The Courier-News from Bridgewater, New Jersey • Page 8

A8 The Courier-News Monday. March 1, 1982 AC-MAN FEVER Fans clamoring for home video cartridges A 'Kids come in here they're five or six years old pulling their moms and dads in to get them the Steve De Vre of Big Sounds yv a -SUitilfHU xr.v iv tin pursuit. The four ghosts in Atari's home video game have nicknames which reflect their personalities. Inky, who is blue, is nicknamed "Bashful" and avoids direct confrontation. Blinky, who is red, was nicknamed "Speedy." His is indisputably the fastest ghost.

Pinky, who is you guessed it pink, is called "Shadow" because he trails Pac-man's every move. Clyde, the orange ghost known as "Pokey," is the slowest of all. Coin-operated Pac-mans already draw crowds in arcades, stores and restaurants. One coin-operated version features a Ms. Pac-man game in which the rotund little creature wears a hair bow.

"The coin-operated Pac-man was the biggest thing that ever hit the coin-operated market," Hoff said. Pac-man has certain distinguishing characteristics that pull it above the ranks of the common video game, he Invaders cartridges were released. Jeff Hoff, spokesman for Atari, said Pac-man may become their company's most popular cartridge. "We plan on it being the biggest cartridge ever sold," Hoff said. "We have people calling here constantly." The Pac-man home video cartridge will debut on March 16 and should get to the stores by April 1, he said.

Hoff said retailers across the country have been taking reservations for orders since January. "It's totally unprecedented," he said. He said virtually every store that carries Atari products in the country has ordered the Pac-man cartridge. What's all the fuss about? The Pac-man cast includes the insatiable title character and four ghosts who follow his every move Inky, Blinky, Pinky and Clyde. Pac-man munches his way through a maze as the colorful foursome follows in persistent fr 3.

6, jgsfl gJi Or ii Srri i W' -t-nil ii iimi in iriifib MMiinr nn -mi in iiiiiiiiiiiinii ii Pac-Man fever has hit Big Sounds Music Center In Somer-ville. Artie de Vre of Union, Laren Feltrl of Clinton and Dayna Lee of Branchburg (front) display Pac-Man paraphrenalla. March sky features equinox, closest planet lineup of 1980s By JUDY AGUSTI Courier-News Staff Writer One store owner says Inky, Blinky, Pinky and Clyde have more fans than The Beatles nowadays. Steve DeVre, owner of Big Sounds Music Centers, has taken over 5,000 worth of deposits on Atari's Pac-man the game that features Inky and set. Customers have been lining up with deposits since Christmas and the Pac-man home video cartridges don't even come out until March 16.

"It's Pac-man fever," said Steve DeVre, who owns music centers in Somerville, Plainfield and South Plainfield. "The kids come in here they're five or six years old pulling their moms and dads in to get them the game," he said. "We must get 30 to 40 calls a day about Pac-man." Bob Austin of Majors Discount Store in Raritan said every third customer asks when the game is coming out. Crazy Eddie's in Union gets more than 40 calls a day. "Some of these kids get home from school at 3 o'clock and right away they call in to find out if it's come yet," saleswoman Rose Montgomery said.

She said it's not that unusual though the same thing happened when Asteroids and Space shorter than the period of the earth's revolution around the sun. March 21: The waning crescent moon and Venus make a pretty pair in the dawn sky this morning. March 25: New moon. Expect to see the slim young crescent in the evening sky on the 27th or 28th. March 29: The moon is at perigee again, second time this month.

March 31: Mars is at opposition from the sun, rising at sundown, setting at sunrise. It now becomes an evening star. You may have noticed how much it has brightened this month, more than double. Well, it will be dimming in April just as rapidly. All Month: Except on the last day of the month, when Mars is in opposition from the sun, all of the planets are morning stars in March.

Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn are well placed for most of the night all month. Venus, though not at its best, should be very easy to find because of its brightness, low in the east as dawn breaks. Mercury, though going through a long and well-separated (from the sun) morning elongation, rises too late and stays too low to be seen. Don't fail to look for Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn putting on a show even better than last summer and fall. A few hours after dark each evening, they are stretched out in line from the eastern horizon upward, with Spica among them.

Mars rises first soon after dark, Saturn and Spica within an hour, and Jupiter Continued on A10 "One thing is that it's a different concept than the shoot-'em-ups," Hoff said. "It's much more innocuous, much more colorful." He said females are Pac-man's biggest fans and attributed it to two factors the games eye appeal and the intellectual energy it requires. "We have noticed in our demographic studies, more women play," Hoff said. "For some reason, men are content to sit there all day and shoot-'em-up. But women seem to want something a little more stimulating." Atari's home version of Pac-man will feature eight levels with varying speeds of chase.

It also will include an option for playing doubles, the first time the option has been in the game. The manufacturer's suggested retail price for a cartridge is 137.95. More than 500 orders have been filed at the Big Sound Music Centers, DeVre said, and the number increases daily. DeVre has Pac-man T-shirts and hats and Pac-man records to sell with the cartridges. DeVre said he will be filling Pac-man orders on a first-come, first-served basis.

He got his first order in January. Atari is hyping April 3 as "National Pac-man Day." The video giant will sponsor contests, giveaways and displays in 25 major cities on that day including New York City and Philadelphia. Photo By Monitor News Service chart tonight, at 9 p.m. In the middle damp paper towel. Place another damp towel on top and put the layer of seeds in a warm place in your kitchen.

A good place is on top of the refrigerator. Give the seeds at least seven days or more to sprout. If eight of the seeds sprout, you can estimate the seeds you have are 80 percent viable. If six sprout, you can estimate 60 percent viability. This is helpful when planting since you will know how many seeds to plant to get the maximum growth.

If you are saving your own seeds, make sure that the varieties you are saving aren't hybrids. If they are, it's not likely they will develop the same kinds of plants as their parents. Hybrid tomatoes are a good example. If you plant the seeds of a hybrid tomato, the fruit produced by the plant is not likely to look anything like the parent. Often the tomatoes are small, hard and tasteless.

The same holds true for many kinds of corn and a few varieties of snap beans. see its motion to the east. March 13: The moon trails behind Jupiter tonight as the planets parade up the eastern sky a few hours after sunset. March 17: The last quarter moon is at apogee, farthest from earth. It is located in Sagittarius, just above the "teapot," rising an hour after midnight.

March 17: Although the sun doesn't reach the vernal equinox for several more days, this is the date on which there are 12 hours of day and 12 hours of night. The sun doesn't actually cross above the equator until March 20, but the duration of daylight is increased by the refraction of sunlight in passing through the earth's atmosphere, and by the fact that we measure sunrise and sunset from the upper edge of the sun. March 20: The sun arrives at the vernal equinox today at 5:56 p.m., Eastern standard time, and spring begins in the Northern Hemisphere. The vernal equinox is the point on the sky where the plane of the earth's orbit and the plane of the earth's equator intersect. There are two such points, of course, but the one at which the sun is located in going from south to north of the equatorial plane is the vernal or spring equinox.

The other is the autumnal equinox. It isn't a fixed point relative to the stars, however. It moves west slowly as the equatorial plane shifts around because of the effects of precession on the earth's axis of rotation. Confusing? Maybe, but this is the reason why the year of our calendar is 20 seconds By The Christian Science Monitor The closest gathering of planets in the 1980s occurs on March 10. They will all be located within an arc of about 98 degrees, measured from the sun.

There won't be anything better than this for planet-gazers for the rest of the 20th century. Follow the stars all month long with this sky chart prepared by Dr. Thomas D. Nicholson, director of the American Museum of Natural History in New York. Tonight: The star to the left of the 5-day old waxing crescent moon is Aldebaran, in Taurus.

March 2: Aldebaran is to the right of the first quarter moon. March 4: The moon is at perigee, the point in its elliptical orbit nearest to the earth. March 5: The two stars above the gibbous moon are Pollux and Castor, the twin stars of Gemini. March 7-8: The moon passes Regulus, in Leo. The moon moves from the star's right on the 7th to its left on the 8th.

March 9: The full moon is south of Denebola, in Leo. March 10: Mars, Saturn, and Jupiter stretch out in line to the moon's left. The star beneath Saturn is Spica, in Virgo. March 11: The gibbous moon is between Mars to its right and Saturn to its left. Spica is also left of the moon, below Saturn, and Jupiter is well to the left of both.

March 12: The exceptionally bright object to the moon's left is Jupiter. Saturn, Spica and Mars are farther away to the right. Watch the moon carefully for 30 minutes or so and you can easily 1 SOUTH HiaoN Courier-News kin, rutabaga, Swiss chard and standard tomato seeds may be kept safely for four years. Bean and pea seeds are in the three-year viability range. The most delicate seeds are the ones that may be kept two years at the most: corn, leek, onion, parsnip, spinach and hybrid tomato seeds.

Storing seeds ought to be no problem. Most of them like a human-type of environment. They can be stored at a slightly cool room temperature in a dry container. If they are allowed to get wet, molds and fungi can attack and destroy them. If you are saving your own seeds, make sure they are completely air-dried before placing them in containers for storage.

Do not use excessive heat to dry them. The heat could kill them quickly. You might want to test stored seeds for viability before spending time putting them in the garden. The test is a simple one. Take 10 seeds and place them on a This sky chart is designed to correspond to the sky at 10 p.m.

of the month, and 8 p.m. at the end of the month. Don't discard last year's seeds MSI Test them first to determine if they're viable By DAVE PEYTON Gannett News Service Do you have vegetable seeds left over from last spring's planting? Then you may be worrying about the seeds' ability to sprout after being stored. Some seeds are only viable for a year or two. Some are viable for five years or more.

These seeds may be kept for a least five years: broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, cantaloupe, cauliflower, celeriac, celery, chicory, collard, cucumber, eggplant, endive, garden cress, kale, kohlrabi, lettuce, melon, okra, peanut, radish, squash, and turnip. Beet, mustard, pepper, pump Mi ft Courier-News Photo By Monitor News Service photo Your leftover seeds may be good or half-good. You can test them to find out..