This Console Was Powerful, but EXPENSIVE to Produce

Comments · 270

• WA

  @Wallyworld30 · 1 year ago

  This was the Neo Geo of the 70s. I was at my local retro shop back in 2015 when someone brought a box of stuff to sell and from corner of my eye I saw a Bally. After the store owner bought the stuff I told him if the Bally Home Library works if give him $175 for it. He agreed so we hooked it up and sadly it didn't work.

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• AN

  @anactualmotherbear · 1 year ago

  This is the system that miraculously interacts with Clark Griswald's Apple II in the first Vacation film. Somehow just by Russ playing with the game controller while his father is going over the trip itinerary he is able to mess with the car on the tv screen and eat it like Pac-Man.

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• WI

  @williambrown2763 · 1 year ago

  I picked one of these up as a teen back in the late 80's at a yard sale with a ton of games, when I brought it home, my dad was blown away, told me he saw it way back when he bought the 2600, and was like,  "I should have bought that.."

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• 66

  @666Amadeus999 · 1 year ago

  Bailey?... Bailey?... It's Bally! Say Bally, frenchie!

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• JE

  @jeredwagner9132 · 1 year ago

  I absolutely love that you tackled the Astrocade.  My very first console.  Thank you!

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• CA

  @carlo1132 · 1 year ago (edited)

  This was the first console in my family. As a kid I was blown away by the pistol grip control, we didnt have many games with it but I do remember the gunfight game well!

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• SE

  @Seth_Arkada · 1 year ago

  Another fun fact, Pojr:  the reason why certain arcade ports (most notably Incredible Wizard and Space Fortress) is due to the fact its hardware is VERY similar to what was used in Wizard of Wor, Space Zap, and GORF.

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• AN

  @Anticitizen666 · 1 year ago

  Hi! A few things. The consoles were not that close technically. The Astrocade had 4Kb of RAM, which is 16 times as much as the 2600's 128bytes. The Astrocade also had a proper display buffer (using the RAM), where the 2600 had zero, which is why the graphics are much blockier on the 2600. The Astrocade could also access a full 64KB of ROM+RAM, so it would have been possible to have much more complex games, although ROM prices would have been prohibitive. It also had a kind of primitive blitter, so could handle a large number of sprites, though it was partially software controlled, unlike the 2600 "sprites" - though these obviously also leaned heavily on the CPU to render. Cheers!

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• BE

  @bellissimo4520 · 1 year ago

  I'm a child of the 70's but have never heard of this console. Interesting! Definitely great graphics for that time!

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• 80

  @80s_Gamr · 1 year ago

  Had this as a kid, have a few of them now. Still one of my favorite old school consoles. One of the pride and joys of my collection is a Pac-Man prototype made for this... one of only 21 made. The game eventually got a limited release under the names of Muncher and Munchie after losing a lawsuit with Atari over using the Pac-Man name.

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• FU

  @fungo6631 · 1 year ago

  <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6E2OhCneJGg&amp;t=351">5:51</a> Wait, wait, so this is the game that inspired the light cycle game in Tron!

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• 8B

  @8bit_AWS · 1 year ago

  When I was a kid in the late 70’s I remember both Atari and Astrocade in Sears. I didn’t like the Astrocade because of the controllers, they were nothing like the arcade compared to the 2600 joystick and paddles. <br><br>Great episode!

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