Display MoreYou will be forgiven if you've never heard of the Keyboard And Terminal Technology (KATT) Game Master Matt. It was a very obscure mid-90s game controller keyboard. Its gimmick was that it was pre-programmed to support specific games and you could buy different layout "matts" (sic) that would customize the device to 'look' like the game you're playing. They might, for instance, show a jet cockpit or an RPG character sheet with the custom buttons labeled. The device was not a success and it's best (barely) remembered for small ads which appeared in magazines like PC Gamer which listed the different game mats available.
We've known that there were several Wing Commander mats sold but none of them had ever been seen before. Enter LiqMatrix who has been researching the Game Master and who kindly stopped by our forum to share what they've learned. They were recently lucky enough to win an auction for what seems to be the full set of game mats and are working to preserve and present them to the world (we'll share when that happens). One big discovery was that a ROM chip to add additional games WAS released and that it included both Wing Commander Academy and Privateer! The original 1993 item had the original Wing Commander plus several other Origin games: Strike Commander and both Ultima Underworlds.
LiqMatrix was kind enough to send along VERY high resolution scans of the three Wing Commander mats. And they are just about the most charming thing you'll ever see! They remind me of the art in the Mark Minasi Secrets of the Wing Commander Universe book… just wonderful to see some of the old ships imagined this way. The images linked here have been reduced to a lower resolution. You can download the full advertisement scan here and the Wing Commander scans here.
