Zanussi Ping-O-Tronic

Name: Ping-O-Tronic

Type: Dedicated Console

Manufacturer: Industrie A. Zanussi S.p.A. – Pordenone (Italy)

Country: Italy

Year: 1974

Release: December? 1974

Original Price/Prices Found:
69,000 liras (December 1974)
80,000 liras (December 1975)

Games: “3” integrated games

Technology: No CPU, “discrete” circuit using TTL chips and transistors.

Availability: 1974 – 1976

Units: Unknown (There are references claiming that 1 million units were produced; however, this figure seems highly exaggerated.)

The Ping-O-Tronic is a dedicated console from Zanussi, an Italian company specializing in the production of home appliances. It was released in Italy in 1974 and achieved commercial success. The console was also sold under the name Seleco. It was one of the first European consoles, alongside the Videomaster Home TV Game.

Tabla de contenidos

History

Dino Masili
Dino Masili

The console was created in Zanussi’s development department by engineers Dino Masili (head of the department from 1969 to 1984), Lorenzo Plos, Luigi Ret, and Horst Hillberger. The design was patented under the name “Perfezionamento ai circuiti elettrici per la generazione di effetti speciali nei sistemi visualizzatori di simboli su un cinescopio, particolarmente per giochi televisivi” (Improvements in electronic circuits for generating special effects in symbol display systems on a cathode ray tube, particularly for television games) with the patent number IT1018380B, filed on July 23, 1974, in Italy.

Patente Zanussi Ping O Tronic

Improvements in electronic circuits for generating special effects in symbol display systems on a cathode ray tube, particularly for television games (IT1018380B), July 23, 1974
Click here to access to the full document.

It is unknown when exactly the Ping-O-Tronic was launched, but based on advertising and mentions in press and magazines, it most likely appeared in December 1974.

Prensa Zanussi Ping O Tronic 1974
La Stampa (December 10, 1974)
Courtesy of Archivio La Stampa

It was also sold under the Seleco brand, a subsidiary of Zanussi specializing in consumer electronics.

Zanussi obtained a license from Magnavox and Sanders Associates on April 21, 1975 (before all video game manufacturers were required to pay licenses to them) to avoid legal issues like those faced by Atari and Williams. Interestingly, between that same year and 1976, Zanussi registered the design patent for the Ping-O-Tronic in several countries, including the United Kingdom, the United States, Japan, Sweden, Germany, and Spain. (Clicking on any of the pages will take you to the full patent document.)

This suggests that Zanussi either considered selling its console outside of Italy or believed that by registering the patent, they could prevent foreign companies from copying their design unless they paid a license to Zanussi (just as they had with Magnavox). To the best of our knowledge, the Ping-O-Tronic never left Italy, and not long afterward, similar consoles began to appear in other countries, though they were based on different designs.

It was replaced by the Play-O-Tronic in 1976. Although the casing is identical but in a different color, the TTL chips and transistors were replaced by a circuit design based on the AY-3-8500 chip.

This was most likely done to reduce costs and to keep up with the features of the “Pong” type consoles that were emerging at the time, with features like on-screen scoring, more variables, and additional games.

Features

It has a “Space Age” design with a color contrast of white and intense ’70s orange. The console features a speaker that produces the sound of the bounce, making it the first console in history to have sound!

Remember that the Magnavox Odyssey and its clones had no sound, and the Videomaster Home TV Game (released two months earlier in the UK) also had no sound.

Seleco Ping-O-Tronic

The buttons are located on the front panel, which includes:

  • Game Selector
  • Ball Speed Selector
  • Horizontal and Vertical Adjustment
  • Player Size Adjustment

The console includes 3 games:

  • Tennis
  • Squash/Solo
  • Automatic (The ball bounces against the walls with no players, making it more of a demo than an actual game)

The controllers feature a control to move the player vertically and a button to serve the ball.

There were various models, from PP-1 to PP-10, mostly with internal board revisions, but also external changes like the inclusion of the Zanussi or Seleco brand name.

Starting with the PP-5 revision, a DIN connector was added to use a light gun accessory called Gun-O-Tronic. This accessory was released in 1975 at a price of about 35,000 liras.

Gun-O-Tronic

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