Mechanical Pong 256
RotJ writes "Some crafty Germans have created an electromechanical conversion of the game Pong: "Pongmechanik is an absolutely physical game. The game is realized electromechanically, and essentially consists of four elements:
A relay computer, the mechanical movement with collision detection, the display and the acoustic components." Talk about analog retro chic."
saccade.com adds "This amazing device faithfully
re-creates the classic original video game with pulleys, wires,
motors and a (pre-chip, pre-transistor, pre-tube) relay based
computer. They were partly inspired by Konrad
Zuse, who created some of the first electromechanical and
electronic computers."
Carnival (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Carnival (Score:4, Funny)
TW
High quality mirror (Score:5, Informative)
It's very cool. The video is in German with English subtitles.
Re:High quality mirror (Score:2, Insightful)
--
Big Jason '99
Re:High quality mirror (Score:2)
Funnily enough... (Score:3, Funny)
machine about 10ft^2 with a platform driven by motors in xy
space, and having read this article I added:
int xdir=1; sDriveX(xdir);
int ydir=1; sDriveY(ydir);
while (true){
if (stopSwX()){xdir*=-1;sDriveX(xdir);}
if (stopSwY()){ydir*=-1;sDriveY(ydir);}
}
I fired it up, chuckled, then felt a bit nerdy, chuckled some more,
then got on with my work.
Re:Funnily enough... (Score:3, Funny)
Real life pong (Score:5, Funny)
I think it's called Tennis or something.
Re:Real life pong (Score:3)
Commander Keen [3drealms.com]. I forget with episodes it was.
But my friend went one better, and put an old herculese monitor in a box,
added a 386 and a dial, and played pong. (Read: Far too much spare time)
Re:Real life pong (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Real life pong (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Real life pong (Score:2)
Re:Real life pong (Score:2)
Re:Real life pong (Score:2, Informative)
Keen Dreams was made by id to meet a quota for a number of games, and was then dumped into being freeware or somesuch. It had a completly different interface to it, that included a mouse cursor and buttons. The plot was rather humorous, but you didn't have your neural blaster with you. So, you had to collect little flashing obj
Re:Real life pong (Score:2)
Re:Real life pong (Score:5, Funny)
Ping Pong = real
Therefore: real Pong = fake Ping Pong
and ping = real/Pong
Got it?
Re:Real life pong (Score:5, Funny)
if real Pong = fake Ping Pong
then real = fake Ping
so Ping = real / fake
assuming real = 1 / fake
then Ping = real ^ 2
Got it?
Re:Real life pong (Score:4, Insightful)
My brother had an RCA color television with built-in PONG on it. You pushed a mechanical button to activate the PONG game and hooked up the controller(s) to go to town. What will they think of next?
Amazing how such a stupidly simple game could be so captivating to a primitive audience. Are we smarter these days or just more jaded?
Re:Real life pong (Score:2)
Smarter these days? It seems like several of us were captivated by this implementation of Pong (i.e. reading the article, posting about it, etc.)
Re:Real life pong (Score:3, Insightful)
Pong was the first time I can remember moving something displayed on my television around the screen with a control knob. Magically, other objects could interact with my bar on the screen in a manner that was intuitive and predictable. New experiences are often facinating/captivating to the audience. I don't see how the audience can be called primitive for having a natural response to a new experience.
Re:Real life pong (Score:2, Funny)
Oh yeah. I remember back then, all those primitive fools wasting quarters on that stupidly simple game. I used to shout, "Stop wasting your time, you idiots! Don't you know in thirty years we will be achieving perfect shadows at 30fps in our first person shooters and immersing ourselves in massive MMPORGS?"
Oh and and a few years before that my family was so stupid that
Re:Real life pong (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Real life pong (Score:2)
Re:Real life pong (Score:2)
Next in line... (Score:3, Funny)
This one might require lots of black velvet courtains.
Re:Next in line... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Next in line... (Score:5, Funny)
Heres hoping they get on to a mechanical version of Leisure Suit Larry.
With all those relays, it would definitely bring new definition to the term "hot date."
I'm a much bigger fan of the organic version myself.
Re:Next in line... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Next in line... (Score:2)
We've moved on since then (Score:2)
"If the Roman Empire had never fallen, we wouldn't have the special effects that we have today, because there would be no need for fake blood or any such nonsense"
We've moved on. There's another empire in the ascendent and they're playing Counter-Strike.
T&K.
MS Pinball (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:MS Pinball (Score:3, Insightful)
Movie Mirror (Score:5, Informative)
Factual errors (Score:3, Informative)
Nolan Bushnell may be a hugely cool dude who I respect a lot, but he did not invent Pong. That honor goes to Ralph Baer [pong-story.com]
And the statement "Konrad Zuse, inventor of the computer" isn't exactly accurate either.
a question for the lawyers at intellivision (Score:5, Funny)
Cool... or is it? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Cool... or is it? (Score:2)
You'd better play Doom 3 to keep you warm.
Blip (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Blip (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Blip (Score:2)
Re:Blip (Score:2)
Mechanical Space Invaders. (Score:2)
talk about retro (Score:4, Funny)
Re:talk about retro (Score:3, Interesting)
Many early computers used telephone system components as they were relatively sophisticated, bulk produced, reasonable quality and cheap.
Way cool (Score:3, Funny)
huh? Not physical enough... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:huh? Not physical enough... (Score:3, Insightful)
sheesh
Marx TV Tennis toy (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Marx TV Tennis toy (image) (Score:4, Informative)
I actually own a similar model. Green, somewhat simpler styling but the same mechanicals. It's still somewhere in my old bedroom at my parents place. If I were the stereotypical nerd still living at home, I would have a photo of it by now.
Re:Marx TV Tennis toy (image) (Score:2)
If your parents are anything like mine, it was tossed into the trash a month after you moved out. Quick run home and get it now, before all your childhood memorabilia is tossed and your old room is turned into a sewing room!
Ha! (Score:5, Funny)
Face it, Germany once again is a technology leader (at least in the field of geeky true life retro gaming)
That's pretty cool, anyone remember blip? (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm probably making myself look very old, but I used to have a handheld mechanical pong game in the early 80's. It wasn't as dynamic as the pong game here, but it was wind up, and used a then-new LED as the ball.
It was called Blip and made by Tomy.
Here's a pic [ev1.net].
Nostalgia is fun
Re:That's pretty cool, anyone remember blip? (Score:2)
In any case, I took it apart. Not to fix it, mind you, but just because it had blinky lights and made fun sounds.
I did that to things with blinky lights a lot. Unfortunately I was not always so good and puttin
Re:That's pretty cool, anyone remember blip? (Score:2)
mechanical phooey - How about wetware pong ? (Score:2, Funny)
THEN we could use some small ball thing and have the wetware units keep the ball bouncing from side to side.
the speed of the ball moving from one side to the other would be the ping time ...
Yeah - that'd work. We could call it Ping Pong (but some boring fart would probably name it table tennis)
I wonder how to register a patent
Very cool (Score:5, Interesting)
About freakin time... (Score:2, Insightful)
"We are the consumer whores, selling ourselves to purchase this generations technology, and attempting to revisit the electronic devices that raised us during childhood while our parents were selling themselves for their generations technology, and an inexpensive babysitter. Through nostalgic mediums we discover our true mother and father; television and video games."
-JW Malkin
Next step... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Next step... (Score:2)
Re:Next step... (Score:2)
Re:Next step... (Score:3, Interesting)
As someone who's busy with pinball machines (see my website) I'm sometimes amazed about how electro-mechanical pinball machines work and how clever the guys who designed these were. People think they're smart now we've got computers, but some old skills we lost. I do believe that if transistors/IC's were not invented, with electro-mechanical components we'd do impressive things.
EM pinball machines may look to have simple rules, but the problem was the p
Re:Next step... (Score:3, Interesting)
A cannon fires many steel balls at moving light patterns, and a hit is detected when the a ball falls through one of the traps around the edge of the playfield.
See http://www.gamearchive.com/Pinball/Manufacturers/ W illiams/hyperball.html [gamearchive.com]
Big deal! (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Big deal! (Score:2)
52 Relays, all produced in 1958 (Score:5, Interesting)
What could we build now with electronics from 1958? Given the evils of silicon creep, it would be an interesting question whether the components would last 46 years.
Lastly, the power consumption is just a respectable 230w, about the same as a PC. Not bad!
Zuse stuff... (Score:5, Informative)
They have so much geeky stuff there you could spend three or four days there and still not appreciate it all. There's captions to most things in English, so you don't have to speak German to get a lot out of the place.
Re:Zuse stuff... (Score:2, Interesting)
Funny thing: We wanted to compute: 5+3. The result was 7, because some of the relais were not functioning anymore.
Unfortunately, they do not have the manpower to keep their old stuff in good shape, more and more of it gets damaged over the years.
Re:Zuse stuff... (Score:2)
Re:Zuse stuff... (Score:2)
Deutsches Museum (Score:2)
I've been to the Deutsches Museum. It's an engineer's dream museum. They have exhibits on all sorts science and engineering subjects.
The place is absolutely huge: you'd probably need a week to go through it all if you looked at everything. I just saw the Computer Science section (very cool) and it took at least half a day to go through.
I strongly recommend paying it a visit if you're ever in Munich, even if you don't spend much time there.
Wow, I visited their website [deutsches-museum.de] and just now and I found a list [deutsches-museum.de]
Had this when I was a child (Score:5, Interesting)
I wish I hadn't thrown it away, I could probably trade it for a Testarossa now or something.
testarossa? (Score:2)
Other mechanicalized video games? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Other mechanicalized video games? (Score:2, Funny)
Oh, I forgot, this is Slashdot. I have no friends.
Re:Other mechanicalized video games? (Score:3, Informative)
As for real life pacman.. this was covered on Slashdot a while back.. a bunch of people dressed as pacman and ghosts went running around New York or somewher
Re:Other mechanicalized video games? (Score:2)
"Inspired by Konrad Zuse" (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:"Inspired by Konrad Zuse" (Score:2)
Ahhh! My life has been vindicated!
LOL. Oh yes. (Score:2, Interesting)
a mere 8-9 year old kid, I got to be teached "how to
play" music on a *real* hammond organ. No No. You think you know what I'm saying but you don't.
It had *TWO* switches to switch it on.
I still remember why.
It's great fun to drop this gorgeous stuff on the the
newbies out there.
Hey even a few old timers will scratch their heads, but there really was a good technical reason for the *two* switches.
Enjoy and be puzzled.
Re:LOL. Oh yes. (Score:3, Informative)
The next logical step (Score:4, Funny)
Imagine playing the mechanical pong game on yor TV, where you can actually see that it is not quite an electronic game!
huh? (Score:2)
from the pronounced-the-same dept.
Err... so the Mechanical is silent?
-Colin [colingregorypalmer.net]
I played a mechanical version of pong in the 70's (Score:4, Interesting)
I bought the game around 1976 at a yard sale for about $0.25. It consisted of a cheap plastic casing shaped like a tv. The "screen" was translucent plastic. The "ball" was an arm with a light at one end (almost touching the screen) and a counterweight at the other end so that the arm was essentially ambivalent if it swung up or down. An electric motor moved the arm so that the arm always wanted to swing left or right. (Sorry about all these anthropomorphisms, it's the only way I can think to describe it.)
Each player had a handle that turned a mechnical bouncer up and down. If the arm swung past your bouncer, a buzzer buzzed.
It didn't keep score and it was never as fast as pong or as... um, exciting (if you can use that word with pong). But by golly I got it for a quarter and played the heck out of it. Then I took it apart and figured out how it worked. Then at some point I donated it to the landfill.
Re:I played a mechanical version of pong in the 70 (Score:2)
It was pretty lame, especially as you could buy, like, an electronic Pong for your TV. So it's not like someone made mechanical pong, then someone else said "hey, let's computerize it!". No, someone actually said "look at this electronic TV game, I bet we could make a mechanical version that still requires ba
What is the world comming to? (Score:2, Funny)
So what abou the game, the video ROCKS! (Score:2, Insightful)
5 points off, however, for the bit of misogyny with poor Almut misrepresenting the function of a relay.
bah, been doing it for years (Score:2, Funny)
Power Hog (Score:2, Funny)
wrong controllers (Score:3, Informative)
Pong was a game played with two "paddle" controllers, another word for variable resistors. The speed your paddle moved was controlled by the speed you moved the paddle. It was fundamentally an analog input.
This thing uses joysticks for controllers, as digital inputs. The speed the paddle moves is not controllable by the player.
This "Pongmechanik" thing is another game altogether, and not Pong at all. Nonetheless, a beowulf cluster of them would be intriguing.
Re:wrong controllers (Score:2, Funny)
But where's the suffering? (Score:3, Funny)
It's been done before . . . (Score:2, Offtopic)
It must be fascinating to look at it (Score:2)
Although I am not old enough to write about it, I just imagine how interesting it would be to be able to look into a panel and track the movement of a single byte through the system, as described in an old Wired article on old computer systems.
I also imagine that, once my amazement wears off, looking into a panel full of flashing lights must have been very, very boring. Go figure.
Bow-chicka-WOW-wow (Score:5, Funny)
And THEN the Atari guy, naked, shows up on screen. WTF???
Maybe it's just me?
Built a relay computer while in high school (Score:2)
Re:Meccano + Nerds = Tic-Tac-Toe! (Score:3, Interesting)
I found this copy on Google:
Re:Meccano + Nerds = Tic-Tac-Toe! (Score:2)
Other Real Life Games (Score:2)
Just join the US military, that's about as real as it's going to get.
Re:Geek Gods (Score:2)
Funny you mention that. I was looking at the cover of The Sims 2 the other day and swore up and down that the Token Asian Woman on the cover looked an awful lot like Rinoa Heartilly from FF8.
Or, y'know, we could both be tremendous nerds. That's always an option.
Re:Faithful reproduction? Hardly. (Score:2)