History

Top 5 Games Charts: May 1999

12/05/2016 By ausretrogamer

We roll the clock back 17 years to see what games were hot on the Playstation, N64 and the humble PC. As you peek at the games charts below, you’ll notice some very well known gaming franchises that are still going strong till this day. But what makes it great to look back at old charts like these is the more obscure and long forgotten games, like Rollcage for the Playstation, Virtual Pool 64 on the N64, and The Simpsons: Virtual Springfield on the PC.

What ever tickled your fancy back then, scour through the top 5 games from May 1999, you never know, you still may be playing some of these gems!

	1) Metal Gear Solid (Konami)
	2) Rollcage (Psygnosis)
	3) A Bug’s Life (Sony)
	4) FIFA 99 (EA)
	5) Populous: The Beginning (EA)

	1) South Park (Acclaim)
	2) Star Wars: Rogue Squadron (Nintendo)
	3) The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina Of Time (Nintendo)
	4) WCW/nWO: Revenge (THQ)
	5) Virtual Pool 64 (Crave)

	1) Sid Meier’s Alpha Centauri (EA)
	2) Sim City 3000 (EA)
	3) South Park (Acclaim)
	4) The Simpsons: Virtual Springfield (Fox)
	5) Premier Manager 99 (Gremlin)

Retrospective: A Tale Of Dick Smith’s Wizzard

09/05/2016 By Aaron Clement

It was the 1980s, Dick Smith Electronics (DSE) stores were packed with people and stocked to the gills with an extensive range of components and electronic gadgets. We’re going back to a time when the brand’s adventure-seeking namesake was setting records with his helicopter, or pulling practical jokes on the nation with plans to bring icebergs to Sydney harbour. Video gaming hadn’t crashed yet, and during this time the home computer market was also starting to take root, with Commodore, Acorn, Apple and friends all competing for market share.

Due to the “off the shelf” nature of a lot of these early systems, you’d often see electronics manufacturers clone a popular system and release them under their own brand. DSE weren’t immune to this, ranging a number of rebadged or clone systems like the Dick Smith Cat (an Apple IIe clone), the System-80 (a Hong Kong made clone of the TRS System-80 Mark 1), or the VZ200 (VTech System 200), all sharing shelf space with juggernauts like the Commodore VIC-20. And beside them all was a system I never knew existed until recently: the Dick Smith Wizzard.

Released in 1982 for $295, the Wizzard was a rebadged version of VTech’s CreatiVision games system. At a glance the two integrated controllers and general design make it similar to Mattel’s Intellivision, which was still going strong at the time. One part joystick and one part keypad, the Wizzard’s two controllers fit neatly into recessed slots on top of the system when not in use. However a major difference is that when clipped in, the controllers form a fully-functioning QWERTY keyboard (although “functional” is debatable – the full-sized keyboard add-on was a must if you wanted to do any typing!). The unique controllers look great, but much like the Intellivision, the awkward shape and the ‘floating’ nature of the joystick make for a poor experience.

Even though it was predominantly cartridge-based, $89 would land you a tape drive add-on and was essential for any budding BASIC programmers who weren’t masochistic types that enjoyed re-typing their code each and every time! In addition to the tape drive, other add-ons included a 16KB RAM expansion and a serial/printer port adapter, but with VTech discontinuing the system around 1985, planned add-ons like the disk drive and modem never actually materialised.

Press Play On Tape!

Going under the covers, you’ll notice that the bulk of the components powering the Wizzard also drove a number of other popular computers and consoles of the time. In addition to 1KB of system RAM, processing duties are handled by the ubiquitous Rockwell 6502A running at 2Mhz, which is based on the same 6502 chip found inside the VIC-20, Apple II and BBC Micro! Video output is covered by another stalwart of the time, the Texas Instruments TMS9929, coupled with 16KB of video RAM. Found in systems like the Sega SC-3000, Colecovision and variants of the MSX, this chip enabled the Wizzard to push a respectable 32 sprites on screen at a maximum resolution of 256 x 192 pixels, all in 16 glorious colours (or 15 colours plus transparent if you want to get technical). For the sound and music, VTech chose a Texas Instruments SND76489 chip, which offers a fairly rudimentary 4 channels for software to play with, and whilst it’s no SID chip, it does the job.

The heart of a Wizzard

Another hardware oddity is the power supply. My first introduction to the Wizzard was a friend talking about how he was getting parts to rebuild a supply for this “Dick Smith thing”. The power supply is unlike any other system of the time, as it runs both 9v and 16v to the console! This means that if you break it or need to repair one, it’s going to make your life difficult – something to keep in mind if you want to hunt a system down!

Between the Wizzard, Atari 5200 and 7800, you’ve got obscure power supplies covered!

It’s only fair that given the Wizzard’s design influences the games library would also clone other popular arcade games of the time. All of the cartridge games were designed and developed in-house by VTech, although DSE did release a number of simple games of their own on cassette that required the BASIC interpreter to run. If you’re a completionist, then you’ll be happy to know that the Wizzard has only 16 cartridges in total – 14 games, a music maker and the BASIC interpreter.

The cartridges forgo complex art for a straightforward, but effective look

Retailing for $39.95 each, the line-up featured games like Crazy Chicky (Pac-man), Auto Chase (Rally X), Sonic Invaders (Space Invaders), Chopper Rescue (Zaxxon), Police Jump (Donkey Kong) and Locomotive (Burger Time). The quality varied, although most are still fairly serviceable versions of the games they’re based on. One difference worth mentioning is that several of the games (like Sonic Invaders and Crazy Chicky) actually feature cooperative multi-player modes, something Space Invaders and Pac-Man didn’t offer! Every game also came with game themed overlays for the joypads, which helped show which buttons on the joypad were required (and to drive collectors crazy in the hunt to find them!).

Mouse Puzzle challenges you to keep moving and avoid the cat. Easier said than done!

Cloning computers or games wasn’t without risk though, as sometimes the copy ended up being just a touch too close to the original for comfort. VTech discovered this with their release of Crazy Pucker, which features a round yellow blob travelling around a maze eating dots, avoiding ghosts and trying to do everything possible to avoid Namco’s attention. They failed. To avoid further legal issues, VTech would re-release the title as Crazy Chicky, turning the main character into a chicken who now laid eggs to fill the maze while avoiding the foxes trying to eat you.

Crazy Pucker on the left, Crazy Chicky on the right. Any similarities to Pac-Man are entirely intentional!

These days there’s a few ways to get your hands on a Wizzard, and none of which will get Luggage angry with you. Despite being a locally released system, they’re surprisingly uncommon to find for sale in decent condition with a working power supply (or at a reasonable price!). Games are a little more common, although tracking down both the cartridge, box, and overlays can prove to be a feat of magic in itself.

The overlays add flair, although aren’t essential

That leaves only one other option: emulation. If this interests you, I’d recommend spending some time looking at Luca Antignano’s excellent website CreatiVEmu, which is dedicated to all things CreatiVision (aka. The Wizzard). Luca has a wealth of information on the various versions of the CreatiVision, including emulators and everything else you’ll need to know to get running.

FunnyMu makes emulating the Wizzard easy, with plenty of built-in info for every game

As a Wise Man once said, “Do you not know that a man is not dead while his name is still spoken?”, and I’m a firm believer that this also applies to classic computers and consoles. The Wizzard stands as a unique and interesting piece of Australian video gaming history, and owning, emulating, or even just reading about it ensures the Wizzard’s legacy lives on.

Thanks for keeping it alive!

Police Jump is an enjoyable take on Donkey Kong

Adding 2 player co-op to the well known classic, Sonic Invader was the Wizzard’s pack-in game

Air/Sea Attack

Featuring a drain comparable to Pin·Bot, Astro Pinball has your silverball fix covered!

Two panels either side allow usage of the controllers while the keyboard is attached

The Wizzard’s voice

Additional images and higher quality versions of the images from this article can be found here.

Special thanks to Tim H. for helping with photos, and Damian A. for his loan of additional hardware.

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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

Growing Up In Arcades: 1979-1989

06/05/2016 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

02/05/2016 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

29/04/2016 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

04/04/2016 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

01/04/2016 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

17/03/2016 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

29/02/2016 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

16/02/2016 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)

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