Slashdot Mirror


Rare East German Arcade Game Unearthed

Lancey writes "While hunting for work stuff I found this press release about an old Soviet games machine, apparently there are only three surviving units from a production of 1500 - most of them were destroyed after the Berlin wall came down. Thought you might find it interesting..." There are screenshots and photos in this BBC story.

41 of 368 comments (clear)

  1. This is the biggest news since Adult Swim... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    ...announced reruns of Worker & Parasite cartoons.

  2. Well by arieswind · · Score: 3, Funny

    Ill take pong over "crap booth" any day

  3. Imagine.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    A Beowulf-ski cluster of these

    1. Re:Imagine.. by shackma2 · · Score: 2, Funny

      Ya..it would almost be as powerfull as my appleII

    2. Re:Imagine.. by Vaginal+Discharge · · Score: 3, Funny

      Umm... there's only 3 in existence. So a beowulf cluster of these will probably have the computing power of my TI graphing calculator.

      --
      "Glory is fleeting but obscurity is forever" - Napoleon Bonapart.
  4. Here we go... by suso · · Score: 3, Funny

    In soviet russia, the dots eat you.

  5. Re:literal translations rule by DjMd · · Score: 4, Funny

    So...In Soviet Russia polyplay plays you???

    --
    DJMD - The fourth man - Planetary
  6. other features by sinnfeiner1916 · · Score: 2, Funny

    it's made of cardbord, can fold into a briefcase, but does get 50 continues to the quarter rubel!

    --
    The More Laws, the less Justice --Marcus Tullius Cicero
  7. The old "hunting for work stuff" ploy by eltoyoboyo · · Score: 2, Funny

    It is always a good day when you get paid to surf the internet.

    Google search on "Soviet Video Games".... Hey, does this guy post on slashdot?

    --
    Have you Meta Moderated t
  8. BBC blows up by lacrymology.com · · Score: 5, Funny

    I find it strange that the BBC would decide to host this article on one of the game machines in questions. Tis a pity.
    -m

    --

    #
    # Modus Ponens
    #
  9. Are the games in MAME yet? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    I only have four thousand others, so I could use a new game.

  10. How are East German women like arcade games? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    They both sometimes have joysticks. They both take lots of quarters to play.

  11. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 4, Funny

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  12. They had another game, too. by Myrmi · · Score: 5, Funny

    The Berlin wall was the largest official game of Breakout to have ever existed. They won.

    --
    "I think everyone is an agnostic but just doesn't know" - Frazz
    1. Re:They had another game, too. by Rhinobird · · Score: 5, Funny

      I guess that makes the new wall in Isreael level 2?

      --
      If Mr. Edison had thought smarter he wouldn't sweat as much. --Nikola Tesla
  13. Re:U of Bath is in the UK by gatekeep · · Score: 4, Funny

    But please don't take that to mean that bathing is optional in the US. It's your civic duty to practice good hygeine.

  14. 24/7 Hotline for these games... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    'Put it in "H"!!!!!'

  15. Hmmm what's the communist scoring system like? by Libertarian_Geek · · Score: 4, Funny

    Your score is averaged with everyone else's scores? There are no high scores, only the people's score. For snitching on your neighbor's capitalistic views, you get an extra Blue ghost dot though.

    --

    www.facebook.com/DareDefendOurRights

    www.fairtax.org
  16. (Sorry, karma be damned) by jcostantino · · Score: 4, Funny

    In the former East Germany... games pl^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H you play games!

    --
    Reviews with a twist! http://www.sardonicbastard.com
  17. East German fun by BinBoy · · Score: 3, Funny

    Proving once again if there's one thing you can say about East Germans it's that they really knew how to have fun.

  18. More Missing Titles: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Bratwurst-Time (The burgertime counterpart)
    Soulkrauten (soulblade...but everyone looks like Sigfreid)
    Aryan 51 (a shoot-em-up game)
    Operation Wulf (a Taito port)
    Building Castle Wolfenstein (Tetris clone)

    And the yet-to-be-released:
    Kaiser Gassem Forever (hey, it's about as bad as Nukem)

  19. Re:U of Bath is in the UK by gwernol · · Score: 5, Funny

    For those like me who are geographically challenged, Bath is in the United Kingdom, a couple of hours west of London.

    Ah, but the museum is at the Swindon campus of the University of Bath. Swindon is between Bath and London, about 1.5 hours west of the capital. The glorious Eddie Izzard once described Swindon as being like Fresno without the charm. Which is about right.

    --
    Sailing over the event horizon
  20. Pac Man was a capitalist by MooseByte · · Score: 4, Funny

    " So Pac Man was a communist?"

    Not a chance. Else Pac Man would have stood waiting in line for hours to get one dot, and all the bonus items would been deemed decadent Western evils. Unless you entered the secret "Member of the Politburo" code, in which case see below.

    No, Pac Man was purely a consumerism capitalist, endlessly gobbling up things, the faster the better in order to gobble still MORE things, all while dodging the tax collectors to the best of his ability.

    1. Re:Pac Man was a capitalist by Trix606 · · Score: 2, Funny

      No, you're thinking of Warsaw Pact Man.

      --
      "Look out honey, 'cause I'm using technology" -- Search and Destroy -- Iggy Pop
  21. Re:literal translations rule by TopShelf · · Score: 4, Funny

    Oh poo, you ruined all the fun...

    --
    Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more
  22. Re:literal translations rule by Afrosheen · · Score: 2, Funny

    I can see how this would be a frequent mistake..you know, confusing the word Shit with Shoot, probably happens all the time.

    Wait, that's just here in Texas. Aw, shoot.

  23. Poly play explained by Gallowsgod · · Score: 3, Funny

    From the article: "The Poly Play videogame was Eastern Bloc's answer to the capitalist's Pac Man"

    In short, the object of the game is for the ghosts to crush the despotic tyrant McPacMan. After voting two of the ghosts as their representatives in the socialist ghosts party these two ghosts share all the dots between them leaving one dot for the other two ghosts to share. The number of votes each ghost gets is based on the number of dots in their region of the screen.

    --

    The belief in a biblical god is an ignorant one
  24. I knew it! by sulli · · Score: 3, Funny

    The original champions of DDR!

    --

    sulli
    RTFJ.
  25. Re:literal translations rule by Srsen · · Score: 5, Funny

    I wonder what you have to do to win at Crap Booth...

    It's a First Person Shitter.

  26. Re:literal translations rule by xenocide2 · · Score: 3, Funny

    I can only guess that the oft repeated phrase "come out or I'll shit" was a rare source of humor for Germans during the final days surrounding the European theater.

    --
    I Browse at +4 Flamebait

    Open Source Sysadmin

  27. Re:It is. by operagost · · Score: 5, Funny

    So would "Scheiss Schiess" be a crap shoot?

    --

    Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
  28. Re:literal translations rule by Rich0 · · Score: 4, Funny

    I guess that is the problem with central planning...

    Ok, the latest extimate is that we have x people.

    Figure we can let them go to the bathroom y times per day.

    When they go we'll let them use z squares of TP.

    As a result, annual production of TP shall henceforth be set at x*y*z*365 squares of TP. Success to our five year plan!

    Remember - your TP belongs to the people. If you use z+1 squares you're stealing from the old lady down the street...

  29. Re:Of course, in the Soviet Pac Man game... by BinBoy · · Score: 4, Funny

    The pac man collects all the dots while the 4 ghosts wander aimlessly, pretending to work. Then when the board is cleared, they take pac man's dots and divide them equally... except for the highest ranking ghost who gets a larger share because he is more equal than the others.

  30. if you run the opening through babelfish... by PsiPsiStar · · Score: 2, Funny

    It translates to "How are you gentleman. All your dacha are belong to us..."

    --

    ___
    It's the end of my comment as I know it and I feel fine.
  31. Re:It is. by filth+grinder · · Score: 4, Funny

    "I before E, except after C or when sounding like A as in neighbor or weigh."

    The full version of the saying is:
    "I before E, except after C or when sounding like A as in neighbor and wiegh, or on weekends and holidays and all throughout May, you'll always be wrong no matter what you say!"

    From the mighty Brian Reagan, who is probably being chased by a flock of moosen through woodenses.

  32. Re:It is. by jez9999 · · Score: 4, Funny

    sounding like A as in neighbor and wiegh

    Don't you mean 'weigh'? :-)

  33. Re:It is. by Ralph+Wiggam · · Score: 2, Funny

    My version is "I before E, except when it's not"

    -B

  34. Re:What by mc6809e · · Score: 2, Funny


    Hell, Super Mario Bros 2 came out in 1985. "Western life" wasn't that advanced.

    Yeah, but I bet you had soap powder, toothpaste, and pantyhose.

    MIKHAIL GORBACHEV, General Secretary, Communist Party, 1985-1991: There was a government commission to examine the problem of women's pantyhose. Imagine a country that flies into space, launches Sputniks, creates such a defense system, and it can't resolve the problem of women's pantyhose. There's no toothpaste, no soap powder, not the basic necessities of life. It was preposterous and embarrassing to work in such a government.

  35. You forgot... by ktakki · · Score: 4, Funny

    Dance Dance Revolution of the Proletariat.

    k.

    --
    "In spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart." - Anne Frank
  36. Re:It is. by sparcnut · · Score: 3, Funny

    For some strange reason that conjures up visions of Internet Explorer... "I before E, except after so many exceptions"... You may be onto something there. Are you implying people use Internet Explorer before they encounter too many unhandled exceptions, then switch?

    On a more serious note, the version I learned was something along the lines of "I before E, except after C, and weird is weird".

    --
    perl -e 'print $i=pack(c5, (41*2), sqrt(7056), (unpack(c,H)-2), oct(115), 10);'
  37. Re:It is. by Jonathan · · Score: 2, Funny

    Is it just me, or do a lot of native English speaking people seem to have a problem with the difference between "ie" and "ei"? I would understand if they always wrote "ei", but I see too many instances of "wierd" for that to be true. Odd...


    Yes. My landlord (in DC) is named Bernstein, but he always pronounces his name as if it were spelled Bernstien. Makes me want to give him a German textbook so he can learn how his name is supposed to be said.