Today we resurrected another obscure japanese game console: The Epoch Cassette Vision (カセットビジョン), not to be confused with the more popular Super Cassette Vision. It sports a µPD7801G microncontroller and 128 bytes RAM, but is capable of 128 Sprites and displaying 16 colors. The game you see (no, it’s NOT Flappy Bird) is a variation of the arcade hit Scramble and comes with horizontal scrolling, varied world and a nifty end-boss.

In the 1970s printed or fake wood was very popular for video game consoles. Here are some images from our archive showing the Coleco Telstar Arcade, world’s only triangular game console with triangular game cartridges (1977), the Coleco Telstar Colortron (1978) which introduced colors to the classic game of Pong and the fist ever commercial light gun for the Magnavox Odyssey (1973).

Max studies Animation & Game at Darmstadt university. He loves to draw, is interested in sequential art and plays video games of course. His first game was “Duck Tales” on the Gameboy Color. Welcome Max!

Hessian Day 2014 in Bensheim has begun. Some classics can be played at the MEGA tents in midsummery temperatures. You can find us in the Children / Education / Family area until sunday 15th of June (daily from 10 AM to 7 PM) .

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The framework program to the MEGA exhibition NERDIFIED? provided content excursions to specific nerd topics through lectures and workshops. Mareike Gloess (Uppsala university) explained in her opening lecture the changing nerd culture in relation to the so-called digital natives. Dominik Schrey (KIT) spoke in his final lecture about the impact of media and society in the context of technology development.

Special highlights in the accompanying series were in addition to the program offered by Bernd Ulmann, Philomena Höltkemeier and Franz Stradal, a programming workshop for children. This unprecedented offer sparked such great joy and enthusiasm among the participating students of Joseph Heckler-School Bensheim that now a permanent workshop is getting established. A graphical programming environment allows children to learn the basics of programming. The creative use of media and in particular the development of computer programs is an important element in the promotion of media literacy. Further reading on this topic in “ZEIT ONLINE“.

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After nine weeks on 21st of April 2014 the exhibition NERDIFIED? ended. The topic computer, culture and society attracted several hundreds of visitors. The exhibition was designed as a chronological tour with unique pieces from the early days of hobby-oriented and academic nerd culture to commercial milestones that show how nerds shape our everyday culture. A short video by the Electrical Reporter about nerds provided a first introduction to the subject. At the nerd-workspace Basic and Assembler programs could be written and a humorous nerd-test checked the nerd knowledge of visitors. A series of interviews rounded off the exhibition.
Press reviews of the exhibition can be found in Morgenweb. Also, the science blog SciLogs of Spektrum der Wissenschaft reported about MEGA in this context. A podcast about the exhibition can be found at HR Online.

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The Atari 2600 demo “Bang!”, coded by SvOlli of the Chaos Computer Club Hannover (Leitstelle 511) and co-produced by MEGA, was awarded first place at Revision Demoparty 2014 in the “oldschool” category. This demo moves the boundaries of the historical Atari game console. A fact that was recognized by the international audience of around 1000 people. Bang! cites artists, artwork and technology from the last decades. You can find explanation by the artists here. The demo can soon be ordered on cartridge at AtariAge.

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