 This is the SF Productions podcast network Here are some games that didn't make the cut from the pop culture bunker I'm indeed and I'm mark you can check out our audio podcast how I got my wife to read comics on itunes or on our website SF podcast network comm I recently read an article about the early days of home video games And I thought we would talk about some of the systems that never really caught on of course. There's the big guys There's the Atari's. There's the Nintendo's of the world. There's you know, there's Xbox There's PlayStation and then there's the rest and and as just a point of fact We were old enough that we saw this roll in. Yeah, you know, I played pong on my Home TV when I was little. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it all goes back to 1972 and the Magnavox Odyssey And this was a based on this concept by Ralph Bayer who's considered the father of video games that goes all the way back to 1967 And I distinctly remember going to the Hickey's department store in Canton and Having to be dragged away from the electronics department because they had one of these units It used so little power. It was so Underpowered you can actually run on batteries It had something called these translucent overlays for the TV because you can only do so much with it So the idea was you put this overlay on and then there'd be like paths for you to follow with the little So it was kind of like if you had put a tennis court picture over pong or anything. Yeah, yeah Kind of shades of winky dink in you if you remember something that far back Okay But but sort of like putting a color thing over your TV to have a color TV. Yep. Okay. Yeah, yeah I don't remember that either. I've seen that on TV. I've seen it on TV Winky dink by the way was this kids show where you were supposed to buy this overlay for your TV And you would like write stuff on your with your crayon on the thing in order to to help winky Get through his things and that would be great to teach kids to do right on the TV And unfortunately a lot of kids were like, oh, okay. Oh, I was supposed to get an overlay Go well so There were many sequels and add-ons to the Odyssey system Basically, there's four player and there was you know different modes, but it all pretty much was some form of pong Then in 1975 a tarry pong aka sears telegames And I'm pretty sure that's what we had because my mom worked at sears. Yeah, I'm sure that's what it was So basically again the pong game. There was also hockey which just involved different edge lines Controllers were built into the console and initially and there were many many knockoffs of Atari pong Including calico's Telstar system, but do you know what that was really fun at the time? And Atari cranked out a number of one-trick pony machines some with specialty controls They had super pong and super pong 10 and super pong program and ultra pong and ultra pong double doubles They had video pinball which had different controllers on it and stunt cycle, which was it actually had like Grips like your like handlebars on it. You'd like that But the real Game changer was 1976 and Fairchild's Channel F the first cartridge based system prior to this you had a game it did one thing there was no way to make it do other things and This company has a kind of a tortured history. It came out of a spinoff of AMF the bowling company Yes, who had created automatic scoring systems in the 60s for bowling alleys and they wanted to move into new markets and Magnavox's Odyssey inspired them to go into video games Meanwhile, there was this microprocessor maker called Fairchild who was trying to compete in the market against Intel's microprocessors like the 8080 8 and the 8080 and They realized they needed more than just variants of pong because otherwise we're just another me too So they figured out a way to take these very fragile Contacts from a from a computer chip and encase them within cartridges. So they would be basically Robust enough that you could take them in and out and out and wouldn't break them So did they get any kind of royalties or anything from like Nintendo or no, not really They figured it out And they One thing they did which which you've never seen since is the idea they put multiple unrelated games on each cartridge So it was like video cart one video cart two video cart three and there just be a list of games on them games weren't very good And then they also had these controllers that allowed movement in three Dimensions x y and z and it was kind of like this holster and then there was like thing on top of it You can move up and turn it and moving around It was very fragile. Unfortunately precursor to a joystick though. Yeah. Yeah, it was actually it was it was a three-dimensional joystick my college roommate had one at home and I remember playing that and I remember that Again and controllers were very fragile. So they basically had all the components They had the right idea, but they couldn't execute it or market it very well like Atari did like a year later Yeah And then speaking of Atari Once the 2600 came out originally called the VCS There were a lot of knockoffs in 1977. These are all the same year basically Calico's Telestar arcade Which was a pyramid design with different controllers on each side So there's one with like a light gun and there was another one with like tank controls And it was a triangular cartridge it went on top Like that in commercials that yeah There was the ballet professional arcade aka astrocade APF put out a micro computer system RCA put out the studio to and I remember playing this at Radio Shack Proud little for Radio Shack It was black and white graphics and it was really janky It was just RCA just didn't get it at all and it did not sell well at all So 1978 Magnavox comes back to try to get back into the game. Okay, we need to do cartridges Magnavox's Odyssey 2 and You can actually program on it because it had a built-in membrane keyboard They sold this for several years, and I remember playing with this at O'Neill's department store You used to hang out at the mall. I did so Atari owns the market for quite a while 1982 and this is I'm not going to talk very much about Nintendo because again not talking about the big guys Yeah, this is about the time Nintendo started every pretty much knows Nintendo's right. I don't go into that right So 1982 Milton Bradley put out one called Vectrex Milton Bradley of board game board game fame They said oh geez we better get into this It had a vector display And if you don't know what vector display is if you remember the old games Tempest or battle zone Where was all lines? That's a vector display 1982 Emerson Arcadia 2001, which looks very much like a knockoff of an Intellivision They're pretty much the same type of controllers Also in 82 Coleco vision one of the video games that could be expanded into a computer. They called Adam It's main claim to fame was that they got the initial rights to Donkey Kong Yes, and that's basically what they sold the the Coleco vision based on you play Donkey Kong at home So again Atari was huge. You know they could do no wrong Except when they tried to move on In 1982 they came out with the 5200 super systems. So what was the 2600 doubling it to 5200? It was actually based hardware wise on Their 400 slash 800 computer systems, but they weren't actually compatible for some reasons so the operating system weren't compatible But it's the same basic hardware And they couldn't plays 2600 games either which was it's really Kelly's heel. Yeah, we're like no So all the way in 86 they put out the 7800 Which was actually ready two years earlier, but because Atari went because of the The implosion of the video game industry they got sold and sold again and sold again and the release was delayed for two years It could play 2600 games now But at that point Nintendo pretty much controlled everything and Atari really never had a shot Nintendo was just such a good game. Right, right Then we have 1993's Atari Jaguar. It was the first 64-bit game system But by this point it wasn't really Atari It was the named Atari and they never had enough titles to really compete in the market Going to 1990 and again Nintendo is very much ruling the roost PlayStation has not hit the scene yet 1990 the Neo Geo which was essentially arcade hardware in a box that you could take home It played actual arcade games the actual code from the arcade games The unit cost $599 the cartridges cost $200 or more which at that time was a lot It was an enormous amount of money now You know, I think gamers wouldn't hesitate to spend that on a good system, but right, but it literally was playing the exact same game You play at the arcade 1993 we have the 3DO interactive multiplayer system and this went a very different model because it wasn't just one company building it a group came together and put together a set of specifications that anybody could license and Panasonic Sanyo and Goldstar who's now LG. I didn't know that All made 3DO units. It was one of the first CD-ROM based systems It made very powerful processors But because of the fact that you had to pay for the license from this one company and then make your own profit on the hardware And you may and were the games intercompatible or yeah They were all compatible between the systems, but it was too expensive in the end to do it that way It was it was a fascinating model, but it didn't work. So I know that you are Known for buying into systems that become obsolete So did you have any of I did not have any of these the closest thing I had to One that didn't work was there was a third-party add-on to the to the Atari 2600 Called the supercharger and it was this extra long cartridge that had a ton of extra memory in it And the idea was that it had cassette based games Okay, so so this is for people back then before they were hard drives before they were floppy drives There were cassette there was just what you're thinking like an audio cassette you would play your audio cassette player It would have a little you'd run Cable into this this supercharger cartridge and It would take Easily 20 minutes to load the game And you pretty much had to leave the room when it because when it was doing it because the slightest vibration It would throw it off and you have to start over so you had like okay, and he's tipped away go upstairs for For like 20 minutes and then check in and see up and then it would play for about 15 20 minutes before it crashed But the games were really impressive for the time when you could actually get to play them So by the time we get to 93 now we're starting to get into the PlayStation era and Nintendo very much was still a major player at the time and they pretty much owned the market and Then Xbox came in and here and so we're we're at now with Nintendo starting to fade Yeah, so somewhat from the market although they're still big in handheld And frankly if Nintendo would just say oh, maybe we should just license our characters to Two companies that would just make phone games. They would easily sell those but they just won't do it Yeah, so so that's that's the deal there Lots of lots of also ramps So if you're not out playing video games, yeah, you can check out our audio podcast I got my wave treat comics on iTunes or on our website as of podcast network.com from the pop culture bunker I'm indy and I'm Mark. Thanks for watching