Categories
Atari VCS Video Games

Adventure

Atari 2600Atari releases the Adventure cartridge for the Atari VCS home video game system. Designed and programmed by Warren Robinett, Adventure is the first of its kind – a VCS game with a playing field larger than the TV screen, mapped out in the program’s memory – but later becomes better remembered for one “room” in the game’s maze which contains the programmer’s name, one of the earliest video game “Easter eggs.”

More about Atari 2600 in Phosphor Dot Fossils

Categories
Music

ELO: Afterglow

ELOFour years after the band’s formal breakup, CBS Records releases (with cooperation from frontman Jeff Lynne) a three-CD Electric Light Orchestra box set, Afterglow. Serving primarily as an elaborate greatest hits collection, the primary draw is the third disc, featuring many previously unheard songs that were “orphaned” when the group’s 1983 album Secret Messages was cut down from a double album to a single LP shortly before publication.

More about ELO in Music Reviews

Categories
Television

Return To Jupiter: Rescue

Return To JupiterThe fourth episode of Return To Jupiter airs on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Co-produced by ABC and Japanese network NHK, this children’s sci-fi series stars Sonia Todd (Home And Away) and David Wenham (The Lord Of The Rings trilogy).

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Categories
Deaths Matters of Life & Death

Don S. Davis, Stargate SG-1 actor, dies

Don S. Davis as General George HammondActor Don S. Davis, best known for his long stint in the role of General George Hammond on Stargate SG-1, dies of a heart attack at the age of 65. Though his film and TV career didn’t begin in earnest until the early 1980s, by that time he had earned a doctorate in theater arts and had spent a decade sharing those skills with others as a teacher. One of his early gigs was standing in for Dana Elcar on the set of MacGyver, where he met future SG-1 co-star Richard Dean Anderson. He originated the character of Hammond in the premiere episode of Stargate SG-1, and his final appearance in the role is in the upcoming direct-to-DVD movie Stargate Continuum, due in late July. In addition to reprising his SG-1 role on sister series Stargate Atlantis, he has appeared on such series as The Dead Zone, Highlander, The Outer Limits, The X-Files and Twin Peaks.

Categories
Crewed Spaceflight SpaceShip Two

Galactic 01

Galactic 01Virgin Galactic launches the Galactic 01 suborbital spaceflight aboard the SpaceShipTwo-class VSS Unity. The flight is piloted by Michael Masucci and Nicola Pecile, with Italians Walter Villadei, Pantaleone Carlucci, and Angelo Landolfi, and British citizen Colin Bennett, as the passengers. Some research objectives are carried out on this flight, which was delayed from a 2021 launch date.