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Features: OKGE 2004 Recap -
OKGE 2003 -
Classic Gaming Expo 2005 Recap -
CGE '03 -
My Game Room -
About The Author
All Phosphor Dot Fossils reviews are
©2005 theLogBook.com
Reproduction of any contents of this site without prior permission of Earl Green
and/or the author in question is strictly forbidden.
Apple II
Engineered by Steve Wozniak in 1977 and masterfully marketed by Steve Jobs while
both were still in their 20s, the Apple II spawned a great American business
success story, and one of the most versatile computers of the 1970s and 80s.
Its open architecture meant that anyone could create add-ons for it, ranging
from Wozniak's own startlingly affordable floppy disk drive and its controller
card, to sound cards, internal clocks, modems, and even lab modules that could
monitor light, temperature, and movement. Many a classic gaming franchise got
its start on the Apple II series of computers, including Wizardry, Ultima
and Lode Runner. Apple kept increasing the machine's basic capabilities
into the late 80s and early 90s with the final model, the Apple IIgs, after
which the company's emphasis switched to its growing Macintosh line.
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Aquarius
A low-end computer licensed and marketed by Mattel Electronics, which had made
its mark with handheld, LED-driven sports games and the Intellivision game
console, Aquarius was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. Already
surpassed in virtually every respect by its contemporaries from Apple, IBM and
Commodore at the time of its release, Aquarius couldn't even be repurposed as a
decent game machine; Mattel's focus was on the Intellivision and programmers
weren't enthusiastic about trying to squeeze games out of the machine's minimal
memory. Aquarius turned out to be a costly fiasco for Mattel.
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Emerson Arcadia 2001
A latecomer to the "next generation" system races of the early 1980s,
Arcadia had a lot going for it - more memory and graphics capabilities
than most of its console competitors - but never seemed to get around
to using that advantage in any of its released titles.
Coming soon!
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Atari Video Music
1976 piece of pure disco-era nostaglia, Video Music was neither a video
game console nor an electronically-induced acid trip, but it did share
several characteristics with both. Using audio inputs from a stereo source,
Video Music generated colorfully trippy patterns guaranteed to liven up
almost any party. Or at least that was the idea. Check out our Flash
video demonstration using the actual output of Video Music to see what
it was like for yourself.
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Atari 2600
Video Computer System
1977-1990 console system wasn't Atari's first choice for its first
cartridge-programmable system. The original model, code named Game
Brain, was mothballed in favor of a more flexible system code named
Stella (named after designer Joe DeCuir's bicycle). Capable of
running programs of up to 4K, the VCS ruled the international market
with its vast library, and helped to create the third-party game
software industry. It also boasts the first ever home translation of
another company's game, in this case Taito's Space Invaders,
which served as the first of many "killer apps" for the
VCS. Renamed ""Atari 2600" after the arrival of the 5200.
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Atari 400
& 800
Computers
One of the first new Atari projects mandated by the Warner Bros. management that
bought the company from founder Nolan Bushnell, the Atari 8-bit computers were
versatile, relatively easy to use, and in keeping with the company's legacy,
played some great games. Available in cartridge, diskette and cassette form,
the Atari computers' game library was considerable, boosted by the innovative
"APX" (Atari Program Exchange) talent quest, which invited amateur game and
application programmers to submit their best works; the cream of the APX crop
were officially released by Atari and the author received a royalty. After the
game industry crash of 1982-83, Atari abandoned support of these systems in
favor of its new, more powerful Atari ST computers.
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Atari 5200
SuperSystem
1982-1984 console system was Atari's challenge to such "next
generation" systems as Intellivision and ColecoVision, and was
virtually identical to the Atari 400 computer on the inside. The
sleek casing included enclosed storage for the game's controllers,
but the controllers were its biggest problem - though comfortable to
hold, they didn't self-center like every other joystick on the market.
Atari was also critically late delivering an add-on adapter that would
allow Atari 2600 owners to step up without discarding their existing
libraries, a peripheral which Coleco had ready for their console's
launch. When the 5200 was mothballed during the industry crash,
development and marketing were frozen, leaving several finished games
in limbo.
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Atari 7800
ProSystem
The product of Warner Bros.-era focus groups held to determine what hardcore
gamers wanted from a next generation system, the 7800 was engineered for Atari
by General Computer, which had also programmed several hit 2600 and 5200 games,
as well as creating the arcade smash Ms. Pac-Man. The 7800 was the first
backward-compatible game system ever to hit the market, capable of playing games
from the vast 2600 library without any additional hardware. When Atari was sold
in 1984, new owner Jack Tramiel put the 7800 project on ice, only reviving it to
go up against the NES when the video game industry was revitalized. Against the
more advanced hardware of Nintendo's machine, the 7800 only survived as a
budget-priced alternative.
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Channel F
1976-78 system was Fairchild Semiconductor's solitary exploration of the growing
home video game market, but for a short-lived (and, arguably, failed) system, it
racked up an impressive number of firsts. Channel F was the first home console
to allow different games to be played on the system via ROM chips in individual
cartridges. Until then, games had been built into their hardware (i.e. Pong,
Stunt Cycle) with no expansion capability, or with built-in variations
triggered only by hardware "keys" (i.e. Odyssey, Telstar Arcade). Channel F's
8-track-styled "Videocarts" changed that - but when the marketing behemoth of
Atari took off with the same idea and introduced the Atari VCS, Fairchild simply
couldn't compete.
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ColecoVision
1982-1984 system was Coleco's first foray into the
cartridge-programmable arena, boasting a versatile Texas Instruments
video chip offering the closest thing to arcade graphics that could be
found on a home console. Coleco also made several canny licensing
decisions, going for sleeper-hit arcade properties that didn't quite
share Pac-Man's superstardom; a relationship with Nintendo helped
snag the license for Donkey Kong, which became ColecoVision's
pack-in title. Coleco also provided for future expansion of the system,
including an add-on module that would allow Atari 2600 owners to play
their old games once they stepped up to ColecoVision.
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Commodore 64
Originally released in 1982, the Commodore 64 still holds the title as
the most popular computer of all time. According to the Guinness Book of
World Records, over 30 million Commodore 64s were sold throughout the
computer’s decade-long reign. Despite the efforts of Jack Tramiel (who
later left Commodore to buy Atari) to market the Commodore 64 as a
serious computer, the unit’s superior sound and graphics made the machine
the best game-playing computer of its time. With the ability to play
games from cartridge, cassette, and diskette, there was no shortage of
Commodore software (estimated at somewhere around 15,000 titles). The
C64’s game library consisted of original titles, ports of popular arcade
games, and ports of other computers’ popular titles. Loyal fans of
the Commodore 64 are still hacking its hardware and developing software
for the machine to this day.
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Game Boy
1989-present handheld cartridge-based game system created by Nintendo;
with Alexei Pajitnov's addictive Tetris as its pack-in game, the
original monochrome Game Boy was a best seller in Japan and the
U.S.; later games such as Super Mario Land and the trendsetting
Pokemon cemented Game Boy's place in gaming history. Later
permutations added a color display (Game Boy Color), more compuational
power and controls (Game Boy Advance) and a long-overdue backlit screen
(Game Boy Advance SP), easily the most-requested (and complained about)
omission in the system's feature. With the arrival of Nintendo's DS portable,
the Game Boy family may finally be nearing its end.
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Handhelds
The moment the first home video game systems appeared, battery-powered handheld
and tabletop games weren't far behind. Often using simple systems of
light-emitting diodes for their displays, handhelds often mimicked early video
games such as Pong (Blip) and Pac-Man, and usually played
just one game. Later evolution in this industry led to handhelds and portables
with their own cartridge slots and interchangeable software. The mere fact that
parents loved not having to tie up the TV for their kids' video games may have
done more to keep the handheld industry alive than anything else.
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Intellivision
The first real home video game console war was sparked by Mattel Electronics'
Intellivision console. Touted as "Intelligent Television" in a relentlessly
competitive 1980 ad campaign that took Atari on head-on, Intellivision did have
superior graphics, occasionally confusing controllers, and boasted the first
licensed sports titles, with the official logos of leagues like the NFL and the
NBA gracing their advanced sports games. As time went on, Mattel had to
concentrate more of its firepower on arcade and arcade-style games just to keep
up with the Atari 2600 juggernaut.
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Nintendo
Entertaiment System
Based on the same architecture as Nintendo's Famicom (Family Computer) game
console introduced in Japan in 1983, the NES was the company's first taste of
the North American market outside of arcade games and its Game & Watch
portables. Many retailers originally shunned the NES, having watched the bottom
drop out of the video game market under Atari's leadership; in fact, at one
point, Nintendo courted Atari to market the NES in America. Capable of
producing arcade-quality graphics and sound, the NES single-handedly revived the
video game industry and established its manufacturer as a major player to this
day.
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