{"id":483,"date":"2008-07-25T18:25:36","date_gmt":"2008-07-25T23:25:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/?p=483"},"modified":"2008-07-25T18:51:02","modified_gmt":"2008-07-25T23:51:02","slug":"simon-turns-30","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/archives\/483\/simon-turns-30","title":{"rendered":"Simon Turns 30"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.1up.com\/do\/feature?cId=3168918\" target=\"_blank\"><img src='\/wp-content\/images\/1UP\/simon_30th_1up.jpg' alt='Milton Bradley SImon 30th Anniversary' class=\"centered\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Like an alien mothership come home, a small flying saucer surveyed the pulsing, Technicolor scenery of Manhattan&#8217;s trendy Studio 54 dance club.  The saucer, a four-foot replica of a mysterious electronic toy, hung overhead in preparation for an unveiling later in the night.  Yet the revelers below, entranced by thumping disco and free-flowing decadence, barely noticed the invasion in progress.<\/p>\n<p>Further up, in the pitch black balcony, a 56 year-old engineer from New Hampshire fought off drowsiness and reminded himself why he had attended the deafening event: among the glamorous movie stars, the blasting music, and the swirling mirrored balls, it was his creation they were there to celebrate.<\/p>\n<p>At approximately 3 AM on the morning of May 16th, 1978, the music stopped.  The dazed crowd parted like the Red Sea, and a middle-aged man &#8212; the Vice President of Milton Bradley &#8212; took the stage to introduce the company&#8217;s latest toy, a curious wheel of blinking colored lights and musical tones called <em>Simon<\/em> that would soon become the must-buy gift of Christmas 1978.<\/p>\n<p>In the balcony, the engineer smiled: he had reached the end of a story that had begun, surprisingly, six years earlier.<\/p>\n<p><center>[ <a href=\"http:\/\/www.1up.com\/do\/feature?cId=3168918\" target=\"_blank\">Read more about Simon&#8217;s creation at 1UP.com<\/a> ]<\/center><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Like an alien mothership come home, a small flying saucer surveyed the pulsing, Technicolor scenery of Manhattan&#8217;s trendy Studio 54 dance club. The saucer, a four-foot replica of a mysterious electronic toy, hung overhead in preparation for an unveiling later in the night. Yet the revelers below, entranced by thumping disco and free-flowing decadence, barely [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,43,13,21,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-483","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-video-game-design","category-electronic-toys","category-video-game-info-and-history","category-news-current-events","category-retrogaming"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/483","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=483"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/483\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=483"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=483"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=483"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}