> >Hmmm, I just recently came across one for the first
time (not for sale, it
> >was part of a collection I was appraising). How
many games were actually
> >made for this thing?
>
> I think at least 40 titles shipped for it in Japan.
Just about any
> Macintosh application could run on the Pippin if
placed on a boot CD with
> the appropriate system software.
There's a web site that claims that 90 titles were
shipped total:
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/tenchi/pippins
w.html
>
> >Did it ever make it to market? If not, why?
>
> Yes. Quite a few were sold in Japan. It was on the
U.S. market for
> hardly any time at all before Apple killed it. The
version marketed in
> Japan was platinum and called the "Bandai Pippin
Atmark". The U.S.
> version was black and labeled "Bandai Pippin _at_World".
The American
> version (and I presume the Japanese, too) came with a
subscription to
> Bandai's online service. Of course, that doesn't
work any more.
>
Now-defunct Bandai Digital Entertainment actually
killed it about 10 months after it hit the U.S. market.
Bandai distributed new web browser software to the few
hunder _at_World subscribers so that the Pippins could
still be used (anyone have this disk?). Supposedly,
you can "trick" the _at_World browser software to work
using a regular dial-up account, but I've never tried.
> The Pippin was a Macintosh PowerPC with 4 MB RAM.
Ever try running a
> Power Mac with 4 MB RAM?
>
My spec sheet says Power PC 603 at 66MHz with 4 MB ROM
and 5 MB RAM expandable to 13MB with an 8MB module.
Pippin accessories included a keyboard/digitizing
stylus, controller, wireless controller, 28.8K modem,
FloppyDock and EtherDock. It may be that some of these
never made it to market though. If anyone doesn't know
what these things look like, I took a screen shot off
my retailer presentation CD and posted it at:
http://home.earthlink.net/~wmsmith/Pippin.jpg
> It's got SCSI, though. The Playstation and WebTV
can't boast that!
>
> Tom
>
> Applefritter
> www.applefritter.com
Received on Thu Apr 12 2001 - 23:35:30 BST
