question for people not living in North America - *PLEASE COMMENT* :-)

[Major_Tom_coming_home]

I'm very curious: is there any kind of computer / game console that is popular for people in your area to import because it was never sold outside of the USA and Canada? For instance, in my case I would love to have an Amstrad CPC and ZX Spectrum, but since I live in the USA where those computers were never sold I would have to import them from Europe. I'm curious about how things work the other way around

 

 

THANK YOU THANK YOUTHANK YOUTHANK YOUTHANK YOUTHANK YOUTHANK YOUTHANK YOUTHANK YOUTHANK YOUTHANK YOUTHANK YOUTHANK YOUTHANK YOUTHANK YOUTHANK YOUTHANK YOUTHANK YOUTHANK YOUTHANK YOUTHANK YOUTHANK YOUTHANK YOUTHANK YOU

 

[icemanxp300]

I'm sure they all want a Coleco Chameleon.

[carlsson]

While many people prefer to play games at NTSC speed and thus may import consoles for that reason, I think the majority of foreign systems imported to Europe are from Japan (e.g. Famicom, PC Engine), not North America. Besides possibly the Atari 5200, I can't think of any particular system available in the US/Canada not present in Europe, but I might be forgetting something.

[Newsdee]

If I remember correctly, in Argentina there were local clones of the ZX Spectrum and MSX but everything else had to be imported. The C64 and C128 were popular. Also one Famclone was particularly successful (it was known as "Family Game"). I remember people I knew importing Genesis and Game Gears, not so sure about SNES.

 

Today all game consoles are imported witb huge markups. Switch games are USD 100 each and people still buy them because shipping them in has a lot of taxes and restrictions (and you might pay more)

[Tanooki]

Minimally sold in the US, but huge in Europe comparatively speaking were the Amiga systems. Those would be something to look at. And as carlsson said when it came to consoles there wasn't anything really there that the NA market didn't have and most foreign stuff came out of Japan instead of here as it was likely cheaper. I guess a screwball stand out would be (and even for the US too) would be the PC Engine. Yeah we had the TG16 but it has a badly cherry picked small library of a wide mix of some good and a lot of mediocrity and garbage, but the PCEngine side of things was vastly larger with so much of the best stuff kept there. Back when I was buying up PCE CDs in the back half of the 90s on the early era of ebay, some of the best stuff came from Europe and well priced too.

[carlsson]

I'm not sure about the Apple IIgs, if that one had much of an European release, perhaps in the UK. While the TRS-80 CoCo series may have had quite limited presence, we had the rather similar Dragon computers, and not really anything European computer collectors go nuts about importing from North America these days.

[BillyHW]

Was the ColecoVision sold outside of NA?

[high voltage]

America had the ZX Spectrum, it was distributed by Timex.

[high voltage]

Was the ColecoVision sold outside of NA?

 

Yes

[carlsson]

I'm unsure how far into Europe the ADAM reached. It might have gotten to the UK but perhaps not mainland Europe.

[high voltage]

Indeed Adam came to UK, I purchased mine in 1991 for GBP 40, second hand

 

Don't mind the Euro plug, I used both Euro and English plugs in UK

Edited January 8, 2018 by high voltage

[mr_me]

America had the ZX Spectrum, it was distributed by Timex.

The north american variant wasn't fully compatible with the zx spectrum.

 

Indeed Adam came to UK, I purchased mine in 1991 for GBP 40, second hand

 

Don't mind the Euro plug, I used both Euro and English plugs in UK

Is that a PAL version? [Edit: looks like the adam expansion for a pal/ntsc coleco vision] Edited January 8, 2018 by mr_me

[high voltage]

Yes.220 Volts, connected to my PAL Coleco

Edited January 8, 2018 by high voltage

[+x=usr(1536)]

Indeed Adam came to UK, I purchased mine in 1991 for GBP 40, second hand

 

That's quite an impressive find - the number of PAL Colecovisions sold was quite small. The fact that they decided to release the Adam into a market as saturated as the UK computer market was at the time is amazing; I'd no idea these even existed before you posted this one.

[carlsson]

I just released that Expansion Module 3 ADAM was released in Sweden too, but I don't think the standalone ADAM computer ever got here.

 

A kit consisting of a Colecovision, the Expansion Module 3 with stringy floppy, keyboard and printer cost about 12000 SEK in early 1984, which could be compared with a C64, 1541 and printer at 9400 SEK together, or an Apple II clone with floppy drive at 6000 SEK excluding the printer.

[Rolo]

Hmmm, let me think. What did we have or at least know, back in the day.... in Western Germany? I was living in a small town in the southern part of the country then, really not a central spot in the universe.

 

Late seventies:

Consoles, quite rare: All kinds of PONG-clones (GI-chip inside). Interton VC-4000 for rich kids. Unreachable!

Home computers, very uncommon: Really expensive. Nobody in my family and none of the people I knew, had one or even had an idea, why they would want one.

 

Early eighties:

Consoles, slowly, slowly creeping into wealthy living rooms (families usually had only one tv-set) : PHILIPS G7000, Atari VCS, a few Intellivision, some Colecovision, Vectrex (at least in some shops)

Home computers: still uncommon in most of the families, but some freaks suddenly had early Commodore computers PET, 3032, VC-20. Atari 400/800, TI99/4A and C64 appeared in major stores or the first home computer shops. Little bit later also Sinclair computers, some rare Dragon 32. A year later Schneider CPC (=Amstrad). Apple II was too expensive by far, only for "professional" users. Most of the other (underdog) home computers, I only read of in computer magazines. I never saw them in the stores in my town.

 

Mid eighties:

Consoles: dead

Home computers: Commodore 64 and almost nothing else! A few not successful machines, like MSX-models, Spectravideo, Commodore 264/364/C16 ...

1985 Atari ST appearing. First PC-clones Commodore PC-10/PC-20 or TI Professional Computer still very expensive. IBM-PC ridiculously expensive.

1986 Amiga starting slowly...

Personal Computers start to become more common in business life. Home computers still are not in every house by far, but are no more a total sensation.

 

Very late eighties:

Consoles: Don't know, I lost interest.

Home computers: Amiga 500 and Atari ST are common, PC starting to catch up.

 

I personally did not experience a big variety of computers and consoles in my little town. My family and friends were not computer-affiliated at all. When I started the hobby in 1982, I knew of nobody else in my vicinity. It was so futuristic and new and special! Back in the day, I did not know of all of these other consoles or computers and I think, most of them never were sold in major quantities in Germany. I even did not know the British and French computers, except Sinclair and Dragon.