Retro Gathering L00t part I

October 6, 2016 by stopXwhispering

It takes time going through, cleaning, testing and taking pictures of 105 games, a few consoles and other things.. that’s how much I came home with after this years Retro Gathering XD Anyway, let’s get to it! I mainly focused on cartridge based games this year, I found a whole bin full of cheap Atari 2600 games to start with ^_^ In the bottom were even some boxed ones :D I tried all these ones out tonight and some that stood out was Planeten Patrouilie and Sub Scan, these were fun and intuitive :) Fatal Run was also interesting, it had the most advanced tunes I’ve heard in an Atari 2600 game so far! Unfortunately it only played the music when you got Game Over XD Superman was probably one of the worst Atari 2600 games I’ve played.. I didn’t even understand what the hell I was supposed to do…

Atari 2600

Human Cannonball, Wüstenschlacht and Sorcerer – Atari 2600

Racquetball and Arilock – Atari 2600

Fatal Run – Atari 2600

Gangster Ruine – Atari 2600

Planeten Patrouilie – Atari 2600

Midnight Magic – Atari 2600

Sub Scan – Atari 2600

Superman – Atari 2600

I found these two little handhelds that were super cute! I love how “Hero and Princess” is such a total rip-off from Donkey Kong Game & Watch, it’s even dual screen! XD And the gorilla looks totally derpy XD

Grandstand handheld

Hero and Princess handheld

I finally got myself the Zapper for Famicom! It’s so funny how this one actually looks just like a regular gun, while we had to have the “kids-version” XD

Famicom Zapper Revolver

I managed to extend my Tetris collection a bit, but not with a game.. a music LP and an old ad! My friend Marcus sold it to me and he also had a few other cool EP’s with video game reference :) I also bought a cute Dreamcast game from him called PenPen ^_^

Doctor Spin Tetris LP

Tetris ad

Space Invaders EP

Ms. Pac-Man EP

PenPen – Dreamcast

After getting to know a lot of other retro gamers online I tend to usually have some deals waiting for me once I meet up with these friends at a convention :) Anders was kind enough to sell me a Video Computer VC4000 game which I didn’t previously have. I just got into this system thanks to an old high school teacher that found this system in his attic XD I also met the guy behind arkadbutiken.se on instagram who had a PCB with Hatris for me :D Can’t wait to try this one out, the arcade version must be so much better than the Famicom one ^_^

32 Invaders – Video Computer VC4000

Hatris PCB

One of the things I bought from Zeela was this really cute little Pong clone called Las Vegas Super Color Teve-Spiel :D I tried it out tonight and it was fun, I didn’t see the colors though because apparently the TV was black and white XD I’ll try it with another TV next time… what I really liked about this Pong version is that the joysticks also go horizontally, so it actually resembles Tennis even more :) You can run back and forth and not only up and down XD It has SO MANY BUTTONS on it though! I had to read the instructions just to figure out what they were all for..

Boxed Las Vegas Super Color Tele-Spiel by Philips

Complete Las Vegas Super Color Tele-Spiel by Philips

Las Vegas Super Color Tele-Spiel by Philips

Las Vegas Super Color Tele-Spiel Joystick

Las Vegas Super Color Tele-Spiel by Philips

I also bought a bunch of games from Zeela, he has such good prices on old cassettes that it’s hard to resist XD So many pretty covers! I also got some extra memory for my VIC-20, which is probably the reason why I haven’t gotten more than half of the games to work on it so far XD He was also kind enough to dig out a few Jeff Minter games! Hell Gate and Gridrunner ^_^ I also picked up some Amiga games.

Rockman, Cosmic Fire Birds and Critters – VIC-20

Alien Blitz, Outworld and The Alien – VIC-20

Hell Gate and Gridrunner by Jeff Minter – C64

Vic Rescue, Anirog Krazy Kong and Galaxions – VIC-20

Vic Scramble, Chopper and Skips Action Biker Clumpsy Colin – VIC-20 and C64

Vixen 16k RAM for VIC-20

Overkill – Amiga 1200

The Killing Game Show – Amiga 500

I also found a bunch of Videopac G7000 games that I was lacking ^_^ Some I bought from my new found retro gaming friend Jack :) Thanks for bringing them for me!

8 Baseball – Videopac

9 Computer Programmer – Videopac

30 Battlefield – Videopac

10 Golf – Videopac

19 Catch the ball – Videopac

14 Gunfighter – Videopac

Some other things I found were a Case Boy that Söders Spel & Skivhandel thought would look great in my Castlevania collection because of the Castlevania screenshot on the box :D I also bought a reproduction of Trip World, mainly so I can play the game.. I’m probably never gonna spend that much money on the original.. I also got some cheap Famicom pirates, I thought they were quite funny since they read “4 in 1”, then “39 in 1” and finally “1000000000 in 1”!!! I’m skeptical to whether it actually contains that many XD Apart from this I picked up a bunch of other games, like Hao-Kun no Fushigi na Tabi for Famicom Disk System, Slider and Mighty Morphin Power Rangers on Game Gear, Puzzle Figher II on Game Boy Advance, Cobra Command on NES, Puyo Puyo on N-Gage, a hombrew game called Photon for MSX a few other games and I also got two ZX Spectrum games for free ^_^

Game Boy Case Boy

Trip World – Game Boy

Photon – MSX

Famicom Pirates

Slider & Mighty Morphin Power Rangers – Game Gear

Hao-Kun no Fushigi na Tabi – Famicom Disk System

Horace goes skiing and Space Resque – ZX Spectrum

Puyo Puyo – Nokia N-Gage

Cobra Command – NES

Puzzle Fighter II – Game Boy Advance

Paper Boy 2 – SNES

Joe Montana II Sports Talk Football – Sega Mega Drive

General Knowledge for Dummies – DS

There’s not a lot of Japanese games at this Swedish convention, but I did manage to find a few. I found some cheap PC Engine games I didn’t already have, and also Super Darius which cost a bit more. I also bought some Japanese Sega Mega Drive games from my friend Karl ^_^ And I found some really nice Super Famicom games! :D Yoshi’s Cookie, Yoshi’s Island and Super Bomberman 3 which completed my Super Bomberman set ^_^

Yoshi’s Island – Super Famicom

Momotarou Densetsu – PC Engine

Quackshot – Sega Mega Drive

Yoshi’s Cookie – Super Famicom

World of Illusion – Sega Mega Drive

Super Darius – PC Engine CD-ROM

Super Bomberman 3 – Super Famicom

Street Smart – Sega Mega Drive

Maniac Pro Wrestling – PC Engine

Pro Tennis World Court – PC Engine

Now this wasn’t the entire loot.. I’m saving some of the best parts ;D I’ll be back soon with part II of the l00t!

Retro Gathering 2016 was awesome!!!

October 4, 2016 by stopXwhispering

Last Friday I drove up to Västerås to attend Retro Gathering on Saturday, my favorite Retro Game convention in Sweden ^_^ Retrospelsmässan is also really nice, but as a retro game buyer there’s just more variation at Retro Gathering :) You can find everything from vintage computers, Atari and Commodore to newer PS2 and 3DS games. There have been more newer games lately compared to the first couple of years that I started attending, I hope they don’t take over though, because I love that there’s a place I can go to find these old obscure computers and consoles! I mainly focus on old cartridges and cassettes when I’m at Retro Gathering. Nintendo and Sega I can find at all the other retro game conventions in Sweden anyway.

So this year I was also asked to host an exhibit of my Castlevania collection, so I was there an hour earlier to set it up. People seemed to like it, but there were also a lot of visitors that asked me where it was. My cabinet had been hidden behind a roll-up behind the scene where they hosted the competitions, which was a shame… but people who looked found it anyway :) For those that missed it, this is what it looked like:

Castlevania Collection

The first thing I spotted was a boxed Colecovision that Japon was selling. I snagged it right away, with a bunch of games and a steering wheel controller ^_^ Pontus and Jan at Japon are really nice and gave me a good deal on it :)

Pontus at Japon

I love visiting Zeela’s table, it’s always filled with obscure and colorful things :) He also had a really fun rarity, Softporn Adventure by On-Line systems! On-Line systems later became Sierra, and on the picture of the “sexy” cover are executives and writers from the company, to the right is Roberta Williams, famous video game designer, writer and co-founder of Sierra On-Line who created for example the King’s Quest series :) This is the game that later became Leisure Suit Larry. Such a cool piece of history! I would have bought it if it wasn’t so expensive XD Also I’m not that into text-based adventures… ;D

Softporn Adventures – On-Line Systems

Apart from this he showed me the TRS-80, a computer that I had bought from him a while back that I got delivered here ^_^ I needed one to play my Tandy Tetris game! It’s apparently some kind of Tandy computer.. It was in really nice condition though ^_^ Original box, and I got both a boxed joystick and a big box full of games with it! :D

Ready to hook up!

Tandy TRS-80

Tandy games

Boxed Tandy games

He also had a bunch of other cool stuff ^_^ Like Strip Poker and Centrefold Squares for Atari ST, I bought these for a friend who had been looking all over the place for Atari ST games XD He AND his girlfriend were thrilled and couldn’t wait to play it!! Haha!

Gakken TV-Boy

Zeela’s table

First laptop from Ericsson ///

Bentley Compuvision

Deluxe Strip Poker back

Deluxe Strip Poker

GX4000 – Amstrad home console

Centrefold Squares

Centrefold Squares back

M5 CGL Home computer

There were so many games for sale, and retro game related stuff ^_^ Spel & Sånt had brought some Virtual Boy rarities, they had the three games that I am missing! But they were darn expensive >_< Another seller had setup Zelda on CDi for whoever wanted to try it out XD The creators of Alwa’s Awakening were also there displaying their game which is almost done now, it will be released on Steam :)

Coleco Vision and Vectrex

Retro Game arts

Famicom

Games for sale

Atari 2600

Game Boy

NES

Virtual Boy gems

Sega Master System

Cheap retro games

Games for sale

So much Batman!

Zelda on CDI on display for whoever wants to try it

Cartridges for sale

Games for sale

Alwa’s Awakening

Jumpman Junior

My friends Nathalie and Andreas from up north were also there, and they were selling some of their games. Nathalie tried to sell me a weird DS game, and Andreas wanted me to upgrade my version of Tetris 2 to a mint copy XD I did end up buying Paperboy 2 from them though ^_^ Andreas is a pixel-perfectionist and he had some upscaler connected on display with Super Mario Bro 3, I don’t like when the picture is perfect and the scanlines are too obvious ;P I prefer it the original way with an old CRT and a bit of a glitchy pic XD

Nathalie & Andreas

Good sales pitch by Nathalie ^_^

but no thanks XD

I already have this Tetris game XD

Super Mario Bros 3

Too much scanlines XD

I finally got around to buying the game Photon that has been under development and on display for years at these conventions ^_^ It’s still not finished, but I bought an early version of it :) I also got to talk a bit to the man behind it who told me a bit about the Sord and the community around it :) Apparently there was a club back in the day that released a magazine here in Sweden called “Sordisen”, he had a few issues for sale. He also showed me a few different versions of the system. I almost went and bought one from Zeela, but then again, I don’t have any games for it yet.. so I think it’ll have to wait.

Photon

Sord computer

Sordisen Magazine

Sord M5 Pro

I competed in the yearly Swedish Championships of Pong this year as well :) I won the first take out but lost to my second opponent.. I haven’t been practicing enough, or rather, I haven’t been practicing at all XD I need to get my husband to start playing it with me!! The champion can be seen in the video below, damn that’s an intense Pong game!

Swedish Championships of Pong

Pong championships

As usual they also had a bunch of games and systems set up so people could try them out :) I saw an Intellivision there which reminded me that a seller had promised me from the previous Retro Gathering to bring me one, when I found him though he had already sold it to someone else :((( Hopefully he can set me up with another one.. I have so many Intellivison games and no Intellivisions to play them on XD

Games set up to play

Commodore VIC-20

Commodore C64

Amiga

Coleco Vision

MSX

Texas Instruments

Atari 800

Sinclair ZX Spectrum

Videopac Computer G7000

Fairlight on ZX Spectrum

Crew setting up the games before opening

Intellivision

Colour Genie

Atari 1040 ST

Atari 2600 & NES

Vectrex

Amiga CD32

Sega Master System

Sega Mega Drive, SNES & N64

They also had some other exhibitors, one collection of Sonic games and one of Handic for the VIC 20 :)

Sonic Collection

Handic Collection

One of the best things about going to retro game conventions though is all the people! I met so many old and new friends, and people are so friendly :D

Söders Spel & Skivhandel

Matt8bit

Andreas

Spel & Sånt

Vira & friend

Retrospelsfestivalen

Retroplay

Anders and people :)

After the convention we went out and met up with a bunch of retro gamers, and we found Kralleman and PingeAhlin there who had missed the convention, but had been off on more exciting business! They had scored a bunch of old arcades and other rarities from a connection they had. I was lucky enough to get to go check out their loot :D They had gotten rare prototypes for the Videopac, old minty posters with ads for the Luxor computer, boxed Vectrexes, a Taito Space Invaders arcade cab and a Super Bug arcade with super mint manuals, a really old wooden arcade and an original Break Out arcade. The Break Out arcade had only been played on 64 times, which means it’s hardly been used more than factory testing. That’s pretty rad XD

Box of Videopac prototypes

Videopac prototypes 2-sided

Old luxor ad

Boxed Vectrexes

Taito Space Invaders arcade

Super Bug Arcade manual

Super old arcade

Old orange Break Out arcade from Atari

As you can probably figure, Retro Gathering has outdone themselves again and it was an awesome convention! I’ll go through my loot in a later post when I’ve gone through it all ;D

Ajax TV Game – a super sleek pong console

January 4, 2016 by stopXwhispering

I’ve been on the look out for Pong machines recently, mainly to train my skills before the yearly Swedish Championships of Pong that takes place each year at Retrogathering ^_^ I’ve been attempting to compete since 2014, but haven’t had anything to train on except my Philips Odyssey 2001, which has a quite different feeling than the original Atari Pong console. While scouting for an Atari Pong, like the ones they use in the competition I stumbled upon this beauty on eBay! It was so cheap and yet beautiful that I couldn’t help but buy it ^_^

I’ve never heard of the Ajax TV Games before, it’s from the UK, or at least that’s where I bought it from. It was complete, the box is a bit tattered but the console is in excellent condition! Shining white! It’s also so stylish and well designed! It can run on batteries or a power adaptor (which wasn’t included), and all the outputs for antenna and other chords plus the battery container is hidden behind a sleek compartment where you could also store the controllers, because they’re so tiny! Just look at this beauty ^_^

“Most exciting…fascinating home video games ever built
for your family.”

Ajax TV Games TG-621 in box

Ajax TV Games console box side

Ajax TV Games system box side

Ajax TV Game system

Ajax TV game chord compartment

Ajax TV Game with controllers

Ajax TV Game controller

The controllers really are tiny, one of the controllers is a liiiittle bit slower to turn than the other, but they both work fine. I tried it out for the first time today :)

The machine itself has loads of settings! You can turn the sound on and off, it comes straight from the system and is basically just beeps for when the ball hits the paddle. You can change angles between +-20°/40° or just +-20°, I guess this is how the ball will fly when it hits the edge of a paddle. There’s also two different speeds, H and L, High and Low I guess. You can choose between Auto serve or Manual and you can also set the bat size (the size of the paddle) between L and S, Large and Small.

Apart from this there’s 4 various game modes to choose from, Tennis, Hockey, Handball or Practice mode :)

This sucker takes no less than 6 C batteries to play!!!! Hahaha ^_^ I need to get an adaptor…

When I first tried finding the channel I had trouble. Two of my TVs refused to find it. The second one scrolled through a tuning that looked perfect, but refused to stop there, if I forced it to stop there it went bad again.. and whenever it did stop everything on the screen was warped like I was seeing double.. Eventually I got it working on the third TV though, luckily I have many TVs ;D

Here are the four variations of Pong that can be played on the Ajax TV Game :) I find Tennis to be the most fun one. Handball was kind of different though, I’ve never seen it before on a Pong machine. You take turns on hitting the ball, it gets a bit confusing to see which one is you or who’s turn it is. If the wrong paddle tries to hit it the ball just goes straight through. I would call this squash.. not handball.. XD

I didn’t have anyone to battle with so it was my left hand VS my right hand! (I’m right handed), but I recorded some gameplay of the Ajax TV Game, the first video is a game of Tennis on slow setting, and I was amazed at which hand came out victorious! It was hard focusing on turning the wheel in mirrored ways since I had it in two different hands XD The second video is of first Tennis on high speed and then some Hockey and Handball so anyone who’s interested can see how those look as well :) It was extremely difficult just controlling the paddle with one thumb!

The Ajax TV game system is a great addition to the collection! So pretty and works like a charm! Now I just need to find myself the original Pong console! ^_^