Retro Game Network | The New Retro Gaming Community ? Don ...

If you are browsing around Retro Game Network at all, chances are that you at some point or another, have at the very least, heard of a man by the name of Don Herbert. Growing up in the mid to late 1980s, I remember waking up every morning, turning the TV to channel 19 which was Nickelodeon, and watching ?Mr. Wizards World? as soon as I woke up. I used to get very excited when I would get to a segment of the show that featured the really cool stuff like radios, robots, and other computer related stuff. Every now and again, modern video game technology would show up in one form or another, which is where this entry today is headed.

I recently was able to obtain a copy of an 8 DVD disc set of the series that was originally released in 2004. This set has 32 episodes, which is only a little less than half of the entire series. (Hard to believe when it was rerun to death!) While browsing through and going back to my childhood with all of those really cool experiments that were done, I came across a segment in the chapter list called ?Atari Hardware? on Volume 4. I just couldn?t help myself, and decided to give it a look. The first thing that I noticed was that Don and Stacy were playing a game of Pac-Man on those famous ?in the wall? TV sets in the den. (Which I still think was an awesome setup. Kind of like a pre-HDTV ?hang it on the wall? kind of deal.) As the camera came lower, we see an Atari 800XL computer system, with disk drive and printer, set up. Not to mention, a Vectrex in the background! (I need to know if THAT was ever used! Still have 4 DVDs to check!)

If you grew up watching the show, you remember that most of the segments on the series were only about 3 to 5 minutes long. But in this quick 4 and a half minute piece, Don and Stacy took apart the Atari computer, to see what what inside. Nothing too technical or in depth, since the show was for kids. But Don tells us about RF shielding, CPUs, and video display dials. (Also about how the ?8 chips shown make it an 8 bit computer?.) After that is all said and done, we take apart a typical Atari 2600 joystick, since that is what was used for the computer systems. Talk about simplicity at it?s finest! But then, poor Stacy Petriuk, is forced to play Pac-Man with the joystick, using only the circuitry, and nothing to hold! How mean can you be? (Although, with today?s controllers, they could be up to something!) As you watch it, you can kind of tell that microcomputers were still a somewhat new technology, as even poor Mr. Wizard himself seems to have a hard time explaining some of the components. But, that could be because the show was aimed at kids.

I uploaded the program segment, for those that may have never seen the inside of the Atari 800 system or the Atari 2600 joystick, but may have used them over the years for playing classic games. I personally never opened either one of those babies up, so it was kind of neat to have someone else do it for me, even if it was just a quick glance. Besides: Who around my age DIDN?T love science as a kid with shows like ?Mr. Wizard?s World? on the air? (At least this segment was a lot more interesting than the ones that involved counting, looking at a square at the bottom of a balloon, or figuring out shapes from pieces of paper.) Now, if you?ll excuse me, I need to watch more episodes. Not only to find an episode that uses that Vectrex, but to see if I can learn more about that cool Hero Robot. Those things were cool.

Source: http://www.retrogamenetwork.com/2012/08/03/don-herbert-breaks-down-atari-hardware/

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