Plane hijacking electronic game from 1982

Posted by Mark Frauenfelder, November 15, 2007 12:27 PM | permalink

Ludology has a photo and description of an LCD game from 1982 called Airport Panic.

The player had two missions: boarding the plane while avoiding the bombs of the hijacker. And then, according to the English manual, "shoot at the hijacker and rescue the stewardess and the passengers."

Link

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Discussion

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#1 posted by L.B. Jeffries

, November 15, 2007 12:57 PM

Is that thing solar powered? I thought it wasn't feasible.

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#2 posted by Murderface , November 15, 2007 12:58 PM

I call shenanigans! This isn't a hijacking game at all, it's a hijack-prevention game!

What a rip-off.

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#3 posted by monopole , November 15, 2007 1:52 PM

Hey, it's portable. The perfect carry on!

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#4 posted by JoshuaZ , November 15, 2007 2:03 PM

When I saw the headline I thought it was talking about a game where you hijack a plane. That would have been more interesting.

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#5 posted by frankiez

, November 15, 2007 2:59 PM

My favourite game in this Bandai Double Panel series is Zaxxon: not solar powered but pretty cheap in Akiba streets!

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#6 posted by gabrielm

, November 15, 2007 4:46 PM

They have a link to the original manual:

"When score reaches 19990. it automatically turns back to 0"

Now that is just lazy programing! why not 99999 or at least 19999?

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#7 posted by madmorris , November 15, 2007 4:57 PM

Why does this video game hate America??

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#8 posted by Tubman , November 16, 2007 5:52 AM

@GabrielM: The minimum score increment/decrement in the game is 10, so no trailing 9s.

As for why it doesn't go up to 99990, it's because the right hand digit only has the elements necessary to make a 1. The reason why is possibly to save some screen real estate to the right of the one, but the most likely reason is that they simply recycled the layout of a 12-hour, 4 digit LCD watch display, which only requires a 1 in the first number position.

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#9 posted by Pekar , November 16, 2007 6:33 AM

that'll never fly.

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#10 posted by gabrielm

, November 16, 2007 7:55 AM

@ Tubman

"but the most likely reason is that they simply recycled the layout of a 12-hour, 4 digit LCD watch display"

Like I said lazy!

;)

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#11 posted by Sgt Howie , November 16, 2007 2:00 PM

Makes me pine for the much cooler Bandai solar LCD game I had, Escape from the Devil's Doom (http://www.miniarcade.com/bandai/heavenhell.htm).

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#12 posted by Anonymous , March 23, 2009 8:18 PM

Re: Sgt Howe's (old) comment:

I have that game--Escape from the Devil's Doom--just posted pics of it on Flickr. When I find Invaders of the Mummy's Tomb that I also have somewhere around here I'll be posting pics of that also. Never thought they could end up being worth anything.