The Intellivision was a personal favorite of mine. Utopia was the first real strategy that I ever played. I wish I still had it. This machine sported two built-in controllers that were as comfortable as they were practical. The unique disk-shaped directional pad provided unprecedented control for the time, and the numeric keypad opened up new options previously unavailable in console gaming. The Intellivion not only had plent of action titles, but simple role-playing games (like the DD games?), casino games, and many more. Even though there were a good amount of games for the Intellivision, there wasn't anything that really stood out. The Intellivision became popular enough to where a second, equally powerful version had to be released. The Intellivision 2 was more compact, had longer controller cords and looked much more sophisticated and modern. The Intellisvion had also had the Intellivoice module. Any Intellivision game would plug into this gadget, which in turn, would plug into the main cartridge slot of the system. Any Intellivoice-compatible game would then give you speech in the game!! It was an important innovation back then, as game systems did not have the capability to talk. This added a new dimension in gaming, as the computer could tell you some of the things that were going on in the game.
The Intellivision is a video game console released by Mattel in 1979. Development of the console began in 1978, less than a year after the introduction of its main competitor, the Atari 2600. 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.
Intellivision was the first 16-bit game console, though some people have mistakenly referred to it as a 10-bit system because the CPU's instruction set and game cartridges are 10 bits wide. The registers in the microprocessor, where the mathematical logic is processed, were 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 teamed up with Mattel to roll out the PlayCable, 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 SP0256 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.
General Instrument CP1610 16-bit microprocessor CPU running at 894.886 kHz (i.e., slightly less than 1 MHz)
1456 bytes of RAM:
240 × 8-bit Scratchpad Memory
352 × 16-bit (704 bytes) System Memory
512 × 8-bit Graphics RAM
7168 bytes of ROM:
4096 × 10-bit (5120 bytes) Executive ROM
2048 × 8-bit Graphics ROM
160 pixels wide by 196 pixels high (5×2 TV pixels make one Intellivision pixel)
16 color palette, all of which can be on the screen at once
8 sprites. Hardware supports the following features per-sprite:
Size selection: 8×8 or 8×16
Stretching: Horizontal (1×, 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: General Instrument AY-3-8910)
