Take for example, the car I drive…. A New Volkswagen Beetle. An updated version of the old classic, my bug has used technology to surpass the original. Where the first beetles had severe heating problems, mine has heated seats. My 4-speed automatic transmission has "fuzzy logic" shift points that give it the ability to “learn” how the driver shifts. It has a built in rain sensor, automatic wiper speed control, and windshield wiper speed control that is vehicle speed sensitive. The New Beetle has also earned a five-star safety rating making it one of the safest cars on the street. Not bad for an old idea updated!

This return to the past has also made a big impression on gaming. Those of you who had children growing up in the seventies or eighties will certainly remember Pac-Man, Donkey-Kong, and Pong. These classis games are popular again keeping both young and old alike glued to the computer screen. The classic Atari games like Millipede, Asteroids, and Centipede are now available in an updated version for the PC. At Web sites like ClassicGaming you can acquire software emulators that will make your new PC act just like an antiquated Atari, TRS-80, or Commodore 64. The simplicity of these games seems to be unbeatable in today’s high stress world.

How many of you old PC users remember the Flying Toaster? Debuting in 1989, this was one of the most popular screensavers for the personal computer.  It ran on both PCs and Macs. The After Dark screensaver collection that highlighted the Flying Toaster was pulled off the market in 1999, only to have returned in 2002 by a company called Infinisys, Ltd. The new version includes a brand new Flying Toaster module called Space Toaster X.   Sorry PC users, the new version is for Mac OS X only.

Even with the popularity of today’s digital cameras there is room for nostalgia. Wetzlar, a German camera manufacturer, has recently announced their LEICA M3 camera. This is a miniaturized camera that has the high-tech innards of a digital camera combined with the retro look of a classic camera of the fifties. High-tech inside but classic outside. How’s that for a marriage of the new and old?

Speaking of new and old, have you seen the new Digisette Duo-DX? Digisette is an MP3 digital music player, but it is shaped like and looks like an old-fashioned audio cassette. Combining the old with the new, this cleverly designed device also works like a cassette tape. Put it in your car, or any cassette player and you can listen to the music or audio books you just downloaded from your computer. (Read my Review).

Obviously adapting the new to the old can be fun, and no where is this more obvious than with Verbatim’s recordable CDs. Called Digital Vinyl CD-Rs, these are CD discs that look just like old vinyl 45-rpm records, including the grooves. In an outstanding design, these color-coded discs can be used for burning music from your computer. This combination of the new and the old must definitely be referred to as “groovy”. Be sure to also check out Verbatim’s Verbatim’s Digital Movie DVDs as well. . They look like old movie reels.

Yes, retro high tech. There’s nothing else like it!