Archie? Is that you?

They just don’t make game ads like they used to. Say, did anybody have the Booster Grip accessory that came with Omega Race? I’d never even heard of it until I came across this ad. I’m guessing that it plugged into the 2nd player port to provide the extra controls — a really neat idea. The quantity and diversity of hardware accessories made for the Atari 2600 is astounding. Somebody should compile a list of them someday, if they haven’t already.

By the way, Happy 2007!

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Straight from the cover of the December 1983 issue of Electronic Games comes this bountiful bunch of Christmas game goodies. There’s lots of stuff crammed in here — video game cartridge “multiplexers,” joysticks and joystick accessories, a classic Commodore monitor, a special video game desk, an infamous robot, and even some handheld Nintendo products!

So, how many products in this picture can you name?

Whomever names the most specific product models that appear in the picture above gets to be VC&G’s 2006 Game Elf of the Year!

Ok, so I just made that up. Still, give it your best shot in the comments below. Now, on to our next item:

Dear Santa,

I would like Ms. Pac-Man, Centipede, Phoenix, Vanguard, Jungle Hunt, Kangaroo, Dig Dug, Galaxian, Pole Position, Battlezone, and Moon Patrol for Christmas. I would also like the ATARI 5200 (TM) Super-System (The world’s most advanced video game system), the ATARI 2600 (TM) System (The world’s most popular video game system), the ATARI 5200 TRAK-BALL (TM) Controller (For the real arcade touch. Plays more TRAK-BALL (TM) compatible games than anyone else), the ATARI VCS (TM) Cartridge Adapter (Lets your 5200 play every game made for ATARI game systems), and the ATARI TRAK-BALL (TM) Controller (For real arcade action on the ATARI 2600 (TM) System, Sears Video Arcade System and all ATARI Home Computers).

That’s all.

Sincerely,
Tommy L. Speddleman

P.S. Send me hardware and software, not underwear!

[ Scanned from Electronic Games, December 1983. Special thanks to McPhail Hunt for donating this issue. ]

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Ah, the venerable Action 52 cartridge, long the butt of video game jokes everywhere. This cartridge was probably some greedy bastard’s idea of a get-rich-quick scheme in the video game world: throw together 52 crappy, buggy, quickly developed “games” into one cartridge and sell it for $79-99 (originally $200!) a pop. Needless to say, Active Enterprises didn’t last long. These days, the NES version of the Action 52, while containing some of the worst video games of all time, is also one of the most sought-after carts by collectors due to its rarity. And the Genesis version isn’t any better, by the way.

My question to you is: did anybody actually have an Action 52 cart (NES or Genesis) back in the day? If so, what are your memories of it? Did you like The Cheetahmen?

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Sensationalist journalism in a 1984 consumer computer magazine? Nah.

This scan is from a May 1984 article in Personal Computing by Craig Zarley titled “The Pleasures and Perils of Computing at Home.” The article’s main angle focuses on the numerous computer advertisements of the day that pictured an excited, wide-eyed family huddled around a computer while collectively enthralled by whatever is happening on the screen. First-time computer buyers got a rude awakening, however, when they took their new machines home and instead found most of the family competing for personal time with the “new family member.”

Anyone who grew up with a sibling and not enough computers to go around can attest to this phenomenon, yet I find it funny that Personal Computing turned it into the cover article of a magazine. This means that either consumer-level personal computers were so new at the time (and they were) that issues like this seemed novel, or else the magazine was really desperate for material. Perhaps the correct answer lies somewhere between both extremes.

Still, I love those old “family” ads, even if they are unrealistic.

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Fresh from the Forgettable Video Game Accessories Department comes the Skywriter “Stick Station,” a $15 piece of wood for your Atari 2600 joystick. Nobody knows what it really does, but at least you’ll have a good place to put your frosty joystick so it doesn’t leave those annoying “joystick rings” all over your coffee table during the humid summer months.

A Bit of (Fictional) Trivia: The president of Skywriter, Larry Egler, was once famously quoted as saying, “There will be a Stick Station on every table in America by 1990.” Few people know that it was a misquote that has been erroneously reprinted in many books on video game history. In truth, Mr. Egler said, “There will be a table on every Stick Station in America by 1990,” a prediction that actually came true: all remaining Stick Stations in the continental United States are now being used to shore up wobbly table legs.

[ From Computer Games, June 1984. Special thanks to McPhail Hunt for donating the issue. ]

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First, the good news. Your little brother has learned to play video games with five controllers at once — an amazing feat of skill. The bad news? He’s sitting on one of your joysticks.

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So…you’d like to be a Video Games Inventor, eh? Well, sorry, but you have to look like the guy in the lower left. And to do that, you have to go back in time to 1982 and work for Magnavox. By the way, that guy is only twenty years old.

(Ok…the article says 35, but still.)

This scan came from the premiere (Winter 1982) issue of “Odyssey² Adventure Club Magazine,” Magnavox’s official monthly magazine / propaganda pamphlet for Odyssey² fans — sorta like Nintendo Power these days. Actually, “Odyssey² Adventure” is more a newsletter than a magazine, since all the issues I have are only about fifteen pages long. Nonetheless, this article is an amusing look into the world of Odyssey² game developers, straight from the horse’s mouth.

A quick compare-and-contrast of these guys with Atari’s “pot-smoking hippie” game programmer image of the late 1970s and even today’s “early twenties slacker” programmers makes the Odyssey folks look like a bunch of straight-laced leprechaun engineers. Ralph Baer, what hath thou wrought!

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