Ian's Retro Museum
The Rise of PONG

A look at the PONG consoles I have in my collection

Long before Call of Duty, Minecraft, or even Sonic the Hedgehog. There was Pong.

Using only straight while lines, square balls, the occasional BEEP, and most importantly, your imagination. You could be at Wimbledon, or even at Wembley Stadium scoring the winner in the last few seconds of the game.

Pong first hit the home in 1972 with the first arcade console arriving a little later, in the US at least. In the UK we had to wait until 1973 to get our hands on them.

Soon a number of manufacturers were churning them out, all pretty much the same, just differing in case styling. However colour backgrounds soon arrived, then different games arrived (based on the same white lines and square balls)

There were four different technologies behind the PONG consoles, the very first used analogue components, which could be affected by being in close proximity to humans or the television which caused unstable lines and other strange effects on screen.
Next came digital circuits using logic gates and these produced a much more stable image on the screen.
The most common were the dedicated PONG on a chip models, using an integrated circuit from companies like General Instruments these were much simpler in design, and therefore cheaper to produce as almost all the circuitry was on the chip, but this made all the models look, sound, and play the same, differing only in case design. There were lots of revisions of the PONG on a chip which offered more games and even colour backgrounds
Eventually microprocessors started to appear which could run early primitive software

Eventually along came the PC-50x range with interchangable cartridges which featured games other than PONG, like Breakout and simple racing games

Which of course, were sold separately.

There are 30 pong consoles in the museum

Teleng Colourstars



Here is a Teleng Colourstars pong clone, it's missing the controllers and game cartridges, so it is useless at this time, although I have since bought a controller and a cartridge

Grandstand 4600



This Grandstand 4600 Pong clone is more or less complete, the rifle attachment is missing some parts, but may still work. I do have the original box for it, but it's in a very poor condition. This has a chance of working, so I will be testing it soon...

UPDATE: Yes it does to a degree.

Binatone TV Master Mk 8



I had one of these when I was little, and now I have another... It was listed as "not working", I wonder if it's to do with the "Back Porch" problem that the ZX80 and ZX81 suffer from?

Videomaster Visionscore VMVI (X2)



A £10 Facebook Marketplace and a 60 mile round trip gamble, did it pay off..? I have two now

Grandstand 3000



Another Ebay find, untested and cheap

Binatone TV Master Mk 4 (X4)



Two very cheap Ebay "untested" punts that didn't work too well. Then later, another eBay purchase

Binatone Colour TV Game Mk10



I briefly became obsessed with Pong consoles and bought a load of them for pennies

Adman Grandstand 3600



I briefly became obsessed with Pong consoles and bought a load of them for pennies

Grandstand 6000



I briefly became obsessed with Pong consoles and bought a load of them for pennies

Grandstand Cartridge



I briefly became obsessed with Pong consoles and bought a load of them for pennies

Interstate V-11



I briefly became obsessed with Pong consoles and bought a load of them for pennies

Prinztronic Videosport 800 Colour



I briefly became obsessed with Pong consoles and bought a load of them for pennies

Prinztronic Micro 5500



Bought on a day out in Swindon from Retro Gamez HQ

Radofin Tele-sports III



Bought on a day out in Swindon from Retro Gamez HQ

Tandy Electronic TV Scoreboard



Popped in to Retro Bristol and saw this

Acetronic Colour TV Game



£5 from Revival Games

Acetronic Tele-sports IV



£5 from Revival Games, same as the Prinztronic Micro 5500 above

Ingersoll Colour Match



£5 from Revival Games, another hand-held Pong TV game

Teleplay Colour Programagame



£5 from Revival Games, same as the Teleng Colourstars above

Tandy TV Scoreboard



Only £15 from a local reclamation/second hand shop, it's in very good condition but I haven't tested it yet

Binatone TV Master Mk10



Another day, another one of Binatone's Pong consoles

Grandstand Match of the Day 2000



This is smaller than it looks, but it's sure cute

Videomaster Strika



Is it Strika, Striker, or something else entirely? Who knows?

Shira AU-807 Pong



Teeny tiny Pong console

Decca Sport TV Game



Look at this unit, I picked it up from Retro Bristol and it is a beast

Binatone TV Master Mk6



The Mk6, it comes between the Mk4 and the Mk8, has six games, see the naming pattern

Binatone Colour TV Game



Looks like the Mk4, but colour

Grandstand 3600 MkIII



Turns out this is the later version of the Mk2 above

Grandstand Colour Programmable



Found on Vinted, seems similar to the Grandstand Cartridge above

Videomaster Superscore



A LONG PONG console from 1976

The dark area

I hope you all find this as interesting and as nostalgic as I do.

And if you do, why not check out the next page in my retro museum... Printers

Or to quicky jump to another room of the museum, click or tap on Rooms at the bottom of this screen

Special thanks to my long-suffering partner Denise for putting up with all this "nonsense".

No cats were unnecessarily annoyed during the creation of this site

Well, maybe Rose was annoyed for a brief moment because the dog is interrupting their nap as the human didn't take him out for a walk because he was busy testing a Grandstand 6000 Pong console...



CATS!



H - STOP in INPUT, 563:1

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