Prinztronic Micro 5500

Prinztronic Micro 5500 is a typical system using cartridges based on the different chipsets developed by General Instruments in the late 70s. Each GI chips was able to generate several games, ball games for a start, then later car racing, motorcycle, submarines, tanks and shooting games. The system has two detachable controllers with one analog joystick and one fire button each. The control panel is composed of 10 buttons to select the different games offered by each cartridge (10 being the maximum). Difficulty switches, power switch and a start button can also be found. The Prinztronic 5500 was marketed in Europe and Oceania (New Zealand). In Germany, it was sold as the SHG Blackpoint (different models exist). The Tank Battle game produced by the AY-3-8710 chip from General Instruments, is often missing from available cartridges for this type of systems (based upon GI chips). There is one good reason. All the other games use analog controllers whereas the Tank Battle must be played with digital controllers (like direction buttons for example). And all these video-game systems were designed with analog controllers and no numeric ones. However, some systems, like the Prinztronic Micro 5500 (and the SHG Blackpoint) offered optional digital controllers (pads with 5 buttons: directions and fire) with the Tank Battle cartridge.