers – 54 minutes Jerry Lawson – 48 minutes Bill Kunkel – 40 minutes Raw Footage – 21 minutes Bonus Features TBA Disc 2 Atari Programmers – 1 hour, 23 minutes Bonus Features TBA Everything was shot and is being edited in widescreen - this set will fill your HDTV with CGE goodness. Content-wise, it's very 2600-heavy - the two longest panels on the set cover the 2600 programmers and their work. There are more details here. Also remember that if you're going to Tulsa's OVGE show or CCAG - both on October 24th - you can pre-order your copies of any of the DVDs I've produced and they'll be reserved for you. Everyone not going to those shows will be able to place orders online the same weekend.

(Cleveland, not Cincinnati - hey, I was in the same state at least, right?)

(Cleveland, not Cincinnati - hey, I was in the same state at least, right?)

Here's a heads-up: we’re doing something a little bit different in the run-up to this fall’s big retrogaming events. To ensure that we don’t over-produce or under-produce any given DVD title this year, we’re taking pre-orders for OVGE and CCAG. Our DVD products will be available at both shows, but by placing your order here and now, you’re ensuring that there will be a copy reserved for you at the event you’re attending. Simply go the theLogBook.com Media/Phosphor Dot Fossils booth at Tulsa’s OVGE show, or Tim Snider’s booth at CCAG in Cincinnati; in both cases your pre-ordered DVDs will be behind the table tagged with your name. This ensures that we don’t make too many or too few of any given title for either event. The prices you’re paying here are the “show” prices – you pay no shipping. It’s a great chance for you to stock up on any titles you’ve missed – or to add some brand new retrogaming documentary goodness to your barren DVD shelf! This will mark the debut of the new, 5+ hour 2-DVD set Best of CGE ‘05, containing many of the 2005 Classic Gaming Expo keynotes shot in widescreen in Burlingame, CA. For those not attending either CCAG or OVGE, Best of CGE ‘05 will be available via this site after both shows are over. Visit here to learn more or to place your pre-orders: http://www.thelogbook.com/media/ovge-ccag-pre-order/ Thanks!

Here's a heads-up: we’re doing something a little bit different in the run-up to this fall’s big retrogaming events. To ensure that we don’t over-produce or under-produce any given DVD title this year, we’re taking pre-orders for OVGE and CCAG. Our DVD products will be available at both shows, but by placing your order here and now, you’re ensuring that there will be a copy reserved for you at the event you’re attending. Simply go the theLogBook.com Media/Phosphor Dot Fossils booth at Tulsa’s OVGE show, or Tim Snider’s booth at CCAG in Cincinnati; in both cases your pre-ordered DVDs will be behind the table tagged with your name. This ensures that we don’t make too many or too few of any given title for either event. The prices you’re paying here are the “show” prices – you pay no shipping. It’s a great chance for you to stock up on any titles you’ve missed – or to add some brand new retrogaming documentary goodness to your barren DVD shelf! This will mark the debut of the new, 5+ hour 2-DVD set Best of CGE ‘05, containing many of the 2005 Classic Gaming Expo keynotes shot in widescreen in Burlingame, CA. For those not attending either CCAG or OVGE, Best of CGE ‘05 will be available via this site after both shows are over. Visit here to learn more or to place your pre-orders: http://www.thelogbook.com/media/ovge-ccag-pre-order/ Thanks!

I've also asked this question on DP and at the particles.org forums, but I thought I'd ask here too: What do you folks want to see at my booth this year? In the past I've had the Magnavox Odyssey fired up for prehistoric pong fun, Odyssey2 rarities galore, Atari Video Music, Coleco tabletops, modded PS1 with retro arcade compilations and the gigantic arcade joystick, toys and memorabilia, and so on. Given that at least half of my display space is going to be taken up by stuff I'm selling, what do you folks want to see/play in the remaining space?

With purenergy, MMF and Mrs. MMF showing up again, it feels like we've got the band back together. I can't wait for this show!

You must. The power of bleeps and bloops and big chunky pixels compels you.

I'm definitely there - missing last year's show (the first OVGE I've ever not shown up for!) was one of my biggest disappointments of the past couple of years, and there is no way I'm missing this year's. I'll also have some new goodies with me for sale...but you can read more about that in the publications forum. And I'm going to have heaps of games up for grabs too (a goodly chunk of my collection, truth be told), which always seems to be a crowd pleaser! I'm looking forward to seeing everyone there - who knows, the Odyssey2 may live yet again!

We're going back in time...to the 2003 CGE! The Best of CGE '03 2-disc set features many of the highlights of the 2003 Classic Gaming Expo; Atari fans will be especially interested in (to date) Atari founder Nolan Bushnell's only CGE appearance (over an hour and a half total!) as well as John Harris, who designed the Atari 8-bit computer games Jawbreaker, Mouskattack and Frogger for Sierra On-Line. As with each of my earlier projects, I've keep learning new and better ways to do things, and as such Best of CGE '03 has the best picture and sound quality of any of my releases to date. There are a couple of places where sound is a casualty here (due to the flimsy folding partition wall that separated the speakers' room from the main hall which was loaded with arcade games); this occurs in the Arcade Designers' panel, so I took a unique approach to editing that segment, putting in captions for the Q&A session so you can see which topic is being discussed (and you can use your chapter jump buttons to jump to the next topic if you like). The complete table of contents: DISC ONE Starcade Alumni Highlights – featuring former Starcade contestants and season 1 host Mark Richards The Jawbreaker Story – former Sierra On-Line programmer John Harris talks about his breakout games, and the behind-the-scenes maneuvers that drove him out of the business Arcade Designer Highlights – featuring Ed Rotberg, Tim Skelly, Warren Davis & Franz Lanzinger 2003 Auction Excerpt – some of the highlights from the 2003 CGE Auction. Bonus features: CGE ‘03 Raw Footage – raw, unedited footage from the show floor and the CGE museum. It’s CGE as seen from an attendee’s perspective! DISC TWO Nolan Bushnell: The Atari Story – the complete Nolan Bushnell panel, well over an hour. Bonus: Phosphor Dot Fossils: CGE 2003 Edition – using the same format as the popular Phosphor Dot Fossils DVDs (also available from theLogBook.com), this is a brief “video glossary” giving brief historical overviews of the games mentioned across the rest of the 2-DVD set. Best of CGE '03 will be available at the 2009 OVGE in Tulsa this October, or you can order now from theLogbook.com Media. Also available - through the end of this month - is a really good package deal on my previous DVDs, combining the CGE 2007 set with either or both of the Phosphor Dot Fossils DVDs. That special pricing will vanish at the end of August, however, so order soon if you plan to take advantage of it! Also: as of the end of 2009, the Phosphor Dot Fossils DVDs will be available only in the 2-disc Brown Box set; the individual releases of each Phosphor Dot Fossils volume will go out of print on December 31st. (If you're going to OVGE in October, I will have the last few individual copies on hand, so you can still pick one up there.) As always, thanks to everyone who has supported these releases over the past couple of years. You've helped me continue to make cool stuff available, and you've helped a stay-at-home dad make a buck or two - both are very much appreciated.

Just to let everyone know - there's a summer special going on! The site has moved to a new hosting service which is much more secure and actually manages to keep us "on the air", so to celebrate you can get an almost ridiculous deal on bundles of Classic Gaming Expo and Phosphor Dot Fossils DVDs. Best of all, the prices are the same inside and outside the U.S. - kinda crazy, eh? The special won't last too much longer - hey, I've still gotta eat - so check 'em out soon. And feel free to check out the PDF web site as well - I've added some improvements to the site that make it much easier to navigate.

Just wanted to give everyone a heads-up, since I've gotten a PM and an e-mail or two about it... I am aware that theLogBook.com was hacked wthin the last two weeks, and I have restored the site to its pre-hacked state. I've also locked the site down to prevent further vandalism; my hosting service and the appropriate authorities are aware of the situation. I find it odd that, of all the static HTML pages remaining on the site, the three pages devoted to ordering the CGE and PDF DVDs alone were "altered," but as I said, the proper authorities are keeping a close eye on the situation, IP logs are being reviewed, and so on. This is a "loss of income" situation for me, so I'm treating it very seriously. In the meantime, the site's back in business, and it's safe to place orders again. The ordering pages are as follows: PDF Level 2 / PDF Brown Box (Vol. 1 & 2) Classic Gaming Expo 2K7 Phosphor Dot Fossils Vol. 1 Thanks for your patience - the coast is clear!