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Happy Birthday Moose!
Jan. 10th, 2026 02:02 pmI suppose by the time you see this, it'll be a belated birthday thanks to time zones and other such things, but it's the 10th here, so it still counts. :P And here is your story, featuring more of the "Weird Video Game Triangle," aka the Coleco Telstar Arcade, that you were so interested in after reading your Christmas fic! Hope you enjoy!
--
“...so yeah, this was actually one of the more advanced consoles that came out of the 1970s! Especially given that one of the attached controllers was still a real novelty for the era – after all, racing games weren’t really that much of a thing back then, given the limitations of the hardware. Coleco was kind of leading the pack there.”
“Neat! And yeah, that tracks pretty well with what most of my friends said about it while I was growing up,” Marty said, grinning as he watched Verne geek out over what he still affectionately thought of as “The Weird Video Game Triangle.” “They almost all thought it looked stupid, but everybody wanted to give the steering wheel a go.”
“Yeah, I bet they did,” Verne nodded, giving the wheel a little tug. “You play this a lot growing up?”
“Fair amount, yeah – though I gotta say, having to turn it around so you could play different games with the different controllers was kind of a pain in the butt,” Marty admitted, frowning at the memories. “We ended up with tangled wires a lot. And when Dad bought Dave another cartridge for his birthday, the one with a bunch of four-player games, he also got two extra controllers so Linda and me could play too – you know the ones, I bet, just a twisty knob on the end of a wire – except one of them didn’t work! Straight up just never did anything! We never figured out why, and the store Dad got ‘em from refused to take it back.”
“Really? Maybe there was a break in the cord somewhere,” Verne mused, leaning over the Telstar Arcade. “I haven’t read anything about them having any major recalls on their controllers, anyway.”
“Maybe the company hushed it up,” Marty joked. “Hell, maybe that’s why they got out of video game consoles and into Cabbage Patch Kids.”
“Nah – they withdrew from the electronics market after the Great Video Game Crash of 1983 made video game consoles look not viable, and their attempt at a personal home computer, the Adam, failed to catch on due to bugs–” Verne suddenly stopped mid-recitation, blinking. “Hang on – what’s a Cabbage Patch Kid?”
“Nobody’s told you? They were the hot toy back in 1983,” Marty informed him. “Mom has said a lot that she’s so glad Linda was too old to want one when they first came out, because she doesn’t think she would have survived getting one.”
“What? Why??” Verne asked, baffled.
“Well, let me put it this way – you ever see a stampede back when you guys were living full-time in the Old West?”
“Oh yeah! A rancher’s cows got loose once and ran right by our house! Spooked the he-ck out of Ma!”
“Okay, now imagine that but in a big toy store, and what’s stampeding is a bunch of angry moms fighting each other to grab the last big squishy baby doll.”
Verne gave him a squinty look. “You’re making that up.”
“I am not – ask your Dad sometime. He saw the news reports, I’m sure.”
Verne shook his head. “Girls are weird,” he muttered, before hefting the Arcade. “I’d much rather have one of these.”
“Yeah, me too, kiddo.” Marty smiled and reached into his bag. “And guess what – I brought along the two cartridges we owned too. You wanna play a few rounds of Quick Draw? See who’s better with this light gun?”
Verne beamed. “You’re on!”
--
I knew I had to do something else with the Telstar Arcade after you commented that you thought it was super cool, so a follow-up fic about Marty giving his to Verne felt appropriate! Yes, apparently it was one of the more advanced consoles of its generation, according to my research -- though, equally, having to turn the console itself to use the various controllers was cited as an issue people had with the thing on another site. Tangled wires were a genuine danger, apparently! And yes, once I went to Coleco's Wikipedia page to see what happened with them after the Telstar Arcade came out (as Verne says, they moved away from consoles after the 1983 video game crash and unsuccessfully tried to launch a home computer before getting out of the electronics game entirely in 1985) and saw to my shock that they were responsible for Cabbage Patch Kids, I had to throw in a reference to the Christmas craze for those back in 1983. Marty's totally right to compare people trying to get their hands on one to a stampede! Kind of surprising that, just five years later, Coleco would file for bankruptcy and go out of business! They just could not keep a good thing going, either in video games or soft toys... *shakehead* Anyway, hope you like! Happy birthday!
--
“...so yeah, this was actually one of the more advanced consoles that came out of the 1970s! Especially given that one of the attached controllers was still a real novelty for the era – after all, racing games weren’t really that much of a thing back then, given the limitations of the hardware. Coleco was kind of leading the pack there.”
“Neat! And yeah, that tracks pretty well with what most of my friends said about it while I was growing up,” Marty said, grinning as he watched Verne geek out over what he still affectionately thought of as “The Weird Video Game Triangle.” “They almost all thought it looked stupid, but everybody wanted to give the steering wheel a go.”
“Yeah, I bet they did,” Verne nodded, giving the wheel a little tug. “You play this a lot growing up?”
“Fair amount, yeah – though I gotta say, having to turn it around so you could play different games with the different controllers was kind of a pain in the butt,” Marty admitted, frowning at the memories. “We ended up with tangled wires a lot. And when Dad bought Dave another cartridge for his birthday, the one with a bunch of four-player games, he also got two extra controllers so Linda and me could play too – you know the ones, I bet, just a twisty knob on the end of a wire – except one of them didn’t work! Straight up just never did anything! We never figured out why, and the store Dad got ‘em from refused to take it back.”
“Really? Maybe there was a break in the cord somewhere,” Verne mused, leaning over the Telstar Arcade. “I haven’t read anything about them having any major recalls on their controllers, anyway.”
“Maybe the company hushed it up,” Marty joked. “Hell, maybe that’s why they got out of video game consoles and into Cabbage Patch Kids.”
“Nah – they withdrew from the electronics market after the Great Video Game Crash of 1983 made video game consoles look not viable, and their attempt at a personal home computer, the Adam, failed to catch on due to bugs–” Verne suddenly stopped mid-recitation, blinking. “Hang on – what’s a Cabbage Patch Kid?”
“Nobody’s told you? They were the hot toy back in 1983,” Marty informed him. “Mom has said a lot that she’s so glad Linda was too old to want one when they first came out, because she doesn’t think she would have survived getting one.”
“What? Why??” Verne asked, baffled.
“Well, let me put it this way – you ever see a stampede back when you guys were living full-time in the Old West?”
“Oh yeah! A rancher’s cows got loose once and ran right by our house! Spooked the he-ck out of Ma!”
“Okay, now imagine that but in a big toy store, and what’s stampeding is a bunch of angry moms fighting each other to grab the last big squishy baby doll.”
Verne gave him a squinty look. “You’re making that up.”
“I am not – ask your Dad sometime. He saw the news reports, I’m sure.”
Verne shook his head. “Girls are weird,” he muttered, before hefting the Arcade. “I’d much rather have one of these.”
“Yeah, me too, kiddo.” Marty smiled and reached into his bag. “And guess what – I brought along the two cartridges we owned too. You wanna play a few rounds of Quick Draw? See who’s better with this light gun?”
Verne beamed. “You’re on!”
--
I knew I had to do something else with the Telstar Arcade after you commented that you thought it was super cool, so a follow-up fic about Marty giving his to Verne felt appropriate! Yes, apparently it was one of the more advanced consoles of its generation, according to my research -- though, equally, having to turn the console itself to use the various controllers was cited as an issue people had with the thing on another site. Tangled wires were a genuine danger, apparently! And yes, once I went to Coleco's Wikipedia page to see what happened with them after the Telstar Arcade came out (as Verne says, they moved away from consoles after the 1983 video game crash and unsuccessfully tried to launch a home computer before getting out of the electronics game entirely in 1985) and saw to my shock that they were responsible for Cabbage Patch Kids, I had to throw in a reference to the Christmas craze for those back in 1983. Marty's totally right to compare people trying to get their hands on one to a stampede! Kind of surprising that, just five years later, Coleco would file for bankruptcy and go out of business! They just could not keep a good thing going, either in video games or soft toys... *shakehead* Anyway, hope you like! Happy birthday!
