pong, coleco style.



I found one of these little beauties at the local thrift shop, complete in box, with instruction manual (chewed up, admittedly). It runs on 4 D cell batteries (battery cover lid is missing) or the optional power supply. Luckily enough, my atari power supply seems to fit it just fine.

The system is a big tan hunk of plastic, with (drumroll) a faux woodgrain sticker overlay on the control area. The thing is about 2 feet wide, and a foot deep. Set in a few inches from either end are two knobs. In the middle, along with the woodgrain sticker, are a few switches. There's a 3 position switch that controls difficulty (beginner (slow ball, big paddles), advanced (fast ball, big paddles), amd expert (fast ball, small paddles). Then there's also a 3 position switch for game selection (tennis, hockey, handball), and a small reset button.

Tennis is your basic two-player ball and paddle game, hockey gives each player two paddles, one by the 'goal' (an opening on the outer wall), and one about half an inch from the opponents goalie. Finally, handball is for all the videogame freaks without friends. Use the right paddle, and all the playing area is walled in except the right. So you're hitting the ball repeatedly, and you score a point when you miss. All games play to 21 points, i believe.

Problems? Well, mine tends to burn in a picture on my tv- the white line coming down the middle turns blue, and stays there awhile. The score counters are scrambledas well- the left score blinks and turns into a block, kind of echoing the pattern of the right score. Could be the fact that I'm not running it with the correct power source, could just be old.



Yeah. Great description. Thrill a minute. let's scram.