''Poly-Play'' is an

arcade cabinet An arcade cabinet, also known as an arcade machine or a coin-op cabinet or coin-op machine, is the housing within which an arcade game's electronic hardware resides. Most cabinets designed since the mid-1980s conform to the Japanese Amusement Ma ...

developed in

East Germany East Germany, officially the German Democratic Republic (GDR; german: Deutsche Demokratische Republik, , DDR, ), was a country that existed from its creation on 7 October 1949 until its dissolution on 3 October 1990. In these years the state ...

1985 The year 1985 was designated as the International Youth Year by the United Nations. Events January * January 1 ** The Internet's Domain Name System is created. ** Greenland withdraws from the European Economic Community as a result of a ...

; it is the only such machine to originate in the GDR. It was created by

VEB Polytechnik VEB Polytechnik was a company from the German Democratic Republic (GDR) located in Chemnitz (then called Karl-Marx-Stadt). In the GDR, it was mainly known for producing overhead projectors, called Polylux. The company was founded in 1870 as ''Rei ...

and contained a number of games, including a ''

Pac-Man originally called ''Puck Man'' in Japan, is a 1980 maze action video game developed and released by Namco for arcades. In North America, the game was released by Midway Manufacturing as part of its licensing agreement with Namco America. Th ...

'' clone. A total of about 2,000 units of the cabinet were manufactured.

Hardware

''Poly-Play'' ran on a

U880 The U880 is an 8-bit microprocessor that was manufactured by VEB Mikroelektronik "Karl Marx" Erfurt (abbreviated as MME; part of Kombinat Mikroelektronik Erfurt) in the German Democratic Republic. Production of the U880 started in 1980 at VEB ...

, a clone of the

Zilog Z80 The Z80 is an 8-bit microprocessor introduced by Zilog as the startup company's first product. The Z80 was conceived by Federico Faggin in late 1974 and developed by him and his 11 employees starting in early 1975. The first working samples wer ...

CPU A central processing unit (CPU), also called a central processor, main processor or just processor, is the electronic circuitry that executes instructions comprising a computer program. The CPU performs basic arithmetic, logic, controlling, and ...

, which was clocked at 2.457600

MHz The hertz (symbol: Hz) is the unit of frequency in the International System of Units (SI), equivalent to one event (or cycle) per second. The hertz is an SI derived unit whose expression in terms of SI base units is s−1, meaning that one he ...

and a custom sound chip. Its display ran at a resolution of 512*256 at 50 Hz and supported a palette of ten colours, though it could also use coloured overlays. The machine's coin slot was designed for 50

Pfennig The 'pfennig' (; . 'pfennigs' or ; symbol pf or ₰) or penny is a former German coin or note, which was the official currency from the 9th century until the introduction of the euro in 2002. While a valuable coin during the Middle Ages, i ...

, but it was flawed - the pressure sensor could be deceived by pressing a 1-Pfennig coin very sharply into the top of the slot. However, this was largely tolerated because the machine was not a

capitalistic Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their operation for profit. Central characteristics of capitalism include capital accumulation, competitive markets, price system, private p ...

commercial venture, but a state-owned product found predominantly in

FDGB The Free German Trade Union Federation (german: Freier Deutsche Gewerkschaftsbund or ''FDGB'') was the sole national trade union centre of the German Democratic Republic (GDR or East Germany) which existed from 1946 and 1990. As a mass organisat ...

holiday homes, youth

hostel A hostel is a form of low-cost, short-term shared sociable lodging where guests can rent a bed, usually a bunk bed in a dormitory, with shared use of a lounge and sometimes a kitchen. Rooms can be mixed or single-sex and have private or shared b ...

s and

non-profit A nonprofit organization (NPO) or non-profit organisation, also known as a non-business entity, not-for-profit organization, or nonprofit institution, is a legal entity organized and operated for a collective, public or social benefit, in co ...

clubs. The machine ran with a deactivated coin slot in many youth clubs. However, the free play often caused large crowds to form around it, which incited their reactivation. A ''Poly-Play'' machine was on display in the

Museum of Computing The Museum of Computing in Swindon, England is dedicated to preserving and displaying examples of early computers. It was the first United Kingdom museum exclusively dedicated to the history of computing and opened in February 2003. Aims It a ...

Swindon Swindon () is a town and unitary authority with Borough status in the United Kingdom, borough status in Wiltshire, England. As of the 2021 Census, the population of Swindon was 201,669, making it the largest town in the county. The Swindon un ...

, England in 2004. From 2005, the same machine was part of the touring video game show Game On and was exhibited in multiple museums, such as the Museum of Science and Industry in

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

and the

Science Museum A science museum is a museum devoted primarily to science. Older science museums tended to concentrate on static displays of objects related to natural history, paleontology, geology, industry and industrial machinery, etc. Modern trends in mu ...

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

. Two machines can also be seen at RetroGames e.V. in Germany. It is also prominently on display at the

Computerspielemuseum Berlin The Computerspielemuseum () is a video game museum founded in 1997. From 1997 to 2000, it had a permanent exhibition in Berlin. Afterwards, it became an online only museum. In 2011 the museum reopened its permanent exhibition in Berlin's neighbor ...

Games

The eight aforementioned games were made available to be playable with the emulator

MAME MAME (formerly an acronym of Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator) is a free and open-source emulator designed to recreate the hardware of arcade game systems in software on modern personal computers and other platforms. Its intention is to preserve ...

in 2000. Additionally, the names of four other games were found in the source code: ''Der Gärtner'' (The Gardener), ''Im Gewächshaus'' (In the Greenhouse), ''Hagelnde Wolken'' (Hailing Clouds, a ''

Space Invaders is a 1978 shoot 'em up arcade game developed by Tomohiro Nishikado. It was manufactured and sold by Taito in Japan, and licensed to the Midway division of Bally for overseas distribution. ''Space Invaders'' was the first fixed shooter and set ...

'' clone) and ''Der Taucher'' (The Diver, a game where malicious fish attack a diver). All four games have been installed on at least some machines, the same goes for the games ''Im Irrgarten'' (In the Maze), ''Der Lindwurm'' (The

Lindworm The lindworm (''worm'' meaning snake), also spelled lindwyrm or lindwurm, is a mythical creature in Northern and Central European folklore living deep in the forest that traditionally has the shape of a giant serpent monster. It can be seen as a ...

), ''Fly'' and ''AFU''. Another game titled ''UFO'' is actually the original version of ''Hagelnde Wolken'', but was edited due to being deemed too martial by the authorities.

References

External links

''Andy's Arcade'' page with many internal views of the surviving cabinets.

''RetroGames e.V.'' German Club with two working Poly Play machines.
* {{KLOV game, id=9070 *

BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board ex ...

br>article about ''Poly Play''

''PolyPlay.de'' - German Website about Poly-Play, here you can play the Poly-Play-Games.

(in German, with images of all known 17 games) 1985 video games Arcade video games Arcade-only video games Pac-Man clones Video games about food and drink Video games developed in Germany Goods manufactured in East Germany

Hardware

Games

Further reading

See also

References

External links