When I was a wee lad, I remember in my dad's collection of electronics books a title something along the links of "TTL TV games." May have been CMOS. Or it may have been a chapter in another book. But I remember flipping through it, and it was about making games with simple* chips for use on a TV. We're talking Pong-level stuff. He has no idea what I'm talking about.
Does anybody have any idea what I'm talking about? I'd love to track down a copy, as I'm working my way through MAKE:Electronics right now.
*Give or take. Nowadays they're simple.
TTL games? CMOS games? Anybody know this book?
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johnwroachiii
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Re: TTL games? CMOS games? Anybody know this book?
Are you sure it was a book and not a magazine? There used to be a bunch of video game hardware articles in magazines like Popular Electronics in the 1970s. I wouldn't be surprised if such a book exists, but I don't know of any.
edit: another possibility occurs to me: it may have been an IC manufacturer data book. I know that General Instrument, among others, was making all sorts of variations of "Pong on a chip" at one point.
edit: another possibility occurs to me: it may have been an IC manufacturer data book. I know that General Instrument, among others, was making all sorts of variations of "Pong on a chip" at one point.
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johnwroachiii
- Posts: 36
- Joined: Tue May 12, 2009 1:40 am
- Location: Canton, GA, USA
Re: TTL games? CMOS games? Anybody know this book?
I seem to recall it was a book, but neither Google nor Amazon have heard of it.
He did give me a stack of his old magazines, and they had nothing. That's not to say it definitely wasn't a magazine, though.
There are some interesting projects in those magazines, though. Like the rain detector that uses, among other things, a pile of salt.
He did give me a stack of his old magazines, and they had nothing. That's not to say it definitely wasn't a magazine, though.
There are some interesting projects in those magazines, though. Like the rain detector that uses, among other things, a pile of salt.
Re: TTL games? CMOS games? Anybody know this book?
Rain detector? The ultimate in "I'm busy and / or hate the sun" technology assistance.johnwroachiii wrote:There are some interesting projects in those magazines, though. Like the rain detector that uses, among other things, a pile of salt.
Anyway, Google has heard of this book now: link (Sorry, that was in bad taste.)
On a more serious note, it could have been one of those full-size paperbound formats, which are a book but in magazine-like format, like David H. Ahl's 1979 "Basic Games" book (which the Internet DOES know about), basically next thing to a fanzine that could have made it on store shelves all the same.
Lots of great books aren't known by the Internet or Amazon at all, like "Strange Lands and Friendly People" used not to be (edit: well you can read that one here now, apparently and James Michener's "Report of the County Chairman" (the second one is mentioned but nobody really talks about it).