The Daewoo Zemmix

Daewoo Zemmix Turbo, from msxarchive.nl

Background/History:
In the US, the "IBM" home computer architecture (originally introduced on the IBM PC in 1981) has long been the dominant standard. It has been massively updated over the years, but is still in use. In Asia, a dominant standard of the 1980s and early 1990s was MSX. MSX was introduced in 1983 as an attempt to unify standards among computers around the world. Although it saw very little success in the US, it became the premier computer gaming platform in many countries in Asia, and even saw some success in parts of Europe. Like the IBM standard, the MSX standard saw upgrades over the years: the MSX2 standard in 1985, MSX2+ in 1988, and MSXturboR in 1990. The final MSX computers ended production in 1995.
Daewoo is a massive South Korean company that is primarily known in the US for cheap cars and cheap electronics, but their products also include heavy machinery, ships, construction, and many diversified activities.
The Zemmix is basically a scaled down MSX computer, intended for gaming. The first models of the Zemmix, the original and "Victory" model, were released in 1985. In the late 1980s, the "Super Victory" model, compatible with the MSX2 standard, was released. The "Turbo", the final Zemmix model, was released in 1990 and was compatible with the MSX2+ standard. As the MSXturboR standard was only released in Japan, no Zemmix models used it. The Zemmix was discontinued in 1995.
One notable feature of the Zemmix is the color options. Models were available in a white/silver, red/black, or blue/yellow/black color scheme. There were also numerous peripherals available for the system, including keyboard, music box, RAM expansion, MSX2 upgrade expension, and even a "Family Card" which allowed the system to play Nintendo Famicom (NES) games.

What Makes It Obscure?
Despite the system's ten year lifespan, information on it is scarce. The system was only released in South Korea. They are said to be reasonably common over there, but extremely rare elsewhere.

The Vectrex

Vectrex with controller - from here

Background/History:
By 1982, the home video game market - led by the Atari 2600 - had become huge, but the crop of consoles on the market had become dated. Arcades were getting games with more and more impressive technical specs and innovations, and the home consoles found themselves unable to keep up with them. In 1982, a new generation of consoles arrived, promising to bring an up to date arcade experience home. This generation was led by three consoles - the ColecoVision, Atari 5200, and the GCE Vectrex.
While the ColecoVision and 5200 were both traditional game consoles made by established game companies, this was GCE's first venture - and used a different design from any other video game console. Other video game consoles used raster graphics, which involve rendering the picture as pixels. The Vectrex used vector graphics, an innovation used by several popular arcade games of the time. Vector graphics use lines and shapes instead of pixels, and allowed for smoother animation than any other console of the time.
In addition, the Vectrex included its own screen, and didn't require - or even allow - a television to hook up to. One could simply plug the console in and play. The console featured a nine inch screen. It weighed over 10 pounds, so it wasn't a portable - but it wasn't quite a traditional console, either.
The Vectrex had two peripherals that were also never before seen: a 3D imager (much like movie 3D glasses), and a light pen that allowed the player to draw on the screen display.
Over 80 games were released on the Vectrex.

What Makes It Obscure?
The Vectrex was released in November 1982, immediately before the video game crash of 1983-1984, and was produced for only a year. While the Vectrex was well received and sold well at introduction (well enough for Milton Bradley to buy out GCE), it wasn't able to match the success of the ColecoVision and 5200.
The system has maintained a small, devoted fan base, whom have released home brew games. The system has also been praised for its durability, controller design, and game library.

The RDI Halcyon - Maybe the Rarest Console Ever

Exhibit A: the RDI Halcyon. Exhibit B: a 2011 Honda Accord V6 EX-L sedan*. One is a very rare video game system. The other includes a GPS navigation system, leather seats, a 271 hp V6 engine, six airbags, and has less than 42,000 miles on it.
They're worth about the same.

Background/History:
The Halcyon was intended to be a system far ahead of its time, an "ultra high end" system. Beginning in the early 1980s, "interactive movie" type games began to be released into arcades. These games allowed the player to make choices that would trigger video clips, with the effect that one game could afford numerous different "movies" depending on the choices made. The concept was much like a "choose your own adventure" type book. The animation in the games took up a lot of space, and required the use of LaserDisc as a storage medium. Sega's Astron Belt, developed in 1982, was the first of these games, but the first successful interactive movie was Dragon's Lair, released in 1983. Dragon's Lair featured movie-quality animation by veteran Disney animator Don Bluth. The game was trial and error based; the player had to choose all choices correctly to finish the game, giving the game replay value. It was expensive to play: at a time when the standard price for an arcade play was 25 cents (59 cents in 2015 dollars), Dragon's Lair cost 50 cents ($1.17 in 2015 dollars). Space Ace, released in 1984, was another successful LaserDisc interactive movie arcade game.
Rick Dyer, who had created the concept for Dragon's Lair and Space Ace, saw an opportunity to bring the interactive movie experience home. Forming a company called "RDI", he began to design a console around RCA's Capacitance Electronic Disc (CED), which was a cheaper alternative. While the video and audio quality on CED was lower than LaserDisc, it would allow the system to be released at a more affordable price. During the Halcyon's design process, RCA dropped the CED program, and RDI was forced to use the LaserDisc. The Halcyon ended up using a LaserDisc player and attached computer. The system had some other never before seen features, including a headset that allowed the player to give the system voice commands.

What Makes It Obscure:
The system cost a stupendous $2,500 when it came out ($5,430 in today's dollars).  In addition to the prohibitive cost, the system was planned for release in January 1985, in the midst of the mid 1980s video game crash. Six games were planned at launch, but only two were ever produced: Thayer's Quest and Raiders vs. Chargers Football. Less than a dozen Halcyon units are known to exist and the value of the system is unknown, but speculated to be in the five figure range. It's possible that a Halcyon, with all hookups and components, could sell for over $20,000.

AUDIO FEATURE: https://soundcloud.com/carsthatareunusual/rdi-halcyon-podcast
There is an error on the podcast - near the end, I say "RCA" when I should have said "RDI".

Halcyon picture from here.
*The 2011 Accord is my car. Mileage figure from the day it was purchased - May 4, 2013. Picture from the day it was purchased.

The Amiga CD32 - Commodore's last Hurrah

Background/History:
In the early 1990s, there was a "multimedia" craze going on. Multimedia consoles could play their own libraries of video games, but also had educational software and reference software (e.g. encyclopedias) available as well. These systems, a sort of "hybrid" between PCs and video game systems, were intended to be more advanced and serve a wider array of functions than the popular video game systems of the time, such as the Sega Genesis and Super Nintendo. These systems didn't come cheap, often costing 3-10 times as much as a typical new video game system.
Released on September 17, 1993 at $399, the Amiga CD32 was an entrant in this field. It had more of a focus on games than most systems in this category. It was a product in Commodore's successful line of Amiga computers, being based on the Amiga 1200 computer which had been released a year earlier. In fact, if a keyboard, floppy drive, hard drive, and mouse are added, the CD32 is the equivalent of an Amiga 1200 computer. Wishing to avoid making the console redundant, Commodore did not want to make these accessories available; however, third parties offered them. As its name states, the CD32 uses CD-ROM for game storage and is a 32 bit system.

What Makes It Obscure?
The CD32 is a classic "could've been a contender" system. 38% of CD-ROM drive sales in the UK immediately after its release were Amiga CD32 units, and sales were strong in Europe. The system also saw release in Canada, and was set up for US release in February or March 1994. Due to a patent dispute with a company called Cadtrack, a federal judge blocked Commodore from importing products into the US; the CD32, made in the Philippines, was under this injunction. Fortunately, some stores imported units from Canada to sell, but the console was only sold on the gray market, severely hampering its US success. 
Commodore filed for bankruptcy in late April 1994, and production of the CD32 stopped after just seven months. If Commodore had not closed down, there was potential for the system to be far more successful. The game library was large. Technical specifications were up to date, and the price, while steep, was lower than most multimedia systems and was not much higher than the launch prices of the Sony PlayStation and Sega Saturn which launched two years later. 

The Entex Adventure Vision

Adventure Vision with its four games stored. Photo courtesy of handheldmuseum.com

Background/History:
The early 1980s was a time for experimentation with video game concepts. The market was new and exciting, and no one really knew what the field's future held. The bulk of the video game industry was in the arcades, but home video game consoles - then led by the Atari 2600 - were a rapidly growing and popular segment as well.
The idea of a system that could be played on the go was an appealing one from the beginning. Systems such as Nintendo's Game and Watch series and Coleco's handheld games were primitive - often playing only one game, with very rudimentary graphics and sound. Attempts to make a proper handheld console with changeable games were stonewalled by the technology simply not being "ready" at an economical price. (The Milton Bradley Microvision tried and failed, but that's for another post)
The self-contained console was a "middle ground" between a traditional console and a handheld. While the self-contained console has considerable weight and size, it has its own electrical outlet and screen, so it doesn't require a television. The Adventure Vision was one of the machines in this small field. The Adventure Vision could be operated as a (very bulky) handheld on batteries or plugged into an AC adapter. It was released in late 1982.

What Makes It Obscure?
Few were sold, and the fragile and unreliable nature of the system means that even fewer survive. Despite being marketed as a "portable" system, if you dropped the system while carrying it would probably be broken. The system has four slots in the top which could store four games; this was ironic, as only four games were ever released, including the pack in game, Defender.  The four games were accurate ports of popular arcade games of the time, but the library ranks among the smallest ever released for a game system. At $80, the system was basically a poor man's Vectrex. The Vectrex, while still considered a commercial failure, was far more successful despite its $200 price tag.
The system had sound that was good enough, but poor graphics. The graphics only displayed in red, and had a resolution of only 150x40 pixels. The system featured a line of 40 vertical LEDs and a spinning mirror inside the system to simulate the 150 horizontal pixels. The graphics had a severe "wobble" to them due to the spinning mirror.

Other Aspects of the System
The system used an Intel 8048 processor running at 733 kilohertz and a National Semiconductor COP411L sound coprocessor running at 52.6 kilohertz.
The controls were a 4 direction joystick and 4 buttons, duplicated on either side of the joystick, for left or right handed players.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
Good: It's a highly prized collector's item, control setup, games are faithful arcade translations.
Bad: Game library of only 4 games, poor graphics and sound.
Ugly: Durability. This system NEEDS to be babied.