Can anyone help identify this piece of gaming history?

[Hyperion]

I had one of these when I was real little, and I think I have a picture of the box somewhere. Anyway, it was a Pac Man clone and it looked like the top half of a tiny arcade cabinet. I don't remember how tall it was or how wide, because I was really little back then, and as you grow older your perception of size with things like that messes up, so...I do remember the graphics, though. They were smooth, but the playfield looked like it was lit up with LED lights, but it couldn't have been, because the movement was smooth as silk.

...does anyone know what I'l talking about here?

[autobotracing]

sounds like a tabletop arcade games .I think they were made by coleco

[Sniderman]

Yep, I bet that's it. I found a Frogger last weekend, m'self.


(Not my actual machine, but I'm at work so I had to go grab an image.)

[Lady Jaye]

Of course, if it's indeed the Pac-Man tabletop game by Coleco, that's actually NOT a Pac-Man clone. It was made under licence from either Midway or Namco (probably Midway).

Interestingly, the Frogger tabletop must have been made under licence from Sega, since it's the Sega label (for North America) and not the Konami label (the original makers of this fine game).

[Dire 51]

I loved those things. I had the Pac-Man machine when I was a kid, and even up into the early '90s when it finally died on me. I blame that on improper storage though... long story.

[Half Japanese]

The frog on the side of that mini-cabinet would make a kick-ass avatar, assuming my eyes aren't deceiving me and that is indeed a suitcase he's carrying.

[Dire 51]

Yeah, it is. I recall seeing that particular Frogger picture lots of times in different places in the 80s.

[SegaAges]

the person that used to baby sit me when i was a kid had one of those. i think it was donkey kong or something, but she also had thundercat toys, so i didn't do much with the game

[8-Bit Master]

I used to have the Donkey Kong Coleco Table Top game when I was really little, but I have no idea what happened to it. The only reason I can even remember I had one is because there is a picture of me and my brother playing it in our family photo album.

Don't some of the Coleco Table Top Games sell for quite a bit nowadays? I seem to remember seeing some of them selling in excess of $100 on eBay.

[Flack]

[MarioAllStar2600]

The frog on the side of that mini-cabinet would make a kick-ass avatar, assuming my eyes aren't deceiving me and that is indeed a suitcase he's carrying.

Isn't that the frog jumping off a log, like he does in the game? That is what it looks like to me... Never took a look though in person.

[rbudrick]

Yeah, these units do indeed sound like your description...my neighbor had one whne I was a kid, and I was so pissed they never had batteries for it. I made up for it by snagging quite a few of these units as I got older.

I'm also pretty proud that i was the first to find an easter egg in the Donkey Kong game (or the first to talk about it online, afaik). If I remember correctly, if you hold up and turn the game on, you will have infinte lives and some graphics will be messed up, most notably, the score.

-Rob

[Phosphor Dot Fossils]

[RockyRaccoon]

Hey guys. I might aswell as this question here, but I've never actually seen one of these up close and personal.

Are these like the LCD "Game & Watch" games, or something more?

~Rocky

[Phosphor Dot Fossils]

They're LED based, not LCD. But it's the same basic idea, yeah. Minus the watch part of game & watch.

Back in the days, these were da bomb.



I took about half of my tabletop game collection to OKGE, and they were a pretty big hit with the crowd there.

[NE146]

Coleco's Galaxian always seemed to me to be the best. But Pacman.. oi vay! I was so excited about it when it came out and when I got it, I have to say I was somewhat dissapointed eventually. Mainly because of the overal red color scheme (which I guess they couldn't do much with back then w/ LED's).. I guess I was spoiled by some other VFD based games and their colors i.e. Tomy Scramble . And also, the sound! Oi vay! NYEEH NYEEEH NYEEH NYEEH NYEEEH NYEEH. It wouldn't stop! Even back then it was annoying .

And yes, I was and still am a classic handheld freak :P