Computer Intro (Odyssey^2, 1979)
The Odyssey^2 has one thing that no other videogame console, before or since, ever had: a full-sized, built-in keyboard.
Another exclusive for the Odyssey^2 is Computer Intro; a cart that, along with its manual, teaches its user the fundamentals of assembler and machine language programming. Say what you want about the Odyssey^2's games, sound, graphics or exclaimation-point-driven-advertising, but Computer Intro deserves nothing but respect. We're not
Computer Golf! Odyssey^2, 1978
Computer Golf! is the first golf game for a home videogame console. There are nine different holes and the game supports up to four players.I tried to hype this game up for my family over the weekend, but we didn't get to play. Today, however, both kids were home from school sick. I yelled "Who wants to play Computer Golf!?" and they both dutifully yelled "I do!"(I could've yelled "Who wants to step on puppies!" and I would've gotten the same response.)
Coleco Telstar Combat (Coleco, 1977)
I lost my battle with Coleco Combat!
As described in this thread I have a Coleco Combat unit with crappy stickers and a single broken joystick. I took the thing apart (using the "hair dryer" trick) and discovered a snapped "eye-hook" style leaf switch. After putting it off for a few months, I finally took the thing into a local arcade cab repair shop (S&B Amusements in Austin, TX near Northcross Mall) and they looked a
Codebreaker, Atari VCS 1978
This cartridge contains two games, Codebreaker, which is a videogame version of the tabletop game, Mastermind, and Nim which is a videogame version of the ancient game Nim.
I've already written about the Fairchild Channel F version of these games, Mindreader and Nim. Go back and read it if you want. It's not funny, but it's informative. Bottom line is: I like playing Mastermind-clones and Nim. Sue me.
Now, let's talk about the Atari
Circus Atari (Atari VCS, 1980)
One of the inspirations for doing what I'm doing here (even though it's been progressively less frequent) is the fact that "back in the day" I didn't actually get to play most of these games. Intellivision? I know one person that had it, and I only ever saw AD&D in action-but never got to play it. I had one friend with an Odyssey^2 and I never ever even saw it hooked up. I'd never heard of the Bally Professional Arcade back in 1981 and, though I'd seen the
Okay, when I say chronogaming is not dead or sleeping, I don't mean this blog. I mean "there are other chronogamers out there" fighting the good fight!
Now and then I'll type "chronogaming" into Google (ego-surfer!) just to get a nice warm feeling to see that the term actually gets tossed around out there like it's a real word! A lot of people, I'm sure, didn't get it from me. I think many get it from "Chrono Trigger" - but if it has anything to do with retrogaming I think it actually can be
Wow, I coined an historical term! Dr. Sparkle, thank you for giving me credit in this ^_^ http://www.retronauts.com/?p=1119 I like how they refer to it as burning out. Really, I still want to do this, RL just sort of burned its way in. Nelio! Yeah, a thing happened and I deleted my YouTube thing. I'll have to bring it back eventually. I still have all my stuff and going through the pain of moving it to a new place. Oh, and I do flinch every time they say "chrongaming". Anyway, hope
Chronogamer is two years-old today!!!
Just for anyone wondering if the decrease in frequency of entries is any indicator of a flagging enthusiasm on my part, please let me assure you it is not. Real life has gotten a little bit in the way of my passionate pursuit of this effort, but this effort will indeed continue just as passionately, only slow.
To prepare for the next era of chronogaming, I've managed to get most of what I think will see me through to the Great Crash of 1983-84. There
This is going to be a lot less interesting than one might hope, sorry to say.
The "fun" part was figuring out how to set this up on my TV so that I could take cool simultaneous screen shots. See, I've got a wide screen and it lets me view two channels at the same time. That way I could take side by side pictures of both boards. I nearly had a solution that would have only required purchasing an RF to coax adaptor when I realized that, of course, my wife had the camera in Florida with
Checkers (Intellivision, 1980)
Yup, still on Intellivision, still in 1980, as we have been since, what? 2007? Sorry it's taken so long, we are only one game away from finishing 1980 Intellivision games and the penultimate Intellivision game for the year is: Checkers!
I didn't actually dread playing Checkers, especially after my better-than-dreaded experience with Backgammon. I was looking forward to jumping back into the Chronogaming groove. Checkers didn't disappoint me. It was an elega
Checkers (Channel F, 1979)
This was what the U.S. got instead of the Saba Schach game I wrote of a few days ago.
Checkers?
Don't misunderstand me, I like the game of checkers, it's what most people learn before moving on to Chess and I'm no exception. The US gets Checkers and not Chess? It just seems wrong, insulting even.
How does it rate as a checkers game? Not bad. The controls make enough sense that one can jump right in. My only complaint is t
Checkers (Atari VCS, Jul 1980, Activision)
“Chess is like looking out over a vast open ocean; checkers is like looking into a bottomless well.” -Marion Tinsley
Marion Tinsley was the World Champion of Checkers from 1950 to 1990.
Other people only gained the title if Tinsley didn't show up to play.
He won the World Championship whenever he chose to play for it.
Jonathan Schaeffer was a computer scientist.
He lead the team that developed Chinook.
Catena, APF, 1978
Something to notice about the menu screen:
This machine is considered to be a "TV Micro-Computer" by its makers. Well, yeah, all videogame consoles are, technically, "computers", just not what we usually call "computers" anymore, thanks to the great Computer/Console Distinction riots of the early 1980s. But I digress from the chronology . . .
First of all, lets just deal with the title. I originally confused it with the word cant
Ugh.
Picture a crossword puzzle grid (see overlay above). You know the type, empty squares (for the letters) and full squares (uh, not for the letters). The players start with their Player Spots on the Mouse and Cat icons respectively, which are already placed in the maze. In one corner of the maze is a "mouse house". (Yes, that's what "they" call it). The mouse has to get to his house before the cat gets him, but must do so by moving through only the white squares of the maze. The cat must
Okay, I'm back with all my chronogaming equipment and ready to do this whole chronogaming thing again. Yes, time in general has moved forward in my absence, but I'm still stuck in good 'ol 1979, looking at the APF games from 1978 that I missed the first time through. (Or was it my second time, since technically I lived through 1978 before)
Today, we're looking at the one I thought I might never see and regret for the rest of my life. I'm fairly prone to "stress" and "regret" dreams.
Casino (Atari VCS, 1979)
All right, this is another game which makes it possible to play Blackjack on the Atari VCS. I approached this cart with some pretty low expectations. I have a very hard time getting into Blackjack games on videogame consoles, though I do remember enjoying Odyssey^2's Blackjack game well enough -- must've been the keyboard.
So, I check out the directions (thanks Atari Age!) and find out that it supports up to four players! Well, we only had three players after I
Canyon Bomber/Sea Bomber (Atari VCS, 1979)
Crater Digger? Pit Maker?
This game hearkens back to a simpler time, when all the human mind could handle was one button.
Picture a canyon extending from mid screen to the bottom in depth and stretching from one side of the screen to the other in width. Now, fill it to the brim with multi-colored blocks, each layer of blocks having its own color, like Breakout only going down. Or, better yet, view a screenshot taken d
When you play games on the RCA Studio II, you have to change your whole perspective on life.
You have to remember that you're lucky to even live in a world where such a thing as videogames exist. Then, you must remember that you are one of the few citizens of this planet who can spend money on videogames without having to worry about eating. Being so fortunate, how can you not greet each day, at the very least, with a faint smile?
You know that if you choose to do so today, and if you ma
Okay, I've played through the original 12 home video games for the Magnavox Odyssey. There are different ways of classifying them, but I'm going to stick to the simplest: by Video Gameplay. Other than Tennis which begets PONG, these games really can't be considered to have established any genres by themselves. I could classify them into the genre's as we know them in 2005 (as I've more or less been doing) but if I were staring at them in 1972/73 having never seen another home video game but for
Welcome back to what I'm now calling Chronogamer LE. The LE stands for Low Effort. If I have to really work up any enthusiasm to play something then that's too much effort, so I will learn what I can about it, read the manual, maybe do some research and play it for as long as I can stand it. If I try to get more involved in it, I'll end up going down a sort of procrastination rabbit-hole where I put it off for, like, half a decade or more and it blocks me from moving forward. I've recently learn
Sorry for the long absence. In setting up our Christmas living room my Bally Pro Arcade was trapped underneath a table. To get to it we would've had to move a large sofa bed and we just weren't up to it. Now the holidays are over . . . let the chronogaming continue!
Brickyard / Clowns - Bally Pro Arcade 1978
Brickyard is essentially Breakout. The only variation from Atari's Breakout is that there is some music and a stunningly good brick busting sound effect. I might have
Brickdown / Shooting Gallery, APF, 1978 - only NOT
My copy of this cart wouldn't work. Grr. This is a lesson that reminds me I need to test these things as soon as I get them. The seller on ebay had said it worked. I'm thinking he made a mistake, like he did when he said that photocopies of the instructions were included. Grr.
If anyone can lend/rent me theirs, I'll pay shipping both ways, take really good care of it and have it back to you within a day or tw
So, why are these two staring so intently at that vase in the middle?
Brain Wave seems like a complicated mess at frist glance. There is a pile of about 90 little cardboard squares to be used (thought tiles), little cardboard holders (memory banks) for the squares (similar to Scrabble), a gameboard and two little cardboard rectangles (power markers) with holes in them for keeping track of spending Brain Power Points. After a little bit of a learning curve for me, and a little bit of a teachi
Brain Games, Atari VCS, 1978
Simon and Merlin were two of my favorite games from this era in my life. I think that back in the day I would've really enjoyed the memory sequence game experience as translated to my TV screen by Brain Games. This was my first time playing this cart.
Brain Games uses the Atari Keypad technology to transform your TV into a memory challenger, for one or two players. The different games are Touch Me, Count Me, Picture Me, Find Me, Add Me, Play Me and Bite Me. O
Boxing (Activision, Atari VCS, 1980)
We've seen a Boxing game once before! 1978 on the APF-1000MP. I'd actually recorded that play session on a VHS tape which now will not load anything because my VCR won't work. Well, the mechanical bits won't work. The electronic bits still work as a conduit to serve my old consoles. All hail the conduit!
Oooh, boy... boxing... I don't get boxing as a sport. I get that it takes skill, that it's a discipline similar to any skill that involves using the
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