I learned today that Betamax survived as a format through the 80s into the early 90s, as a niche market.
What is interesting about Betamax tapes is that while they're smaller than VHS, the packaging is the same size. Making the two virtually indistinguishable save for the Beta label or the blue "Beta" sticker.
I picked up a pretty awesome Sanyo Betamax VCR player today. The Olympics sticker dates it at 1984!
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I think this poster officially dates the exhibit to 1985
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Zach Whalen time appropriate world globe subtly points to the geo-politial realities that framed 1985. The Cold War and Vietnam were still very much with us. Mother Russia was ground Zero for the USSR, and Rambo: First Blood, Pt. II was out in theaters. Latch-key kids would come home to play Space Invaders in hopes that they could ward off the highly organized aliens from world domination. The metaphors of the moment are everywhere.
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We are still waiting on the Back to the Future poster, but once that goes up I think the first phase of the Console Living Room exhibit will be complete. The next stage is to promote the site, and have people donate elements to the space that make it a shared experience (real or imagined ) of a 1985 living room.
This is a nice shot of the almost completed reproduction of a 1985 living room at UMW. The Videodrome (1983) poster came in today, and nothing says convergence like James Woods corporally internalizing a VHS tape into his stomach :) We are still waiting on the back to the Future poster, but after that we are pretty much golden. You'll notice the details on the paneling are all done-Zach Whalen and I finished all the paneling up this afternoon thanks to the help of Kenny Horning in the Theatre department.
Not a bad selection, if I do say so myself :)
This was one of my all-time favorite games as a kid, and I was surprised how quickly Tommaso picked up on the gameplay. It is stands up fairly well, and he spent a better part of this morning doing touchdown dances around the living room.
The owner of the TV repair shop is using a Commodore monitor as a test monitor. He has had it since he was a kid, and swears it's the best test monitor ever. It was not for sale :(
No shit, this remote control has two different tones, and they would activate a motor on the TV that would change the channel. Trippy!
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Is there anything more 80s than this vinyl record?
I got some bad news that the Quasar 25" Tv I bought a month ago needed some major surgery. I committed to the necessary organ transplants, but in the meantime bought another old school TV for the exhibit because I am a chronic consumer. God save capitalism and the 80s.
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Turns out the TV repair shop in Petersburg where I bought the Quasar TV was originally a video store, and they had custom built holders for videodiscs on their wood paneled walls. The owner of the shop showed them to me, and I decided I would build something like this myself, one day.
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This piece of history actually works. We are working on getting a new needle and cleaning up the radio tuner.
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We hadn't yet moved the foosball in the living room, but you can get a sense of the space in this shot. And how about that love seat?
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The faux wood panel entertainment center is pretty awesome. It actually has a whole side door for VHS tapes :)
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After we got the initial furniture set and moved in the Atari 2600, student started immediately hanging out in the space, including a rare spotting of #noir106er @Plamkeen.
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Kenny Horning from the theater department came by yesterday to help Zach Whalen and I plan how we would build the panel walls for the exhibit. These are the whiteboard plans with all the details. I learned that this particular design is called a Hollywood flat.
There is lore about this game, but I don't think any versions have materialized to confirm it existence. I guess we should take it on faith. http:/
Zach Whalen and Mike Black did the heavy lifting to get the UMW Console poster finished up. And we now have 60 posters with five different screens of various media. This should be fun!
The Baby Moses game story for the Bible Adventures NES allows you to throw baby Moses into the water, and then that's it. The game goes on, but there is no point. Seems like some deep, disturbing existential parable a la Nietszche.
Notice how the graphics seem to be inspired by the Super Mario Bros design.
Zach is playing the Bible Adventures game Baby Moses. You can actually throw baby Moses into the water, and the gameplay goes on, although there is nothing else you can do. Kind of religiously existential.
This quote is from Genesis and is where God tells know I'm about to open the tap on you all. This is some hardcore gamifying of the Bible, although you only shepherd animals, so gameplay gets dull quick.
Zach Whalen has this wild NES game called Bible Adventures that let's you play through three different stories in the Old Testament: Noah's Ark, baby Moses, and David and Goliath. You spend most of your time shepherding animals, unless you are throwing babies in water. A truly wild game. It wasn't an official NES game, but rather a religious bootleg sold only in religious stores. Kinda like early religious rock bands, but for the NES :)
This image was found on the great Wishbook's Flickr site:
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Zach Whalen and Mike Black have been hard at work on the UMW Console posters, I like what they've come up with a lot!
Zach Whalen and Mike Black have been hard at work on the UMW Console posters, I like what they've come up with a lot!
Zach Whalen and Mike Black have been hard at work on the UMW Console posters, I like what they've come up with a lot!
Zach Whalen and Mike Black have been hard at work on the UMW Console posters, I like what they've come up with a lot!
Miles came by my office this morning, and was really digging on the Atari 2600. Phoenix was his favorite (which is no surprise to me), and he was more than competent. Interestingly enough, he had real problems with the old school Atari joystick, which I realized are not designed for lefties. Whereas the joystick pictured here has a far more universal design.
Microsurgeon is a crazy Intellivision game based on The Fantastic Voyage. In other words, this game is designed around a ship that flies through a body and destroys invasive contagions.
And the art is totally Blade Runner-esque.
Another of my favorite games for Atari 2600.
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Pac-Man for the 2600 might have been the greatest disappointment of my life.
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Gamification is nothing new, it's just more annoying now.
One of my personal favorite games for the Atari 2600 was Raiders of the Lost Ark. It took two joysticks to play, and may have been one of the most inelegant games ever. But I loved it.
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#paratext
Zach Whalen brought in this insane game for Intellivision called Microsurgeon, based on the film Fantastic Voyage, or the 80s adaptation Inner Space.
This is a promotional pamphlet that accompanied Coleco video games for the Atari 2600 console. Donkey Kong was decent, but I really liked Venture and the Smurf game, personally. Given how rudimentary Venture graphics were in the Coin-op version, it almost seemed like a flawless port to the 2600. As for Gargamel's Castle, well, I've been an unrepentant Smurf fan since second or third grade.
Zach Whalen brought this over along with a ton of video cartridge manuals and other "paratext" as he described it. This stuff is alike a waterfall of context nostalgia. Between the cartridge art, the player manuals, advertisements like this one, and the actual cartridges and consoles---I really couldn't be happier. My office has transformed into an early 80s showroom. I'll be scanning and blogging as much of the cartridge art, manuals, and advetisements as I can as part of the Console Living Room exhibit. And Iyou can be sure I'll be flooding all the social mediaz with what I discover.
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Thanks to Zach Whale, I know have a rather solid understanding of how an Atari 2600 joystick works, and I consider that a very cool accomplishment.
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Zach Whalen and I spent much of this afternoon working on the controllers for Atari 2600. Zach fixed the paddles for 2600, as well as the paddles on the Telestar (he was on fire). We finally got one of the two broken joysticks working for the 2600 which means we have a pair. Hopefully we'll get the third/spare joystick working soon enough.
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The gameplay on the Intellivision was quite solid. And the physics engine for momentum was pretty impressive for the skiing game.
This is how the Berzerk game for Vectrex ends. It's pretty awesome.
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#berzerk
Description:
QUASAR Vintage 1981 25" Color Console TV! RETRO w/ Remote!! TU9920TP
RETRO & VERY CLEAN Vintage Quasar Console TV! The cabinet is in excellent condition, clean, no scratches at all on the tops and sides, this TV was kept in excellent condition and has only had one owner! The remote control is a little worn and the battery cover is missing.
The TV works perfectly and has no issues at all, great picture and sound! It is cable ready and can adapt to any cable box, VCR, or digital antenna converter! There are no aux AV jacks, so in order to connect a DVD player or game system, you must have an RF modulator or run through a VCR.