I wanted to post that already one year ago, but somehow never had the time.
Well, it was exactly 31 years ago (30 years ago if I would have posted this at Christmas 2012) when I got my very first video game console, the Philips Videopac G7000, for Christmas on 24th December 1982. It was my biggest wish that year, and the most expensive Christmas present I ever begged for. And I was more than happy when I really saw that big parcel under the Christmas tree. The G7000 came with Videopac 2, containing the three games Pairs, Space Rendezvous and Logic.
We had only two TV channels back then, and they were not HD like today, they were blurry, they were grainy, at least that’s how I remember them. Now imagine that crystal clear picture from the G7000 on our TV screen. And it didn’t come over the air from some television transmitter, it came from my G7000 in our living room. And we couldn’t just watch the programme, we could interact, we could move the space ships on the screen, we could type in the letters in Memory to turn over the tiles and the numbers in Logic to find the right code. My cousin and I played Videopac until midnight that Christmas eve. It was a magic time that just had begun. The Videopac opened a gate to a new world. A world of exploration and fight in space, a world of monsters in deep and dark dungeons, a world of thousand other dangers, wonders and excitements.
Christmas 1982 started everything for me. I got addicted and still I am. Not to video games in general, but to retro games as we call them today. Anytime I would prefer a video game from the early or mid 1980s to a modern video game.
Merry Christmas to you all!
Following the success of the Retrobörse in Vienna from 2009 to 2012, Austria’s capital will see its fifth Börse on Sunday, 8th December 2013. Due to space reasons (the old location at the TU was already too small), this year’s Börse will be held in the Längenfeldgasse 13 – 15, 1120 Vienna. Doors will open at 10 am and close at 4 pm. Entrance fee is only 4 Euros.