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Another unreleased CV game found and preserved!


retroillucid

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When I was a young boy, I remember going on a school trip to Ottawa, where we visited some kind of technology museum. It was a long time ago and my memory is fuzzy, but I do remember playing simple video games set up as kiosks, and these games were created specifically for this museum's exhibit. I believe this Energy Quizz game was made for such a kiosk setup, but I'd have to play it to be sure. If it doesn't use the keypad at all, it means you could plug Atari 2600 controllers into a ColecoVision hidden inside the kiosk, or even build a tabletop controller (built into the kiosk) with arcade machine parts.

 

Is this the same KIOSK that was in department stores like Jefferson Wards?

1982 is when I first seen the Colecovision on the KIOSK and next to it was the Intellivision and TI994A.

They eventually threw them out and I grabbed the controllers because they broke the whole thing into a hundred pieces.

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Is this the same KIOSK that was in department stores like Jefferson Wards?

No, it was a custom kiosk, made specifically for the museum exhibit. In fact, there were several of these kiosks at this exhibit, because I remember always going back to the same one, because the other similar kiosks were less interesting.

 

You couldn't see what machine was inside the kiosk, just the screen (behind a protective glass IIRC) and the controller, much like an arcade cabinet, only slightly cheaper-looking.

 

At the time, this was the kind of custom job that the Canadian government would have outsourced to a local software company, funded via some kind of technology-for-kids government program.

 

With the opening title screen featuring the Canadian flag in Energy Quizz, I'm thinking this game could have actually been part of that technology museum exhibit I'm talking about, or something similar.

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No, it was a custom kiosk, made specifically for the museum exhibit. In fact, there were several of these kiosks at this exhibit, because I remember always going back to the same one, because the other similar kiosks were less interesting.

 

You couldn't see what machine was inside the kiosk, just the screen (behind a protective glass IIRC) and the controller, much like an arcade cabinet, only slightly cheaper-looking.

 

At the time, this was the kind of custom job that the Canadian government would have outsourced to a local software company, funded via some kind of technology-for-kids government program.

 

With the opening title screen featuring the Canadian flag in Energy Quizz, I'm thinking this game could have actually been part of that technology museum exhibit I'm talking about, or something similar.

 

Are you sure it wasn't one of those Telidon/Teliguide kiosks I (half-jokingly) referenced in my earlier post? I used one frequently (it was perfect for 10 year-olds!) at the Thornhill Square Mall just around that time (1982-3), and though most were placed around the Toronto area, I'm sure Ottawa had some, too. They had a number of accessible programs, although I don't remember anything along the lines of Energy Quiz.

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Are you sure it wasn't one of those Telidon/Teliguide kiosks I (half-jokingly) referenced in my earlier post? I used one frequently (it was perfect for 10 year-olds!) at the Thornhill Square Mall just around that time (1982-3), and though most were placed around the Toronto area, I'm sure Ottawa had some, too. They had a number of accessible programs, although I don't remember anything along the lines of Energy Quiz.

I've never seen the "Telidon/Teliguide" kiosks you're talking about, and it was way too long ago, so I couldn't say. I barely remember my school trip to that Ottawa museum.

 

EDIT: Just googled Telidon/Teliguide, and I don't think that's what I saw at the museum.

Edited by Pixelboy
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I've never seen the "Telidon/Teliguide" kiosks you're talking about, and it was way too long ago, so I couldn't say. I barely remember my school trip to that Ottawa museum.

 

EDIT: Just googled Telidon/Teliguide, and I don't think that's what I saw at the museum.

 

For those who may be curious. I have to say, though, that they didn't look like that in malls. They were put into arcade cabinet kiosks and had touch screens (I used them to look up the weather in Northern Ontario). There was a bunch of crap on the systems...little of which was of interest to the general public. OT, but around 1998 I saw an entire store on Queen St. in Toronto that was stacked to the ceiling with these things. It must have been every Teleguide unit used in Ontario...

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I've never seen the "Telidon/Teliguide" kiosks you're talking about, and it was way too long ago, so I couldn't say. I barely remember my school trip to that Ottawa museum.EDIT: Just googled Telidon/Teliguide, and I don't think that's what I saw at the museum.

I live in the Ottawa region and have often gone to the Science and Technology museum you are referring too. I don't specifically remember that colecovision game BUT at that the time they had a computer games corner exactly as you describe, with just the monitor and controller (or keyboard) for other games or experiences, one I remember was that "psychologist" type program called Eliza, they also had computer space and a few more modern (color) games.

 

Incidentally they have refurbished that museum and just reopened about two years ago. If I understand correctly they have a new warehouse next door to store thousands of past items. The likelyhood is they still have that old setup stored there,

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Telidon/Teliguide" kiosks?

I know before I bought my first ADAM there was a department store inside the 163rd street mall named Burdines that I would hang out every day. The salesman allowed me to play and program all their machines from the Vic 20, TI994A and the ADAM because it drove the sales up.

Anyway I know that one of these devices or something really similar came out in Miami around 1983 that allowed you to go to message boards, time, weather and some basic games like Colossal Cave Adventure which I would play till store closing if I wasn't doing something else. I remember the Vectrex came out around then as well.

I wish I could track that down but I have yet to see it in the computer history museum website.

Edited by Mike Harris
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For those who may be curious. I have to say, though, that they didn't look like that in malls. They were put into arcade cabinet kiosks and had touch screens (I used them to look up the weather in Northern Ontario). There was a bunch of crap on the systems...little of which was of interest to the general public. OT, but around 1998 I saw an entire store on Queen St. in Toronto that was stacked to the ceiling with these things. It must have been every Teleguide unit used in Ontario...

Was the store Active Surplus with the gorilla out front. Sadly the store closed in 2015. In the early 1980s, quite a bit of money was invested in these teletext/videotex systems. They thought everyone would have a terminal in their homes for news, banking, and shopping. These things were strictly character based with a fixed character set, so it doesn't apply to energy quiz.

 

We still don't know if Energy Quiz was only a proposal, a test project, or something that was actually implemented by the ministry of energy mines, and resources. Maybe, if more people see the game, someone out there might remember it.

Edited by mr_me
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Was the store Active Surplus with the gorilla out front. Sadly the store closed in 2015. In the early 1980s, quite a bit of money was invested in these teletext/videotex systems. They thought everyone would have a terminal in their homes for news, banking, and shopping. These things were strictly character based with a fixed character set, so it doesn't apply to energy quiz.

We still don't know if Energy Quiz was only a proposal, a test project, or something that was actually implemented by the ministry of energy mines, and resources. Maybe, if more people see the game, someone out there might remember it.

It had bit-mapped graphics, though. The Environment Canada “mini-site” had a map of Ontario and each town had a different scene, like a moose or whatnot.

 

Can’t remember the name of the store on Queen, but it was downtown. It was closed, so I didn’t go in, but it definitely stopped me in my tracks.

 

I found a video on YouTube that shows a similar, but not identitical, weather display. The ones in the kiosks had static displays and did not scroll.

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Was the store Active Surplus with the gorilla out front. Sadly the store closed in 2015. In the early 1980s, quite a bit of money was invested in these teletext/videotex systems. They thought everyone would have a terminal in their homes for news, banking, and shopping. These things were strictly character based with a fixed character set, so it doesn't apply to energy quiz.

 

We still don't know if Energy Quiz was only a proposal, a test project, or something that was actually implemented by the ministry of energy mines, and resources. Maybe, if more people see the game, someone out there might remember it.

 

 

Yes, I forgot banking as well.

Chiclet keyboard and character graphics like a Commodore 64. I think down here it was from AT&T.

 

 

You guys just made me remember. It was called the AT&T Sceptre Videotex Terminal, 1983 | Videotex, teletext.

Edited by Mike Harris
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  • 3 months later...
On 4/4/2019 at 6:11 PM, retroillucid said:

Well, not a quiz but there's a kind of ''learning'' twist to it

 

The cartridge was found off a flea market in Montreal (Canada) in the early 2000s (Toby found it)

Wich makes sense since it was made (commisioned) for the Canadian Government

Energy Quiz looks and sounds exactly like a game by Sydney that was supposedly called Power Grabber.  The only known copy was auctioned on the Digital Press forums and purchased by Will Berdan years ago.  These seem to be the exact same game, but is this in fact the same cartridge?  Or did this copy come from another source?

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On 7/25/2019 at 5:01 PM, Psionic said:

Energy Quiz looks and sounds exactly like a game by Sydney that was supposedly called Power Grabber.  The only known copy was auctioned on the Digital Press forums and purchased by Will Berdan years ago.  These seem to be the exact same game, but is this in fact the same cartridge?  Or did this copy come from another source?

It's quite possible

Though, It was originally found by Toby in a swap meet in Montreal 
He later sold it with all his CV Collection (early 2000s)
 

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1 hour ago, retroillucid said:

It's quite possible

Though, It was originally found by Toby in a swap meet in Montreal 
He later sold it with all his CV Collection (early 2000s)
 

Possible?  Either it is or it isn't.

Toby who?  Toby Wickwire (y-bot)?  If so, I'm fairly certain he was the one who had the copy that Willie Berdan purchased.  You said you acquired this from the person who Toby sold it to.  So who did he sell it to and who did you acquire it from?

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8 hours ago, Psionic said:

Possible?  Either it is or it isn't.

Toby who?  Toby Wickwire (y-bot)?  If so, I'm fairly certain he was the one who had the copy that Willie Berdan purchased.  You said you acquired this from the person who Toby sold it to.  So who did he sell it to and who did you acquire it from?

Who do you work for? The Gestapo.

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You see, shit like this is one reason why I've barely been on here the past five years or so.  Everyone thinks they're a fucking comedian nowadays.

 

I don't see how asking a legitimate question in the interest of historical accuracy makes anyone a member of "the Gestapo".  I'm asking a very simple question with a very simple answer.  Either this is the same cartridge that y-bot sold to wberdan back in 2003, or it isn't and it came from another source.  End of discussion.

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On 7/27/2019 at 4:23 PM, Psionic said:

Possible?  Either it is or it isn't.

Toby who?  Toby Wickwire (y-bot)?  If so, I'm fairly certain he was the one who had the copy that Willie Berdan purchased.  You said you acquired this from the person who Toby sold it to.  So who did he sell it to and who did you acquire it from?

Toby is coleco_master here on Atariage
He's the one who first find the prototype in the wild (flee market) 
Toby sold his whole collection a bit after that (early 2000s) 

Now, to ''who'' he sold it, you'll need to ask him directly

Toby did buy it back a couple months ago 

That's it, that's all I know

Edited by retroillucid
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On 7/27/2019 at 3:23 PM, Psionic said:

Possible?  Either it is or it isn't.

Toby who?  Toby Wickwire (y-bot)?  If so, I'm fairly certain he was the one who had the copy that Willie Berdan purchased.  You said you acquired this from the person who Toby sold it to.  So who did he sell it to and who did you acquire it from?

Retroillucid answered your original questions about this game and then you proceed to badger him with the series of questions quoted above. If Retroillucid and Coleco_Master want to share further information about this, they will... if not, they won't and life will go on.

 

 

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2 hours ago, retroillucid said:

Toby is coleco_master here on Atariage
He's the one who first find the prototype in the wild (flee market) 
Toby sold his whole collection a bit after that (early 2000s) 

Now, to ''who'' he sold it, you'll need to ask him directly

Toby did buy it back a couple months ago 

That's it, that's all I know

Fair enough, thank you.  You referring to him only as "Toby" is what threw me off.  I could very well be mistaken about y-bot having been the one who sold wberdan his copy.  I'll have to see if I can remember who it actually was.  I'll ask coleco_master if it was him, but I thought it was one of the Digital Press regulars.  Obviously this needs to be explored further.

 

17 minutes ago, NIAD said:

Retroillucid answered your original questions about this game and then you proceed to badger him with the series of questions quoted above. If Retroillucid and Coleco_Master want to share further information about this, they will... if not, they won't and life will go on.

No one is badgering anyone.  I'll send him a message myself and ask him.  If he doesn't want to tell me that's fine, but I don't see why he wouldn't.  It's the complete lack of curiosity about whether or not there's actually two copies of this game and whether one has a completely different title that I find puzzling.  That was ultimately my point with my last comment.  Of course, maybe you just know something I don't.  But you're acting like I'm rude or just plain crazy to be asking these questions, which to me are completely obvious questions one would ask.

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Psionic: I'm just a mostly lurker colecovision fan so not supporting anyone one or position but stating "Possible?  Either it is or it isn't." may not be rude to you, and it's sort of not rude to me but the many questions around that one sure sounded close to badgering a certain POV.

 

That's the trouble with forum posts, we don't see the face or emotion behind them so sometime we let the flow and words used feed the emotion.  Just because you didn't mean it like that doesn't mean it's wrong if someone else took it like that.  I didn't think Gestapo but I certainly thought it felt like you were talking down a bit. 

 

meh, no big deal, good luck with your research

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On 4/7/2019 at 12:26 AM, retroillucid said:

I don't think it was used in schools, I would rather think it was used in an event or something similar to this.

On 4/7/2019 at 12:55 PM, Pixelboy said:

With the opening title screen featuring the Canadian flag in Energy Quizz, I'm thinking this game could have actually been part of that technology museum exhibit I'm talking about, or something similar.

On 4/10/2019 at 8:11 AM, mr_me said:

We still don't know if Energy Quiz was only a proposal, a test project, or something that was actually implemented by the ministry of energy mines, and resources. Maybe, if more people see the game, someone out there might remember it.

According to the original owner of the Power Grabber cartridge, it sounds like the game was commissioned by the Canadian government for use during tours or visitations at nuclear power plants.  Given that both of the apparent known titles for the game reference power and energy, this would seem to make sense.  Whether or not these cartridges were actually distributed as intended is anyone's guess at this point.

 

6 hours ago, Loafer said:

That's the trouble with forum posts, we don't see the face or emotion behind them so sometime we let the flow and words used feed the emotion.  Just because you didn't mean it like that doesn't mean it's wrong if someone else took it like that.  I didn't think Gestapo but I certainly thought it felt like you were talking down a bit. 

 

meh, no big deal, good luck with your research

Nothing new here and I'm not too worried about it.  I'm trying to help them out, but if they want to waste their time breaking my balls for whatever reason, that's their prerogative.  Someone briefly mentioned Power Grabber a few pages back but no one seems to have picked up on the fact that they're apparently the same game, which is the only reason I said something.  Being that I'm in the USA, the degree that someone like me can research this is limited.  That'll have to be left to my Canadian friends here.  Tracking down some people who worked for Sydney et al and getting info about this thing shouldn't really be all that difficult.

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