Intellivision in London?

[First Spear]

Hey all. I'm going to London, England in a couple of months. Where can I go to find Intellivision or other, lesser, retro items? Anything to keep an eye out for?

 

Of course, other travel/tourist info is also welcome.

 

 

Thanks.

 

 

 

[GroovyBee]

If its just London you might want to visit Retro Game Base :-

https://www.retrogamebase.co.uk

 

The London Gaming Market is held 3 times per year :-

http://www.londongamingmarket.com

 

For a sci-fi fix then a trip to Forbidden Planet is always good :-

https://forbiddenplanet.com

 

If you like Lego, go to the worlds largest Lego store in Leicester Square :-

https://www.lego.com/en-gb/stores/stores/uk/london-leicester-square

 

The Natural History Museum is worth a visit :-

http://www.nhm.ac.uk

 

For art galleries visit :-

Tate :- http://www.tate.org.uk

Victoria and Albert Museum :- https://www.vam.ac.uk

 

For "war stuff" you might want to visit :-

Bletchley Park (outside London) :- https://www.bletchleypark.org.uk

Imperial War Museum :- http://www.iwm.org.uk/visits/iwm-london

Churchill War Rooms :- http://www.iwm.org.uk/visits/churchill-war-rooms

HMS Belfast :- http://www.iwm.org.uk/visits/hms-belfast

RAF Museum :- http://www.rafmuseum.org.uk

 

There are plenty of other places too. It depends what you are interested in doing and if you want to travel outside London.

Edited February 7, 2017 by GroovyBee

[decle]

Hey,

 

Unfortunately Intellivision was very niche in the UK. I think it came later (perhaps 1981?) so Atari had more of a hold and there was less time between its introduction and the switch to 8bit computers (there was a government funded programme, the BBC Computer Literacy Project, to push the understanding of computers in 1982-84 and this really focused on 8bit home micros). Its £200 (~$400) price tag did not help. The result is that there is very little specific to it now. These days retro gaming is more focused on NES and later there is very little from the 1st and 2nd generation. There are shops, for instance Level Up in Canterbury and this outlet of Computer Exchange in central London used to be a retro specialist, but I'm not sure it still is and prices tend to be driven by eBay.

 

If you are interested in the history of computing more generally there are 4 museums around London

• The Science Museum - is next to the Natural History Museum and Hyde Park and has a reasonable, if turned off, collection of older machines such as the Ferranti Pegasus
• The National Museum of Computing - Is on the site adjacent to Bletchley Park about 50 miles North of London and has a working Colossus rebuild, the Harwell Dekatron, more machines to tinker with and a bunch of really enthusiastic people. Both Bletchley Park and the TNMOC are definitely worth a visit. I would encourage talking to the guides in both places, especially anyone who looks to be older than 75 as they might have worked on the code breaking during the war.
• Centre for Computing History - Is in Cambridge about 70 miles north of London. Not been there yet, but it looks as though they have some interesting stuff. Cambridge is the centre of the UK computer market, as well as alot of the post war research being done there (the other place being Manchester in the North), companies like Sinclair Research and ARM were founded there.
• Museum of Computing - Is in Swindon about 80 miles west of London. Again I've not been there myself, but looks to be smaller.

I guess the thing is that coming from the US you are unlikely to be impressed by stuff we have, that you can also see in the US. Everything is bigger and more customer focused on your side of the pond. For example, I would not fall off my chair if you said The National Videogame Arcade is done bigger and better in the US. So, if you're after a retro fix I'd be inclined to try to see stuff you can't see in the US. Perhaps some of the early post war computers, or stuff from the early 1980s which saw limited release in the US. If this kind of stuff does not float your boat, well...

 

Hope this helps

 

 

decle

Edited February 8, 2017 by decle

[First Spear]

Mr Bee and Mr Decle, thanks for the input. So no big Intv treasure troves to find, not a problem. I'll see what else I can see. Thanks!