The Sega Master System
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In 1987, Sega brought us their third generation video game console in the form of the Sega Master System. This is one of those systems that it like purely for its simplicity, the pads are small basic, simple buttons. The console has two controller ports at the front for the pads and an off/on switch.
In total three version were released. The Master system I in Japan in 1987, the Sega Master System II in 1990 and the Master System III was released in Japan on Sunday, October 20, 1985.
The system fell straight in the firing line of the Nintendo Entertainment System and went down a similar path as Nintendo providing such add-ons as a Light Phaser Gun, varied controllers and even boasting 3D Glasses with an adapter card. With a library of some 318 games, what more could you ask for! Due to strong international support, the Master System became the second best selling Sega console with 13 million units being sold worldwide. I suppose that i why in 2009, the Master System was named the 20th best video game console of all time (out of 25) by the video gaming website IGN ( would have liked to have seen it a little higher ).
The Commodore 16
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The Commodore 16 home computer was another of Jack Trammels creations. To be honest it was not one of his greatest ventures by any means, but still it was made by Commodore computers and released in 1984. The system came in a starter pack which consisted of a Commodore 16 computer, a 1531 cassette player and an Introduction to Basic part 1 that was on 2 cassettes as the basic language was made easier to use than that of the Vic 20 and the C64. The Commodore 16 was mainly known by users as the C16 and the system was one of three computers in its family, with its bread-bin style casing and a keyboard similar to the Vic 20 & C64, but in different colours. That is where the similarities end.
On the Commodore 16s release I didn’t know much about the system and its hardware. However I still seriously wanted to own one when it made its appearance in the local high street stores, mainly because the C16 arrived after the C64 so I assumed it would exceed the C64’s capabilities and it would automatically be a far superior system (nothing wrong in wishful thinking ). After a bit of research I abandoned the idea of buying a C16 and it wasn’t until a few years back when i found a fairly nice boxed system to add to my collection. . .
The Sega Dreamcast
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The Sega Dreamcast is a video game console which was released in Europe on the 14 October 1999 and was to be the successor to the Sega Saturn console. It was also the first entry in the sixth generation of video gaming consoles, released before its contemporaries such as Sony’s PlayStation 2, Microsoft’s Xbox and Nintendo’s GameCube.
Dreamcast sales grew 156.5% from July 23rd 2000 to September 30th 2000 putting Sega ahead of nintendo and the Nintendo 64 in that period. In the United States alone, a record 300,000 units had been pre-ordered and Sega sold 500,000 consoles in just two weeks (including 225,132 sold on the first 24 hours which became a video game record).
Life of the dreamcast started in 1997 when the president of Sega of America, Bernie Stolar set out a sort of challenge between two in house teams competing to develope a new console to succeed the ageing Sega Saturn. Team one was headed by Hideki Sato who was a Sega hardware engineer and team two was a skunkworks group headed by Tatsuo Yamamoto whom was an IBM researcher.
The Magnavox Odyssey ITL200- The Holy Grail
By · CommentsWell, what can i say, this is t
he big one. I believe the Odyssey to be the Holy Grail of retro systems as i hope many of you will agree and that has got to be a must for any serious collector. The Magnavox Odyssey or Magnavox Odyssey ITL200 to use its proper title was the world’s first home video game console. This console has to be the cream of my collection or should i say consoles due to me being lucky enough to source a run 1 and a run 2 model. I will explain these differences further into the post.
The Magnavox Odyssey was the brainchild of Ralph Baer who had started designing the system around 1966. It was over the next two years due to Ralphs commitment, perceveirance and determination he eventually had a working prototype that was finally finished in 1968.
The system was then first demonstrated on May 24, 1972 and later released in August of tha
t year, predating the Atari Pong home consoles by some three years.
The magnavox was a pretty basic machine with simple components, it was so simple that it even run batteries. As for the game play that was also quite basic as well.
The age of ‘Aquarius’
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Does anybody remember this discrete little number, the ‘Mattel Aquarius’? This was one of those computers that never really made any waves in the computer market. However, it still needs some recognition in the world of retro-gaming history as it was released within that era when early computers and games started to get interesting and some of the great retro games machines started to emerge like to Commodore VIC 20 and the Texas Instruments ti-99 4a. But like everything in life being finely balanced, Ying and Yang, good & bad etc, the Mattel Aquarius unfortunately falls within the latter region.
Internally two systems were manufactured. These were known as ‘Checkers‘ and ‘Chess‘; Chess being the more sophisticated machine. Mattel contracted for these to become the Aquarius and Aquarius II, respectively.
In 1982 Mattel Electronics first announced the Aquarius and Mattel returned to their roots calling upon the the Hong Kong based company Radofin to manufacture the system. Surprisingly, this was the same company who had previously manufactured their Intellivision consoles back in 1979.
The Atari 520ST and various models. . .
By · CommentsThe Atari 520st was offi
cially launched to us by the Atari Corporation in January 1985 at the Winter Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. The letters “ST” stands for “Sixteen/Thirty-two“, which refers to the Motorola 68000’s 16-bit external bus and 32-bit internals.
Other machines that arrived at a similar time were the Apple Macintosh and the main contender being the Commodore Amiga. Although the Amiga had custom processors which gave it the edge in the games and video market, the Atari ST was generally cheaper, had a slightly faster CPU, and had a high-resolution monochrome display mode, ideal for business and CAD.
The Atari ST was also to be the first home computer with integrated MIDI support. Thanks to this unique feature the system enjoyed great success for running music-sequencer software and also more importantly as a controller of musical instruments among amateurs and professionals alike.
The members of the ST family are listed below, in rough chronological order:
- 520ST
- original model with 512 kB RAM.
- 130ST
- intended to be a 128 kB variant. Announced at the 1985 CES alongside the 520ST but never produced.
- 520ST+
- early 520STs with 1 MB of RAM, but without floppy disk
The Fantastic Colecovision Console . . .
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The ColecoVision has to be one of the greatest gaming consoles made. It is up there in my top ten mainly due to a number of classic games that were ported to the system. I can clearly remember thinking at the time that the ColecoVision was quite a powerful machine and it really was like playing arcade games with arcade graphics and sound on a console.
Released to us in August 1982, the ColecoVision was to be ‘Coleco Industries‘ first gaming console made from the second generation of home video gaming systems.
The system was initially released with the game Donkey Kong and a cataloge of twelve launch titles, with an additional ten games announced for 1982, approximately 145 titles in total were published as ROM cartridges for the system between 1982 and 1984.
The system came about due to the owner of coleco industries, Mel Gershman. In the Seventies, coleco had mainly been producing a range of both childrens games, toys and electronic games (remember the Cabbage Patch Kids lol).
With the video gaming market thriving and vasts amounts of money to be made, greshman desperately wanted a piece of the action by coleco creating a competitive video games console of their own.
Sega’s Mega CD II
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The Mega CD 2 first hit the Japanese stores on 23rd April 1993 as an addition to the Sega Mega Drive. While the unit looks much cheaper than the original Mega CD it doesn’t feel as cheap with the casing feeling much more solid than it’s predecessor. The motorized front try has been replaced with a much cheaper and i think a much more reliable flip top.
This is a path that many manufacturers began to take such as Philips with the CD-i, Panasonic with the 3DO (FZ-10) and many others whom followed. This enabled the front panels access lights being to be removed except for the power light which was also a much needed cost cutting measure for many companies.
I personally felt that Sega also went down a similar path to that of the Philips with the CD-i, within its game play, many aspects were similar to games such as ‘Dragons Lair‘. Most games gave you select options during game play and prompted you to take a certain path in order for you to advance further during the game. This proves quite difficult with the timing of your actions having to be very precise.
The BBC Home Computer. . .
By · CommentsThe BBC Microcomput
er was released to us in the UK in the late 1981. During is lifespan it was given the nick-name the ‘Beeb’ which was used mainly by its uses but it was easily recognizable by its small ‘Owl’ logo.
The Acorn Proton was a pre-existing project at Acorn to succeed the Atom home computer. It was then submitted for, and won, the Literacy Project tender for a computer to accompany the TV programs and literature. Renamed the BBC Micro, the platform was chosen by most schools and became a cornerstone of computing in British education in the 1980s, changing Acorn’s fortunes. It was also moderately successful as a home computer in the United Kingdom despite its high cost. The machine was directly involved in the development of the ARM architecture which sees widespread use in embedded systems as of 2009.
The success of the machine in the UK was largely due to its acceptance as an “educational” co
mputer – the vast majority of UK schools used BBC Micros to teach computer literacy and information technology skills. I can remember using these machines at school in my class ‘computer studies’ creating short programs as the basic was quite easy to use. I wonder if anyone remembers the BBC’s version of Ceefax/Teletext that was called Prestel lol.
