Videomaster Visionscore VMVI

I acquired another Pong console from Facebook Marketplace for £10, this one is a Videomaster Visionscore VMVI and is a three game colour Pong variant for one or two players



The unit is quite small, and the controllers are built-in, although you can plug in "remote controls". There are three games, Football, Tennis, and Squash, these are selected by a momentary button which cycles through the games. Each player's "bat" has three skill levels which changes the size of the bat, this is also selected by a momentary button for each player. There is a reset button which sets the scores to 0. Also on the unit is a power switch, and a one or two player switch

I have not been able to open the battery compartment yet, it feels like it's been glued shut

The controls are just the usual rotary paddle type controls



There is a fixed TV lead and the unit broadcasts on CH37, there is a 3.5mm mono jack plug for external power, or BAT ELIM as they call it



The remote controls are just the same rotary paddle type controls terminated in the same 3.5mm mono jack plug as the power



Here's what I imagine is the official power supply, or battery eliminator. 18V is a lot for these Pong consoles



Anyway as usual the TV won't manual tune, so a full sweep it is, the unit emits a single pong style BEEP from the unit itself when switched on, the TV will emit white noise as there is no sound carrier in the RF signal, which is common on these consoles



While the TV is tuning I noticed the socket for the left player's remote control is missing, there is a rattle from within the unit, so it's likely the nut has come off and the socket has fallen inside the unit



This is Football, you may notice the background is blue, that matches the colour for Football on the front panel. Also the ball, which is more like a dash character, is always auto served with no apparent way of switching to manual serve, and the score is only on screen while the ball is not in play



This is Tennis, it would seem the ball is slow for the first couple of returns, then it speeds up, this is common for all games



And this is Squash. During testing I found everything seems to work as expected, but the controls only work on the first half of their travel, so it's likely some components have gone out of spec


For more retro hardware check out my online museum here