An image from Atari's original patent application for its "video game control unit"

The folks over at Technologizer have put together a gallery of images taken from patent applications for electronic gaming systems ranging from the original Television Gaming Apparatus in 1969 to the Nintendo Game Boy in 1989. The text of the applications is rather geeky, but the images therein make for memory-prompting journey through our not-too-long-ago interactive past. Enjoy.

At a certain age, every boy outgrows his toys and his sandbox. The Central German amusement park Männerspielplatz says no, you just need bigger toys and an even bigger sandbox. For 219 Euros, or around $280, customers can spend and entire day driving front end loaders and backhoes, playing with jackhammers and firing all kinds of weapons. Here's how Andrew Curry described it in Wired (you can also see the magazine's photo slide show here):

The brainchild of Alexander Bammer, a former IT honcho, Männerspielplatz (literally "men's playground") began seven years ago as a one-off corporate promotion with a handful of rented earthmovers at a construction site near Kassel in central Germany. The event struck a chord with pasty execs who loved getting in touch with their inner ditchdigger. "Most men these days don't work on a construction site; they work at a desk," Bammer says. "They dream about experiences like this." So in 2004, he decided to open Männerspielplatz, just outside Kassel, as a 17-acre one-stop shop for man fantasy (slogan: "We fulfill men's dreams!"). Most of the customers, it turns out, are actually women buying tickets as gifts for husbands or boyfriends as an alternative to one more tie--or perhaps something else. After all, Bammer says: "I hear 'It's better than sex' a lot."