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Mechanical Pong
RotJ writes "Some crafty Germans have created an electromechanical conversion of the game Pong: "Pongmechanik is an absolutely physical game. The game is realized electromechanically, and essentially consists of four elements:
A relay computer, the mechanical movement with collision detection, the display and the acoustic components." Talk about analog retro chic."
saccade.com adds "This amazing device faithfully
re-creates the classic original video game with pulleys, wires,
motors and a (pre-chip, pre-transistor, pre-tube) relay based
computer. They were partly inspired by Konrad
Zuse, who created some of the first electromechanical and
electronic computers."
Zee joystik daws nahsing!
machine about 10ft^2 with a platform driven by motors in xy
space, and having read this article I added:
int xdir=1; sDriveX(xdir);
int ydir=1; sDriveY(ydir);
while (true){
if (stopSwX()){xdir*=-1;sDriveX(xdir);}
if (stopSwY()){ydir*=-1;sDriveY(ydir);}
}
I fired it up, chuckled, then felt a bit nerdy, chuckled some more,
then got on with my work.
Windows in 6 Bytes (IA-32) : 90 90 90 90 CD 19
Anyone ever played real life Pong before?
I think it's called Tennis or something.
Doom3
This one might require lots of black velvet courtains.
if your prior art is rendered in prior art, do you have a case?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
dude, this thing is more retro than the original game - phone relays?!
-Q
Charles Babbage would be proud.
Remain calm! All is well!
And in germany people are complaining that we lost our edge when it comes to technology.
Face it, Germany once again is a technology leader (at least in the field of geeky true life retro gaming)
That is all I have to say about the mechanical Pong.
BTW, does anyone else see Michael Jackson in the Half Life 2 ad on this page?
THEN we could use some small ball thing and have the wetware units keep the ball bouncing from side to side.
the speed of the ball moving from one side to the other would be the ping time ...
Yeah - that'd work. We could call it Ping Pong (but some boring fart would probably name it table tennis)
I wonder how to register a patent
Three people with laser pointers can play Pong. (The middle person, who plays the ball, also has to do the sound effects and keep score.)
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
Imagine playing the mechanical pong game on yor TV, where you can actually see that it is not quite an electronic game!
)9TSS
Oh, I forgot, this is Slashdot. I have no friends.
It doesn't matter which ape activates the Monolith
But with a few more pullys and strings, perhaps they could create 3D pong, which i'm sure is much more playable IN 3D as opposed to simulated.
actually, there is already a version of this without pullies or strings. it's called ping pong.
What's next, a steam driven train? Hah.
GAAH! MY PRINTER IS ON FIRE!!! PUT IT OUT! PUT IT OUT!
This gives me an idea of the next version of Tetris. Bring out your hard hats people.
I've been playing the physical version of pong for years. It's called ping pong. Or table tennis for all your pros out there.
!!!OUCH I'd hate to see my electric bill for playing this game 24/7.... On the plus side, I could probably use it as a space heater in the winter... -AD
--AD
Hunh, that's odd, I always assumed all German games were required to have some sort of pain element.
Imagine the fun you could have recreating computer golf, pool or even chess! My little secret is that I own a completely mechanical way to reproduce "Solitare", but I must confess I didn't build it myself.
TW
Cool game, but DAMN does the movie look and feel like it's about to turn into German porn at any time. You've got the cheesy lighting, the guy and the girl facing up, the German narrator who sounds like he's narrating god knows what kind of clothing-optional meetup.
And THEN the Atari guy, naked, shows up on screen. WTF???
Maybe it's just me?
It's rare that you're presented with a knob whose only two positions are Make History and Flee Your Glorious Destiny.
Personally, I would settle for a simple Tolkien Ring of them.