Three different samples of the IntelliVision brochures from the 80's

[HDTV1080P]

I never purchased an IntelliVision, however there were features of that videogame system that attracted me. The IntelliVision came out in 1979, however it did not get a nationwide release until 1980 (That is when I got an opportunity to play some of its games in a retail store, graphics were a little better than the older 1977 Atari 2600). The IntelliVision was so popular in 1980 that the videogame system was not discontinued until 1990 and by then it had sold an estimated 3.5 million units. My first videogame system was the much more powerful 1982 ColecoVision system which I turned into a ADAM computer with Expansion module #3 in 1983. The ADAM had Supergames that were even better than the ColecoVision. However the ColecoVision/ADAM went out of production in January of 1985. Only 2 million ColecoVision’s were sold. Therefore the IntelliVision was a more popular videogame system with 3.5 million units sold, however it took 10 years to reach that number. The less powerful Atari 2600 from 1977 to its discontinued date in January 1992, sold 30 million units.

 

Attached are three different samples of the IntelliVision brochures that I picked up in a retail store back around 1980-81 and 1982. Before I went with the ColecoVision around August of 1982, my parents and I were considering purchasing the IntelliVision in 1981 and we were interested in getting the Mattel Keyboard Component in 1981 after listening to a retail store sales pitch. However, the ADAM computer ended up being more popular when compared to the Mattel Keyboard component (Only around 4,000 keyboard components were manufactured by Mattel, versus a maximum of 500,000 ADAM computers were made by Coleco). Mattel did come out with the Aquarius home computer in June 1983, however it was discontinued 4 months later in October of 1983. The Coleco ADAM computer was much more powerful with nice graphics hardware that was based around the ColecoVision’s arcade quality game capability. However, Mattel was smart when engineering the CPU for the Aquarius. The Aquarius used a Ziog Z80A processor similar to what the ColecoVision/ADAM used.

3 different IntelliVision brochures.pdf

Edited August 25, 2017 by HDTV1080P

[BydoEmpire]

I don't see the attachments on your post... ?

[HDTV1080P]

I don't see the attachments on your post... ?

It is there now. I posted it and it had a spelling error in the name, so I deleted it, renamed it and uploaded it again.

[mr_me]

This is a good site for Intellivision brochures and catalogs. http://www.intellivisionbrasil.com.br/Menu_Catalogos.htm

The tall narrow brochures were given away at retail; except the blue Intellivoice one came in game boxes.

 

The Aquarius wasn't engineered by Mattel. It was designed and manufactured by a Hong Kong company Radofin. Mattel did make the mini expander game adapter for it. The Aquarius was a cheap computer with no real graphics capability. [it did come with a decent version of Basic built-in].

 

Edit: I think the catalog with number 01580010 is incorrectly identified as being Canadian on the intellivisionbrasil website. I think its European.

 

Mattel sold about 3 million intellivisions between christmas 1980 and june 1983.

 

Once available, Mattel ended up not promoting the Keyboard Component at all. They couldnt make them at reasonable cost. For most people, to get a keyboard component you would have had to contact Mattel directly and ask for one. It was discontinued in 1982.

 

How was your Adam computer, was it reliable? What software did you have and use with it?

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Edited August 25, 2017 by mr_me

[HDTV1080P]

My expansion module #3 ADAM computer was purchased in 1983 and it was reliable after around the 3^rd exchange. There was a Smartwriter bug where Coleco shipped them all not working for the built in Smartwriter program. After the software rom was coded differently to get rid of the bug, later on the ADAM’s were very reliable. I used my ADAM as a Supergame machine for games that were better quality when compared to the ColecoVision games. I also used Smartwriter word processing all the time, sometimes ADAMCalc, sometimes Smartfiler, and other programs. I also did a little programming in SmartBasic. I switched from an ADAM to a Windows 3.1 Laptop sometime around 1993+. Then after that, I built several desktop computers and never purchased a Notebook/Laptop computer again.

Edited August 25, 2017 by HDTV1080P