General News
HGS - TELESPORT - Model 4
May 29, 2009
HGS - TELESPORT
module based console,
compatible to Hanimex TVG 070 C. The control panel on the console is composed of 10 buttons to select the different games offered by each cartridge (10 being the maximum). Difficulty switches, power switch and a start button can also be found.
The COLECO Story - by Ralph H. Baer
March 31, 2009
Some Background to start with.....
...I had previously met Arnold Greenberg, Coleco's president, at the Marvin Glass studios.. At my urging, Arnold met me at GI's Hicksville, Long Island, NY plant where the AY3-8500 single-chip, multi-game device was demonstrated to us by Ed Sacks. He then ran the plant there and later moved GI's IC manufacturing to Phoenix, Arizona (it's now Microcircuits). Thus Coleco became GI's first and preferred customer for the AY3-8500, a chip around which millions of off-shore games were built in Hong-Kong, Taiwan and in Europe- on all of which Sanders and Magnavox collected royalties, thank you very much! Arnold Greenberg was impressed by what he saw at GI and thus was born "Telstar", Coleco's wildly successful video game.
However, this is not the end of my invovement in the Coleco story: One late Tuesday afternoon in 1976, I received a call in my lab at Sanders from Arnold Greenberg. At the same time, his brother and CEO Leonard was on the phone with Dan Chisholm, a Sanders' VP now nominally in charge of Video Games licensing activities. Why the double-barreled approach? There was a fire burning at Coleco! They needed the Sanders fire brigade, but fast!
Read the complete article written by Mr. Baer.
Featured at www.uberclub.org
March 29, 2009Thanks to Mescalito for featuring the museum at www.uberclub.org
Et oui, Pong a 40 ans ! Et depuis quelques jours son musée en ligne : le PONG Museum !!!
"En 1966, Ralph Baer, technicien chez Sanders Associates, conçoit un système permettant de jouer sur une télévision normale. Rien qu’aux Etats-Unis, 40 millions de foyers sont alors équipés. Le dispositif comprend alors un jeu vidéo de poursuite et un de tennis. Ses idées sont brevetées et il crée plusieurs prototypes. Trois années plus tard, en 1969, Ralph H. Baer et Bill Harrison jouaient, sous l’objectif d’une caméra, au premier jeu vidéo sur téléviseur. Il faudra ensuite attendre 1972 pour que Magnavox sorte sa console, la Magnavox Odyssey, et que Nolan Bushnell, co-fondateur d’Atari, commercialise le jeu sous son nom Pong.
Créé par l’allemand Oliver Soekhel, le pongmuseum est essentiellement consacré à l’historique du jeu vidéo. La rubrique Collection propose aussi un petit retour dans l’histoire des consoles " dont la plupart du temps je n'avais même pas entendu parler...entre les screenshots (d'époque, bien entendu) et le design très années 60-70 des consoles, on à l'impression de se trouver dans Startrek ou Cosmos1999, c'est Old School de chez Old Skool...mais c'est sympa de voir les balbutiements du développement du JV de manière détaillée.
Créé par l’allemand Oliver Soekhel, le pongmuseum est essentiellement consacré à l’historique du jeu vidéo. La rubrique Collection propose aussi un petit retour dans l’histoire des consoles " dont la plupart du temps je n'avais même pas entendu parler...entre les screenshots (d'époque, bien entendu) et le design très années 60-70 des consoles, on à l'impression de se trouver dans Startrek ou Cosmos1999, c'est Old School de chez Old Skool...mais c'est sympa de voir les balbutiements du développement du JV de manière détaillée.
(les éléments en italiques proviennent du site ecrans, oui, je sais, je en suis qu'une vile feignasse XD )
Resurrecting Tennis for Two
March 24, 2009
In the year 1958 a physicist named William Higinbotham demonstrated a remarkable game called Tennis for Two.
Higinbotham, head of the Instrumentation Division at Brookhaven National Laboratory, designed his game as an exhibit to improve what was an otherwise lackluster visitors' day at the lab. Tennis for Two presented a tennis court - shown from the side - on an oscilloscope screen, where handheld controllers allowed the two players to toss the ball to each other. Each controller had two controls: a button and a knob. With the button, you could hit the ball at any time of your choosing when it was on your side of the net, and with the knob you could choose the angle at which the ball was hit.
The game was based on the best contemporary technology: analog electronic computers built out of op-amps, relays, and the occasional transistor. Of course, some things have changed over the last 50 years. Using convenient modern electronics, the guys at evilmadscientist.com have designed a functional and playable replica of the original that can be put together by a hobbyist in a couple of evenings. You can watch the video of the recreation on YouTube.
Interton 2000 Console - 1975 - at youtube.com
March 23, 2009
We have added a video footage of the Interton 2000 console games 1,2 and 3 at youtube.com
See the Interton 2000 Games
The German Interton 2000 console from 1975 is a very rare and interesting system. This early Pong like system uses cartridges to provide some sort of pong games that are completely different to the games provided by the later AY-8500 chip systems.
APF TV Fun - Model 401
March 18, 2009
APF TV Fun Model 401 is a classic pong system. It is one of the first system based on the common AY-3-8500 chipset from General Instruments. Thus, it offers four basic pong games : tennis, hockey, squash and single handball. The case is quite nice with woodgrain style finish and silver-like knobs, switches and buttons. Switches are used to turn the system on and off, select game option and service mode (auto/manual). APF TV Fun
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