„Omnia Omnibus Ubique – All Things for All People, Everywhere“, that’s the motto of Harrods, maybe the world’s most famous department store, located in London’s Brompton Road.

During our UK trip last week I spotted an interesting item in Harrods‘ „Millionaire Gallery“: An Apple MacIntosh, authentically hand signed by Steve Jobs. Allthough there also seems the premier issue of Macworld to be in the lot, signed by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, I thought that it was slightly overpriced, with a price tag of 86,495 British Pounds (that’s like 105,000 Euros or 146,000 USD). After some pondering I left it there and bought some sweets in the candy department instead. So if anyone is interested – the Mac might still be there!

He was one of THE voices of the 1980s. He was not a singer, but a radio moderator. His „American Top 40“ had been aired by radio stations all over the world, including Austria. They were a fixture for me each week. It was always interesting to hear what was top in the US charts, what was new that hadn’t made it across the pond so far. And Casey brought those charts to us in a unique way. Songs didn’t climb three places, but notches. And the long distance dedications were stories from a land far away.

Now he died aged 82 on 15th June 2014. Casey, keep your feet on the ground, and keep on reaching for the stars!

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.

On more than 130(!) sales tables you will find items from the very first Pong systems up to the Playstation 3 era, both computer and video games, hardware and accessories.

Don’t miss this opportunity to enlarge your collection and chat with other enthusiasts about the whole video and computer games history.

Please visit www.retroboerse.at for more details.

Early in 2011, Robbert Jansen, administrator of the famous Videopac and Odyssey2 forum, was contacted by a developer of games for Videopac in the days of 1982/1983. The programmer told Robbert that he liked his website and offered him his material from his programming days at Philips. He was going to get rid of them but he wanted his materials to get a good home.

He had many known games like Morse, RobotCity, Turtles, Killer Bees, Q*bert, Terrahawks, Black Hole (Neutron Star), (Play) Tag, SuperCobra, Spider-Man, Popeye and Frogger, but there was more. During testing Robbert discovered 5 unknown titles: A sound tool and the four games Himalaya, Bastion, Cat Burglar and … Terrahawks!

Terrahawks? Not the Terrahawks that we know, but a completely different game!

Robbert asked me if I would like to release the game, and of course I wanted. As always, I made 100 carts with original style label, original style manual and original style inlay for Videopac+ boxes.

Read more and find all the info on my Videopac page!

Following the success of the four Retrobörse in Vienna, Linz will see its first Börse on Saturday, 14th September 2013. Location will be the Tabakfabrik, Peter-Behrens-Platz 11/Ludlgasse 19, 4020 Linz. Doors will open at 10 am and close at 4 pm, the supporting programme goes until 10 pm. Entrance fee is only 3 Euros.

On more than 100 meters of sales tables you will find items from the very first Pong systems up to the Playstation 2 era, both computer and video games, hardware and accessories. Many sellers are in Austria for the first time so you can expect a lot of new items that were not available in Vienna.

For the first time in Austria there will be a big supporting programme, including a big retro games exhibition which was set up for the Ars Electronica Festival, free new games for the Commodore Amiga by Retroguru and Punktart, free issues of the retro magazine Load, games made by students of the technical college Hagenberg, playing Starcraft games with a cinema beamer on a big screen, the Austrian debut of the board game Whacky Wit, and a live concert by chiptune musician Markus Schrott after the Börse.

Don’t miss this opportunity to enlarge your collection and chat with other enthusiasts about the whole video and computer games history.

Please visit www.retroboerse.at for more details.

Following the success of the Retrobörse in Vienna in 2009, 2010 and 2011, Austria’s capital will see its fourth Börse on Saturday, 8th December 2012. Location will be again the Technical University Freihaus, Wiedner Hauptstrasse 8, 1040 Vienna. Doors will open at 10 am and close at 4 pm. Entrance fee is only 3 Euros.

On more than 50 sales tables you will find items from the very first Pong systems up to the Playstation 2 era, both computer and video games, hardware and accessories.

Don’t miss this opportunity to enlarge your collection and chat with other enthusiasts about the whole video and computer games history.

Please visit www.retroboerse.at for more details.

Well I was relaxing at my parents‘ house today and suddenly had the idea of making a video of my games collection. That’s an easy job with today’s smart phones and soon I had uploaded the video to YouTube.

I had always stored my collection in banana boxes in the cellar of our appartment since I started collecting in the early 1990s. To enjoy my collection I had to go down in the cellar, open the boxes and put the games out. Non-satisfying. Three years ago my grandma, who lives only a few minutes away, told me that she had a room which she doesn’t use anymore. That was a great opportunity to use it as a video games room. Finally I could put my games in shelves. Very satisfying!

Now this is the very first video of (a big part of) my collection in twenty years of collecting!

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 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?