Intellivision
Encyclopedia
The Intellivision is a video game console
Video game console
A video game console is an interactive entertainment computer or customized computer system that produces a video display signal which can be used with a display device to display a video game...

 released by Mattel
Mattel
Mattel, Inc. is the world's largest toy company based on revenue. The products it produces include Fisher Price, Barbie dolls, Hot Wheels and Matchbox toys, Masters of the Universe, American Girl dolls, board games, and, in the early 1980s, video game consoles. The company's name is derived from...

 in 1979. Development of the console began in 1978, less than a year after the introduction of its main competitor, the Atari 2600
Atari 2600
The Atari 2600 is a video game console released in October 1977 by Atari, Inc. It is credited with popularizing the use of microprocessor-based hardware and cartridges containing game code, instead of having non-microprocessor dedicated hardware with all games built in...

. The word intellivision is a portmanteau of "intelligent television". Over 3 million Intellivision units were sold and a total of 125 games were released for the console.

In 2009, video game website IGN
IGN
IGN is an entertainment website that focuses on video games, films, music and other media. IGN's main website comprises several specialty sites or "channels", each occupying a subdomain and covering a specific area of entertainment...

 named the Intellivision the No. 14 greatest video game console of all time.

History and development

The Intellivision was developed by Mattel Electronics, a subsidiary of Mattel formed expressly for the development of electronic games. The console was test marketed in Fresno
Fresno, California
Fresno is a city in central California, United States, the county seat of Fresno County. As of the 2010 census, the city's population was 510,365, making it the fifth largest city in California, the largest inland city in California, and the 34th largest in the nation...

, California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...

, in 1979 with a total of four games available, and was released nationwide in 1980 with a price tag of US$299 and a pack-in game: Las Vegas Poker & Blackjack. Though not the first system to challenge Atari
Atari
Atari is a corporate and brand name owned by several entities since its inception in 1972. It is currently owned by Atari Interactive, a wholly owned subsidiary of the French publisher Atari, SA . The original Atari, Inc. was founded in 1972 by Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney. It was a pioneer in...

, it was the first to pose a serious threat to Atari's dominance. A series of advertisements featuring George Plimpton
George Plimpton
George Ames Plimpton was an American journalist, writer, editor, and actor. He is widely known for his sports writing and for helping to found The Paris Review.-Early life:...

 was produced that demonstrated the superiority of the Intellivision's graphics and sound to those of the Atari 2600 using side-by-side game comparisons.

One of the slogans of the television advertisements stated that Intellivision was "the closest thing to the real thing"; one example in an advertisement compared golf games. The other console's games had a blip sound and cruder graphics, while the Intellivision featured a realistic swing sound and striking of the ball, and graphics that suggested a more 3D look. There was also an advertisement comparing the Atari 2600
Atari 2600
The Atari 2600 is a video game console released in October 1977 by Atari, Inc. It is credited with popularizing the use of microprocessor-based hardware and cartridges containing game code, instead of having non-microprocessor dedicated hardware with all games built in...

 to it, featuring the slogan "I didn't know".

Like Atari
Atari
Atari is a corporate and brand name owned by several entities since its inception in 1972. It is currently owned by Atari Interactive, a wholly owned subsidiary of the French publisher Atari, SA . The original Atari, Inc. was founded in 1972 by Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney. It was a pioneer in...

, Mattel marketed their console to a number of retailers as a rebadged unit. These models include the Radio Shack
Radio shack
Radio shack is a slang term for a room or structure for housing radio equipment.-History:In the early days of radio, equipment was experimental and home-built. The first radio transmitters used a noisy spark to generate radio waves and were often housed in a garage or shed. When radio was first...

 TandyVision, the GTE
GTE
GTE Corporation, formerly General Telephone & Electronics Corporation was the largest independent telephone company in the United States during the days of the Bell System....

-Sylvania Intellivision, and the Sears Super Video Arcade. The Sears model was a specific coup for Mattel, as Sears was already selling a rebadged Atari 2600
Atari 2600
The Atari 2600 is a video game console released in October 1977 by Atari, Inc. It is credited with popularizing the use of microprocessor-based hardware and cartridges containing game code, instead of having non-microprocessor dedicated hardware with all games built in...

 unit, and in doing so made a big contribution to Atari's success.

In its first year, Mattel sold 175,000 Intellivision consoles, and the library grew to 35 games. At this time, all Intellivision games were developed by an outside firm, APh Technological Consulting
APh Technological Consulting
APh Technological Consulting is a software company, located in Pasadena, California, USA. In 1976 they helped Mattel to develop the Intellivision video game console and also wrote most of the early games for it...

. The company recognized that what had been seen as a secondary product line might be a big business. Realizing that potential profits are much greater with first party software, Mattel formed its own in-house software development group.

The original five members of that Intellivision team were manager Gabriel Baum, Don Daglow
Don Daglow
Don Daglow is an American computer game and video game designer, programmer and producer. He is best known for designing a series of pioneering simulation games and role-playing games, as well as the first computer baseball game and the first graphical MMORPG, all between 1971 and 1995...

, Rick Levine, Mike Minkoff and John Sohl. Levine and Minkoff, a long-time Mattel Toys veteran, both came over from the hand-held Mattel games engineering team. To keep these programmers from being hired away by rival Atari, their identity and work location was kept a closely guarded secret. In public, the programmers were referred to collectively as the Blue Sky Rangers
Blue Sky Rangers
The Blue Sky Rangers are the group of Intellivision game programmers who once worked for Mattel back in the early 1980s.When the Intellivision first came out in 1978, its games were all developed by an outside firm, APh Technological Consulting. Realizing that potential profits are much greater...

.

By 1982, sales were soaring. Over two million Intellivision consoles had been sold by the end of the year, earning Mattel a $100,000,000 profit. Third-party Atari developers Activision
Activision
Activision is an American publisher, majority owned by French conglomerate Vivendi SA. Its current CEO is Robert Kotick. It was founded on October 1, 1979 and was the world's first independent developer and distributor of video games for gaming consoles...

, and Imagic
Imagic
Imagic was a short-lived American video game developer and publisher that developed games for the Atari 2600, Intellivision and other video game consoles in the early 1980s...

 began releasing games for the Intellivision, as did hardware rivals Atari and Coleco
Coleco
Coleco is an American company founded in 1932 by Maurice Greenberg as "Connecticut Leather Company". It became a highly successful toy company in the 1980s, known for its mass-produced version of Cabbage Patch Kids dolls and its video game consoles, the Coleco Telstar and...

. Mattel created M Network branded games for Atari and Coleco's systems. The most popular titles sold over a million units each. The Intellivision was also introduced in Japan by Bandai
Bandai
is a Japanese toy making and video game company, as well as the producer of a large number of plastic model kits. It is the world's third-largest producer of toys . Some ex-Bandai group companies produce anime and tokusatsu programs...

 in 1983.

The original 5-person Mattel game development team had grown to 110 people under now-Vice President Baum, while Daglow led Intellivision development and top engineer Minkoff directed all work on all other platforms.

Keyboard Component

Intellivision's packaging and promotional materials, as well as television commercials, promised that with the addition of a soon-to-be-available accessory called the "Keyboard Component", originally portrayed in TV ads as a larger box with an opening in the top that the Intellivision fit into. This would turn the Intellivision into a fully functional home computer system.

The unit would bring the system's available RAM up to a full 64K, a large amount for the time, and would have provided both a built-in cassette drive for data storage and a connection for an optional 40-column thermal printer. The cassette drive would be able to provide both data storage and an audio track simultaneously, allowing for interactive audio recording and playback under computer control, and a secondary 6502 microprocessor inside the Keyboard Component would be programmed to handle all of these extra capabilities independently of the Intellivision's CP1610 CPU. The unit would even provide an extra cartridge slot, allowing the original Intellivision to remain permanently docked with the Keyboard Component while still being able to play standard game cartridges.

Unfortunately, while the Keyboard Component was an ambitious piece of engineering for its time, it suffered from reliability problems and proved to be expensive to produce. Originally slated to be available in 1981, the Keyboard Component was repeatedly delayed as the engineers tried to find ways to overcome the reliability issues and reduce manufacturing costs.

The Keyboard Component's repeated delays became so notorious around Mattel headquarters that comedian Jay Leno
Jay Leno
James Douglas Muir "Jay" Leno is an American stand-up comedian and television host.From 1992 to 2009, Leno was the host of NBC's The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. Beginning in September 2009, Leno started a primetime talk show, titled The Jay Leno Show, which aired weeknights at 10:00 p.m. ,...

, when performing at Mattel's 1981 Christmas party, got his biggest titter of the evening with the line: "You know what the three big lies are, don't you? 'The check is in the mail,' 'I'll still respect you in the morning,' and 'The Keyboard will be out in spring.'"

Complaints from consumers who had chosen to buy the Intellivision specifically on the promise of a "Coming Soon!" personal-computer upgrade that seemed as if it would never materialize eventually caught the attention of the Federal Trade Commission
Federal Trade Commission
The Federal Trade Commission is an independent agency of the United States government, established in 1914 by the Federal Trade Commission Act...

 (FTC), who started investigating Mattel Electronics for fraud and false advertising. Mattel said that the Keyboard Component was a real product still being test-marketed and even released a small number of Keyboard Components to a handful of retail stores, along with a handful of software titles in order to support this claim. The FTC eventually ordered Mattel to pay a $10,000/day fine until the promised computer upgrade was in full retail distribution. To protect themselves from the ongoing fines, the Keyboard Component was officially canceled in the fall of 1982 and the Entertainment Computer System (ECS) module offered up in its place.

While approximately four thousand Keyboard Components were manufactured before the module was canceled and recalled, it is not clear how many of them actually found their way into the hands of Intellivision customers. Today, very few of them still exist; when the Keyboard Component was officially canceled, part of Mattel's settlement with the FTC involved offering to buy back all of the existing Keyboard Components from dissatisfied customers. Any customer who opted to keep theirs was required to sign a waiver indicating their understanding that no more software would be written for the system and which absolved Intellivision of any future responsibility for technical support. Several of the units were later used by Mattel Electronics engineers when it was discovered that, with a few minor modifications, a Keyboard Component could be used as an Intellivision software-development system in place of the original hand-built development boards.

The Keyboard Component debacle was ranked as #11 on GameSpy
GameSpy
GameSpy Industries, Inc., known simply as GameSpy, is a division of IGN Entertainment, which operates a network of game websites and provides online video game-related services and software. GameSpy dates back to the 1996 release of an internet Quake server search program named QSpy. The current...

's 25 Dumbest Moments in Gaming.

Entertainment Computer System (ECS)

In mid-1981, Mattel's upper management was becoming concerned that the Keyboard Component division would never be able to produce a sellable product. As a result, Mattel Electronics set up a competing internal engineering team whose stated mission was to produce an inexpensive add-on called the BASIC Development System, or BDS, to be sold as an educational device to introduce kids to the concepts of computer programming.

The rival BDS engineering group, who had to keep the project's real purpose a secret among themselves, fearing that if David Chandler, the head of the Keyboard Component team, found out about it he would use his influence to get the project killed, eventually came up with a much less expensive alternative. Originally dubbed the Lucky, from LUCKI: Low User-Cost Keyboard Interface, it lacked many of the sophisticated features envisioned for the original Keyboard Component. Gone, for example, was the full 64K of RAM and the secondary 6502 CPU; instead, the ECS offered a mere 2K RAM expansion, a built-in BASIC that was marginally functional, plus a much-simplified cassette and thermal-printer interface.

Ultimately, this fulfilled the original promises of turning the Intellivision into a computer, making it possible to write programs and store them to tape, and interfacing with a printer well enough to allow Mattel to claim that they had delivered the promised computer upgrade and stop the FTC's mounting fines. It even offered, via an additional AY-3-8910 sound chip inside the ECS module and an optional 49-key Music Synthesizer keyboard, the possibility of turning the Intellivision into a multi-voice synthesizer which could be used to play or learn music.

In the fall of 1982, the LUCKI, now renamed the Entertainment Computer System
Entertainment Computer System
The Entertainment Computer System was an add-on peripheral for the Intellivision. It was Mattel Electronics' second attempt at creating a peripheral to upgrade the Intellivision into a home computer, rushed into production to appease the Federal Trade Commission after they began fining Mattel for...

 (ECS), was presented at the annual sales meeting, officially ending the ill-fated Keyboard Component project. A new advertising campaign was aired in time for the 1982 Christmas season, and the ECS itself was shown to the public at the January 1983 Consumer Electronic Show (CES) in Las Vegas
Las Vegas metropolitan area
The Las Vegas Valley is the heart of the Las Vegas-Paradise, NV MSA also known as the Las Vegas–Paradise–Henderson MSA which includes all of Clark County, Nevada, and is a metropolitan area in the southern part of the U.S. state of Nevada. The Valley is defined by the Las Vegas Valley landform, a ...

. A few months later, the ECS hit the market, and the FTC agreed to drop the $10K/day fines.

Unfortunately, by the time the ECS made its retail debut, an internal shake-up at the top levels of Mattel Electronics' management had caused the company's focus to shift away from hardware add-ons in favor of software, and the ECS received very little further marketing push. Further hardware developments, including a planned Program Expander that would have added another 16K of RAM and a more intricate, fully featured Extended-BASIC to the system, were halted, and in the end less than a dozen software titles were released for the ECS.

Intellivoice

In 1982, Mattel introduced a new peripheral
Peripheral
A peripheral is a device attached to a host computer, but not part of it, and is more or less dependent on the host. It expands the host's capabilities, but does not form part of the core computer architecture....

 for the Intellivision: The Intellivoice
Intellivoice
The Intellivoice Voice Synthesis Module was an adapter for the Intellivision, Mattel's home gaming console, that utilized a voice synthesizer to generate audible speech...

, a voice synthesis device which produces speech when used with certain games. The Intellivoice was original in two respects: not only was this capability unique to the Intellivision system at the time (although a similar device was available for the Odyssey2), but the speech-supporting games written for Intellivoice actually made the speech an integral part of the gameplay.

Unfortunately, the amount of speech that could be compressed into a 4K or 8K ROM cartridge was limited, and the system did not sell as well as Mattel had hoped; while the initial orders were as high as 300,000 units for the Intellivoice module and its initial game-cartridge offerings, interest in future titles dropped rapidly until the fourth and last Intellivoice title, Tron: Solar Sailer
Tron: Solar Sailer
Tron: Solar Sailer is a game that was released by Mattel for the Intellivision in 1982. The game is one of four released for the console that required the Intellivoice module...

, sold a mere 90,000 units. A fifth game, a children's title called Magic Carousel, was shelved, and in August 1983 the Intellivoice system was quietly phased out.

The four titles available for the Intellivoice system, in order of their release, were:
  • Space Spartans
    Space Spartans
    Space Spartans was a game released for the Mattel Intellivision, initially programmed by Brian Dougherty, and later completed by William C. Fisher and Steve Roney. It is notable for being the first game released which supported the Intellivoice voice synthesis module.-Concept:The overall objective...

  • Bomb Squad
    Bomb Squad (game)
    Bomb Squad was a single-player game released by Mattel for their Intellivision console in 1982. The game was one of five released for the console that required the Intellivoice module. -Gameplay:The object of the game is to defuse a bomb within a set period of time...

  • B-17 Bomber
    B-17 Bomber (game)
    B-17 Bomber was a single-player game released by Mattel for their Intellivision console in 1982. The game required the Intellivoice module.-Summary:...

  • Tron: Solar Sailer
    Tron: Solar Sailer
    Tron: Solar Sailer is a game that was released by Mattel for the Intellivision in 1982. The game is one of four released for the console that required the Intellivoice module...



A fifth title, Intellivision World Series Major League Baseball
Intellivision World Series Baseball
Intellivision World Series Major League Baseball is a baseball sports game , designed by Don Daglow and Eddie Dombrower and published by Mattel for the Intellivision Entertainment Computer System. IWSB was the first video game of any kind to use multiple camera angles, and the first sports game...

, developed as part of the Entertainment Computer System series, also supports the Intellivoice if both the ECS and Intellivoice are connected concurrently. Unlike the Intellivoice-specific games, however, World Series Major League Baseball is also playable without the Intellivoice module (but not without the ECS.)

Intellivision II

In addition to the ECS module, 1983 also saw the introduction of a redesigned model, called the Intellivision II (featuring detachable controllers and sleeker case), the System Changer (which played Atari 2600
Atari 2600
The Atari 2600 is a video game console released in October 1977 by Atari, Inc. It is credited with popularizing the use of microprocessor-based hardware and cartridges containing game code, instead of having non-microprocessor dedicated hardware with all games built in...

 games on the Intellivision II), and a music keyboard add-on for the ECS.

Like the ECS, Intellivision II was designed first and foremost to be inexpensive to manufacture. Among other things, the raised bubble keypad of the original hand controller was replaced by a flat membrane keyboard
Membrane keyboard
A membrane keyboard is a computer keyboard whose "keys" are not separate, moving parts, as with the majority of other keyboards, but rather are pressure pads that have only outlines and symbols printed on a flat, flexible surface...

 surface. However, because many Intellivision games had been designed for users to play by feeling the buttons without looking down, some of these games were far less playable on Intellivision II.

Instead of an internal power supply like the original system had, the Intellivision II would use an external AC adapter. Its main drawback, however, was that it was a non-standard power supply — running on 16.2V — meant that if the AC adapter was lost or damaged, the system could be rendered useless, as replacement power supplies for that particular voltage requirement were not readily available. It is unknown whether Intellivision II AC adapters were sold separately.
Mattel also changed the Intellivision II's internal ROM program (called the EXEC) in an attempt to lock out unlicensed 3rd party titles. To make room for the lock-out code while retaining compatibility with existing titles, some portions of the EXEC code were moved in a way that changed their timing. While most games were unaffected, a couple of the more popular titles, Shark! Shark!
Shark! Shark!
Shark! Shark! is an Intellivision game originally designed by Don Daglow, and with additional design and programming by Ji-Wen Tsao, one of the first female game programmers in the history of video games. The player is a fish who must eat smaller fish in order to gain points and extra lives while...

, and Space Spartans, had certain sound effects that the Intellivision II reproduced differently than intended, although the games remained playable. Electric Company Word Fun did not run at all and INTV's later release Super Pro Football has minor display glitches at the start, both due to the modified EXEC. Mattel's attempt to lock out competitors' software titles was only temporarily successful, as the 3rd-party game manufacturers quickly figured out how to get around it.

Competition and market crash

See also: North American video game crash of 1983


Amid the flurry of new hardware, there was trouble for the Intellivision. New game systems (ColecoVision
ColecoVision
The ColecoVision is Coleco Industries' second generation home video game console which was released in August 1982. The ColecoVision offered arcade-quality graphics and gaming style, and the means to expand the system's basic hardware...

, Emerson Arcadia 2001
Arcadia 2001
The Arcadia 2001 is a second-generation 8-bit console released by Emerson Radio Corp. The game library was composed of 51 unique games and about 10 variations. The graphic quality is similar to that of the Intellivision and the Odyssey²....

, Atari 5200
Atari 5200
The Atari 5200 SuperSystem, commonly known as the Atari 5200, is a video game console that was introduced in 1982 by Atari Inc. as a higher end complementary console for the popular Atari 2600...

, and Vectrex
Vectrex
The Vectrex is a vector display-based video game console that was developed by Western Technologies/Smith Engineering. It was licensed and distributed first by General Consumer Electric , and then by Milton Bradley Company after their purchase of GCE...

, all in 1982) were further subdividing the market, and the video game crash
Video game crash of 1983
The North American video game crash was a serious event that brought an abrupt end to what is considered the second generation of console video gaming in North America. Beginning in 1983, the crash almost destroyed the then-fledgling industry and led to the bankruptcy of several companies producing...

 began to put pressure on the entire industry. The Intellivision team rushed to finish a major new round of games, including BurgerTime
Burgertime
is a 1982 arcade game created by Data East for its DECO Cassette System. The game's original title, Hamburger, was changed to BurgerTime before its introduction to the US. The player is chef Peter Pepper, who must walk over hamburger ingredients located across a maze of platforms while avoiding...

and the ultra-secret 3D glasses game Hover Force
Hover Force
Hover Force is a video game published by INTV Corporation for the Intellivision video game system in 1986. The game was initially developed by Mattel Electronics with the intent of it being played in 3-D, but the company was shut down before it could be released; INTV, after acquiring the...

. Although Burgertime was a popular game on the Intellivision and was programmed by Blue Sky Ranger Ray Kaestner in record time, the five-month manufacturing cycle meant that the game did not appear until the late spring of 1983, after the video game crash had severely damaged game sales.

In the spring of 1983, Mattel went from aggressively hiring game programmers to laying them off
Layoff
Layoff , also called redundancy in the UK, is the temporary suspension or permanent termination of employment of an employee or a group of employees for business reasons, such as when certain positions are no longer necessary or when a business slow-down occurs...

 within a two-week period. By August, there were massive layoffs, and the price of the Intellivision II (which launched at $150 earlier that year) was lowered to $69. Mattel Electronics posted a $300 million loss. Early in 1984, the division was closed — the first high-profile victim of the crash.

Intellivision game sales continued when a liquidator
Liquidator (law)
In law, a liquidator is the officer appointed when a company goes into winding-up or liquidation who has responsibility for collecting in all of the assets of the company and settling all claims against the company before putting the company into dissolution....

 purchased all rights to the Intellivision and its software from Mattel, as well as all remaining inventory. After much of the existing software inventory had been sold, former Mattel Marketing executive Terry Valeski bought all rights to Intellivision and started a new venture. The new company, INTV Corp., continued to sell old stock via retail and mail order. When the old stock of Intellivision II consoles ran out, they introduced a new console dubbed INTV III. This unit was actually a cosmetic rebadge of the original Intellivision console (this unit was later renamed the Super Pro System.) In addition to manufacturing new consoles, INTV Corp. also continued to develop new games, releasing a few new titles each year. Eventually, the system was discontinued in 1991.

Intellivision games became readily available again when Keith Robinson, an early Intellivision programmer responsible for the game TRON: Solar Sailer purchased the software rights and founded a new company, Intellivision Productions. As a result, games originally designed for the Intellivision are available on PCs and modern-day consoles including the PlayStation 2
PlayStation 2
The PlayStation 2 is a sixth-generation video game console manufactured by Sony as part of the PlayStation series. Its development was announced in March 1999 and it was first released on March 4, 2000, in Japan...

, Xbox
Xbox
The Xbox is a sixth-generation video game console manufactured by Microsoft. It was released on November 15, 2001 in North America, February 22, 2002 in Japan, and March 14, 2002 in Australia and Europe and is the predecessor to the Xbox 360. It was Microsoft's first foray into the gaming console...

, and Nintendo GameCube
Nintendo GameCube
The , officially abbreviated to NGC in Japan and GCN in other regions, is a sixth generation video game console released by Nintendo on September 15, 2001 in Japan, November 18, 2001 in North America, May 3, 2002 in Europe, and May 17, 2002 in Australia...

 in the Intellivision Lives!
Intellivision Lives!
Intellivision Lives! is a compilation of various games from the Intellivision and released for the Nintendo GameCube, PlayStation 2, and Xbox. In addition, there are three exclusive games that were never released for the original console. A Nintendo DS version was released on October 27, 2010.It...

package, though all are now out of print at retail. However, the Xbox version is available for purchase as a downloadable game through Xbox Live Game Marketplace's Xbox Originals service for the Xbox 360. VH1 Classic
VH1 Classic
VH1 Classic is a television network, launched on May 8, 2000. It is operated as part of MTV Networks, a subsidiary of Viacom and primarily features music videos and concert footage from the 1970s through the mid-1990s, though it formerly included a wider range of genres and time periods...

 and MTV Networks
MTV Networks
MTV Networks is a division of media conglomerate Viacom that oversees the operations of many television channels and Internet brands, including the original MTV channel in the United States...

 released 6 Intellivision games to iOS. A few licensed Intellivision games are available through the GameTap
GameTap
GameTap is an American online video game service established by Turner Broadcasting System . Dubbed by TBS as a "first of its kind broadband gaming network", the service provides users with classic arcade video games and game-related video content...

 subscription gaming service. Also, several LCD handheld and direct-to-TV games have been released in recent years.

On March 24, 2010, Microsoft
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...

 launched the Game Room
Game Room
Game Room is a gaming service for the Xbox 360 video game system, Microsoft Windows PCs, and Windows Phone 7. Launched on March 24, 2010, Game Room lets players download classic video games and compete against each other for high scores...

 service for Xbox Live
Xbox Live
Xbox Live is an online multiplayer gaming and digital media delivery service created and operated by Microsoft Corporation. It is currently the only online gaming service on consoles that charges users a fee to play multiplayer gaming. It was first made available to the Xbox system in 2002...

 and Games for Windows Live. This service includes support for Intellivision titles and allows players to compete against one another for high scores via online leaderboards. At the 2011 Consumer Electronics Show
Consumer Electronics Show
The International Consumer Electronics Show is a major technology-related trade show held each January in the Las Vegas Convention Center, Las Vegas, Nevada, United States. Not open to the public, the Consumer Electronics Association-sponsored show typically hosts previews of products and new...

, Microsoft announced a version of Game Room for Windows Phone 7
Windows Phone 7
Windows Phone is a mobile operating system developed by Microsoft, and is the successor to its Windows Mobile platform, although incompatible with it. Unlike its predecessor, it is primarily aimed at the consumer market rather than the enterprise market...

, promising a catalog of 44 Intellivision titles.

A newer version of the Intellivision Lives! game is in development for the Nintendo DS
Nintendo DS
The is a portable game console produced by Nintendo, first released on November 21, 2004. A distinctive feature of the system is the presence of two separate LCD screens, the lower of which is a touchscreen, encompassed within a clamshell design, similar to the Game Boy Advance SP...

.

Reviews and game guides

Ken Uston
Ken Uston
Ken Uston was a famous blackjack player, strategist, and author, credited with popularizing the concept of team play at blackjack...

 published Ken Uston's Guide to Buying and Beating the Home Video Games
Ken Uston's Guide to Buying and Beating the Home Video Games
Ken Uston's Guide to Buying and Beating the Home Video Games was published in May 1982. The book, published by Signet in New York, was a brief guide to strategy for console video games in existence at the time. The book was divided into chapters by console type or manufacturer, and each chapter...

in 1982 as a guide to potential buyers of console systems/cartridges, as well as a brief strategy guide to numerous cartridge games then in existence. He described Intellivision as "the most mechanically reliable of the systems… The controller (used during "many hours of experimentation") worked with perfect consistency. The unit never had overheating problems, nor were loose wires or other connections encountered." However, Uston rated the controls and control system as "below average" and the worst of the consoles he tested (including Atari 2600
Atari 2600
The Atari 2600 is a video game console released in October 1977 by Atari, Inc. It is credited with popularizing the use of microprocessor-based hardware and cartridges containing game code, instead of having non-microprocessor dedicated hardware with all games built in...

, Magnavox Odyssey²
Magnavox Odyssey²
The Magnavox Odyssey², known in Europe as the Philips Videopac G7000, in Brazil as the Philips Odyssey, in the United States as the Magnavox Odyssey² and the Philips Odyssey², and also by many other names, is a video game console released in 1978.In the early 1970s, Magnavox was an innovator in the...

, Astrovision, and Fairchild Channel F
Fairchild Channel F
The Fairchild Channel F is a game console released by Fairchild Semiconductor in August 1976 at the retail price of $169.95. It has the distinction of being the first programmable ROM cartridge-based video game console...

).

Jeff Rovin lists Intellivision as one of the seven major suppliers of videogames in 1982, and mentions it as "the unchallenged king of graphics", however stating that the controllers can be "difficult to operate", the fact that if a controller breaks the entire unit must be shipped off for repairs (since they did not detach at first), and that the overlays "are sometimes so stubborn as to tempt one's patience".

Innovations

  • Intellivision can be considered the first 16-bit
    16-bit
    -16-bit architecture:The HP BPC, introduced in 1975, was the world's first 16-bit microprocessor. Prominent 16-bit processors include the PDP-11, Intel 8086, Intel 80286 and the WDC 65C816. The Intel 8088 was program-compatible with the Intel 8086, and was 16-bit in that its registers were 16...

     game console, as the registers
    Processor register
    In computer architecture, a processor register is a small amount of storage available as part of a CPU or other digital processor. Such registers are addressed by mechanisms other than main memory and can be accessed more quickly...

     in the microprocessor
    Microprocessor
    A microprocessor incorporates the functions of a computer's central processing unit on a single integrated circuit, or at most a few integrated circuits. It is a multipurpose, programmable device that accepts digital data as input, processes it according to instructions stored in its memory, and...

    , where the mathematical logic is processed, are 16 bits wide.
  • The Intellivision was also the first system to feature downloadable games. Although, without a storage device the games vanished once the machine was turned off. In 1981, General Instrument
    General Instrument
    General Instrument was an electronics manufacturer based in Horsham, PA specializing in semiconductors and cable television equipment. The company was active until 1997, when it split into which was later acquired by Vishay Intertechnology in 2001, CommScope and NextLevel Systems General...

     teamed up with Mattel to roll out the PlayCable
    PlayCable
    The PlayCable system, introduced in 1981, allowed local cable-TV system operators to send Intellivision games over the wire alongside the normal TV signal...

    , a device that allowed the downloading of Intellivision games via cable TV.
  • Intellivision was the first game console to provide real-time human and robot voices in the middle of gameplay, courtesy of the IntelliVoice module. The voice chip used, the SPO256 Orator, was developed jointly by Mattel and General Instrument.
  • Intellivision was the first console to feature a controller with a directional pad that allowed 16 directions. The disc-shaped pad allowed players to control action without lifting the thumb and was considered by many Intellivision users to be a useful innovation. However, the ergonomics of the "action" buttons on the side of the controller were poor, and the disc-pad was perceived by potential buyers as unfamiliar. Along with cost, this was one of the factors in making the Intellivision less popular than the Atari 2600. However, it is interesting to note that the method of controlling movement on the Intellivision, with the thumb, is emulated in many subsequent video game controllers. The joystick-style controller, as seen on the VCS, has not been widely emulated on later consoles. A third-party joystick attachment was available by around 1984, that was installed by opening the controller and fitting the paddle over the disc. A flange around the hollow plastic conical joystick held it in securely when the controller's upper cover was replaced; and a much easier joystick control was the result. The Joystick was about three inches in height; it could not be gripped by the entire hand.
  • The Intellivision was also the first game console or home computer to offer a musical synthesizer keyboard. The Music Synthesizer keyboard was designed as a secondary add-on for the ECS, and was intended to lead to a series of music-oriented software titles for both educational and entertainment purposes, but only one title, Melody Blaster, was ever released.
  • Intellivision was also the first console to have a complete built-in character font. While Odyssey 2 had a limited character font (uppercase alphabet, numerals, and some other characters), Intellivision's system font had complete upper- and lowercase alphabets, numerals, and almost all of the punctuation and symbols found on standard computer keyboards.

Technical specifications

  • General Instrument CP1610
    General Instrument CP1600
    The CP1600 was a 16-bit microprocessor created in a partnership between General Instrument and Honeywell in the 1970s. The CP1600's design was based on the PDP-11, whose design also formed the basis of the Western Digital MCP-1600 and influenced others...

     16-bit microprocessor CPU
    Central processing unit
    The central processing unit is the portion of a computer system that carries out the instructions of a computer program, to perform the basic arithmetical, logical, and input/output operations of the system. The CPU plays a role somewhat analogous to the brain in the computer. The term has been in...

     running at 894.886 kHz (i.e., slightly less than 1 MHz)
  • 1456 byte
    Byte
    The byte is a unit of digital information in computing and telecommunications that most commonly consists of eight bits. Historically, a byte was the number of bits used to encode a single character of text in a computer and for this reason it is the basic addressable element in many computer...

    s of RAM
    Random-access memory
    Random access memory is a form of computer data storage. Today, it takes the form of integrated circuits that allow stored data to be accessed in any order with a worst case performance of constant time. Strictly speaking, modern types of DRAM are therefore not random access, as data is read in...

    :
    • 240 × 8-bit Scratchpad Memory
    • 352 × 16-bit (704 bytes) System Memory
    • 512 × 8-bit Graphics RAM
  • 7168 bytes of ROM
    Read-only memory
    Read-only memory is a class of storage medium used in computers and other electronic devices. Data stored in ROM cannot be modified, or can be modified only slowly or with difficulty, so it is mainly used to distribute firmware .In its strictest sense, ROM refers only...

    :
    • 4096 × 10-bit (5120 bytes) Executive ROM
    • 2048 × 8-bit Graphics ROM
  • 159 pixel
    Pixel
    In digital imaging, a pixel, or pel, is a single point in a raster image, or the smallest addressable screen element in a display device; it is the smallest unit of picture that can be represented or controlled....

    s wide by 96 pixels high (159x192 display on a TV screen, scanlines being doubled)
  • 16 color palette, all of which can be on the screen at once
  • 8 sprite
    Sprite (computer graphics)
    In computer graphics, a sprite is a two-dimensional image or animation that is integrated into a larger scene...

    s. Hardware supports the following features per-sprite:
    • Size selection: 8×8 or 8×16
    • Stretching: Horizontal (1× or 2×) and vertical (1×, 2×, 4× or 8×)
    • Mirroring: Horizontal and vertical
    • Collision detection: Sprite to sprite, sprite to background, and sprite to screen border
    • Priority: Selects whether sprite appears in front of or behind background.
  • three channel sound, with one noise generator (audio chip
    Sound chip
    A sound chip is an integrated circuit designed to produce sound . It might be doing this through digital, analog or mixed-mode electronics...

    : General Instrument AY-3-8910
    General Instrument AY-3-8910
    The AY-3-8910 is a 3-voice Programmable Sound Generator designed by General Instrument, initially for use with their 16-bit CP1610 or one of the PIC1650 series of 8-bit microcomputers...

    )

Game controller

The Intellivision controller featured:
  • 12-button numeric keypad
    Numeric keypad
    A numeric keypad, numpad or tenkey for short, is the small, palm-sized, seventeen key section of a computer keyboard, usually on the very far right. The numeric keypad features digits 0 to 9, addition , subtraction , multiplication and division symbols, a decimal point and Num Lock and Enter keys...

     (0-9, Clear, and Enter)
  • Four side-located action buttons (where the top two are actually electronically the same, giving three distinct buttons)
  • A directional disk, capable of detecting 16 directions of movement
  • Laminated overlays that would slide into place as an extra layer on the keypad to show game-specific key functions


The controller was ranked the fourth worst video game controller by IGN
IGN
IGN is an entertainment website that focuses on video games, films, music and other media. IGN's main website comprises several specialty sites or "channels", each occupying a subdomain and covering a specific area of entertainment...

 editor Craig Harris.

See also

  • List of Intellivision games
  • TV POWWW
    TV POWWW
    TV POWWW was a franchised television game show format, in which home viewers controlled a video game via telephone in hopes of winning prizes.-History:...

    (interactive TV game show that used Intellivision)

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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