Friday 30 December 2011

The Sega Master years...

I finished school in 1991, I had NO idea what I wanted to do. At the time, my big brother worked for Sega Ozisoft, creating instore displays for latest game releases. Thanks to him in a way, he suggested that I call the Sega Hotline manager for a possible job on the hotline. I thought, well, I like games - why not?

And so it was, my first job out of school was working as a 'Sega Master' on the Sega Hotline, where people would call up and ask for help with whatever game they were playing a the time. It was a golden time in my life!! Paid to play video games!! Out of all of the calls for help, I'd have to say the most frequent was for 'Alex Kidd in Miracle World' - the game that was built-in to the console itself. All someone would have to say was 'I'm stuck in a room with boxes on the ground..." and we'd pipe-up with 'Sun... Waves... Moon..."... to which the panicked caller would ask what we were referring to... to which we'd explain... and they'd run off for a pen and paper. It's certainly handier to have youtube these days!!



Following from my Sega Master days, I wrote reviews and appeared on 1990s Video Game show (produced by Sydney based Beyond Productions) "The Zone". More on this later!

RainbowVision Atari 2600 Games


This text is lifted / adapted warts and all from my original Australian Classic / Retro Video Game website found here now, resurrected for reference and enjoyment of all - I like the artwork too on most of them! Sadly, I no longer have these games, they were sold off many years ago. Today, I'm always keeping an eye out for them as would love to start again. I could get them from Ebay, but don't want to pay crazy collector prices, and it's a lot more fun finding them 'in the wild' I gotta say!
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Hi, welcome to the Rainbow Vision Cart Archive.

Rainbow Vision carts were distributed only in Australia by the Rainbow Music group.

I'm not entirely sure of when Rainbow distributed these titles, but at a guess, I think it was the very early 80's. From my own info and  VGR's list, there seems to have been 20 titles in the series that was released, below is a table that outlines the known range. (The last 3 columns indicate if I own the game). If you are aware of the three oustanding titles, please let me know!!

Rainbow Vision carts are pirate rip-offs manufactured in Taiwan. For a laugh, I have included the "Game Descriptions" directly from the instruction manual for each game (if I have it), you'll find them next to the full size images. Somehow, somewhere, something was lost in the translations, and the resultant English is at times really bad - I have made sure that they were transcribed word for hilarious word....they're great!

The artwork isn't too bad on most of the carts, anyone know the source?

The following is a list of the carts I used to own:



Random Notes on Rainbow Vision Atari 2600 carts:
  • - Rarity - One thing I have found over the past couple of years from collecting carts, is that these titles are pretty rare. I don't have duplicates for any of these titles. :P
  • On the back of the boxes, it states "The home version of one of your favorite Arcade games"
  • Also stated is "A quality product from the Rainbow Music Group. Distributed in Australia by Rainbow Products Limited, Sydney Australia.
  • On the back of each cartridge are the initials S.S. (I think this stands for Star Soft?).
Atari 2600 Time Race by Rainbow Vision

Atari 2600 Galactic by Rainbow Vision

Atari 2600 Pac-Kong by Rainbow Vision


Atari 2600 Pyramid War by Rainbow Vision

Atari 2600 Tom Boy by Rainbow Vision
Atari 2600 Netmaker by Rainbow Vision
Atari 2600 Space Raid by Rainbow Vision
Atari 2600 The Year 1999 by Rainbow Vision
Atari 2600 Bermuda by Rainbow Vision
Atari 2600 Mafia by Rainbow Vision
Atari 2600 Super Ferrari by Rainbow Vision
Atari 2600 Bi! Bi! by Rainbow Vision
Atari 2600 Catch Time by Rainbow Vision
Atari 2600 Boom Bang by Rainbow Vision
Atari 2600 Curtiss by Rainbow Vision

Classic Video Games

Many years ago now, WAYYY back in 1999 I created a website that showcased my collection of Nintendo Game and Watches, Atari 2600 games (with a focus on Australian produced / distributed games) video game books and other items. Due to time constraints (ie. children!) and the fact that many of the games were sold on Ebay a long time ago, the site fell away and by 2004, when I no longer paid for hosting of the site, it disappeared into cyberspace... that is until I discovered that it lived on within the fabulous www.archive.org and the waybackmachine! The old site is accessible via the link here.

As part of this blog, I plan to ressurect elements of this website to place onto my blog, as a resource for collectors and to also make me not feel too bad about losing the countless hours of scanning and website creation in the first place! The first post of this will be on Rainbow Vision Atari 2600 games, and I'll continue to ressurect other elements of the old website over time. In any case, it feels good just to be able to give the old material a new life for me. I hope you enjoy!