GEEMSHC MegaNet ‘77 Game’n’Watch

The GEEMSHC MegaNet ‘77 Game’n’Watch was a short lived licensed remake of the Nintendo Game & Watch, the result of a brief partnership between Nintendo and the newly established entertainment division of Glitterhole Entertainment Electronics and Missile Seeker Head Corporation (GEEMSHC). Despite the ‘77 moniker implying the device was produced in 1977, it was in fact made for only 5 weeks starting in July of 1981.
=Partnership=
In late 1980, defense contractor Glitterhole Air Defense Manufacturing Ltd. restructured as part of bankruptcy proceedings and became the Glitterhole Missile Seeker Head Corporation. Criticism from shareholders and the bankruptcy court led the company’s managers to diversify into new markets, namely consumer electronic entertainment devices.
Around the same time, Nintendo was trying to get a foothold in the American electronic entertainment market. Glitterhole CTO, Ongo Gablogian, bought a Nintendo-produced Game&Watch and was instantly impressed by the device and its entertainment value. Soon afterward, GEEMSHC approached Nintendo to license the technology for the Game&Watch, and the two companies established a limited partnership. As part of the venture, Nintendo would enjoy association with a trusted mainstay of the American defense industry and GEEMSHC would save time and resources in getting a proven product to market rapidly.
=Design and Development=
What was originally supposed to be a quick rebranding of established tooling quickly spiraled into protracted redevelopment and feature bloat. The CTO, Ongo Gablogian, insisted the product incorporate new features he mistakenly believed the American consumers would want. He also forced engineers to incorporate a simplified version of the company’s latest multirole self-targeting infrared-homing missile seeker head, the AN/Q-7882-P, thinking the inclusion would serve as advertising for the seeker and improve its chances of being selected over the competing seeker head, PB Defense’s AN/Q-7883-P.
Among some of the features included were:
*AM/FM Radio
*Bird Call (programmable via 5.25” floppy disks sold separately)
*Incandescent Backlighting
*Incandescent Frontlighting
*Incandescent Sidelighting
*Compartment for spare incandescent light bulbs
*Foot Pedals (for users with limited arm mobility)
*Telephone Passthrough
*Audio Output (via 50w amplifier and combination banana plug/spade terminals)
*Custom Painted Cabinet (a $38 option)
*Soft-Roll Rubber Casters (a $19 upgrade from the original hard plastic casters which were known to damage wood and tile flooring)
*Plumbing to replace the cartridge-based argon cooling block with a refillable canister
The addition of so many features quickly ballooned the MSRP from Nintendo’s original suggestion of $19.95 to $42,899 for the base model, or up to $43,812.76 fully optioned. The functionality for timekeeping and gameplay were more or less the same as the original Game&Watch, but instead of a handheld device, it was now a 280 pound rolling cabinet and was only as portable as the user’s physical stamina and its power cord, which measured 75 feet and could retract into the cabinet with a clockwork spring. The screen size and button layout were unchanged, although the screen now had user adjustable lighting from the back, front, and sides of the LCD.
The most notable feature, the “simplified” AN/Q-7882-P infrared seeker head, was functionally identical to the real version destined for surface-to-air and air-to-air missiles, down to the targeting module, command guidance computer, and seeker stabilizing gimbal. The only difference was the sensor resolution, with a “pixel” pitch of 17 arc-seconds as opposed to the real version’s 4.3 arc-seconds (seeker sensors do not have pixels, per se, instead detecting light on photodiodes mounted to the inside of a concave bowl with a specially designed glass lens filling said bowl). Both versions of the sensor must be cooled by decompressing compressed argon in a special cooling chamber on the back of the sensor, or else the sensor diodes will overheat and the whole assembly will melt. The normal cartridges provide up to 8 seconds of cooling while the optional 5 lb canisters provided up to 5 minutes and 30 seconds. Permanent thermal damage to the sensor would occur within 5 seconds of operation without adequate cooling.
=Battery=
The MegaNet '77 was first released to the market with a 27V, 20A lead acid battery pack and used the MegaNet Battery and Radiator Harness (MNBRH) system, the same system used for GlitterTec man-portable UH-1 mobile beacon systems. The design was changed later in the product's lifespan to use the front-mounted radiator harness and rear-mounted battery harness system.
==The Incident==
The catalyst for changing the harness mount system happened during an unfortunate accident when, under heavy stress, the radiator failed to displace enough heat from the custom ASIC and heat from the radiator ignited the nearby lead-acid battery. The resulting explosion killed everyone inside the vehicle the accident happened in and lead to sweeping changing in both portable gaming technology and portable gaming battery harness technology.
=Discontinuation=
Despite being a massive commercial success, the MegaNet ‘77 Game’n’Watch was discontinued after only 5 weeks. It is unknown whether Nintendo revoked the license, and thus the partnership, or if the government raid on the GEEMSHC warehouses and factory came first, but by the end of August of 1981, GEEMSHC was no more and the MegaNet ‘77 Game’n’Watch is highly sought after, even to this day.
=Controversy=
As noted in the previous section, GEEMSHC facilities were raided by government agencies when it was discovered that they had been selling strictly controlled military hardware to anyone, including civilians and foreign nationals. Of particular note, some foreign militaries reverse engineered the seeker for use in their own missiles, while many more simply opted to install the completed seeker assemblies into their current inventory of missiles.
Though charges were filed against just about everyone in the company, most of the defendants successfully argued that the US Government did not have the authority to regulate entertainment devices, even if they happen to contain sensitive military hardware as long as it is being used for non-military purposes (USA v. GEEMSHC, 1982). 14 employees were convicted of public urination and/or defecation, since no GEEMSHC facilities had any restrooms and employees were forced to relieve themselves outside.
=Specifications=
*CPU: custom ASIC @ 32khz (number generator and shift registers)
*Memory: N/A
*Storage: onboard ROM, 768 byte
*Display: LCD, up to 28 static segments, back/front/sidelit
*Expansion: 5.25” floppy drive, used only to program bird call module
*Seeker: active cooled 918nm selective range photodiode array, pitch: 17 arc-seconds
*Gimbal: 800 deg/s active servo 3-axis gimbal with positive position feedback
*Targeting module: active signal correlation comparator with Ultra-Low Threshold Target Acquisition Algorithm
=Games=
*Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater Game’n’Watch
*Holodomor 1932: Get up and Starve
*(please port your games to the MegaNet ‘77 Game’n’Watch, thank you ^-^)
Category:Remakes
Category:Games
Category:Fan Games
Category:Game & Watch (series)
Category:Game & Watch Games
Category:1981