Zanussi Ping-O-Tronic

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Zanussi Ping-O-Tronic
Zanussi - Ping-o-tronic.jpg
Manufacturer Zanussi
Type stationary game console
publication
JapanJapan did not show up
United StatesUnited States did not show up
EuropeEurope Late 1974
AustraliaAustralia did not show up
China People's RepublicPeople's Republic of China did not show up
Main processor none
Graphics processor three 7400 chips from the US company Texas Instruments
Storage media none (built-in games)
Controller Gamepads
Online service none
Units sold approx.1,000,000 ( including Zanussi Play-O-Tronic )
predecessor none
successor Zanussi Play-O-Tronic
info First game console released in Italy

The Zanussi Ping-O-Tronic ( stylized as ping • o • tronic , also called Sèleco Ping-O-Tronic or just Ping-O-Tronic ) is a stationary game console of the first console generation , which was manufactured by the Italian household goods manufacturer Zanussi and was launched towards the end of 1974 Released exclusively in Italy under Zanussi's trademark Sèleco and was produced until 1977. The system was particularly successful in 1975.

It is the first Italian game console except for imports and clones of the Magnavox Odyssey . The successor to the system is the Zanussi Play-O-Tronic .

overview

The Zanussi Ping-O-Tronic is housed in an orange-white housing to which the two paddles are also attached. The three games pre-installed in the console, which are all very similar, are generated by three 7400 chips from the US company Texas Instruments . The games were called Pong , Squash / Solo and Automatic / Attract . The last of the three games is unique, as in this case the two clubs extend over the entire height of the playing field and the ball flies back and forth for an infinite amount of time without the intervention of a player. It was therefore often used on sales floors to demonstrate the console. There are several revisions of the console, which are marked with the model designations PP-2 to PP-10 . The different versions differ only slightly from each other, but from the PP-5 model onwards, a slot was added to which an optical rifle called Gun-O-Tronic (stylized as gun • o • tronic ) can be connected to play a target game . The only consoles of this time that also have this feature are the Magnavox Odyssey and the Philips Tele-Game ES 2201 , the latter only being released a year after the Ping-O-Tronic. The Ping-O-Tronic has a built-in power supply unit with 220 volts of electrical voltage , the image is output at a frequency of 50 Hz . The sound was output through the monitor . The Zanussi Ping-O-Tronic was sold until 1983.

Zanussi Play-O-Tronic

Zanussi Play-O-Tronic

In 1977 Zanussi produced and released another model of a Pong-like console called the Zanussi Play-O-Tronic (stylized as play • o • tronic , also called Sèleco Play-O-Tronic or just Play-O-Tronic ), which was manufactured until 1980 has been. In contrast to the Zanussi Ping-O-Tronic, which is made up of several individual components, the Play-O-Tronic is made up of just a single AY-3-8500 chip. The system is able to play six different games by pressing one of the six orange buttons. The games were named Fucile 1 , Fucile 2 , Tennis , Football , Pelota a 1 and Pelota a 2 . In addition, the housing of the system is now gray and black instead of orange and white. The console was also sold in Germany by the German mail order company Quelle under the name Universum TV Multi-Spiel (stylized as UNIVERSUM TV Multi-Spiel). The TV multi game also had an integrated power supply. On April 21, 1975, Zanussi received license approval to sell this console under the name Play-O-Tronic from Sanders Associates .

Sales figures

Zanussi himself stated that from October 1, 1977 to December 31, 1977, i.e. in three months, he had sold 21,514 units of the Play-O-Tronic for a total of 620,408,000 Italian lira , of which 5.5% (34,122,440 Lira) to Sanders Associates. When calculating and taking into account sales margins, it can be assumed that each console cost between 70,000 and 130,000 lira.

By 1983 the Zanussi Ping-O-Tronic and Play-O-Tronic had been sold around one million times.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f pongmuseum.com - News blog. April 27, 2014, accessed August 23, 2019 .
  2. ^ Pong-Story: Magnavox Odyssey, the first video game system. Retrieved May 5, 2019 .
  3. ↑ a b c Pong story: Zanussi / Seleco Ping-O-Tronic. Retrieved February 16, 2019 .
  4. ^ Vox: The Ping-O-Tronic Video game console produced by Zanussi. Retrieved March 22, 2019 .
  5. ↑ Zanussi Ping-O-Tronic Model PP6 (BINARIUM). Retrieved February 18, 2019 .
  6. ^ Pong story: Zanussi / Seleco Ping-O-Tronic. Retrieved February 18, 2019 .
  7. ↑ Zanussi Ping-O-Tronic Model PP6 (BINARIUM). Retrieved January 7, 2019 .
  8. ↑ a b Pong Picture Page. September 7, 2012, accessed February 16, 2019 .
  9. ↑ Riapre SELECO, e la tv torna a parlare l'italiano. In: Tom's Hardware. Retrieved January 7, 2019 (Italian).
  10. ↑ Martin Tobias Lithner: Super Retro: id: A Collector's Guide to Vintage Consoles . Books on Demand, 2019, ISBN 978-91-7851-302-4 ( google.de [accessed April 1, 2019]).