67 replies to this topic

[DZ-Jay]

BillyHW, on Mon Apr 23, 2012 1:20 PM, said:

When did I "just use vulgar language", exactly?

In the interest of extending an olive branch, I will own up to that comment and apologize.  Reading back, I noticed I misspoke, sorry.

       -dZ.

[NS7D]

The printer for the keyboard component was connected through either of the expansion ports. As far as I can tell, it's a parallel printer port. No memory.

[Tempest]

NS7D, on Mon Apr 23, 2012 5:03 PM, said:

The printer for the keyboard component was connected through either of the expansion ports. As far as I can tell, it's a parallel printer port. No memory.

I believe a 'prototype' printer for the keyboard component was recently found.  I think it's the same printer as the Aquarius printer, just with a different badge.

[NS7D]

Tempest, on Mon Apr 23, 2012 5:21 PM, said:

NS7D, on Mon Apr 23, 2012 5:03 PM, said:

The printer for the keyboard component was connected through either of the expansion ports. As far as I can tell, it's a parallel printer port. No memory.

I believe a 'prototype' printer for the keyboard component was recently found.  I think it's the same printer as the Aquarius printer, just with a different badge.

I'm very aware of the 'prototype' printer since it was my wife who inherited it from 'Papa Intellivision'. It looks very much like the printer in the offer that was included with the keyboard components (http://papaintellivi...s/PrinterAd.pdf). One of these days I'll post picture of some of the Intellivision things she inherited.

[SoulBlazer]

I always wondered about the Keyboard Compotent -- there was a disconnect somewhere in Matell at the time it was being designed and planned (circa 1979).  Of course, this happens in many companies, but this one is interesting not only cause of the effects it had (the lawsuit, the ECS, and so on) but what might have been.  As others have said, the Keyboard Compotent was a VERY popular computer add on for it's time.

Did no one in the higher up's at Matell realize that it wasn't possible to produce the KC at a affordable price point?  Or was it a case of thinking the KC could be done at a good price, and then realizing after the fact what it would cause -- putting the cart before the horse, so to say?

I'd love to know just how many of them still exist.  If the oft reported number of 4000 being sold at a loss to apease customers who complained is correct, I wonder how many chose to hang on to them when Matell offered to buyback -- and how many still work today.  If I had to make a educated guess, I'd say the number of KC's that still surive and that work is less then a thousand.

[cmart604]

NS7D, on Mon Apr 23, 2012 5:57 PM, said:

Tempest, on Mon Apr 23, 2012 5:21 PM, said:

NS7D, on Mon Apr 23, 2012 5:03 PM, said:

The printer for the keyboard component was connected through either of the expansion ports. As far as I can tell, it's a parallel printer port. No memory.

I believe a 'prototype' printer for the keyboard component was recently found.  I think it's the same printer as the Aquarius printer, just with a different badge.

I'm very aware of the 'prototype' printer since it was my wife who inherited it from 'Papa Intellivision'. It looks very much like the printer in the offer that was included with the keyboard components (http://papaintellivi...s/PrinterAd.pdf). One of these days I'll post picture of some of the Intellivision things she inherited.

I'd love to see pics of this stuff, I'm pretty sure everyone else would too. The website is a great resource as well, thanks again for creating it.

[Tempest]

NS7D, on Mon Apr 23, 2012 5:57 PM, said:

Tempest, on Mon Apr 23, 2012 5:21 PM, said:

NS7D, on Mon Apr 23, 2012 5:03 PM, said:

The printer for the keyboard component was connected through either of the expansion ports. As far as I can tell, it's a parallel printer port. No memory.

I believe a 'prototype' printer for the keyboard component was recently found.  I think it's the same printer as the Aquarius printer, just with a different badge.

I'm very aware of the 'prototype' printer since it was my wife who inherited it from 'Papa Intellivision'. It looks very much like the printer in the offer that was included with the keyboard components (http://papaintellivi...s/PrinterAd.pdf). One of these days I'll post picture of some of the Intellivision things she inherited.

Ah ok, I didn't realize that you (or your wife) were the owner.  

[atarilovesyou]

Wow, just when you thought you heard it all!  Thanks for the links, guys.   With the knowledge of the Keyboard Component, why on earth would Coleco have thought that they could deliver where Mattel could not?  I guess it's not a totally fair comparison, but kudos to Mattel for even trying to release something so ambitious.

What are one of these Keyboard Components (and its rare add-ons) worth in the wild?...and I wonder if anyone back then would have considered keeping the system strictly for collectiblility?

I'm amazed that the Federal Trade Commission would have actually stuck up for the many people out there who truly bought an Intellivision for the KC alone...being charged for vapourware, wow!  How did Coleco dodge this bullet?...I guess vapourware is different when it isn't just a few games, but a computer add-on.

Fascinating stuff at any rate.  Thanks!

[BillyHW]

The Coleco Adam expansion module was actually released (widely), and there was a standalone Adam as well.

I think the Adam was set up to compete with, and was comparable to, the already successful C64.

It did suffer from a fatal hardware flaw though which did great damage to its reputation.

But basically it was exactly what was advertised:  the ColecoVision + the expansion module became a full-fledged Adam, for a combined total price that equalled the amount for the standalone unit.  So people could actually buy the ColecoVision "now" cheaply, and then decide "later" if they wanted to upgrade to the full computer.  (That's the sort of thing that helped a lot of early 80's parents justify buying a game system.)

[DZ-Jay]

BillyHW, on Mon Apr 23, 2012 11:45 PM, said:

The Coleco Adam expansion module was actually released (widely), and there was a standalone Adam as well.

I think the Adam was set up to compete with, and was comparable to, the already successful C64.

It did suffer from a fatal hardware flaw though which did great damage to its reputation.

What was that flaw?  I never had a ColecoVision nor Adam computer, so I'm not very familiar with it.

dZ.

[Tempest]

DZ-Jay, on Tue Apr 24, 2012 4:18 AM, said:

What was that flaw?  

I've heard similar things but I also never could get a straight answer on what it was.  The best I heard was that the built in software (like Smart Writer) was buggy, but I don't know if I'd call that a 'fatal flaw'.

[BillyHW]

I think if you left a tape in the drive on power up, and electromagnetic surge could erase the contents.

[DZ-Jay]

BillyHW, on Tue Apr 24, 2012 9:30 AM, said:

I think if you left a tape in the drive on power up, and electromagnetic surge could erase the contents.

Ouch! That is indeed a fatal flaw.

    -dZ.

[Tempest]

BillyHW, on Tue Apr 24, 2012 9:30 AM, said:

I think if you left a tape in the drive on power up, and electromagnetic surge could erase the contents.

Oh yeah I read about that.  I've personally never had it do that to one of my tapes, but I guess I could be lucky.  These days I use only disks anyway.

[BillyHW]

It's really too bad.  Adam could have been a great competitor to the C64.

[DZ-Jay]

BillyHW, on Tue Apr 24, 2012 12:15 PM, said:

It's really too bad.  Adam could have been a great competitor to the C64.

I don't know, by 1982 I could buy a C=64 in K-Mart for about $99--less if on sale.  That's pretty cheap, convenient, and accessible to the average family.

I know I went through 4 of them in a couple of years.

-dZ.

Edited by DZ-Jay, Tue Apr 24, 2012 12:44 PM.

[high voltage]

DZ-Jay, on Mon Apr 23, 2012 5:05 AM, said:

BillyHW, on Sun Apr 22, 2012 8:42 PM, said:

DZ-Jay, on Sun Apr 22, 2012 7:45 PM, said:

BillyHW, on Sun Apr 22, 2012 6:48 PM, said:

I'm not arguing anything. I'm laughing and poking fun at early 80's false advertising and vaporware. The video was a riot what with the fake tape drive and computer screens. For some reason you seem to be taking it personally, and I don't know why. It's just an Intellivision dude. We're all having fun here. BTW, I'm looking at the Apple Store now to see if they are claiming expandability to 16 exabytes of memory for the iMac. I'll let you know what I find. Did they even provide any mechanism by which you could expand the memory at all?

It wasn't so much false advertisement as you are claiming it to be. First you deride the computer-controlled tape drive and suggested that it was fake, and someone then mentions that it was real. Then you focus your ridicule in voice-control (which wasn't really claimed by the original video), and then it's something about 8 MB of memory, as if the manual was suggesting that the machine had that. The Keyboard Component was an impressive piece of hardware for its time. Indeed, part of the problem was that it was stretching the limitations of the hardware in a way that did not make it commercially viable or cost-effective. The original video posted in the thread was a marketing prop created before the software was finished--it was intended to convey the features of the upcoming product, not to suggest that it cured cancer or travelled through time. We all love a bit of fun, but your comments are a bit rude and spiteful. -dZ.

Part of charity is not taking offence where no offence was intended.

There was much in that video that was false advertising.  The tape drive in the video was fake.  The computer screenshots in the video were fake.  I did not even mention voice control.

Mattel was taken to court over their false advertising over the keyboard component...and lost.  It's part of history.  I can laugh at the 80s...why can't you?

Now will you be able to let things go and not escalate this further?

Just to be clear, they were taken to court because they promised to release the Keyboard Component as part of a full fledged computer system, and people bought the Intellivision Master Component with that intention.  The Keyboard Component kept being constantly delayed, so the FTC accused them of it being "vapor-ware."

It was a real product, it was in development, it did work--it was just not cost-effective.  They produced about 4000 of them and sold them at a loss to appease the complaints, and eventually released the ECS module to relieve the FTC suit.  (Now, that ECS module--that's a travesty of crap, if you ask me!)

The problem was not "false advertisement" because it was a fake, the problem was that they over-promised what they could provide at an acceptable cost.  The machine was promised at around $500.00, but the cost of materials was around $800.00--and that was using cheap components that made it unreliable.

It was indeed a fine piece of engineering and, attached to the Master Component system, it made for a very powerful computer system--especially when you considered it was built in 1979.  It just could not be sold at $500.00 as promised without taking Mattel Electronics down financially.  They kept iterating to bring the costs down, hence the delays.

The first video you saw was a concept video showing what the device could do.  It had mocked-up screens, but the functional capabilities shown was actually what the real Keyboard Component did.

I do not take offense at you poking fun at the 80s.  What I find objectionable is that you seem to ridicule the history for the very wrong reasons, ignoring facts, while nit-picking things out of context.  It's sad, because it shows that the context and the full story of that history has been lost.

Now, if you prefer to just use vulgar language to ridicule whatever you please without context or reason, then I'm done in this thread and I won't bother you again.  I thought I would share some historical facts and details that you seemed to have missed, but I guess that is not appreciated.

-dZ.

Billy Boy tried that also in the 7800 forum, he's some NES fanboy guy and die hard Wikipedia believer coming here to ....look like an ASS?

Edited by high voltage, Tue Apr 24, 2012 2:00 PM.

[Tempest]

high voltage, on Tue Apr 24, 2012 1:59 PM, said:

Billy Boy tried that also in the 7800 forum, he's some NES fanboy guy and die hard Wikipedia believer coming here to ....look like an ASS?

Please stop stirring up crap.