Urban legend has it that when Atari’s sorry adaptation of “E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial” showed disappointing sales figures, they took the remaining copies from their warehouse and had them crushed into a cement cube at a landfill in New Mexico. If this is a fallacy, whoever still has that warehouse full of cartridges might have a potential buyer, after all.
Geekware, a quirky upstart out of Edmonton, Canada, has taken it upon themselves to repurpose technology as fashion, creating a boon of cool items for the geek niche — among them, analog clocks made from rescued Atari cartridges, currently available in Asteroids, Centipede, and Ms. Pac-Man models (24.95 USD). Numbering among those getting the clock treatment are vintage film reels, Commodore Vic-20 carts, microwaved CDs, and this blogger’s personal childhood fave, the Little Professor math tutorial toy.
5-inch floppy disks vie for their return to your desktop, as the front and back cover of a cute 100-page notebook (9.95 USD). A piece of advice — don’t put your secret formulas on the center of the first page. Also at the ready is a handy pocket-size 3.5-inch 50-page edition. We have it on good authority that if you put a magnet on top of these notebooks, the writing inside remains intact. Progress!
Keys from various models of Macs and PCs past have been made into keychains, pendants — even cufflinks. At 9.95 USD, a six-key refrigerator magnet set won’t be enough for you to replace your magnetic poetry, but if you were looking for a fun way to get rid of your latest six-figure bonus, this could be your calling — and, if you order over 49.99 USD worth of stuff, they’ll throw in the shipping.