3 2 1 quiz game

Micro Computer Incorporated

Status: No Download, Findability: 1/5

Also known as: First ever family quiz

3-2-1 was a popular quiz show in the UK during the 1980’s, hosted by Ted Rogers with a strange side kick character called Dusty Bin.

Many games coming out the time were tied into various films and TV shows, and even 3-2-1 got into the act with their own game. The game was only available via mail-order from a company called Micro Computer Incorporated, and gave you the chance to win lots of prizes just the like real thing. The star prize being a week’s holiday in Spain.

To win prizes, you would have to play the game then download your score and send it to the company. According to the few magazine snippets at the time, the concept was secure – but of course no doubt people would have exploited it.

So what happened to it? Well initially it hit some troubles getting passed through, but it eventually surfaced on the ZX Spectrum – with an auction for the game recently found. However, it doesn’t seem to have been preserved just yet. The C64 version though is completely at large and no information could be found on the title from initial searches. Although the magazine snippets talk of a C64 version, the box screenshots only show “For all Spectrum users”.

Did it ever get to production on the C64, or did the early flop on the Spectrum prevent it ever going to market. Do you know any more about it?

Well, it seems it was released – and there is a C64 game in the Retrocollector archives, yet to be preserved. Hopefully soon it will be made available!

Contributions: Paul Fogarty, Sean O'Neill

Supporting content

Update history

07/09/17 – Game confirmed as existing and is on the retrocollector website. Hope to see archived soon. Scans added from site thanks to Sean O’Neill

Posted in: GTW64 archive | Tagged: | 4 Comments

4 Responses to 3 2 1 quiz game

  1. I looked up this entry because I recently saw this on The Retro Cavern:

    LINK REMOVED (No longer working)

    Needless to say, someone needs to get hold of that and preserve it – but there is concrete proof that it exists!

  2. The entry on World of Spectrum suggests that the game was Spanish-developed, and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3-2-1 confirms that the show was originally Spanish. Incidentally ‘for all Spectrum users’ is not an exaggeration, the game ran in 16K, and could feasibly be the last commercial release for the system not to require 48K.

    • That is a possibility – maybe someone over here just quickly translated it, but never got to fully market it properly.

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