Rev. Rob

After Nolan Bushnell, the founder of Atari, the once largest and seemingly unstoppable game and console developer, sold his company to Time Warner in 1977 for $28 million, he made several attempts to re-enter the game industry. On October 1st, 1983, the date his non-competition clause ended with Time Warner after he sold Atari, he announced Sente Games, which a console/arcade developer with Midway as the distributor. After a decent run, and with only one majot hit Hat Trick, Sente games was absorbed into Midway in 1987. Determined as ever, Bushnell created Axlon in 1988 under his Catalyst Technologies Venture Capitol Group. Axlon developed some of the finest games for the Atari 2600 very late in its life cycle, including Off the Wall and Secret Quest, the last game officially released for the 2600 in the US (1989). Despite the brilliance of Axlon’s games, they were published only to help generate enough revenue to keep the company alive for their real mission - to launch a new revolutionary game console to rival the Nintendo dominated market. To create this console, Axlon partnered Hasbro. Bushnell, and his partner Tom Zito created the NEMO project, which was the code word for the project used internally at Hasbro, which purportedly meant, "Never Ever Mention Outside." The console later came to be known as Control-Vision. It was to use VHS as its storage medium, like the View-Master InteractiveVision, only with a focus on using real live actors for games, and it used a special patented technology called "InstaSwitch." A game called Scene of the Crime AKA Night Trap, now famous for being the subject of hearings in the US Congress in the 1990’s due to girls in wearing the kind of lingerie than can be seen in a beer commercial in prime time, was developed as a tech-demo to showcase the amazing InstaSwitch technology, which allowed the seamless transition from one part of a VHS tape to another. Sewer Shark, a game of Sega CD infamy, was also originally developed for this system. In an exclusive interview with NetLink World, Ken Soohoo, current Planetweb CEO and former Digital Pictures honcho, commented that the Control-Vision version of Night Trap was far superior to what was possible on the Sega CD and Sega CD 32X, both in terms of graphics and gameplay. Set for release in January of 1989, Control-Vision was dropped by Hasbro in November of 1988, less than two months before the console’s launch. The reason? Cost. Ram in the late 80's and early 90's was expensive. It has been reported that the D-RAM needed to run the console would’ve cost $100 by its self. The console would have retailed for $299, much more expensive than the Nintendo Entertainment System, Atari 7800, NEC Turbo Grafix 16, or Sega Genesis, all of which would be competing on the US market by the end of 1989. After spending over $20 million dollars on R&D for the Control-Vision console, and over $4 million in game development costs, Hasbro pulled the plug on the whole thing. So, where are they now? Axlon was done. Hasbro absorbed the company’s assets, and it ceased to be. Tom Zito, the mastermind behind the Control-Vision games, went on to found Digital Pictures, and released both Nght Trap and Sewer Shark for the Sega CD. Night Trap 32X has a special video of a NEMO demo for any gamer able and willing to complete the game. The rights to the two unreleased and never completed Control-Vision titles, Police Academy and an RDI Halcylon-esque NFL game featuring John Madden were acquired by Hasbro and footage of these two projects has never surfaced. Nolan Bushnell, unable to repeat the initial success of Atari, declared bankruptcy in 1996 after his latest business venture, TeamNet - a series of online arcade games - failed due to being too far ahead of their time, and not all that good in the first place. Bushnell is now back in business with uWink, which is responsible for many of the cheesy games in bars that fat women sit in front of by themselves to play while everyone else is having fun. Bushnell has recently launched a restaurant chain based around the uWink concept called uWink Media Bistro, in which guests can order food from a touch screen, play games, watch movie trailers and other videos, and get their online dating groove on with other singles in the bar. Good luck with that, Mr. Bushnell! Dana Plato, star of Night Trap, former star of Different Strokes, went on to make softcore lesbian porno, posed in Playboy, and died in 1999 of a drug overdoes.

I own many "unpopular" systems: Magnavox Odyssey Fairchild Channel F RCA Studio II Magnavox Odyssey 2 Milton Bradley Microvision GCE Vectrex TI 99/4a ViewMaster InteractiveVision Telegames Dina 2 in One (Personal Arcade) Nintendo Virtual Boy Tiger R-Zone Tiger Game.com Atari Jaguar Sega Master System Sega Game Gear Sega CD Sega Genesis 32X Sega Saturn Sega Dreamcast JVC X'Eye VM Labs Nuon SSD Co. XaviXPort Some of the Sega ones are questionable because they were all popular in some circles, but not main stream. Vectrex was never popular in its day, and is only popular in the collector scene. As for the rest of them... some are downright hated!

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/...iid=chix-sphere It's right in the midst of the great crash. Excellent read!

No. All original Odyssey units had a power supply. It just was sold seperately. Look at the back of your unit and you will see it. FTR, it doesn't fit. That explains it.

Where can I find "F8 of Nations"

Good call!

So, I just got my first O^2 system, and I noticed that it has two different types of plugs to go into the system. Is one for the O^2 and the other for the original? It definately fits in my original Odyssey.

Thanks for the suggestions. I ended up just buying a new TV/Game Switch at Fry's Electronics for $0.50 and it works great.

For me the boss fight music in Sonic 3 will always be the best.

That looks like an Odyssey 500 to me. It's a "pong" system that only had a few built-in games. This is the OG:

HELP! I just got this thing in the mail and it won't power on! It was new in the box too. Any suggestions? Anyone know exactally what type of power supply to use?

Hi all, For about two years I've been doing some research on the aforementioned subject, and I have yet to uncover any internal specs, games, or hardware from Namco. All the info I have found is here: http://www.revrob.com/content/view/50/49/ Anyone else have anything? Thanks!

Yes, they ARE that bad. Especially the 32X. Did you know that the Sega Saturn was planned to be backward compatible with the Sega Genesis? Sega decided not to do this because they were afraid it would bite into sales of the 32X... Man, some people are willing to believe anything.

It's one YouTube, sir. The awesome gameplay is what made the thing so great. Those controllers were second to none until the NES arrived.

Doesn't the Genesis controller work with the TI 99/4a?

Well, as I said, I opened mine up and it began to spin after a good cleaning. It's a very basic console and is not hard to take apart/put back together. The problem with mine was that there was gunk in the CD drive preventing the gears from moving. Also, gunk covered this metal bar that's in there. You'll see it. Good luck!

Hi all, I just got my first O^2, but it does not have the TV Game Switch. I am running it through the one for my Channel-F, but that's not a permanent solution because the Channel-F did not support sound. So, does anyone know of a compatible switch that I can buy? Thanks!

Of course. How odd. I don't think it ever occurred to me to try out a 32x/CD game. This is mainly because the one CD game I have for the 32x (Corpse Killer) isn't especially fun... LOL - None of them were!

Of course.

I just got one on eBay. It hasn't come in the mail yet, but it's NOS, so it should be in good condition. I also bought two SG-1000 games for it... neither have arrived yet either, but that was Saturday. As soon as I get it, I'll post some impressions here in this thread. The only thing that sucks is that I don't believe it has a built in card catcher, and I can't find one anywhere, and I really need it for Ninja Princess.

Way back in the day when I was younger, thinner, and had more hair, I wored at FuncoLand. Some dude wanted to trade in an X'Eye and a bunch of Master System games. We didn't take SMS games and the X'Eye was shot. So, I gave him $10 and he left me the box of stuff. Soda had spilled all inside of the X'Eye, rendering the CD player useless, but it still played cartridge games well enough. Last year I took it all apart and cleaned it, and was planning to replace the laser/motor. To my surprise it worked just fine. So, it seems to me that this system is a real trooper. The only problems that I've had with it is that it doesn't play some 32X-CD games, and it freezes up on me during Shining Force II after extended play.

I wasn't ever a fan of the controllers for the Colecovision either. I just recently purchased a Telegames USA DINA 2 in 1 console, and it plays both Colecovision games and Sega SG-1000 games. It uses Master System controllers, so it's great. The keypad on the Coleco controllers is on the console its self, so no switching. These systems hit eBay every now and then, in fact, I just looked and one is for sale now.

Hello all! Anyhow, I have been a long time visitor of this particular website and have never registered until now. So, I am kind of excited to join a game community that shares my enthuasim for retro games. After many years of desire, I recently picked up a working Channel F VES with eleven games. It was love at first sprite, I tell ya! To me, there's just something very special about pioneering consoles like this. Microvision is another machine that has a special place in my heart. Kind of as a tribute, I researched the console and contacted Fairchild Semiconductor, and wrote the following detailed article. Here is the link: http://www.revrob.com/content/view/66/49/ The above link is better formatted and contains images and scans I took of the manual, but for everyone here who is like me and who doesn't enjoy clicking links, I have pasted the full text below. I hope that the history comes alive as well for you as it does to me! ------------------ Fairchild Channel-F Video Entertainment System: The first modern game console In the 1970s, a company called Fairchild Semiconductor had been watching an emerging market of electronic entertainment. Video arcades had already become wildly popular, and Pong-style games systems that could only play built-in games were amazing sellers and excellent revenue generators for companies like Magnavox, Atari, and Coleco. Fairchild, a Silicon Valley pioneer, was about to break ground in a new territory, one that no other game company had yet entered. No stranger to innovation, Fairchild Semiconductor was founded in 1957 as a subsidiary of the Fairchild Camera and Instrumentation Company, and led the way in developing semiconductors from a new space-age material called silicon. In 1964 Fairchild introduced the first linear integrated circuit. In the mid 70s, the company drew up plans to enter the microprocessor market. Research and design began on the F8 chip, a 1.78 MHz 8-bit microprocessor. The first public outing of this design came as Fairchild was poised to make video game history. Technology Race In 1976 Fairchild rushed to the market its Channel-F Video Entertainment System amidst internal worries that rival RCA would beat them to the market, and just in time for the Christmas season. Video game sales were very much seasonal at this point in history. RCA, the TV manufacturer, was also working on getting a console of their own to the market, one with a cartridge design. They called it the Studio II. The concept of the ROM cartridge meant that manufacturer could first sell a game system, and then profit off of selling game programs to be used on the system. Previously this had not been accomplished. In August of ‘76, Fairchild beat RCA’s Studio II console to the market. RCA lagged behind and didn’t even make the Christmas season, launching in early January 1977 instead. Fairchild won over RCA in every other way imaginable as well. The underpowered Studio II produced embarrassing graphics, the console output in black and white only even though the games were programmed in color. RCA killed support for its console by the end of the first year with only eleven games released. The Channel-F became the world’s first reprogrammable video game console. In English that means it was the first cartridge based game system that the world had ever seen. The media was delivered in a ROM cart, which would become the industry standard for two decades, until CDs based games gained mainstream acceptance in the late 1990s. What about the Magnavox Odyssey? In 1972, the world’s first game console, the Odyssey, was released by Magnavox. Though it was able to play interchangeable games, it used “game cards,” not ROM cartridges. The game cards were circuit boards that actually altered the console’s circuitry. Game variations on the Odyssey usually involved a deck of playing cards, a game board, and TV screen overlays. This way each game card was capable of supporting a multitude of different “games.” In the end, many Odyssey titles are closer evolutionary cousins to traditional board games rather than modern video games. Design The Channel-F, know originally as simply the Fairchild Video Entertainment System, was a breakthrough in many areas. Its banana yellow cartridges could hold variable amounts of data. The F8 processor at the heart of the console was able to produce enough AI to allow for player vs. computer matches. The console’s design very much represents the home electronics décor of the era. With its wood grain exterior and back fiberglass finish, it would have been well disguised in any home entertainment center of the day, very much resembling an 8-track player, which were still popular at the time. In fact, the game cartridges and boxes share the dimensions of 8-track cassettes. To add to the aesthetic appeal, the controllers tucked away in a special compartment hidden from view to prevent unsightly wires. Hand-Controllers Fairchild took a new direction with its “hand-controller” design, one which had never been seen before, and would never resurface thereafter, (which is unfortunate). To the uninitiated, the stick-like controller is confounding. However, it is the in actuality the perfect ambidextrous controller and remained unparalleled until Nintendo redesigned controllers forever with the Famicom (Nintendo Entertainment System or NES in America) in 1985. The Channel-F’s controller can be held in either the left or right hand. The triangular head can be tilted in eight ways for directional control. That’s not all. The head can be twisted left or right for additional movement. Finally, the top of the hand-controller can be plunged-in or pulled-up to perform separate actions. This system allowed for exceptionally intuitive control. With eight-way directional control, and potentially four action buttons, the Channel-F controller was far more advanced than the famous Atari joystick. Sound and Graphics One area where the Channel-F shows its primitive origins is in its sound capabilities. It sports a single on board speaker that produces beeps and tones. The graphics, while not exceptionally good, were also not that far behind some of its peers, such as the Magnavox Odyssey2. It was however inferior to the market leader, Atari’s Video Computer System, better known as the 2600. The F8 chip was only able to produce single-colored sprites, and only had eight colors to choose from at a resolution of 128 × 64 with 102 × 58 pixels with help from the only 64 bytes of system RAM, half the amount of the 2600. Games A total of 26 games were released for the console between 1976 and 1981; 21 of published by Fairchild themselves. Two additional games, Tennis and Hockey were built into the system. Within its library exist some true gems, as well as some awful stinkers. Among the most innovative is Videocart 9. (Catchy titles these games had, I know!) Videocart 9 was also known as Drag Race. It takes full advantage of the Channel-F’s brilliantly conceived controllers by using it as a gear shifter. Unfortunately, Videocart 9: Drag Strip faces a dilemma that hurt the appeal of many games in the Channel-F’s library. It was two-player only. Though the F8 could produce powerful enough AI for some player vs. computer games, (Videocart 4: Spitfire being a perfect example), many games were too complex. This is perhaps the console’s greatest shortcoming. Sometimes the console’s AI goes too far, as with the Channel-F iteration of Tic-Tac-Toe, in which it is impossible to win. Fairchild Abandons the Videogame Market Only three years after it re-imagined what a home videogame experience can be, Fairchild Semiconductor left behind the market and their console forever. Popular belief has it that intense competition from Atari is what spurred the decision. However, this is not the case. In fact, Fairchild had planned a redesign for the original Channel-F and drew up early plans for a follow-up; though no know prototypes or diagrams are known to exist. Most likely, it never made it past the planning phase. Fairchild Semiconductor resorted to niche markets in the 1970s as it lost mainstream appeal for its core business. In 1979 the company was bought by an oil field services company by the name of Schlumberger Limited. Wanting nothing to do with the videogame “fad,” the decision was made to sell off the Channel-F business. A digital watch maker called Zircon Corporation was eager to expand its business and bought up the rights to the Channel-F, and with them all of the games and the redesigned console, which Zircon released as the Channel-F System II. Unlike its older brother, the System II featured sound that was produced by the TV, not an onboard speaker, detachable controllers which were not yet popular in 1976, and more of an 80s-esque futuristic design. Zircon went on to release five more games for the system over the three years, some of which were already in development by Fairchild. By 1981, the Channel-F, once a retail hit, was pushed off of store shelves and sold only in catalogs. Videocart 26: Alien Invasion (pictured right) was the last game released for the system, and that was in ’81. It was sold only by mail-order, and came in a plain white box, a far cry from the rainbow-multicolored box art that used to attract the attention of shopping consumers in department stores and malls across America. The great videogame crash hit in 1984, permanently putting an end to the console, which by this time, was already largely forgotten. The Clones Licenses of the hardware and cloners carried the console overseas, where the Channel-F was know by many different names and took different shapes. This was a common practice in the early years of consoles. In Germany it was known as the Saba Videoplay, Nordmende Teleplay, and ITT Tele-Match. In the United Kingdom Grandstand rebranded it as the Adman. A Swedish version is known as the Luxor Video Entertainment System. Fairchild Semiconductor and Zircon: Where are they now? In 1997 “Fairchild Semiconductor was reborn as an independent company, heralding the return of a company steeped in the history of innovation and infused with the design talent and manufacturing capabilities to reshape the technology of the twenty-first century.” The company currently employees over 9,000 people worldwide in four states and six separate countries. In 1980 Zircon finally found a home for themselves in the marketplace when they developed the StudSensorTM, an electronic tool “designed to detect wood and metal studs and other objects hidden within walls, above ceilings, and under flooring.” Zircon continues to successfully manufacture and distribute electronic hand tools. Their products are marketed in 30 countries.