April 1981

Data East goes Cassette Sony introduces the 3.5 inch floppy and Xerox reinvents the desktop

These stories and many more on this episode of the Video Game Newsroom Time Machine

This episode we will look back at the biggest stories in and around the video game industry in April of 1981. As always, we'll mostly be using magazine cover dates, and those are of course always a bit behind the actual events.

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Links: 7 Minutes in Heaven https://www.patreon.com/posts/50315337 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defender_(1981_video_game) https://www.mobygames.com/game/arcade/defender

Corrections: https://videogamenewsroomtimemachine.libsyn.com/march-1981 https://storybundle.com/books/2836 https://www.patreon.com/posts/49206968 https://www.mobygames.com/game/asteroids-deluxe https://www.mobygames.com/game/gravitar https://www.mobygames.com/game/blasteroids https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BASIC https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674970977 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_Link https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epyx 1981: Computer glitch grounds first shuttle flight... temporarily https://www.nytimes.com/1981/04/12/weekinreview/another-try.html?searchResultPosition=21 https://www.nytimes.com/1981/04/07/science/special-shuttle-issue-voyage-spaceship-columbia-overview-columbia-s-maiden.html?searchResultPosition=56 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle

Data East launches Casette System in US Play Meter April 15, 1981 pg. 52, 101 Play Meter April 15, 1981 pg. 100 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DECO_Cassette_System https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BurgerTime https://www.arcade-museum.com/game_detail.php?game_id=7200 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boulder_Dash https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bump_%27n%27_Jump Survey predicts electronic games to beat video in '95 Toy & Hobby World, April 1981 pg. 4 https://vgsales.fandom.com/wiki/Video_game_industry

Mattel announces Intellivision Keyboard again... and a price! https://archive.org/details/creativecomputing-1981-04/page/n49/mode/1up https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellivision#Keyboard_Component https://www.patreon.com/posts/38445119

Sony announces the 3.5 inch floppy https://archive.org/details/eu_BYTE-1981-04_OCR/page/n7/mode/1up https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floppy_disk#%E2%80%8B3_1%E2%81%842-inch_disk

Xerox introduces the 8010 Star Information System https://www.nytimes.com/1981/04/28/business/xerox-s-simpler-computer.html?searchResultPosition=4 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xerox_Star https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cn4vC80Pv6Q

The Osborne takes computing on the go https://archive.org/details/eu_BYTE-1981-04_OCR/page/n9/mode/1up https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osborne_1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6PUWZ0FOZM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbnTZREMEJI Compute magazine reviews the Vic20 https://archive.org/details/1981-04-compute-magazine/page/n34/mode/1up https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodore_VIC-20 https://www.mobygames.com/game/vic-20/pac-man

NYT Profiles Clive Sinclair https://www.nytimes.com/1981/04/12/business/inventor-trying-again-in-consumer-electronics.html?searchResultPosition=57 http://podcast.theycreateworlds.com/e/uncle-clives-radionics/ http://podcast.theycreateworlds.com/e/sir-clive-of-zx/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXBxV6-zamM Softalk talks to Microsoft https://archive.org/details/softalkv1n08apr1981/page/30/mode/1up https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MS-DOS

Cathy Carlston joins Broderbund https://archive.org/details/softalkv1n08apr1981/page/60/mode/1up https://www.patreon.com/posts/50036733

Thomas Whitney leaves Apple https://www.nytimes.com/1981/04/23/business/business-people-shift-at-apple-computer.html?searchResultPosition=1 https://apple.fandom.com/wiki/Thomas_Whitney https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_III

Recommended Links: The History of How We Play: https://thehistoryofhowweplay.wordpress.com/ Gaming Alexandria: https://www.gamingalexandria.com/wp/ They Create Worlds: https://tcwpodcast.podbean.com/ Digital Antiquarian: https://www.filfre.net/ The Arcade Blogger: https://arcadeblogger.com/ Retro Asylum: http://retroasylum.com/category/all-posts/ Retro Game Squad: http://retrogamesquad.libsyn.com/

Sound Effects by Ethan Johnson of History of How We Play and Enzo Maida.