Who owned / owns a Bally Arcade?

[masschamber]

love the home library computer/professional arcade/home computer/astrocade,  comfortable controllers, great audio visuals for the time, plus fun bananas history 

[krslam]

Have one that I picked up at a thrift some time back. Seem to remember it not working quite right but haven't tried it in years so can't remember what the issue was. Probably time to try it again.

[Jess Ragan]

I don't know if I owned a Bally Arcade or an Astrocade. The term "Bally Astrocade" that's sometimes thrown around is actually a misnomer... they don't technically belong together, because Bally didn't own the system when it was sold to Astrovision. It was that weird "wild west" period of gaming where it was feasible for one game company to sell its rights to a game system. It happened fairly often after the crash... Mattel sold the rights to Intellivision and MB relinquished its rights to the Vectrex.

 

Er, anyway. I'd say the Astrocade is in the middle of early classic systems where quality is concerned. Better than Fairchild or Odyssey2, maybe not as good as the Atari 2600 or Intellivision. If nothing else, it plays a pretty good game of Galaxian, and a VERY good game of Wizard of Wor. Also, the tops of the pistol handle joysticks turn like dials for added control! And you can make selections in the game menu with the dial, which meant that you didn't have to haul your sorry butt off the couch to start the game! Hello, awesome?

[128Kgames]

1 minute ago, Jess Ragan said:

I don't know if I owned a Bally Arcade or an Astrocade. The term "Bally Astrocade" that's sometimes thrown around is actually a misnomer... they don't technically belong together, because Bally didn't own the system when it was sold to Astrovision. It was that weird "wild west" period of gaming where it was feasible for one game company to sell its rights to a game system. It happened fairly often after the crash... Mattel sold the rights to Intellivision and MB relinquished its rights to the Vectrex.

 

Er, anyway. I'd say the Astrocade is in the middle of early classic systems where quality is concerned. Better than Fairchild or Odyssey2, maybe not as good as the Atari 2600 or Intellivision. If nothing else, it plays a pretty good game of Galaxian, and a VERY good game of Wizard of Wor. Also, the tops of the pistol handle joysticks turn like dials for added control! And you can make selections in the game menu with the dial, which meant that you didn't have to haul your sorry butt off the couch to start the game! Hello, awesome?

Have to disagree it spanks the Atari 2600 and while I own an Intellivision now I'd still play my Astrocade over it. I'm sure someone can chime in hardware wise and compare specs on those systems. I gave up on correcting people years ago on the differences between the consoles but refer to the 4 versions correctly myself 😉 Hands down best hand controls of that period, even the console design was ahead of its time! 

[BassGuitari]

11 hours ago, Jess Ragan said:

I don't know if I owned a Bally Arcade or an Astrocade. The term "Bally Astrocade" that's sometimes thrown around is actually a misnomer... they don't technically belong together, because Bally didn't own the system when it was sold to Astrovision. It was that weird "wild west" period of gaming where it was feasible for one game company to sell its rights to a game system. It happened fairly often after the crash... Mattel sold the rights to Intellivision and MB relinquished its rights to the Vectrex.

 

Er, anyway. I'd say the Astrocade is in the middle of early classic systems where quality is concerned. Better than Fairchild or Odyssey2, maybe not as good as the Atari 2600 or Intellivision. If nothing else, it plays a pretty good game of Galaxian, and a VERY good game of Wizard of Wor. Also, the tops of the pistol handle joysticks turn like dials for added control! And you can make selections in the game menu with the dial, which meant that you didn't have to haul your sorry butt off the couch to start the game! Hello, awesome?

You know, I've been into classic games since the '90s and I don't know if it ever occurred to me that "Bally Astrocade" is an oxymoron. 😆 I suppose "Bally/Astrocade" could work, though. My Home Professional Astrocomputer Librarycade catch-all of choice is "Bally Arcade" or just "Bally," which are also not universally accurate, but even I have to draw a line on pedantry somewhere. 😜

 

The thing that comes to mind about the Bally for me--besides its four pistol-grip paddle-combo controllers, keypad, BASIC programmability, built-in games, angular woodgrain style, its general identity crisis, and the regret that we never got GORF or Wizard of Wor with speech for it--is the sound on its later crop of titles. 

 

+1 for controller-driven menu selection! 👍

11 hours ago, 128Kgames said:

Have to disagree it spanks the Atari 2600 and while I own an Intellivision now I'd still play my Astrocade over it. I'm sure someone can chime in hardware wise and compare specs on those systems. I gave up on correcting people years ago on the differences between the consoles but refer to the 4 versions correctly myself 😉 Hands down best hand controls of that period, even the console design was ahead of its time! 

It's hard for me to agree that it "spanks" the Atari 2600 overall, but it certainly does do some things better. Probably most things, actually.

 

But, any console is only as good as its games. The Atari had 'em; the Bally didn't.

[128Kgames]

1 hour ago, BassGuitari said:

You know, I've been into classic games since the '90s and I don't know if it ever occurred to me that "Bally Astrocade" is an oxymoron. 😆 I suppose "Bally/Astrocade" could work, though. My Home Professional Astrocomputer Librarycade catch-all of choice is "Bally Arcade" or just "Bally," which are also not universally accurate, but even I have to draw a line on pedantry somewhere. 😜

 

The thing that comes to mind about the Bally for me--besides its four pistol-grip paddle-combo controllers, keypad, BASIC programmability, built-in games, angular woodgrain style, its general identity crisis, and the regret that we never got GORF or Wizard of Wor with speech for it--is the sound on its later crop of titles. 

 

+1 for controller-driven menu selection! 👍

It's hard for me to agree that it "spanks" the Atari 2600 overall, but it certainly does do some things better. Probably most things, actually.

 

But, any console is only as good as its games. The Atari had 'em; the Bally didn't.

We can agree to disagree on the "any console is only as good as its games" 😉

Of course the Astrocade never had the support Atari received, but my "spank" reply was more along the lines of a hardware perspective when Jess referred to it as "maybe not as good as the Atari 2600 or Intellivision." Maybe Jess wasn't referring to it from a hardware standpoint, so my reply may have been unwarranted.  Thing is the Bally / Astrocade systems often get overlooked when in fact they could hold their own if not surpass the other systems at that time.

 

Years back we even had proto 512k bankswitching carts made to try and expand the gaming library and show off what the Astrocade can really do, but the protos are only as far as things went. 

 

[ballyalley]

16 hours ago, Jess Ragan said:

The term "Bally Astrocade" that's sometimes thrown around is actually a misnomer... they don't technically belong together, because Bally didn't own the system when it was sold to Astrovision.

 

I also used to think that the Bally Astrocade name was incorrect and didn't ever go together, but that isn't true.  At least, I have seen it on some documentation from Astrovision, Inc. in the early 1980s.  I checked BallyAlley.com for it now and, of course, I can't find any verification for this statement.  Ah, well.  Maybe I'm remembering the name from what I read in the "Arcadian" newsletters, which means I'm just muddying the waters here.  I still prefer to call the system the Bally Arcade/Astrocade, but I go with Astrocade for shorthand.  Or, how about calling it that short-lived, consoley-computer-thing that hardly anyone knows about anymore?  Let's go with that name.

 

Bally didn't sell their Bally Arcade hardware to Astrovision, Inc.  The game system was licensed to them to manufacture and sell.  This is made clear in most of the documents and ads from the early 1980s. I think Astrovision, Inc. could use the name Bally for one year.  Again, I can't find proof of this, but maybe Michael Di Salvo can back me up?  I guess Bally owns the rights to the console now.  I expect that any day now we'll see a miniature Bally Arcade console.  Come on, Bally, are you listening?

 

In any case, the Bally Astrocade, Bally Arcade, Bally Professional Arcade, whatever we call that 24-key kinda computer/kinda console/ever-so-cool game system, I dig its weird history and its small library of cartridges and its hundreds of programs that can be used with the various BASIC languages available for it.

 

Adam

[Jess Ragan]

Well, I suppose I'll have to defer to the expertise of the guy who's run the de facto standard Astrocade fan site for over twenty years. (shrugs)

 

As for the quality of the system, the Astrocade is likely more powerful than the Atari 2600, but of course, that's a relative term... none of these machines are cutting edge by today's standards, or even thirty years ago. Plus, as BassGuitari said, hardware doesn't tell the whole story... there's also the matter of games. The Atari 2600, for all its primitiveness, has the edge there. (No, I'm not counting the Astrocade games written in BASIC.)

[ballyalley]

8 minutes ago, Jess Ragan said:

I'll have to defer to the expertise of the guy who's run the de facto standard Astrocade fan site for over twenty years.

 

As for the quality of the system, the Astrocade is likely more powerful than the Atari 2600, but of course, that's a relative term... none of these machines are cutting edge by today's standards, or even thirty years ago. Plus, as BassGuitari said, hardware doesn't tell the whole story... there's also the matter of games. The Atari 2600, for all its primitiveness, has the edge there. (No, I'm not counting the Astrocade games written in BASIC.)

 

Don't let me off that easy, Jess. The fact that I've been messing about with the Astrocade for about 30 years and have had the BallyAlley website for about two decades just means that I have more of a chance to get my so-called facts jumbled up.

 

I wouldn't include the BASIC games on the Astrocade in its total game count either.  There are many hardcore Astrocade fans who have never loaded any BASIC programs on real hardware or even under emulation from "tape."  Some of these BASIC games can be loaded from the various Astrocade multicarts now, but even the absolutely best AstroBASIC programs can't be fairly compared against any Astrocade game released on a cartridge.

 

Adam

 

[masschamber]

On 3/25/2024 at 4:09 PM, Jess Ragan said:

Well, I suppose I'll have to defer to the expertise of the guy who's run the de facto standard Astrocade fan site for over twenty years. (shrugs)

 

As for the quality of the system, the Astrocade is likely more powerful than the Atari 2600, but of course, that's a relative term... none of these machines are cutting edge by today's standards, or even thirty years ago. Plus, as BassGuitari said, hardware doesn't tell the whole story... there's also the matter of games. The Atari 2600, for all its primitiveness, has the edge there. (No, I'm not counting the Astrocade games written in BASIC.)

Pretty sure I have some dealer paper work or a box that says bally astrocade somewhere, maybe the system would have done better if  bally had stayed with one name ...and didn't prominently display a different name on the  cartridge packaging.

[128Kgames]

22 hours ago, masschamber said:

Pretty sure I have some dealer paper work or a box that says bally astrocade somewhere, maybe the system would have done better if  bally had stayed with one name ...and didn't prominently display a different name on the  cartridge packaging.

Yeah, I have a hard time explaining 4 different names for essentially the same product, let alone explaining the "Montgomery Ward" variations! 

 

Bally only had anything to do with the first 3 before Astrovision and then Astrocade took over, selling the remaining stock (or whatever they could fit in a box!) before releasing their own "Astrocade" branded console, the last iteration.  Alas, no, there is no such factory box or paperwork that would have said "Bally Astrocade" (which I stopped correcting people on, it wasn't worth the aggravation) but its quite possible some third party company or vendor called it that on some sales sheets or dealer paperwork. But it was only ever Astrocade that called it "Astrocade" and labelled it as such.  Great older site by Lance F. Squire if you want to peep most of the label and box variations, outside of the Bally Alley website (another great source of course):

http://glankonian.com/lance/Ballyfaq.html

[masschamber]

13 hours ago, 128Kgames said:

Yeah, I have a hard time explaining 4 different names for essentially the same product, let alone explaining the "Montgomery Ward" variations! 

 

Bally only had anything to do with the first 3 before Astrovision and then Astrocade took over, selling the remaining stock (or whatever they could fit in a box!) before releasing their own "Astrocade" branded console, the last iteration.  Alas, no, there is no such factory box or paperwork that would have said "Bally Astrocade" (which I stopped correcting people on, it wasn't worth the aggravation) but its quite possible some third party company or vendor called it that on some sales sheets or dealer paperwork. But it was only ever Astrocade that called it "Astrocade" and labelled it as such.  Great older site by Lance F. Squire if you want to peep most of the label and box variations, outside of the Bally Alley website (another great source of course):

http://glankonian.com/lance/Ballyfaq.html

I'll see if I can find the paperwork, I could easily just conflating 2 documents or it could have been typed in on an order form or something