hitokage

I was referring to their electronics/video game stock in general, and not anything specific.

Toys R Us and sometimes even KB Toys had stock of stuff that would sit around. I think it was worse for TRU though, because of the separate secure stockroom and paper tickets. Stuff would get "lost" in the stockroom (to show-up again later) or no paper tickets out when they had stock. Then there are places where markdowns aren't done to really slow moving merchandise.

To expand a bit more about what I said with the ECS working with any video mod - I think it works like a cartridge, with extra some hardware attached to it - like the Intellivoice. From what I understand of the ECS is that it doesn't have any built-in video chips, so any video/graphic type stuff is generated by the STIC, and doesn't use the external video pin. The system changer on the other hand does have its own video generation chip and outputs a composite video signal, as it's almost a complete 2600, and that does use the external video pin. To try to explain this better/clearer because sometimes I'm not very good explaining things - anything using the external video pin on the cartridge port (8 or 2) is sending composite video on that pin. The Intellivision just switches to it and doesn't do any processing on it at all.

I don't think so, it just switches to the external video source like a AV switchbox. Genlocked video could get switched seamlessly between internal and external composite video - like a video switcher used in a broadcast studio (the screen refresh is synchronized). Non-genlocked video, like used with the system changer, would cause some distortion when switching between the two signals - like a basic mechanical switchbox. Here is a link to the Intellivision Wiki that describes how to modify an Intellivision (any non-Intellivision II) to use the system changer - http://wiki.intellivision.us/index.php?title=Intellivision_System_Changer_Support_Modification This page is where I found the statement about the pin 8 of the cartridge port (external video) being genlocked (it's near the very bottom) - http://spatula-city.org/~im14u2c/intv/tech/master.html

I wanted to try to give some kind of help with this and hopefully it makes some sense. First, I don't have an ECS myself, but based on what I can find online it doesn't seem to do any video generation itself. So, it should work with this mod or any others without any trouble. The external video input pin on the cartridge port seems to have been used for two other things though. The first being the "Keyboard Component" and the second being the "System Changer". From what I can find the external video input as used for the keyboard component, used genlocked video - meaning it was a composite video signal that was synchronized to the Color Processor Chip. If this is the case, there isn't a good solution to make it work. The system changer also used composite video, but wasn't genlocked (so they also changed which pin on the cartridge port was used for external video). That's why the system changer only works with the Intellivision II, unless the Intellivision (all others) itself is modified. There is not a way to make this work without modifying the system changer. Since the system changer is just a 2600 that plugs into the Intellivision, with the Intellivision not really doing anything, it probably isn't worth trying to make it work.

The geometry distortion may be because it's one of Samsung's Slimfit models - I seem to remember that being a problem with those.