1975: Philips Tele-Spiel ES-2201
Category: Home Console
Three years after the Magnavox Odyssey invented the game cartridge system, and one year before the Fairchild Video Entertainment System introduced programmable ROM cartridges, there was this rather obscure European game console, technically somewhere in between. While in contrast to the Odyssey, the ES-2201 cartridges contained actual game logic and not just reconfiguration jumpers, it was not yet microprocessor-based. Where Fairchild’s system contained a CPU that executed game code read from the cartridges, the ES-2201 system contained some basic discrete TTL game logic components which were completed by more TTL components contained in the cartridges.
Five game cartridges were available for the system, of which the first came with the system: Tennis, Pelota, Skeet Shooting, Racing, Ghostchaser.
Links
1975: The beginning of home computing
Category: Home Computer
If you had to pinpoint the year when home computing really started, it would probably be 1975. This was the year in which MITS released the Altair 8800 computer kit (also available in assembled form.) As one of the earliest affordable personal computers, nerds were eager to get their hands on one. However, without heavy modifications and expensive extensions, the computer was not really usable. Code had to be entered byte for byte by flipping switches, output was returned on a number of LEDs. Soon, many hobbyist computer clubs were formed, and people tried to figure out stuff they could do with their Altairs.
Another remarkable thing happens this year: two guys approach MITS and ask if they would be interested in a BASIC interpreter for the Altair 8800. They are – the only problem is that the interpreter does not exist yet. Within a couple of weeks, Altair BASIC comes into existence. The names of the two programmers are Paul Allen and William Henry Gates III, called Bill Gates. Based on their Altair BASIC product, they would form a company called “Micro-Soft” later that year. Micro-Soft would build up a reputation as a provider of programming language environments over the next couple of years. Skip forward to 1981, when IBM tried to enter the personal computing market with a new product, to read what happened then…
1975: First microprocessor Arcade game
Category: Arcade
Since the release of Computer Space in 1971, a couple of hundred arcade videogames have been manufactured by various companies, all of them simply based on transistor-transistor logic (TTL). One of those games was Western Gun, a two-player wild west shooting duel produced by Taito in Japan. Midway licensed this title for release in America, and Nutting Associates handled the conversion. The resulting game, Gun Fight, would enter videogame history as the first videogame to be based on a microprocessor (the Intel 8080 at a clock speed of about 2 MHz).
The new possibilities that microprocessors offered, along with their rapidly declining prices, would mean that TTL-based videogames would soon disappear.
Emulation
That a game is microprocessor-based means that it can in theory be emulated on your computer. And in practice, there’s MAME, the Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator. This is a huge project dedicated to accurate emulation of currently over 7900 arcade games (as of April 2009, including clones), all within one multi-platform program. MAME is open-source, and pre-compiled versions are available for many systems, most importantly Windows, Linux, and MacOS X. In other words, with the age of microprocessor arcade games begins the age of games that probably can be emulated on your system.
An important note: In order to emulate games, you will need their original (ROM) images. These can be ripped from the original game if you own it. The images are also available from various sources on the Internet, but it is up to you to check whether your local laws allow you to download them, or whether the specific source has the rights to distribute the images.
Visit the official MAME website for further information.
If you are using Windows, I suggest you go for the MAME Plus! build, which includes many additional features, and a great user interface (mamepgui.exe).
1975: PONG comes home
Category: Home Console (dedicated)
In collaboration with Sears, and under the Sears Tele-Games label, Atari finally releases a dedicated console version of PONG that people could take home and play on their own TV sets. It was the sensation of the 1975 Christmas toy sales. Sears requested 150,000 units from Atari, and people were waiting in line for hours to get one before they were sold out. In addition to their good reputation as an Arcade game designer and manufacturer, Atari instantly also became a big name in the consumer entertainment market. A year later, Atari would follow up with a PONG console under their own label, as well as several extended versions.
Of course, it didn’t take long until other manufacturers would come up with their own dedicated consoles (consoles that play only built-in games.) While some of these consoles offered new concepts (such as the motorcycle jump game Stunt Cycle or the battle game Tank by Atari, as well as their clones,) most of them just played variations of the old ball-and-paddle titles. Among them were new microchip-based offerings by Magnavox, Odyssey 100 and Odyssey 200, that only played 2 and 3 game variations respectively. With hundreds of these dedicated consoles playing the same basic games, the market would soon be oversaturated. And with customers growing tired of the same old games, this would ultimately lead to the first big videogame crash in 1977, when stores threw out these consoles by the thousands, trying to minimise their losses.
Related videos
Original Atari Pong Commercial
Original Atari Super Pong Commercial
Unfortunately, the sound and picture quality of these recordings is pretty bad, and turn down your speakers, they are loud! Also note that they were originally in colour, and even the original Atari PONG console already had a colour display!And a bit less directly related, but just cool to watch, this invitation to a 2008 retrogaming event:
