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In a world where AI seems to be cropping up in every app and on every device, it's nice to read a news post where it's absolutely trounced at something by a games console from the 1970s. It might be able to make a picture of you looking like a viking warrior or tell you how to write an essay on silica sand without you having to do any research (can you tell I don't like AI?), but when it comes to playing chess against a retro Grand Master, it doesn't stand a chance.

Robert Caruso, a Citrix software engineer has taken to LinkedIn to give his account of how ChatGPT got, in his words, 'absolutely wrecked' by an Atari 2600 console from 1977.

For regular readers of Retro Dodo, the Atari 2600 is a name you'll be very familiar with. If you're new to retro gaming, however, then this machine was one of the most pivotal home consoles from the second generation of console gaming. It sold over 30 million units worldwide, 27 million more than its next competitor the Intellivision, which coincidentally Atari now owns.

You would think that something as advanced as ChatGPT would be able to take an old timer like the 2600 for a walk in the park and beat it at chess while helping someone from Brussels get cheaper broadband at the same time, but no. The Atari 2600 managed to beat it on the easiest level, with the Atari only ever thinking 1 to 2 moves ahead.

'It started as a simple experiment: pit ChatGPT against the Atari 2600’s chess engine,' says Caruso, 'I figured it would be a lighthearted stroll down retro memory lane. ChatGPT got absolutely wrecked on the beginner level. This was after a conversation we had regarding the history of AI in Chess which led to it volunteering to play Atari Chess.'

Caruso goes on to say that 'Despite being given a baseline board layout to identify pieces, ChatGPT confused rooks for bishops, missed pawn forks, and repeatedly lost track of where pieces were — first blaming the Atari icons as too abstract to recognize, then faring no better even after switching to standard chess notation. It made enough blunders to get laughed out of a 3rd grade chess club'

In the end, the 8-bit behemoth just did what it's done for decades, quietly making moves without any flash or a language model. All it had was the level of difficulty that developers put into games back then. Come to think of it, I'd like to see ChatGPT have a go at Zelda II!

IT took 90 minutes for ChatGPT to admit defeat. Hopefully it will go back and tell its other Skynet pals that while they think they're the most powerful beings in the universe, the Earth's retro consoles are still in control.

King K. Rool piñata awarded as a prize to the winner of a contest as part of Nintendo’s Camp Hyrule program in 2003. Camp Hyrule was a virtual camp run by Nintendo of America between 1995 and 2007, which included various sweepstakes, contests and activities.

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It’s a game you may never have heard of. I certainly hadn’t until I saw the news about it. But gateball has been popular in Japan since the end of World War II. However, new reports say the sport, invented in Hokkaido and a favorite national pastime for decades, is on its deathbed. What happened?

The emergence of a post-war pastime

Gateball made its initial appearance in Japan in 1947. Suzuki Kazunobu (previously Suzuki Eiji) invented the game as a variation on croquet. Rubber was scarce at the time, but wood was plentiful, and croquet is played with wooden balls and mallets. It became popular in Kumamoto in the 1950s and spread nationwide in the 1970s.

Gateball has since spread to multiple countries across Asia, including China, South Korea, and Indonesia. There is an Asian as well as a World tournament, the latter of which was last hosted in Japan in Niigata in 2018.

The game is played on a 20 by 15 meter court containing three gates and a goal pole. Two teams of five face off, earning points for balls that go through a goal or hit the pole. At the end of 30 minutes, the team with the highest score is the winner. It is reportedly a fast-paced and strategic game that anyone of any age can play.

From over 10,000 players to 138 in Yamaguchi

Despite its pan-Asian popularity, the sport appears to be falling on hard times.

The decline is especially marked in Yamaguchi Prefecture. At its peak in the 1980s, it’s estimated that the prefecture’s Gateball Association had over 10,000 members. Its largest number of recorded members stands at 5,764 in 1997.

Today, however, the association has a scant 138 members remaining. As a consequence, many of the prefecture’s 72 gateball courts have fallen into disrepair.

Handa Toshio, the co-chair of the association and the leader of the team that won last year’s national playoffs, says he’s still playing with friends. However, the team can’t attend this year’s tournaments due to a lack of members who can commit to the competition.

This trend isn’t limited to Yamaguchi. The Japan Gateball Union reported 680,000 members in 1998. Today, that number stands at a mere 35,000.

What explains the plummet?

So why has gateball fallen out of fashion?

Nakada Noriaki, who heads Yamaguchi Prefecture’s Gateball Association, says the sport has suffered from its reputation as being “a game for senior citizens.” That’s resulted in two negative effects.

First, it means that young people aren’t picking up the sport. That’s leading to a loss of awareness and enthusiasm around gateball in general. Second, even though Japan’s elderly population is increasing rapidly, many seniors in their 60s and 70s are finding they have to keep working in order to make ends meet in today’s rough economy. That’s cutting into their time for recreational activities like gateball.

“This is our last chance to bolster the community,” Handa said. He says gateball enthusiasts need to spark more interest among kids and youth, pitching it as an easy-to-play and fun game even for those who don’t feel they’re good at sports. Handa is proposing that gateball associations target middle schools and school boards to boost the fortunes of the home-grown game.

Will that be enough to save it, however? Some experts differ. In a comment on Yahoo! News JP, aging expert Saitō Tōru says many are moving away from gateball because the rules are overly complex and the game is too competitive, which can damage instead of strengthen personal relationships. Saitō argues that ground golf, another Japanese invention from Akita Prefecture, is gaining popularity as a low-less, low-competition alternative.

Sources

ゲートボール人口が激減　山口県で全盛期1万人超が138人に　なぜ？ Chūgoku Shimbun

Gateball. Wikipedia

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Mozilla is shutting down Pocket, the handy bookmarking tool used to save articles and webpages for later. The organization announced that Pocket will stop working on July 8th, 2025, as Mozilla begins concentrating its “resources into projects that better match their browsing habits and online needs.”

Following the shutdown, you’ll only be able to export saves until October 8th, 2025, which is when Mozilla will permanently delete user data. Mozilla says it will start automatically canceling subscriptions as well, and will issue prorated refunds to users subscribed to its annual plan on July 8th.

It has also taken down the Pocket web extension and app as of May 22nd, 2025, but users who have already installed the app will be able to re-download it until October 8th.

Pocket — originally called Read It Later — launched in 2007 and grew in popularity as people used it to keep track of the articles, recipes, videos, and more that they planned to revisit. In 2015, Mozilla added Pocket to Firefox as the browser’s default read-it-later app, and then acquired it two years later. 

Mozilla says it’s shuttering Pocket because “the way people save and consume content on the web has evolved.” Pocket’s email newsletter, called Pocket Hits, will continue under a new name, “Ten Tabs,” but it will no longer have a weekend edition.

In addition to shutting down Pocket, Mozilla is also sunsetting its fake reviews detector, Fakespot. “We acquired Fakespot in 2023 to help people navigate unreliable product reviews using AI and privacy-first tech,” Mozilla says. “While the idea resonated, it didn’t fit a model we could sustain.” Review Checker, the Fakespot-powered tool built into Firefox, is shutting down on June 10th, 2025, too.

“This shift allows us to shape the next era of the internet — with tools like vertical tabs, smart search and more AI-powered features on the way,” Mozilla says. “We’ll continue to build a browser that works harder for you: more personal, more powerful and still proudly independent.”