Nintendo's has always dominated the handheld games market, with it's smash hit today, and generations of GameBoy before that. But back before the Game Boy was the Game and Watch series, starting with Ball in 1980. Small LCD games based around some of the classic Nintendo characters that we know and love.

The Game and Watch evolved into various formats (e.g. Widescreen, Tabletop, Micro Vs) and in 1985 they released Blackjack as a multi screen game (BJ-60). The Nintendo of today is still trying to reach out to non game players and maybe choosing Blackjack was an early sign of their efforts in this direction.

I'm not a big fan of the game, but like any Game and Watch games, if you have one, it's worth looking after and holding on to as they remain very popular.

Labels: blackjack, game and watch, nintendo

The ZX Spectrum was a revolutionary new computer system, designed by Clive Sinclair, that was released in 1982. Along with its rival, the Commodore 64, the ZX Spectrum created a boom in home computer usage. Games and applications were widely available on the High Street - I used to buy games in Boots of all places - and enthusiasts could even program their own.

Anyone familiar with the Spectrum will remember well the horrific screeching sound caused when loading games from the cassette deck.

Many classic games were made for the Spectrum, including:

• Jet Set Willy
• Manic Miner
• Chuckie Egg
• Skool Days
• Sabre Wulf
• Spy Hunter

The rights to the Sinclair computers were later puchased by Alan Sugar's Amstrad, and he actually incorporated a Spectrum emulator in one of his Emailer phones.

Spectrum Links

Spectrum on Wikipedia
World of Spectrum

Labels: retro, sinclair, spectrum

The MPU 1000 was an early video games system that was compatible with software produced for the Interton VC-4000 (a system that was most popular in Germany).

The system came with two corded controllers, which has a small thumb stick, twelve black buttons and two red buttons. On the system itself were buttons for "load programme", "game select" and "start" - as well as an off/off switch. It connects to the TV by RF cable and comes with a aerial/game switch box which is of metal construction and the switch feels satisfyingly robust.

Invaders Club

Owners of the Acetronic were invited to join the "Invaders Club" where they would get the opportunity to enter local and national championships and get advice for themselves and their families on how to get the best from their Acetronic TV Entertainment Centre.

Labels: acetronic, videogames

Big Trak was a really cool programmable vehicle released in 1979 by MB. Using its onboard keypad, you could enter a series of directional instructions and then Big Trak would set off and complete the journey you had programmed it to do.

Check out this video below and remember how cool Big Track was.

Labels: Big Trak, MB