Classic Consoles Center

Monat: Januar 2012

  • My Philips G7400 – Back Home!

    "DIK" G7400"DIK" G7400: Closeup of the stickers"DIK" G7400: Serial number comparison between warranty card and console - match!Some time ago I noticed a Philips G7400 on eBay Austria, entitled as „Philips- DIK, Videopac + G7400“. That was strange, because DIK were my initials before CCC, I used them for example on arcade highscore lists in the 1980s. I clicked on the auction picture and suddenly I knew it – this must be MY Videopac console!

    My dad once had a Samsonite briefcase with those stickers to put initials on the case. He gave me the stickers and I put them on my G7400 more than 25 years ago. I had completely forgotten about that, but when I saw the photo in the auction, the memories came back immediately.

    I sold my G7400 in my hometown in 1985 to raise money for my new home computer, an Atari 130 XE. In the early 1990s my girlfriend wanted to buy the console back for me, but we noticed that it was the wrong one. The kid I had sold my G7400 to had apparently two of them. Later the traces disappeared. Now, two and a half decades later, the console resurfaced, 130 kilometers from my hometown.

    Fortunately I could win the auction, however not very cheap because the seller mentioned the DIK in the auction title, so people thought it could be something special. I was excited when I opened the parcel. I still had the warranty card from 1983, so I just had to compare the serial numbers on the card and on the console. Match! It was really MY G7400!

    The seller had bought the console only a few weeks earlier with other flea market stuff in the town where I live now. So he picked the console up here, drove 130 kilometers home, put it on ebay and, as I won it, shipped it back to the town where he picked it up. Anyway: my G7400 is back home and this time I will not sell it to raise money for my next home computer …

  • Videopac Gunfighter Demo Cartridge

    Videopac Gunfighter demo cart: Photo of boxVideopac Gunfighter demo cart: Closeup of demo sticker on boxVideopac Gunfighter demo cart: Photo of cartridgeVideopac Gunfighter demo cart: Closeup of demo sticker on cartridgeVideopac collector Alex Lehman from Switzerland saw a Philips G7000 with four games for sale in an advertisement some time ago. One of the games attracted his attention, as it was titled as „demo cartridge No. 14“. So he bought the lot and indeed there was an official demonstration cartridge of the Videopac game Gunfighter included. Alex was so kind to send us some photos.

    The cartridge was probably used at Videopac demo stations in stores. The text on the demo label is in German, French, Italian and English, so those carts could have been used in other countries as well. Would be interesting if someone else also found similar demo carts. Maybe this demo label style was used for other Videopac games as well?

  • No Kangaroos In Austria!

    Missent to Melbourne, AustraliaIt’s not always easy to live in a small country like Austria, especially when you await a parcel from a big country like the United States of America. There is small Austria and there is big Australia, which sounds and spells very similar, except for those two small letters that make the difference.

    So if you live in Austria and your parcel from the USA is much overdue, that doesn’t necessarily mean that it got completely lost somewhere over the Atlantic. It might also be that, even if the sender wrote the correct address on it (Austria, without „al“!), to some unknown reason your parcel makes its way over the wrong ocean (Pacific instead of Atlantic) to Melbourne, Australia (with „al“!).

    It might also be that some unknown but conscientious and well-educated post clerk in Australia knows the difference between the continent he lives on and the small country in the heart of Europe, and forwards the parcel to the correct addressee. So even if you live in small Austria, you might face a happy end with your overdue parcel.