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Dec 12, 2011 • 08:07 Profile Photo VirtualChris

I am lucky enough to own one of these things, and I’m going to get a whole bunch of other games for it (right now I have only the pack-in Blockbuster.) I’m wondering if there’s enough interest to start a website for the Microvision. Since I’m going to get a bunch of games for it with boxes and manuals that I could start a very basic site like my own atari2600land.com only with scans of the manuals and reviews and press and stuff. Anyone else have one of these?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microvision

6 Replies
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Dec 13, 2011 • 19:01 Profile Photo Benjamin Stevens

This is the first time I’ve ever even heard about that system. Now that’s a classic! A separate website would be good to spread awareness of it. Of course, the only repercussion is that once awareness of it is spread, the selling prices for the games and system are likely to rise on Ebay, etc. 😉

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Dec 14, 2011 • 01:54 Profile Photo RunnerPack

Benjamin Stevens wrote:
Of course, the only repercussion is that once awareness of it is spread, the selling prices for the games and system are likely to rise on Ebay, etc. 😉

I doubt it. It seems they self-destruct even worse than VBs. The LCD suffers something called “screen rot” caused by impurities in the liquid crystal. The keypad overlays get stretched and broken, and the CPU is extremely sensitive to ESD and connected directly to exposed copper contacts (not a good combination).

I had one for a few months sometime in the late ’90’s. I don’t remember playing anything super fun on it, but it was marginally better than those cheap single-game LCD units (by Tiger et al).

It might be interesting to make an emulator for it, or try to write a new game for it. Or, on the hardware side, you could make an LED-based replacement screen for one that’s succumbed to “screen rot”…

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Dec 14, 2011 • 05:58 Profile Photo VirtualChris

Speaking of a Microvision emulator, has anyone tried this?
http://home.comcast.net/~eichler2/microvision/MicroSimProject.htm

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Dec 14, 2011 • 14:08 Profile Photo Benjamin Stevens

VirtualChris wrote:
Speaking of a Microvision emulator, has anyone tried this?
http://home.comcast.net/~eichler2/microvision/MicroSimProject.htm

I have now… good fun!

Great… as if I didn’t already have enough distractions at my workplace… now I’m tempted to play this! 😉

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Dec 14, 2011 • 14:38 Profile Photo Hedgetrimmer

Thats it, that is the machine i wanted and hassled my folks for xmas ’79, but never got. I remember seeing it in the department store and being amazed that it could play lots of different games on one machine. I did have a handheld space shooter thing, but this was the future and I wanted it. Think i got bionic man for that xmas instead.
Oh man I’m now sounding so old, I’ll just go and warm up by the fire a bit more, wait for my medication to start working…….you kids bringing up old memories like that, get me all excited and now I need to sit down.

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Dec 15, 2011 • 08:00 Profile Photo VirtualChris

Wow. I wasn’t even ALIVE back in 1979, but I wish I was. I could be playing Atari and my Microvision back when it was new. And I would have been bugging my parents to get $50 blank VHS tapes so I could tape TV back then and have it now, but the downside is I’d be about ten years older! Anyway, to the point of this post, I have made a little video about the Microvision and put it on my YouTube page: http://www.youtube.com/user/kwvtads It should be near the top (unless this post is really old.) By the way, this is my 400th post!

 

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