Talk:Bally Astrocade

Untitled
Actually, the group that bought the Bally Professional Arcade from Bally was not formed from a group of users. Known at first as Astrovision, the group had already been involved in producing another video game system that had failed to mature. The buyer that had brought the Bally Professional Arcade into Montgomery Ward put the groups together when he learned that Bally was interested in selling the home video game system. The company name was changed from Astrovision to Astrocade shortly after the purchase took place.

The reason for the confusion is that users did play a vital role in spreading the word about the system, including having key users attend the Consumer Electronic Shows to work as demonstrators.

While Dave Nutting's group may have built several of the Zgrass 'add-under' modules, only two working versions were delivered to Astrocade. The language was marvelous and it's a shame that they were never able to get the add-under into production.


 * Thanks for these notes! Maury 22:20, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

What was the launch price of the Astrocade? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.30.107.86 (talk) 05:10, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Image and fair use
I'll simply quote the template:

An image of an object is not reasonably replaceable if:
 * It is not located where the general public has access to it, or where photography is not regularly permitted.
 * It is a product that has not yet been released to the market, or is sold only in extremely limited quantities, or has been off the market for a long enough period of time that only limited quantities exist.

The Astrocade clearly falls into the later category. I'm sure there are remaining owners, and this image appears to be taken by one of them, but until they can be contacted and donate a free version, there's little reason to suggest this one should be removed. Maury 22:15, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

I had one of these in the early 80s, some game titles that I didn't see on your list: Pinball I, Pinball II, PakRat (similar to PacMan, but w/ simpler graphics.) I am fairly certain that the Pinball games were Midway games, but cannot verify, and the PakRat was typed in out of a Magazine, in basic. Also had Gunfight/Tanks-ntrcessor — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.15.207.174 (talk) 17:42, 26 May 2011 (UTC)

Picture please
Can someone please get a picture for this article, as the Bally Astrocade is a games console, and It may be more helpful for a curious wikipedian looking at this article to have a idea of what this console looks like. mcjakqcool Mcjakeqcool (talk) 12:15, 24 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Also this article should be put directly into the Second Genration article, to reprencent the fact that the Bally Astrocade was in direct competition with the Fairchid Channel F, Atari 2600 and Magnavox Odyssey 2 during the second generation. mcjakeqcool Mcjakeqcool (talk) 12:34, 26 December 2008 (UTC)

Article name inaccurate?
Was the console ever actually marketed as the "Bally Astrocade"? As far as I can tell, "Astrocade" was the last name used for the console, it never had had the Bally brand name attached to it, and it remains the rarest version of this console. So why is it the main title? Unless someone can cite a legitimate source on the matter, the article's name needs to change. It's just plain incorrect. (Modern internet references to the "Bally Astrocade" don't count, as they're most likely parroting this Wikipedia article.)

The console was originally marketed as the Bally Home Library Computer, and was available through mail order in 1977. Due to manufacturing issues, none were shipped out until 1978, but at least some (if not all) of the original mail orders bore the "Bally Home Library Computer" label.

Most consoles in 1978 (and onward) were labeled the Bally Professional Arcade. This is the original name of the console (excepting the handful of early mail orders), and is the most common variant out there. This should probably be the name of the article.

In late 1979, Astrovision acquired the rights to the console. They continued to manufacture it as the "Bally Professional Arcade" for a couple more years.

In 1981 they renamed it the Bally Computer System for some reason, even though Bally was no longer involved.

In 1982, Astrovision released a few television advertisements referring to the "Astrovision AstroArcade", which was apparently how they intended to rebrand the console. (You can watch these on YouTube.) But some sort of copyright issues kept Astrovision from using their own name, so in 1982 they changed their name to Astrocade and sold the console as the Astrocade. This lasted until 1985, when production ceased.

Sources: http://retroauction.com/buying-and-selling-an-astrocade/ http://www.ballyalley.com/ballyalley/articles/Robert_Fabris_introduction-edited.html http://www.old-computers.com/history/detail.asp?n=22&t=9 http://www.glankonian.com/~lance/History.html

Kester Nethlo (talk) 17:23, 28 March 2016 (UTC)