History

Growing Up In Arcades: 1979-1989

May 6, 2016 By Ms. ausretrogamer

Growing Up In Arcades: 1979-1989 is a beautiful collection of retro photos on flickr of, you guessed it, 1980’s arcades. Most photos have been contributed by Kevin R ‘Rad Arcade’.

‘A look back at the arcades that consumed much of our time and quarters back in the 80s. Looking for scans of vintage games in the wild. So if you have old arcade or Chuck E. Cheese birthday pics, dig ’em up! They belong here.’

Spend some time admiring the games (note the pleasing lack of redemption machines), the fashion, the smiles and the colours – great memories! Also, don’t forget to add a few of your own pics. Here are a handful photos to whet your appetite, but be sure to visit flickr to see the whole collection.

‘Pizza’ submitted by Ray Conrado

‘Mark’s 7th Birthday Party’ submitted by Aaron Caldwell

‘Broadway in S.F.’ submitted by James Aaron Dillon

‘Hangin’ with my friends at lunch’ submitted by Elwood Rose

‘Soviet Pre-Video Games’ submitted by Ben Madison

‘Time Out Tunnel’ submitted by Kevin R

‘Pinball’ submitted by Kevin R

‘Fun Terminal’ submitted by Kevin R

‘Pinball’ submitted by Sulaco99

‘Pool Arcade’ submitted by Kevin R

Source: Growing Up In Arcades: 1979-1989 on flickr

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Ms. ausretrogamer
Co-founder, editor and writer at ausretrogamer – The Australian Retro Gamer E-Zine. Lover of science fiction, fashion, books, movies and TV. Player of games, old and new.

Follow Ms. ausretrogamer on Twitter

The Secret History Of Mac Gaming

May 2, 2016 By ausretrogamer

Apple’s history in gaming goes a long way back. Heck, even my first computer gaming experience was on an Apple ][e playing the awesome text adventure, Transylvania way back in 1983. The Apple line of computers had its avid gaming fans and also paved the way for many a developers that cut their teeth on the trusty computers. When the Apple Macintosh computer was launched in the mid 80s, it’s built in screen, graphical user interface and the mouse pointing device were at the bleeding edge of computing. Apple may have aimed the computer at the business end of town, but the beloved Mac was also thriving in the gaming community too. Sadly, not much has been written or shared with the gaming masses about the Mac gaming communities, till now.

The Secret History of Mac Gaming, a new crowdfund book project by talented freelance writer Richard Moss, aims to tell the story of those Mac communities and the game developers who survived and thrived in an ecosystem that was serially ignored by the outside world. It’s a book about people who made games and people who played them — people who, on both counts, followed their hearts first and market trends second. How in spite of everything they had going against them, the people who carried the torch for Mac gaming in the 80s, 90s, and early 2000s showed how clever, quirky, and downright wonderful videogames could be.

The work draws on archive materials as well as 60+ new interviews with key figures from Mac gaming’s past, including: Craig Fryar, who is co-authoring several chapters, Robyn and Rand Miller, Patrick Buckland, John Calhoun, Andrew Welch, Ben Spees, Matt Burch, Ian and Colin Lynch Smith, Steven Tze, Mark Stephen Pierce, Jonathan Gay, Bill Appleton, Steve Capps, Charlie Jackson, Peter Cohen, Trey Smith, Dave Marsh, Joe Williams, Brian Greenstone, Craig Erickson, Rick Holzgrafe, Chris De Salvo, Ray Dunakin, Glenda Adams, Rebecca Heineman, Eric Klein, Marc Vose and many more.

The book will be a 304 page hardback, printed on 120 gsm fine art paper, with a bookmark, head and tail bands, and a four colour jacket printed on clear plastic stock. So if you have (or had) an interest in Mac gaming or are hungry to know more about the history of Mac gaming, then pledge for Richard Moss’ The Secret History Of Mac Gaming book!

source: Unbound

Sega Arcade Game History

April 29, 2016 By ausretrogamer

STOP THE PRESS! Thanks to our good friend Skott Kellett, we were made aware of Sega-Interactive’s Sega Arcade Game History site!

So what is this site all about? If you have been (and still are) a fan of Sega’s arcade games (Ed: which many, many of you are!) and love history, then this site should be bookmarked as your go to reference on anything related to Sega arcade games.

The site is great to navigate, with a plotted timeline of all Sega arcade games from 1970 to present day on the left of screen, a cross-hair to ‘target’ (choose) the arcade game in the centre of the display, and the right of screen being your search area and view type selector (cruise or list mode for the targeted decade). Now, if only Sega-Interactive could release an English version of this site!

Let’s cruise through Sega’s arcade games from the 1980s

Tiled list view of Sega’s arcade games from the 1980s

Machine list view of Sega’s arcade games from the 1980s

Checking out Yu Suzuki’s Space Harrier
source: Sega Interactive

Welcome to STARWORLD 78

April 4, 2016 By ausretrogamer

For those of you that don’t remember, once upon a time Atari was the king of video games, not just in the home with their Atari VCS/2600, but also in the amusement parlours. Atari was so diversified, they even got into making pinball machines!

To get an understanding of just how huge the Sunnyvale company was, at the 1978 Amusement and Music Operators Association (AMOA) trade show, Atari had a massive exhibit titled Starworld ’78, showcasing their latest wares to wow the industry (and scare the pants off their competitors)!

The “Starworld” theme was chosen by Atari to preview their new games, which they cleverly dubbed as the “Stars” of the 1978 AMOA show. Previewed pinball machines included Space Riders, the colossal Hercules and the double playfield extravaganza of Middle Earth. In the video gaming stakes, their new 2-player space duel game, Orbit and the 3-games-in-one version of Breakout (very smartly titled) Super Breakout were gaining a lot of attention. Also taking centre stage at Starworld ’78 were: Sprint 2, Sit Down Night Driver, Starship, Smokey Joe, Fire Truck, UFO and the unique dual monitor submarine strategy game, Subs. If that wasn’t enough, Atari also had their service technicians on hand to demonstrate the latest test equipment to show off to operators.

And what is a trade show without prizes? Atari was promoting their ‘Starworld Sweepstakes’, a first at the AMOA trade show. Prizes included a Super Breakout machine, a Sony Betamax video tape recorder, a colour TV, a set of leather luggage and a Sony 5” Swivel-vision TV. There were also minor prizes awarded by Atari in their sweepstakes, including Seiko pocket digital alarms and Seiko desk clocks! Whoa, if only we had attended the 1978 AMOA trade show!

source: The Arcade Flyer Archive

SNES M16 Multipurpose Arcade Combat Simulator

April 1, 2016 By ausretrogamer

It may be April 1st, but this ain’t no joke! Our good friends at The Gaming Warehouse made us aware that the elusive and extremely rare Multipurpose Arcade Combat Simulator (MACS) Basic Rifle (M16 Rifle) was for sale on Amazon at a cool price of $3,000!

Many would be asking themselves, what the hell is this? In a nutshell, it is an M16 Rifle designed (for the U.S. Army Infantry School) to simulate Basic Rifle Marksmanship (BRM) by using inexpensive off-the-shelf products, in this case, a lightgun, software and a Super Nintendo.

The Multipurpose Arcade Combat Simulator (MACS) was developed to overcome the training problems that resulted from insufficient facilities and too few instructors. While interest was primarily focused on its use as a rifle marksmanship trainer, MACS was designed so that the basic hardware could be used to provide training on a variety of weapons systems.

The MACS product was patented in 1986 by the US Army Research Institute Fort Benning Field Unit, which conducted research on training and training technology with particular emphasis on individual and small team skills in the Infantry arena.

Now, enough of this talk, we want to keep drooling over this M16 lightgun – who can spare us $3K? 😉

Connect me to that SNES!

Looks like this M16 lightgun has seen some action

RTFM’ing like a boss!

Aha, all MACS bits required!

Whack in the cart, and away we go!

sources: Amazon, DTIC and Video Game Museum

Retrospective: The 3DO Blaster

March 17, 2016 By Aaron Clement

The early 90s were an amazing time for gamers. The Sega Mega Drive, Super Nintendo and (at least in Japan) the PC-Engine were all going strong. Over in the IBM PC-compatible land, a company by the name of Creative Labs had just released the first Sound Blaster card that allowed for higher quality sounds and music in games than the boops and bleeps we were used to coming out of the rudimentary PC speaker.

While all of this was going on, a consortium of companies led by Electronic Arts (EA) founder Trip Hawkins got together to discuss and design a new gaming console to enter the market. It would be CD-ROM based and offer high quality videos and gameplay, but without the price tag IBM PC-compatible machines had commanded. So, in 1993 the 3DO Interactive Multiplayer was born.

As the 3DO was a set of hardware specifications and not a physical console, it meant anyone could make one! It was this arrangement that allowed Creative Labs (Creative) to release their own variant in the form of the Creative 3DO Blaster.

As they were experts in making PC components, Creative made the bold choice to cram an entire 3DO onto a gigantic PC card that would then plug into a 386 or 486 computer. The card had all of the 3DO’s graphics and sound chips, which allowed it to handle all of the heavy lifting instead of the motherboard on the PC. After installing the card and connecting it to the video card, the included software allowed playing of 3DO games from within Windows 3.1 – Road Rash was definitely a far cry from Solitaire or Minesweeper!

Sounds like a pretty impressive feat of engineering, right? It was, but it suffered from some pretty hefty drawbacks, and that’s not just a crack at its size. The first major hurdle was the price tag. Retailing for $US399 in America and over $600 in Australia, the card was as expensive as a standalone 3DO system! Considering a 486 computer in the early 90s still cost upwards of $1500, dropping another $600 or more was a huge ask, even for gamers with deeper pockets.

4 years after launching for several hundred dollars, whoever bought this one for $75 must’ve thought it was a bargain!

Getting past the issue of price, there was one more roadblock to jump over – the CD-ROM technology. When designing the 3DO Blaster, Creative made an odd decision to only allow a particular type of drive to work with the card: A Creative CR-563 (a rebadged Panasonic drive). Without one of these drives, the 3DO Blaster card was utterly useless (and as a collector, this is why I’ve never been able to get mine running!).

Creative had also planned to release a second version that would support additional types of CD-ROM drives in addition to a special full motion video daughter-board, but the lack of popularity led to these never seeing the light of day.

One plug for the monitor, one plug to connect to your video card and a single controller port

Given the 3DO ended up being an expensive failure that never had the impact Trip originally envisioned, it is little wonder the 3DO Blaster also ended up tragically relegated to a footnote of gaming history. For now, gaze upon a gaming curiosity from the 90s and wonder what may have been!

The full PAL retail bundle

Shockwave and Gridders were the two pack-in full games, along with demos of other 3DO games like Alone in the Dark, Jammit & Road Rash (to name a few!)

Sink your teeth into these hot 3Do titles!

Fun fact: Logitech manufactured the 3DO Blaster’s Creative branded controller!

The system specs. Pretty sure the Nintendo 3DS has more grunt than a 386-25Mhz!

~~Banana~~ Gameboy for scale

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Aaron Clement
Tassie based retro gaming guy. Father of 3 and married to the very tolerant Kellie Clement. Coffee powered!

Follow Aaron Clement on Twitter and Instagram

CRASH: The Year Video Games Died – By Ahoy

February 29, 2016 By Ms. ausretrogamer

Ahoy neatly explains the 1980’s (North American) video games crash in just over seven minutes in this snazzy video, and they come to some interesting conclusions!

Source: Ahoy on YouTube via Cheezburger

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Ms. ausretrogamer
Co-founder, editor and writer at ausretrogamer – The Australian Retro Gamer E-Zine. Lover of science fiction, fashion, books, movies and TV. Player of games, old and new.

Follow Ms. ausretrogamer on Twitter

How I Designed The World’s Worst Video Game

February 16, 2016 By ausretrogamer

Howard Scott Warshaw speaks to Matthew Bannister from the BBC World Service about his creation, E.T. for the Atari 2600, considered as the world’s worst ever video game and the cause of the video game market crash in North America (Ed: which wasn’t true!).

source: BBC World Service

image source: Dave Staugas (via BBC World Service)

16-Bit Spec Wars: Unrealised Potential

February 8, 2016 By ausretrogamer

The gaming system wars started long before the battle between Sega and Nintendo, but it was the 16-bit era that pitched the computing (Atari ST and Amiga 500) and console (Sega Mega Drive and SNES) giants against one another.

These bitter system wars waged on (Ed: they are still simmering!) between ST/Amiga owners and their Mega Drive/SNES console counterparts, both sides arguing that their system was best. Declaring a winner was always fraught with danger, especially when the battle turned to the technical specifications front.

When gamers use the hypothetical capabilities (specs) of their chosen machine instead of presenting hard evidence (Ed: like the actual games!) to argue their point, it descends the debate into the realm of the potential – the ‘what if’ scenario! As we know, you can’t play potential! Most machines have untapped potential and could definitely produce better games than what we’d seen from them, but that does not count unless you are about to create the next best homebrew game.

So gamers, a battle between systems should never be about what they can do, just what they did do. It’s great to think about the ‘what may have been‘ scenario, but all that will do is make you bitter and twisted – just enjoy what there is on offer, as there is plenty of variety out there for even the most discerning gamers. Oh yeah, none of these machines are as good as the PC-Engine anyway! *winks*

image source: supplied

Total Recall: The Pinball Table That Never Was

February 1, 2016 By ausretrogamer

Celebrating their 30 years in business, Stern Pinball Inc. is being quite active on their social media channels, releasing interesting facts about pinball. One that stood out to us was the unreleased 1990 pinball table based on the Total recall movie. Apparently, the Total Recall rare prototype never made it into production. Stern go on to say that “Designed to be a dual player team effort machine, it was ultimately scrapped for production and sent to the depths of the Data East factory. Sometime between 1996 and 2000 the machine “mysteriously disappeared”. Some say it went into the trash, some say it was broken down and forgotten. Some say that the machine made its way to places unknown and anyone who sees it in person is sworn to secrecy. No one knows for sure, and if they do, they aren’t talking.

Had Total Recall been produced as designed, it would remain today one of the most ridiculous pinball machines ever created. It was not meant to be, and will likely never be seen by the public again.”

We will definitely be keeping a close eye on these interesting and lesser known pinball facts coming from the great people at Stern!

source: Stern Pinball Inc.

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