Sins of the Silicon and Console Curios - The Bear and Badger

Blue Swirl

*lovingly strokes Dreamcast collection*

Blue Swirl

Page turn win.

b0r1s

Blue Swirl wrote:

*lovingly strokes Dreamcast collection*

That’s a sig surely.

Blue Swirl

b0r1s wrote:

Blue Swirl wrote:

*lovingly strokes Dreamcast collection*

That’s a sig surely.

You can have it if you want.

Blue Swirl

Found these while I could have been doing something useful. They have a certain retro charm.

The Jupiter Ace. Created (unsurprisingly) by a team of ex-Sinclair Research geezers. Dare I say it, but it looks better than the Sinclair machines it so obviously cribbed from. It was undone by choosing Forth, rather than BASIC, as its default programming language... and the fact that it was roughly the same spec* as a Sinclair 81, but by the time it reached market, three times the price.

Designed by Jeff Raskin after he left Apple, the Canon Cat was intended to be closer to the vision of a cheap, utilitarian, and ubiquitous computer he had when he designed the Macintosh. (I think where that fell down was, as it is with Apple stuff now, is the price.) Looks a bit like something that the management would use in an Alien game.

*No pun intended.

Blue Swirl

Remember the Barcode Battler? No? Ah well. Have a post about it anyway.

While there was one kid at my school who got one (this time it wasn't me), and we all realised it was pretty crap sharpish, I found out recently it enjoyed a reasonable amount of success in Japan. So much so, in fact, that Nintendo allowed Epoch (makers of the BB) to release an officially sanctioned interface unit. If you have a Barcode Battler, the interface gubbins, a Famicom or a Super Famicom, and a compatible game, you could unleash the magical power of barcodes.

I'm not sure if you needed a different interface unit for the Famicom, or if the cable in the picture above that's still wrapped in plastic would connect to Nintendo's non-Super hardware. If it did, I have no idea where you'd plug it in - the Famicom controllers were, unlike the NES, hardwired... right?

LivDiv

Yup. Remember the Barcode Battler.
Lusted after it while browsing the Argos catalogue. Played a friend's one and realised it was crap and a main birthday present was saved.

Similar story to the R-Zone.

Never knew about the SNES attachment though, suprised, feels like the kind of thing that would be exploited for cheats/hacking/piracy.

ChopperByrne

Was at the Computer Game Museum in Berlin just now.

Some of the more obscure (to me anyway) stuff I found.

https://www.instagram.com/p/Cqsgw9qNppW/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=

davyK

I remember the Jupiter Ace with its LISP language. Was a bit of flop that one. Nice idea though - but yeah - it was low spec and pricey. I think a BASIC version came out but it was too late to make any difference.

Barcode Battler. Reckoned it was crap at the time. Was right.

DrewMerson

JMW

Still a great idea though.

LivDiv

Place I used to work had a license to the software thing used to create barcodes.
We could have been gods!

Blue Swirl

Discovered via the trailer for the new EverSD, two handheld systems from the mists of time.

The Watara SuperVision (which I swear I saw in the Argos catalogue, but then my memory isn't great)

They made a second version, taking out the tilting mechanism, presumably to save costs.

The delightfully named Mega Duck*, released in South America as the equally odd Cougar Boy.

*I wondered if Mega Duck was trying to riff on WonderSwan, which saw a modicum of success in Japan, so I looked that up, too. But the duck predates the swan by four years. But that did lead me to the WonderWave accessory, which allowed wireless communication between two 'Swans, or, if you had the right game...

a PocketStation. I wonder how Sony felt about that.

Blue Swirl

Oh jeez, further down the rabbit hole. Before the WonderSwan, Bandai made the Design Master Senshi Mangajukuu. Rolls of the tongue.

Mmm, chunky. Most titles were simple RPGs or manga drawing programs. Interestingly, it seems the drawing programs' carts were like Sonic and Knuckles, and you could piggyback other games through them. Then you could use the anime characters included in the drawing app in the actual game. I wonder if you could use your own designs as characters. I've always wanted to bring my finest creation, Ken With Tits, to life on a monochrome screen.

Only nine titles were released for the DMDMJ, including, but of course... Street Fighter II. So if you think your collection of SFII carts is complete, think again.

Blue Swirl

Oh god, there's a ton of WonderSwan shit out there. The article about the WonderWave on the fandom wiki has all the links.

WonderWave_%2B_Casio_WQV-3_Wrist_Camera_at_TGS2001-spring.jpg

WonderWave_%2B_Casio_WQV-3_Wrist_Camera_at_TGS2001-spring.jpg

As well as allowing you to communicate with other 'Swan units and the PocketStation, the WonderWave also worked with Casio's camera watch. This seems like a dangerous combination.

The WonderBorg, a programmable/remote control insect. (Image from eBay.)

The WonderGate, which allowed the 'Swan to "go online" and download mini games or data for compatible titles.

The WonderSwan GPS, cancelled along with the three games that would've worked with it.

It's not clear from the article if this reached market, but the WonderSwan MP3 does exactly what you'd imagine.

This one did get a release. The WonderWitch was a homebrew kit from Bandai themselves, it seems. (Image from Video Game Kraken.)

Blue Swirl

Fuck me sideways. Video Game Kraken is worth a look, and basically renders this thread obsolete. Remember the Video Action II by Universal Research Laboratories? Or the ITT Shaub-Lorenz Programmable Television? Surely you have fond memories of the Omni Entertainment System?

Click here and keep scrolling.

retroking1981

Nice finds, that site is a deep rabbit hole.

Blue Swirl

It’s excellent, well worth a ten minute scroll session.

davyK

It is indeed - I think I remember that tabletop device that used an LED array (Adventure Vision) and rotating mirrors to create a display. I have a memory of seeing Defender run on it. Might have been in Woolworths....but it may have been just a magazine advert or review...

Time_on_my_hands

Damn. I remember Barcode Battler. Kudos to their marketing team because a lot of my friends wanted one.

I actually think it was ahead of its time. Imagine a mobile game where you use the camera to read the barcodes and it uses them as a seed to generate procedural content.

Blue Swirl

3D movies at home in the 80s!

retroking1981

Nice find

Blue Swirl

retroking1981 wrote:

Nice find

His channel in general is worth a stroll through.

Bob

Mines like an aircraft taking off

Paul the sparky

Neat

Blue Swirl

Bob wrote:

Mines like an aircraft taking off

Why did my mind immediately go to your nob.

stellavista

Here’s some things I saw in a rather cool arcade/retro/board game playable collection called Gameorama in Luzern in Switzerland this afternoon (https://www.gameorama.ch/en):

4jPewBd.jpg)

stellavista

Someone please tell me what I did wrong with those image links.

Edit: Fixed it now. My incompetence at posting photos here every single time is staggering.

b0r1s

That's cool. I loved my Vectrex, I still don't recall why I got rid of it.

afgavinstan

stellavista wrote:

Someone please tell me what I did wrong with those image links.

Need to use squared brackets instead of rounded ones around yer img bits

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