50 years of Odyssey

Entry posted by atari2600land May 25, 2022

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The Magnavox Odyssey is the world's first-ever video game console. It was released in 1972. It is so primitive, it needs overlays to have any sort of graphics for it. One thing that struck me about the instructions was the font. How it was close (but not quite) to the font Atari later used for its 1977 console the Atari VCS (2600).

I skimmed the Odyssey 2 installation and game rules book I have and made some changes to a similar font and made my own font. There were some letters not present in the book. P, Q, V, J, X, and Z so I guessed on them or left them alone. I changed B, F, K, Y, C, L, J and E.

Why did I make these changes? I want to release a couple games for the fiftieth anniversary, but I don't know how I'll get out of the house, since Kinko's is a long drive from my house. I also bought a thing on eBay which apparently lets me use my 2600 a/c plug in for the Odyssey. So when that comes, I'll dig out the Odyssey and have a go at it. I have all the things necessary for two games except overlays. One of the game needs overlays or else it won't work. The other one doesn't, so I decided not to design and make one (money).

I announced the Six² game awhile back but never made or sold it. I also designed another game called The Semi-Impenetrable Fortress of Doom. Both will have really great color instruction sheets. If I ever get around to getting to Kinkos to make the overlays for them. I hope to have this done by the end of the year. I will make 10 copies of each.

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