Starplex

My gaming moods swing rather wildly and lately I have been pretty much all retro. Tonight I was thumbing (middle fingering on the touchpad actually) through a digital image of the January 1983 Electronic Games magazine and I came across a couple of ads for some gaming gear from a company called Starplex.

The first was the Starplex Deluxe Video Controller. This shiny little piece of woodgrained retro-goodness plugs into your Atari 2600 or C64/Vic-20 and allows you to use pushbuttons for the up, down, left, right, and fire commands instead of using a joystick. It also offers a rapid-fire option allowing you to just hold down the fire button.

I checked ebay and what do you know - there happens to be a new and unused (new old stock) Starplex Deluxe Video Controller complete in the box for sale right now with a starting bid of $18 (hey it was originaly $30 retail so that's a pretty good deal!). Given how much I like playing arcade games that have all-button control panels and my love for all things retro gamish this is right up my alley, but I probably won't bid on it (I just can't buy every cool but useless retro thing I come across) - so you can check out the auction here.

On the other hand if I saw the second item up for bid I probably WOULD bid on it because I've never seen it before and think it is even cooler.

The Game SeleX was a wood-grained (of course!) case that allowed you to plug in 9 Atari 2600 cartridges and then select which game you wanted to play with a selector dial. There was a dummy cartridge connected via a ribbon cable that you plugged into your VCS to reduce wear and tear on your original cartridges. Like the Deluxe Video Controller, probably not tremendously useful at this point in time but EXACTLY the sort of thing I would buy just because it's cool. Fortunately for me the SeleX was NOT for sale on ebay so I don't have to face that dilemma this day.