8-bitxtravaganza/time warpxtravaganza

FROM December 31, 2003

They had the primitive technologist convention, microPALOOZA, atGround Kontrol, a "retrocade" populated by Centipede and Dig Dug and BurgerTime and varying degrees of Commodore, on display, some for sale ($1499 for a game using vector graphics). Under-21s in nu Pac Man tee-shirts, enraptured by (Italo) disco versions of Inspector Gadget theme song on modified C64s and circuit-bent chiptune makers, danced like tent revival converts. We pumped quarters into pinball machines-- none newer than Addams Family, some older than Brooke Shields in that movie Tilt. It was the '80s version of the future, but like time had actually ceased. Why did '80s technology come encased in such boring plastic?: greyish tan, frumpy coal, ambiguous brown, as though it was something dangerous, dressed in not-quite friendly, sensible hues, for maximum neutrality. Before technology was reinterpreted in iMac raspberry, sensual G4 platinum. Before technology was sexy. My cell phone rang--vibrated, actually--and I felt uncomfortable answering it, with its auspicious earpiece and dainty nature; I felt as if, by answering, every Commodore enthusiast in the place would turn and point and scream in alien-bloody octaves. I would become Donald Sutherland in Invasion of the Body Snatchers, singled out and marked for death. And still, though some performers were using outdated technology to make futuristic-sounding music weighted heavy with nostalgia, not all the microtunage adhered to a strict set of rules re: gear Ludditism. Some set 8-bit melodies to pre-sequenced (non-Commodore) beats, or imported laptop reverb from the future, aka now.

David and I wandered around the arcade to the tunes of Qbert and Dig Dug--like moths controlled by dazzling blips--played Police Squad Pinball and Joust, and lost. Really, you always lose at these things, unless you just never stop. We happened upon one of Ground Kontrol's owners, gripping a controller and staring with a kind of anguished passion into a screen. "When I first met him," David told me, "he said he was addicted to Missile Command in college." The guy, clearly post-grad and maybe a couple decades on, did not look up, but kept shooting at incoming missiles. When he lost a post, he responded, not to us but to the game: "Shit."