Cold war power play: how the Stasi got into computer games

<p>A new exhibition in Berlin shows how the notoriously paranoid East German state greeted the dawn of video gaming with surprising enthusiasm</p><p>In 2019 researchers at Berlin’s Computer Games Museum made an extraordinary discovery: a rudimentary Pong console, made from salvaged electronics and plastic soap-box enclosures for joysticks. The beige rectangular tupperware that contained its wires would, when connected to a TV by the aerial, bring a serviceable Pong copy to the screen.</p><p>At the time, they thought the home-brewed device was a singular example of ingenuity behind the iron curtain. But earlier this year they found another <em>Seifendosen-Pong (</em>“soap-box Pong”), along with a copy of a state-produced magazine called FunkAmateur<em> </em>containing schematics for a DIY variety of Atari’s 1970s gaming sensation.</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/games/2025/oct/07/stasi-coldwargames-its-all-a-game-alliiertenmuseum-berlin">Continue reading...</a>