Just follow the bouncing ball.

Ping

Ping . . .

Pong!

Tired of jerking off? Getting laid too much?

Ping . . .

Ping . . .

Scientists in Fargo, North Dakota have developed a TV set made entirely out of sugar. You can lick it while you watch.

Ping . . . Got the right column? Maybe you bought the wrong magazine? Pong!

I'm lying here with a handful of controls, pinging and ponging on my TV screen. No more CBS News or Tomorrow Show for me. I don't use my TV set to watch TV. Not anymore. Not since I got a TV Pong Game. No more commercials. No more looking into the vacuum of politician's faces. Just pure electronic sport for me. Ping, pong, pong, ping, ping pong.

TV games are the latest front of the double edged advancement of consumer electronics. TV games use your TV screen to display simulated game fields—ping pong, table tennis, hockey, war games, rifle ranges, etc.—and let you and your friend play each other off across the cathode ray tube battlefield. Prices run from $50 up to $1,000. But what's money for if not to buy things?

Pong games exist as part of the commercialization of integrated circuits. They're programmed modules like pocket calculators, accepting tactile inputs (calculator keyboard = pong player control) processed through preprogrammed integrated circuits to give results as visual display (light up numbers on calculator = simulated game field on TV screen).

If they catch on—and Magna vox is already building them into their TV sets so you can get them when you buy the TV—Pong will be like the clock in a clock radio: an indispensible element in the up-to-date consumer's boudoir.

Right now, most Pong games are exceptionally simple-minded. The onscreen action is rarely more than a white dot bouncing back and forth between two white bar "paddles," each controlled by a Pong player. But as competition increases and more sophisticated programming is introduced, you'll be able to drive the Enterprise through deep space, fight Custer's last stand, and play electronic strip poker on your screen by switching programs.

If you can't wait, keep these factors in mind when purchasing:

• How many games are included? Some have only one game program, others four, six, or more, so when you tire of one you can switch to the next.

• What is the on-screen display? Some only give the white dot and paddle bars. Others display the score. Some generate an electric background field.

• Can the game be re-programmed? A few games allow for user programming or the introduction of new programs on cards.

• What are the player controls like? A joy stick giving three-dimensional controls is best, but few cheap games have them.

• How many players can play at once? Some games limit it to two, others four.

• Can you play against the machine itself—is it programmed for one person play?

• Has the FCC approved the model you buy? Some games may broadcast a signal which will interfere with reactionaries who still watch regular TV.

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TV games are available pre-assembled and in kit form. Magnavox's Odyssey game is perhaps the best known of the ready to play games, but there's also Atari's Pong game, Executive Games' TV tennis, and a number of units made in Hong Kong and Japan sold here in department stores under various brand names. To use these games, connect them to the antenna terminals of your TV set, and start play.

Kit games are generally more expensive than the cheapest prepackaged games, but have more sophisticated and versatile features. Kit suppliers include Heathkit (their game must be used with a Heathkit TV set), Technology Trends Super Pong Kit (P.O. Box 732, Manhasset, NY 11030), James Electronics Professional video game with joy stick controls (James, P.O. Box 822, Belmont, California, 94002), Interfab's Video Ping Pong Kits (27963 Cabot Road, Laguna Niguel, California 92677), Visulex's TV GAME KITS (P.O. Box 4204, Mountain View, California 94042).

An expensive and complicated approach to TV gamesmanship is using a home computer like those made by Altair as the brain of your TV game system. This approach makes possible really complex game simulations, intelligent game situations, and real human vs. computer tactics. A home microcomputer TV game runs between $1,000 and $2,000 with all necessary equipment.