Anyone seen a cocktail like this?

cronny1

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It says National Computer Systems out of Chicago and does not have a game name on it. Keep in mind, a friend of mine found this buried on a cleanout job and I didn't get a chance to ask him important questions on where to look. He says the monitor is in there but on it's side. It resembles Pong, but the stand and some other details tells me it's not. Any input?
 

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Almost certainly a 4 player Pong variant. It takes up a lot of space and you will spend as much just replacing the pots in the spinners as the whole thing is worth.
 
Almost certainly a 4 player Pong variant. It takes up a lot of space and you will spend as much just replacing the pots in the spinners as the whole thing is worth.

Still a cool looking cocktail though, I kinda want it, even if it would take a crapton to get it working. I'm sure it could be made into something else cool if the cost is too high/parts don't exist
 
Still a cool looking cocktail though, I kinda want it, even if it would take a crapton to get it working. I'm sure it could be made into something else cool if the cost is too high/parts don't exist

Well, if you don't want to fix it as-is, rip out the guts and turn it into a Warlords.

Though, please take lots of photos of the interior, etc as you go - there's not a lot out there about these clones, and while it's probably not worth preserving, it probably IS worth documenting.
 
Well, the guy wants $100. I was going to be all over it until I heard the word bootleg. I'll probably pass on it. Thanks guys.
 
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Almost looks like one of the Mirco Games pong clones but the base is different.

I just picked up a Challenge table, freaking love it.

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I have been wanting a pong table ever since I got to play Stuffmongers, took me 3 years to finally get one.:cool:
 
They aren't bootleg anymore than one style of foosball table is a bootleg of another.

They were legitimate products that happened to be fairly close copies of other products (like most of Exidy's B&W stuff was ripped off of whatever the bigger boys had in development at the time). A whole bunch of different companies sold Pong variations. I am not even sure if Atari was the first to come out with a 4 player Pong, as around a dozen different companies had what were basically 4 player Pongs in their 1973 product lineup.

The funnier thing is how many of the early Pong imitators copied the basic design of the game cabinet in addition to the game (Paddle Ball, Pong Tron, TV Ping Pong, Winner, some more I probably forgot about).
 
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Agreed, go for it, it'll make a good project cocktail thing. Damn shame again that its too far away from me or I'd snag it if you didn't want it
 
Well, if it didn't have the knobs on the top you could get a piece of glass cut and use it as a general purpose table when it's not running. But the knobs prevent that.

It's still cool though. I've got a Ramtek soccer and even though it's a knockoff of Pong, it's neat looking and I'm glad it's part of my collection.

You need to talk him down to $50 on it though, I don't think it's worth $100 not working.

-JM
 
National Computer Systems later became Fascination, Ltd.
This is probably one of the early models of their Fascination cocktail table.

http://flyers.arcade-museum.com/?page=thumbs&db=videodb&id=2526

Interestingly, they claim that they came out with the first cocktail table in late 1973 and they even got a patent on it in mid-1974. So it is remotely possible that you have an example of the first cocktail video game ever (though I doubt it).

Elimination is generally cited as the first (though I personally don't consider it a cocktail table) in October of 1973. Fascination may have beaten them to the punch, but we'd need more solid data.


You can read some details here, if interested:

http://allincolorforaquarter.blogspot.com/2012/11/preliminary-report-what-was-first.html
 
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