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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."
That's really cool, but how much heat do all those relays produce over time? Unless I'm mistaken, it sounds like the perfect game to play on a cold day.
Why are there control sticks?, why not control it manually like air hocky.
I remember that game. It made such painful sounds as the gears moved the ball :).
I'm probably making myself look very old, but I used to have a handheld mechanical pong game in the early 80's. It wasn't as dynamic as the pong game here, but it was wind up, and used a then-new LED as the ball.
It was called Blip and made by Tomy.
Here's a pic.
Nostalgia is fun
Contrary to popular belief, life is not a bitch. It is far far worse.
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.
Neil is that you? Yeah yeah, it's me... Neil...
...for pong is arcanoid. I'd love to see that mechanized:-)
What could we build now with electronics from 1958? Given the evils of silicon creep, it would be an interesting question whether the components would last 46 years.
Lastly, the power consumption is just a respectable 230w, about the same as a PC. Not bad!
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When I was a little kid, I had a motorized Pong that my father found at a Salvation Army shop. It was roughly the size and form factor of one of those "streamlined" one-piece VT100s with the integral keyboard. It had little lights representing paddle and ball, in an attempt to try to seem like a "video game," but in fact they were driven by motorized arms-- you could hear them grinding, and the grinding got louder and louder until finally a gear broke or something and it no longer worked.
I wish I hadn't thrown it away, I could probably trade it for a Testarossa now or something.
Intolerance for ambiguity is the mark of the authoritarian personality.
A while ago I was wondering how hard it would be to rig up a totally mechanical pac-man. Of course, the ghost AI would be near-impossible (unless you want to create a mechanical computer) but I was thinking you could have the pac-man be a hold in the board, and when you moved it, pellets would fall through...
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
-- Pablo Picasso
If you were fascinated by this electromechanical version of Pong, check out their links to the work of Konrad Zuse. This guy designed and built the first programmable digital computer in 1936 in his parent's basement! Really amazing.
Sleep is futile.
Few people remember the generations of games before pong. There were film-strip WW-I flying games that probably had some lame-ass system where if the gun was pointed in the right place and the trigger pressed, mechanical contacts on a conductive strip on the film would give you the hit. Or something.
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
Oh yes, the Z3 in Munich is great. During a guided tour, I had the chance to see it in action. I think I never heard a computer with better sound.
:-(
Funny thing: We wanted to compute: 5+3. The result was 7, because some of the relais were not functioning anymore.
Unfortunately, they do not have the manpower to keep their old stuff in good shape, more and more of it gets damaged over the years.
I love electro mechanical stuff. Once, when I was
a mere 8-9 year old kid, I got to be teached "how to
play" music on a *real* hammond organ. No No. You think you know what I'm saying but you don't.
It had *TWO* switches to switch it on.
I still remember why.
It's great fun to drop this gorgeous stuff on the the
newbies out there.
Hey even a few old timers will scratch their heads, but there really was a good technical reason for the *two* switches.
Enjoy and be puzzled.
I found this copy on Google:
I bought the game around 1976 at a yard sale for about $0.25. It consisted of a cheap plastic casing shaped like a tv. The "screen" was translucent plastic. The "ball" was an arm with a light at one end (almost touching the screen) and a counterweight at the other end so that the arm was essentially ambivalent if it swung up or down. An electric motor moved the arm so that the arm always wanted to swing left or right. (Sorry about all these anthropomorphisms, it's the only way I can think to describe it.)
Each player had a handle that turned a mechnical bouncer up and down. If the arm swung past your bouncer, a buzzer buzzed.
It didn't keep score and it was never as fast as pong or as... um, exciting (if you can use that word with pong). But by golly I got it for a quarter and played the heck out of it. Then I took it apart and figured out how it worked. Then at some point I donated it to the landfill.
I've found that my posts don't format quite right w/o a sig.
Many early computers used telephone system components as they were relatively sophisticated, bulk produced, reasonable quality and cheap.
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The thing I'd like to see would be a physical incarnation of the SpaceCadet pinball game that MS distributes with Windows. Not that it's such a fantastic game (it isn't), but because it features some errm... interesting challenges from a physics point of view...
Linux user since early January 1992.