Down Home Gamin’ - Penetrator (TRS-80)

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Down Home Gamin’ - Penetrator (TRS-80)

On 08/15/2025 at 05:01 PM by SanAndreas

On the latest episode of Down Home Gamin, I discuss a game that was a staple of early childhood. Penetrator, developed by Beam Software of Australia, is a Scramble clone made for the ZX Spectrum, TRS-80, and C64 in 1982. It has a number of features which set it apart from the many other Scramble clones of its time.

Comments

daftman

08/15/2025 at 08:46 PM

My brain misread the blog title as "Down Home Ganon" and I expected something Zelda related lol

*Update* My notifications DOES say Ganon! I'm not crazy!

Cary Woodham

08/16/2025 at 09:03 AM

For whatever reason, I don't remember seeing Scramble in arcades, and if I did see it, it didn't draw me in like Pac-Man did. Really the first early Konami games I remember seeing in arcades were Gyruss and Time Pilot, and I loved those!

Our family's first computer was the Apple ][+. I have good memories playing games on it like Lode Runner, Spare Change, and Aquatron.

KnightDriver

08/22/2025 at 09:23 AM

Subscribed. This looks more fun than Scramble. It doesn't look like you need to shoot fuel tanks to refuel your ship. That's a relief.

I remember seeing the TRS80 around in the 80s but I never had one. I didn't know it began in '77. I'll have to add it to my list of 70s systems and games to play. I love that still shot of the whole system, monitor and disc drives. It gives me retro fever.

Were you playing the game outside?