Hey, it’s Tiger. I need you to do me a huge favor. Can you please take your name off your phone? My wife went through my phone and may be calling you. So if you can, please take your name off that. Just have it as a number on the voicemail, just have it as your telephone number. You got to do this for me. Huge. Quickly. Bye. Thanks.  -TygerWoodz3

Hes such a romantic.

“This email was sent from my iPhone”.  Oh God, really?  Sweet, because I was sitting here wondering what you used to reply to my e-mail.  Now that I know it’s your iPhone, I can’t stop thinking about how important you must be.  Assholes.  Learn how to edit a signature. -thecheezythree

I always answer these shitcakers back with an e-mail that quietly ends “Sent from my Amiga 286 ColecoVision Atari 2600″

Good for Biz Marquis getting Radio Shack to fill up his stocking.  Has anyone gotten richer off of one song ever? -MysterySolver

Its like Radio Shack contacted BizMarkie’s agent and they were all “Using that song in a national commercial will cost you $40,000. But for another $10,000, BizMarkie will sing the god damned thing for you!  Give it some time, I wager Digital Undergrounds “Humpty Dance” will surpass it.  Seriously.

Buried or Cremated? -JackColtonsdogg

Cremated. I have this terrible fear that the death of your body does not necessarily mean the death of your mind.

do you intend to lie to your (future) childeren about santa clause? -CrestFightStrips

Nope. I’m going to tell my kids nothing of Santa Claus. I don’t think people should require perceived policing and justice from an imaginary person so they treat other people with dignity and respect.  If everything goes to plan, they will fear my wrath until they are 18, and then, the law.

What the hell is up with furries?  At first I thought it was a joke, then a fad, but it seems to be getting more popular and prevalent.  WTF?  -PalletJunkie

It’s legalized bestiality for the embarrassed and non-rural.  Weird? Sure. Bothering my life? Nope.

Any mental tricks that help pass time? -Disneygro

No, there’s nothing. It’s called boredom for a reason.  Take the opportunity to remind yourself to do some deep breathing. It’s really good for you.

US goes to war against the UK.  Who wins?  -5Mt1.

Wow. Some people are taking this World Cup pretty seriously.  China is the correct answer, with “depends on the reason and who gets more world support” a close second.

Excellent stuff here, from Bristol’s Coleco, to start your day. Can’t say I know much about this guy, but I like his style. This mix starts off with some nice deeper elements of the broken beat/2-step sound and slowly progresses into some soothing harmonic dubstep ‘ish. Very nice! Looking forward to hearing more from Coleco in the future…

—

Coleco – December ‘09 Mix // 192k

Apathesis – Hindsight
Submerse – One More Day
Groove Chronicals – 1999
Myrkur – Outer Space
Submerse – Everything Around Us
Reso – Hemisphere
Brackles – LHC
Krytpic Minds and Leon Switch – Minor Nine
Darqwan – Last Of Nine
Phaeleh – Tachi (feat. Alex Taylor – Violin)
Aaron Spectre – Say More Fire
Marlow – Machine
L-Wiz – Egyptic
Elemental – Magic Harp
Macabre Unit – Bacteria (Wascal Mix)
Phaeleh – Broken
Martyn – Yet
Sharmaji – Break Your Heart
Bassbin Twins – Pigpen
SnD – Blue Mantra
L-Wiz – Must

If you want to play along with Random Tuesday Wednesday Thoughts, go here to get the widget and add your name to Mr. Linky.

~~~~~

So I’m LATE!  Not like that, although I soooo wish.  I am late with Random Thoughts Tuesday!  I just was too lazy busy to get to it yesterday.  Actually, I had a blog half started but never completed it.  Procrastinate much?

Are you TOTALLY stoked for the holidays?!?! I am! I love this time of year!  The Thanksgiving, The Christmas, The New Years.  YAY!!!

Thanksgiving was GRUB, and of course it helps that I am a FAB cook.  The meal came out beautifully and I am still amazed at myself for being able to do it all without feeling even a tiny bit stressed about it.

We got all of the inside decorations done.  The tree and all the pretty shiny lights and stuff everywhere.  I will take pictures this week and show you, since I KNOW you all have nothing better to do than look at pictures of my house all done up in it’s Sunday Christmas Best!  *snicker*

As you can tell, I am sort of in bitch mode right now.  Not sure why, it just happened.

As far as the outside lights, we haven’t put them up yet.  And by “we” I of course mean Hubby.  Cause of several reasons.

One… It’s outside of the house.  And this means, the possibility of creepy crawly things dramatically increases outside of the home.  Not my bag baby.

Two… I can’t stand on a chair without getting sick.  This means that my chances of standing on a ladder and climbing up on the house are NON EXISTENT.

And Three… watching anyone else doing anything dangerous (ie: standing on a ladder) makes me anxious and bossy.  So in the case of poor Hubby, then I would be out there all “be CAREFUL!”, “Wait, that isn’t safe”, “do you really think you should put that there?”, “is that safe?”, “stop rolling your eyes at me!”, “I AM ONLY TRYING TO HELP YOU! WHY ARE YOU LOOKING AT ME LIKE THAT!” and so on.

Get it?  Yeah, yeah poor poor Hubby.  Moving on.

So you see why I don’t participate in the outdoor decorations?  But I of course want to see the lights on my house, so that means Hubby wins the honor of putting them up.  And lucky for me, he doesn’t complain about it.

And actually he does such a good job that the neighbors get jealous.  Here is a pic from last year.

We are the house on the left.  LOL

HAHA!! Seriously, can you imagine?  That is awesome!  Although I can’t imagine that dudes light bill!  Talk about overboard on the lawn ornaments! Sheesh!

The Fed Ex Guy just showed up, and for the 2nd day in a row he had to see my in my pink flowered MuuMuu.  Poor guy.  I have killed his sex drive for the better part of a week I would guess.

Are you searching for that perfect gift?  Not having a lot of luck?  This is a must have for those chilly winter days.  I am getting them for everyone in my family.

I need to get some editing done so that I can post some Daily Photo Blogs again.  I just haven’t had a chance.

Hubby got me a Nintendo DSi for Christmas!!  And I got it early.  Early as in, the day after Thanksgiving.  Schweeeeeeeeet!

It’s lots of fun, so I have been playing Brain Games (Not Mind Games, although that is fun too *wink*) and Puzzle games a lot.  I feel like an old lady though, trying to figure out how to get it going.  Give me a Pong or a  Nintendo and some Mario Bros. or Duck Hunt and I can kick some ass! But anything manufactured after 1987 is foreign to me.

OMG, do you remember Coleco?  Did you have one?  We did.  I used to play Mousetrap and Smurfs on mine.  LOVED those games.

Monkey is boycotting food again.  I think he is teething though because he is gnawing on his hands for the majority of the day now.  But yesterday I could only get him to eat a Tater Tot and an Apple.  I am so worried about this kid.  His dad and I love food! Why doesn’t he?  It’s weird.

Ok, now I am hungry after talking about food.  Haha!

Have a fantastic Wednesday!

Super Zaxxon beziehungsweise ursprünglich nur Zaxxon genannt, ist ein klassisches Arcade-Spiel aus dem Jahre 1982. Der Entwickler Sega schuf mit diesem Spiel eine Art Shoot’em up, welches man mit der Kontrolle eines Raumschiffs meistern soll. Meistern deshalb, weil einem auf dem Flug, wie soll es auch anders sein, zahlreiche Gegner entgegen fliegen, die nur darauf aus sind, dich bzw. dein Raumschiff vom “Himmel” zu holen. Daher bleibt dir nichts anderes übrig, als jene ebenfalls zu beschießen und somit ins Jenseits zu befördern. Umso mehr Gegner man besiegt und je weiter man sich durch die kosmische Basis kämpft, desto mehr Punkte gibt es dafür, was demzufolge eine Highscore-Jagd fördern soll. Schließlich wurde es, wie so viele Spiele aus diesem Zeitalter, auf dem Atari 2600 veröffentlicht, wo das Erzielen von Rekordpunktzahlen an der Tagesordnung und notwendig für’s Geschäft war. Als weitere Startplattform ist der ColecoVision zu nennen.

Das Besondere an Zaxxon war der Einsatz einer isometrischen Perspektive. Mit deren Hilfe konnte eine gewisse räumliche Tiefe erzeugt werden, weshalb man es kurzerhand als quasi-3D-Scroller bezeichnen kann. Nerdig ausgedrückt, wäre das  dann ein Upper-Right-Diagonal-Scroller – jedoch wäre es damit nur halb beschrieben. Es gibt nämlich desweiteren die Möglichkeit, das Raumschiff nach links und rechts, sowie nach oben und unten zu steuern. Dadurch kann man auch Hindernisse, wie etwa Mauern, überfliegen. Das Spielprinzip wurde dabei vom quasi 2D-Vorgänger Scramble kopiert. Um sich davon ein genaueres Bild machen zu können, hier ein Vorschauvideo:

Zaxxon war, vermutlich gerade wegen des revolutionären Spielprinzips, äußerst erfolgreich. Daher folgte noch im gleichen Jahr Super Zaxxon, bei dem es am Ende einen Roboter zu besiegen galt -  es wurde ein Bossgegner hinzugefügt. Außerdem wurde es innerhalb von 2 Jahren, also bis 1984, auf sage und schreibe 13 Plattformen portiert: unter anderem auf den Commodore 64 und das Sega Master System. 1987 erschien der Nachfolger Zaxxon 3-D und ein Klon namens Panther. 8 Jahre später (1995) folgte dann der letzte Teil der Serie für den Sega 32X: Zaxxon Motherbase 2000.

Aber genug der Worte: Spielt es (KLICK) !

Over the past 37 years the ‘home-based’ video game market has experienced extensive growth and has seen considerable evolution in the design and development of  video game consoles, starting with the earliest simpler (although cutting edge at the time) Odyssey (by Magnavox) and Pong (by Atari) systems and progressing up to today’s high-tech gaming machines, the PlayStation 3, XBox 360 and the Nintendo Wii, with a wide array of systems in-between.

C”ya soon — Please keep checking back…

Have fun and enjoy the tour

Video Game Consoles: A Visual History

And in the beginning…there was only Odyssey by Magnavox…

Magnavox Odyssey ~ 1972

Atari Pong ~ 1975

Atari Super Pong ~ 1976

GHP Wonder Wizard 7702 ~ 1976

Coleco Telstar ~ 1976

Coleco Telstar Classic ~ 1976

Fairchild Channel F ~ 1976

RCA Studio II ~ 1976

Atari Video Pinball ~ 1977

Atari VCS 2600 ~ 1977

Coleco Telstar Colortron ~ 1978

Coleco Telstar Arcade ~ 1978

Bally Astrocade Professional Arcade ~ 1978

Magnavox Odyssey 2 ~ 1978

Coleco Telstar Gemeni ~ 1978

Zircon Channel F System II ~ 1979

Mattel Intellivision ~ 1980

GCE Vectrex ~ 1982

Atari 5200 ~ 1982

Emerson Arcadia 2001 ~ 1982

ColecoVision by Coleco ~ 1982

Coleco Gemeni ~ 1982

Mattel Intellivision II ~ 1982

Nintendo Entertainment System ~ 1985

INTV System III Super Pro System ~ 1985

Atari 2600 VCS Junior ~ 1986

Atari 7800 ~ 1986

Sega Master System ~ 1986

Atari XE VGS ~ 1987

NEC Turbografx-16 ~ 1989

Sega Genesis ~ 1989

Commodore 64GS ~ 1990

Sega Master System II ~ 1990

SNK Neo-Geo Advanced Entertainment System ~ 1990

Super Nintendo Entertainment System ~ 1991

Philips CDi (compact disc interactive) ~ 1991

NEC Turbo Duo Super System ~ 1992

Sega CD for Genesis ~ 1992

Panasonic 3DO Interactive FZ-1 ~ 1993

Atari Jaguar ~ 1993

NES 2 (Top-Loader) ~ 1993

Commodore Amiga CD32 ~ 1993

Sega Genesis 2 ~ 1994

Sega CD for Genesis 2 Add-On ~ 1994

Sega 32X Genesis Add-On ~ 1994

SNK Neo-Geo CD ~ 1994

Sega CDX Multimedia CD Rom Entertainment System ~ 1994

JVC X'Eye Multi Entertainment System ~ 1994

Atari Jaguar CD Add-On ~ 1995

Sony PlayStation ~ 1995

Panasonic 3DO FZ-10 ~ 1995

Sega Saturn ~ 1995

Nintendo 64 ~ 1996

Super NES 2 ~ 1997

Sega Genesis 3 ~ 1998

Sega Dreamcast ~ 1999

Sony PSone (PS1) ~ 2000

Sony PlayStation 2 (PS2) ~ 2000

Nintendo GameCube ~ 2001

Microsoft XBOX ~ 2001

Sony PlayStation 2 Slim (PS2) ~ 2004

XaviXPORT by SSD Company Limited ~ 2004

Microsoft XBOX 360 ~ 2005

Sony PlayStation 3 ~ 2006

Nintendo Wii ~ 2006

Just a reminder…..

Watch for updates in the near future as more information will be added here. Keep an eye out and check back soon.

___________________________________________________________________________

When I was a kid, our first home gaming machine was the Telstar Pong console.

I think it had four “games” and three levels of difficulty (the size of the “paddle” got smaller). Oddly enough, I still have this thing, though I cut the video cable off of it for some project I was working on as a kid.

After that, we got an Atari 2600. Man, this thing rocked our world. My brother and I would always play the included Tank game (“Combat”). I also had a good friend that had one and we would swap games. I think it’s also the first game to have a “cheat”. You could bump the tank against the corner and “warp” to the other side.

And, of course, no conversation about the Atari 2600 can go without mentioning the awesome “Pitfall!”

After that, my first “real” computer…the TI-99/4A

We had a cassette player that we stored the programs on. Oh man, this thing was cool. I remember a dungeon crawling adventure game that I’d play for hours. I don’t remember the name of it, but it was cool. This was also where I was first introduced to “Hunt the Wumpus”, a great puzzle game.

After that, my mom got us a Colecovision “Adam” home computer. It was a gaming console, but it also had a built in daisywheel printer and it booted up as a word processor. We had CP/M for it and we had a machine language compiler, but that was over my head at the time. This was when I would have rather have gotten an IBM PC. It was pretty annoying because it had a high-speed tape drive and the tapes would get wrapped up in the spindle. The tapes had screws in them (a little foresight on Coleco’s part?) so it was easy to pop them open and reel them back in. It was still annoying, though.

Them the big daddy of them all…the Commodore 64. My parents didn’t buy this one for me, I had to save up the money to get it for myself. I bought it off a guy in school for about $25 (including the hard drive). He was getting “old” and didn’t want to play with kid toys anymore. Sweet.

(notice the price)

That’s pretty much it for my childhood gaming machines.

As a side note, compare the wumpus adventure game to this…

That’s what I play as an adult on my XBox 360. If I could go back in time and show that game to me as a kid, I’d probably flip out and never leave the house. Oh, wait, that’s what kids are doing today, isn’t it?

Remember Tron? Of course you do. Spandex suits and, erm, well – glowing helmets, for want of a better expression. But anyway, it was (and still is) cool – what an amazing technical achievement to convincingly set  a movie inside a computer-generated world – and that was back in 1982, when this was a home computer:

Commodore 64

and this was the latest games console:

Mmmm. Chunky.

with games that looked like this:

Virtual Shitality

Things have moved on. And so has Tron. I had no idea this was in the works:

Can’t wait!

GZS

DONKEY KONG JR.
original platform
arcade
developer/publisher
Nintendo
key personnel
Shigeru Miyamoto

Donkey Kong Jr. offers more of the same platforming action as its predecessor, with four new stages, fairly different from the original and featuring new enemies like crazed birds and sentient steel traps.  The game’s biggest twist lies in the scenario; Mario is now the villain, Donkey Kong assumes the ‘damsel in distress’ role, and the hero is now played by DK’s young son.  The younger Kong appeared in a few more games but did not enjoy the wildly successful career of his father or his mortal enemyt.

Donkey Kong Jr. was inducted on May 16th, 2009.

Return to the National Game Registry to view more inductees.

Forestville resident Al Tunis will bring electronic game to doctor's office

Last year Al Tunis visited the eye doctor for his annual checkup and was disappointed with the waiting room.  “The magazines were all for chicks: People, Soap Opera Digest, and Fashion Trends.  I don’t read that stuff so I just there with a dumb look on my face and my hands folded nicely in my lap.  I hate doing that.  I looked like a dork,” said an angry Tunis.  “It is too hard to have an Automotive Weekly or Maxim Magazine just lying around.” 

Mr. Tunis fears the situation has not changed so he called the office manager and asked if he could bring his old electronic football game with him.  According to Al “It is a two player game played on a metal field (18X12) with miniature plastic players affixed to a magnetic base.  When the players are set up, a thumb switch is activated causing the field to vibrate and the players to move.  The team to score the most points via a touchdown, field goal or safety wins when time expires.”   

The doctor’s office had not responded to his inquiry. 

PEPPER II
original platform
arcade (1982, Exidy)
notable conversions
ColecoVision (1983, Coleco)

The first question raised by Pepper II is, “where is Pepper I?”  Alas, unless the remnants of Exidy might be located and interrogated, the question will go unanswered.  Despite its name, Pepper II is indeed the first, and last, game to star Pepper.  His motivations are impossible to uncover, but his mission is to traverse an entire screen of zippers in a maze-like fashion clearly influenced by Pac-Man.  The maze is divided into several smaller sections that are filled in whenever Pepper zips up its surroundings.  However, if Pepper travels backwards around an unfilled section, he will undo the zipping he worked so hard to complete.  Certain sections contain items that serve the same role as power pellets from the influential Pac-Man, allowing him to destroy his enemies, which are numerous and quite aggressive.  Zipping up an entire screen completes it but each side of the screen leads to additional mazes, which Pepper may visit at will.  As such, Pepper may concentrate on one screen at a time or hop back and forth from one maze to another.

arcade

Pepper II was inducted on May 16th, 2009.

Return to the National Game Registry to view more inductees.

<Direct Download Link>

“I was asked by Fractal to do a mix for his label’s “Tide Pool is Love” show, hosted on Proton Radio. This is that mix.

Somewhere along the road, I seemed to have developed a habit of making themed mixes featuring unreleased work. My goal here was to create an atmospheric “headphone” style blend, with emphasis on layering and progression. It starts with some downtempo melodies, then briefly hints at touches of dub, jungle, and garage. The mood shifts as it journeys into deeper minimal territory, then finishes with some eclectic bits. It’s hand-mixed with digital vinyl; virtually all unreleased dubs from a variety of artists. You are encouraged to re-post this mix!

I enjoyed making it. I hope you enjoy listening to it.”
Rhythmicon

<Direct Download Link>
(Right Click/Save-As)

Coleco's Quiz Wiz

When Neal Postman lamented in 1985’s Amusing Ourselves to Death that the American public had been inundated with so much useless triva courtesy of television information was no longer useful; it had been a long time since quiz shows were prevelant on the air waves, and the second iteration of Jeopardy! was just starting to become a hit. Of course, in the late 1970’s, I had absolutely no idea about any of this stuff. I was much more interested in toys, and toys that engaged me were where it was at.

One of my favorites was Coleco’s Quiz Wiz, which was given to me sometime in the very late 70’s. The one page on the Internet that had any information about the game identifies it as a product of the early 1980’s, but I was still living with my mother when I received it, so it was definitely the late 70’s.

Quiz Wiz was a cartridge-based handheld system, similar to Milton Bradley’s MicroVision, only without the display and recessed pad controller. Each cartridge came with a theme, such as History or Mathematics, and was accompanied by a booklet that contained 1001 questions of varying difficulty. You’d key in the question number and then provide your answer and it would let you know if you were right or wrong (I actually don’t remember how it did this, probably via beeps and boops).

Additional cartridge/booklets could be purchased seperately for a vaitety of themes. I don’t quite recall what those themes are, as we only had the initial cartridges, but according to the accompanying picture you could learn/quiz yourself on such topics as energy and the ocean.

Do you remember my name? I am the 2-XL. Greetings!

Quiz Wiz was easily over-shadowed by the much more popular and robust robot quiz toy, the name of which I have long forgotten. It also used a cartridge system, and had all sorts of flashing lights and sounds. Despite its total cool factor, we never had one of these, and I’m kinda sad that we didn’t. If you remember anything about this toy, especially if you know its name, please post a comment!

Update: I should have Googled “quiz wiz coleco”! Here’s a page all about the toy: http://www.handheldmuseum.com/Coleco/QuizWiz.htm

Update #2: After hours, and I really do mean hours, of searching, I finally found the name of this toy robot!

Ladies and gentlemen, meet the 2-XL from Mego! According to the Wikipedia article, those are actually 8-track tapes, not cartridges like the Quiz Wiz uses. I wonder if you could play actual 8-track audio cassettes on it [edit: according to the commercial (see below), you could dance groovy groovy in your bell bottoms while it played your music cartridges]. Tiger Electronics came out with a more Buck Rogers-looking version of the robot, using regular audio cassettes (then in vogue with home computers) rather than the long-dead 8-tracks.

Skooldays notes that the 8-tracks came in the following flavors, and also describes how it worked:

“Challenges of General Science,” “Guinness Book Of World Records” and “Wonders Of The World.”

The fun of 2-XL began when the user inserted a tape in the robot’s midsection and pressed a red button on the top of its head. Many tapes also came with special overlay cards that could be placed over the four buttons to make them game-specific. With a press of the “Question” button, 2-XL began its string of multiple choice and true/false kid-stumpers. Once a guess was entered, the 2-XL would make a few computer-style noises and tell the user whether their answer was right or not. It would also chime in some extra information on the topic in question.

So, there we have it. Mystery solved. I’d go to sleep now, only I have to start working in 40 minutes. But it was a hunt well won!

I was helping my parents do some work around their house, and I found this:

My old Coleco Head-to-Head Electronic Baseball. I believe I got it for Christmas in 1982. It was the first (or one of the first) electronic games where you could play someone other than the CPU. You had two pitches — fastball and curve. Curve was always a ball, but you didn’t know until the circular light representing the ball popped outside the plate at the last second.

I brought it home for my kids, who viewed it as an archeologist would Pompeii. My 9-year-old daughter actually played it for a little while, though. Yep — after 27 years (yikes!), it still fired up with a fresh pair of 9-volts.

Please feel free to share below any favorites you have from that era, and any experiences you had showing it to someone whose frame of reference is XBox Live.

image: Game Consoles

image: Old Computers

image: Old Computers

This article features the best games released for the Colecovision as selected by the National Game Preservation Board and recommended for permanent preservation by the United States Library of Congress National Game Registry.

System: Colecovision
Manufacturer: Coleco
Debut: 1982
Nation of origin: United States

Coleco entered the video game market in 1970s, releasing plug-and-play games that quickly increased in sophistication. As the cartridge-based, programmable console market exploded, Coleco became quite conservative – their only release was a Atari 2600 clone called the Gemini. Coleco finally worked up its courage in 1982 and released the powerful Colecovision, armed with an impressive conversion of the arcade hit, Donkey Kong, as a pack-in. The new console’s library was filled with high-quality arcade ports and Coleco even issued an expansion kit that converted the Colecovision into the Coleco Adam computer (self-contained Adam units were also sold). When the North American video game market crashed in 1983, Coleco’s yellow streak reemerged and the Colecovision became by the far the highest-profile victim, dying in 1984. The Adam was plagued by design flaws and was cancelled the following year at a huge loss. Colecovision inductees include:

Pitfall!
Pitfall II: Lost Caverns

REFERENCES AND ADDITIONAL INFO

Emulation: National Game Registry recommends MESS for Colecovision emulation on home computers.

Visit the National Game Registry to view more inductees.

In the past, my critics (may Allah kill them) have accused me of only reviewing games I enjoy, rather than a more balanced mix of good, bad and average. This is largely true, since it seems counterproductive to me, in this Age of Information, to tell you what games to avoid. If you’ve managed to avoid buying the Last Ninja for the past twenty years, you’re pretty much on a roll, and it seems pointless to warn you about it. If anything, I might jinx your winning streak. On the other hand, alerting you to the existence of games you’ve possibly overlooked is, if I might be so bold, a helpful public service.

But much to my dismay, my bosses at Bertelsmann AG have decreed that I review a game I’m not so fond of, and the first one that came to mind was Frogger II: Threeedeep!. As the awkward double numeric title is ineffectively trying to imply, Frogger’s second outing is three times bigger, three times more complex, and, unfortunately, a third as much fun. This time the amphibian is faced with the monumental task of navigating three distinctly different screens. Starting underwater (which, in a nod to the scientific community, is no longer lethal to frogs), you’ll proceed to the surface of the water for some familiar lilypad hopping. Finally, by hitching a ride on a highly aggressive duck, you’ll make your way up to the clouds, which is a highly existential thing for a frog to do.

Each of these different screens has it’s own set of rules. In the underwater sections, which plays pretty much like the road part of the original, a persistent current pulls you to the right. The surface of the water is more like the log jumping, but falling into the water will merely send you back to the under water screen. The cloud scene is more unique, with action taking place from a side perspective rather than top-down, thus forcing you to contend with the forces of gravity. Each of these screens has one or more goal nooks Frogger needs to reach, and you can tackle them in any order.

This all sounds good as I’m typing it, and in the grand scheme of things, it’s really not a terrible game, but this frog shows his warts pretty quickly. The main problem is pretty basic; the game moves extremely slowly, and while it does pick up some speed as you progress, it’s tedious as hell to get to that point, and you’re likely to die from the carelessness of impatience long before that. And unlike 95% of the other Colecovision games I’ve played, there are no difficulty settings available to speed things up. You could argue that since the original Frogger is part of that minority 5%, and since Threeedeep! is a console specific title, the slow pace is appropriate, but you’d be wise not to make that argument during one of the game’s fifteen second periods of passively waiting for the next platform to slowly scroll in front of you.

If Frogger 2 serves no other purpose, it’s that it really makes you appreciate what an excellent game the original Frogger is. It’s not the brilliant concept or tight gameplay mechanics that make it a classic, since it’s sequel isn’t lacking in those departments. Rather, it’s the work and care that went into balancing and perfecting this simple yet elegant formula. With Threeedeep!, Parker Bros tried to add too much, and the all-important polish fell by the wayside. They probably should have focused on perfecting two screens, but it was still a noble effort.

Carnival is perfect for those times when you feel like playing Space Invaders, but can’t handle the extreme stress of being solely responsibile for the safety of the Earth. Compared to fending off thousands of aliens, plinking cans with a low-powered bb-gun at a carnival is no sweat. Yeah sure, carnivals can be scary places, with grizzled carnies barking at you, dangerously unmaintained rides and tattooed packs of stabby Mexicans giving you hard looks, but this is an introduction, not a dissertation. And unlike a real carnival shooting game, the gun you’ll be using in this game doesn’t shoot at a 45° angle.

For a game which consists entirely of moving along the x-axis while shooting slowly scrolling targets (which don’t shoot back), Carnival is surprisingly complex. Nothing that would blow your mind, but there’s quite a variety of ways to wrack up a mega score. Most of the game’s strategy (and challenge) is derived from careful management of limited ammo. While you’ll initially just jam away at the fire button in an effort to assassinate as many of the ducks and bunnies and whatnots as quickly as possible, you soon discover that that’s the quickest route to the game over screen, which comes as quite a shock since those words are usually displayed over smoldering ashes rather than an empty peashooter.

The only direct conflict you’ll be faced with is from the afore-mentioned ducks. If given a chance to build up their courage, these foul brutes will magically come to life and begin wildly flapping their wings, to give you a sporting chance. If you, preferring video games over sports, refuse to perform the grim task of assassinating them, these unfeeling birds will devour a number of your bullets. Other than these avian menaces, you can plink away at a pretty leisurely pace. Though haste is necessary for a number of the scoring opportunities, and manic play certainly has it’s rewards, carefully aiming all your shots is an equally viable option, since you’ll tend to live longer.

Once you’ve shot down everything on the screen (including all the arms on the difficult to hit “wheel”) you’re treated to a very fun minigame, after which the process begins again, without a very drastic increase in intensity. Carnival is a fun little game that, while having the appearance of a rather lame Space Invaders clone, is actually a much deeper (though decidedly less exciting and mesmerizing) experience. It’s surprisingly unique, with a number of cool ideas that hadn’t been seen before nor have they been seen since. It’s not exactly relaxing, and the higher difficulty settings can be shockingly beastly, but the metallic *pink* when you hit your targets is highly satisfying, and the game is a terrific alternative for those times when you don’t want to have to worry about getting shot at. In that respect it’s one of the most pure shoot-em-ups around, and it’s surprising that we haven’t seen more shmups where you can concentrate solely on scoring big without having to split your attention between aiming and dodging.

The first three decades of digital gaming saw a flurry of concepts, technologies, and products that were groundbreaking in their era and still matter today. And the drawings their inventors used to document them in patent filings are a nostalgic, charming blast. Here are thirty-two of those sketches–including ones for some the most successful games ever and a few which I’m not sure ever made it to market at all.

As with my earlier patent galleries, I couldn’t have done this one without the wondrous research tool known as Google Patents. The filing dates that follow link to the full patent documents there.

Television Gaming Apparatus

Filed May 27th, 1969

1969 is downright prehistoric as far as video games go–it was three years before the debut of Pong–so this patent by defense firm Sanders Associates is as seminal as you can get. (It resulted in a product when Magnavox released the Odyssey, the first game console, in 1972.) I don’t know if  Sanders actually proposed a game controller with five paddles on it, but I sort of like the idea.

Television Combat Game

Filed September 28th, 1972

Here’s another patent relating to Magnavox’s Odyssey. The on-screen graphics depicted look startlingly ambitious for 1972–until you remember that the Odyssey came with preprinted plastic overlays you fastened to your TV screen.

Preprogrammed Television Gaming

Filed February 22nd, 1974

This Sanders Associates patent, credited to videogame pioneer Ralph Baer, shows games being loaded via a reel-to-reel tape recorder. Real early consoles settled on ROM cartridges as the principal form of media, thank heavens.

Game Apparatus Utilizing a Display Screen

Filed March 4th, 1974

No, those aren’t astonishingly realistic computer graphics for 1974–this patent is for an essentially mechanical Pong-like game that involves projecting a beam of light onto a translucent screen to simulate a moving ball, so I presume that those two tennis players wouldn’t have moved. I’m not sure if this game, designed by legendary toy creators Marvin Glass and Associates, was ever produced.

Video Slot Machine

Filed February 3rd, 1976

An early attempt by Bally to design a successful video-based one-armed bandit. More than thirty years later, the old-school mechanical ones still seem more popular than video ones.

Game Cabinet

Filed February 14th, 1977

Atari bragged that this cabinet was so refined that restaurants and ski lodges that had nixed arcade games in the past would jump at the chance to install ones of this design. (I like the footprints indicating where the player stood in relation to the game.)

TV Game Apparatus

Filed July 5th, 1977

Here’s Bally’s Gun Fight, the first arcade game with a microprocessor, allowing for a a bit of artificial intelligence on the part of your computer-controlled cowboy opponent. I still remember encountering it at the Natick Mall in suburban Boston, when my previous exposure to videogames had mostly been restricted to Pong and variants thereof. Needless to say, it knocked my socks way, way off.

Television Target Game and Method

Filed August 8th, 1977

Here’s an early Nintendo patent for a prosaic shooting game from the BDK (Before Donkey Kong) era. I can’t look at this drawing without thinking of real pistols shooting real bullets into TV screens.

Game Control Console

Filed August 19th, 1977

Atari’s 2600 wasn’t the first gaming console, but it was the first wildly popular one. And you could make a case that it remains the single most important one of all time. Tragically, this drawing doesn’t show the fake wood-grain paneling that gave the 2600 its incomparably 1970s-ish character.

Game Cabinet

Filed August 19th, 1977

A case for an Atari shooting game–I’d forgotten how many early video games involved simulated firearms of one sort of another. I don’t know if the design was used for a specific game that saw release, but it looks a lot like 1974’s Qwak.

Electronic Game Housing

Filed April 18,1978

This, of course, is Milton Bradley’s Simon–one of the simplest, most conceptually elegant, addictive electronic games ever. More than thirty years later, you can still buy it. And isn’t far more likely that folks will still be playing Simon thirty years from now than that they’ll have any interest whatsoever in, say, Gears of War 2?

Home Computer and Game Apparatus

Filed May 30th, 1978

Here’s Bally’s Astrocade, its not-very-successful home console. That’s Gun Fight on the screen.

Hand-Held Electronic Game Playing Device With Replaceable Cartridges

Filed October 30th, 1978

Milton Bradley’s Microvision–the first handheld gaming console–was amazing in its day. A rich kid at my high school had one, and the awe and envy I felt when he showed it off is surging back as I write this.

Electronic Baseball Game

Filed January 5th, 1979

I never had any of the handheld sporting simulations that were a hit in the late 1970s and early 1980s, nor did I particularly lust after any of them. But games such as this Mattel baseball handheld meant so much to so many people that they’ve been rereleased in recent years.

Hand-Held Two Player Electronic Football Game

Filed February 26th, 1979

Is it completely goofy to ask whether Coleco’s Head-to-Head Football is a purer expression of pigskin in electronic form than any game that’s ever included the word “Madden” in its title?

Video Game Control Unit

Filed June 24th, 1980

The Atari joystick is the Washington Monument of game controllers: simple, stately, and, dare I say it, moving. (My thumb feels a little sore just looking at this drawing.) If the Nintendo Wiimote now reigns as the greatest game controller of all time, this one may still be number two. It’s now available in a USB version for PCs.

Pinball Game Including Elevated Ball Pathway

Filed October 29th, 1980

I’m not trying to document the evolution of pinball in the 1980s here–frankly, I like the purely mechanical machines from the 1960s and 1970s far better–but here’s a Bally patent just so I don’t completely ignore it, either.

Electronic Learning Game or Aid Having Synthesized Speech

Filed August 29th, 1980

Texas Instruments’ ingenious, admirable, iconic Speak & Spell. Wouldn’t kids like this gadget pretty much exactly in its original form if it were still available?

Robot Computer Chess Game

Filed January 5th, 1981

The rather highfalutin’ text for this patent mentions Baron Von Kempelen’s Mechanical Turk of 1769 as an ancestor of this robotic chess player. I suspect you won’t be startled to learn that the games produced based on this design had an alarmingly high failure rate.

Remote Control Unit for Electronic Game

Filed January 8th, 1981

Anyone know if Atari ever built and sold wireless paddles based on this design? I would have worried that I might poke somebody’s eye out with that antenna.

Figure Displaying Game Apparatus

Filed June 15th, 1981

Here’s a Nintendo patent for a game based on the ancient and noble sport of whacking moles on the head with a hammer. I’m assuming this was a Game and Watch design, though I’m not sure if it ever resulted in a product. But you can whack moles on the DS Lite today.

Board Game Apparatus

Filed December 31st, 1935

I apologize for sneaking this drawing into this slideshow out of sequence. But when I ran across it while researching this story, there was no way I was not going to not include it. And hey, Monopoly is, among other things, an electronic game.

Game Machine Having Pop-Up Target

Filed January 5th, 1982

A Namco design for a whack-a-mole arcade game, although neither moles nor the whacking thereof are explicitly mentioned in the patent filing.

Video Arcade Game and Display Housing

Filed January 6th, 1982

The vector-graphics Vectrex console remains one of the coolest gaming platforms of all time; it’s a shame that this patent drawing captures absolutely none of the things that made it so impressive.

Video Games With Voice Dialog

Filed May 13th, 1982

I don’t know if this patent ever resulted in a product, but you gotta love that drawing.

Controller Unit for Video Game

Filed June 7th, 1982

A later Atari joystick design, from the beginning of the era when game controllers went from simple and intuitive to byzantine and uninviting.

Hand Held Type Electronic Game Housing

Filed July 1st, 1982

Here’s a Nintendo Game and Watch design used in games such as this Donkey Kong one. It’s the obvious great-great-granddaddy of today’s DS Lite.

Control Unit for Video Games and the Like

Filed February 7th, 1983

Behold the Joyboard, the joystick you controlled with your feet–an ancestor of sorts of today’s Wii Fit. It was the first product of the Amiga Corporation, later responsible for the landmark multimedia PC that bore its name.

Game Robot

Filed November 4th, 1985

I’m clearly a Nintendo-history illiterate–until I found this drawing, I’d never heard of the Nintendo Entertainment System peripheral known as R.O.B., and certainly wouldn’t have guessed that he’s still around as a character in current Nintendo titles.

Video Game Control Unit

Filed November 4th, 1985

Speaking of the original Nintendo Entertainment System, here it is. The gaming console biz was so dead in the wake of the Atari crash that the NES kind of snuck onto the market without attracting much attention. But it started a second boom that continues to this day.

Interactive Audio Baseball Game

Filed February 6th, 1989

By 1989, when Jay Smith (the genius behind Microvision and Vectrex) designed this game, the era of handheld sports simulations was already fading. I’m not sure if this one ever made it into toy stores. But it sure looks ambitious.

Hand-Held Electronic Game

Filed June 26th, 1989

This is the Nintendo Game Boy, the first modern cartridge-based gaming handheld. But you already knew that. It seems like a fitting patent with which to conclude this gallery–while its greenish monochrome graphics and tiny screen may mark it as a brainchild of the 1980s, it thrived into the late 1990s and therefore holds dual citizenship in at least two eras of electronic gaming. The Game Boy Micro, the last model in the Game Boy line–to date, anyhow–shares some of the original’s personality but isn’t compatible with its cartridges, alas.

In the mood to look at more vintage patent drawings of technology products? Check out our slideshow of thirty-one years of Apple patents and this one of (ho ho ho) Christmas-related ones.

I just watched a cool short video on how the new Avatar’s for the Xbox 360 work and how to do it.  I thought I’d share this information since I’m a gamer myself and really enjoy gaming.  I have been gaming all my life, starting way back at the beginning, owning an Atari and playing Pac-man and tipping over the game to owning a Coleco vision(anyone remember that console?) to owning a Atari 5200.  The real next gen began with Nintendo and Sega followed.  Most recently Playstation 1, Xbox and now Xbox 360. 

Consoles and games have come so far in my uh, hum, 30+ years of gaming with consoles.  It’s amazing where they are today and where they are going. 

So, check out the 360 site and enjoy creating your new Avatar!

Cheers!

Well, I thought that since I was talking up my mini cab collection, I thought I would put ‘em all out together, along with some of my Nintendo Game and Watches (well, the ones that I could find at the time) and take a picture of them. I have a number of other games that fit into the mini cab format, but I wanted a picture of the classics. The only reason I threw the Game And Watches in is because I had to move each one to get at the mini cabs themselves.

Here is that picture:

Coleco Mini cab collection and some of my Nintendo Game And Watches.

Back row from left to right: Zaxxon (not working), Frogger, Donkey Kong, Pac-Man, Galaxians. Front row from left to right: Mario Bros., Donkey Kong (dual screen), Donkey Kong 3, Life Boat

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Frogger new (left), old (right)

Picked up a Frogger mini cab (from Coleco) at a recent collectors fair up in Edmonton ($45.00) and also found a new version at a local Source (formerly Radio Shack) for $9.99. I’m pretty sure that $45 is the most I’ve ever spent on any piece of classic gaming history with the exception of my Vectrex.

As far as I know, I just need Ms. Pacman, Donkey Kong Jr. (which I have never seen in person), and a (working) Zaxxon to complete my collection of the Coleco mini cabs.

The new Frogger needs an external light source (a bright room will do fine), and reflects the simple game image onto a mirror (making it difficult to get a good picure of the display), while the classic Coleco cab sports a bright, brash vacuum fluorescent display (VFD). Game play on both is pretty good, as Frogger is basically a simple game.

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