On Tue, Aug 03, 2004 at 11:53:21AM -0400, chris wrote:
> >> Magnevox Odyssey 1 - Not really a computer (It was analog!), but farily
> >> uncommon, and predecessor to the really-a-computer Odyssey 2.
>
> I have one of these, but I'm missing most of the overlays. Also the rifle
> for some of the games is long since trashed. Some day I'll dig the thing
> out and see if the system itself still works.
We had one of those when I was a kid that died about the time I was getting
into Commodore hardware (c. 1980). I chopped up one of the controller
cables and turned it into a User Port -> Centronics Printer cable, and turned
one of the game carts into a VIC-20 cartridge port extender (44 pin, 0.154"
spacing edge connector). Sounds terrible now, of course, but ~25 years ago,
it was just a pile of junk. I'm sure with what I know now I could have fixed
it.
The good news is that a few years after that one died, my high-school
girlfriend's Dad was going to throw out their Odyssey 1 while I was
over visiting, and I managed to score it from him.
My only complaint with it is that when I was growing up, we never had the
right sized television for either set of overlays. We always had whatever
size came in between. When other, more dedicated machines came out in
the late 1970s, we put the thing on the shelf and played the ones that
generated their own B&W background. The one we played the most and the
one that I'd like to find again was the Coleco Combat console - two
players, tank controllers, and 3 or 4 built-in games. I fixed that one
multiple times (mechanical switch and controller issues) before it died
after years of abuse in a house with four boys.
All of those TV-based games fell by the wayside at my house when hand-helds
hit the scene... we had boxes of them... I was away from home when my father
cleaned house. :-(
-ethan
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Received on Tue Aug 03 2004 - 17:32:53 BST