Intellivision II Joystick

[Feyer]

 

I came across this image while reading through the Mattel 1983 press kit. Apparently it was designed (probably prototype only) by Mattel and not by third-party.

 

I wonder if this was in response to the up and coming flight simulator programs that were all the rage in the early days of PC's.

 

Thoughts?

 

[Uzumaki]

No idea but it sure looks a lot more comfortable to use than 3rd party sticks. Either the version with adhesive that stuck to the disc or the one that involves taking apart the controller to swap the disc for the stick. I have the latter that came with a Sears Arcade and it wasn't comfortable to use for big hands, I ended up swapping for disc out of a Mattel Inty system

[Bill Loguidice]

It looks like it had the same dreadful keypad and side buttons as the stock Intellivision II controller, which makes me wonder how well that would work with the tork from the joystick. It looks more inspirational than practical.

 

In any case, much like with Coleco, it would have been incredibly interesting if there was less of a downturn in the market and Mattel Electronics was able to squeak by and push forward with all of their crazy ideas for at least a few more years.

[Feyer]

The design is curiously similar to the WICO Command Control joystick- just without the flight yoke style handle.

 

And yes, it would have been a much different video game landscape if Mattel (and others) didn't get cold feet in 1983. Atari, Mattel & Coleco handed it all to Nintendo and Sega in the end!

[CatPix]

That could be discussed on a whole dedicaced thread, and even series of threads, but I'm far than convinced that Nintendo and Sega would have never been able to grow big in the end.

Sega... Maybe. They would have been likely to associate with Mattel or Coleco for havign an hardware support - but Sega was an arcade manufacturer, Coleco wasn't. In the end, maybe Coleco would have made a Coleco II and/or develop the Super Game Module, but the Coleco III would have been entierely a Sega product (the Megadrive).

Nintendo did planned to cooperate with Atari, but Atari stopped the deal in 1982; Nintendo decided to release the Famicom on their own.

It's unlikely that in the end, with their domination on the Japanese market, Nintendo would have stayed in Japan. We may never had the NES, but the Super NES? certainly.

Atari's demise was due to happen, market krash or not, so they would have probably ended the same anyway - rehashing 5 then 8 years old arcade ports for the 5200 and 7800 was simply not enough. Especially if you consider that even in this scenarios, we would get Japanese styled Sega games on the Colecovision, so people would expect more than arcade games to come from Atari.

Edited July 1, 2014 by CatPix

[mr_me]

I found this old topic during a google search.

 

The Intellivision Lives website mentions this controller and others.

 

http://www.intellivisionlives.com/bluesky/hardware/intelli2_tech.html

"(The plug-in controllers also provided an opportunity to propose alternate types of controllers such as track balls and light guns. While most of these never got beyond the brainstorming stage, a trigger-joystick controller - code named Dandelion - was shown at the January 1984 Consumer Electronics Show for a "proposed 1984 introduction.")"

 

Would it be possible to program Intellivision games that makes use of trackballs, spinners, or analog sticks connected to the standard 9-pin controller port?

 

edit:

There are several games I could think of, new and old, that would be better with a spinner controller.

Edited November 23, 2015 by mr_me

[+fdr4prez]

Would it be possible to program Intellivision games that makes use of trackballs, spinners, or analog sticks connected to the standard 9-pin controller port?

 

That is an interesting question.

 

Or a light gun? Can we take an existing light gun and get it working on an Inty? I've read that they don't work on LED/plasma televisions, so it'll force playing on CRT.

[+BBWW]

Forcing us back to Cathode ray tubes would make it DOA.

[freewheel]

Forcing us back to Cathode ray tubes would make it DOA.

 

You play on anything but? Blasphemy! I'm writing Music Synthesizer software and I'm pretty sure more people use a CRT than that

 

There are ways to make a light gun work on a non-CRT, it's just a serious limitation. And not very practical given what we can do with the Intellivision.

[+BBWW]

? Blasphemy! I'm writing Music Synthesizer software and I'm pretty sure more people use a CRT than that

 

Blasphemy, true, and guilty. I think more and more of us are not using CRT any longer. But it may be more

[1980gamer]

Light gun... How about a sensor bar like the Wii. But where would it connect to the console? Cart port? Maybe one of the Multi-Carts could handle this I/O.

It could then work with all consoles. Though no one would want to delay release of the carts.

 

Or I guess it could be an ECS add-on. Tron Deadly Disc's with a Wii type controller would be awesome!

 

VR Tron Deadly Disc's

[+fdr4prez]

Aren't the normal controller ports just a ground connection? meaning no power there? So it would mean controllers like a light gun, and other, that need power would need an external power source.

 

But that J2 connector on the Intellivoice for the wireless controller option has power there, but from the schematics looks like it is not a simple controller connection point either. But maybe that J2 port can be utilized for adapting third-party controllers