mr_me

Could be. Here's some Hot Wheels part numbers from 1980 and 1975. Someone just needs to find a conflicting part number. Hot wheels used #7600s for 1975 products and Intellivision used #7700s for 1984 products. Both used #2000s for 1980 products http://www.plaidstallions.com/mattel/heroes.html http://www.plaidstallions.com/mattel/75hw.html

Maybe like this 2000s then 1000s (1978 & 1979) then 3000s and 5000s (1980 & 1981) then 4000s (1982) then 7000s (1983) Maybe they had preprinted project books and a couple of managers. Each one grabbed a book. The guy with the 6000s must have been laid-off first. And keep in mind that the start of a game project, and the start of programming, and then release to manufacturing can have varied timelines.

I read this on the internet, so it must be true. But I haven't seen any evidence like a photo of a master component box with a sticker saying Astrosmash cartridge inside. I do remember that Astrosmash was free with the purchase of an Intellivision 1, but I'm not sure if if was a pack-in or a free offer and LV Poker & Blackjack being the pack-in. If anyone can post a picture of Astrosmash as a pack-in with the master component, please do.

Should have said that the third idea "discrete position" has accuracy but not the precision required for pong. And one more idea 5) disc + button - hold a side button for speed giving you both precise movement and a fast speed to get to the out of reach ones; it would also work for games with 16 direction paddle movement

Some Mattel production numbers for unreleased games And the M-network games had production numbers mixed in there as well. You'd think that they would go in some chronological order from concept and project creation but it doesn't seem to. 3605 Arcade (possible Galaxian) 4161 Magic Carousel (Intellivoice) 4162 Space Shuttle (Intellivoice-enhanced) 4163 Convoy 4433 Thin Ice 4463 Quest (Intellivoice) 4469 Thunder Castle 4535 Flintstone's Keyboard Fun (ECS) 4537 Super NFL Football (ECS) 4539 Game Factory (ECS) 4542 Song Writer or Melody Maker (ECS) 4544 Number Jumble 4545 Music Tutor or Music Conductor (ECS) 4547 BASIC Programmer (ECS) 4551 Woody Woodpecker (Intellivoice) 4552 Winter Olympics 4601 Rocky & Bullwinkle 4602 Yogi's Adventure 4692 ADVANCED DUNGEONS & DRAGONS TOWER OF MYSTERY Cartridge 4743 Illusions 5302 Land Battle 5393 Go for the Gold 7742 Hover Force 3-D 7744 Party Line 7841 Masters of the Universe II 7842 Flashlight 7843 Pizza Time 7844 Magic Carpet 7845 Hydroplane

Are there any options to how the paddle is controlled? This would only apply to the classic single-axis pong variation but here are some ideas: 1) disc up/down - problem with this is its only a single speed so its a trade off being able to get there and precise movement 2) multiple speeds - from Intellipongola; paddle moves faster further along the disc; allows for four (or more) different speeds but may be unintuitive 3) discrete position - divide the screen into say 11 paddle positions (or 13 positions) corresponding to a disc direction 4) disc as rotary/spinner - paddle speed based on rotation; clockwise moves paddle down and counter-clockwise moves paddle up I'm not sure how well using the disc as a rotary/spinner might work but I sure would like to see a simple proof of concept if someone has the time.

Or squash as someone previously mentioned. On some pong systems the soccer variation in that video was called hockey (Radio Shack Color TV Scoreboard).

In this post they have the Intellivoice at the end. http://atariage.com/forums/topic/245386-stacked-and-interconnected-intv-ii/?p=3363288 Does it make a difference? There's only one game that uses both ECS and Intellivoice. Sean, you're bringing back some memories. When I was in high school they had Commodore PETs. I actually did a running man animation using BASIC and the PET character set. The teacher was impressed.

I think those Caltech summer students might have been hit or miss as game/simulation programmers. NBA Basketball was also done in that same summer of 1978 and its one of my favourite games.

Mattel did make a running change with a faster turning tank, maybe you have the original version. I wonder how common the slow version is. Mattel was definitely going for realism in the early days to differentiate themselves from the competition. And a slow turning tank is realistic. I can't comment on Armor Battle, we didn't have it, Sometimes I questioned the use of perspective views in several of these games. Armor Battle might have made more sense as a top view game like Land Battle but again there's the idea of showing up the competition. I remember when we were buying sports games the guy in the store sold us hard on Sea Battle but never mentioned Armor Battle.

For Intellivision, Nostalgia is a fine emulator but it has one problem that bothers me. It is stuck in a 5:3 aspect ratio, I'm use to the standard 4:3 aspect ratio that the Intellivision originally used. Consider the jzIntv emulator, it has versions for Linux, Windows, MacOS and other systems, and most importantly it is actively supported by the programmer. It is a command line program, but no need to open a command window, as you can play roms by drag and drop. You can also set up different button mappings for each game. See here for some simple instructions ( https://www.reddit.com/r/intellivision/comments/4a627b/howto_use_jzintv_emulator_without_typing/). edit: Download software from the original developer/publisher whenever possible.

Would have been nice if Keith Robinson designs his own overlays for the missing ones (there is about 16 of them). He is a talented illustrator.

Here's my set of cfg files for the original games. These use the filenames from the GoodTools standard so rename them as needed. The other released games should be supported by the default memory map in jzIntv. int_cfg_32.zip

It looks like the first 64 cards/characters in GROM. Too bad you don't have access to the rest of the GROM. see http://wiki.intellivision.us/index.php?title=Graphics_ROM

You could say the same thing about the sealed Mind Strike.

The Aquarius model 4210 printer is a thermal printer and needs compatible thermal paper. I don't know if there are differences in thermal paper for different printers that would make them incompatible. Unbelievably a search found a couple of rolls of official Mattel model 4216 thermal paper available. I wonder if still works after 33 years. According to this web site ( http://archive.kontek.net/aqemu.classicgaming.gamespy.com/aqfaq2.htm) the Mattel thermal printer was an OEM Alphacom 42 thermal printer.

Your daughter might want to save her work. That will require more hardware in a tape recorder or compatible device and the appropriate cables. The 20x12 character display is a somewhat limited interface, printing your work is possible but would require a special printer.

Regarding Intellivoice, this is what I found on Wikipedia. It's not necessarily the best source of information so correct me if I am wrong. As DZ-Jay pointed out General Instrument developed 59 allophones for general speech synthesis, and that data is on some of their SP0256 chips but not the version in the Intellivoice. I guess Mattel wanted their own speech sounds and ROM space is expensive. So on the Mattel version of the chip there is data for the phrase "Mattel Electronics presents" and all the numbers and maybe a few other words but not the data for general speech. These are more natural sounding than the GI allophone synthesized words but limited. The 59 GI allophones are in the Odyssey2 voice module, so I think its why Missile Domination speech might sound like the Oddyssey2 speech synthesizer. I'm thinking the 59 allophones from GI must be on the Missile Domination cartridge and they must have been sourced from a non Mattel SP0256 chip. Dz-Jay also mentioned that someone out there has the ability to convert recorded voice to Intellivoice data, so I guess we will eventually have a game with naturally sounding speech to check out. Back on topic, should more Intellivoice games have been made? Only six were originally completed. Mattel's policy was to have speech essential to gameplay. Only one game was made where it's optional, and I don't think third party developers had the ability to make voice games. I think optional speech is okay if done well and is not just a gimmick; just like good sound effects. But as was mentioned before, speech in Intellivision games can help with player feedback when limited by Intellivision's graphics system (eg. screen scrolling and text display); so maybe a game like that should be made.

I remember hearing in one of the podcasts that the programmers at Mattel would debate on whether a video game should have an ending. At the time we all wanted to play arcade games at home, so I had Lock'n'chase, Burgertime, Bump'n'jump but I found that once I got a high score that became too difficult to beat, I more or less stopped playing these games (and that goes for Deadly Discs and Shark Shark too). However, I always went back to games like Space Battle, Dungeons and Dragons, Bomb Squad, and even Sub Hunt. I liked games where I either won or lost and scoring was not necessary. I think more games should have been made like this rather than the arcade type games with endless scoring. Unfortunately Mattel ultimately felt that the market wanted the latter. I agree that arcade conversions are unnecessary today. And I use the term conversion because I don't think its possible to port the code of an arcade game to a different machine like the Intellivision. I don't know if the Mattel programmers of Lock'n'chase, Burgertime, and the other licensed games even looked at the code of the original games. I think most people who use the term "port" understand that the game is being rewritten. Having said that I do like seeing games like DK Arcade, Stonix, Missile Domination and comparing them to the originals and other conversions. I'm sure nobody wants to see a bad conversion so considering Intellivision limitations it can be debated.

How was the Missile Domination voices done? That's not the proprietary system DZ-jay is referring to, is it? They are nothing like the Mattel voices from the 1982 games that originated from voice actors. The screen text supported voice BladeJunker mentioned must be the "yerrrout" in Baseball which isn't voice at all. Synthesized voices like those in Missile Domination sound fine for a Berzerk game. Voices aren't even necessary for gameplay here, but would be nice. I'd rather see a Robotron game with dual disc and 16 direction fire than a Berzerk game with voice. Voice is good when used to enhance Intellivision gameplay, for example when the game uses lots of screen scrolling and providing text information is difficult.

I'm guessing nobody has asked for Colecovision Flashback controller support. They are very responsive, I bet if you ask and give them the pinouts they would do it. Or you can make the changes yourself.

Raspberry PIs are great but there are advantages to a full PC. Remember, if you need Intellivision controllers for it you can get new ones from Intellivision Productions (USB adapters required). It will be kind of neat to surf the web with an Intellivision.

Here's a another discussion about smaller Intellivision text. http://atariage.com/forums/topic/232923-font-or-typeface-smart-creation/

What control scheme would it use?

I think if you're discussing game ideas it doesn't hurt to understand how the Intellivision works and its limitations. I'm not a programmer but I like to try to know how things work. I haven't even imagined looking into Intellivision programming.