An Odyssey Reborn
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Welcome to the era of the dedicated Pong machine. It's a mercifully short era, over most of which I shall skip.
Before we talk about the first 1975 Odyssey, I must tell you there is another 1975 Odyssey: The Magnavox Odyssey 200. Apparently it is a different color than the one we are about to discuss. Dang, I guess I'll have to find one of those now, too.
The Magnavox Odyssey 100 is a garishly orange, slightly sleeker looking version of the original Magnavox Odyssey. (The original is pictured under the TV, the newer one is in front of it.
Here it is in all it's glory hooked up to an anachronistic, yet still very retro, TV.
There are two games on the Odyssey 100: Game A and Game B, most likely denoted as such due to a lack of space on the "game name" area of the unit. You and I will call them Tennis and Hockey.
The first game is Tennis. Seen above. The game is standard Odyssey fare, except for two differences. The first difference is Sound. This thing Beeps. This was before we figured out the secret techonology (or rationalization) to make Beeps come from our TV. These Beeps come from within the very unit itself.
The second difference to this Odyssey Tennis is the addition of an upper and lower boundary to the screen. Each player gets three knobs to control. A Horizontal, a vertical and an English. Sound familiar? The English is used to curve the Ball Spot to fake out your opponent. If you try to slam it off the top of the screen it bounces off it! That's new.
Figuring out how to serve the ball was a challenge. There's no button for either player and nothing on the "dashboard" seems to accomplish anything other than turning the unit off, choosing A or B game, adjusting the Speed and adjusting the position of the center line.
Adusting the center line tipped us off. I moved the line to the left and it hit the left player spot, causing a ball serve. To serve the ball, the player who last missed the ball simply moves their Paddle Spot to touch the center line. Ball is served. Avoid missing ball for high score. (har!)
Score is kept manually by conveniently provided "score keeper things" in the center of the unit. You miss the ball, your opponent gets to move his score keeper thing up one notch. This is a lot easier than actually counting and remembering, but still lacks a certain flair.
Hockey makes TWO vertical lines and puts a gap halfway down them. The gap is your goal and you must protect it. You serve by touching your goal wall. *yawn*
Gameplay was "meh". Kinda like the first Odyssey just with the knobs positioned differently.
Here's something not interesting. See that RCA connector? I'm told that's what the European RCA connectors used to look like in the 70s (A guy at a Radio Shack told me that. Your answers may differ). That's the kind of connector used on the Odyssey 100 and the first Odyssey. They're compatible! So if you get an original Odyssey without a TV RF Switch, you can cannibalize the TV Switch box from the Odyssey 100. I imagine this will work for other Odyssey's down the line.
EDIT: I forgot to mention, the AC adaptor for the first Odyssey, works with this one, too.
Next entry will probably be a place holder entry for the Odyssey 200, like prev-entry was/is for Pong.
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