Retro Gaming: Looking Back to the 80s

  • S06E31
  • April 23, 2013

Robbie and Erika rebirth memories of the very foundation of the gaming industry. From the Atari 2600 to a live ColecoVision demonstration, be prepared to enter into a state of nostalgia.

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This episode is sponsored in part by: netTALK DUO, Netflix, Eco Alkalines.

Topics Covered:

  • Robbie Ferguson and Erika Lalonde present from the Category5 studios in Barrie, Ontario.
  • Erika's waterski story.
  • To celebrate our gaming nostalgia week, you can launch a hidden retro game on Category5.TV.
  • The Category5.TV network of sites has been moved to a different server.
  • {play 10:37}Feature: Video games in the early 80's.
    • The first games we played for days on end.
    • Remembering the XT computer.
    • Zelda had a TV show in the late 80's.
    • The experience of gaming has entirely changed in the past 30 years.
    • Atari's fatal mistake in the early 80's: they thought they'd be the only ones to make games for their systems.
    • The formation of Activision happened, which led to other game developers rising up.
    • Atari's E.T. game was horrible.
    • Activision credited their programmers.
    • The commercials for video games in the 80's made them look incredibly awesome, but the actual graphics, gameplay and excitement weren't quite at that level.
    • ColecoVision gained popularity with its excellent port of Nintendo's Donkey Kong.
    • Thanks to Kevin Richards from Theobroma Fine Chocolates for loaning us a pristine ColecoVision for the show.
    • Viewer Comment: When I was growing up in the early personal computing era, my software was on cassette tapes.
    • In 1983, the entire video game industry collapsed in America.
    • Nintendo learned from Atari's "mistakes" and created a console that required game developers to purchase a chip to give them the ability to produce games for the Nintendo Entertainment System console.
    • These days you can get all these classic games on a single disk, or even a mock controller that emulates the feel of the original controller, but connects directly to a TV and has all the old games built-in.
    • Note: There are 1,048,576 KB in a GB. To put that in perspective, an Atari 2600 game cartridge had a maximum capacity of 4 KB. ColecoVision had double that at 8 KB. A single episode of Category5 TV is approximately 716,800 KB. Your home computer likely has a minimum of 4,194,304 KB memory, and around 786,432,000 KB of storage space. The card Robbie uses in his camera is no bigger than a coin, and stores 33,554,432 KB.
  • {play 47:23}Top Stories from the Category5.TV Newsroom.
  • {play 53:15}A giant robot spider-like thing.
  • Greetings to all our viewers.
  • Viewer Comment: Only a UK person would build something as cool as the robot spider.
  • Erika could use the spider robot to prevent falling down a cliff when teaching kids to ski.
  • Teaching kids to ski using horror... it works.

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