Sega Game Gear

Space Invaders mug

This was one of the first 3D objects I designed and printed almost a year ago, and I only recently got around to painting it properly. but I think it turned out OK.

Pong and Computer Space arcade cabinets

The very first two video arcade games (kind of) were Computer Space and Pong. Everyone knows about Pong, but few know about the other one.

I wanted to have a little video screen that showed animations of the game itself (or actually play it), but I just couldn’t find screens that tiny.

I’ve actually built a working model of the Pong arcade cabinet using an old TV Tennis game. And I was trying to make a Computer Space cabinet, but I couldn’t find an actual playable game for it that can fit into a small shell.

Atari Combat tanks

I was trying to create a tank from the Combat game that actually shot little bullets or BBs, but I couldn’t quite get them to work the way I wanted them to work. They still look pretty cool, though.

As you can tell, there are the red and blue tanks and the black and white tanks. The black and white ones were the test tanks I made as I was trying to get them working properly. But since they were still pretty cool I couldn’t just throw them away.

The mechanisms looked good in my head, but in reality, they need a lot more skill to get working properly than I currently have. I’m sure I’ll come back to this project some time in the future, though.

Intellivision Crown of Kings (AD&D) dragons

This is the final entry in the 2nd generation video game dragons series. I picked the most iconic dragon to represent each console. The Adventure dragons for the Atari 2600, the Quest For the Rings dragons for the Odyssey2, and the Crown of Kings (formerly the Advanced Dungeons and Dragons Cartridge) for the Intellivision. Most of the other consoles did not have a dragon related game, and the one that did (the Colecovision) didn’t have one that was unique to the system.

I made a kind of 2-D version of these dragons out of Sculpey a few years ago, and you can really see the difference in the 3-D treatment.

Atari 2600 Joystick candle holders

A long time ago I made a candle shaped like an Atari joystick, which was kinda cool. However, the entire thing, including the base, was made out of candle wax, so pouring the mold used up a lot of it. This project, in comparison, is a plastic base that can hold either 12” or 4” candles, so it’s a bit more useful.

There’s even a half-scale version that looks pretty cute.

UNIVAC 1 computer system

This one took a lot longer than I thought it would, partly because of the scarcity of photos, but mostly because the complete system was so huge.

I ended up doing a lot more research on this system without actually meaning to, but I think I grasp it’s basic functionality.

The two elements that need to be created before the system is even turned on are the program (the list of instructions for the computer itself) and the data (census data or payroll data, for instance). These are transposed onto data tapes via the UniTyper and Verifier:

The data which is now stored onto reels of magnetic tape are spooled onto the UniServos:

The starting up and shutting down of the system, along with monitoring capabilities is performed by the Supervisory Console, which has a Testing Cart to locate faults:

The program processes the data via the Central Computer:

Inside the Central Computer are seven Delay Line Mercury Memory Modules, which act as the system’s RAM:

The processed information is then stored onto more magnetic reels and can then be printed out using the UniPrinter:

And payroll checks and the like can be printed using the High Speed Printer:

Punch cards were also used at the time to store some types of data. These cards can be transposed to magnetic tape via the Card to Tape Converter.

Conversely, magnetic tape data could be stored on punch cards via the Tape to Card Converter:

And there you have it, the UNIVAC 1. The first commercially available computer.

By the way, my original design was twice as big, but as you can see, it would have been way to large (at least for my purposes).

Odyssey2 “Quest for the Rings” dragons

In addition to the Atari dragons, I wanted to make dragons from the other classic systems that had their own unique ones. The Odyssey2 had a board game kind of thing called Quest for the Rings, and in it was a kinda cool dragon.

It unfortunately looks a bit like a t-rex, so I gave the first dragon, named Goldfang, some extra arms. The next two dragons, Scortha and Mythrog, have some forced perspective wings, and the only reason for that was that the box cover art promises a cool winged dragon:

But all we got was this:

So I gave them wings

And although it looks kind of cool, the reason Scortha has 3 colors is that my printer ran out of green partway through the print, then it ran out of light green. It turned out looking OK though.

Atari 2600 Adventure dragons Rhindle, Grundle and Yorgle

I’ve always thought these dragons had some 3D potential, and figured I would try to design a 3D version that stays true to the 2D origins.

I gave them a more dragon-y head, some cool bat wings and claws and a nice swoopy tail, and yet they still line up with the game version.

When I was designing Rhindle, I wanted it to look a bit more like the dragon on the cover of the box:

Colecovision video game console 3-D print

My first 3D print! I just recently bought a little 3D printer and the first thing I wanted to design was one of the video game consoles that I usually do with paper craft. It’s a little rough (my first print, after all) but I think it turned out really well.

I added a few peripherals, as usual. I included expansion modules 1 and 2, which were the Atari 2600 player and the driving controller, plus the roller controller.