I know what you mean, Bill. I can forgive a mass media effort at videogame history for omitting mention of obscure systems, but when they're overlooking well-known machines like the Atari VCS or the Commodore 64, I put my foot down. My guess is that projects like this one are funded (however indirectly) by Nintendo, who has a definite interest in omitting information about rival systems (or even earlier systems that might take away some of their steam).

I mean, if I saw a show called "The History of Home Computers" advertised on G4 or even The History Channel, I'd be willing to bet anyone that such a program would probably fail to mention Commodore, Atari, Tandy, and TI-99 computers. The show would likely focus on IBM-compatibles and Apple and pretend like the rest never happened. The only explanation I can find for this is that there are no advertising budgets for the defunct computer companies, so why bother?

When I was younger, I even cringed at shows like "Tech TV" which hardly ever bothered to mention any other machine besides the PC--yet continue to make sweeping generalizations about "firsts" that were completely wrong. As an Amiga owner at the time, I was deeply offended by the lack of recognition of that machine's achievements. I was surprised a few years ago to see some earlier archives of Tech TV that did mention other computers--not sure what happened.