This was the display for a cool home console system that I had never seen before.\u00a0 It’s a\u00a0Magnavox Odyssey console<\/a> from 1972.\u00a0 I was 2 at the time, so it’s no surprise that I don’t remember this console.<\/p>\n It was black and white and it didn’t have any sound.\u00a0 It did not use memory storage game cartridges.\u00a0 Users actually swapped out various circuitry cards in order to change the play mode of the system.\u00a0 It included a very rudimentary set of controllers that had a couple of dials that the users turned to move\u00a0 simple white targets around on the TV screen.\u00a0 And the really unique thing about this system is that it came with a set of transparencies or overlays that users were supposed to attach to the front of their TV screen using static cling!\u00a0 Amazing!<\/p>\n Here is one of the original Pong arcade game<\/a>\u00a0upright cabinets from 1972!\u00a0\u00a0Look how simple it was!\u00a0 Just a single knob for each player!\u00a0 Awesome!<\/p>\n Pong was originally intended to be a warm-up exercise for a new employee at Atari<\/a>.\u00a0 The prototype was so impressive, that his bosses decided to mass produce and market it!\u00a0 And the rest is history!<\/p>\n Awesome video game history!<\/p>\n The success of the arcade version of Pong, led many companies to create their own rip-off versions or remakes.\u00a0 Including the one pictured below.<\/p>\n The\u00a0Computer Game Museum has a number of small retro rooms set up to look like they were ripped right out of your past.\u00a0 And these retro rooms include working consoles like the Pong ripoff console shown in the above photo.\u00a0 My apologies to the young gamers who were enjoying the game when I snapped this photo.<\/p>\n Here is Mattel’s Football handheld game<\/a>\u00a0on display in the museum.\u00a0 It was super popular in 1977 and I remember it well.\u00a0 This thing was literally hours worth of entertainment!\u00a0 And it was so simple to play!<\/p>\n Speaking of working retro games that you can actually play, here are just a couple of the working arcade cabinets in the museum.\u00a0 No quarters necessary!\u00a0 I played them all while I was there!\u00a0 These particular cabinets are probably from the early 1980s.\u00a0 Some of the internal components have been upgraded out of necessity, but you really can’t tell from the outside.<\/p>\n Now this is super cool.\u00a0 On display in the museum is this early 80s Apple II+<\/a>\u00a0that is actually signed by Steve Wozniak (Woz)<\/a>!<\/p>\n This particular Apple computer model was made from 1979 to 1982 and they really got Apple moving as the premier computer manufacturer of that time.\u00a0 I was and still am the proud owner of an Apple IIe<\/a>, which came out in 1983 and enjoyed a glorious 10 year run<\/a>!<\/p>\n The Pac-Man video game<\/a> was released in 1980 and was a smash hit!\u00a0 It’s been released on so many platforms, it’s ridiculous!\u00a0 The Computer Game Museum in Berlin has one that you can play using this huge Atari 2600<\/a> looking joystick!\u00a0 That’s cool!\u00a0 It looks like it’s playing on a working Atari 2600 Jr console<\/a>!<\/p>\n This display is pretty cool to me, because I actually owned this Coleco Galaxian tabletop mini arcade game<\/a>.\u00a0 I played the heck out of this thing and I can totally hear the little tune it played right before the little aliens started careening down on top of you!<\/p>\n It was worth hours and hours of entertainment for a single player or while playing with a friend!<\/p>\n Here is another example of a retro working game console that you could just walk up to and start playing in the Computer Game Museum in Berlin.\u00a0 It’s the Rampage game from 1986<\/a> running on a Sega Master System console<\/a>.<\/p>\n This is especially relevant since the Rampage movie<\/a>, based on the video game, was released just a week before I went to Berlin!<\/p>\n Here is another example from 1989 that you can actually sit down and play.\u00a0 It’s a game called It Came From The Desert<\/a> running on a Commodore Amiga 500 PC<\/a>.<\/p>\n Okay this next display was really really cool!\u00a0 It was an entire wall full of maybe 16 inch by 16 inch blocks stacked up.\u00a0 The blocks were ordered by year and each block showed a noteworthy game from the history of video games.<\/p>\n A laser light projected cross-hairs onto one of the blocks and\u00a0there was a single joystick in front of the wall.\u00a0 If you moved the joystick, it moved the laser projected cross-hairs to the adjacent block.\u00a0\u00a0Whichever block was lit up by the cross-hairs immediately gave you a show, of sorts, up on the large monitors at the top of the wall.<\/p>\n The show for each video game included several video snippets from the game-play, often including the splash screen, on the left monitor.\u00a0 The show also included details about the game (including publisher, designers, etc.) displayed on the right monitor.<\/p>\n I spent probably close to an hour watching the game-play from every single game on this wall.\u00a0 Including several games that I played as a kid, that brought back so many great memories.\u00a0 All the nostalgia feels!<\/a>\u00a0 Very well done, Computer Game Museum of Berlin!<\/p>\n There was a lot more to see and learn in this museum, but I don’t want to overdo it here on my blog.\u00a0 I will leave readers with one last photo.\u00a0 These larger-than-life characters were all over the museum!\u00a0 Cool!<\/p>\n Okay, let’s change gears now.\u00a0 There were a couple pretty neat fountains in the center of Berlin that I want to show you.<\/p>\n Neptunbrunnen, or Neptune Fountain<\/a> was built in 1891 and features the Roman god Neptune<\/a> surrounded by various animals and 4 prominent women, who represent the 4 main rivers of the country.\u00a0 This fountain is right next to St. Mary’s Church<\/a>.\u00a0 It’s a pretty cool old fountain!<\/p>\n There is another, more modern and abstract, fountain just a block north of Neptunbrunnen.\u00a0 This is called\u00a0Brunnen der V\u00f6lkerfreundschaft, or\u00a0Fountain of Friendship Between People<\/a>.<\/p>\n It’s also called the Fountain of International Friendship.<\/p>\n I’m not a big beer drinker.\u00a0 Okay, I’m not any kind of beer drinker, big or small.\u00a0 But I noticed that you can’t throw a rock in Germany without hitting one of these Biergartens<\/a>.\u00a0 They are outdoor entertainment areas where beer and food are served, usually at large shared tables.<\/p>\n The one pictured above is in\u00a0Tiergarten Park<\/a> and it’s on a cute little lake, complete with cute little boats that you can enjoy.\u00a0 Sadly this particular beer garden was closed when I was there.\u00a0 It looks like a lot of fun, though.<\/p>\n While I was in Berlin, I really wanted to check out the Parliament Building<\/a>, and especially I wanted to visit the gigantic glass Dome on top of the Parliament Building<\/a>!<\/p>\n From the Dome, I hear that you can see the whole city!\u00a0 And you can also peer into the debating chamber of Parliament below!\u00a0 The Dome symbolizes that the people are above the government, which was not the case during Nazism.\u00a0 That’s super cool!<\/p>\n But sadly for me, you need a reservation to visit the dome<\/a> and I didn’t submit my request early enough and so there were no slots available when I tried.\u00a0 Missed opportunity.<\/p>\n Here are several photos from St. Mary’s Church<\/a>, which is centrally located in Berlin.\u00a0 It’s a fairly impressive building.<\/p>\n It’s very cool inside too.\u00a0 The light colors on the columns and the ceiling keep it very bright inside.<\/p>\n The speaking pulpit is quite grand.<\/p>\n And so is the pipe organ.<\/p>\n Here is the alter area.<\/p>\n I’m not sure what this little memorial thing is all about, but it looks like the little\u00a0cherub at the top is holding a club over the man’s head.\u00a0 Also, there is a lot of wheat in this memorial for some reason or another.\u00a0 If anyone knows what this is all about, please leave some details in the comments.<\/p>\n Here is another strange thing that stood out to me in St. Mary’s Church.\u00a0 This baptismal bath thingy has dragons or something similar prominently adorning it.\u00a0 That struck me as odd, but that was probably common in Europe long ago.<\/p>\n This was a cemetery that I walked by several times on my way to and from the conference.\u00a0 I walked through it one day and took a few photos, since it wasn’t like cemeteries in America that I’m familiar with.\u00a0 The plots were quite small, but they were all beautifully kept and tended.<\/p>\n Then along the outside, there were large plots.\u00a0 some were nicely tended and some looked like they had not been touched in a hundred years.<\/p>\n Okay, I’m finally down to the last several photos from Berlin.\u00a0 I just have a few miscellaneous things to point out and then we will be all done exploring Berlin.<\/p>\n One thing that I immediately noticed about Berlin is that they have amazing public transportation<\/a>.\u00a0 I used the bus system, the tram system, and also the subway system while I was there.\u00a0 They were all reasonably priced and I also noticed that they were all very clean.\u00a0 So don’t be afraid to use them while you’re in town.<\/p>\n I also noticed that a lot of locals ride bicycles, as you can see in the photo below.\u00a0 At just about every major intersection, the bicyclists seemed to stack up almost as much as the vehicles.\u00a0 I also noticed several vendors renting bicycles to tourists.\u00a0 It looked like most of the roads were laid out with bicyclists in mind, so Berlin is definitely a good city to explore on a bike<\/a>.<\/p>\n This photo shows a pretty cool world clock situated in the public square<\/a>.\u00a0 It shows the current time all around the world which I thought was pretty interesting.<\/p>\n I didn’t have the time to take a boat tour, but the city of Berlin has the Spree river cutting right through its heart<\/a>.\u00a0 And Berlin hosts tons and tons of river cruises<\/a>, which I’ve heard are pretty fun to experience.<\/p>\n This building was just amazing.\u00a0 I don’t know what it was and I didn’t have time to explore it, but it just blew me away.\u00a0 This in in\u00a0Potsdamer Plaza<\/a>.<\/p>\n Also in Potsdamer Plaza was this gigantic circus-tent-looking structure called the Sony Center<\/a>.\u00a0 It’s pretty crazy.\u00a0 It’s basically a mall inside with several stores and shops and restaurants and even a hotel.\u00a0 It’s an open air design, as you can see from the photo, but with a very big and impressive tent-style roof made of glass and steel.<\/p>\n This photo is just for fun.\u00a0 I didn’t see a ton of street vendors in Berlin, but this guy had quite a mobile setup going.\u00a0 It made my body hurt, just seeing him carrying around all that weight, though.<\/p>\n Here is the hotel that I stayed in and the church adjacent to it.\u00a0 It was the Leonardo Royal Hotel<\/a>.\u00a0 It was a pretty nice hotel.\u00a0 I would probably stay there again.<\/p>\n Literally right outside my hotel lobby in the middle of the sidewalk, was this little unassuming memorial embedded into the cobblestone sidewalk.\u00a0 I googled it and found the Stolpersteine (stumbling stones) project<\/a>.\u00a0 The project commemorates people who were persecuted by the Nazis.\u00a0 There are more than 7,500 of these little memorials installed around the city!\u00a0 Amazing!<\/p>\n The plate on the left says:\u00a0 Here lived Samuel Nussdorf, born 1880, deported 29.1.1943,\u00a0 murdered in Auschwitz<\/a>.<\/p>\n The plate on the right says:\u00a0Here lived Frieda Nussdorf, maiden name Hirsch, born 1886, deported 29.1.1943,\u00a0 murdered in Auschwitz<\/a>.<\/p>\n These are nice little memorials to keep everyone who walks down this sidewalk aware of what happened back then.<\/p>\n Okay, so those were the areas of Berlin that I was able to see during my 3 personal days that I had available to explore on my own time.\u00a0 But there is so much more to see in Berlin<\/a>!\u00a0 I really only scratched the surface!\u00a0 So enjoy your stay in Berlin and go see everything that Berlin has to offer!\u00a0 And also feel free to comment below on things that I missed or things that I got wrong!<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.leucht.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/1-computer-game-museum-in-berlin-1024x607.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.leucht.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/1972-Magnavox-Odyssey-1024x611.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.leucht.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/1972-pong-arcade-737x1024.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.leucht.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/1974-pong-home-1024x768.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.leucht.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/1977-Mattel-Football-handheld-718x1024.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.leucht.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/1979-arcade-games-833x1024.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.leucht.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/1979-apple-II-autographed-by-woz-1024x768.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.leucht.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/1980-pac-man-with-giant-joystick-821x1024.jpg\"){kind=spacer}
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.leucht.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/1981-galaxian-mini-game-751x1024.jpg\"){kind=spacer}
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.leucht.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/1986-sega-rampage-1024x768.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.leucht.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/1989-amiga-1024x768.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.leucht.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/1986-zelda-1-947x1024.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.leucht.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/1986-zelda-2-1024x742.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.leucht.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/9999-characters-on-stairs-709x1024.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nFountains<\/h1>\n
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.leucht.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/IMG_9890-1024x768.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.leucht.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/1-friendship-fountain-1024x768.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.leucht.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/2-friendship-fountain-1024x635.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nGerman Biergarten (Beer Garden)<\/h1>\n
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.leucht.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/1-beer-garden-768x1024.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nReichstag (Parliament) Building<\/h1>\n
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.leucht.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/1-parliament-1024x644.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nMarienkirche (St. Mary’s Church)<\/h1>\n
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.leucht.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/1-st-marys-church-594x1024.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.leucht.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/2-st-marys-church-768x1024.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.leucht.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/3-st-marys-church-768x1024.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.leucht.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/4-st-marys-church-737x1024.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.leucht.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/5-st-marys-church-1024x768.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.leucht.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/creepy-church-stuff-1-768x1024.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.leucht.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/creepy-church-stuff-2-1024x700.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nProtestant St. Peter’s Cemetery<\/h1>\n
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.leucht.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/IMG_9844-930x1024.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.leucht.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/IMG_9848-973x1024.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.leucht.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/IMG_9849-768x1024.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nMisc.<\/h1>\n
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.leucht.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/3-bikes-1024x637.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.leucht.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/5-world-clock-768x1024.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.leucht.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/6-river-1024x507.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.leucht.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/7-huge-mall-1024x590.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.leucht.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/8-cool-roof-sony-center-768x1024.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.leucht.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/4-street-vendors-720x1024.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.leucht.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/1-leonardo-royal-hotel-1024x693.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.leucht.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/2-memorials-set-into-sidewalk-1024x630.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nSo much more to see in Berlin!<\/h1>\n
But wait, there\u2019s more Germany!<\/h1>\n