0:00

When When things feel a bit

0:02

chaotic, Instacart helps deliver milk

0:04

and sausage. Add a

0:07

little life to your cart. Get

0:09

stuff from literally all your stores,

0:11

from Baby Wipes to Al Bacor.

0:15

Add a little life

0:17

to your cart. Instacart

0:19

helps get your groceries.

0:22

Your first three deliveries are

0:24

free. Download Instacart. Add

0:27

life to cart. Terms apply. Coming

0:30

up on this week's show, the

0:32

Atari 400 gets the mini treatment.

0:35

Konami announced some big re-releases. And

0:37

we go inside the world of

0:39

obscure consoles and computers with Lewis

0:41

Packwood. And

0:52

the Retro Hour podcast is brought to

0:54

you each and every Friday with our

0:56

incredible friends at Bitmap Books. Now, one

0:58

of their books you absolutely need to

1:00

check out. Super Nintendo slash Super Famicom,

1:02

a visual compendium. Now, this pays homage

1:05

to one of the greatest consoles ever

1:07

made and its incredible library of games

1:09

and the people who brought these amazing

1:11

ideas to life. So, if you're a

1:13

fan of Nintendo's 16-bit wonder, check that

1:15

book out and the rest of their

1:17

retro gaming collection at bitmapbooks.com. And

1:20

with our lovely friends at PCBWay. Now,

1:23

you know PCBWay. They offer fully

1:25

featured custom PCB prototyping, low-cost, fast

1:27

turnaround quality boards, and they offer

1:30

services like 3D printing and injection

1:32

molding. And you know that PCBWay

1:34

are huge supporters of the retro

1:36

community. So, get an instant quote

1:39

right now on their website at

1:41

pcbway.com. Hello

1:45

and welcome to the Retro Hour podcast, episode

1:47

number 412, your weekly

1:50

dose of retro gaming and technology news with

1:52

me, Dan Wood. Me, Ravi Abbott. And me,

1:54

Joe Fox. And very nice

1:56

of you joining us for another episode where

1:58

we get to geek out. for an hour-ish,

2:00

actually around 90 minutes normally, but you know

2:03

that doesn't sound catchy for a podcast title.

2:06

When we talk about classic video games, technology, bringing up

2:08

to speed on all the big happenings in the world

2:10

of retro from over the last seven days and of

2:12

course bring you an incredible guest in the second half

2:14

of the show as well. And we just love doing

2:16

this podcast, I mean that's the thing about us guys,

2:19

the people that might be new to the show, you

2:21

know we never claim to be like experts on this

2:23

kind of thing do we? All we are is guys

2:25

that love video games, you're like hanging out and talking

2:27

about it. Yeah and we've done it for quite a

2:29

long time now. Over eight years

2:31

of doing this podcast every single week. So if

2:34

you have just found us recently because I'm not

2:36

on a blower on trumpet or anything but you've

2:38

been sharing a few stats with us recently Ravi,

2:40

we've kind of hit 2024 running

2:42

really in terms of the podcast charts and the

2:44

stats and all that recently. Yeah

2:46

it's been really good and you

2:48

know thanks so much for everybody

2:50

listening. It's great, I think we're

2:52

number seven in the iTunes charts

2:55

which has hurt pretty amazing intensity.

2:57

And Dan you've also been betraying

2:59

us and going on to

3:01

other services. Yes I mean I have been

3:03

doing a bit of moonlighting over the last

3:05

couple of weeks. I kind of forgot about

3:07

this because it was something I recorded at

3:09

the start of December, day after my birthday

3:11

actually which might explain why my voice is

3:13

slightly croaky on this episode if you listen

3:16

to it. But this was a documentary

3:19

that I was invited to take part in that

3:21

was on the BBC. Now this was broadcast on

3:23

the BBC Radio 4 which is

3:25

a terrestrial radio station here in the UK

3:27

for people outside the UK and also released

3:30

on a podcast on BBC Sounds as well

3:32

and it's a series that they do called

3:34

Toast. Now it's quite an interesting

3:36

concept for a show. It's about basically companies that

3:39

were like riding high and then

3:41

suddenly everything went

3:43

wrong and they got toasted essentially.

3:45

So they did an episode on like in a

3:47

blockbuster was a recent episode they did on there as

3:49

well. They did one on their Toys R Us and

3:52

they have a journalist on there called Sean and

3:54

basically his serial entrepreneur co-host Sam

3:56

White and Amy's they sort of

3:59

kind of why these companies failed.

4:02

And if we're talking about computer companies, obviously

4:04

the one I was invited on to talk

4:06

about was the Commodore episode. But

4:08

they did it recently. It's always

4:10

something that people discuss eternally, which

4:13

is why did this company fail? And

4:15

what would have happened if this changed? And

4:17

I find this quite interesting because going

4:19

on to the BBC and stuff, our

4:22

audience have probably heard that story a

4:24

million times. But

4:26

going out there for the mainstream thing

4:28

is really cool. Yeah, and it

4:31

was. It was awesome. There was a guy called Tim, who's

4:33

the editor of the PC Pro magazine. He was on it

4:35

as well, David Pleasance, who, my good friend, he used to

4:37

be the managing director of Commodore. And

4:39

Amiga is basically just like an Amiga and

4:42

Commodore Superfan, really. So I played a couple of

4:44

seconds of it. Just want to hear kind of

4:46

how the episode sounds. Dan, from a gaming perspective,

4:48

Dan Wood, who's a Superfan.

4:51

What came next from your perspective after the Commodore

4:53

64? Well, we

4:55

were a Commodore household, really, after we

4:58

got the initial eight bit machines in the 80s, we moved

5:00

on to the Amiga, which was

5:02

a Commodore flagship brand in

5:04

the late 80s and through to their demise

5:06

in the mid 90s. So

5:09

yeah, I got an Amiga 500 plus model

5:11

for Christmas 1991. It

5:13

didn't feel like jumping one generation. It felt

5:15

like a computer from the future. When the

5:17

Amiga was launched, the Mac was still black

5:19

and white. The PC was basically

5:21

just beeping at the DOS prompt. And then

5:24

the Amiga came along, 4096 colors. It

5:27

had, you know, stereo sound as well. I

5:29

remember a friend of mine who had an

5:31

Amstrad computer coming to my house and experiencing

5:34

the music on Amiga games and his jaw

5:36

dropped. And he went home and asked his mum

5:38

that night, I need an Amiga 500. Stories

5:41

that I've told before on this podcast, but like you

5:43

said, Ravi, the fact that I could talk about that

5:45

kind of stuff on BBC Radio 4, still a bit

5:47

surreal. And you've got your phone voice on. I

5:50

can't tell. Trying not to sound

5:52

too hungover after my birthday night out like this one. But

5:55

yeah, so if you want to check that out, I mean, it was like

5:57

an hour long that we recorded and they edited the whole thing down to

5:59

around 24 minutes. So, you know, there's kind of a

6:01

lot on the cutting room floor, but I think, you know, still the

6:03

fact that the mainstream, that the BBC are covering

6:05

this kind of thing now, I do think is very cool.

6:07

Yeah, it's cool. I saw they did one on the spectrum

6:09

as well. Not the spectrum on the

6:11

Sinclair C5. Yes, they did. Yeah, you're

6:14

right. And yeah, it's a really interesting series, actually. So you

6:16

want to check that out. It's on BBC Sounds now, or

6:18

you can... I think we're still repeating it on radio for

6:20

certain points as well, but I'll link that up in

6:22

our show notes as well. Now, we

6:24

have got lots of stories to get into this

6:26

week, and we're going to be talking about obscure

6:29

systems in the second half of the podcast today.

6:31

And you guys know that, you know, I'm a

6:33

bit of a fan of the kind of the

6:35

failed and weird systems, you know, that I collected

6:37

from the Atari Jaguar. Yeah, that I've got a

6:39

Philips CDI and a Commodore CDTV. But

6:42

those systems are quite frankly mainstream compared to

6:44

the systems we're going to be talking about

6:46

with our guest this week, Lewis Packwood. Now,

6:48

we've had Lewis on the podcast before, and

6:50

he's done some incredible books and documentaries in

6:53

the past. We're also talking to Lewis, don't

6:55

we? Yeah, I really love

6:57

this book that he's kind of created, and

6:59

this is, you know, Curious Video Game Machines.

7:02

And honestly, I

7:04

have not heard of half of these machines

7:06

in there. There's a few things that we've

7:08

talked about before, but my God,

7:10

he's gone into detail with stuff. Well, I'm going to

7:12

test Joe on these before we get into it. Have

7:14

you heard of the Interton

7:17

Video Computer 4000? Has

7:19

it ever done that before? I'm on one right now. Yeah,

7:22

look at it. Looking at your vast collection of

7:24

them. Yeah, yeah. I'm

7:26

sat on a throne of Interton. Of course you are. What

7:29

would it call Interton? Interton,

7:31

Intertion, VC it might be. This

7:34

is basically a computer that came out of

7:36

console, actually, an early 8-bit ROM based cartridge

7:38

based second generation video home game

7:40

console, mainly popular in Germany.

7:42

It also was released here as well, apparently. Never

7:45

heard of it before. France, Spain, Austria, the

7:47

Netherlands, Australia in 1978. Apparently

7:49

the company that were behind it,

7:52

they were a hearing aid manufacturer.

7:54

He crashed into video games, so we talked

7:56

about that. What about the MB Microvision, one

7:58

of those new companies? collection? As

8:01

in the board games, MB, Megaboring. Yeah,

8:03

that's right, not in bad light. Well

8:07

this was the first handheld game console that

8:09

used interchangeable cartridges and it was a handheld

8:11

a decade before the Gameboy. Well you know,

8:14

these aren't that obscure because we've actually got

8:16

a story about the Casio Lupi later on

8:18

and then we actually featured in the book

8:20

and you know... One more for Joe, let

8:22

me give you one more. The

8:26

Galliccedia, you heard of that before? The

8:28

Galliccedia. Yeah. Is that a

8:30

limited edition chocolate bar? Now

8:33

I'm craving one of those. Now this

8:35

was a build-it-yourself computer and

8:38

basically it was like, you know today people build their

8:40

own kind of cases for Raspberry Pi's and that kind

8:42

of thing. This was basically a main board, you'd build

8:44

your own case for it back in the day. The

8:46

ultimate hobbyist machine, an open source computer from Yugoslavia. Oh

8:49

wow. I mean there's all this stuff out there that like you know,

8:51

we think we've heard a lot about retro gaming and

8:53

tech. It turns out there's so much more that I

8:55

need to look out for on eBay now. Yeah, yeah,

8:57

loads. I used to have this idea of like, I'm

8:59

going to get every console that ever came out in

9:02

the UK and you think like,

9:04

you know, there can't be that many,

9:06

Sega, Nintendo and then you just hear

9:08

about all these crazy things in the 70s and

9:11

80s and like you say, every

9:13

single electronics company, whether it was

9:15

hearing aids or you know, CD,

9:17

Hi-Fi, Sony, or whatever, you

9:19

know, dipping their toes. That one worked out alright.

9:22

Yeah, that one worked out alright. But just dipping

9:24

their toes in it and just you know, the

9:26

things that came out and like you

9:28

say, I did know there was things before

9:30

the Game Boy, but I couldn't know what they

9:32

were, you know, cards and

9:34

stuff like that. It's like different

9:36

generations of different references. That sounds

9:39

really interesting. You're a bit younger

9:41

than us, Joe as well. So yeah, but a

9:43

different base than us guys.

9:45

And you know, I think Lewis as well, he's

9:48

a writer, a journalist. So you know,

9:50

he's wrote stuff for the

9:53

Guardian Edge magazine as well, Retro

9:55

Gamer, Time Extension. So

9:57

you know, he's got a big

9:59

bit of. knowledge and kind

10:01

of skills at research. Got the

10:03

credentials. Yeah, definitely. And I

10:05

think, you know, I'm listening there. I would pay attention to

10:07

this week's podcast, guys, because I'm thinking, load of new questions

10:09

for the Christmas quiz might come out of the seven. Oh,

10:12

God, here we go. Really

10:15

interesting chat, if you want to hear about

10:17

the more obscure side of video game machines

10:19

and computers with our guest, Louis Packwood. He's

10:21

on the show in around 35 minutes from

10:23

now. Now something that isn't

10:25

obscure to most of the world, but

10:27

actually we were chatting before we started

10:29

recording this episode today. None

10:31

of us have ever owned one of these machines. And actually

10:33

we haven't really got all that much experience in using them.

10:36

But this has been the big headline

10:38

in the world of retro from over the last

10:40

week. I mean, it's been on the YouTube. It's

10:42

been all over my social timelines that the next

10:44

mini console or a mini computer in this case,

10:47

actually from retro games limited, of course, who were

10:49

the company that brought us the Amiga 500 mini

10:51

last year, the C64 and VIC-20 minis. So

10:56

now in answer in a couple of months time, we're going

10:58

to be getting a mini version of the

11:00

Atari 400. Yeah, I think

11:03

this is a really wise move, actually,

11:06

because the Atari 400, I've not actually

11:09

ever seen one in person in the

11:11

UK. When I was

11:13

in America, there were a lot of them

11:15

about and you know, it's the Atari 8-bit

11:17

system as well. And I

11:20

think this is really cool because

11:22

they obviously hit that nostalgia of

11:25

the American market, but then the

11:27

curiosity of other markets and other

11:29

regions that didn't have it. Yeah, 100%. And

11:32

like you said, I mean, it was definitely a system

11:34

that was more popular in the USA.

11:36

It was one of the first home computers released

11:39

by Atari back in 1979. And

11:41

obviously, you think about then the contemporaries to

11:43

it with stuff like the Commodore PET, and

11:45

the Apple II and the the TRS 80 as

11:47

well. It's got that membrane keyboard on there, got

11:50

the cartridge slot on the top. And

11:53

it wasn't that popular in the UK, right? I mean,

11:55

I've looked at some kind of estimates on their sales,

11:57

the reckon that they only sold units

12:00

of the Atari 400 and the 800, which was

12:02

a version with more memory, combined

12:04

in the UK. So definitely

12:06

not a machine that we've seen. It's something

12:08

that we've had many guests reference as well

12:11

as one of their first machines. And

12:13

it looks like it's got a great history about

12:15

it, but also, you know, Retro

12:18

Games Limited, the company behind it,

12:20

have created quite a nice piece here.

12:22

And they've got some good options in

12:24

there, too. I mean, when you guys

12:27

sent me this last week, when it was announced, I

12:29

ain't going to lie. Because it just said, you

12:31

know, it was the A400 Mini. The

12:35

400 Mini. The 400 Mini. I

12:37

thought it was an Amiga. Yeah. What's

12:40

the one with the model number lower than the Amiga 500? Yeah.

12:44

So that confused me a little bit. I'd

12:48

never heard, well, I probably have heard the

12:50

Atari 400, but you know

12:52

what I'm like with anything that's kind of like

12:54

pre-my era. I'm terrible with it, but this looks

12:56

pretty cool. So I'm assuming the games are kind

12:58

of on par with the Atari 2600. You

13:02

know, yeah. I mean, in terms of I mean, there

13:04

were some games that came out in the UK in

13:06

particular. I mean, you know, Jet Set Willy was ported

13:08

to it as well. You know, Jeff Minty used to

13:10

do quite a bit on there. I think Matthew Smith

13:12

did some stuff. Andrew Braybrook obviously featured in our Retro

13:15

Book recently. He made a couple of titles

13:17

for it as well. The interesting thing about

13:19

the Atari 400 to me is that really,

13:21

I mean, you thought then, you know, it

13:23

wasn't an Amiga. This really is the kind

13:26

of spiritual kind of grandfather or the father

13:28

of the Amiga, really, because it was made

13:30

by Jay Miner, who was, you know, he worked

13:32

for Atari at the time and then went on to be, you know,

13:34

one of the principal designers of the Amiga. And

13:37

this was kind of, you know, it's got a lot of the

13:39

principles in there that kind of went on to the Amiga afterwards,

13:41

like, you know, custom chips, you know, for example, that are in

13:43

this machine. And really a lot of

13:45

people think, because obviously Commodore is the Commodore 64, a

13:48

lot of people kind of think of like, you know, the 64

13:51

as like the predecessor to the Amiga, but really it was the

13:53

Atari 400 and 800. So

13:55

from that perspective, kind of

13:57

being the Amiga's ancestor to me, I've always found that machine

13:59

interesting. from that point of view and wanted to explore it

14:01

a bit more? Yeah and some of

14:03

the games as well like you know

14:06

that they mentioned that it's gonna come

14:08

with 25 pre-installed ones. Berserk

14:10

Millipede as well, minor 2049

14:12

as well which is a reference

14:15

quite a lot, Star Raiders, Mule

14:18

as well. So they've got some kind

14:20

of groundbreaking games here. I think

14:22

what's quite nice is the outright advertise

14:24

you know in the trailer for it

14:26

that is compatible with emulation

14:28

of the 400 and 800 XL and also the

14:30

Atari 5200 home console. Yeah

14:34

because we were saying when we did that episode with you

14:36

know Ben Jones from Play On the other week you know

14:38

Ravi asked him about you know could you do Atari 5200

14:40

emulation on the 2600 plus and he was

14:43

a bit kind of cagey. He was

14:45

a bit like oh you know maybe we could do that

14:47

kind of thing but obviously this was kind of going on

14:49

behind the scenes which I imagine you knew about. Yeah

14:51

yeah probably no doubt but my point

14:54

was it's nice to act. We know

14:56

like they must know like when they did the

14:58

PlayStation mini like a load of my

15:00

mates you know modded theirs and all

15:02

that which was really easy to do and

15:05

just put like hundreds of PlayStation 1 games

15:07

on there and you know you see

15:09

the Super Nintendo mini with loads of other games on

15:11

there and stuff and it's like these companies must know

15:13

that people do this and it is actually quite easy

15:15

to do it. So it's nice to see that they're just

15:17

like yeah you can emulate other games on

15:19

it which is great. Also this was

15:22

kind of announced earlier

15:24

wasn't it that there were going to

15:26

be some releases from Retro Games Limited

15:28

and we are kind of speculating and

15:30

everybody was wondering what they were and

15:33

it looks like they're kind of going

15:35

in the Atari direction which is interesting

15:37

because you know previously they've released Commodore

15:39

stuff and Amiga. And

15:42

I think you know the point you made there Joe

15:44

about the fact that they kind of encourage you know

15:46

people to kind of you know put your own ROMs

15:48

on there or that kind of thing. So I don't

15:50

know if you've seen the A500 mini recently there's a

15:52

thing called Pandori on there which basically completely opens

15:54

the system. People are running like PlayStation games

15:56

Dreamcast games on them now Which

15:58

is like basically. The great know emulation

16:01

mumsnet completely broken out about units to see

16:03

me grub. Bill. In emulation and they haven't

16:05

block early summer as far as a scene so you

16:07

know do seem like this it maybe you know not

16:09

maybe not encouraged net bought land people do what the

16:11

one with dumps and put in terms of the look

16:13

at a summit obviously got like on a distinct is.

16:16

At. Sorry for hundred looks and which have always

16:18

thought you know is it a chunky little

16:20

look a machinist and that dates the terrorists

16:22

or hundred I see them but like plants

16:24

by before and and Stephen Jones when he's

16:26

demo ing his as monitor that he kickstarter

16:28

couple years ago when you receive an eventual

16:30

recently those gotten a thirty four hundred. Put.

16:32

Into it the gonna demonstrate how that lives

16:34

on less to get a smaller version The

16:36

senses a half size version. Of the

16:39

Atari for hundreds. I imagine he doesn't

16:41

say anything about it on the video

16:43

or D M. The website is forcing

16:45

seats, but I imagine the keyboard will

16:47

be. Non. Functional. It

16:50

was a Gemini. always is with these

16:52

images. Abdoulaye even at I know is

16:54

that will be cheap to produce a

16:56

wedding. Keep up for that as well

16:59

and you know if they haven't got

17:01

it, phones know someone's gonna rip on

17:03

And folks Milan Apple says five years

17:05

be ports which allow for edition. of

17:08

modern keyboard know yes ah

17:10

but side. I'm

17:12

going to be working and. Your. Program one in.

17:15

Which. The size of a isn't am in someone's there is a

17:17

you Tube videos someone did not the A five hundred many. To.

17:20

Have a working did you gonna need a cocktail?

17:22

stick to presages the athletes and seventeen. I understand

17:24

that for the reasons you know a size isn't

17:26

can be comfortable. machine to type on. not of

17:29

those gonna check like he's wearing the first place

17:31

anyway and such. Kind of to be expected now

17:33

as well. It also comes with a recreation of

17:35

the Atari see at Forty joystick as well as

17:38

this is interesting said he kind of mention a

17:40

moment ago about intervene to be would it would

17:42

Ben Jones from Play On Who I'm It worked

17:44

on the it's or Twenty Six Hundred Plus apparent

17:47

from what I've read. this is in collaboration with

17:49

Plans. Some. Wondering is the

17:51

joystick the comes with? This is.

17:53

The. Same on the time with the twenty six hundred plus. an

17:56

enterprise yeah they do look really similar

17:58

don't nicer it would make sense

18:00

rather than trying to do it twice, I suppose, if

18:02

they were just going to use the same joystick, which

18:05

I've got no complaints, I thought that joystick was really

18:07

nice. A great little feature in here, I mean, obviously

18:09

you can sideload your own games on by USB stick,

18:11

it supports cartridge discs and cassette roms as well.

18:14

It's got a rewind function, and

18:16

you can save games as well. This rewind function,

18:18

I thought, was quite cool. So basically what you

18:20

can do is you can resume your game at

18:22

any time, save your game at any time, or

18:24

you can rewind by up to 30 seconds to

18:26

help you get past those really difficult parts

18:29

which were often the case in 8-bit games. Yeah,

18:32

I've played a few limited

18:34

run games and games

18:36

that have been, you know, a couple of years ago

18:38

they did The Lion King and The Aladdin and Jungle

18:40

Book all on Xbox and PlayStation,

18:42

and they all have likely rewind features

18:45

in them. And you go, I'm going to play this, I'm going

18:47

to play it properly, I'm not going to

18:49

rewind or anything. And then, you know, I think

18:51

I played a Gynug for the Mega Drive the

18:53

other week on Xbox. And yeah,

18:55

I'm just rewinding every time I die.

18:57

Yeah. To

19:00

me, it's like having these conveniences in there. You know, if

19:02

some people are like PRists, I'm like, well, I wasn't in

19:04

the original. If that was in the original systems back in

19:07

the day, you know we would have used them. We

19:09

would have used them. We would have used them all over again.

19:11

You needed to complete a game, Dan. I

19:14

needed to get to the second level of most games. So

19:17

yeah, I think that's definitely a welcome addition. And again, you don't

19:19

have to use it if you don't want it. You know, it's

19:21

just a feature that's in there if you wish to use it.

19:24

And also, I mean, they've paid a lot of

19:26

attention to it as well. They said, you know,

19:28

from the hard to match colours of the original

19:30

machine, the authentic textures of the plastic as well,

19:32

they've really kind of tried to make it,

19:35

you know, a tribute to the

19:37

original Atari 400, which I think is really nice.

19:39

And I think they did a good job with

19:41

the A500 Mini in

19:43

terms of the, you know, the plastic colour and the feel

19:45

of it as well. So I've got every place that this

19:47

will be equally as good as that. So I think it's

19:49

very interesting to see as well, like you said, Ravi, it's

19:51

a lot of people kind of message me going, well, I

19:53

didn't see that one coming. You know, that's a

19:56

bit left to centre. I think a lot of people were

19:58

expecting maybe another Commodore machine. Maybe

20:00

in his room? is the city say too

20:02

many innocent people talking about lot Yes, I'd

20:04

I think he noted that may be a

20:07

little bit too obscure, but as you know,

20:09

my predictions on Amazing Some is kind of

20:11

a set up. You know? one thing that

20:13

stands out to me as Atari is absolutely

20:16

killing it up helping out so much stuff

20:18

at the moment and a lot of stuff

20:20

based on their legacy. And. In

20:22

our licensing now are different companies but

20:24

also like choosing the right ones as

20:26

well. The Earth producing quality stuff you

20:28

know that is a lot of fab.

20:31

A older atari that say tot the

20:33

seasons that came out in the past

20:36

than a you know that these ones

20:38

look pretty decent. The. And I'm

20:40

very excited about. This is someone who you

20:42

know I've got pretty much all the mainstream

20:44

tiny you know it's a bit micros in

20:46

my collection of say nobody avatar is orange

20:48

It is one that I've already wanted. Books

20:50

never got hold of. presence of mates this

20:52

would definitely be you know I'm a must

20:55

have Machine says developer from at a twenty

20:57

eight so much Sony few months to whites

20:59

and that preorders for the are available now

21:01

I'm sure the prices Edmunds quickly check on

21:03

the at he's a price ninety nine pounds

21:05

ninety nine and been national bad actually that

21:07

the operating reasonable so am I said in.

21:09

Boxes well signature the Amazon link and at

21:11

the trailer for the up with the in

21:14

the show notes at the retro our.com. Nasa

21:17

Met rather exciting news from Can

21:19

Nami this week as well. Who's

21:21

an answer? Mass classic, Reba leases

21:24

or amphibious. This is my street

21:26

side as an aura are our

21:29

friends or a limited run. And

21:31

economic. Interestingly to you know,

21:34

Aren't. Really making any new games in a

21:36

moment and resisting old games are? you know

21:38

this isn't the Southern. Command. Blue

21:40

anything like that an airplane intended

21:43

Books they have announced this week

21:45

v a limited run and can

21:47

Army. And two games actually,

21:49

so to collection. So August recess

21:51

on first, which. I absolutely

21:53

love! This is one of my favorite.

21:56

Mega. Drive games of all time to a why

21:58

to a tattoo of him on my skin. Rocket

22:01

Know Adventures Response collection.

22:04

Which. I'm super excited about you guys net a

22:06

Rocket Night Games for million after though my eyes

22:08

or less what I meant you show me a

22:10

tattoo as I am kind of heard of that

22:12

game of vaguely remember what is not again that

22:14

applied address the like a should have played it

22:16

asks that we were talking before we're going to

22:19

do lighter and I'll Strauss episode from Patrons of

22:21

Gonna games we probably should have like but we

22:23

haven't had this again. We suggest people with this

22:25

will be a game. I suggest that in that

22:27

case may be for both of you. But.

22:29

Yeah, Rocket My Adventures was a

22:32

ninety nine to freeze action platform.

22:34

Was kind of the possum for the

22:36

enough of a another whether inspired now

22:39

has and he was Blue Armor and

22:41

but the the A mid game is

22:43

is a powerful adventure you know action

22:46

platform I. Am. Kind of sat

22:48

in a steampunk. Met Evil

22:50

kind of in a world. Where.

22:52

And desert Evil Pig Army and does

22:55

he kidnapped the princess and you with

22:57

the possum as to rescue her. Am

22:59

and you know you do from as hard to

23:01

describe as platform again you know where you jump

23:04

on ya, the sword and. You. Know when

23:06

you finish your sword it on a suits a

23:08

beam of energy across the screen. Monsieur attack. By.

23:10

The whole bound to jump on. You.

23:13

Charge of your rocket, your jetpack and

23:15

you just jetpack all over the level

23:17

and it it it. Makes. Really

23:19

unique and interesting kind of platforming if

23:21

I make sense and. The whole

23:23

load of different levels levels way have to into

23:26

giant, pick max and fight you know of

23:28

a pig max and levels where you are. it's

23:30

a you know it's a shoe him off and

23:32

you're flying along when you check back in a

23:34

shoe and able and stuff really really from game

23:37

i'm watching a place or now Nietzsche. The graphics

23:39

look awesome on here will. Absolutely fantastic Beautiful game.

23:41

And. Was followed by sequel I Would Spark

23:44

Stuff, Rocket Night Ventures to Could You

23:46

Played Sparks That. Came out and

23:48

ninety four which personally they changed the yard

23:50

kind of the controls a little bit too

23:52

much in the yeah platforming elo bit too

23:54

much for my liking by seems to be

23:56

squat still fire while of game and then

23:58

there was a super into. Asian tsunami

24:00

which was just coats box to it's also

24:02

came out and ninety knots for. I.

24:05

Was like or one the dog like a rip

24:07

off at this than our our point zero just

24:09

a rip off a sonic last be. As

24:12

look for a similar by yeah rock

24:15

In I venture am often interim kind

24:17

of top ten mega drive games and

24:19

you know for lot of people. Are.

24:22

Lot less you see on you tube and stuff. that reason we

24:24

talk about it is limited run. Are. Going to

24:26

be releasing this am and is going to

24:28

care for preorder. On January

24:30

nineteenth which I believe is the

24:33

day this episode as Yep. Friday,

24:35

Saturday, Sunday. And. Which will

24:37

be on for about a month. And

24:39

because it's limited run and obviously you know

24:41

as they are missing out and all that

24:43

jazz and will be thirty five dollars. Am.

24:46

And co decided that he has not bad. It's

24:48

easy get will free games. Is the

24:50

be available on Switch and on

24:52

Ps for Mps five. And.

24:54

No news of it coming out. X box sometimes

24:57

limited run they kind of really six months ones

24:59

later and always com an X box. And.

25:01

It does come with a limited edition many

25:03

comic as well which was actually included in

25:06

a issue of. Ah, Sega magazine

25:08

asking the dang. And the mid

25:10

nineties or match free I imagine was really

25:12

cool and obviously with been limited run. The

25:15

is you know plenty of other. Things

25:17

you can buy you know over Ultimate edition

25:19

of you can we spend a lot more

25:21

money I've seen on here of us yeah

25:23

had of allegedly four dollars for the as

25:25

the Ultimate edition yeah which you know always

25:27

come with like you know, pins and stuff

25:29

like about. It does come with a really

25:31

cool clamshell. At. A switch inner

25:34

be creates the original Genesis mega Drive,

25:36

a Sega Box, Which I

25:38

do love, but these things can get prices. And.

25:40

They other be releasing a and it does. You.

25:43

No warrant this eccentric but the others

25:45

be releasing thought that the soundtrack some

25:48

vinyl. Plus. She's everything that they're

25:50

going to Atlanta Sadness? yeah on cassette

25:52

as Laos than air against town on

25:54

this. but as well as s. A

25:56

month later. Now This is a game

25:59

I'm not particularly. familiar with while

26:01

announcing either. Well, When. I

26:03

saw this like from the

26:05

recesses of my brain said

26:07

the same area Madsen I

26:09

go light, nostalgic and move.

26:11

I eagerly remember this. Watching

26:14

the Tv shows this Felix with

26:17

Sat yeah me a move over

26:19

Mickey Mouse Felix Pretty heartless. Like

26:22

a the original. Basic.

26:24

Animal on Cinema you know

26:26

am at. Who. Is from

26:28

silent movies nicely nineteen apparently Ninety nine

26:31

seen yak as I I i collect

26:33

silent movies with share in our on

26:35

a blu ray and stuff like are

26:38

under Felix a cop was really really

26:40

good stuff to eat at that did

26:42

stuff with Charlie Chaplin as well but

26:45

then I remember that is a series

26:47

good the air as is Twisted Tales

26:49

and yeah see that's the car he

26:51

adds that was on T V when

26:54

I was younger and you know Felix

26:56

because kind of disappeared from. Popular

26:58

Culture and. To.

27:00

See and in effect carrots or again are

27:03

just like oh my god and yeah. realized

27:05

then that there was a peak in the

27:07

nineties in that that kind of go embassy

27:10

in either ninety free a gameboy tiles. And.

27:12

You'll night apparently as oyster at La de

27:14

Manila. Oh wow that goes to this

27:16

is happening and and in the two thousands

27:19

of the sensor. A hot as funny

27:21

that Nasa. but yeah they are going to be doing

27:23

the Felix the Cat bundle. Was

27:25

emitted from once again on a switch

27:27

scare Scorpius Five: This is gonna be.

27:30

Releasing. For preorder February ninth to

27:32

March tenth. Only. Two games of

27:35

that one am as as ravi so

27:37

sad it is a any as title.

27:39

Which was called Felix Cat and a Gameboy

27:42

game which can I ninety free as ravi

27:44

to set to Felix Magath. I'm

27:46

not familiar with those two, but

27:48

I'm I'm fairly certain I've seen

27:50

people praising. Than. the any s

27:53

game before the nintendo game cause so big

27:55

in the nineties they were are feel at.

27:58

Ease and we're okay. But

28:01

yeah, I'm as always, you know,

28:04

Limited. Limited run. Absolutely killer net.

28:06

They're. Definitely onto a good thing here and using

28:09

the carbon engine. Which. I've just

28:11

been googling before. We had a came on

28:13

air and death. The. Carbon Engine is the

28:15

game engine that they use which allows you

28:17

know old games to be ported anthony Systems.

28:19

That's how they're doing it and it's something they

28:21

craved themselves to make is really cool. And

28:23

as I kind of goofing around. Konami:

28:26

Have announced that next month on

28:28

the nineteenth else I'm a twenty four.

28:30

February. They are going to

28:32

be announcing the every releases fruit limited

28:34

run. His. Right arm and engine which pretty

28:36

cool. Yet I think you

28:38

know again, these games. The

28:40

games I pick out I'm in, I'm not

28:43

familiar. I'm in up. Another cat is my

28:45

plate and is. And it's card games or

28:47

broken adventurous are not enough for signs of

28:49

the regional dance sitting These. Classics.

28:51

Of day toward a modern hard when adding a

28:53

physical additional dumpster. not I'm and I was watching

28:55

a video the that I tend to laying into

28:57

limited run games as a modest is like an

29:00

hour of documentaries and so I understand the rhine

29:02

and does not have one son of this kind

29:04

of thing spread. My opinion always has been the

29:06

in as it out like it's Tobias fighting and

29:08

other people that do want this. I'm in enough

29:10

of stuff about this which isn't and people have

29:12

held close to the hotness beloved things from their

29:14

childhoods been able to get them again and Michael

29:16

Jordan's for my think is in as a as

29:19

a collector. That. Some in really nice technical

29:21

that yes wow that's and I think the price

29:23

of this as well. I'm in some of that

29:25

when he says companies are expensive but last four

29:27

dollars for in a collection of the season on

29:29

the on switch. Even having sales are things decent.

29:31

Is completely hit the nail on the had that like

29:33

i love the rocket not game so for me that's

29:36

a no brainer. It was one of my favorite games

29:38

going up the and he just said it. They're like

29:40

if you're not a fan of it if he went

29:42

on a like day. Stand.

29:44

By it see now you don't have to buy

29:46

it is does have a people we will enjoy

29:48

it so I'm not Monday for he isn't on

29:50

mandatory on on. Not big fan of like us

29:52

I yeah I can. i have no

29:55

real affiliations felix the cat that's cool

29:57

doesn't upset me upset with nsw Don't

30:00

buy it. There we go. But yeah, really looking forward to

30:02

a rocket night Avengers re sparked Yeah, so pre-orders go live

30:04

today when the podcast comes out on Friday So we'll link

30:06

that up in our show notes as well if you do

30:08

want to check it out Now

30:10

I don't know the fact that i'm able to talk about the the

30:12

Commodore plus four On this podcast recently,

30:15

which um, you know, we'll recap for people that

30:17

don't know My first computer growing

30:19

up got a Commodore plus four really wanting a

30:21

Commodore 64, which obviously was like, you know All

30:23

the cool kids had um, but the plus for

30:26

a big market failure My mom kind of got one

30:28

on her and fire sale at last keys I think

30:30

it was for like 99 pounds with a load of

30:32

games included But I love that machine growing

30:34

up because it was my first computer and there were some

30:36

good games on there as well But there

30:38

was one game that I do have a vivid memory

30:40

of this going to a Little

30:43

computer shop called chips that was a little branch

30:45

of like i've got a feeling they're all around

30:47

the country Um, I think I

30:50

remember chips. Yeah I mean they were

30:52

all over in kind of north yorkshire and like

30:54

tea side and darlington that kind of area When

30:56

I was a kid I remember going to the one

30:58

in a red car or red care as I say

31:00

up there Which is like a seaside resort, um not

31:02

far from middlesborough And there's one just up there on

31:05

the seafront and i've got a vivid memory hot sun

31:07

the day My dad used to drive us there on

31:09

a saturday and we're going playing some of

31:11

the the arcades, you know back in the late 80s Having

31:14

fish and chips and then going into chips

31:16

different chips to um, ask if they had

31:18

any Commodore plus four games which

31:20

was i'll tell the story before generally they'd always

31:22

be a bit like oh hang on we might have

31:25

Let me go check in the back and they'd you know come

31:27

back 20 minutes later with like a dusty box Might

31:30

have wanted two games there as well. But

31:32

actually the guy gave me a poster as

31:34

outrun Because around that time

31:36

this must have been like ata 89 they were

31:39

kind of releasing The home ports

31:41

of outrun around that time and

31:43

I put that up on my bedroom wall

31:46

Above my Commodore plus four and I looked at

31:48

the screenshots on there and I played the game

31:50

in the arcade And I remember kind

31:52

of fantasizing how amazing it would be To

31:55

be able to play outrun at home because obviously

31:57

the plus four was a failed platform was

32:00

discontinued I think in 1985, years

32:02

before I got a hold of mine and years

32:05

before the OutRun homeports came out. But it actually

32:07

turns out all these years later, over

32:09

what, like 35 years later, I

32:11

can now finally play OutRun

32:14

on my Commodore Plus 4. I

32:16

could tell you're really proud of that and I

32:19

think it's really cool as well because

32:21

it wasn't a stunt car racer one

32:23

that we covered recently. I

32:26

think there was a port that was

32:28

a really impressive job and looking

32:30

at this, this looks great. Well

32:33

Mike Daly, who obviously

32:36

we've had him on the podcast several times, of

32:38

Lemmings frame DMA design, he tagged me on Twitter

32:40

the other day saying, you know I like this

32:42

Dan. I looked at this

32:44

and my jaw dropped. So essentially this is

32:46

a home brew port of

32:49

turbo OutRun for the

32:51

Commodore Plus 4 which obviously was nothing that we got

32:53

commercially back in the day at all. But

32:55

I think this is, honestly I couldn't believe

32:58

this was running on the Plus 4 when I saw this

33:00

video. Have you seen the screenshots and watched the video this

33:02

year? Yeah, I

33:04

had to check it out because when you posted

33:08

it in our group chat yesterday and said when

33:10

I was a little boy and I used to

33:12

look up at that poster and dream of being

33:14

able to play at home. I was that blonde

33:16

lady in the car. I thought that

33:18

was so sweet and I thought all right I'm gonna have

33:20

to go check this out. And it looks pretty good to

33:22

be honest. Like I say I'm not familiar

33:26

with the Plus 4, the Commodore Plus 4,

33:29

so I'm not 100% sure what its capabilities are and

33:32

stuff like that. Not very much. Not

33:34

very much as you say. But

33:37

it just to me, from

33:40

the outside looking in, it looks like

33:42

a very nice 8-bit game. Especially

33:44

the screenshot of

33:46

America where you kind of get the route

33:49

you're gonna drive. The kind of map

33:51

as well. The map, yeah. That

33:53

looks wonderfully colourful. The colour palette on that

33:55

looks fantastic. And I'm gonna go ahead and

33:57

assume that the Plus 4... probably

34:01

didn't have the greatest color palette for it.

34:03

Well actually bizarrely it had more colors than

34:05

the Commodore 64. Oh okay. Yeah it had

34:07

I think it's 121 colors I've got

34:10

to film this something like maybe eight

34:12

shades of black or something were included in that. That's

34:15

kind of a meme that I see online sometimes. But

34:17

in terms of yeah the graphic the palette of it

34:19

was actually a bit more advanced than the 64 and

34:22

but in terms of what it could do I mean

34:25

basically I've talked about this before the plus four was

34:27

basically a CPU bit of RAM and then one chip

34:29

called the TED that basically did like the I.O. it

34:31

did the graphics it did the audio as well so

34:33

I mean you know even the audio of it nothing

34:35

in the same ballpark as the legendary SID

34:38

chip on the 64. But actually you can

34:40

check out the music that they've

34:42

done on this as well. Yeah I mean obviously

34:44

you know when you're as good as a

34:47

SID chip but I think in terms of

34:49

good remember this very very limited sound chip.

34:52

What awesome chip is doing the I.O. and

34:54

the graphics. And you've got this music playing

34:56

over the game. Grooving.

35:06

Yeah I think this is a really nice little release

35:08

it's free on the website as well which

35:11

plus four world and also

35:13

I noticed looking at the screenshots

35:15

I thought this is quite nice

35:17

they've got the cracker group HCS

35:20

on the inside so I

35:22

think maybe they're kind of like having a

35:24

bit of nostalgia of the old cracking group

35:26

going back which is pretty cool. Well

35:28

TCSS is the guy who's behind this

35:30

this new port of it as well.

35:32

There's Unreal the guy called Unreal has

35:35

done the graphics on this as well.

35:37

I never know how to pronounce his name but I will see it written down at

35:41

CSABO as on the soundtrack

35:44

of this. Apologies if I pronounced his

35:46

name wrong there. I'll always see his name written in

35:48

forums and stuff as well. All 16 levels are in

35:50

there you've got the you know the special boost feature

35:52

that allows you like a turbo boost you know to

35:54

speed up for a brief amount of time as well.

35:56

And actually the guys who did the

35:59

lemming supports. to the Lemmings

36:01

version for the Commodore Plus 4 that we covered, they

36:03

did Empire Strikes Back as well, for the Plus 4

36:05

recently as well, they're the guys behind this too. So

36:08

I think the work that they're doing is

36:10

just jaw-dropping. I can just imagine Dan printing

36:12

out this screen with the guy, you know,

36:15

sat in his car with the nice lady next

36:17

to him and going to the hairdressers and

36:19

being like, I want my hair like him. Yeah,

36:21

in my Ferrari. I thought

36:23

you were going to say I want my hair

36:25

like her. I'm going to have a dream, Joe.

36:29

I'm going to have a dream. So yeah, I mean,

36:31

this just looks incredible. I love the fact that the

36:33

Plus 4 scene is suddenly becoming so active and they're

36:35

doing stuff that no one thought was possible. So like

36:37

you said, Joe, it is free to download. So I'll

36:40

link that up in the show notes as well on

36:42

their Plus 4 world. Now we have got a hand

36:44

that we're going to be talking about possibly the most

36:46

obscure flashcard that we've ever heard of

36:48

in just a moment. And some more big news if you are

36:50

an Atari fan in just a second. Before

36:52

we do that, just a sec to say

36:54

that we do have a little patron that

36:56

supports this podcast. And thank you so much

36:58

for all your support on there as well.

37:01

We're going to be doing our first patrons

37:03

hangout of 2024 next Sunday, which

37:07

doesn't mean that we'll find me at the end of January.

37:10

I'm looking forward to that. And we're also doing

37:12

an after hours episode where, you know, we're

37:14

going to be playing games that we can't

37:16

believe the other person hasn't played. So there's

37:18

going to be some interesting reviews on those.

37:21

And, you know, hopefully we'll get to

37:23

experience some new titles. Yes. If

37:25

you want to join our patrons community, we always

37:28

love welcoming new people. You get

37:30

invites to the hangout that's coming up on Sunday

37:32

28th at 8pm that night. 8

37:34

or 10 UK time we do that. Basically, it's like a

37:36

massive Zoom call. Everyone gets together with this nerd out show,

37:38

new pickups, that kind of thing. Have a bit of fun.

37:41

If you'd like to join us for that, we'd love to

37:43

see you there. We have the after hours podcast, which is

37:45

for our gold members and above. If you're now you'll unlock,

37:47

I think it's 38 back episodes of that. They can check

37:49

all those episodes out and a new episode of that will

37:51

be landing at the end of the month. We try and

37:53

get the normal podcast out early if I can. You get

37:55

it ad free every week and also get around 10 to

37:57

15 minutes of extra news stories. for

38:00

our patrons on every episode as well. But

38:02

obviously the main reason to support the podcast on

38:04

Patreon is just to make sure that we

38:06

can keep the lights on and keep bringing

38:08

out this podcast and pays you know all our

38:10

hosting fees and all that kind of thing

38:12

are covered. So we hugely appreciate your support

38:14

and we like to induct new members into the

38:17

most prestigious high score table in the world

38:19

of retro gaming and that is the Retro Hour

38:21

Hall of Fame. Hall of Fame. And

38:23

a massive thank you to our latest members. Thank

38:26

you Editor B. Kate

38:28

Pankhurst. Pig Dem. And

38:31

Mark Devlin who all joined our Patreon community

38:34

in the last couple of weeks. We massively

38:36

appreciate that and if you'd like to join

38:38

us all the details are on the website

38:40

right now at theretrorower.com. Now

38:42

you did say Ravi that you know it's a

38:44

very exciting time to be an Atari fan. Seems

38:46

like there's so much going on in the Atari

38:48

sphere recently. It's mad there's so

38:50

much choice there. It's like which Atari do

38:53

I get. There's a lot

38:55

going on at the moment and obviously it's been

38:57

CES recently as well over

38:59

in Vegas and this is

39:01

actually pretty exciting. This is My Arcade. Now we

39:03

did talk about My Arcade a couple of years

39:06

ago. They've done you know they did that kind

39:08

of mini Atari Mega Player that was that mini

39:10

little arcade. They also did a console as well

39:12

didn't they. I think it's called the Game Station

39:15

Remix. They had some classic Atari

39:17

games in there too. And now they've basically

39:19

got a nice little handheld way of

39:21

playing classic Atari titles.

39:24

I think Ravi said this a couple of times

39:26

Atari seem to be making much

39:28

better decisions right now with like their

39:30

licensing deals. Yeah kind of like who

39:32

they're licensing it out to and not

39:34

coming up with we mentioned earlier

39:36

on the shows now eight years old but I

39:38

remember it felt about eight years ago where we

39:41

were talking about the Atari casino hotels. They

39:43

were on about two and I don't think they

39:45

did go through a weird period. Yeah they

39:48

went for a really weird currency. Yeah whereas

39:50

it's nice to see they've taken a big

39:52

step back at the moment and

39:54

kind of like rooting themselves in

39:57

like the fans if that makes sense. Yeah

39:59

I think. I think that I

40:01

don't know, I think there's going to be, have

40:03

to go into the kind of ST and the

40:05

Jaguar area. Why not? Because they've

40:07

got, you know, so many of the classics

40:10

coming out now, they might

40:12

kind of flood their own market. Yeah,

40:14

stuff that's coming out. Well, this

40:16

one is a bit different because this gives you a way

40:19

to play classic Atari games, 2600

40:21

games on the go. And

40:25

interestingly, I think this is the first

40:27

time I've ever seen a handheld console

40:29

that has a trackball built in. Yeah,

40:31

that's amazing. I mean, it's a very

40:34

small one. Yeah, bring the trackball back.

40:36

I absolutely love that as a controller.

40:38

You know, I was playing Marble Madness

40:41

the other day with a trackball and

40:43

it's just such a different experience at

40:45

gaming. Well, this is called the

40:47

Atari Game Station Portable. So tell us a bit about

40:49

the specs of this, Joe. What can we expect? Well,

40:52

you know, the big reveal was

40:54

the mini trackball on there, as

40:57

well as a paddle controller, you

41:00

know, the little dial controller, which we have seen

41:02

before, you know, kind of

41:04

like in modern iterations and stuff like that.

41:06

But seeing them together on a

41:08

handheld is really cool. It's got a

41:10

seven inch high resolution screen on

41:12

there. And obviously it's

41:15

portable, rechargeable, battery, etc. Kind

41:18

of the shape and size of it kind of reminds

41:20

me. Obviously it's going to be

41:22

bigger than an iPhone, but the shape and look of it

41:24

really remind me of an iPhone for some reason. Maybe

41:27

it's just the shape there. It's a bit like an

41:29

Evercade to me, maybe. It reminds me of the handheld

41:32

Evercade. Yeah, yeah, maybe from the back because it's kind

41:34

of got those like grips on the back of it

41:36

that you can't really see from the front. But

41:38

yeah, I think this is really cool. Portable

41:40

2600, I say

41:43

paddle control based on the CX30 from,

41:46

you know, kind of like original Atari games

41:48

in the arcade and obviously the

41:50

old track balls. It's got dial on it

41:52

as well, hasn't it? Yeah, that's the paddle

41:54

that I was on about. Yeah, the paddle.

41:56

Yeah. It's good for Tempest and

41:58

Pong. Yeah, I was just thinking. of Tempest. Exactly.

42:00

When I saw that, I was like, that

42:03

would be great. Yeah. Yeah. One thing I'm

42:05

reading about this is, I mean, it mentions

42:07

that obviously you've got the usual stuff in

42:09

there, like rechargeable battery, you know, seven inch

42:11

high resolution screen. All I've heard

42:13

from the reports is it's got a load of pre-installed

42:15

Atari classics on there as well. I've been trying to

42:17

find a list. Well, they had that Game Station Pro

42:23

as well before the Atari

42:26

one, which came out from my arcade and

42:28

that had 200 games on

42:30

it. So I think there might be

42:32

a huge list coming out for this.

42:34

And yeah, that was a hundred dollars.

42:37

Well, 99, 99. Yeah. And I mean,

42:39

I'm sure the world, you know, release a

42:41

full list of it at some point as well, which,

42:44

and again, the thing I'm wondering is

42:46

basically can you load your own games

42:48

onto these? I imagine you will be

42:51

able to, whether they may be not

42:53

officially. Yeah, it's always the question. But,

42:55

you know, it just says like, you

42:57

know, it will be the trackable, will

42:59

be compatible with such games as Centipede,

43:01

Millipede, Miss Outcommand, you know,

43:03

and, you know, the

43:05

paddle was used for

43:08

Breakout and Canyon Bomber and stuff

43:10

like that. So we'll see what

43:12

games they do come out with, or if it's just this

43:14

is the unit and then you go do what you want

43:16

to do with it. Because some of them are a little

43:18

bit like that as well. But yeah, it looks pretty cool.

43:20

No news on the price, as Ravi says, but imagine

43:23

probably around the hundred pounds mark. They must have

43:26

a huge timeline of what they're aiming

43:28

for. And, you know, making sure all

43:30

these are released at different times and

43:33

stuff. It's really interesting to see this

43:35

level of, you know, commitment

43:37

to the old devices and

43:39

the old legacy. You

43:41

know, we've seen Sega doing stuff,

43:43

but nothing to this level. Atari seemed to

43:45

be really, really pushing it at the

43:47

moment. And I've seen some people complain about that,

43:50

like how many more ways do we need to play Atari games?

43:52

And I get that you can do it, you know, you can

43:54

run, you can

43:56

easily do this, you can run like Atari

43:58

2600 titles just on a television firmware. these

44:00

days. Yeah, you know, yeah, the Atari 50th collection. Yeah, there's

44:02

been tons of stuff. But

44:08

I don't think you know, having more options is

44:10

not a bad thing at all. I think, you

44:12

know, again, like we said before, people want it,

44:14

they'll buy it if they don't, they won't. Yeah,

44:16

if there's a market for it, and they actually

44:18

sell it, you know, yeah, I've

44:20

got to tell them that, you know, maybe people will

44:23

get a bit kind of overwhelmed of, you know, making

44:25

a bit tiring sometimes to see this anymore games coming

44:27

out all the time. But I think, you know, you

44:29

made an interesting point there, you know, I think it

44:31

would be interesting to see Atari doing like a way

44:34

to play ST games again, or it's going to

44:36

happen eventually, you know, yeah, I mean, they do

44:38

the A500 mini that could do an Atari ST

44:40

mini or, you know, Jaguar, I think there will

44:42

be a market for it, you know, if they're

44:44

doing stuff like licensing out the Atari 400, and

44:47

a Joe would be

44:49

the first in line to get an Atari Jaguar mini.

44:51

Yeah, I would be. And I think they're going

44:53

to run out of ways

44:57

to to re package 2600 games in VCS.

44:59

Yeah, I do agree. I think kind of,

45:01

yep, it's great that we've got so many

45:03

options, it might be time to kind of

45:05

start thinking about something else now. I do

45:07

see your point. But if you're doing a

45:09

play Atari 2600 games on the go legally,

45:11

officially, Atari branded, and then these are

45:13

coming soon. I'll shove that link in our show notes as

45:15

well. Now there's one more thing to talk

45:17

about before we hop into this week's very special guest, the

45:21

Casio Lupe. Now I think we do actually

45:23

cover the Casio Lupe with Lewis Packwood, we're

45:25

gonna be talking about obscure systems in just a minute.

45:28

And the Casio Lupe, we have talked

45:30

about this before this was a games console released

45:32

by Casio, who are mainly known

45:34

for calculators and watches, came

45:36

out in the mid 90s, October 1995. Interestingly,

45:39

in Japan only, but it

45:41

was marketed exclusively towards preteen

45:44

girls. So that was your audience.

45:46

I mean, there were, you might have seen videos on

45:48

this, it came in, came with a built in thermal

45:50

color printer. And the idea was that

45:52

you'd be able to print out, you know, stickers

45:54

that you'd, you know, put On.

45:57

I Would have loved that one. The

46:00

County phobic. A print out stickers Yeah.

46:02

The loop is interesting and. He

46:05

wrote it is it's a rag on so

46:07

is is quarter. To. Get and.

46:09

The games I can imagine a even harder.

46:12

Or the games on Am in that the

46:14

Germany focused on things like station and dating and

46:16

you know things are kind of stereotypically says

46:18

he had with the and I've been goes

46:20

in mid nineties the announcement against amounts of his

46:23

own eleven it was eleven tries was fate.

46:26

And which it as China leads

46:28

on to. This week. Story by

46:30

it because if. We there any

46:32

being eleven games and it being a

46:34

commercial failure. They become very

46:36

hard to kind of in a find on

46:39

E Bay. Accept your time. And.

46:41

which you know lead nicely into

46:43

the is the flu p drive.

46:46

I love that name. sounds really bad. this

46:48

is the Philippe ability already sloppy. It sounds

46:50

like a floppy drive and yes apes and

46:52

I was like why am I reading this

46:54

wrong as a fluffy to feel asleep you

46:56

just be at a sleepy drive That is

46:58

have been made by Roger Bernstein who has

47:00

created quite a few fast cars now. Am

47:02

and this is going to be ninety

47:05

dollars. And and alternative way.

47:07

To. Worst since it's s emulate imply

47:09

the on your at your loopy drivers.

47:11

you've got a rabbit. As

47:14

I think this is great because this

47:16

is like. The exact use case

47:18

for at a kind of flush call or

47:20

ever drive or you know one of these

47:23

mo he called things as you can put

47:25

as the pods and and. And

47:27

load it up with at this is

47:29

probably going to spur on a bit

47:31

of development of and under in a

47:33

people can use it to to just

47:36

stuff that that done test code and

47:38

we might start seeing summer more loopy

47:40

thought it was coming out in the

47:42

future Poll of doom Maybe that eludes.

47:46

Us front of you doing stickers. There was

47:48

also a yes a video capture accessory could

47:50

the magical shop. For. The ninety as

47:52

well. So you know, maybe we could see a. Summer.

47:55

Some capture card podium hottest if

47:57

it is quite cool is so.

48:00

got a USB-C attached to it so

48:02

you can do data transfer like directly

48:04

to it as well and that might

48:06

be really good for testing. And

48:09

yeah I mean that is one thing that does kind of

48:11

open up the market to homebrew on it you know the

48:14

fact that you can transfer files back and forth between it.

48:16

It's only got M32 Mega flash memory on

48:18

there but like you said with only 11 titles probably

48:20

doesn't need all that much more if I'm honest. It's

48:23

got a battery backed SRAM on there to save

48:25

game data as well and

48:28

this is kind of an indication of how niche

48:31

this market is. It's actually making

48:33

the first production run is going to be 15

48:35

units but the good news is you sold out

48:37

already apparently. Oh there we go. At least 15

48:39

Casio Lupi fans in the world. I've

48:41

just seen like the trailer and I think that's a

48:43

really good point in there that you know this system

48:46

was released in Japan but you

48:48

can get translated versions of the games

48:50

so you know you can run the

48:52

translated versions now and that's really cool

48:54

because it could open up the whole

48:57

library for you. I know you

48:59

want one of these Revi with a sloopy drive in there and

49:01

print out some stickers to put on your He-Man lunchbox.

49:03

I'm wearing a Casio watch at the moment. So if

49:06

you are one of the I don't know how many

49:10

listeners we've got with a Casio Lupi in their collection if you have

49:12

got one let us know. That'll be

49:15

exciting you see those at the end. There

49:17

is a flashcard now for possibly one of

49:19

the world's most obscure consoles the Casio Lupi

49:21

but I'm sure we're gonna get into even

49:23

more obscure ones with our special guest Lewis

49:26

Packwood who is the author of this new

49:28

book Curious Video Game Machines. Now before

49:30

we do that I mean here in the UK

49:32

at the moment oh my god it's

49:34

so cold isn't it? I think today it was like

49:36

minus three. We're finally getting about

49:38

maybe definitely gonna snow as we're recording

49:40

this. All these forecasters you know

49:42

more bad weather coming and people

49:45

talking about you know the fact they're all still a

49:47

bit tired in January now Christmas is out the way and

49:49

we're into the new year and the weather's drab and

49:51

still dark all the time. Maybe you need something to

49:53

get you going a little bit around

49:55

this time of year. Well let's take a moment to

49:58

give a massive thank you to this week's sponsor It

50:00

is our wonderful friends at AG1.

50:03

Now this is something that has become part of my

50:05

daily routine over the last couple of weeks because AG1

50:07

were kind enough to send us a free sample of

50:10

this, which I know you and I have been testing

50:12

this out Ravi. It's really a way to think about,

50:14

you know, changing the way that

50:16

you think about your daily nutrition because, you

50:18

know, I've tried vitamin tablets and stuff and

50:20

iron supplements. Never really affected me all that

50:22

much, but this, you know, rather than having

50:24

all those different tablets laid out every morning.

50:27

This is a comprehensive and convenient blend of

50:29

over 70 high quality ingredients designed to support

50:31

your physical and your mental health as well.

50:33

I don't know if you've found this Ravi,

50:35

the really simple thing about this is how

50:37

easy it is to use as well. It's

50:40

literally one scoop into a glass of

50:42

water when you wake up in the morning and basically

50:44

you've got, you know, powerful mix in there, all the

50:46

vitamins you need, the minerals and the nutrients you need

50:48

to keep your energy up and your mind sharp throughout

50:50

the day. Yeah, I've basically

50:53

had it in my daily routine now and

50:55

I've replaced coffee, which, you know, was usually

50:57

my big wake up in the morning and

51:00

have some coffee. But having this is a

51:02

lot better as well because you don't get

51:04

that caffeine kind of crash that

51:06

you usually get with coffee. And,

51:08

you know, you're also getting a lot

51:10

of that like nutrient replenishment. Yeah,

51:12

exactly. And obviously this time of year, everyone I

51:15

know has had flu or, you know, the C word,

51:17

which you shouldn't mention for the algorithm, you

51:19

know, or bad cold is all going around at

51:21

the moment as well. And actually it helps, you

51:23

know, support your immune system as well. You know,

51:25

vitamin C, zinc, all the key ingredients in there

51:27

as well that can help keep your immune system

51:29

in top shape as well. So it's a really

51:31

simple way to get everything you need and make

51:34

every seamless part of your morning as well. Really

51:36

simple daily habit takes up less than a minute

51:38

and will make a massive difference to how you

51:40

feel as well. And it tastes gorgeous as well.

51:42

So maybe your newest resolution wants to kind of

51:44

get a bit more in shape and get a

51:46

bit healthier as well. If you're wondering about the

51:48

quality of the AG1 is actually NSS certified for

51:50

sport, meaning it's gone through some rigorous testing and

51:52

certification as well. So you can trust that what

51:55

you get and what you see on the label

51:57

is exactly what you get in there. Nothing more,

51:59

nothing less. So if you want to try this out

52:01

a really convenient way, why don't you give AG1 a try. And

52:04

of course, you know, we always get

52:07

you some little bonuses for supporting our

52:09

sponsors. So if you go to this

52:11

website right now, drinkag1.com.com. That

52:14

is drink, letter A, letter

52:16

G, number 1.com.com. Retro

52:20

hour, you will get a free one

52:22

year supply of vitamin D and

52:24

a five free AG1 travel packs

52:27

with your first purchase of AG1.

52:29

So head to this website right

52:31

now, drinkag1.com.com. Retro

52:33

hour and check it out today and a massive

52:35

thank you to our friends at AG1 for their

52:38

continued support of the podcast. Okay,

52:40

next going inside the world of obscure and

52:42

weird and maybe some kind of consoles and

52:44

computers you haven't heard of before with the

52:47

author of the new book, Curious Video Game

52:49

Machines, Lewis Packard is next on the Retro

52:51

Hour Podcast. The

53:17

new year is all about new beginnings

53:19

and fresh starts. Make this the

53:21

year you resolve

53:34

to treat every inch of your

53:36

skin to silky smooth hydration

53:38

with Ocea's best-selling Andaria Algae

53:40

Body Butter. Rich but never

53:42

greasy, this TikTok famous body

53:45

butter is clinically proven to

53:47

visibly firm skin and provide

53:49

72 hours of continuous hydration.

53:51

Formulated with high performance ingredients

53:53

like ceramides and Andaria seaweed,

53:55

it transforms dry, crepey skin

53:57

to smooth, soft and supple.

54:00

Osea has been crafting seaweed infused products that

54:02

are safe for your skin and the planet

54:04

for close to 30 years. Everything

54:07

they make is clean, vegan, cruelty

54:10

free, and climate neutral certified. So

54:12

you never have to choose between your values

54:15

and your best skin. Start your

54:17

year fresh with clean vegan skincare from

54:19

Osea. Get 10%

54:21

off your first order site wide

54:24

with code GLOW at osea Malibu

54:26

dot com. That's O-S-E-A malibu.com code

54:28

GLOW. You're

54:31

listening to the Retro Owl Podcast and it

54:33

is time to welcome on this week's very

54:35

special guest. And now I guess

54:37

today someone I'm sure you're familiar with from his

54:39

work in the likes of Retro Gamer magazine, the

54:41

wonderful website Time Extension, he also writes for Edge

54:43

and The Guardian as well. And

54:45

the reason we've got him on today is

54:47

to talk about this incredible new book called

54:50

Furious Video Game Machines. Looking at

54:52

some of the more obscure oddities from the

54:54

world of video gaming history. So let's welcome

54:56

on our guest this week, Lewis Packwood. How's

54:58

it going Lewis? Hello, yeah,

55:00

good to be here. Thank you for having me on. Yeah,

55:03

really excited about this new book. Yeah,

55:05

so I mean, if you've ever heard

55:07

the podcast before, you know, I kind of thrive

55:10

on the weirder side of video game history. So

55:12

and I've been reading through your book and it's

55:14

got some incredible stuff I've never heard of before.

55:17

But as Ravi mentioned before we started recording, I will know

55:19

that I'll be looking for an eBay at the end of

55:21

this interview today. So yeah, might spend, cost me a bit

55:23

of money after this. But I mean, we

55:25

also have to kind of find out a bit of a

55:27

background on our guests as well kind of the, you know,

55:29

their roots in gaming. So just, you know, before we get

55:31

into the book, what's kind of your background? What does it

55:33

all start for you, your interest in the gaming industry and

55:35

games itself? Yeah, well, I'm in my mid

55:38

40s now and I kind of started gaming,

55:40

we'll be back in the Spectrum day. So

55:43

that was the first game I ever remember playing was

55:45

Horace Go skiing on the ZX Spectrum. My

55:47

dad owned a Spectrum. And then after

55:49

that I was really into the Amiga and had a 500 then

55:51

a 1200 and then got a

55:55

Gameboy and NES, Super NES and then

55:58

PlayStation Dreamcast. And it just carried on

56:00

from there. I don't know

56:02

how I stopped playing video games and obviously

56:04

now my career revolves around them. I

56:07

started becoming a freelance game journalist

56:09

about 10 years ago now

56:11

and gradually built it up until now.

56:14

That's what I do full time. But before that,

56:16

I was a scientific copy editor. So

56:18

it was quite different. Quite the change. Quite

56:21

a change. Did you come across

56:23

any strange machines and obscurities when you were

56:25

a kid? Well, I

56:27

think now. I mean, there were all these ones that

56:29

I kind of craved that

56:32

I saw in magazines, you know, the

56:34

PC Engine, these desirable things that you

56:36

could only get in Japan or for

56:38

ridiculous money on Grey Import. Vaguely

56:40

remember some of the tabletop games. And

56:43

I think, you know, there's that wonderful new book

56:45

coming out about the tabletop handheld

56:47

machines like the grandstand invaders from space

56:49

and all that kind of stuff. I

56:51

remember those. We had a load of

56:53

those knocking around when

56:56

we were a kid. They handed me down some uncles

56:58

and aunts and things like that. And

57:00

so I remember those those wonderful tabletop machines. But

57:03

apart from that, not so much. This

57:06

book was more inspired by the kind of conversations

57:08

I've had with people I've interviewed over the years.

57:11

There's been in particular, I spoke

57:13

to Chris Crawford a

57:15

couple of years ago for a feature on

57:17

his game Balance of Power for Retro

57:20

Game. So Chris Crawford, he's quite a

57:22

storied kind of gamer, game

57:24

developer, I should say. I mean,

57:26

he started off at Atari and then

57:29

went off to form Imagic with a bunch

57:31

of other people and coded Demon Attack. And

57:33

then later did Balance of Power for the Mac

57:35

and then went on to form GDC, was one

57:37

of the founders of GDC. So

57:40

I was speaking to him about Balance of Power, this amazing kind

57:42

of game he made for the Mac, where

57:45

you kind of control in

57:47

one of the two superpowers and trying to prevent

57:49

a nuclear war, essentially. And

57:51

we were talking, you just kind of like, just

57:54

casually mentioned this thing. Do

57:56

you want to hear about this thing

57:58

called Kim Tang, or something like that? What came to mind? He

58:01

showed me some pictures of this amazing

58:04

machine, this kind of big wooden

58:06

contraption with a kind of plexiglass red

58:09

lid and a couple of little controllers

58:11

that either made it or calculators. He

58:14

was like, this is always a war game machine I made in

58:16

the 1970s. I was like, what?

58:19

And I never heard of this thing before and I

58:21

don't think he really showed it to anyone. I think

58:23

back in the 70s when he made it, he took

58:25

it to a couple of war game conventions and people

58:28

played on it. It was all based on this chip

58:30

computer called a KIM-1. It was one

58:32

of the very first microcomputers

58:34

that was available. Commodore, I think, yeah. It

58:37

was based on a MOS 6502 chip. One

58:41

of the first things to use that chip and

58:43

you built it yourself. And yes,

58:45

we made this and we decided to

58:48

make this bespoke kind of game called

58:50

KIM-TANK-TEX and just took it

58:52

round to conventions and showed people and he would

58:54

hang a curtain between the players so

58:56

that they couldn't see what each other were doing. And

58:59

it was all done in real time and all

59:01

made in control with these controllers with calculator parts.

59:04

I thought this is a fascinating story. I really want

59:06

to write this but it's kind of an odd one. It's

59:08

like not something that generally you

59:11

kind of see in an application

59:13

like Edge or something like that. This is

59:16

really odd story that doesn't really fit anything

59:18

else. And it made me

59:20

think of a few other odd stories I've written

59:22

about down the lines like the Galaxia, Yugoslavian kind

59:25

of kit computer and the avatar

59:28

machine that I'd written about, the

59:31

great banartist called Mark Owens. And I thought, well, there's loads

59:33

of this stuff out here. No one's really talking about it.

59:35

That's what I've been talking about. It

59:38

is a fascinating story because we were looking after Chris

59:40

on the podcast. I think it was episode 270 if

59:42

people want to hear a bit more about KIM-TANK-TEX. And

59:44

it was one of those stories where, you know, I'd

59:46

like to think having done this podcast for like, you

59:49

know, eight years now, we kind of know a lot

59:51

of kind of the mainstream history of gaming. But

59:53

there is so much out there that just doesn't get documented

59:55

enough, like you said. I mean, obviously you've got, you know,

59:58

Chris kind of started your idea then to write the How

1:00:00

did you choose the other kind of specific machines and

1:00:02

games to feature in here then? How did you do

1:00:04

any kind of go along? Yeah,

1:00:07

it's been a bit of a process of

1:00:09

elimination Partly, I mean there were

1:00:11

more ones I wanted to write about There

1:00:13

were a few things I don't want to kind

1:00:15

of spoil what they were but there are a few things that I

1:00:17

had to kind of Ditch because I

1:00:19

just couldn't find enough information on them and

1:00:21

that's the trouble I think you know with

1:00:24

these obscure machines It's so hard to track

1:00:26

down the people involved in making them or

1:00:29

collecting them or Even

1:00:31

any information. I know there's one machine in here the

1:00:33

Interton VC 4000 and I contacted

1:00:35

the German Computer Museum

1:00:37

and they said oh, we've basically got

1:00:39

nothing else Luckily

1:00:42

there are kind of Collectors out there

1:00:44

we do You do

1:00:46

kind of collect these things and are able to

1:00:48

kind of provide a bit more information and the

1:00:50

German Computer Museum didn't actually point me in the

1:00:52

direction of some really useful articles that I

1:00:54

found Down the line, but

1:00:57

the other ones that I've chosen that I

1:00:59

mean, you know as you said like it's

1:01:01

interesting to talk about the Obscure

1:01:03

the weird things and one of the things

1:01:05

that really ignited my interest was when reading

1:01:08

the Replay the history of

1:01:10

video games by Tristan Donovan, which I have to

1:01:12

say is one of the best books out there

1:01:14

on the history Of games. It's fascinating. It's really

1:01:16

really good Highly recommend, but

1:01:18

there's just one sentence

1:01:21

I think which just says Talking

1:01:24

about dragons lair and then it says oh and Rick

1:01:27

Dyer went on to create the laser

1:01:30

disc based halcyon console and then that

1:01:32

was it and I was like Well, I've

1:01:34

never heard of this console and

1:01:36

it's that little thing You know these things are relegated to

1:01:39

footnotes and I wanted to kind of explore them a bit

1:01:41

more and find out a bit more Because there's nothing out

1:01:43

there about most of these machines It's

1:01:46

very interesting because you know, the the

1:01:48

popular machines are kind of dominant But

1:01:51

there's all these great stories that you're

1:01:53

exploring about you know over

1:01:56

obscurities and One comes

1:01:58

from Atari as well, which was the

1:02:00

Home Pong and video music as

1:02:02

well, which I've not really heard

1:02:04

of. How did that help shape

1:02:06

the video game industry? Yeah, so

1:02:09

there's a whole... The second chapter is all about these

1:02:12

Atari consoles, you know. And I don't know

1:02:14

about you, but I'm familiar with like the

1:02:16

Atari 2600 and the kind of later things

1:02:18

that Atari made. But the Home

1:02:20

Pong and the earlier consoles, the dedicated consoles

1:02:22

they made, i.e. they played one game and

1:02:24

that was it. Then you

1:02:26

had to buy a new console if you wanted a new

1:02:28

game. They didn't really make it over to

1:02:30

the UK. We did get some Pong machines in the form

1:02:33

of like the Benetton things, but

1:02:35

they didn't really come over here. And one

1:02:37

machine in particular really... I was amazed,

1:02:39

kind of, I saw a picture of it and I was

1:02:41

like, what on earth is that? And that is Stuntcycle, which

1:02:44

is on the cover of the book as well, you'll see.

1:02:46

It's just a little thing with

1:02:48

two handles. It's like a motorbike handle.

1:02:51

And that came out in like 1977, I think it

1:02:53

was. And

1:02:55

it just played one game called Stuntcycle. There

1:02:58

were like four variations, but it was essentially one

1:03:00

game. It was based on an

1:03:02

Atari coin-op from 1975, I think it was, or 1974.

1:03:07

And you just pull down another

1:03:09

throttle and you have this little evil, good evil type

1:03:11

kind of stunt rider and he jumps over some buses

1:03:13

and that's pretty much the whole game. It's pretty simple.

1:03:17

But just seeing this weird little machine, like I'd never

1:03:19

seen it before and then that made me think,

1:03:21

right, or what other weird things there's an Atari

1:03:23

put out. And then discovering the

1:03:25

video music, which is

1:03:27

so rare and so obscure and it was

1:03:30

absolute flop when it came out. It's essentially

1:03:32

a visual synthesizer, like a light synthesizer. The

1:03:34

idea is you plug it into your Hi-Fi and

1:03:37

then it outputs lights

1:03:40

in time with the music. They're kind of

1:03:43

like these triangles that flash and grow and

1:03:45

shrink in time with music. But

1:03:47

it was ridiculously expensive. It was the equivalent of about $200

1:03:49

in 1977, which

1:03:52

is about $1,000 now. And

1:03:55

all he did was just make some flashing

1:03:57

lights on the screen. So

1:04:00

obviously it didn't do very well and was

1:04:02

soon discounted and lost

1:04:04

to history really. But now that means it's incredibly

1:04:06

rare and I was really lucky

1:04:08

enough to find a collector who had one, was

1:04:10

able to take some photos and give me some

1:04:13

more information about it, which

1:04:15

is controller Reese who you may know

1:04:17

of already. He's got a YouTube channel.

1:04:19

You know Reese. We know,

1:04:21

you know Reese. So yeah, he

1:04:24

was really helpful in kind of putting that bit

1:04:26

together but it was fascinating. The brilliant

1:04:28

thing about writing this book is that the

1:04:31

more research you do, the more stuff

1:04:33

comes up and it was just a

1:04:35

journey of discovery. And in fact, in

1:04:37

writing this book, there's like 18 chapters

1:04:39

in there that I

1:04:41

have enough information on new consoles that

1:04:43

I never heard of and new computers

1:04:46

to fill another book easily. Volume

1:04:48

two on the way. I would love to do a

1:04:50

follow up. I'm hoping

1:04:52

that if this one gels well enough,

1:04:55

then I'll be able to get the

1:04:57

green light through a follow up because I've got so many

1:04:59

more stories I want to tell. Oh, that needs to happen.

1:05:01

And I mean, just even looking through it, I mean, you

1:05:03

mentioned like obviously those kind of early experiments by Atari and

1:05:05

kind of looking over at kind of what was happening in

1:05:08

Europe as well. I mean, there was these systems that you mentioned in

1:05:10

the book that I'd never heard of before, the

1:05:12

German Interton consoles. So tell us a

1:05:14

bit about those and how they kind

1:05:16

of contributed to the early console race

1:05:19

over here in Europe. Yeah, that's

1:05:21

so, I mean, yeah, the Interton

1:05:23

VC4000 is really obscure console

1:05:25

that I only found

1:05:27

out about when I was interviewing someone else,

1:05:29

a collector about the Halcyon, the

1:05:31

RDR household that I mentioned earlier, the laser discons.

1:05:34

And he just casually said, oh, have you heard of the Interton

1:05:37

VC4000? I was like, no. And then he just brings out this

1:05:39

thing on this video call and I was like, what on earth

1:05:41

is that? And it's

1:05:43

this console that was made by a hearing aid company,

1:05:45

Interton's a hearing aid company. And somehow

1:05:47

they decided to get into video games.

1:05:50

And they started with some Pong consoles.

1:05:52

They licensed the technology for

1:05:55

the Magnavox Odyssey, the

1:05:57

first games console, and they produced their own

1:05:59

version. The or to see what kind of a

1:06:01

weird hybrid missing to the and twenty thousand. And.

1:06:05

That he used cartoons, but they

1:06:07

started as much as analog. Essentially,

1:06:09

it was very odd. messy. And.

1:06:11

Then everly say a few flights that on that

1:06:13

eventually. Be. Installed vc four thousand

1:06:16

and nineteen seventy eight. Am.

1:06:18

Which. Lasted for about four years. that about legend

1:06:20

a city with it and then it started can have.

1:06:23

A decided to go back to hearing aids which is

1:06:25

still what they're doing now that yeah was a video

1:06:27

to It was quite popular in Germany and it was

1:06:30

sold in a few other countries in Europe. and of

1:06:32

things he was sold in the Uk at least not.

1:06:34

Found any evidence that it was. But

1:06:36

it was fairly popular. At know near

1:06:38

as popular as the Atari which settings or.

1:06:41

Quite. Well in in Germany, particularly not

1:06:43

so much in the Uk. That.

1:06:45

what not thing and of is based on

1:06:47

this weird tip the sick metics to spend

1:06:50

significant hit. with hardly any

1:06:52

other scenes years. But then there was this

1:06:54

whole crop of other consoles that. Use.

1:06:57

The same tip and was only allowed to

1:06:59

the same games are on these consoles and

1:07:01

on the instant. Now and I managed to

1:07:03

track down someone. Who ran the manufacturing

1:07:05

plant in Hong Kong for read a fit. And.

1:07:08

He explained that as you phillips provided

1:07:10

them alone games along with the tip

1:07:12

so that explains. partly. Least

1:07:14

wife. Will. These receipts have the same games on

1:07:16

the seems that he said it's making the games. While.

1:07:19

Interest in the A cover the fact that in

1:07:21

Iraq Germany was split back then and there was

1:07:23

a. you know in the East

1:07:25

German machine is rather kind of came out

1:07:28

the Soviet Union's as interesting to see that

1:07:30

kind of to power allow us of those

1:07:32

devices. yeah. The Pss a one. Yeah,

1:07:35

they get Easter Bunnies! One.

1:07:37

And only kind of this console. It was some

1:07:39

point. I think he was in the late nineteen

1:07:41

seventies. but Nineteen seventy nine? That. The

1:07:44

kind of higher ups in Germany deceased

1:07:46

evanescent say decided. That. Seventy needed

1:07:48

console and they witness told the stay

1:07:50

operators towards makes you on the and

1:07:52

they manufacture distinctly was ridiculously expensive for.

1:07:55

Considering. How much people learned the country and

1:07:57

the time and. To. Go. Never. really.

1:08:00

Found using like youth centers and things then a

1:08:02

couple years I said that he cited so producing

1:08:04

and that that was the end. But.

1:08:06

Say as an auto auto thinks

1:08:08

interest in East Asia. A

1:08:10

tip that was manufactured by T Item and

1:08:13

Instruments. And which I'm not quite

1:08:15

sure how they managed to get it can.

1:08:17

considering they were kind of import bands at the

1:08:19

time of on things like. Ten hours

1:08:21

in a microchip That that that. So the still

1:08:24

bull to be told. I think about that. that

1:08:26

control. Still, He mystery surrounding it.

1:08:28

We. Also mentioned, I'm sick of a portable

1:08:30

systems in here is one among us. Encore

1:08:33

Interesting was a story of the S the

1:08:35

N B Microvision A Main and what was

1:08:37

groundbreaking about that system in the context is

1:08:39

in a portable gaming. Why have I was

1:08:41

fascinating? Spent ten years before the Game Boys

1:08:43

released. And is the since

1:08:46

you the first portable console if

1:08:48

it's tangible cartridges. And I'm

1:08:50

which no one of really dumb before it

1:08:52

was an old beasts a point I say

1:08:54

it's going stains changeable coached his but. Really?

1:08:57

You to snap off the entire front of

1:08:59

the Besieged and Adam plugin another front of

1:09:01

the Besieged for a different games. All that

1:09:03

is on the actual base you nice distant.

1:09:06

A screen and litter as

1:09:08

sad as. Sensitive. Pad

1:09:10

for which the buttons. Play.

1:09:13

On top of on at the bonds in the

1:09:15

cells are still counts is really odd thing. But

1:09:18

it was designed by Day Smith who you went

1:09:21

on to do the vet tracks which is much

1:09:23

better known think least in collector seconds. The.

1:09:25

First that to base console you have especially

1:09:27

with her the Moon broadly can actually yes

1:09:29

exactly. That's right and I think he wanted

1:09:31

to do a follow up to the microvision

1:09:33

he was in A was a very basic

1:09:35

kind of Lcd screen. one of a first.

1:09:38

Lcd screens has any I think

1:09:40

pixels. Wide. Or something like dies.

1:09:42

It's very, very. Very. Basic but

1:09:44

he had plans to do with color version.

1:09:47

He wants your follow up. And

1:09:49

for them and be cited, pull the plug in it.

1:09:51

And eat but he ended up to the vectrix

1:09:54

instead. But yeah, it's it's happening. Saying this thought

1:09:56

this giant is considering his both but it as

1:09:58

a huge. And I think. When.

1:10:01

I was there my reset her found that. And. Be

1:10:03

actually decided they wanted to be big according

1:10:05

to Jay. I'm presumably that the the idea

1:10:07

that the bigger it is, the more expensive

1:10:10

it seems. Isis? Where

1:10:12

is that? That we got Really? that

1:10:14

could have made it a lot. All of this I

1:10:16

reasoned asked be that that big nobody to go on

1:10:18

to influence Nintendo and I know that the. Think.

1:10:20

It's set tory a lotta ago. Probably.

1:10:23

Saying his name or where. He was a big

1:10:25

fan out of of Prick Buster on on they at my

1:10:27

committed been to said he that was one of his favorite

1:10:29

games. Yeah I find it really

1:10:31

interesting that I had a kind of interchangeable

1:10:33

from because of you know you've got with

1:10:35

the different combinations and stuff are now in

1:10:38

our lay around stuff like the sorry Joshua

1:10:40

controller hot kind of overlays the upper arm

1:10:42

but this one yet for on top and

1:10:44

it would give you that the right buttons

1:10:46

for each type of now oh the most

1:10:49

of them degree to use as the bunch

1:10:51

of it as anyone title at the use

1:10:53

as he uses all of them that you

1:10:55

can have twelve buttons. On the

1:10:57

screen out most of the mound he used wanna take. That.

1:11:00

Yeah, it's quite interesting idea. The idea that

1:11:02

was it. Like an adaptable control you can

1:11:04

use. Whatever. Buttons he does he

1:11:06

see sits at each game. And

1:11:09

I think the there's some differences to

1:11:11

the Us. And the European there's

1:11:13

it's that the Us version because had

1:11:15

a sin sin sealed. On. They the

1:11:17

actual cartridge needs an outlet. Festive Pacifica Down.

1:11:19

On to this film and then through on

1:11:22

to the. That. The buttons that

1:11:24

were hidden underneath. Adam. And

1:11:26

then they quickly realized i see people would

1:11:28

just tearing through this filled with her fingernails

1:11:30

said when they released a new it. At

1:11:32

Aig says time reflecting hard plastic, the unsaid

1:11:35

went over the top. Actually, Go

1:11:37

back to Atari as well. I'm in something

1:11:39

else. I'm very interesting. The book is kind

1:11:41

of the that Guardino Tories vcs dez care

1:11:43

how that kind of challenge to a tories

1:11:45

and market dominance. Whatever happened there from from

1:11:47

your research. Yes, Early. It's an

1:11:49

odd thing as him singing back now like.

1:11:52

Now. We're so used to said tae developers and and

1:11:54

you know how important they are for this. It's success

1:11:56

with the console that. You. Know

1:11:58

back in the Nineteen seventies? Atari one it

1:12:00

off themselves. No, no one really did that. You

1:12:03

know if you reduce the console you that your

1:12:05

company made all of the games for it. And.

1:12:08

So is quite pioneering that David Crane and and

1:12:10

there and Salary Cap and the others he to

1:12:12

be formed Activision They left Atari and that come

1:12:15

up with a way of making games. For.

1:12:17

The Atari and a Spate can stay the cradle.

1:12:20

Over email and and like asked him about how exactly

1:12:22

that when about doing this be very casually said are

1:12:24

we just got this. This. Computer

1:12:27

with plugged into this and did all this

1:12:29

analysis with at and the explain how we

1:12:31

made will they called the blue box which

1:12:33

was in at the first developments. it. Is

1:12:36

how do you get a head games on

1:12:38

to a console? Minute. Is anything about

1:12:40

you? Com? This. Vast to

1:12:42

be your a way to be use. The.

1:12:44

Code from your your computer as the onto

1:12:47

That said, The contrary to and

1:12:49

they care of came up with a way of

1:12:51

said as doing that. And. then of

1:12:53

course one stage figured out and blaze other

1:12:55

people as to work out independent a very

1:12:57

tits in. He. Went on to create

1:12:59

Don't Tongues for the. A

1:13:01

clique of is in and sorry he

1:13:04

he can as but our independence and.

1:13:06

Two. Coats. Like a development kit

1:13:08

for the Atari. At twenty six

1:13:10

hundred and that yea and then he wasn't

1:13:13

the same out loads of people side doing

1:13:15

and eat. The Sat is fascinating to see

1:13:17

if one can have independently working out. how

1:13:19

to do this is not obvious. speaking to

1:13:22

you have to have club the of dollars

1:13:24

to time that was essentially backwards engineer. The.

1:13:26

Console and try work out. How

1:13:29

it works and then. Plug. It into

1:13:31

an apple two or or whatever you need to

1:13:33

use to touch the make it work so as

1:13:35

tenafly fascinated by that and the. How

1:13:37

people did that? When. Such.

1:13:40

As thing like had a development kit just didn't

1:13:42

exist. Either of them need to have on. There

1:13:44

were no concerns before. Yes, From Awful

1:13:46

as well The Tory work in a so against

1:13:48

it takes Like you said today's to suggests a

1:13:50

given party industry in a console couldn't survive without

1:13:53

said. like development lobby slates like any you know,

1:13:55

Activision spun out Atari for that very reason that

1:13:57

they just want to keep it over themselves. Yeah,

1:14:00

exactly. That's right. And you know,

1:14:02

Atari sued Activision in 1980, I

1:14:04

think it was, you know, trying to

1:14:06

stop them, get them out of

1:14:08

business, even though they were releasing games that

1:14:10

were huge hits and undoubtedly

1:14:13

helped to sell the Atari, you know, Pitfall,

1:14:15

for example, you know, it was like one

1:14:17

of the top five selling games, I think,

1:14:20

ever on the Atari. And then

1:14:22

eventually in 1982, the court ruled that

1:14:24

essentially legitimized third party and said,

1:14:27

you know, Activision's fine to carry on

1:14:29

doing this, but they have to pay

1:14:31

royalties to Atari. And that model is

1:14:33

now kind of entrenched throughout the

1:14:35

games industry. People can

1:14:37

make games for whatever machine they want, but they

1:14:39

have to pay royalty. Yeah,

1:14:42

exactly. We're kind of going through the book

1:14:44

as well. I mean, just, you know, to

1:14:46

touch on another few systems that people might

1:14:48

not be familiar with, and I certainly wasn't.

1:14:50

And I find interesting as well in that

1:14:52

kind of pre-internet era, how many different machines

1:14:54

were localized to a certain region as well.

1:14:56

And one that is seem quite significant as

1:14:58

well as from a Yugoslavia, an open source

1:15:00

computer. Tell us a bit about this. It's

1:15:02

quite significant. Yeah, that's right.

1:15:04

I love the galaxy. Yeah, the

1:15:06

galaxy is named after a science

1:15:08

magazine that was kind of published

1:15:10

the original plans to make one.

1:15:13

And it was by this guy called Voya

1:15:15

Antonich. He's a wonderful man. He lives in

1:15:17

California now. He moved there a few years ago. And

1:15:21

he's one of the kind of unsung heroes, I think,

1:15:23

of the computer world, because he was

1:15:26

grappling with this problem in the early

1:15:28

1980s. Yugoslavia was essentially a communist state,

1:15:31

although it wasn't allied with the Soviet

1:15:33

Union at the time, semi-independent

1:15:35

state. And it had some very

1:15:37

strict laws about imports. You

1:15:40

couldn't import anything above the value

1:15:42

of about 50 Deutsche marks, which

1:15:44

meant that no one could import computers,

1:15:46

no one could import spectrums or C64s

1:15:48

because they were too expensive. So they

1:15:51

either had to resort to smuggling or

1:15:54

Antonich kind of realized maybe it was

1:15:56

a way to create their

1:15:58

own computer. Possibly.

1:16:01

Could. Afford a good good going around. the smuggling.

1:16:05

Could. Get around they the importance say we came

1:16:07

up the idea of these galaxies very kind

1:16:09

of under power computer if you. Are.

1:16:12

Essentially. Less powerful than a spectrum. Am

1:16:15

but. He came up the plans goods

1:16:17

have was the. Editor the Science

1:16:19

magazine and they publish especially seats. Same.

1:16:22

People had to make their own computer.

1:16:24

using. Pass the could be easily

1:16:27

consoles. And. Wouldn't fall afoul

1:16:29

of the as the laws. And.

1:16:31

It was really popular. Thousands of people made the

1:16:33

rental axes and and kind of uniquely they. They.

1:16:36

Didn't kind of include instructions on how to make a case.

1:16:38

I think that that there was. Some.

1:16:41

Kind of like guide or maybe you can use

1:16:43

of his circuit board you can cut off in

1:16:45

a case. but most people just went to town

1:16:47

of made their own cases, said they were galaxies

1:16:49

out there that his company would or. Battle.

1:16:52

Low: Some that it completely left a kid.

1:16:54

say. I love this idea that

1:16:56

you know there's no standard looked on of these

1:16:58

machines and they all look completely deacon into beach.

1:17:00

The F adamant yeah with senators are the raspberry

1:17:02

pi. Today isn't as both of us go there

1:17:04

is for cases of the vet yeah it is

1:17:06

is just like that at At. It was fairly

1:17:08

short lived on me that the off to the

1:17:10

Galaxy came out the at that sea change the

1:17:12

law sings a year after he came out. After

1:17:15

their magazines published with instructions on how to

1:17:17

make money. And and then. As

1:17:20

everyone started posting them spectrums and things like

1:17:22

that. So. It didn't last

1:17:24

a long time, but it you know he

1:17:26

was very influential. He got another, he pleads

1:17:29

coding or interested in computing and a thing

1:17:31

as Anthony's thinks that actually was. The.

1:17:33

Dual was changed because of the Black sea and very

1:17:35

my of in one of the things that really. Made.

1:17:38

Nuts Things who is literally we can

1:17:40

never know for sure, but it certainly

1:17:42

seems unlikely to be a coincidence. How.

1:17:45

Did the Enterprise console and Ninety Ninety Five turns.

1:17:47

A video gaming industry as insists allow them to

1:17:49

get really taste the video game he had to

1:17:51

to uk very much. It was very much one

1:17:54

of those things that. They. Arrived and

1:17:56

and disappeared. Only says quickly. But.

1:17:58

it seems games industry in Hungary

1:18:01

and I love this story. It was such

1:18:03

a, I was fascinated by the

1:18:05

enterprise because for a start it's a brilliant

1:18:07

looking computer. It looks gorgeous. Have you ever

1:18:10

seen a picture of the enterprise? Yeah, I've just googled in. 64

1:18:12

or 128. It's got this

1:18:14

amazing little built-in joystick which

1:18:16

I don't think I've ever seen before on a

1:18:18

computer. Certainly not a

1:18:20

UK computer anyway. It's a wonderful

1:18:23

little thing and it's got these beautiful color keys

1:18:25

as well. Interestingly something

1:18:27

it shares with the Amstrad CPC.

1:18:30

The enterprise has actually revealed the promo. Was

1:18:33

that your real idea? Back in 1983

1:18:35

or early 1984 and then the CPC didn't

1:18:37

come along until about a year later. So

1:18:39

some people are kind of suggesting maybe someone

1:18:43

copied the colored keys. We'll never

1:18:45

know for sure. I did. The whole

1:18:48

color scheme of the device looks very similar to the Amstrad

1:18:50

doesn't it? It does look very similar. Yeah, like anything and

1:18:52

yeah. It does look very similar. I did tweet Alan Sugar

1:18:54

to ask whether it was a good thing. He

1:18:57

didn't reply so we'll but maybe if you ever

1:18:59

get him on the show to interview you could

1:19:01

ask him. First question. But

1:19:05

yeah, so I mean but that was

1:19:07

the trouble. The enterprise it was too long in the

1:19:09

oven really and it was it was announced in I

1:19:12

think it was early 83 and

1:19:14

the specs looked amazing but then it didn't

1:19:16

come out until 1985 by which

1:19:18

point the Amstrad CPC and a

1:19:20

load of other computers had come out

1:19:22

and essentially undercut it and by

1:19:25

the time it actually came out it was a bit of a

1:19:27

white elephant really. So it was mostly

1:19:29

down to it's

1:19:32

kind of custom graphics and sound chips and that seems to

1:19:34

be the thing that really held it up in development. Even

1:19:36

the Z80 based as well like the Amstrad

1:19:38

which is very interesting. Exactly, yeah,

1:19:41

that's right. But it did have

1:19:43

an unlikely afterlife in Hungary. It

1:19:47

ended up being the third most popular

1:19:49

micro over there according to some

1:19:51

of the enterprise fans I spoke to

1:19:53

and it had a really lasting impact in that

1:19:55

country and even now there's still

1:19:57

a magazine dedicated.

1:20:00

to the enterprise that's still being

1:20:02

produced by enterprise fans called

1:20:04

Enterpress and there's also

1:20:06

stories of it being sold

1:20:09

to bees in schools in Kazakhstan. I know

1:20:12

that in Egypt it was fairly popular

1:20:14

as well as a business machine

1:20:16

so it's fascinating you know things

1:20:18

that essentially were flops

1:20:22

here that has just gone on to kind of

1:20:24

have another life somewhere else you know I think

1:20:26

that's part of the thing I really wanted to talk

1:20:29

about in the book like everywhere's different

1:20:31

you know we hear this narrative of

1:20:33

the definitive history of the

1:20:35

games industry but quite often it's

1:20:37

US centric or Japan centric and

1:20:40

actually every country had a completely different

1:20:42

experience you know I think

1:20:44

in Korea as well I talked about Korea

1:20:46

about what was going on over there and

1:20:48

that was completely different I'd say unlike anywhere

1:20:50

else in the world Well one

1:20:52

thing you know we today obviously we set for granted that

1:20:54

you know gaming's for everyone but one

1:20:56

thing you touch on on the book is obviously I

1:20:59

mean back in the 80s it did definitely seem like

1:21:01

it was a bit more of a boy's thing stereotypically

1:21:03

and you talk about the impact of games consoles that

1:21:05

were actually targeted specifically at female gamers in the in

1:21:08

the 80s and somewhat the 90s as well I mean

1:21:10

and examples of those that kind of spring to mind

1:21:12

that you've researched in the book. Yeah

1:21:14

I mean the most wonderful looking

1:21:17

one is and wonderfully named

1:21:19

as well is the Super Cassette

1:21:21

Vision Ladies which

1:21:23

comes in a pink briefcase and

1:21:27

and comes with the game called Milky Princess which

1:21:30

has got to be one of the most uniquely

1:21:32

named games it does sound very wrong it was

1:21:36

basically a horoscope game and they're the kind

1:21:38

of equivalent of Russell Grand or Mystic Meg

1:21:40

endorsing it Renu Van Dal who is like

1:21:42

a astrologer in Japan at the time there's

1:21:45

nothing really to the game you you essentially put in your

1:21:47

date of birth and answer a couple of questions and

1:21:49

then it gives you a R-Escape and then

1:21:51

there's a little kind of basic kind of platform thing

1:21:53

as well but it's weird yeah there's

1:21:55

been a few attempts to make consoles

1:21:58

aimed at girls so the super cassette vision ladies Ladies

1:22:00

was a kind of pink version

1:22:02

of the Super Cassette Vision, which was a console

1:22:05

released by Epoch, who also

1:22:07

did Sylvanian Families, interestingly. But Epoch

1:22:09

were the market leader before the Famicom

1:22:11

came along. The Cassette Vision,

1:22:13

the original Cassette Vision was one of the

1:22:16

biggest selling consoles in Japan before the Famicom

1:22:18

arrived. And the Super Cassette Vision never

1:22:20

really replicated that success. But

1:22:23

they did release this one off version in

1:22:26

1985, the Super Cassette Vision

1:22:28

ladies, so difficult to say. It

1:22:30

doesn't run off the tongue that name, does it?

1:22:33

It doesn't run off the tongue. But I don't

1:22:35

think it did particularly well. And it's very hard

1:22:37

to come by now. Like, I know I've spoken

1:22:40

to collectors who've been searching for one for

1:22:42

years, and they really, very rarely

1:22:45

come up for sale. Yeah,

1:22:48

and then I know there's a Cassie Lupe

1:22:50

as well in Japan, like about a decade

1:22:52

later that they tried, another kind of female

1:22:54

orientated system. Yeah, yeah, the Cassie Lupe, that

1:22:56

was a console that printed stickers. It came

1:22:58

out around the same time as

1:23:00

the PlayStation. It

1:23:03

was kind of pretty underpowered compared to the PlayStation.

1:23:05

It was very much more based around the Super

1:23:07

NES, but then had this amazing kind

1:23:09

of sticker printing bit stuck on the side of

1:23:11

it. Interesting, I spoke to some of the engineers

1:23:14

who designed the Lupe, and they said that

1:23:16

it was never originally meant to be for girls. That

1:23:18

was just something that marketing came up halfway through

1:23:20

development and said, Oh, we're going to target this

1:23:22

for girls to see. Yeah,

1:23:25

it was an interesting idea. And weirdly, sticker printing

1:23:27

did catch on in a big way in Japan

1:23:30

a few years later with the Purikura machines, which

1:23:32

are essentially like glorified photo booths that printed

1:23:34

out stickers that you could

1:23:37

photograph a view. On paper,

1:23:39

the Lupe was capable of doing that. He

1:23:41

had this little peripheral that you attach a

1:23:43

digital camera so you could essentially

1:23:45

turn it into a Purikura machine and print

1:23:47

out stickers of the photos

1:23:50

with alterations made

1:23:52

on top. But yeah, he

1:23:54

never really caught on, which is a shame. I

1:23:56

love as well. You think back to the 90s,

1:23:58

I remember stuff like that. Alex Phillips entering

1:24:01

the market briefly with the CDI and obviously

1:24:03

with Sony who were previously many known as

1:24:06

an electronics company. One that I don't read

1:24:08

about too much in the gaming sphere. I

1:24:10

think they manufacture my dishwasher. Dai

1:24:13

Woo, I think you pronounced their name,

1:24:15

they did their own console didn't they?

1:24:17

The Xemex console. That's right, yeah, Deiu.

1:24:19

Deiu is one of the... Deiu,

1:24:21

right, yeah. Deiu, I

1:24:24

mean probably in the UK most people just

1:24:26

know them if they know them at all

1:24:29

for manufacturing cars and that you might

1:24:31

see the electronic product as well. They actually went out

1:24:33

of business a few years ago but then bits of

1:24:35

it were bought and carried on so I think

1:24:40

Deiu shipbuilding is still going. But

1:24:42

it's like all these companies like these

1:24:45

Korean conglomerates like Samsung

1:24:47

and we know that

1:24:49

mine are for washing machines and air conditioners

1:24:51

or things like that but actually they're doing

1:24:53

everything from theme parks to ships to building

1:24:55

buses to everything. So Deiu

1:24:58

in that respect wasn't really unusual in the

1:25:00

sense that it was getting into home electronics

1:25:03

and it started off making computers

1:25:05

in their early 80s and early

1:25:08

70s. They were based around

1:25:10

the MSX standards which I don't

1:25:12

know if you have you talked about the MSX

1:25:15

standard on the podcast before? Yeah, we had the

1:25:17

next episode with our number Van Dictarp. I believe

1:25:19

he passed away a few years ago but he

1:25:21

came on and did an MSX episode where there's

1:25:23

been a fascinating story there and obviously something that

1:25:26

wasn't that big over here but definitely gained

1:25:28

some traction in certain parts of the world. That's

1:25:30

right. Yeah, I think it was quite big in

1:25:32

the Netherlands and South America and certainly

1:25:34

in Japan. So this

1:25:37

idea of doing a standard computer is

1:25:39

a bit like the PC would do

1:25:41

a few years later. I love the

1:25:43

look of the Xamax as well. It looks insane. Oh

1:25:46

yes. It either looks like a VR

1:25:48

system or a helmet

1:25:50

from a cyborg or

1:25:52

a portable early

1:25:54

CD player. I genuinely

1:25:57

think that the Xamax line of consoles are the

1:25:59

most... most beautiful consoles ever

1:26:01

made. They are gorgeous, absolutely

1:26:04

gorgeous. There were kind of, there

1:26:06

were about five of them altogether. There was

1:26:08

the original Zemex which came in

1:26:10

a couple of different colours and it was

1:26:13

kind of very chunky and plasticky and kind

1:26:15

of beautifully made. There was a pink version

1:26:18

and then the Zemex V which I think is the one

1:26:20

that's at the front of the chapter in my book which

1:26:22

is this rocket shaped red

1:26:25

thing with like black bits down the

1:26:27

side and it just looks fantastic. And

1:26:29

they even, brilliant, asymmetrically coloured one

1:26:31

where it's kind of blue on one side and

1:26:33

yellow on the other. It just looks gorgeous. Do

1:26:35

you remember the Viewmaster toys in the 80s? It

1:26:37

looks a bit like one of those in the

1:26:39

shape of it, doesn't it? Yeah. But

1:26:42

also the kind of design of sports

1:26:44

cars at the time. Definitely, yeah. And

1:26:46

kind of emulating that. That's it. And

1:26:48

then the Swansoul was this console, the

1:26:50

last Zemex one they made, looked like

1:26:52

the Starship Enterprise. It had this little

1:26:54

kind of bit raised up the top in the shape

1:26:56

of a disc. It was just

1:26:59

the most crazy design of a console you've

1:27:01

ever seen. It was wonderful things. So

1:27:03

I'd urge you to kind of look up the Zemex console

1:27:05

because they're beautiful things and then we never sold outside Korea.

1:27:07

We never saw them outside of

1:27:09

Korea and then the console market in Korea

1:27:12

completely died in the 90s and

1:27:14

was the only thing that lived on this PC and now

1:27:16

it's predominantly kind

1:27:19

of a PC-based kind of gaming industry

1:27:22

in Korea. But yeah, this

1:27:24

brief period in the 1980s, Zemex

1:27:27

console rules. I was

1:27:29

wondering what are the implications of

1:27:31

the continued popularity of family clones?

1:27:33

Yeah. Well, I spoke to a

1:27:35

PhD researcher who Ian

1:27:37

Larson, who's been looking into this. I

1:27:40

think the fascinating thing about family clones, which

1:27:43

are clones of the Nintendo Fabicon, is

1:27:46

that for most countries, maybe

1:27:48

not most, but certainly a good proportion

1:27:50

of countries, they were the

1:27:52

only experience they had of video

1:27:54

games. There were places in Africa

1:27:56

or Eastern Duv actually

1:28:00

have the official version to these machines. The NES

1:28:02

was never released in these territories and they never

1:28:04

got a Mega Drive or anything like that. The

1:28:07

only consoles they had access to

1:28:09

were these bootlegs, these clones.

1:28:13

So for many people, they were just as legitimate as

1:28:15

there's like an NES in

1:28:18

this country or whatever machine.

1:28:21

So there's a real nostalgia kind of tied

1:28:23

to them. And I think they're

1:28:25

very rarely talked about or celebrated because

1:28:27

of their kind of shady legality, you

1:28:29

know, or say, producer about

1:28:31

license. But they are tied

1:28:35

deliberately to people's childhood. And people, you

1:28:37

know, like in Poland talk fondly about

1:28:40

Pegasus, you know, that was like one of

1:28:42

the major ones over there. And that

1:28:44

was the same as us talking about going

1:28:47

out and playing the ZX Spectrum or

1:28:49

the C64 or anything like that. So I really

1:28:51

wanted to kind of talk about them. And it's

1:28:54

interesting as well in Russia, the Dendi West became

1:28:57

the official console ever.

1:28:59

The Nintendo actually endorsed the Dendi, this

1:29:01

family clone, this clone of

1:29:03

the, they construct a

1:29:05

deal, Nintendo of America struck a deal with the people

1:29:08

who made the Dendi saying that, okay,

1:29:11

we'll turn a blind eye to this, you can

1:29:13

carry on selling the Dendi, which had its own

1:29:15

shops and a TV channel as well, you know,

1:29:17

or a TV show, you know, it

1:29:19

was advertised on TV and it was, you know, had all

1:29:21

these official kind of shops that were selling the Dendi. And

1:29:24

they said, okay, well, we'll turn a blind

1:29:26

eye to this, but you have to sell the

1:29:28

Super NES, that was the deal. And

1:29:30

they did. But then, I don't think

1:29:32

the Super NES really took off over there because

1:29:35

it was something like three times more expensive than

1:29:37

the Dendi. Yeah, people still buying the Dendi. Actually,

1:29:40

yeah. So, so

1:29:42

yeah, it's fascinating to kind of see

1:29:44

these parallel histories, you know, there

1:29:47

is no one history of video games, there's lots

1:29:49

of different histories of video games according to which

1:29:51

country you're in, and who you speak

1:29:53

to. One thing that was quite

1:29:55

innovative, because obviously we saw kind of, you know, these kind of

1:29:57

trends that came and went and you sit on this and that.

1:30:00

book, VHS-based video games, for

1:30:02

example, Action Max. So they were

1:30:04

like an early attempt at like

1:30:06

an interactive gaming experience, I guess,

1:30:08

then, you know, using your

1:30:10

standard video player. That's right. Yeah. I mean, when

1:30:12

you think about the idea of playing a VHS-based

1:30:14

console, it just seems like a crazy idea. But

1:30:16

then you start to think about it and then

1:30:18

you go, well, actually, I suppose, you know, we

1:30:21

had games on, you know, audio tapes,

1:30:23

magnetic tapes, or we were kids, you know, we were

1:30:25

loading things on the spectrum. So

1:30:27

why not VHS tapes? But

1:30:29

then the way it was kind of done, it

1:30:31

was essentially you would play the tape and then there'd be

1:30:34

some graphics overload on top. And most

1:30:36

of the games that ended up coming out for these things on

1:30:38

the shooting, so you'd shoot things

1:30:40

on the screen and the gun would

1:30:42

register whether you hit it or not according to the

1:30:45

flashing that it picked up on the object. So if it

1:30:47

was flashing a certain way, it was called registered

1:30:50

as a hit. It's as simple as

1:30:52

that, really. Nothing had changed on screen. That's the

1:30:54

thing. The game still

1:30:56

played out. It's just basically watching a 15 minute

1:30:58

movie. The Action Max was one

1:31:01

of the first ones that was created by World

1:31:03

of Wonder, which is the same company that did

1:31:05

Teddy Rucklin and laser tag. And

1:31:07

it was formed by an ex-Atari guy

1:31:10

who also they also got

1:31:12

the deal to distribute the NES in

1:31:14

the US. So for a while, they were really

1:31:16

riding high. And then you all came crashing down.

1:31:19

She years later, in about 19, 19

1:31:22

end of 1987, there was a stock

1:31:24

market crash. And yeah, it didn't end

1:31:26

well for them. Yeah, for those few brief

1:31:28

years in the middle of the 80s, they could do

1:31:30

no wrong. It's not a night trap

1:31:32

was meant to be a VHS game originally I heard as

1:31:34

well. Well, they had atmosphere,

1:31:37

a few of those kind of board

1:31:39

games, but not not kind of interactive

1:31:41

like this. Yeah, that's right. I mean,

1:31:44

I spoke to Rob Thulott, who he

1:31:47

worked on night trap for the Sega

1:31:49

CD. Well, it wasn't originally made for Sega CD. It's

1:31:52

made for this, this console that was

1:31:55

originally kind of being underwritten by Hasbro.

1:31:57

It was a VHS console, the control vision.

1:32:00

yeah that's right. And so the idea

1:32:02

would be that it would divide the tape into

1:32:04

kind of into four segments

1:32:06

essentially. So it would read

1:32:08

half of the frames. It's difficult

1:32:10

to describe it but essentially it would half

1:32:13

the number of lines on screen. So half

1:32:15

of the lines were dedicated to one frame

1:32:17

and the half of the lines would indicate

1:32:19

to another frame and it could interpolate between

1:32:21

so that you could choose between

1:32:23

different cameras in the game. So

1:32:26

you could follow one person and then follow the other.

1:32:28

But of course doing that meant that you had had

1:32:30

half the resolution so it would really

1:32:32

kind of take a hit on the resolution and the frame rate as

1:32:34

well because it was difficult to describe it.

1:32:37

The idea kind of would have worked

1:32:39

in practice but when I spoke

1:32:41

to Ravi, it was so hard to kind of

1:32:43

get it out to actually work and VHS was

1:32:46

very unreliable. You know it's not like working with

1:32:48

something like a laser disc or a CD player

1:32:51

but then Night Trap did end up being released on

1:32:53

the Sega CD years later. But yeah

1:32:55

it was fascinating to hear about the making of Night Trap

1:32:57

you know Rob was saying it

1:33:00

was inspired by these interactive

1:33:02

plays that he watched where you would

1:33:04

follow I think Planche Drunk to

1:33:06

do these interactive theatre things now but it was

1:33:08

going on back in the 80s and that was

1:33:10

what inspired him to do this game

1:33:13

where you follow different people around different

1:33:15

rooms and switch between cameras. Other

1:33:17

things would carry on happening whilst you were

1:33:19

kind of like looking somewhere else. So

1:33:21

yeah it was really interesting to hear

1:33:23

about that. Well one thing

1:33:26

that fascinated me and has always kind

1:33:28

of captured my imagination is the

1:33:31

Barcode Battler. I remember seeing adverts

1:33:33

for that and thinking you know

1:33:35

nothing can make shopping with mum

1:33:37

fun and this might

1:33:39

do it. What's the

1:33:41

kind of story behind the Barcode Battler? Yeah

1:33:44

I think if you've heard of the Barcode

1:33:46

Battler you probably remember it as like being

1:33:48

this huge flop in the UK. It

1:33:50

was a release not too long after

1:33:53

the Game Boy a couple of

1:33:55

years afterwards you know and you might have seen

1:33:57

it in the Argos catalog and it wasn't

1:33:59

that much. much cheaper than it came from. I think it's about

1:34:02

half the price maybe or just a bit over half

1:34:04

the price. The idea being

1:34:06

that you would scan in barcodes. It

1:34:08

came with a few cards with kind of

1:34:10

barcodes on them and each of them had

1:34:13

a picture of a warrior or a healing potion or

1:34:15

things like that. But you could also

1:34:18

grab the barcode from anything like your packet

1:34:20

of cornflakes and scan it in and just

1:34:22

see what it did. And the

1:34:24

idea would be to kind of try and find

1:34:26

the most powerful barcodes and then

1:34:28

you could put the enemies that

1:34:31

were kind of built into the game or you

1:34:33

could battle with your friends. And

1:34:35

all it did was the barcode would generate stats

1:34:38

for attack, defense, special

1:34:40

powers, that kind of stuff. It was very

1:34:42

simplistic. Essentially you had a screen with just

1:34:44

numbers. That was all it is. But it

1:34:46

did come with some lovely artwork. But it

1:34:48

was a massive flop over here.

1:34:51

But in Japan it was huge. For

1:34:53

a couple of years it was massive. They

1:34:55

released two machines,

1:34:57

the barcode battler and then

1:34:59

the barcode battler 2. The barcode battler 2 is

1:35:01

actually the one that we got in the

1:35:04

UK that's the barcode battler. Just

1:35:06

known as the barcode battler over here. And then

1:35:08

they released a couple more. There was the barcode

1:35:10

battler, CEO I think it was,

1:35:12

and another couple and then a football based one.

1:35:14

It went on for quite a while. And

1:35:17

they even got featured on primetime

1:35:19

TV. There was a game show where they

1:35:22

converted the barcode battler to run on

1:35:24

a TV with one of those

1:35:27

handheld scanners and contestants would kind of

1:35:29

run to this box supermarket and grab things

1:35:31

off the shelves and try to scan them to try and

1:35:34

get the highest score. A high-pitched

1:35:36

supermarket sweep. It was

1:35:38

just like that. It was just

1:35:41

like that. So yeah, it was

1:35:43

big. You can see how

1:35:45

it was a precursor to

1:35:47

the Pokémon craze that happened a few years later.

1:35:50

Yeah, I was going to say with

1:35:52

Pokémon, but also I do remember maybe

1:35:55

a later version of Tamagotchi's had

1:35:57

some kind of barcode integration as

1:35:59

well. Yeah, I think the idea

1:36:01

got recycled a few times, you know,

1:36:03

and even especially when a

1:36:06

smartphone came along and people could use

1:36:08

their cameras to scan things. So

1:36:11

there was a kind of mini revival of

1:36:13

barcode games around that time. If you search

1:36:15

for barcode games on your phone now... QR

1:36:17

code. Yes. QR code battle.

1:36:19

That's it, exactly. Yeah, so the idea is still,

1:36:21

you know, it keeps coming up every now and

1:36:23

then. Well, one thing I love

1:36:26

to see in the book was, you know, when you

1:36:28

get into the 90s as well, and this is a

1:36:30

memory that still, you know, see it in my brain.

1:36:32

When we had a family, we used to go every

1:36:34

summer to Scarborough up in Yorkshire. And I remember going

1:36:37

to an arcade and seeing Sega's Time Traveller for

1:36:39

the first time. And you talk about that in

1:36:41

the book as well, the fact that, you know,

1:36:44

that was kind of, it was the first ever

1:36:46

holographic game that I saw. But what was kind

1:36:48

of the significance of that game then from your

1:36:50

research? Yeah, it's a fascinating kind of failed experiment,

1:36:52

essentially. Time Traveller, it was

1:36:54

this enormous machine. If you've

1:36:57

ever seen one in the flesh, imagine it's

1:36:59

almost, the depth of it is almost as

1:37:01