Читать книгу The Ultimate Guide to Classic Game Consoles - Kevin Baker - Страница 11

APF TV Fun CC Image – Wikipedia – Jeff Keyzer

Developer: APF Electronics Inc.

Release Date: 1976

Origin: United Kingdom

Initial Price: $125 USD

CPU: AY-3-8500 from General Instruments

Built-In Games: 4

Here we are looking at a more obscure video game console that was released in the late 70s. This console was actually the first serious competition that Atari had. The APF TV Fun console was a Pong clone console and it went head to head with Atari.

The APF TV Fun started with the APF TV Fun 401 model and then there were a few console variations in the next few years, until APF made the APF Imagination Machine to compete with cartridge based systems in 1979.

Anyway, let's have a look at the APF TV Fun.

APF TV Fun 401 & 401a

This one has your four standard Pong games that you would expect. Tennis, Hockey, Squash and Handball. The actual console itself has that classic 70s and 80s wood grain look to it. The paddle controllers are built onto the actual console much like many other Pong clones were. The switches on the console are a nice silver which let you do things like change the difficulty and select the game and so on. The console does actually look pretty cool and I am sure back in 1976 when it was first released it did not look out of place under people's TVs. You also had the option of using a power cable or some batteries.

One really cool thing that the APF TV Fun offered was the various options that you had in the games. For example there were different difficulties, amateur and pro. As well as this you could change the size of the bats in the games and the speed of the ball and even the angle that the ball came in at. May not sound like much, but at the time it did offer a great deal of game play variety.

APF TV Fun 402

The APF TV Fun 402 or the Sportsarama as it was also known as did add a few cool new features. The most notable one was the inclusion of a pretty awesome looking light gun. This thing is all black and very sleek looking. As well as this, two extra controllers were added making the games four-player.

These great features did come at a bit of a cost. The great options that were in the games in the 401 model were gone, but new ones were added like having an auto serve button which was really great. As far as the look of the system goes it had the same attractive silver and wood look to it.

APF TV Fun 405, 406, 442, 444, 500

These consoles really did not offer any great changes (if any at all!). The most notable of these is probably the 406 which had new round paddle controllers. The APF TV Fun series of consoles actually did put up a good fight against not only Atari’s dominance, but also the vast amount of other Pong clone systems that would be released during this era.