Hello all!

themaritimegirl · Posted: Fri Sep 30, 2011 1:46 pm Post subject: Hello all!

Hi everyone,

I just received my first vintage handheld game a few days ago, a very nice Entex Pac Man 2 I bought on eBay. I surprisingly beat the record high score already last night, so my decision to join this forum was mostly to post that score. Cool

Of course, I'm certain I'll be beaten before too long!

I am but 17 years old, so I grew up in the era of the Nintendo Game Boy and near the end of the single-game handheld console. I accidentally discovered VFD-based handheld games a little over a year ago, when I came across a YouTube video of Tomy Alien Attack. I was in love immediately! I was already a fan of the vacuum-fluorescent display, and I had no idea handheld games using such technology existed.

Since then I've been scanning eBay occasionally, hoping to snatch a Coleco Pac-Man, Entex Pac Man 2, or a Bandai Pack Monster. Nothing pristine that would cost me an arm and a leg, just something that worked fine that I could play around with. A couple of weeks ago I finally snatched an Entex Pac Man 2. Smile

I don't believe my Pac Man 2 is my first encounter with a vintage electronic game, however. My long-term memory began functioning in 1996 at the age of 2, and one of my earliest memories is playing with an LED basketball game, of which I had no clue what to do lol. I remember a timer counting from I believe 99 seconds, and the players on the display being represented by I think plain LEDs. I remember it startling me, so it must have made noises, perhaps a buzz when the timer reached 0. From what faint memories I have of that game, I would say it must have been from the 1970's or 80's.

Other than that, I own a few modern LCD-based Radica handheld games - Pocket Slot, Solitaire, Big-Screen Tetris, and Flip-Top Tetris. I also own two 500-in-1 (using that in a generic sense) LCD handheld games, one of which was my mother's that I remember playing for the first time when she bought it in 1998 or '99.

Anyhow, I'm glad to be a part of the community! I hope to acquire a couple more VFD games in the future. For now, I'll do my best to remain the high-score champion for Entex Pac Man 2. Wink

-Trent

LLB9977 · Posted: Sun Oct 02, 2011 7:03 pm Post subject:

welcome to the forum

nicknicknickandnick · Posted: Sun Oct 02, 2011 11:27 pm Post subject:

Hi there! I like the glow quality of those VFD games. Though I just had a thought -- the single red LED of the Blip game is like a moving HAL 9000 eye.

Retrotime1987 · Posted: Thu Aug 14, 2014 2:11 pm Post subject:

Hello Mr Maritime didn't think i would see you here!

Singer · Posted: Wed Aug 20, 2014 12:37 pm Post subject:

I'm with you, I'm drawn to the glowing color VFD displays. I grew up in the early '80s and my first handheld games were Tomy's Caveman along with Mattel Football and Baseball. I recently dug them up at my Mom's house and they played great, and I remembered how to play them without even having to think about it. I love the simplicity of it all.

I like how Mattel Baseball only has red dots to represent the action so it has the baseball players drawn in with white on the overlay. The red dot then just represents the ball moving from player to player.

I like Caveman because it only has one field of action but 8 different levels of play which keeps it fresh.

Welcome to the forum!