I just came in contact with one today, and it is roughed up. Though on the back it says it is NO 2, which I think means it is the second one made. Very exited.
My best guess about the different cartridge sizes is that the longer ones used more memory, and so the circuit boards needed to be made larger to accommodate the additional memory chips.
I was basically addicted to a version of your "tanks a lot" for the original gameboy years ago, but it was just called "Tanks" I can tell it's the same game though.
I think the most important piece of information for this is how much it was licensed and/or cloned for international markets. We got it here in New Zealand as the "Tunix Home Arcade" There were a bunch of these lesser-branded systems available. 1292 and 1392 Advanced Programmable Video System comes to mind, these were released in a variety of different countries under a variety of different brands/names. Other brands now come to mind for a variety of other consoles. Fountain "Force 2", Grandstand SG-1000 (Yeap, that's the Sega SG-1000, we were the only country outside of Japan to have an officially licensed release of that). New Zealand really had to do things different, everything was made under license because import licenses were horrifyingly difficult to obtain, and we were such a small country that we just often weren't suitable for doing business with. There's some vintage computer guys here who could spiel on for days and days about some of this stuff, most of them have cabinets or shelves stacked mile-high with various old consoles, the value of them is questionable, and they're usually in varying states of working order.
I immediately thought of Tezza, ofc. I think it's great that folks are collecting these systems and are spreading the knowledge and understanding. Then, ofc, I'm one of them (but in US).
Wow! Gamester81, you always get the rarest stuff, man! I only know of this system through my collector's guide. Funny thing is, I lived through the Atari 2600/Colecovision/Intellivision/Odyssey2 era as a kid and NONE of my friends nor I had this system. I don't even remember commercials for it. Strange indeed. But it is incredible that you found one is such good condition with COMPLETE games! A true collectible! Thank you so much for uploading this video! 5 stars!
It's very hard to get a compatible TV since 20 years due to interband tuner implementation. Your best solution is to find an old VHS and to connect it on...
I know it was over two years ago, but thanks for posting this. The Arcadia is one of the more obscure systems from the 1980s and it is hard to find much information about it.
I had this one, but no additional cartridges for it... a year later I got the ZX Spectrum and this went to a box to collect dust. I really regret throwing it away at some point. Great review!
Were the cartridges hard to find, too expensive, or were you just not interested in getting more based on the pack-in (what was the pack-in in your country? which country?)? was yours a different brand?
@@RetroDawn Actually, I got it as a present from my uncle who lived in Germany in the early eighties and I lived in the Balkans. Ex Yugoslavia, to be exact and I was unable to procure any new cartridges there. I never met anyone who had the same console to at least do some cart swapping... As for the baked-in games, I think it had one or two games and I can't remember exactly what they were. Maybe some kind of Pong clone and some other similarly simple game. I just remember that the stickers/inlays on the console and controllers were different and they didn't say "Arkadia". It was a more simple design.
Weird. The tire company? Was there a period where they were trying to be like Canadian Tire, and sell lots of general merchandise, or was this just an artifact of the video game craze of the early 80s combined with the lock on the market held by the other 6 US consoles?
had this console in the 80s came as a package deal with 10 games included. cat trax, tanks alot, escape, jungler, football, baseball, space raider, missle something. all the good ones. I think my parents paid $100 for the whole thing. we played the heck out of it.
12V input means you can just rig a 12V battery onto a wire snipped off a wall wart with alligator clips on one side and compatible end on the other side (as long as the polarity is correct) Even a lawn tractor battery is enough to power a big ass boombox for 6 hours.
We had the Tedelex clone in South Africa and Escape was called Robot Killer with that. Tanks a lot was Tanks a Lot. At one point the right hand controller broke, so I rewired a Nintendo controller to work there. I was like 13 at the time.
Interesting. Just like hyperspace on several earlier arcade games (e.g. Asteroids and Defender). Except that in this game you're on foot... Bizarre, conceptually.
I've often wondered what the games for the Arcadia looked like. I don't think they sold them over here... at least... I've never seen one. Looks quite similar in ability to the Radofin 1392, except they came out in '76.
Since Wikipedia refuses to admit the New York Times had it right, this is part of the actual 3rd generation (the one that spans 1982-1986, with the crash killing many of these just a couple years after release). The 4th generation was the one defined by the NES, Master System, and 7800. They try to put all the 3rd generation into the 2nd generation, but that is unreal, no way these next gen consoles are in the same market as 5 year older systems with half the power. The 3rd generation systems would be the ColecoVision, 5200, and Arcadia 2001- again, they got hurt badly by the crash (well, more decline, it didn't really "crash" when you look at the revenue, because it declined in 1984, again in 1985 before Nintendo got it increasing again in 1986).
Nice video. I was not aware that the graphics were that good. I think the resolution is similar to intelevision, but I think the palette was much smaller. I also think the sound was not quite upto intellevision. One thing I don't think you mentioned was that you could unscrew the little joystick and have an intelevision like pad. I have 10 games for this but no system.
Would be nice if you did a bit of commentary on the gameplay sections so that we can have a bit more information about the game's features and gameplay. Good vid though, thanks
I got one of these a couple months ago. Not the greatest, but there are a few fun games. Definitely a system that I want to do more collecting for. Only 5 games so far.
i currently have one in my hands but i can't get it to work >.< i turn it on and nothing happens, i think its that i have a flat screen tv but im not sure it might be broken, if anyone can help i'll be much obliged
that rainbow text would of loooked shit hot to a kid in the 80s,, but the console doesnt really live up to 1982 standard,, its like its kinda between an atari2600 and a Intellivision as far as graphics,, thanks for showing this one though ,, dont spose u have the commodore cdtv do ya?
Yeah, my Grandparents got this system for me for free for looking at a time-share.. Damn I miss it..My memories of this are like every other person's memory of the 2600. I should have never sold mine at a garage sale... But I wanted the lustrous new genesis.
gamester81. My mother purchased one when they came out because they was the cheapest Video Game System on the market. I did not know they had a lawsuit at the time with Atari. They had made all kind of games that was suppose to be the Atari Killer, but Atari sued them in the video game wars because they where coming out with games that was original to Atari Games. Atari felt these games belonged on the Atari, So Emerson had all these games in the warehouse they could not sell, so they came out with bad clones. Cat Trax did came out for the Atari 2600 version. But that same year the Atari 5200, and Coleco Vision was coming out. I did not notice about the other systems, but it was fun to play at the time, and I was pretty good at these games. I guess my older brother sister and brother did not know what those cards was for, we never used them, but as young child I soon learned the buttons. We later got an Atari 2600 and my mother threw it away, I wished we kept those cartridges, we could have sold them on E-Bay, or bought one off E-bay. The system itself we torn it up. Wished we still had it. I would have liked to seen all those games they made they could not sell. I think they shortly stopped production on it, and it went to bargain shelves quickly, then yard sales, and flea markets.
If you like to play it WinArcadia is a good emulator to the system, you can use just about joystick that will plug into the computer to play the game. Try out Cat Trax.
Great review John. Never knew this system even existed. Don't really understand what's going on in the gameplay there. You're a guy running around shooting tanks? Silly guy, youre guns cant hurt tanks! It looks really similar to the intellivision. But I actually did a review for the intellivision recently. Mind if I submit it as a response to your video?
That little guy sure is animated crazy. Hey, is that game Capture anything like Go? Would be surprising if such a wimpy system could play a possible Go game.
OMG i have found that thing in an old closet a lot years ago!! my dad said to me he couldn't remember where he has found it! Bt it didn't have those sticks!! probably must have been broken!! I'll search again to see if i can found it and i'll post a video!! :)
OH MY GOD ANOTHER SYSTEM!!! DAMN NICE!!! haha. cool system. how do you get all of these systems? Since it is the holiday season... I think you should do a drawing like other guys are doing (tvandlust, dinkydana) for retro systems, or a couple games! You're the biggest gamer on the internet you might as well spread the wealth! Just my idea and if people agree with me they should like this comment! Happy Holidays!
@nexus000111 FOZproductions is a moron and a troll. It's best to ignore idiots like this. They seek attention and were probably picked on growing up. lol
Tanks a lot reminds me of Tank battalion (or battle city for GB and NES) lol! well I guess thats a good thing cause I thought they were pretty good games.
:28 Flood of systems/bad games did NOT cause the crash. Contributed to it, yes, but it was only one of several factors. Not sure who was the first to come up with this myth, but it's annoying.
I have that same coaxial adapter for my colecovision, very handy! I've never heard of this system, so many in the early 80's it's hard to keep track. Everything about this looks like an intellivision ripoff.
I just bought one on TradeMe for $35 with 4 boxed games, found another boxed game in another listing I got too. Tunix probably just paid a licensing fee to manufacturer these for our market here, as was typical with lots of early video game consoles. They're now a dime a dozen, which is great, because the Atari 2600 isn't exactly affordable for anybody just wanting to try out some rubbish games.
I used to have one. Actually its graphics were better than Atari 2600 and its controllers better than Intellivision's. Too bad they lost the rights for the most famous Arcade games to Atari so that they had to rely on Pacman's clones like Crazy Gobbler and such things. It could have been a very different story, closer to 2600's one. Ciao!
Total rip off on the Intellivision controller! I have played this console before and I didn't care for it all that much. But I wouldn't mind having one. How many of the games do you have for it and what is the most rare of them all? I mean are the games pretty easy to get?
More like Fairchild Channel F Graphics. Can't really say it's better or worse then Atari VCS, it had flicker free graphics and strong rich color. Definitely inferior to Intellivision and Colecovision. Some of the games were obvious Rip Offs of Intelliviosin games. Auto Racing, Sea Battle and Boxing looked like primitive versions of the Intellivisoin versions with smaller sized graphics. Even in Tanks a lot it had an obvious ripoff of the Intellivison Running Man.
We had one back in the system. We would play the hell out of “CatTrax”
I love the boxes, how they open up like books; great design. Great video!!
I just came in contact with one today, and it is roughed up. Though on the back it says it is NO 2, which I think means it is the second one made. Very exited.
Thats awesome, congrats!
I have never heard or seen this system. I love how I get to learn about new stuff from your videos. Awsome job. Keep it up and I'll keep watching.
I always learn about a system I never knew about by watching these, great video as always Gamester81 :D
My best guess about the different cartridge sizes is that the longer ones used more memory, and so the circuit boards needed to be made larger to accommodate the additional memory chips.
I was basically addicted to a version of your "tanks a lot" for the original gameboy years ago, but it was just called "Tanks" I can tell it's the same game though.
I think the most important piece of information for this is how much it was licensed and/or cloned for international markets. We got it here in New Zealand as the "Tunix Home Arcade"
There were a bunch of these lesser-branded systems available. 1292 and 1392 Advanced Programmable Video System comes to mind, these were released in a variety of different countries under a variety of different brands/names. Other brands now come to mind for a variety of other consoles. Fountain "Force 2", Grandstand SG-1000 (Yeap, that's the Sega SG-1000, we were the only country outside of Japan to have an officially licensed release of that).
New Zealand really had to do things different, everything was made under license because import licenses were horrifyingly difficult to obtain, and we were such a small country that we just often weren't suitable for doing business with.
There's some vintage computer guys here who could spiel on for days and days about some of this stuff, most of them have cabinets or shelves stacked mile-high with various old consoles, the value of them is questionable, and they're usually in varying states of working order.
I immediately thought of Tezza, ofc. I think it's great that folks are collecting these systems and are spreading the knowledge and understanding. Then, ofc, I'm one of them (but in US).
Wow! Gamester81, you always get the rarest stuff, man! I only know of this system through my collector's guide. Funny thing is, I lived through the Atari 2600/Colecovision/Intellivision/Odyssey2 era as a kid and NONE of my friends nor I had this system. I don't even remember commercials for it. Strange indeed. But it is incredible that you found one is such good condition with COMPLETE games! A true collectible! Thank you so much for uploading this video! 5 stars!
It's very hard to get a compatible TV since 20 years due to interband tuner implementation.
Your best solution is to find an old VHS and to connect it on...
i had this. i got it for $20 bundled with 10 games at the drug store in the clearance bin.
I know it was over two years ago, but thanks for posting this. The Arcadia is one of the more obscure systems from the 1980s and it is hard to find much information about it.
I had one back in the day
I had this one, but no additional cartridges for it... a year later I got the ZX Spectrum and this went to a box to collect dust. I really regret throwing it away at some point.
Great review!
Were the cartridges hard to find, too expensive, or were you just not interested in getting more based on the pack-in (what was the pack-in in your country? which country?)? was yours a different brand?
@@RetroDawn Actually, I got it as a present from my uncle who lived in Germany in the early eighties and I lived in the Balkans. Ex Yugoslavia, to be exact and I was unable to procure any new cartridges there. I never met anyone who had the same console to at least do some cart swapping... As for the baked-in games, I think it had one or two games and I can't remember exactly what they were. Maybe some kind of Pong clone and some other similarly simple game. I just remember that the stickers/inlays on the console and controllers were different and they didn't say "Arkadia". It was a more simple design.
This was my first console. My (much) older brother gave me one and a ton of games. Not sure what year that would have been.
there was a Firestone store that sold this and I REALLY wanted this console. I remember seeing the games when the crash came, the games with like $5
Weird. The tire company? Was there a period where they were trying to be like Canadian Tire, and sell lots of general merchandise, or was this just an artifact of the video game craze of the early 80s combined with the lock on the market held by the other 6 US consoles?
had this console in the 80s came as a package deal with 10 games included. cat trax, tanks alot, escape, jungler, football, baseball, space raider, missle something. all the good ones. I think my parents paid $100 for the whole thing. we played the heck out of it.
I remember playing this console at my grandparents' Western Auto in the early 80s.
My family had 2 o these in the 80s. Definitely 3 different sizes of cartridge.
I had this as an unreleased hanimex model #00001! Memories!
12V input means you can just rig a 12V battery onto a wire snipped off a wall wart with alligator clips on one side and compatible end on the other side (as long as the polarity is correct)
Even a lawn tractor battery is enough to power a big ass boombox for 6 hours.
We had the Tedelex clone in South Africa and Escape was called Robot Killer with that. Tanks a lot was Tanks a Lot. At one point the right hand controller broke, so I rewired a Nintendo controller to work there. I was like 13 at the time.
@hackleback Because New Zealand's version of the system is called the Tunix Home Arcade
tanks a lot for watching guys and lets play tanks a lot .
4:36 "Tanks a lot" XD G81 is the man
This looks like a phone more than a game console, I still have it too.
10 years ago - you still doing well? 💖
i remember Tanks-A-Lot..it had this WARP feature, but you couldn't controll where you would appear if you used it. It was like a quick-escape feature.
Interesting. Just like hyperspace on several earlier arcade games (e.g. Asteroids and Defender). Except that in this game you're on foot... Bizarre, conceptually.
I've often wondered what the games for the Arcadia looked like. I don't think they sold them over here... at least... I've never seen one.
Looks quite similar in ability to the Radofin 1392, except they came out in '76.
Great review man!
Since Wikipedia refuses to admit the New York Times had it right, this is part of the actual 3rd generation (the one that spans 1982-1986, with the crash killing many of these just a couple years after release). The 4th generation was the one defined by the NES, Master System, and 7800. They try to put all the 3rd generation into the 2nd generation, but that is unreal, no way these next gen consoles are in the same market as 5 year older systems with half the power. The 3rd generation systems would be the ColecoVision, 5200, and Arcadia 2001- again, they got hurt badly by the crash (well, more decline, it didn't really "crash" when you look at the revenue, because it declined in 1984, again in 1985 before Nintendo got it increasing again in 1986).
Nice video. I was not aware that the graphics were that good. I think the resolution is similar to intelevision, but I think the palette was much smaller. I also think the sound was not quite upto intellevision. One thing I don't think you mentioned was that you could unscrew the little joystick and have an intelevision like pad. I have 10 games for this but no system.
Would be nice if you did a bit of commentary on the gameplay sections so that we can have a bit more information about the game's features and gameplay. Good vid though, thanks
Escape looks like a pretty fun game! Thanks for sharing, I know of only one person around here that has an Arcadia, sadly I do not :(
I got one of these a couple months ago. Not the greatest, but there are a few fun games. Definitely a system that I want to do more collecting for. Only 5 games so far.
I saw this system on The Gaming Historians history lesson on The Video Crash of 1983.
do you have the link or name of the tv connector convertor?
I had this back in the day
@vintagevideogamegeek
Tanks for using the same joke that I was going to use in my comment!
@hackleback Are you from New Zealand?
nice review man.
never heard or known this system even existed. the problem with all these rare systems is that if they break dow then whos gonna fix them ?
I'm selling my PS3 and I'm getting one of those! Nice review!
nice video dude. i wiwsh i could find some of these more rare systems..good find
gotta love those sound effects! :-)
Tanksalot was my favorite game. I'm the only kid who had this system I thought
another interesting old relic thanks!
i currently have one in my hands but i can't get it to work >.< i turn it on and nothing happens, i think its that i have a flat screen tv but im not sure it might be broken, if anyone can help i'll be much obliged
Thx for the video ... these two games were the first games i ever played and damn...the sounds scare me like back then :P
that rainbow text would of loooked shit hot to a kid in the 80s,, but the console doesnt really live up to 1982 standard,, its like its kinda between an atari2600 and a Intellivision as far as graphics,,
thanks for showing this one though ,, dont spose u have the commodore cdtv do ya?
Hey! I have one of these. They had a pretty decent Frenzy knock off
Yeah Robot Killer was pretty decent
Jungler is a great game as well is Jump Bug
nice work as always :)
@hackleback are you UK?
Is that control stick analog or digital?
Yeah, my Grandparents got this system for me for free for looking at a time-share.. Damn I miss it..My memories of this are like every other person's memory of the 2600. I should have never sold mine at a garage sale... But I wanted the lustrous new genesis.
gamester81. My mother purchased one when they came out because they was the cheapest Video Game System on the market. I did not know they had a lawsuit at the time with Atari. They had made all kind of games that was suppose to be the Atari Killer, but Atari sued them in the video game wars because they where coming out with games that was original to Atari Games. Atari felt these games belonged on the Atari, So Emerson had all these games in the warehouse they could not sell, so they came out with bad clones. Cat Trax did came out for the Atari 2600 version. But that same year the Atari 5200, and Coleco Vision was coming out. I did not notice about the other systems, but it was fun to play at the time, and I was pretty good at these games. I guess my older brother sister and brother did not know what those cards was for, we never used them, but as young child I soon learned the buttons. We later got an Atari 2600 and my mother threw it away, I wished we kept those cartridges, we could have sold them on E-Bay, or bought one off E-bay. The system itself we torn it up. Wished we still had it. I would have liked to seen all those games they made they could not sell. I think they shortly stopped production on it, and it went to bargain shelves quickly, then yard sales, and flea markets.
If you like to play it WinArcadia is a good emulator to the system, you can use just about joystick that will plug into the computer to play the game. Try out Cat Trax.
Great review John. Never knew this system even existed. Don't really understand what's going on in the gameplay there. You're a guy running around shooting tanks? Silly guy, youre guns cant hurt tanks!
It looks really similar to the intellivision. But I actually did a review for the intellivision recently. Mind if I submit it as a response to your video?
ha my name is emerson. gotta pick one of these up.
whats the dimensions of the console
That little guy sure is animated crazy. Hey, is that game Capture anything like Go? Would be surprising if such a wimpy system could play a possible Go game.
I've never seen one of those, pretty cool man!
OMG i have found that thing in an old closet a lot years ago!! my dad said to me he couldn't remember where he has found it! Bt it didn't have those sticks!! probably must have been broken!! I'll search again to see if i can found it and i'll post a video!! :)
Very cool!
I can't play systems like that... the nes is even pushing it... Its hard for me to be enertained by basic games
did you ever have a change of heart? gen 2 is one of my favorites haha
Nice. This video really show off it's sound. The graphics is comparable to the Atari 5200 I guess.
in your boat?!
awesome system!!!!
Gamester81 has a flux capacitor in his car and goes back in time to buy all his game consoles. LOL
OH MY GOD ANOTHER SYSTEM!!! DAMN NICE!!!
haha. cool system. how do you get all of these systems?
Since it is the holiday season... I think you should do a drawing like other guys are doing (tvandlust, dinkydana) for retro systems, or a couple games! You're the biggest gamer on the internet you might as well spread the wealth! Just my idea and if people agree with me they should like this comment!
Happy Holidays!
@nexus000111 FOZproductions is a moron and a troll. It's best to ignore idiots like this. They seek attention and were probably picked on growing up. lol
Looks exactly like a Leisure vision console
How come these systems are so rediculously priced these days!
Tanks a lot reminds me of Tank battalion (or battle city for GB and NES) lol! well I guess thats a good thing cause I thought they were pretty good games.
Hmmmm im gonna have to look that system up on ebay (GO RETRO SYSTEMS!!)
:28 Flood of systems/bad games did NOT cause the crash. Contributed to it, yes, but it was only one of several factors. Not sure who was the first to come up with this myth, but it's annoying.
Care to enlighten me on some of the other causes of the North American video game market crash of 1983?
I have that same coaxial adapter for my colecovision, very handy! I've never heard of this system, so many in the early 80's it's hard to keep track. Everything about this looks like an intellivision ripoff.
those games don't look half bad! =)
It looks like a Mattel intelvision
Controls were much better
this looks 100% the same as a tunix home arcade console from new zealand
I just bought one on TradeMe for $35 with 4 boxed games, found another boxed game in another listing I got too. Tunix probably just paid a licensing fee to manufacturer these for our market here, as was typical with lots of early video game consoles. They're now a dime a dozen, which is great, because the Atari 2600 isn't exactly affordable for anybody just wanting to try out some rubbish games.
and the Leisurevision from Canada
JUNGLER!
Tanks a lot was a great game. So was Space Raiders
So was Jump Bug. Baseball wasn't quite as good as Intellevision, but way better than the 2600
i know this tank game from the nes... oO
I used to have one. Actually its graphics were better than Atari 2600 and its controllers better than Intellivision's. Too bad they lost the rights for the most famous Arcade games to Atari so that they had to rely on Pacman's clones like Crazy Gobbler and such things. It could have been a very different story, closer to 2600's one. Ciao!
i remember hearing about that but i dont remember where. Oh ya watch for a shoutout video galore lol your included (:
Pac dragon very nice
Tanks a Lot haha nice
TANKS A LOT is Battle City clone :)
Total rip off on the Intellivision controller! I have played this console before and I didn't care for it all that much. But I wouldn't mind having one. How many of the games do you have for it and what is the most rare of them all? I mean are the games pretty easy to get?
i buy one for 25.-$ with 30 casettes for it.on my 60" screen so much fun: dada , toktok , blang blang......
Intellivision was definitely Much Better.
More like Fairchild Channel F Graphics. Can't really say it's better or worse then Atari VCS, it had flicker free graphics and strong rich color. Definitely inferior to Intellivision and Colecovision.
Some of the games were obvious Rip Offs of Intelliviosin games.
Auto Racing, Sea Battle and Boxing looked like primitive versions of the Intellivisoin versions with smaller sized graphics. Even in Tanks a lot it had an obvious ripoff of the Intellivison Running Man.