What Pong clone am I thinking of? (Answer: the Radio Shack TV Scoreboard)

+thegoldenband · July 9, 2015

My family had a Pong clone when I was a kid. Tonight, for some reason, I find myself trying -- and failing -- to remember what model it was. Here's what I can tell you:

- It (the display) was black-and-white, and I'm pretty sure it had sound too.

- The unit itself was, I think, greyish with jade green or turquoise knobs.

- It came in two parts, each with controls on them (so there wasn't a separate main unit).

- I seem to remember that the main 1P unit had roughly the form factor of a MERLIN handheld -- slender and tall -- while the 2P unit was about half as tall.

- The 2P unit was attached to the main unit with a cord, and could be locked/unlocked from the main unit by sliding it into a grooved notch.

- The knobs/paddles/potentiometers were quite large in diameter -- bigger than a silver dollar? -- and had thick ridges to make it easier to grip.

- I'm not sure if it was branded with the Pong name, but I don't think so.

Aha, and just as I was about to post this, I've figured out what it was: the Radio Shack TV Scoreboard! I guess my memory was pretty good. The page from which I got the image below said the knobs are "baby blue", but in the picture they look like the shade I remember.

Anyone else have one of these back in the day?

BassGuitari · July 9, 2015

Anyone else have one of these back in the day?

tvscore2.jpg

I've got the other version, with black knobs and a light gun. It's another Pong-on-a-chip system so it plays the exact same games as the Odyssey 300, Coleco Telstar, et al, but the gun games make it interesting for me (although those, too, can be found on other POAC systems).