Bits from my personal collection – Display Cabinet #1

For a long time, I’ve been tinkering with the idea of doing a series of elaborate videos, in a show-and-tell fashion, showcasing the items that I currently have on display. Unfortunately, with everything else going on I simply don’t have the time and the grand vision has to become a future project (I’ll also need a better camera, a proper microphone, and probably some better lighting). For now, I’ve just done a small quick video of my first display cabinet. Over the next months, whenever I have a bit of time, I’ll continue the journey and hopefully get a chance to show everything I have on display.

Display Cabinet #1 is a mix of Avalon Hill, Automated Simulations, and Epyx titles, ranging from 1978 to around 1988. While most of these titles probably won’t have the greatest interest with the mainstream collectors, a few play important parts in personal computer game history. Automated Simulations’ Starfleet Orion, released in 1978, was one of the earliest commercially available games, by an independent publisher, to hit the market. Before any commercially released version of Richard Garriott‘s roleplaying game Akalabeth, Automated Simulations (marketed from 1980 and onwards under the Epyx name) created Temple of Apshai, a game that would become one the most popular and influential games of the late ’70s and early ’80s. The game and its engine spawned an array of popular titles for years to come. Later Epyx would become the very synonym with the arcade sports game with its hugely successful Summer Games, Winter Games, and California Games.
Avalon Hill, famous for its successful tabletop games, published its very first titles for personal computers in 1980, the titles became some of the first to come in a box.