Coding Computer Games – Past, Present & the Future & World's First Popular Computer Chess

Coderdojo Game enthusiasts in action at the Computer Museum during the Volvo Ocean Race 2012

As part of National Engineers Week, Coderdojo Galway, the Computer and Communications Museum of Ireland and the Digital Enterprise Research Institute (DERI) at NUI Galway are collaborating to host an exciting computer games event entitled  Coding Computer Games – Past, Present & the Future at 12.00-2.00pm on Saturday March 2^nd, in the Digital Enterprise Research Institute, IDA/NUIG Business Park Dangan.

At a time when Ireland is securing a reputation as a global development hub for online interactive gaming and providing much needed quality home-based technology careers for our young people, this event should interest teachers, students, parents and children alike.

The idea is to showcase some of the excellent gaming taking place at Coderdojo Galway (the future), to allow visitors to enjoy classic games such as Asteroids, Pacman, Sonic and Pong played on renowned vintage consoles and computers such as Atari, Amiga and Sinclair ZX81 in the Computer Museum (the past), and to have some of the current Galway-based commercial software developers such as Tribal City and Starcave Entertainment  demonstrate their latest web-based games (the present).

The vintage gaming will take place in the Computer Museum with the Coderdojo demonstrations going on in the Conference Room and adjoining meeting rooms.
However in advance of the event, we need to get as many of the vintage games units working as is possible. There is a small room full of extra Amigas, Segas, Ataris,Playstations, BBCs and Sinclairs that needed to be tested! So any help we can get would prove invaluable!

Hence we are asking volunteers to meet at 6pm on Friday March 1st and spend one or two hours get the museum re-organised to accommodate extra gaming units for March 2nd.
If you are interested in supporting this worthy cause, please contact us at your earliest convenience. 

 Photograph shows one of the thematic teeshirts purchased for the event and to be worn by the museum guides on March 2nd. 

Newsflash!! World's First Popular Computer Chess to be unveiled at the Computer Museum!

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We are particularly pleased to announce that the world's first popular computer chess unit will be on display at the computer museum during the Games Extravaganza. Known as the Fidelity Chess Challenger, it was the first chess electronic unit available to the public. Based on a Z80 8-bit micro-processor, it started production in 1977 with its most popular model, the Fidelity Chess Challenger 7, selling over 600,000 units. Its inventor Sidney Samole got the idea for computer chess after watching an episode of Star Trek.