Machine with just a few Pong variants was snagged for roughly $1,000 in an online auction.
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(Image credit: Fern on YouTube ) Share Share by: Copy link Facebook X Whatsapp Reddit Flipboard Share this article Join the conversation Follow us Add us as a preferred source on Google One of the rarest video game consoles ever made has been acquired and tested by YouTube docu-channel Fern. What you will see and hear about in the video embedded below is the Bildschirmspiel 01, or BSS 01 for short, produced in East Germany from 1979 to 1981. This is a basic gaming machine, offering only four Pong-like variants and monochrome graphics, played via a pair of tethered paddle controllers. Nevertheless, the rarity factor means this sample, one of just a handful thought to remain, costs around $1,000 to buy at auction.
Watch On The docu-channel claims that only about a thousand BSS 01 consoles were made, and the rarest model – white with white controllers – is the one that they managed to snag for their analysis.
Like other early electronic games , this console wasn’t built using a general purpose microprocessor, RAM, storage, etc. Instead, it featured hard-wired transistor-transistor logic (TTL) circuits. However, the key gaming logic was all handled by an Eastern Bloc clone of the AY-3-8500 chip.
Atari 2600+ Pac-Man Edition released at $169
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Reference reading
- https://www.tomshardware.com/video-games/retro-gaming/SPONSORED_LINK_URL
- https://www.tomshardware.com/video-games/retro-gaming/extremely-rare-east-german-games-console-from-the-late-70s-tested-this-was-the-only-such-device-produced-by-the-communist-gdr#main
- https://www.tomshardware.com
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