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Found a brand new, unused Pong console from 1979 in an Edinburgh charity shop for 20£

⁨385⁩ ⁨likes⁩

Submitted ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨TimeNaan@lemmy.world⁩ to ⁨retrogaming@lemmy.world⁩

https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/163773b6-2309-4a09-9a67-12dec3394da9.jpeg

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Comments

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  • Iamsqueegee@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    How long did it take to download 45 years of updates?

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    • ramenshaman@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

      The very first pong game system did not use software, which blows my mind. OP’s does not appear to be the same version but it’s possible this it also does not use software.

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      • Squizzy@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

        Am I too stupid…how did it work?

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  • TimeNaan@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    It works but my polish PAL tv doesn’t seem to like it very much, it took a lot of tuning to get this wonderful image.

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    • InvertedParallax@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

      Might need recapping, think vblank and blank are drifting.

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    • ChaoticNeutralCzech@feddit.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

      Mmm… realistic

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      • TimeNaan@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

        Colour is also not very accurate… unless they mean a single color, green.

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    • shalafi@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

      Was it meant to run on an NTSC TV?

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      • Treczoks@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

        Unlikely. It is spelled “Colour” on the box, implying this would be for the UK market.

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      • moopet@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

        No, Radofin was a UK-only brand.

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      • Redkey@programming.dev ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

        Found in an Edinburgh charity shop, so while it’s not impossible, it’s unlikely.

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  • db2@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    That might have Pong but it isn’t Pong.

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    • TimeNaan@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

      Obviously but it is a Pong Console, it’s the category started by the original Pong.

      This one has a bunch of additional games too.

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      • I_Has_A_Hat@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

        According to the box, it is noticeably missing Pong.

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    • HubertManne@piefed.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

      we had an all black console that is like halfway between that the whats in the OP. it had wired controllers and 4 versions that you cycled through to choose. I think it was pong, doubles pong, hockey, doubles hockey. hockey being pong where you had to get it in the goal in the 20% of the middle of your opponents end but the other 80% was just like the side walls.

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      • moopet@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

        I have a Binatone one in a crate here with essentially the same selection of games on it. It was a really common thing to clone, there was one chip that played them all.

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  • Shezzagrad@lemmy.ml ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    Was not expecting to see my city here.

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    • TimeNaan@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

      Honestly, I envy you, Edinburgh is incredible.

      Btw, there’s a second pong console for a similar price in that charity shop, if you’re interested and if nobody’s got it yet :)

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      • Shezzagrad@lemmy.ml ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

        Thank you, Edinburgh is a beautiful and lovely little city, i reslly hope you enjoyed it. Which charity shop was it may I ask?

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      • ChaoticNeutralCzech@feddit.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

        What do you mean, Edinburgh? The city in question is Prague. See the console brand, it’s from Prague 16 (Radotín).

        Praha-Radotín train station

        BTW the Czechoslovak electronics brand TESLA also made a crappy Pong console using a presumably stolen chip design.

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  • Treczoks@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    I wonder about the “Colour”. Did they actually use the different video outputs of the AY-3-8500 chip for controlling different colour signals instead just joining them as a luminance signal?

    For those too young to know: The AY-3-8500 (or AY-3-8500-1 fo NTSC) chip is at the heart of almost all of those pong-type consoles. It has a number of different (but synchronized) video outputs for left player, right player, ball, numbers, and playing field, and most consoles just or’ed them together into luminance (Y) to make a simple B&W image. You could route some signals to the R-Y and/or the B-Y signal to give them some basic color, e.g. if you sent the “ball” signal both to the luminance and the red (R-Y) channel, you would get a red ball. All this needs are a handful of simple logic gates.

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    • TimeNaan@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

      If it’s any indication, the manual says:

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      • Treczoks@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

        It basically tells you that you can basically tone the “colourness” (i.e. the brightness of the colours) up and down, which was a normal control (like brightness and contrast) back then. This is not about being able to make a red playing field green by some setting on the TV. You just had some potentiometers to play with the pre-amplification of the luminance and colour signals.

        What could be in the instructions would an explanation of the games telling you that e.g. the playing field is green and the ball is red or somesuch, then they actually did a (rare) “colour implementation” of the circuit.

        If you are interested, there is a number of interesting documentations on this pong chip on the net.

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  • Blackmist@feddit.uk ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    I had a black and white version of this.

    All the games were basically the same apart from the target shooting game.

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  • waigl@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    www.youtube.com/watch?v=cNAdtkSjSps

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  • ddash@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    Really good condition, brand new and unused is taking it a bit far.

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    • TimeNaan@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

      No I mean it literally, it was wrapped in all the factory plastics and has literally zero wear and tear. It might have been taken out of the box but maybe used once or not at all.

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      • noughtnaut@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

        Check the capacitors anyway please.

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      • makingStuffForFun@lemmy.ml ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

        Damn. If you’d kept it wrapped, you might have been able to sell that for a LOT of money

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