More excellent obscure 8 bit sleuthing! I had an Interton 4000 for about a year before selling it to fund an Atari VCS. That there had been an updated hardware version of the core technology is something I had no idea about.
Great video. I had an Intellivision back then, and hadn't heard of this system. I guess they felt their niche was being more powerful than the Atari 2600 yet cheaper than the Intellivision. Some of those games I likely would have enjoyed, had I played them back then.
I have a boxed Arcadia, but only three games for it. And mine has a worn-out player one joystick that won't go right. A friend gave me his boxed Arcadia at the end of a retro game convention. He handed it to me, and I made people's eyes pop out when I walked past them. Two people stopped me to ask about it. It's a machine that lots of people have heard about but virtually nobody have put their hands on. Lots of jealous looks as I walked out with it.
Dr. Slump is a "semi-popular anime series"? That might be understating it a tad; Dr. Slump and its protagonist Arale-chan was Akira Toriyama's most famous/successful work before Dragonball and Son Goku (which, granted, were orders of magnitude even more successful), and the Dr. Slump manga was localised in many countries and languages during its run, including the rest of Europe, like the popular German localisation. It's just here in the UK that we had terrible access to decent localisations of manga until decades later. :P
@TheLairdsLair it's not super popular in the west but sonics like ring thing at the beginning of sonic was inspired by Dr slump, as was Mario's run in mario 3.
I have heard of this mschine but it is my first time seeing one in action. The second generation console I am most interested in seeing is the Bally Astrocade. I heard that it was incredibly powerful for its time and had the ability to emulate some arcade experiences. Addendum- Thank you for teaching us about consoles we have never heard of before. You are a scholar and a saint.
I own some obscure consoles such as the Channel F, Astrocade, and Vectrex. All of those consoles have something unique about them that makes them special in their own way. The Arcadia 2001 is the complete opposite. It is the poster child "me too" console that was slapped together because it's creators saw how much money Atari was making and wanted to get in on the profits, only to be too little too late. It was never going to be successful, but might have gained a cult following had it not been a pile of crap hoping to make a quick dollar by (badly) copying what everyone else was doing. The humble 2600 may have been old when the Arcadia 2001 released but kicked the crap out of it where it mattered...having actually good games. I think the only console that was worse was the RCA Studio II, but at least that console has the excuse of entering a completely new market in which nothing had been established. I would pick up an Arcadia 2001 if I came across it at a yard sale for $30 but unlike my other obscure consoles I have never actually sought one out.
The Arcadia 2001 has a huge amount of ports from arcade machines no one remembers. This way, its library became a time capsule of forgotten games. (also they probably couldn't afford the licenses for the popular games) Which is kinda cool because instead of the same old games that were on every console on the planet, you get something different. Although... a poorly aged, watered-down version compromised by the Arcadia's massive limits considering graphical capabilities. IDK I find the Interton VC4000s graphics more appealing even though they are even more limited (although the Arcadia can only display 4 sprites at a time, the VC4000 can display dozens if you have CPU time left)
A very interesting look at a forgotten game system, the Emerson Arcadia 2001. Its Japanese version has a couple of games based on Anime/Manga like Doraemon & Dr. Slump.
I can't believe how much these have come forward in such a short space of time. I wonder what they ul be like in another 40 years. I won't be seeing them il be dead by then😂
Auto Race is a clone of the equally creatively named "Auto Racing" on the Intellivision. I like the player sprite animation of Escape, and the presence of the central "Evil Otto" replacement is indeed an interesting twist. Hmm ... maybe Escape deserves a port to VIC-20 (a system with similar resolution and colors, although without sprites).
Out of the ten I only have Escape. I have the Canadian Leisure Vision version of the console and a small assortment of games for it. I really need to get a multi-cart for it to enjoy the more rare selections. Parashooter looks like a clone of the 1980 Taito Arcade game, Balloon Bomber.
Very nice, I've heard almost nothing about this system, and i grew up when it was on sale! Then again if you didn't have an Atari VCS you were rich and had and IntelliVision. ;-) Some nice games on this beast, including Pleiades, a sort of sequel to Phoenix from the arcade that didn't get ported to anything else as far as I've ever seen that you showed briefly here. Thanks for the video!
There is an unreleased port of Pleiades for the Atari 2600 too, which is pretty good, by the same company. UA Limited actually ported quite a few of their games to the 2600 but none of them were ever released because of the North American video game crash. All of them can be downloaded online.
Doraemon picks up Dorayaki. These are unceremoniously called "yummy buns" in the English dub. Sweet bun pastries basically. The girl in Dr. Slump is "Ah Rah Lee."
Thanks, I read a description of the game online that said it was pink cheese, this didn't sound or look right to me but I couldn't find another explanation and I'm not familiar with the source material.
So glad the type of joystick with a phone keyboard did not catch on. Just amazed that no bugger back then stuck it in their ear and tore their eardrum thinking it was a phone.
@@TheLairdsLairLots had keypads, but relatively few also had skinny joysticks, which was key to the OP's concern. The numeric keypad even made an attempt at a resurgence with the Atari Jaguar, which was part of my interest in that system!
You'd be surprised. Lots of people still had rotary dial phones back then, so numeric keypads for many people were more strongly associated with microcomputers than with phones!
I thought that the Interton 4000 was an older console that came out in 1978 in Germany and unrelated to the Arcadia 2001, which was released in 1982. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interton_Video_Computer_4000
IIRC Interton developed the Arcadia 2001 but left the video game market before they produced any. They licensed the plans however. I mean as the video says, the only real difference between the VC4000 and the 2001 is that the video chip is the next one up - 2637 instead of 2636. Plus 1k of RAM, but again, IIRC, the video chip kinda requires 512b for its screen memory. Everything else is the same hardware-wise. (yeah the real difference is the Interton had really good controllers and some really good games.) Also I had an Arcadia Clone Console where all the chips have date codes of December 1980 which predates the official release by more than a year... weird. (wasn't mine though, I got it from a collector who wanted a composite mod. Which is also weird as it's probably easier to RGB mod it, after all it can only display 8 colors as opposed to the VC4000 which can display 15)
More excellent obscure 8 bit sleuthing!
I had an Interton 4000 for about a year before selling it to fund an Atari VCS.
That there had been an updated hardware version of the core technology is something I had no idea about.
This was my first Video Game System, great memories, Thanks!
Great video. I had an Intellivision back then, and hadn't heard of this system. I guess they felt their niche was being more powerful than the Atari 2600 yet cheaper than the Intellivision. Some of those games I likely would have enjoyed, had I played them back then.
I have a boxed Arcadia, but only three games for it. And mine has a worn-out player one joystick that won't go right.
A friend gave me his boxed Arcadia at the end of a retro game convention. He handed it to me, and I made people's eyes pop out when I walked past them. Two people stopped me to ask about it. It's a machine that lots of people have heard about but virtually nobody have put their hands on. Lots of jealous looks as I walked out with it.
Great story, hopefully you get it fixed.
Dr. Slump is a "semi-popular anime series"? That might be understating it a tad; Dr. Slump and its protagonist Arale-chan was Akira Toriyama's most famous/successful work before Dragonball and Son Goku (which, granted, were orders of magnitude even more successful), and the Dr. Slump manga was localised in many countries and languages during its run, including the rest of Europe, like the popular German localisation. It's just here in the UK that we had terrible access to decent localisations of manga until decades later. :P
Well, it can't be that famous because I'm a huge geek who has run 3 comic con events and I had never heard of it!
@@TheLairdsLair It's no "Groo the Wanderer", as any fool can plainly see...
I'm so glad NOT to be in your hobby.
@TheLairdsLair it's not super popular in the west but sonics like ring thing at the beginning of sonic was inspired by Dr slump, as was Mario's run in mario 3.
A very obscure system so makes for interesting viewing.
I have heard of this mschine but it is my first time seeing one in action. The second generation console I am most interested in seeing is the Bally Astrocade. I heard that it was incredibly powerful for its time and had the ability to emulate some arcade experiences.
Addendum- Thank you for teaching us about consoles we have never heard of before. You are a scholar and a saint.
Wouldn't surprise me if Bandai had any Super Sentai games planned for the console.
I own some obscure consoles such as the Channel F, Astrocade, and Vectrex. All of those consoles have something unique about them that makes them special in their own way. The Arcadia 2001 is the complete opposite. It is the poster child "me too" console that was slapped together because it's creators saw how much money Atari was making and wanted to get in on the profits, only to be too little too late. It was never going to be successful, but might have gained a cult following had it not been a pile of crap hoping to make a quick dollar by (badly) copying what everyone else was doing. The humble 2600 may have been old when the Arcadia 2001 released but kicked the crap out of it where it mattered...having actually good games. I think the only console that was worse was the RCA Studio II, but at least that console has the excuse of entering a completely new market in which nothing had been established. I would pick up an Arcadia 2001 if I came across it at a yard sale for $30 but unlike my other obscure consoles I have never actually sought one out.
The unique thing about the Arcadia 2001 is the oddball hardware. And the lack of any good games.
What a neat console. Reminds me of the Intelevision only with brighter colors. Never heard of this system prior to your vote this week. Very cool.
The Arcadia 2001 has a huge amount of ports from arcade machines no one remembers. This way, its library became a time capsule of forgotten games. (also they probably couldn't afford the licenses for the popular games)
Which is kinda cool because instead of the same old games that were on every console on the planet, you get something different. Although... a poorly aged, watered-down version compromised by the Arcadia's massive limits considering graphical capabilities. IDK I find the Interton VC4000s graphics more appealing even though they are even more limited (although the Arcadia can only display 4 sprites at a time, the VC4000 can display dozens if you have CPU time left)
A very interesting look at a forgotten game system, the Emerson Arcadia 2001.
Its Japanese version has a couple of games based on Anime/Manga like Doraemon & Dr. Slump.
All 4 Japanese exclusives are in this video.
I can't believe how much these have come forward in such a short space of time. I wonder what they ul be like in another 40 years. I won't be seeing them il be dead by then😂
I don't recall this one. Everyone I knew as a kid had an Atari 2600
Auto Race is a clone of the equally creatively named "Auto Racing" on the Intellivision.
I like the player sprite animation of Escape, and the presence of the central "Evil Otto" replacement is indeed an interesting twist. Hmm ... maybe Escape deserves a port to VIC-20 (a system with similar resolution and colors, although without sprites).
Yeah, it is pretty similar.
Out of the ten I only have Escape. I have the Canadian Leisure Vision version of the console and a small assortment of games for it. I really need to get a multi-cart for it to enjoy the more rare selections.
Parashooter looks like a clone of the 1980 Taito Arcade game, Balloon Bomber.
Yeah, very similar to Balloon Bomber, it also reminded me a bit of Namco's King and Balloon too for some reason.
Very nice, I've heard almost nothing about this system, and i grew up when it was on sale! Then again if you didn't have an Atari VCS you were rich and had and IntelliVision. ;-) Some nice games on this beast, including Pleiades, a sort of sequel to Phoenix from the arcade that didn't get ported to anything else as far as I've ever seen that you showed briefly here. Thanks for the video!
There is an unreleased port of Pleiades for the Atari 2600 too, which is pretty good, by the same company. UA Limited actually ported quite a few of their games to the 2600 but none of them were ever released because of the North American video game crash. All of them can be downloaded online.
@@TheLairdsLair thank you, I'll check em out!
The Hobo sprite looks almost identical to the Atari 2600 Mario sprite in Donkey Kong; apart from being yellow.
Yeah, it is quite similar
The graphics remind me of the TI99-4a
Doraemon picks up Dorayaki. These are unceremoniously called "yummy buns" in the English dub. Sweet bun pastries basically.
The girl in Dr. Slump is "Ah Rah Lee."
Thanks, I read a description of the game online that said it was pink cheese, this didn't sound or look right to me but I couldn't find another explanation and I'm not familiar with the source material.
So glad the type of joystick with a phone keyboard did not catch on. Just amazed that no bugger back then stuck it in their ear and tore their eardrum thinking it was a phone.
You say that, but look how many systems of that era used one - Arcadia 2001, ColecoVision, Intellivision, Creativision, Atari 5200 . . . . .
@@TheLairdsLairLots had keypads, but relatively few also had skinny joysticks, which was key to the OP's concern.
The numeric keypad even made an attempt at a resurgence with the Atari Jaguar, which was part of my interest in that system!
You'd be surprised. Lots of people still had rotary dial phones back then, so numeric keypads for many people were more strongly associated with microcomputers than with phones!
I thought that the Interton 4000 was an older console that came out in 1978 in Germany and unrelated to the Arcadia 2001, which was released in 1982. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interton_Video_Computer_4000
IIRC Interton developed the Arcadia 2001 but left the video game market before they produced any. They licensed the plans however. I mean as the video says, the only real difference between the VC4000 and the 2001 is that the video chip is the next one up - 2637 instead of 2636. Plus 1k of RAM, but again, IIRC, the video chip kinda requires 512b for its screen memory. Everything else is the same hardware-wise.
(yeah the real difference is the Interton had really good controllers and some really good games.)
Also I had an Arcadia Clone Console where all the chips have date codes of December 1980 which predates the official release by more than a year... weird. (wasn't mine though, I got it from a collector who wanted a composite mod. Which is also weird as it's probably easier to RGB mod it, after all it can only display 8 colors as opposed to the VC4000 which can display 15)