Retrogaming in Germany

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PeteProdge
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Retrogaming in Germany

Post by PeteProdge »

I'm off to Berlin for a few days (Wed 22nd- Sat 25th) this month.

Aside from the ComputerSpiele Museum, are there any other places that can showcase retrogaming? Is there any way I can play on an East German Spectrum clone like the Spectral?

I'll filming a Reheated Pixels 'Meatspace' video while I'm over in Deutschland, so I'd like to cover how 1980s computing was received over there. I presume West Germany was all very C64-ish, with East Germany being dominated by the homegrown KC85 series of home micros?
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Re: Retrogaming in Germany

Post by Alone Coder »

You can read about ZX Spectrum in GDR here: http://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=66669
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Re: Retrogaming in Germany

Post by Mad Fritz »

Or ask me ;-)
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Re: Retrogaming in Germany

Post by Ralf »

I believe Spectrum wasn't very popular in GDR.
I have never seen an East German Spectrum game. Polish, Czechoslovak, Hungarian, Yugoslavian, Romanian yes, but not East German.
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Re: Retrogaming in Germany

Post by DouglasReynholm »

Ralf wrote: Fri Jan 03, 2020 8:04 pm I believe Spectrum wasn't very popular in GDR.
I have never seen an East German Spectrum game. Polish, Czechoslovak, Hungarian, Yugoslavian, Romanian yes, but not East German.
Given the demo/BBS scenes of the 80's, it always seemed that the Commodore machines were far and away the most popular in Germany.
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Re: Retrogaming in Germany

Post by cha05e90 »

Yes, Germany was "Commodore-Land". Especially where I live, 'cos the local Commodore factory was only a few kilom...er...miles away.

Nevertheless the Sinclair ZX Spectrum was 2nd place quite some time and were only pushed to the 3rd place after the official release of the "Schneider CPC 464" range of 8-Bit machines.
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Re: Retrogaming in Germany

Post by PeteProdge »

Alone Coder wrote: Fri Jan 03, 2020 1:30 pm You can read about ZX Spectrum in GDR here: http://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=66669
Fantastic stuff there, cheers for that.
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Re: Retrogaming in Germany

Post by PeteProdge »

cha05e90 wrote: Sat Jan 04, 2020 8:17 am Yes, Germany was "Commodore-Land". Especially where I live, 'cos the local Commodore factory was only a few kilom...er...miles away.

Nevertheless the Sinclair ZX Spectrum was 2nd place quite some time and were only pushed to the 3rd place after the official release of the "Schneider CPC 464" range of 8-Bit machines.
I'll put this down to both 'Commodore' and 'Schneider' being Germanic words! I mean, they can't all have this terrible taste in computing...
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Re: Retrogaming in Germany

Post by cha05e90 »

PeteProdge wrote: Sun Jan 05, 2020 9:40 am I'll put this down to both 'Commodore' and 'Schneider' being Germanic words! I mean, they can't all have this terrible taste in computing...
Regarding the second one: "Schneider" is a rather common German name (like "Taylor" in the U.K, I assume). And it's the name of a (once!) well-known middleclass HiFi-equipment company in the German speaking countries. Amstrad had no distibution network in Germany, so they choose the Schneider-Rundfunkwerke AG (like Amstrad a company with HiFi origins...) as the distribution partner. They even labelled the CPCs with the Schneider brand - and it worked! In a rather short time the CPC range was the 2nd best selling 8-Bit-micro in Germany...

Regarding Commodore: it's even worse! :-) The C64's predecessor VIC-20 was sold as the "Commodore VC-20" in the German speaking countries - note the missing "i"! If you pronounce "VIC" in the right (German) way it sounds like a really nasty word - so Commdore Germany omitted the "i". But what's the meaning of that mysterious "VC"?

Of course it's the "Commodore VOLKSCOMPUTER"! (please pronounce with a rolling German "rrr") :-))

So the officil successor of that V(I)C thing had no problems to be the best selling system here...
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Re: Retrogaming in Germany

Post by utz »

Besides the Computerspielemuseum, there's also the Signallabor at Humboldt University. Not sure if they have any GDR Speccy clones, but there is at least one KC85/4 ready to be used ;)
It's a semi-public place, so best to make an appointment with Stefan Höltgen before visiting. He also does some themed nights there occasionally.

Last but not least, if you're into old computers and old tech in general, the Technikmuseum is well worth a visit. The Museum für Kommunikation also used to have some computer history related stuff, not sure if they still do.
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Re: Retrogaming in Germany

Post by Mad Fritz »

Ralf wrote: Fri Jan 03, 2020 8:04 pm I believe Spectrum wasn't very popular in GDR.
I have never seen an East German Spectrum game. Polish, Czechoslovak, Hungarian, Yugoslavian, Romanian yes, but not East German.
There were programming books "Made in GDR" sold for the Spectrum (I still have most of them), sometimes without mentioning that it comes from the West. Never saw one about Commodore or Schneider.
Popular, but rare given the price you had to pay (around 5000.- East German Marks, average income around 500.- EGM) if you were able at all to purchase one on the black market. But still cheaper than a C64 or CPC (up to around 15.000.- EGM), sometimes sold in so called "Intershops" for (West) German Marks to.
Even the KC-Series from our own production were hardly to get for a private person - so more or less Homecomputers in general were rare and so not very "popular" in the GDR.

Fun fact: First announced as HC 900 (HC for HomeComputer) the officals changed the name to KC 85/2 (KC for KleinComputer, SmallComputer) cause they realized that they could not satisfy the home market.

I dont know of any East German C64 or CPC games either... for the same obvious reason.

There was some (commercial) software for the KC though but still far less than for the Western ones.

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Re: Retrogaming in Germany

Post by PeteProdge »

Thanks for all the advice so far, guys.

Computerspielemuseum will be the focal point of the retrogaming side of things when I visit next week. I'm keen to try out a KC85 and a PolyPlay machine for my video. I've had a response from the museum and they're fine with me filming. A lot of it will be concentrated on these machines, as the Soviet era fascinates me. I'll try to squeeze in the Signallabor and Technikmuseum (thanks [mention]utz[/mention] ), although that's dependent on my time.

If you know of any homebrew Spectrum games from other Soviet-dominated states during that era (Czechoslovakia for example), I'll find a way of squeezing them into my video, with appropriate context.

Of course I'll cover the West German side of things, but as things were pretty much like the UK (only far more Commodore-centric), those bits won't be as exciting.

Oh, and I suppose any German games for any retro platform really. It's a bit sparse for the Spectrum, so I'll go with any famous German games for Amstrad/C64/Atari ST/Amiga...

* = I'm also performing stand-up at an English-speaking comedy night; visiting museums about the Cold War era; doing a drive here and there; doing a parkrun on Saturday morning and trying out some beer. Those are pretty much all of my interests!
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Re: Retrogaming in Germany

Post by R-Tape »

PeteProdge wrote: Tue Jan 14, 2020 1:30 pm If you know of any homebrew Spectrum games from other Soviet-dominated states during that era (Czechoslovakia for example), I'll find a way of squeezing them into my video, with appropriate context.
There's Galactic Gunners. Here's a quote from Stack's review on Spectrum2.0. He says more on this in a compilation book of speccy reviews (I have it if you want more info).
This game - along with a smattering of others - represents a tiny marker in the sand that shows the important influence of the Spectrum and early home computing in crossing political and national borders ahead of the physical reality of the Berlin Wall coming down
There was also a piece of protest software, against heavy handed policing on a particular historic date. I can't remember much about it, if it was a scene demo or game. I can't remember what language it was in either (not English). [mention]catmeows[/mention] might know what I mean. There was some discussion about what it's ZXDB title should be.

All the best for the gig Prodge!
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Re: Retrogaming in Germany

Post by Ralf »

If you know of any homebrew Spectrum games from other Soviet-dominated states during that era (Czechoslovakia for example), I'll find a way of squeezing them into my video, with appropriate context.
Just search for any game made before 1990 in a country like Poland or Hungary.
You will probably have to go to World of Spectrum to do it efficiently. Spectrum Computing search engine is limited
and has yet a lot to improve.

If some country doesn't exist anymore then search under existing country. So games from Czechoslovakia will be under Czech Republic or Slovakia,
games from Soviet Union will be probably under Russia and so on. That's how it was done on WOS and ZXDB follows this convention, I believe.
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Re: Retrogaming in Germany

Post by 1bvl109 »

Mad Fritz wrote: Mon Jan 06, 2020 1:13 amThere was some (commercial) software for the KC though but still far less than for the Western ones.
This might be the reason that there were also attempts to produce compatibles, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Z ... s#Spectral see also http://www.jens-mueller.org/jkcemu/zxspectrum.html
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Re: Retrogaming in Germany

Post by Mad Fritz »

http://www.sax.de/~zander/index2h.html

on the left go to ZX.

I know it's in German but the pictures are interesting too...
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Re: Retrogaming in Germany

Post by R-Tape »

R-Tape wrote: Wed Jan 15, 2020 11:37 am There was also a piece of protest software, against heavy handed policing on a particular historic date. I can't remember much about it, if it was a scene demo or game. I can't remember what language it was in either (not English). @catmeows might know what I mean. There was some discussion about what it's ZXDB title should be.
Image

[mention]PeteProdge[/mention], this is what I was referring to: 17/11/1989, a text adventure about a student protest during the Czech velvet revolution.
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