Replacement Controller Membranes

[Replacement Controller Membranes]

If I understand this, you're talking about making two pieces: the plastic electric circuit part as well as the golden bubble membrane on top. I didn't think the golden button membrane was a priority and people would be mostly looking for the plastic electric circuit part. But I could be wrong

[Replacement Controller Membranes]

I have continued with the development of the replacement INTV I controller membranes. The factory looked at the possibility of splitting the signals, so that the controllers could be converted to dual action controllers - however, there is just not enough room inside the INTV I controller casing for this.

 

I am still after an INTV III controller to look at as these have been adapted in the past.

 

There is a query over the side buttons on the INTV I controller as the embossed layer is a little odd around this. Each button has a small embossed point (which presses down when you press the button) and a tiny reverse bossed point each side of the embossed point. These reverse bossed points do not make any contact or line up with anything on the sample controllers I have here - I wonder if they might be needed for some versions of the INTV I controller?

 

Also, the cost of tooling the 4 main embossed point for the 4 side buttons is problematic as a special tool would be required from the USA (!). The controller I have here has one (presumably worn) side button which hardly depresses at all (presumably pressed too many times). I was therefore wondering if the solution could be to introduce a new small spring which would affix to the back of each of the side buttons and push them back when released

 

What do people think - would that be an acceptable (and possibly welcome) change?

Not sure I understand what you are saying about the side buttons. The plastic circuits at the side buttons don't look much different than at the keypad buttons to me. Is it that its smaller than the keypad buttons. Each side button has to connect three wires/pins together to function.

 

http://www.the-liberator.net/site-files/retro-games/hardware/Intellivision-III/intellivision-iii.htm

The INTV III controller in these pictures look like the original controllers (edit: other than the flat button membrane). That is a european model however. And I wouldn't be surprised if some had Intellivision II controller parts, or even a completely new design.

 

The side buttons are hard to press. And each side button has to connect three wires/pins and sometimes doesn't; resulting in erratic behaviour. Not sure how a spring helps but If you can improve these problems with the side buttons; it would be good.

[Was Astrosmash a pack-in game?]

UK and/or Australia with no-pack-in, I'm guessing.

 

Soccer and Lock'N'Chase

 

And then a mystery pack-in.

 

South Africa with Armour Battle.

 

France and Italy with a free Cartridge; maybe the customer gets to choose.

 

Not sure where but one with Space Armada.

 

Digiplay in Brasil with Triple Action and Intellivision II with Pitfall

[Was Astrosmash a pack-in game?]

The Canadian boxes. The original boxes with LV Poker & Blackjack and Intellivision II with Lock'N'Chase. There's probably Intellivision IIs with no pack-ins. And some US boxes were likely sold in Canada.

 

 

edit:

And I'm pretty sure I've seen boxes with the Astrosmash offer sticker back in 1981 or 1982. Was there any other Canadian 2609 model packaging?

[Was Astrosmash a pack-in game?]

Well I tried finding a photo of a box with Astrosmash as a pack-in but couldn't. I found LV Poker & BlackJack as pack-ins for original Mattel Intellivision and the Sylvania/Sears/Tandyvisions in the US and Canada. The Intellivision II had either no pack-in or Burgertime and in Canada Lock'n'chase. In European boxes, I've seen Armor Battle, Triple Action, Soccer, Space Armada, and one box that had both Soccer and Lock'n'chase inside. And I've seen Digiplay in Brasil boxes with Triple Action or Pitfall.

 

There's lots of pictures of boxes in Steve Jones' post http://atariage.com/forums/topic/191710-2012-intellivision-collection-pic-thread/?p=2526784. Here are some more I stole from google searches.

 

The original US box. My understanding is that Mattel decided to not include NFL Football at the last minute for legal reasons. I haven't seen one without the sticker. There's a few variations of this box; one with LV Poker & Blackjack on the TV and then without the keyboard component.

 

An updated US box with and without the free Astrosmash by mail offer. Both have LV Poker & Blackjack as pack-ins

 

Intellivision II with I believe no-packin and a couple with Burgertime. Not sure which ones are earlier/later The photos are poor quality but I think it says "free Burgertime cartridge included"

[The Ultimate Intellivision Flashback]

Well, maybe I'll be the ginea pig here then. I'm building on a Raspberry Pi 3, using Retro Pie 3.6 as my starting point. So far the front end comes up with the custom Intellivision 2 background and I can choose the jzintv emulator. I have a video issue within the emulator itself, but that might be due to a number of things (I'm using an HDMI to VGA cable connected to an old PC monitor, so I don't know how unsupported that setup is). But so far so good!

Are you using the jzintv that comes with RetroPie 3.6 or the one in the intellivision.us update package? I don't know how to tell which is newer other than the date stamp. The source code on the jzIntv web site seems much older.

[Help Troubleshooting Pacman]

I just received Pacman in the mail today. The Intv version. I put it in and the screen with the number of players comes up. I enter the number of players. It goes to the opening screen of the game and the music plays. But, once the music ends and Pacman starts to move, it cuts to a solid blue screen. So, I took a few q-tips with alcohol to the contacts and the same problem keeps occurring. It happens the exact same every time. Any ideas? I have never had a bad cart before, and it is obviously reading some of the rom.

This is a shot in the dark but try the minimum possible insertion of the cartridge. Pull the cartridge as much as possible before it slips out. I have two cartridges that only work this way and it works reliably. At regular insertion, they will sometimes go passed the title screen and start playing before stopping. However most of the time, I get nothing, not even a title screen. And I tried cleaning the contacts with isopropyl alcohol.

[The Ultimate Intellivision Flashback]

The Pi2 can supply up to 1.2A to USB peripherals alone. It's hard to say how much power its drawing while running Intellivision games. Often newer CPUs use less power than older CPUs when doing the same thing. Newer CPUs can do more so the stress test will be higher and maybe draw more power. A better power supply is probably a good idea anyway; you might decide to stream videos with it or emulate more powerful computers.

[Altirra 5200 mouse deadzone problem]

I was using Altirra v2.7; I thought it was the latest; downloaded from the virtualdub web site.

That new version fixed the problem. The mouse/5200-trak-ball works very well now. Thanks very much.

 

edit:

btw I've used VirtualDub before; it's awesome.

[The Ultimate Intellivision Flashback]

What's the community thinking about power for this box? I'm planning on putting mine into a flashback shell, so I have the power port that is installed in the flashback to begin with. I'm betting the power supply provided for the flashback won't be sufficient to power my pi 3, however. I know I could just power it with the power adapter that came with my pi, but I'd like to make the power button on the flashback functional (and maybe the reset button too?). So I'd like the power to go through that switch before getting to the pi. I've read that I can put power onto two of the I/O pins on the board, so that's definitely workable. But how many people bother with a different power supply than the micro-usb? Has anyone found a power supply that has the same barrel-sized plug as the original flashback but can provide more amperage?

The Pi3 has built in wifi. Once you add wifi to a Pi2 is the Pi3 using that much more power when doing the same tasks?

[Petition for Air Strike to be finished and released]

Not from me. Those were one time test carts I had done for real hardware/cart testing. I don't normally sell cart only. But anyone else is free to do whatever.

Not exactly free to do whatever; Ebay does have a policy. "We don't allow replicas, counterfeit items, or unauthorized copies to be listed on eBay"

[Altirra 5200 mouse deadzone problem]

My experience is that the Altirra 5200 trackball/mouse driver works fine if I move the mouse quickly, I don't notice any position decay. If I move the mouse slowly then the Altirra trackball does not move at all.

 

I tried Altirra 800 CX-80 trackball with mouse and it works well (although there is no adjustment options). But I can't use the Altirra CX-80 trackball/mouse with 5200 games.

CX-80 Trackball V1 (port 1)

Axis 1 -> Mouse Move Horiz (default)

Axis 2 -> Mouse Move Vert (default)

 

On a side note, for those that have an actual 5200 Trak Ball and 5200-dapter USB adapter, the 5200-dapter web site suggests setting up Altirra to use the 5200 Trak Ball as a joystick.. This is different but should work.

[Selling a collection of intellivision]

Here's a couple sites that can give an idea of the value of the games.

 

http://intellivisionrevolution.com/intellivision-rarity-price-guide

http://www.rarityguide.com/intellivision_view.php

[hilarious intellivision listing on kijiji]

Well a boxed ECS Synthesizer recently sold for US$130 (the ad says its worth $500). It also claims that Scooby Doo has sold for $500. The collection could be 3x or 4x overvalued. According to the ad it might end up on ebay. It now says "Quite possibly Toronto's largest collection of intellivision video games and consoles".

[Petition for Air Strike to be finished and released]

Some programmers might be reluctant to use someone else's code without the rights holder's permission. But that shouldn't stop somebody from making a new game with the same gameplay as Air Strike and a different name.

[Replacement Controllers?]

My intellivision controllers are borked. I was wondering what the standard procedure was for replacing them. I checked ebay for replacement controllers with no luck. Is it possible to add a port so I can use atari/coleco controllers?

 

Thanks !

If you have an Intellivision 1, you can add a 9-pin port but it would only be compatible with Intellivision controllers. With some modification I think you can make an Atari or Colecovision controller compatible as a 4-way controller. Anything more would need some electronics.

[Replacement Controllers?]

In my case, a bad controller was only a bad cable. I tested continuity for each wire. I repaired it by replacing the cable using an inexpensive genesis extension cable.

 

 

And yes, in Canada shipping from Intellivision Productions is US$25. Not sure where you are. Someone should do a bulk buy of controllers and resell them on Ebay within Canada; maybe IP would provide a small discount.

[Intellivisionaries episode 26 is up!]

The other thing I liked hearing about was Ray Kaestner's Doubles Tennis. He says he took the original Tennis and added two more players and a computer player but doesn't know what happened to it. IntellivisionLives.com says the project was sent to Mattel France for completion. Unfortunately that version is completely different. I wonder what happened or did Ray Kaestner actually rewrite the game and was released as "Championship Tennis" and doesn't know about its release.

[Need help with my computer]

Hi DZ

Ok this does make sense, What about the games that came on Cartridge, Such as Scooby Doo Maze Craze, Melody Blaster,Mind Strike, Jetsons ways with words,

Mind Strike, and World Series Major League Base Ball. (These games all requiring the ECS unit)

 

These all appear to have alot better graphics and seem to have alot more functions than the ordinary games.

I bought some of these for my daughter. Except the Melody Blaster since I cannot find the Piano part of it yet.

 

I seen melody blaster for sale but why buy it if you have no piano part.

 

Now my daughter really wants it.

I may buy the program because if the piano does come around and I do not have the program I could

have a daughter that will be really dissapointed. I think Melody Blaster is one of the harder programs to get.

 

I just not sure what to look under ebay for on this piano keyboard.

 

Is it called the keyboard component or Intellivision Piano Keyboard ?

 

 

 

Thanks

 

The ECS Music Synthesizer seems a bit rare for ebay. ( http://www.ebay.ca/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_sacat=0&_nkw=intellivision%20synthesizer&LH_Complete=1&rt=nc&_trksid=p2045573.m1684) You can try posting in the general Intellivision forum and see if one of the guys wants to get rid of one of theirs. Melody Blaster is a little pricey. Too bad there isn't a flash cart availailable right now. You could save some money with some of the more expensive cartridges.

 

edit: world series baseball uses pretty much everything, you even need the ECS keyboard to hit the space bar constantly throughout the game

[Intellivisionaries episode 26 is up!]

zzz

[Altirra 5200 mouse deadzone problem]

I've got it set up as follows:

 

5200 Trackball (port 1)

Axis 1 -> Mouse Move Horiz (absolute)

Axis 2 -> Mouse Move Vert (absolute)

 

Absolute seems to work best of all the options although there is no adjustment options. And only faster movements respond, slower movements don't, as if there is a deadzone. I tested with Missile Command and Centipede. I'm using Windows-7-64b. I haven't had any luck with mouse and other 5200 emulators either. I contacted the Altirra programmer by email but got no response. Anyone ever get a response from the Altirra programmer?

 

 

 

[Intellivisionaries episode 26 is up!]

This was a good episode. I had always thought APh was involved with the early Mattel handhelds so the Rockwell stuff was interesting. Here's some more stuff on that.

 

Rockwell: http://www.digitpress.com/library/interviews/interview_mark_lesser.html

APh: http://www.2600connection.com/interviews/david_rolfe/interview_david_rolfe.html

 

Edit: fixed links

[I need a new controller]

Yes, the disc and side buttons work fine. I'm using Windows 7.

Did you use the Windows 7 "Game controller settings" to verify the buttons don't work?

[I need a new controller]

You probably saw this but in case you didn't

http://atariage.com/forums/topic/251144-replacement-controllers

 

Do the disc and side buttons work? On what type of computer have you tested? Any changes (ie firmware updates or dipswitches or software)

[Was Astrosmash a pack-in game?]

Box with Astrosmash free

Yes thanks, this is what I remember, although the packaging in Canada was different. I remember we got our Intellivision either early-mid 1981 or early-mid 1982 and then a few months later there was a price drop and a free Astrosmash offer with LV Poker & BJ still a pack-in. I remember being more upset about the price drop than missing the free Astrosmash.

 

Now I just need to see a photo of a Master Component box that says Astrosmash cartridge inside.