Grandstand (also known as Grandstand Leisure Products) is a

video game console A video game console is an electronic device that Input/output, outputs a video signal or image to display a video game that can be played with a game controller. These may be home video game console, home consoles, which are generally placed i ...

and

electronic game An electronic game is a game that uses electronics to create an interactive system with which a player can play. Video games are the most common form today, and for this reason the two terms are often used interchangeably. There are other common ...

manufacturer and distributor. It was based in the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...

and

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

and was active in the 1970s and 1980s.

Overview

The company initially behind the ''Grandstand'' label was Adam Imports Ltd., (from 1980 Adam Leisure Group Ltd. and by 1983 Adam Leisure Group PLC) founded in 1973 by Chris Rycroft and Les Kenyon of

Harrogate Harrogate ( ) is a spa town and the administrative centre of the Borough of Harrogate in North Yorkshire, England. Historic counties of England, Historically in the West Riding of Yorkshire, the town is a tourist destination and its visitor at ...

, UK. The company initially started as a mail order company and was the single largest supplier of calculators in the UK by 1974. By August 1978,

George Bassett George Bassett (1818–1886) was the founder in 1842 of Bassett's, a confectionery firm in Sheffield. It chiefly imported electronic products from other manufacturers such as VTech,

Epoch In chronology and periodization, an epoch or reference epoch is an instant in time chosen as the origin of a particular calendar era. The "epoch" serves as a reference point from which time is measured. The moment of epoch is usually decided by ...

Tomy is a Japanese entertainment company that makes children's toys and merchandise. It was created from a merger on March 1st 2006 of two companies: Tomy (founded in 1924 as Tomiyama, changing the name to Tomy in 1963) and long-time rival Tak ...

& Entex, selling them in the UK re-branded under the ''Grandstand'' name. Some imported products' names were changed for the UK market. For example, the

tabletop electronic game sold in the US as ''Pac Man'' (and in Japan as ''Puck Man'') was released by Grandstand in the UK re-badged as Munchman.

Products

Grandstand released numerous products over the years of which some are listed below. There were large numbers of similar variations, alternative names and model numbers typically referring to multiple evolutionary versions of the various game consoles and electronic games. Particularly, this is found with the ''Pong'' type game consoles as the

semiconductor technology A semiconductor is a material which has an electrical conductivity value falling between that of a conductor, such as copper, and an insulator, such as glass. Its resistivity falls as its temperature rises; metals behave in the opposite way. ...

rapidly progressed during the period that the Grandstand brand was active.

Video game consoles

Integrated ''pong'' consoles

Processor-cartridge based consoles

Subsequently, the primitive cartridge-based Grandstand Colour Programmable video game console (sold in New Zealand as the ''Mark III Video Game'') and several compatible Grandstand programmable video game cartridges were introduced. These consoles, belonging to the PC-50x Family, were still essentially ''Pong'' type affairs, but had a limited selection of cartridges available, each housing a different General Instruments processor chip AY-3-8xxx. This arrangement allowed for some variation in gameplay including the implementation of simple racing games featuring ''Pong''-era graphics. However, these systems lack the flexibility found in later

ROM cartridge A ROM cartridge, usually referred to in context simply as a cartridge, cart, or card, is a replaceable part designed to be connected to a consumer electronics device such as a home computer, video game console or, to a lesser extent, electroni ...

based consoles, and there were never more than a few such processor-based cartridges released.

ROM-cartridge based consoles

Later, the potentially more versatile

ROM Cartridge A ROM cartridge, usually referred to in context simply as a cartridge, cart, or card, is a replaceable part designed to be connected to a consumer electronics device such as a home computer, video game console or, to a lesser extent, electroni ...

based

Fairchild Channel F The Fairchild Channel F, short for "Channel Fun", is a video game console, the first to be based on a microprocessor and to use ROM cartridges instead of having games built-in. It was released by Fairchild Camera and Instrument in November 1976 a ...

was licensed, rebadged and released under the Adman Grandstand label as the ''Video Entertainment Computer'' in the UK (pictured). The company sold rebadged

SG-1000 The is a home video game console manufactured by Sega. It was Sega's first entry into the home video game hardware business. Developed in response to a downturn in arcades starting in 1982, the SG-1000 was created on the advice of Hayao Nakay ...

s in New Zealand.

Tabletop electronic games

Astro Wars ''Astro Wars'' is an electronic table top game made in Great Britain in 1981 by Grandstand under licence from Epoch Co., who sold the game in Japan as ''Super Galaxian'' (スーパーギャラクシアン), and in the United States as ''Galaxy ...

, Munchman,

Caveman The caveman is a stock character representative of primitive humans in the Paleolithic. The popularization of the type dates to the early 20th century, when Neanderthals were influentially described as " simian" or "ape-like" by Marcellin ...

Scramble Scramble, Scrambled, or Scrambling may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Games * ''Scramble'' (video game), a 1981 arcade game Music Albums * ''Scramble'' (album), an album by Atlanta-based band the Coathangers * ''Scrambles'' (album) ...

, Firefox F-7 and The Big Game: Soccer amongst others were popular

VFD VFD may refer to: * Factory Workers' Union of Germany, (german: Verband der Fabrikarbeiter Deutschlands, link=no), a former trade union in Germany * Vacuum fluorescent display, a display device on consumer electronics equipment * Variable-freque ...

-based tabletop electronic games released by Grandstand in the early 1980s.

Handheld electronic games

Grandstand also produced

LCD A liquid-crystal display (LCD) is a flat-panel display or other electronically modulated optical device that uses the light-modulating properties of liquid crystals combined with polarizers. Liquid crystals do not emit light directly but in ...

-based

handheld electronic games Handheld electronic games are very small, portable devices for playing interactive electronic games, often miniaturized versions of video games. The controls, display and speakers are all part of a single unit. Rather than a general-purpose s ...

such as Mini-Munchman, Scramble, Caveman and

Crazy Kong is an arcade game developed by Falcon, released in 1981 and similar to Nintendo's ''Donkey Kong''. Although commonly believed to be a bootleg version, it was officially licensed for operation only in Japan when Nintendo couldn't keep up with d ...

. In addition Grandstand released 4 different games (6 total including name variations), including BMX Flyer, in the Multicolorlaser 6000 series. Manufactured by

these were licensed for sale in the UK and featured a multi-colored backlit LCD.

Projector-based 'Light' games

The projector-based game system was developed by Hong Kong company Playtime Products, and was released in other regions where it is known as the Light Games Color LCD Projector. It was Playtime's only console to be sold. Fantastiko released the "PROJECTOR MEGA VIDEO GAME Color LCD system" in Italy in 1988, while Grandstand rebranded it as "Light Games LCD Colour Projection System" for the UK, and Hunter Caesar Toys (Defunct in 1996) released it for Australia. It was a tabletop projector based machine with built-in controller, that ran games on small cartridges with

windows. Light would be directed through the LCD window and magnified onto a wall. The window was painted with a semi-transparent background and the black LCD display would block the light from passing through. This provided 'big screen' entertainment and was a novelty at the time. The visual design and 'animation' being projected from these game carts were somewhat reminiscent of Nintendo's popular Game & Watch series of electronic handheld game devices that consisted of a segmented LCD display being pre-printed with an overlay. The machine ran from D sized batteries and was available for sale in various parts of Europe including the UK. 13 games were developed for it.

Pinball Machines

Grandstand Pinball Wizard

In the mid-late 1980s Grandstand collaborated with

to release the Grandstand Pinball Wizard, a rebranded version of Tomy's popular Tomy Astro Shooter Pinball, an electric wall-plug based pinball machine.

Accessories

Accessories were also marketed under the Grandstand name, such as the ''Universal Mains Adaptor''.

External links

Fantastiko Projector Mega Video Game - Unboxing, Gameplay, & Review , Retro Game Living Room
at

YouTube YouTube is a global online video platform, online video sharing and social media, social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by ...

(Sep 24, 2017. 6 games shown.)

References

{{reflist Electronic games Toy companies of the United Kingdom Defunct computer companies of the United Kingdom