I had heard of this machine but had never seen it in operation. Thanks for showing it off! Too bad they had never made an official keyboard attachment for that basic cart.

Considering the ubiquitous Atari 2600 controller of a single four axis stick with one red fire button, the fact that this Bally controller gives you full X and Y movement control plus a rotational at the same time - IN 1978!! - is beyond impressive and shows great vision too.

I think they did an amazingly good job with the input system given the limited keypad. Changing the screen background to indicate shift mode was clever.

I had programs published in the Arcadian. It actually worked just fine. There was a 48K expansion you could buy (I did) which you had to assemble using wirewrap and other tech of the time. The only issue I had was the controllers would eventually die. The potentiometers would fail and it became impossible to play the games whether in Bally BASIC or machine code. You could create your own machine code programs for the machine as well as BASIC. I got extremely proficient at typing on the calculator keyboard with overlay and could write a new game in about a day or two.

I'm actually pretty impressed. I thought this thing would be really bad, but it is seems quite capable for it's time. What I'd like to see working is that keyboard adding for the 2600.

All I can say is WOOOOOOOOOOOOW! Such a wonderful machine for the era! The built-in stuff is cool and overall, it just rocks. Going from nothing to this must have been a blast in April 1978!

One thing the Astrocade had going for it was amazing sound. It's versions of Gorf and Wizard of Wor are nearly arcade perfect.

This was the first computer I ever had. The way it plays sounds for each character as you list your basic program brings back so much nostalgia.

I have fond memory of this machine as I had one as a kid. Parents got it for me around '81/'82. We had intended to get a Atari 2600, but the ability to "program your own games" (according to the salesman at computer store) convinced them to get the Bally. To their credit, I had a great time with it. The games were pretty good for the time, the cassette sized cartridges were cool, and joysticks were a very clever design. Even as a pretty young kid, I spent quite a bit of time typing in simple programs (I had the BASIC cartridge) from the included book that had lots to choose from. A few years ago, I bought a white one (which I understand are fairly rare) and a all-in-on cart. Thanks for this video and the respect for the machine.

Oh my god, based on this video, I think I actually really love this system. Being born in 1983, it was a bit before my time, but I think if I was a child in the 70s, I would have been really drawn to this little quasi-computer wonder. From the physical design of the console itself and controllers to the writing in its ads, manuals, and Arcadia community newsletter, everything about the Bally Computer System oozes charm. For its time - in that pre-Nintendo Wild West era of no industry-wide controller standards - the Bally controller is fantastic. It had an N64 / Wiimote-esque trigger button decades before those consoles, and the 8-direction, rotatable knob provides so many movement options. As someone who cut his first gaming teeth on the Atari 2600 and NES, the simple but extremely versatile approach to the Bally Computer controller is honestly mind blowing. So many companies of its day added far too many buttons and knobs, but Bally actually stripped its interface down (and I would say, to good effect). I honestly think the handheld trigger design choice blows the Atari joystick controller out of the water, and with one or two more button inputs, could have even given the NES controller a run for its money. Regarding the latter, I think (if in an alternate dimension, where the Bally Computer Arcade system was a resounding commercial success ), I think the Bally and Nintendo controllers could have co-existed in their own spaces and thrived. They would each offer different strengths, in terms of control options. In that alternate dimension, I'm imagining a later version of the system releasing with a "nunchuck" with added buttons, and it would have been great. Also worth noting is the ability to play with up to 4 players, which was just so ahead of its time. It wouldn't be until 1996's N64 that 4 player control inputs were available on mainstream console. Just incredible. The sound effects (as in, sound samples, not music) - particularly the shooting sound on Gunfight - are better than anything I'd ever heard in an Atari game, or even most Nintendo games for that matter, and the music was pretty clear and crisp - especially for a system that was developed in 1977. Checkmate's dynamic use of musical tempos to denote rising tension was also pretty clever. The usage of music in that way seems like a no brainer to gamers born in the 80s or later, but little quirks like that were probably fairly novel or even revolutionary at the time. The number of colors are likewise impressive for it's time. The graphics, in general, have a lot of interesting and generally eye pleasing things going for it. I was particularly impressed by its smooth vertical scrolling and decent frame rates. The quality and resolution of the onscreen text was pretty great, and font types were simple and easy to read. And what can I say about the built in Painting app? It looks fantastic and as a child, I would have found it to be pretty mind-blowing. I loved Mario Paint. If I was a child of the 70s, I'm sure this would have hit me in the same way. It's sad that the keyboard never released for it, as I think it would have really helped to unlock the full potential of the system and would have surely greatly amplified its already vibrant indie developer scene. Even still, the on-board calculator-style input with overlay is definitely serviceable enough, if not ideal. I imagine that, given enough practice, one could program on it blindfolded, but it's nevertheless clunky and not at all on par with a standard keyboard input. It is what it is. I think Bally really did do the very best with what it has. That said, I really love how the screen changed colors to match the shift type being used when typing in BASIC. Not only is it simple, clever, and visually pleasing, I can imagine it being pretty useful - it's always good to know if what you're inputing is correct, particularly at a time when graphical cues were not at all a thing. I'll admit that, going into this video, I expected trash, so - imagine my surprise when what I saw was treasure. All in all, I'm very impressed with the Bally Whatever Its Name Is Computer System. It's a shame that it never got the mass market love that it deserved. And thanks for sharing and giving us a look at this state of the art wonder machine from the 1970s!

I'm really surprised how good the noise chip sounds for what it is. Great find and awesome video as always!

I *really* like that little controller. It's a shame that later computers like the C64 didn't have simultaneous paddle + joystick input... I can think of quite a few games that would have benefitted from the gunfight style analog aiming!

I had one of these. The hand controller was awesome and I got very fast on that multi push keypad. I programmed everything that was in that manual Saved it to audio cassettes. It was a fantastic introduction to basic language. The games were fun too. I would’ve been 12 in 1978.

We had this when I was a kid. I'm trying to remember why we'd hit reset after entering the program instead of running via the keypad, but I do know that we had more than one accidental 'Eject' after typing in a program from a magazine.

What a great presentation! That two-value randomization trick to get 47/92 is so simple, yet genius. Thank you for taking the time to put this video together.

A machine well ahead of it's time.

I have one branded as the Bally Arcade. I picked it up from a thrift store around 10 years ago. It came with quite a few cartridges, along with the BASIC cartridge. Can't remember if any of the overlays came with it. It on my list of things that need to be repaired. It only works for 3 or 4 minutes before crashing. It's either overheating or has cold solder joints. This video has renewed my interest in it. I saw some plans online to expand its memory.

re: cassette similarities: I have a small collection of videocades that I got at a yard sale years ago and they were all stored in cassette cases with the reel brake tabs broken off and the manuals inserted like j-cards football 3002 is a great name

My friend had this system and I remember playing the gunfight game with him all the time, I couldn't remember the name of the system so I am happy this video came out.

Hello, what good memories, I had that equipment and I learned Basic in it. Thank you for sharing such good memories.

I knew more than one person who had these. I remember both the cartridge storage and controller well. Does feel weird seeing you on a Z80 based machine ;-) Having spent much time on the KIM-1 lately, that keypad seems just fine to me. Does anyone REALLY need more than 24 keys?

Great intro to this system. Thanks!

My family had this when I was a kid, and I forgot we did until I saw the cart with “Gun fight” on it. Swore to the stars it was a VIC. This was back in 92, so I think it came with a bunch of stuff from an auction. If not for this video, I think my memory of this computer would have been lost to early childhood fantasy.

22:25 that's an adorably smol overlay card. I like how the colour makes it look like a PCB, at least to me. I like that professional aesthetic a lot of computer products had back then.

My parents (I was 5 years old at the time in 1978) were early investors in the Bally company. I think they bought stock then precisely because of this product announcement. In 1980 a certain popular video game came out that had an association with Bally and they made a windfall in dividends!

Great throwback! Love the "10 PRINT" program. I wrote a similar program that can be found in CURSOR V2 I2 P4. Thanks again!

That's awesome to see it still working. Great video!

That keypad reminds me of the wonderful HP-35 , the first pocket-sized scientific calculator. I was lucky enough to find one in good condition on Ebay for only $50, so I rigged up a LiPO battery pack, its been my daily driver ever since. The firmware has been reverse engineered too, so you can run a pretty faithful simulation of it on even the lowliest Arduino!

Thanks for the video! This system seems to have been designed with love. They put a lot of effort into making what they could just that extra little bit nicer. It's wonderful to see!

Looks great! Really cool to see it in action. That controller (like a combination of trigger, joystick and knob / paddle) was really interesting too, I like it.

Great and informative video on this classic console!

I played and still have one of these systems. It hasn't been turned on in years but it's still in good shape. I remember doing the basic programming and it was such a pain. Did a several hundred line one but never could get the tape recording of the programming to work for me. Good memories of playing those games.

It's a lovely system. A very pleasing version of Space Invaders too. Some quality programming there.

How cool. I’m old school and know about many machines but have never heard of this one. Thanks Robin.

My criteria for "computer" is, if the device can be programmed (using the device itself), then it's a computer. Which means many things marketed as game consoles or calculators qualified, including this, the Atari 2600, and the Famicom. If it's capable of running Emacs, then it's a computer worth taking seriously. Calling the cartridges "cassettes" reminds me of Strong Bad's references to "Sega tapes". That eject mechanism seems more sturdy and robust than the one in the NES.

Absolutely fascinating. Thank you for sharing.

The dynamic music concept in the Checkmate game is exceptional. Really simple but a great effect, the intervals between the player note ranges are musically pleasing, and it also serves as audio feedback for what other players are doing.

I recently picked one of these up, and glad to learn even more about it!

I had one of these and taught myself basic. Had a blast!

I had one of this when I was a kid....so sad my parent put in on the dump....Great machine....great games and love the basic cartridge and able to safe my programs to standard tape deck.....love it!

Love it! Surprisingly capable machine for the time. It's a shame it didn't have a full keyboard.

Fantastic! I have never heard of this computer system before. Thanks for the video.

What a great machine! Although the keyboard is pretty clunky for programming, it's still doable. I remember playing Gunfight on the actual arcade machine in the late 70's when tagging along with my big brother to the arcade. The BASIC function of colouring the screen to show which key mode is genius, that would have been helpful on my VZ. Thanks Robin!

Very interesting video. Thanks for posting 👍🙂

Loved mine as a kid. I have a few now including one complete in box. I also have one of the 21 prototype carts made as they were developing Pac-Man (Those played normal Pac-Man, with that name being correct on the title. There were a few more made with mods to choose the number of men and for a set 99 men used during testing)... which was eventually released as "Munchy" and "Muncher" after losing a lawsuit with Atari over using the name as Atari already had the rights for home console use. Given that they Bally distributed the game here in America they felt they should've had a right to use the name for use as well with their own system. The courts didn't agree unfortunately.

VERY interesting, followed along with your BASIC lines on my Pi-RiscOS Box using 8-Bit BBC BASIC. Love the outro.

(Hopefully I'm correct on this) Fun Fact: Bally, as you know, had the licensing rights to distribute Pac-Man for the arcades; later on they wanted to make an official port for their own machine, the Astrocade, BUT they didn't have the license for the _home ports_ as that was already given to Atari(soft), so they had to change the name to Muncher

Makes my Timex Sinclair 1000 seem like a pretty capable programming platform! Fun video. Thanks for the look.

I had one of these growing up. The drawing program had a kaleidoscope function and a bunch of other features that I THINK were activated with the number pad. It's been ages, but that's what I recall anyway.

I love my Bally! Nice video, dude!

What a different game system. Thank you.

Very cool, I always wondered about this system!

Good Memories, Thank you for the Video 👍👍👍✌

This is one of the console’s in my old collection. Loved it! Based upon a scaled down version of Bally’s arcade hardware of the day. I recall at one point there was to be an expansion for this system that would’ve brought Z-Grass graphics and larger memory, thus making it much closer to the arcade hardware. It was an expensive console when it came out and the only place we could find it here in Milwaukee was Marshall Field’s.

Nintendo wanted the Famicom to use cartridges the size of a compact cassette. Their motivation was to make it compatible with cassette cases (for cheaper distribution) and storage (for consumer convenience). I imagine the same is likely true here.

I love your channel, you have so much neat stuff and an amazing amount of skill locked away from your past. At least in the eyes of a 22 year old. I struggle in the dos prompts of my windows 98 gaming rig xD

Robin, you are a steely-eyed missile man! This is a great find, and very cool that it still works, other than the key bounce problem. I was 18 or so and already owned a TRS-80 model I when this came out, but never heard of it. Interesting stuff! It would have driven me NUTS to try to develop on that calculator keyboard! Almost as bad as programming on the ZX-80 membrane keyboard, which I have done! That $600 add-on, by the time you pay for that, unless you are a developer, it would have been more economical to get a Vic 20, which had a very nice keyboard and a better BASIC (I owned one of those, too). All good wishes.

Really cool. Great to see one workin. One of these was in National Lampoon's Vacation. Shame they weren't sold in the UK. Looking forward to seeing more on this.

Great video. Would love to see more games in action, in a future video :)

I thought the "joystick" looked familiar so looked something up and sure enough it was in a scene of National Lampoon's Vacation where the dad and the kids were playing video games while the dad was trying to plan the route on the Apple II computer.

It probably doesn't have a long enough delay on power-on for everything to stabilize, or no delay at all. Usually there is a little primitive timer which will cause reset to be held for a little while after power-on to get around this.

Very interesting! Cheers mate...

Nice! what a great piece of weird videogame history!

So good to see this overview of the Bally. I remember seeing ads for this in Electronic Games magazine as a kid but I'm not sure I ever saw it on store shelves. If I had seen it, my memory must be really eclipsed by Atari, Mattel and Coleco in those early days. I'm surprised that it continued to be in production for as long as it was even with various name changes.

The "keyboard" is so much like the remote control on a Jerrold TV remote we used in Canada to access cable TV. So crazy!

The Astrocade was sold at Montgomery Wards in the late 70s - early 80s. My Dad worked in the home improvement dept and picked up one on his employee discount for Xmas 1980. We were hoping for an Atari but quickly realized we had a better system. I wrote many programs in Astrocade BASIC including a variation of Space Invaders... substitute your base for the USS Enterprise and the aliens for asteroids streaming down from the top. My best friend and I were hooked, and that led to further explorations in programming. Bally designed an awesome arcade-style display cabinet for stores... Wards had one on their Electronics dept. BTW... I still have our original system and it still works tho it needs a lil electronic TLC.

Never heard of this machine but it looks amazing for it's time!

What a fascinating video! I always wondered why more of the arcade game makers didn't get into the Home Computer market. It is VERY IMPRESSIVE what this machine was capable of in 1-9-7-8!!

I have one of these consoles/computers. I've never fired it up. Thanks for the demo.

This video is really cool!

Fascinating ✨

A detail, but it was a nice scrolling effect in the calculator when adding to history.

Really interesting machine and a great video, thanks Robin! The documentation says it has 2 bits power pixel, but I saw more than 4 colours on some of those screens (Gunfight and the invaders game in particular). I guess it has some kind of attribute system or scan line interrupt going on.

Great job very interesting 👍

The space invaders fire sound effect sounds like the first two notes of the Ghostbusters riff.

I know there are lots of KZfaqrs out there with tons of Patreon supporters, but I think that's the first time I've seen someone with a list that's larger that can fit in RAM, nice! :)

Thanks you, what a great system. Never heard before of it.

holy crap this thing is awesome. the music in that tron style game is great!

That 'Computer' font, the wood paneling and gold trim, what a beauty!!! Better than beige boxes if you ask me.

That Interact One-8 must have been the inspiration for the Amstrad CPC464 and later Spectrum 2+ form factor. Look at that tape drive location. Pure geniuses.

I used to have a friend who had one of these. We used to also program in several games that were available in magazines at the time

Interesting machine, looks kind of similar to the Fairchild Channel F. According to wikipedia the basic interpreter has to use part of the video ram for storage because the machine only has 16 bytes of memory which aren't used for the screen...

Oh wow, you mentioned Avenger on the Vic20 and just took me back to my childhood.

I love this machine! If I had this as a kid I'd love that BASIC's character beep sound effect! Who am I kidding, I like it now :D

Really interesting machine. Definitely passes as a computer system for me. The joystick was really cool as well.

I had one of these and did a lot of basic programming, saving to cassette. Had every issue of the Arcadian newsletter. Fun games too. Wore out a couple of the pistol grip joysticks.

There’s actually an obscure KZfaq channel called BallyAlley. He owns EVERYTHING regarding the Astrocade.

I bought an Astrocade a few years ago, and must confess I did so mostly because it is in my opinion the most beautiful game console ever made. And yes, I play it as well using a multicart. It's basically the Neo Geo of the 1970s

My best friend back in my younger days had one of these. It had some pretty cool games. I had no idea it was programmable though. Still quite the nostalgia trip!

Haha, I was wondering how you were gonna do this little program. Very interesting!

I think my family still has one of those somewhere. with the Actual "Balley Computer system" logo. We had a whole loaded deck full of cartridges too I think. Probably where I legit first played Space invaders too, as I recognize it so well! Even though we had the later game consoles with the NES and SNES, that one was something of a novelty still.

That Rock'n Wrestle cassette instantly got Rock'n Roll for Amiga stuck in my head :P

I have both version of Bally Home Computer System Astrocade and one of them I got only in NYC at the time as I was living there. And still have both working with games.

I had one of these, if you select scribbling and 0 players it will do a kaleidoscope

Brilliant, never seen this before and there some good ideas here. It must have cost a fortune getting one in that condition.

I had no idea the Bally Astrocade ever attempfed to be anything other than a game console. Very cool to see that it was capable of more than just games.

I had one of these and I was very adept at it..... The Star Wars game that you showed had a glitch in the game that as I remember right if you looked in the owners guide you could walk right through and see with a little bit of perseverance where the glitch was and I rewrote the program from that point the pattern and made it so the game actually ran..the football game was great I learned how to rework on the handles because they would wear out because Of the massive force that was put on them while playing... there was also a really cool clock that you could project onto the TV after you loaded into the computer but when you turned it off you had to completely loaded back into the computer I never took the time to hook up the interface with the cassette deck that would've been really cool but the clock was really cool and had a sweep second hand like a regular clock but it took quite a while to load it in because you had to load each line in and there was a lot of them manually like I said if you loaded onto the cassette and then you could plug it in To the interface but I never did that my friend worked at Sears and that's where I got it had a really cool game called artillery duel that was a lot of fun‼️®™️

That Z80 is just hammering the framebuffer to animate that space invaders? Very nice work. That is pretty bandwidth intensive for the time.

I had a cool uncle who had the cool basement that included this system and a pool table to play. As kids we were not allowed to go down there and play without an adult but loved shooting the gun when we got to go down there. Thanks for the memory!

I remember wanting one of these when I was a kid. We had a volunteer computer teacher in the early 80s (pretty remarkable for rural school), and I wasn't able to sell her on the idea of my first computer purchase being the "Astrocade".