In my experience becoming bored of Pong takes about 10 to 15 seconds.. If you're stuck with it and nothing else you can play it for about two to three days before the boredom becomes terminal.. It takes a true Hero to play it for longer than a week. ⏲⏲⏲🥱🥱🥱🥱🥱🥱🥱🥱🥱😴
Came here for pong. Did not expect hard-hitting facts about trying to recreate lost magic. It's all good, though. Makes one appreciate the memories even more.
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Sometimes it works but other times you're just in for spirit crushing disappointment.
I think the difference is whether you've gone on to experience better "versions" of the type of thing you have nostalgia for. In a time when computer games have progressed so much that they can offer tens or even hundreds of hours of interactive storyline, almost photo-realistic graphics, and accurate simulations of loads of sports (including tennis and table tennis), I think Pong just doesn't cut it anymore. It's boring. I've found this with quite a few retro games. It's cosy to see and play an old classic, but I rarely find myself wanting to play them over something much more modern. If not games, perhaps there's a theme park you loved going to as a kid. Going back gives that same warm sense of nostalgia, but theme park rides have come a long way since then and you quickly realise this place hasn't really kept up. There are much better theme parks elsewhere now, so this is nice but simply less fun. Whereas, I dunno, maybe your favourite recipe that your Mum used to cook, assuming you've not found a better one (gasp!) is probably just as tasty and satisfying now as it was back then, as well as being nostalgic.
@@GajitUK depends on the genre of game you played at a young age. some games are not replacable just because the new one is more technically advanced. shooters in particular hold up very well as long as they weren't already terrible when they were new. from what i've seen many genres have gotten generally worse over time.
I've been trying to think through my nostalgia, it's surprisingly hard! :) I remember not liking the game itself, struggling to get good at it, but like you, I was amazed at controlling something on the screen.
Exactly the same thing here. I remember how amazed my father was when for the first ever time he could control something on a screen. It was outside a butchers somewhere in Bournemouth when we were on holiday there. It was earlier than 77 though. maybe 1974?
I remember my Father building a pong style game from a kit in the late 70's. It had no processor and was all discrete logic chips even the video generation.
It was in 1977, and in the back of the grillbar, there was a small room , inthere was a little table and a bench on two opposite sides, under the tabletop of glass, there was a monitor , displaying pong. Thanks for a trip down memory lane .
Honestly that's Pong's ideal use case- low effort both to play and leave, low emotional and financial investment, in a social environment where it's not the primary focus of attention- just sit back and collect the quarters once a week. Even when it hit homes it was only just good enough to last until literally anything else was available. But nothing can ever beat those tabletop machines, just you and a friend with nothing but the game and the smell of pizza on your minds...
The experience of sitting down at a huge warm horizontal display arcade table when home TVs were tiny might have been the best thing lost with CRTs. Can't imagine how much energy they burned but you could certainly see the display at any angle
You know what may well scratch that Pong itch? Playing actual physical air hockey. I'm 26 so official Pong is well before my time but I did grow up with knockoff games like the 2600 ones. And air hockey is still super fun whenever i play it
I know exactly what you mean, During my early years in an electronics lab I really want my own oscilloscope but they were incredibly large and expensive. Now retired and with no need for one I saw great quality ones for sale at about £250 and the itch resurfaced! No need I told myself and then I bought one!! I used it for a time and the itch was satisfied. Nedd to find some one who needs one now! I remember when pong came out and practical electronics magazine had a build one yourself series. The amount of chips needed was incredible so much for that!
I love tools and tech, and when I first saw an oscilloscope I wanted one. Wasn't even sure what it was for at the time, but it looked cool and much better than my dad's old Avo Metre. Was repairing an old Korg Synth a few years back, and the need arose. Bought one. Was instructed how to use it during live chats with an expert in the US. . . And never found another use for it. Gradually forgot all I was taught that day and then sold it for half what I paid for it. And that's my oscilloscope story. 😂😂
I need an o-scope myself. Once upon a time, I had been involved in power electronics and an oscilloscope is pretty much mandatory to confirm your circuitry operation. Now that I have some interesting projects in mind, without such equipment there ain't anything that gonna happen. No way I'm gonna guess dead time or switching frequency...or assume there is no oscillations or spikes!
sometimes the best oscilloscope is the one you can forget about in a drawer lmao every half-techy person wants a big ol CRT oscilloscope but it ends up being a shelf ornament after a while because if you don't use it often enough it becomes a chore to get it down or out of storage.
@JessicaFEREM Exactly. Me all over. The CRT screen and bank of knobs and switches sold me. I might not have known (or at least remember now) what they were all for, but I loved how it looked. To now know I could have integrated it into one of my audio systems is annoying. Just never came to mind . . . Blimey. 8 years or so ago.
I dug mine out about 5 years ago to see if it still worked. I discovered I'd replaced one of the paddles, (remembering that someone stood on the original), took it apart, cleaned all the switches, gave it a composite mod, put batteries in and it worked straight away. After 30 mins it was back on the shelf where I found it. It's been there ever since. LOL
I remember the mechanical version of Sea Wolf. Little ships painted in fluorescent paint, stuttering across the horizon. Still my favourite arcade machine.
yes, and the electro mechanical ones (although the gameplay is limited) are still magical unlike the computer ones.
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Never heard of that but it sounds amazing! I do recall playing the mechanical 'video game' of the precursor to Pole Position as a kid on a visit to Blackpool. Man, I miss the funhouse. A health and safety nightmare but a total blast!
The free spinner is a terrific arcade control, but it's the wrong one for Pong and Super Breakout. A paddle with a pot actually tells your brain where the game paddle is going to be, as opposed to constantly having to gauge relatively.
@@VideoArchiveGuy Correct. This is why Tempest and Pong/Breakout are essentially incompatible to pack into a single box with only one controller. They should have included some Sprints or something to get more mileage out of a 360 degree spinner. But obviously this is all the least of this machine's problems.
The Sears Christmas Wish Book catalog always had this big spread about their specially branded version of the Atari 2600 (the "Sears Video Arcade", part of their "Tele-Games" brand) and all the game cartridges they sold (regular Atari cartridges but often with different names of their own--"Pong Sports" is actually the name Sears sold that cartridge under), with these tiny faked screenshots designed to give some impression of the game that looked good at sub-postage-stamp size. I spent hours staring at those and the experience was often more exciting than the actual games when I had them. One of the first cartridges they sold was "Star Ship", sold by Sears under the name "Outer Space" -- it was a first-person space shooter, where you were flying through space with stuff coming at you in a first-person perspective view. The idea that a home video game console could do that astounded me, but I never had that cartridge. I played it with an emulator in recent years and it turns out it was absolutely terrible, a drab flickery experience--Atari eventually pulled it from the market because it wasn't selling, and other games for the 2600 managed to do the idea some justice years later. But in the Sears catalog it looked like a mighty achievement.
Nearby in Frisco, Texas we have the National Videogame Museum. The museum has an original Pong and original Computer Space arcade machines. Not playable sadly, but it does have a giant Pong setup to play - with dials as big as a steering wheel and a giant screen. Love that place.
Our enthusaism was sort of a bust There are certain itches you feel the need to scratch But the itch was long gone, it was just the memory that remained I had a good reason that this was a bad idea but I just had to find out for myself And it turns out that nostalgia isn't what it used to be He got the lyrics too!
Still got my Interstate Pong console that I got for Christmas all those years ago. We hammered it back then but I dragged it out of the loft sometime last year and it still works. Put it safely back in its box to rediscover again in a few years time.
As a kid what I most recall about Pong was it being the first time an image on TV could be controlled by me, which was quite the novelty in an era that didn’t even have home media as an option yet, but living in an era where screens are used to control me, I can see the novelty of Pong being long gone.
The first time I remember seeing Pong was in Dixons, where they had one on display & connected to a TV, It seemed amazing at the time, having something on a TV screen that you could control yourself!
@@RichieReportsUK_UKCNews it is weird to think now isn’t it, and they weren’t technically pixels yet because it was just fiddling with the raster scan with a potentiometer, really.
@@baz8755 That's what I thinking when I first saw the thumbnail! I too used to love the that 'new electronics' smell, especially after they had been on for a while & warmed up! New stuff today just doesn't have the same smell, or even any smell at all, the only smell you'll likely to get now is that burnt smell when some component fails after a few years!!
Some old games don't really hold up. That said, I still love Tempest. I think it's like music. Look back at the music you liked as a kid and some you'll probably be embarrassed about, but other stuff you probably still listen to even now. Who knows why we still like some things and not others. It's not just nostalgia.
Tempest is a pretty pure game, so doesn't really get outdated. The design is just really simple and addictive, and it's as sophisticated as it needs to be. But the other games on there are very much ones which were interesting back in the day because there was nothing like them. They were novelties. But now we're used to computer games and they're no longer special.
Tempest is a classic. It's been remade multiple times, one of the most recent being _Space Giraffe_ by psychedelic shoot-em-up legend Jeff Minter. When I saw the list of games on the unit I found myself wondering whether they put Tempest on so that it would have at least one entertaining game.
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I don't think I could be embarrassed about liking any game as a kid or an adult to be honest. I fairly recently played some Atari 2600 games again and most despite the obvious graphical limits (though still pretty good) are incredibly slick and playable. Yars' Revenge is particularly good and fast paced enough to get the blood pumping in the later stages as is Stargate (Defender II). And you can't beat a two player on Combat or four player on Warlords! So many still great games that hold up well to this day.
I hated Tempest. I was so drawn to those early arcade games but really bad them. I would learn later on as I got older that there were mechanics and you had to learn them but at a very young age I just grasped the controls and expected to wing it hehe
I do also remember seeing that game but not understanding it. I must have been too young but it looked amazing with its layout and controls all the way around.
Yeah, Pong was the first video game I saw and played at a fish and chip shop late 70's, best thing ever lol. A few years I was given a faulty magazine design kit built Pong and I managed to get it working. Lots of fun playing it with friends and family and unlimited free plays. If you set paddles just right the ball would stay in play forever lol. Those sounds bring back memories !.
In christmas 1980 my family got a Luxor (swedish brand) colour tv with built in Pong. We were the first family in the village with a video game! What a joy!
I think pong is one of those games that needs to be played on a big screen to have any fun with it. Ive played pong on big tvs and arcade cabinet screens and also on my phone and there's definitely something special about playing pong against someone on a screen at least 18 inches wide (although i do admit its still only fun for about a game and a half).
I've just posted very similar. Yes it's very basic, but that's part of it's appeal, getting back into that simplistic "early days of gaming" charm. Needs to be played on authentic chunky CRT, in a smokey old pub somewhere. Units like this are always going to be a compromise, particularly regarding size and screen... and sometimes the games themselves will be rough approximations of the original. There's various stuff like this on the market, but nothing I've ever been tempted by.
I don't think there's any saving it. Even with the best big ol CRT and perfect nostalgia atmosphere, we've just moved on too far. Games like Tempest at least maintain a degree of fun, as do many other arcade games even if you strip away the rose tinted glasses, but I think even the allure of nostalgia isn't strong enough overcome just how dated it is.
It's like when you watch those re-runs of 1980s editions of 'Top of the Pops', although the actual music is still brilliant, seeing the visual performances or accompanying videos is nowhere as exciting as you remember them as a kid!
The first "Video" game I remember was on the Pier in Brighton. A floor standing unit where you looked through a Spitfire gunsight. A film of German aircraft would play and the object of the game was to shoot down the enemy planes. I spent hours on that (Circa. 1957)
I remember something in Littlehampton circa 1977 where you controlled a Tommy gun that vibrated when you pulled a trigger and shot at mechanical targets (I assume it was all to do with photosensitive cells in the targets)
@@trevorbrown6654 Actually the first video game was invented by Fred Waller, creator of Cinerama, in 1942. It was a device for training aircraft gunners by having them fire guns that emitted beams of light at a multi-element movie screen. You shot at images of enemy planes and the device told you whether your shot would have hit the plane had it been real. What charlesholder and trevorbrown were describing sounds very much like that.
Practical Wireless magazine published a Tele-Tennis project in the 1970s and my Mother asked me to build it, she sponsored the cost of the parts and I went away and did it. The PCB was hand made using a fountain pen on the copper clad board but the components lined up and it worked perfectly, indeed decades later it was still working.
I remember they got shorter with every point scored. They started off twice that length and ended up... hmm... twice the length of the ball, maybe less :)
I think the dangling jack makes more sense from the standpoint of having a break-away variety of strain relief built into the barrel jack being in-line with the cord if someone trips over it. For a multiplayer tabletop game that you're still plugging in, it makes a lot of sense to me.
I made a pong games console in the late 1970s using a kit from Maplin. At the time I was doing my technology diploma at local college. It only ran on batteries, but I was still apprehensive connecting it to the TV. I also made a little synthesiser from a kit which had a stylophone type of keyboard with pen.
That gunfight game was also the first arcade I ever saw in real life. I still have an old Radio Shack pong clone, but haven't messed with it in decades.
Ah, childhood dreams! We often chase them only to find they're not as we remembered. Your Pong video made me smile, especially when your wife declared, "This is miserable, isn't it?" Maybe some memories are best left in the past!
We had that cowboy game at the local pizza place it was about 66'-67'. A bit afterwards, I remember Space Invaders. It had a super loud sound track with a intense bass. I was so loud it vibrated your body! Good memories, thank you.
That seemed at least half of the attraction of arcades once upon a time, the experience of heading into these dark caves full of a cacophony of sounds, light displays and odd-but-not-offputting smells only to emerge squinting into the light a few hours later, poorer and happier.
I dabbled with the idea of buying an arcade cabinet with a machine that could play a handful of my favourite arcade games... but then I tried using an emulator to see how I'd enjoy them before committing, turns out after a few rounds of them... just lost that feeling I had as a young or teenage kid, the thrill and excitement were not replicated, I would say the need to see something again for the memory is just fleeting. As you said, it's just an itch... then it's gone again. Thankfully I did not get that cabinet machine in the end.
Invite friends over. If you have kids get them to play a couple rounds with you. Nobody? Try single player focused games. Plenty of arcade and home console games from the 80s and 90s hold up very well still as there are few counter parts today. Sega, Capcom, Namco, etc etc. There are other things to take into account. Actual arcade controls and cabinet is still very fun and novel because everyone who likes games wanted an arcade cab as a kid. Sadly Arcade1up is only half way there, these novelty nostalgia things are too small and limited to be fun beyond a toy. You do whatever you like of course but just remember the good times you had and make new ones. Good luck! :)
I made a similar purchase a few years ago. When I was a young boy my grandmother had a degenerative muscle issue in her arms. She had a fascinating wooden box with a battery, and coil that buzzed, to make a high voltage output. She held the brass hand grips which sent an AC voltage up her arms, in the hope that it would strengthen her muscles. I saw an identical one on eBay and I had to "scratch that nostalgic itch." I don't think I ever put a battery in it and never dared use it. It's been in the garage for 6 years gathering dust. Now I'm stuck with it for ever! 😳
I had the Binatone one, played pong. Played tennis which was actually pong on a green background. Played football, again it was pong but you have 3 bats, on an blue background, and it also played squash, you guessed it, it was pong on one side, with the "solid" wall made out of pong bats on the other, with a orange background. :)
The Binatone one also had a gun - you had to shoot floating squares on the screen. We played that more than tennis.
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I had one of the very old ones which used batteries or mains power and the rotary controls were built into the ends. Probably still kicking about in my mum's attic! I also had a Tomy handheld game called Blip which was purely electromechanical. Simpler but more enjoyable times!
I played that but without the colour or the football. I guess the scoring was different for each game, but squash was the only one with a different layout.
@@carlyleroad Yup, and you could cheat by turning the telly brightness up or pointing the gun at an incandescent light. I do wonder if the gun would work on a modern lcd as it just seemed to use the targets brightness rather than any fancy electron beam tracking.
Following you for years, this was the most useful review of all times for me. The philosophy is so accurate, makes you rethink your urge of buying one. I even considered to buy it to demonstrate to my son what my time used to be like, but then I realized he will have memories of his own, no need to blur them with 50 year old ones.
I remember sea wolf, got to play free on it in 1978 or 79. My dad was in the US Navy at the time, he knew I liked video games, he was stationed at the Sub base in San Diego, working on base at a NCO club. My dad knew this machine was going to be removed this weekend he had to do some work when the club was closed, so for a few hours got to play this and soon after the replacement machine, a racing aracde game.
My first computer was a Kaypro 30 lb. metal lugable that ran the CPM operating system. And, it's 9 inch green screen sported "graphics" with an included Pong game.
it's decent like that. though, rampart is much more fun than it... but it's that's not a spinner game, needs directionals or trackballs. wish they had put blasteroids on this thing!
I love the inclusion of the "game matrix" from the instruction manual for selecting variations in Video Olympics (Pong Sports) wish more Atari game players did this. Also, your paddle was small because you had the P1 difficulty switch set to "A".
😁 This is just too sweet. It goes back to when home video games first came out, my bet it that at least a few of your relatives (moms, dads, sisters, brothers, cousins, etc.) secretly thought in their heads; "I can't wait until they grow out of it!" Looks like that day finally came. But, thank you for taking us back. More than the games themselves, what stirred my memory was all those Atari sounds. It took me right back to my senior year in high school.
In 1975 my dad bought a pong home console. It was simply a long rectangular black box with a dial at each end. Two of you would sit on the sofa to play it on the TV. I must try to find the make of it.
A few years back I started looking to get a 2600 in wood. The prices were silly but within reach but not arguably so to my wife. She then got me a tiny emulator version with a shed load of built-in atari games. Loved it for a week. Ran through a few games here and there, but, since then, it has been a display piece. So, yeah. Nostalgia. Not what it used to be.
You should do a video on the cassette belts and gears, such as what size they can be in say Walkman like players, home stereo players, where to get them, etc. Even gear replacements, etc. I really like the long swab like cleaners you use! I have several old-school players I have bought that need new belts, etc! You have inspired me to restore them, thanks for the videos. I really enjoy your work!
13:04 - Everything used to be better back then, even nostalgia was better... Looking at Tempest, someone should really make a machine that has all the Vectrex games built in but with a modern screen but the same shell. I know the magic of Vectrex is having a vector display but you can replicate that feel with the crazy resolution we have on modern display, you can immitate the bloom if you want too.
I can remember seeing PCI video cards with analog vector output (for CRT monitors only) about 20 years ago, a niche product for playing Tempest, BattleZone or StarWars on MAME.. I doubt they are still made, but I wonder if there any on the second hand market.
Indeed , the Tempest there looks bad and does no justice to the game. With Mame, a portrait monitor and some vector tweaking you can make it look so much better. The only interesting part are the spinner controllers really.
Ah that's the CRT glow effect and definitely not a poor quality LCD panel :D
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I think that's lag. Ghosting was when you got a 'ghost' of things on the screen running close by or even several times across the screen. That said, doesn't look particularly laggy to me.
Back in the early '80s you were behind the technology of the 1978 MB Microvision. Which had a 16x16 LCD display, an analogue knob, and cartridges that each had an overlay for the screen, and a few custom buttons that pressed on a grid of pads underneath. Way more than just Pong, it had all sorts of exciting games.
Thank you for this video. The piece of wisdom at the end is absolutely brilliant. I watch you videos from time to time and often ask myself -- what for? I don't have a turntable, nor do I intend to ever buy old tech. Now I know why. The old tech is just a McGuffin to talk about life.
It's most likely just a bunch of wires connecting the buttons to the small mainboard featuring blobbed SoC and a Read-only flash chip containing the software.
I played the table version of this at a bar and it was pretty nice. no issues with the size of the table, and viewing your side of the pong game was easy. maybe the beer helped too
My parents bought us a pong system, the K-Mart S Four Thousand. (Yes, that's what they called it, not S4000). Every time we kids would pull it out to play they'd tell us not to and put it away. Some time in the mid to late 80s they threw it out. When we asked why, they said because no one played it.
It reminds me of going to pubs for the first time, ordering a pint of bitter shandy and all of us taking a casual stroll over to the games machine for a round of Space Invaders. We'd also have the sound of The Beale Street Jazz Band playing live next door in the saloon bar!
In many ways I agree, in many ways I'm not sure. As I've just posed somewhere further down the page, a lot of these retro units - of which Atari in particular seem happy to license out their stuff - they seem to be vague approximations at best. Pong is basic and maybe that's part of it's appeal, but it probably needs to be played in a smokey old late '70s/early '80s pub of cafe against your mate as you discuss last night's 'Top of the Pops' to kind of get back into that simplistic possible "fun". A shrunk down compromise like this just ain't ever gonna do much; if Pong ever needs re-experiencing at all, might as well just emulate it and be done with it.
Can't tell whether you're disparaging cheese or Pong (or neither?). I really don't like wine but fresh grape juice is okay, so what does that say about Tetris?
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Couldn't disagree more. Pong and it's many clones still remain one of the simplest yet ridiculously competitive two player games. I always found tetris to be dull and I never did understand the furore over it.
I think pong evolved into arkanoid and there are all kinds of arkanoidalikes even on modern tablets today. Its an easy game to translate to a touch screen. The problem is that once you've played through them. There isn't really any depth to draw you back. Its just a time waster more than anything.
I have one very fond memory of Pong: While visiting Yellowstone Park with my parents in 1974 or 1975 my dad and 5 year old me left mom in the hotel room and went to a restaurant together. They had a cocktail table pong machine, a game that I had never seen before. We enjoyed playing it together a lot and I remember my dad enthusiastically feeding it with coins again and again. It’s actually one of the very few times I saw him enjoy any game. I have no idea how much time we spent in there but when we left the restaurant we were totally surprised by about one foot of snow that had fallen in the meantime.. 😂
I remember I was gifted a 2nd hand pong knockoff that had the Sears logo in it. It had a switch to make the paddles bigger and would run off of AC or 4 D cells. It looked fab on my Black and White TV.
I remember, around the time of Nintendo, I found the old console "Pong" up in my grandmother's attic. It must have belonged to one of my uncles'. I plugged it in on a black and white TV, and played for about 5-10 minutes before I got bored. Matt as someone who still plays computer games (playing Football manager on another monitor as I type this) and as someone who periodically goes back to old Atari games, I knew you weren't going to be happy. You're right, you can't go back. Two moving lines and a ricocheting dot can never compete with what you can get on your phone let alone your computer or console.
I wonder how will the Atari-2600, Speccy and C64 will fare. Especially with the Speccy, the very basic color palette and lack of smooth scrolling for the most part could fail to grab attention not just the youngsters but even us, who were children at the time these were the shit.
I remember Pong coming out, then everyone crowding around the Gunfight game in the local pub as it was the first electronic game they got. I remember going to the arcades in Blackpool during lunch breaks at college in the early Eighties. A friend used to play Star Wars all the time. What memories!
Top tip: If any of you are a bit strapped and can't afford one of these, just lie your microwave on its back! (Place tin-foil strips inside for extra 3-D excitement!) 😉👍🇬🇧
Nice blast from the past, especially Tempest. I can remember the one that was at the local YMCA when I was a kid, and that was when it was brand spanking new. Damn I feel old now.
i hear there’s a huge arcade just north of Manchester; europe’s largest! (Arcade Club Bury). Next time I’m up there I’m going to visit it (I’m from Canada). I will be visiting next March
"You either die a hero, or live long enough to see yourself become bored of Pong"
It's not about Pong, it's about sending a message
In my experience becoming bored of Pong takes about 10 to 15 seconds.. If you're stuck with it and nothing else you can play it for about two to three days before the boredom becomes terminal.. It takes a true Hero to play it for longer than a week. ⏲⏲⏲🥱🥱🥱🥱🥱🥱🥱🥱🥱😴
who are you quoting?
But my brother and I swore to our mom that we’d never get tired of it! That vow lasted about 3 days.
@@tomslastname5560 Misquoting - Harvey Dent
“nostalgia isn’t what it used to be” 😆
Never heard first comment before.
Those rose-tinted nostalgia goggles can be a really annoying thing.
"Dreams are seldom what they seem."
Its a good selling sentiment, but does not bring the same "warm" feeling of the old days...
@@RonaldoSantos-pw6yh AVGN: "You only remember the good things about it"
Came here for pong. Did not expect hard-hitting facts about trying to recreate lost magic. It's all good, though. Makes one appreciate the memories even more.
Sometimes it works but other times you're just in for spirit crushing disappointment.
I think the difference is whether you've gone on to experience better "versions" of the type of thing you have nostalgia for. In a time when computer games have progressed so much that they can offer tens or even hundreds of hours of interactive storyline, almost photo-realistic graphics, and accurate simulations of loads of sports (including tennis and table tennis), I think Pong just doesn't cut it anymore. It's boring. I've found this with quite a few retro games. It's cosy to see and play an old classic, but I rarely find myself wanting to play them over something much more modern.
If not games, perhaps there's a theme park you loved going to as a kid. Going back gives that same warm sense of nostalgia, but theme park rides have come a long way since then and you quickly realise this place hasn't really kept up. There are much better theme parks elsewhere now, so this is nice but simply less fun.
Whereas, I dunno, maybe your favourite recipe that your Mum used to cook, assuming you've not found a better one (gasp!) is probably just as tasty and satisfying now as it was back then, as well as being nostalgic.
@@GajitUK
depends on the genre of game you played at a young age.
some games are not replacable just because the new one is more technically advanced.
shooters in particular hold up very well as long as they weren't already terrible when they were new.
from what i've seen many genres have gotten generally worse over time.
"Mrs" is slowly gaining lore like lieutenant's Colombo wife.
The techmoan extended universe is truly something.
Is Mrs Techmoan going to have her own spin-off series where she's played by Kate Mulgrew?
@@gwishartThat is a deep cut and I wish I had more than one thumbs-up to give!
@@gwishart😂
@@gwishart…i both hate that i know the reference and wanted to make the same joke
When I first saw a Pong arcade machine it was like something from another planet, the idea of actually controlling something on a tv was mind blowing.
I've been trying to think through my nostalgia, it's surprisingly hard! :) I remember not liking the game itself, struggling to get good at it, but like you, I was amazed at controlling something on the screen.
Exactly the same thing here. I remember how amazed my father was when for the first ever time he could control something on a screen. It was outside a butchers somewhere in Bournemouth when we were on holiday there. It was earlier than 77 though. maybe 1974?
and now we got 4K VR, that's like alien tech and people just take it for granted like it's a block of wood
Hard to believe I actually put in quarters in it to play pong against someone.
You should make a second channel where you record your wife's reaction every time you bring home something new you bought 😂
"Mrs Moan"
Given that buying and reviewing stuff is literally his job and he probably makes a decent amount of money doing it I doubt his wife minds.
"Techmoan WAF"
I think she had to move out because there wasn't enough room!
lmao
"In 40 years, Pong Consoles might be so advanced that they can fit in a box that's merely the size of your average briefcase."
We've finally achieved the impossible! What a time to be alive!
And 99.9% of that is just the screen and controls.
@@KopperNeoman and the heaviest single part is the speaker.
The home pong consoles and clones weren't that big to begin with. But uf you meant with a screen, then I guess here we are.
@@KopperNeomanMore like 50% screen + controls and 50% empty space.
I remember my Father building a pong style game from a kit in the late 70's. It had no processor and was all discrete logic chips even the video generation.
Yes, first generation used just standard logic ICs. After some time specialized ICs apeared, for example AY-3-8500.
I saw that in Practical Electronics magazine! With my soldering skills I had no hope with all those chips!
Same with the first breakout.
Your dad and my dad 😅
I remember that. It's had a bright orange case too!
It was in 1977, and in the back of the grillbar, there was a small room , inthere was a little table and a bench on two opposite sides, under the tabletop of glass, there was a monitor , displaying pong.
Thanks for a trip down memory lane .
Honestly that's Pong's ideal use case- low effort both to play and leave, low emotional and financial investment, in a social environment where it's not the primary focus of attention- just sit back and collect the quarters once a week. Even when it hit homes it was only just good enough to last until literally anything else was available. But nothing can ever beat those tabletop machines, just you and a friend with nothing but the game and the smell of pizza on your minds...
We don't miss retro things. We miss who we were and the world we lived in then. We miss being young...
"Cassette Comeback"
That's true sometimes, but there a lot of old console games that are genuinely still very fun to play.
And the people we were young with.
Speak for yourself buddy
@@Pawnband -- Are they though? Boot up Retroarch and spin up some ROMs... you won't be playing for long.
The experience of sitting down at a huge warm horizontal display arcade table when home TVs were tiny might have been the best thing lost with CRTs.
Can't imagine how much energy they burned but you could certainly see the display at any angle
The Iiyama 21" flat screen CRT I had in the 2000s used about 250W. It was a monster in every sense.
You know what may well scratch that Pong itch? Playing actual physical air hockey. I'm 26 so official Pong is well before my time but I did grow up with knockoff games like the 2600 ones. And air hockey is still super fun whenever i play it
Got to respect your honesty. You could have just glazed over the end, and said no more. Integrity is priceless, and never fades with time.
Nostalgia is both a blessing and a curse.
I know exactly what you mean, During my early years in an electronics lab I really want my own oscilloscope but they were incredibly large and expensive. Now retired and with no need for one I saw great quality ones for sale at about £250 and the itch resurfaced! No need I told myself and then I bought one!! I used it for a time and the itch was satisfied. Nedd to find some one who needs one now! I remember when pong came out and practical electronics magazine had a build one yourself series. The amount of chips needed was incredible so much for that!
I love tools and tech, and when I first saw an oscilloscope I wanted one. Wasn't even sure what it was for at the time, but it looked cool and much better than my dad's old Avo Metre.
Was repairing an old Korg Synth a few years back, and the need arose. Bought one. Was instructed how to use it during live chats with an expert in the US. . . And never found another use for it. Gradually forgot all I was taught that day and then sold it for half what I paid for it.
And that's my oscilloscope story. 😂😂
Old CRT scopes make for very cool music visualisers in your hifi system. Especially a dual channel one with XY setting.
I need an o-scope myself. Once upon a time, I had been involved in power electronics and an oscilloscope is pretty much mandatory to confirm your circuitry operation. Now that I have some interesting projects in mind, without such equipment there ain't anything that gonna happen. No way I'm gonna guess dead time or switching frequency...or assume there is no oscillations or spikes!
sometimes the best oscilloscope is the one you can forget about in a drawer lmao
every half-techy person wants a big ol CRT oscilloscope but it ends up being a shelf ornament after a while because if you don't use it often enough it becomes a chore to get it down or out of storage.
@JessicaFEREM Exactly. Me all over. The CRT screen and bank of knobs and switches sold me. I might not have known (or at least remember now) what they were all for, but I loved how it looked. To now know I could have integrated it into one of my audio systems is annoying. Just never came to mind . . . Blimey. 8 years or so ago.
I dug mine out about 5 years ago to see if it still worked. I discovered I'd replaced one of the paddles, (remembering that someone stood on the original), took it apart, cleaned all the switches, gave it a composite mod, put batteries in and it worked straight away.
After 30 mins it was back on the shelf where I found it. It's been there ever since. LOL
I remember the mechanical version of Sea Wolf. Little ships painted in fluorescent paint, stuttering across the horizon. Still my favourite arcade machine.
yes, and the electro mechanical ones (although the gameplay is limited) are still magical unlike the computer ones.
Never heard of that but it sounds amazing! I do recall playing the mechanical 'video game' of the precursor to Pole Position as a kid on a visit to Blackpool.
Man, I miss the funhouse. A health and safety nightmare but a total blast!
The free spinner is a terrific arcade control, but it's the wrong one for Pong and Super Breakout. A paddle with a pot actually tells your brain where the game paddle is going to be, as opposed to constantly having to gauge relatively.
It's the only way to make Tempest work.
@@VideoArchiveGuy Correct. This is why Tempest and Pong/Breakout are essentially incompatible to pack into a single box with only one controller. They should have included some Sprints or something to get more mileage out of a 360 degree spinner. But obviously this is all the least of this machine's problems.
Man, the words about nostalgia hit hard. Sometimes you really can never go back to where you once where.
"After a time, you may find that 'having' is not so pleasing a thing after all as 'wanting'.
It is not logical, but is often true."
-- Mr. Spock
maybe it's just the smaller scale of the Arcade1Up Pong
Not gonna lie, though, Spock's betrothed wife was easy on the eyes.
The Sears Christmas Wish Book catalog always had this big spread about their specially branded version of the Atari 2600 (the "Sears Video Arcade", part of their "Tele-Games" brand) and all the game cartridges they sold (regular Atari cartridges but often with different names of their own--"Pong Sports" is actually the name Sears sold that cartridge under), with these tiny faked screenshots designed to give some impression of the game that looked good at sub-postage-stamp size. I spent hours staring at those and the experience was often more exciting than the actual games when I had them.
One of the first cartridges they sold was "Star Ship", sold by Sears under the name "Outer Space" -- it was a first-person space shooter, where you were flying through space with stuff coming at you in a first-person perspective view. The idea that a home video game console could do that astounded me, but I never had that cartridge. I played it with an emulator in recent years and it turns out it was absolutely terrible, a drab flickery experience--Atari eventually pulled it from the market because it wasn't selling, and other games for the 2600 managed to do the idea some justice years later. But in the Sears catalog it looked like a mighty achievement.
To Ston if I remember correctly. One of the few Vulcan males whose name didn't end in a 'k'.
@@RCAvhstape She was two timing spock though! She went off with another bloke which spock found out about after he killed captain kirk!
Nearby in Frisco, Texas we have the National Videogame Museum. The museum has an original Pong and original Computer Space arcade machines. Not playable sadly, but it does have a giant Pong setup to play - with dials as big as a steering wheel and a giant screen. Love that place.
_“Scratching the Memory of a Nostalgic Itch”_ would make a great book title or song name! 😂
Our enthusaism was sort of a bust
There are certain itches you feel the need to scratch
But the itch was long gone, it was just the memory that remained
I had a good reason that this was a bad idea but I just had to find out for myself
And it turns out that nostalgia isn't what it used to be
He got the lyrics too!
if that’s not the title of his biography it’s a wasted opportunity!
Still got my Interstate Pong console that I got for Christmas all those years ago. We hammered it back then but I dragged it out of the loft sometime last year and it still works. Put it safely back in its box to rediscover again in a few years time.
As a kid what I most recall about Pong was it being the first time an image on TV could be controlled by me, which was quite the novelty in an era that didn’t even have home media as an option yet, but living in an era where screens are used to control me, I can see the novelty of Pong being long gone.
The first time I remember seeing Pong was in Dixons, where they had one on display & connected to a TV, It seemed amazing at the time, having something on a TV screen that you could control yourself!
@@RichieReportsUK_UKCNews it is weird to think now isn’t it, and they weren’t technically pixels yet because it was just fiddling with the raster scan with a potentiometer, really.
"Some things should be left in the past" - slightly depressing, but true. Great video, as always
The giant Swiss army knife makes me chuckle every time
This strikes me as something that you’d get on Christmas Day, you’d play it for a bit and then forget about it.
And that's why eBay exists: offload the disappointment.
And there was me thinking this was a video about the smell of old electronic equipment!
I used to love the smell of new electronics. My favourite was the smell of a PSION series 3a, now that's a nostalgia I'd like to relive 😂
@@baz8755 That's what I thinking when I first saw the thumbnail!
I too used to love the that 'new electronics' smell, especially after they had been on for a while & warmed up! New stuff today just doesn't have the same smell, or even any smell at all, the only smell you'll likely to get now is that burnt smell when some component fails after a few years!!
Some old games don't really hold up. That said, I still love Tempest. I think it's like music. Look back at the music you liked as a kid and some you'll probably be embarrassed about, but other stuff you probably still listen to even now. Who knows why we still like some things and not others. It's not just nostalgia.
Tempest is a pretty pure game, so doesn't really get outdated. The design is just really simple and addictive, and it's as sophisticated as it needs to be. But the other games on there are very much ones which were interesting back in the day because there was nothing like them. They were novelties. But now we're used to computer games and they're no longer special.
Tempest is a classic. It's been remade multiple times, one of the most recent being _Space Giraffe_ by psychedelic shoot-em-up legend Jeff Minter. When I saw the list of games on the unit I found myself wondering whether they put Tempest on so that it would have at least one entertaining game.
I don't think I could be embarrassed about liking any game as a kid or an adult to be honest.
I fairly recently played some Atari 2600 games again and most despite the obvious graphical limits (though still pretty good) are incredibly slick and playable. Yars' Revenge is particularly good and fast paced enough to get the blood pumping in the later stages as is Stargate (Defender II).
And you can't beat a two player on Combat or four player on Warlords! So many still great games that hold up well to this day.
I hated Tempest. I was so drawn to those early arcade games but really bad them. I would learn later on as I got older that there were mechanics and you had to learn them but at a very young age I just grasped the controls and expected to wing it hehe
First rock album I ever had is still my favorite (U2: The Joshua Tree, in case anyone was curious).
Actually very profound comments about memories vs nostalgia. Great video Mat.
Warlords was incredible fun with 4 people on the sit down cocktail cabinet format.
Had that on my Atari 2600 with the paddles. A four player was near blood sport!
I do also remember seeing that game but not understanding it. I must have been too young but it looked amazing with its layout and controls all the way around.
It was frantic brutal fun!
@@ClayMann Sorry reply was to wrong thread!
@@ian_b no worries, I thought fair enough. This guy got really into that game lol
Yeah, Pong was the first video game I saw and played at a fish and chip shop late 70's, best thing ever lol.
A few years I was given a faulty magazine design kit built Pong and I managed to get it working.
Lots of fun playing it with friends and family and unlimited free plays.
If you set paddles just right the ball would stay in play forever lol.
Those sounds bring back memories !.
In christmas 1980 my family got a Luxor (swedish brand) colour tv with built in Pong. We were the first family in the village with a video game! What a joy!
Headphone output! 😂😂😂 I MUST HEAR ME BEEPS AND BOOPS!
In stereo!
“You can never go into the same river twice”
And no one has ever been in an empty room.
As a fairly old man at this point , I can definitely agree nostalgia is often best left as a memory
I think pong is one of those games that needs to be played on a big screen to have any fun with it. Ive played pong on big tvs and arcade cabinet screens and also on my phone and there's definitely something special about playing pong against someone on a screen at least 18 inches wide (although i do admit its still only fun for about a game and a half).
I've just posted very similar. Yes it's very basic, but that's part of it's appeal, getting back into that simplistic "early days of gaming" charm. Needs to be played on authentic chunky CRT, in a smokey old pub somewhere. Units like this are always going to be a compromise, particularly regarding size and screen... and sometimes the games themselves will be rough approximations of the original. There's various stuff like this on the market, but nothing I've ever been tempted by.
I don't think there's any saving it. Even with the best big ol CRT and perfect nostalgia atmosphere, we've just moved on too far. Games like Tempest at least maintain a degree of fun, as do many other arcade games even if you strip away the rose tinted glasses, but I think even the allure of nostalgia isn't strong enough overcome just how dated it is.
It's like watching a movie or TV show as an adult that you loved as a kid and sadly realizing it's terrible.
It's like when you watch those re-runs of 1980s editions of 'Top of the Pops', although the actual music is still brilliant, seeing the visual performances or accompanying videos is nowhere as exciting as you remember them as a kid!
Gilligans Island is hard to watch these days
It’s time for the Bang&Olufsen cassette deck.
The first "Video" game I remember was on the Pier in Brighton. A floor standing unit where you looked through a Spitfire gunsight. A film of German aircraft would play and the object of the game was to shoot down the enemy planes. I spent hours on that (Circa. 1957)
I remember something in Littlehampton circa 1977 where you controlled a Tommy gun that vibrated when you pulled a trigger and shot at mechanical targets (I assume it was all to do with photosensitive cells in the targets)
@@trevorbrown6654 Actually the first video game was invented by Fred Waller, creator of Cinerama, in 1942. It was a device for training aircraft gunners by having them fire guns that emitted beams of light at a multi-element movie screen. You shot at images of enemy planes and the device told you whether your shot would have hit the plane had it been real. What charlesholder and trevorbrown were describing sounds very much like that.
0:45 we used to go to the arcade on Bexhill seafront loads in the 70's and that is where we first saw these new games, we loved them.
Practical Wireless magazine published a Tele-Tennis project in the 1970s and my Mother asked me to build it, she sponsored the cost of the parts and I went away and did it. The PCB was hand made using a fountain pen on the copper clad board but the components lined up and it worked perfectly, indeed decades later it was still working.
Warlords is massive fun in multiplayer. There also great ports for the 2600.
The wife is brutally honest. That's awesome
Its 4:29am this is a good surprise love it
I think if you change the difficulty, the paddles will get larger or smaller depending on which direction you go.
Yes, that was my thought too.... I seem to remember that being the case on my very first 'home pong' back in the day.
I remember they got shorter with every point scored. They started off twice that length and ended up... hmm... twice the length of the ball, maybe less :)
I think the dangling jack makes more sense from the standpoint of having a break-away variety of strain relief built into the barrel jack being in-line with the cord if someone trips over it. For a multiplayer tabletop game that you're still plugging in, it makes a lot of sense to me.
I made a pong games console in the late 1970s using a kit from Maplin.
At the time I was doing my technology diploma at local college.
It only ran on batteries, but I was still apprehensive connecting it to the TV.
I also made a little synthesiser from a kit which had a stylophone type of keyboard with pen.
Oh neat, was it one of those Game-On-A-Chip ones or a more complex CMOS based device like the VideoMaster systems?
That gunfight game was also the first arcade I ever saw in real life. I still have an old Radio Shack pong clone, but haven't messed with it in decades.
Ah, childhood dreams! We often chase them only to find they're not as we remembered. Your Pong video made me smile, especially when your wife declared, "This is miserable, isn't it?" Maybe some memories are best left in the past!
8:57 answers the age old question, what makes those dreadful beeping sounds in McDonalds. obviously there's someone playing breakout
Lol 😂
Great video and excellent summation of how nostalgia makes us want to scratch those old itches.
I would buy one of those pub tables that had Pong built in! Those were the days.....
Brilliant video as always and I love your humour. Especially the bit about having less money in the bank.
We had that cowboy game at the local pizza place it was about 66'-67'. A bit afterwards, I remember Space Invaders. It had a super loud sound track with a intense bass. I was so loud it vibrated your body! Good memories, thank you.
That seemed at least half of the attraction of arcades once upon a time, the experience of heading into these dark caves full of a cacophony of sounds, light displays and odd-but-not-offputting smells only to emerge squinting into the light a few hours later, poorer and happier.
Gunfight came out in 1975, your dates are a bit off. Space Invaders was 1978.
I remember PONG in the arcades, and the excitement when it could be bought for the home and played right on your TV set.
I dabbled with the idea of buying an arcade cabinet with a machine that could play a handful of my favourite arcade games... but then I tried using an emulator to see how I'd enjoy them before committing, turns out after a few rounds of them... just lost that feeling I had as a young or teenage kid, the thrill and excitement were not replicated, I would say the need to see something again for the memory is just fleeting. As you said, it's just an itch... then it's gone again. Thankfully I did not get that cabinet machine in the end.
Invite friends over. If you have kids get them to play a couple rounds with you. Nobody? Try single player focused games. Plenty of arcade and home console games from the 80s and 90s hold up very well still as there are few counter parts today. Sega, Capcom, Namco, etc etc. There are other things to take into account. Actual arcade controls and cabinet is still very fun and novel because everyone who likes games wanted an arcade cab as a kid. Sadly Arcade1up is only half way there, these novelty nostalgia things are too small and limited to be fun beyond a toy. You do whatever you like of course but just remember the good times you had and make new ones. Good luck! :)
I made a similar purchase a few years ago. When I was a young boy my grandmother had a degenerative muscle issue in her arms. She had a fascinating wooden box with a battery, and coil that buzzed, to make a high voltage output. She held the brass hand grips which sent an AC voltage up her arms, in the hope that it would strengthen her muscles. I saw an identical one on eBay and I had to "scratch that nostalgic itch." I don't think I ever put a battery in it and never dared use it. It's been in the garage for 6 years gathering dust. Now I'm stuck with it for ever! 😳
"Nostalgia is not what it used to be" - Great line
I like the way you summarized the nostalgia thing at the end. Perfectly stated.
I had the Binatone one, played pong. Played tennis which was actually pong on a green background. Played football, again it was pong but you have 3 bats, on an blue background, and it also played squash, you guessed it, it was pong on one side, with the "solid" wall made out of pong bats on the other, with a orange background. :)
The Binatone one also had a gun - you had to shoot floating squares on the screen. We played that more than tennis.
I had one of the very old ones which used batteries or mains power and the rotary controls were built into the ends. Probably still kicking about in my mum's attic!
I also had a Tomy handheld game called Blip which was purely electromechanical.
Simpler but more enjoyable times!
The only gaming system I ever bounced off was a 10 in 1 pong thing with paddles and no buttons. Just a knob each and awful, awful pong.
I played that but without the colour or the football. I guess the scoring was different for each game, but squash was the only one with a different layout.
@@carlyleroad Yup, and you could cheat by turning the telly brightness up or pointing the gun at an incandescent light. I do wonder if the gun would work on a modern lcd as it just seemed to use the targets brightness rather than any fancy electron beam tracking.
Following you for years, this was the most useful review of all times for me. The philosophy is so accurate, makes you rethink your urge of buying one. I even considered to buy it to demonstrate to my son what my time used to be like, but then I realized he will have memories of his own, no need to blur them with 50 year old ones.
I remember sea wolf, got to play free on it in 1978 or 79. My dad was in the US Navy at the time, he knew I liked video games, he was stationed at the Sub base in San Diego, working on base at a NCO club. My dad knew this machine was going to be removed this weekend he had to do some work when the club was closed, so for a few hours got to play this and soon after the replacement machine, a racing aracde game.
My first computer was a Kaypro 30 lb. metal lugable that ran the CPM operating system. And, it's 9 inch green screen sported "graphics" with an included Pong game.
Warlords seems like it would be a lot of fun with some friends and some beer!
it's decent like that.
though, rampart is much more fun than it... but it's that's not a spinner game, needs directionals or trackballs. wish they had put blasteroids on this thing!
Back in the day my local pub had a table version of Warlords and, indeed, my mates and I did waste a lot of time and money on it!
Four players equals blood sport!
Your Mrs sounds great, you should get her on camera. I can just imagine the hilarious banter!
I love the inclusion of the "game matrix" from the instruction manual for selecting variations in Video Olympics (Pong Sports) wish more Atari game players did this.
Also, your paddle was small because you had the P1 difficulty switch set to "A".
😁 This is just too sweet. It goes back to when home video games first came out, my bet it that at least a few of your relatives (moms, dads, sisters, brothers, cousins, etc.) secretly thought in their heads; "I can't wait until they grow out of it!" Looks like that day finally came. But, thank you for taking us back. More than the games themselves, what stirred my memory was all those Atari sounds. It took me right back to my senior year in high school.
Quote of the week: "Nostalgia isn't what it used to be"
It's a Scooter lyric
Have you never heard this phrase before?
In 1975 my dad bought a pong home console. It was simply a long rectangular black box with a dial at each end. Two of you would sit on the sofa to play it on the TV. I must try to find the make of it.
You sold us short on what could have been the longest sexy peel ever. I feel cheated!
😂
oh yeah. take it off.
One might say you were screwed.
not long enough to properly annoy the guy who hates it... such a shame!!
He's just not the romantic type.
A few years back I started looking to get a 2600 in wood. The prices were silly but within reach but not arguably so to my wife. She then got me a tiny emulator version with a shed load of built-in atari games. Loved it for a week. Ran through a few games here and there, but, since then, it has been a display piece.
So, yeah. Nostalgia. Not what it used to be.
You should do a video on the cassette belts and gears, such as what size they can be in say Walkman like players, home stereo players, where to get them, etc. Even gear replacements, etc. I really like the long swab like cleaners you use! I have several old-school players I have bought that need new belts, etc! You have inspired me to restore them, thanks for the videos. I really enjoy your work!
"Nostalgia isn't what it used to be." Well said.
When I woke up this morning, I was not filled with ennui and existential dread. Thanks, Techmoan!!
13:04 - Everything used to be better back then, even nostalgia was better...
Looking at Tempest, someone should really make a machine that has all the Vectrex games built in but with a modern screen but the same shell. I know the magic of Vectrex is having a vector display but you can replicate that feel with the crazy resolution we have on modern display, you can immitate the bloom if you want too.
I can remember seeing PCI video cards with analog vector output (for CRT monitors only) about 20 years ago, a niche product for playing Tempest, BattleZone or StarWars on MAME.. I doubt they are still made, but I wonder if there any on the second hand market.
Indeed , the Tempest there looks bad and does no justice to the game.
With Mame, a portrait monitor and some vector tweaking you can make it look so much better.
The only interesting part are the spinner controllers really.
There were a couple of kids in my school in the early 80's who had a 'Pong' that 'always travelled with them' 😂😂
Ghosting on the screen looks pretty bad.
Ah that's the CRT glow effect and definitely not a poor quality LCD panel :D
I think that's lag.
Ghosting was when you got a 'ghost' of things on the screen running close by or even several times across the screen.
That said, doesn't look particularly laggy to me.
Back in the early '80s you were behind the technology of the 1978 MB Microvision. Which had a 16x16 LCD display, an analogue knob, and cartridges that each had an overlay for the screen, and a few custom buttons that pressed on a grid of pads underneath. Way more than just Pong, it had all sorts of exciting games.
"this is miserable, isn't it?" 😂😂😂 so funny
That was so good xD
Thank you for this video.
The piece of wisdom at the end is absolutely brilliant.
I watch you videos from time to time and often ask myself -- what for? I don't have a turntable, nor do I intend to ever buy old tech.
Now I know why. The old tech is just a McGuffin to talk about life.
Feels like something missing without you opening it up and seeing what makes it tick.
It's most likely just a bunch of wires connecting the buttons to the small mainboard featuring blobbed SoC and a Read-only flash chip containing the software.
@negirno I'm guessing raspberry pi
I played the table version of this at a bar and it was pretty nice. no issues with the size of the table, and viewing your side of the pong game was easy. maybe the beer helped too
My parents bought us a pong system, the K-Mart S Four Thousand. (Yes, that's what they called it, not S4000). Every time we kids would pull it out to play they'd tell us not to and put it away. Some time in the mid to late 80s they threw it out. When we asked why, they said because no one played it.
Well, they weren't wrong... :(
It reminds me of going to pubs for the first time, ordering a pint of bitter shandy and all of us taking a casual stroll over to the games machine for a round of Space Invaders. We'd also have the sound of The Beale Street Jazz Band playing live next door in the saloon bar!
I feel a little bit sad now.
Mat, the things you do for our entertainment. Thank you. It’s appreciated, even when your purchase turns out to be a dud.
Tetris has aged like a fine wine. Pong has aged like milk.
In many ways I agree, in many ways I'm not sure. As I've just posed somewhere further down the page, a lot of these retro units - of which Atari in particular seem happy to license out their stuff - they seem to be vague approximations at best. Pong is basic and maybe that's part of it's appeal, but it probably needs to be played in a smokey old late '70s/early '80s pub of cafe against your mate as you discuss last night's 'Top of the Pops' to kind of get back into that simplistic possible "fun". A shrunk down compromise like this just ain't ever gonna do much; if Pong ever needs re-experiencing at all, might as well just emulate it and be done with it.
Can't tell whether you're disparaging cheese or Pong (or neither?). I really don't like wine but fresh grape juice is okay, so what does that say about Tetris?
Couldn't disagree more. Pong and it's many clones still remain one of the simplest yet ridiculously competitive two player games.
I always found tetris to be dull and I never did understand the furore over it.
I think pong evolved into arkanoid and there are all kinds of arkanoidalikes even on modern tablets today. Its an easy game to translate to a touch screen. The problem is that once you've played through them. There isn't really any depth to draw you back. Its just a time waster more than anything.
The NES version still lives. Have you ever watched the competitions here on UA-cam? It’s wild
I have one very fond memory of Pong: While visiting Yellowstone Park with my parents in 1974 or 1975 my dad and 5 year old me left mom in the hotel room and went to a restaurant together. They had a cocktail table pong machine, a game that I had never seen before. We enjoyed playing it together a lot and I remember my dad enthusiastically feeding it with coins again and again. It’s actually one of the very few times I saw him enjoy any game. I have no idea how much time we spent in there but when we left the restaurant we were totally surprised by about one foot of snow that had fallen in the meantime.. 😂
Hah my channel at 0:31 :)
I remember I was gifted a 2nd hand pong knockoff that had the Sears logo in it. It had a switch to make the paddles bigger and would run off of AC or 4 D cells. It looked fab on my Black and White TV.
I remember, around the time of Nintendo, I found the old console "Pong" up in my grandmother's attic. It must have belonged to one of my uncles'. I plugged it in on a black and white TV, and played for about 5-10 minutes before I got bored. Matt as someone who still plays computer games (playing Football manager on another monitor as I type this) and as someone who periodically goes back to old Atari games, I knew you weren't going to be happy.
You're right, you can't go back. Two moving lines and a ricocheting dot can never compete with what you can get on your phone let alone your computer or console.
I wonder how will the Atari-2600, Speccy and C64 will fare. Especially with the Speccy, the very basic color palette and lack of smooth scrolling for the most part could fail to grab attention not just the youngsters but even us, who were children at the time these were the shit.
I remember Pong coming out, then everyone crowding around the Gunfight game in the local pub as it was the first electronic game they got. I remember going to the arcades in Blackpool during lunch breaks at college in the early Eighties. A friend used to play Star Wars all the time. What memories!
First line of user manual:
"Warning do not tighten loose screen on fascia."
😜
I like your long videos, and the short ones. Any length is great. A cup of coffee and Techmoan is a great Saturday. Thanks for all you do, Mat.
Top tip:
If any of you are a bit strapped and can't afford one of these, just lie your microwave on its back!
(Place tin-foil strips inside for extra 3-D excitement!)
😉👍🇬🇧
Nice blast from the past, especially Tempest. I can remember the one that was at the local YMCA when I was a kid, and that was when it was brand spanking new. Damn I feel old now.
YOU STILL OWE US A PROPER PEEL SESSION!
Get a life
I've been watching this channel for a long time now. It's amazing to see how popular this fellow northerner has become. Makes me proud!
i hear there’s a huge arcade just north of Manchester; europe’s largest! (Arcade Club Bury). Next time I’m up there I’m going to visit it (I’m from Canada). I will be visiting next March