Remember those good old days when the next new game for your home computer would come from typing in a listing published in the latest magazine? Well I thought it would be nice to re-introduce those golden days by starting a topic focusing on (mini) listings especially for the Commodore 64 computer.

While I've done a few of these informally since the last one, the C-128DCR, which was number 6, I decided to continue the numbering from there since I wasn't going to do anything special at the moment with this other than take a series of photos. The Bally Home Library Computer or Bally Professional Arcade (and several other names over its lifetime), better known by its informal nickname, the Bally Astrocade, was a videogame console released in 1978 with the promise of future computer capabilities. While the full-blown add-ons never made it out from its two parent companies (Bally would give up on the system within a few years and a new company would form as Astrovision, but also never had much success with the technology), the first of two cassette interfaces was released in 1978, which ran at 300-baud. This 300-baud interface consisted of a beefy book, cartridge and interface cables that hooked into the accessory jack and the system's control port number 3 (it had four controller ports). You could then type in programs on the system's 24 calculator-style keys. Yes, people actually programmed on that!

"Willy Byte in the Digital Dimension" for the Apple III don't know if this'll show up on my profile page, but I felt like writing up a short history of me and gaming. (ed.: I bumped this to the front page of AA)

1978 - Mmm. Coding basic text games on our Apple II+. Plus I could make a cool string of wine goblets run up the side of the screen.

10 PRINT "Y"
20 PRINT "I"
30 GOTO 10

1980 - The folks bring home an Atari 2600. Love blooms. The games I remember most from this time are Pac Man, Space Invaders, Berzerk, Swordquest: Earthworld, and Combat. Like many people I've talked to, you always had to have one friend with an Intellivision and one with a ColecoVision so that everyone could play every system. :)

This is not the copyright infringement you're looking for...That new Trek movie in December 1979 is sure to give us a sales boost!I received a delightful original copy of the October 1979 edition of SoftSide, "your BASIC software magazine" (featuring Westward 1847 on the cover - their first anniversary issue). I'm a big fan of SoftSide in all of its incarnations, though I was unaware it was printed originally on this type of low-grade stock, as I previously only had the slicker glossy versions. In any case, in an issue packed full of wonders, this particular scan on the left struck me as one of the more interesting ads (and it's a SEQUEL!). Of course, perhaps just as blatant is this one on the right.