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Summary The Aquarius Printer is a 40 column thermal printer that uses a one-way serial connection. It was marketed for the Mattel Aquarius computer and Intellivision's ECS add-on. Its character set is fixed to match the Aquarius computer's character set. Each character is printed as a pattern of 7x10 dots. It has a 3-way switch on the back to control which parts of the Aquarius character set it can print. The switch settings are labelled as Text, Mixed, and Graphics. Contrary to what the Graphics switch setting would typically imply, there is no known way to print arbitrary pixel / bitmap graphics. The printer has a 40 byte buffer for printable characters. When transmitting data, the printer will not print until either the buffer is full, or until a newline or formfeed byte is received. On the front, it has a Power button and a Paper advance button. The Paper advance button does not advance the paper by a fixed amount; instead it advances the paper for as long as the button is pressed. Unlike many printers of its era and later, it does not have a "test mode" that can be entered by pressing and holding a button while simultaneously turning the printer on. While its interface uses standard RS-232 voltages and signaling, its connectors are non-standard, using a 3.5mm mono audio jack and a 2.5mm mono audio jack. An adapter cable is necessary to connect to a computer. Wiring diagrams are available for building adapter cables for connecting to a PC using a 9-pin serial port or to the Intellivision ECS. Software needs to be set to 1200 baud, 8-bit, no parity, 2 stop bits, and use hardware flow control that is either RTS-CTS and/or DTR-DSR hardware flow control depending on the adapter cable's wiring. Internally, it uses the Olivetti PU-1840 print mechanism and thus can use paper from other printers that use the same print mechanism (example: Alphacom Sprinter 40 and VP42). The Olivetti PU-1840 is controlled by a Hitachi HD6801V0P microcontroller. Output Modes Text Mode Only bytes in the ASCII ranges are printable (hexadecimal bytes 20 through 7E) as well as byte 7F. All other bytes do nothing with the following 3 exceptions: 0A, 0D, and 0C. The hexadecimal bytes 0A and 0D are newlines. A pair of these bytes is considered 1 complete newline. Thus 1 complete newline can be any of the following pairs: 0D 0A, 0A 0D, 0A 0A, or 0D 0D. The printer advances the paper one line on the first byte and drops the 2nd byte, as long as the 2nd byte is a 0A or 0D. If other values are inserted between the 2 bytes of a complete newline, the printer will advance the paper 1 newline, print the inserted characters, and then advance the paper a 2nd time (ex: 0D 20 0D). There is an issue where if too many newlines are printed followed immediately by printable data, the printable data is lost. It is presumed that the CTS signal back to the PC is not being processed properly. The hexadecimal byte 0C is formfeed. It advances the paper to next 1 page boundary, with 1 page being approximately 59 lines. Previously printed data is considered part of the page. For example, if 30 lines of printable bytes were sent followed by a 0C, the paper would be advanced 29 lines. There is an issue where if data is transmitted too soon, i.e. before the formfeed has finished, that data may be incorrectly printed in the middle of the formfeed or may be lost. Graphics Mode All characters are printable, based on the Aquarius computer's character set. However, after power up or a short delay between printing sessions, the data needs to be preceded by 0A 0D before the graphics data can be sent. The first 2 bytes of 0A 0D are not printed, but do cause a newline to occur. Any 0A or 0D that appears after the initial 0A 0D pair are printable characters and are not newlines. However, data can NOT be continuously streamed to the printer indefinitely. Somewhere between 880 to 920 bytes, the printer stops responding. It is recommended that long streams of data be separated into smaller chunks with short delays. Mixed Mode The same as Graphics Mode except that 0A and 0D are newlines. These bytes behave the same as they do in Text Mode. Unlike Graphics Mode, there is no need to prepend the printable characters with 0A 0D. There is an issue where, if too many newlines are printed followed immediately by data, the data is lost. It is presumed that the CTS signal back to the PC is not being processed properly or that the printer needs a brief delay after asserting CTS and receiving more bytes. Construction Major components: Hitachi HD6801V0P CPU: Hitachi's version of a Motorola 6801 (enhanced instructions, 4KB ROM and 128 bytes RAM on-chip, serial, GPIO) Olivetti PU-1840 2P Printer mechanism: 280 horizontal dots, thermal paper Hitachi HA17555: a 555 timer chip, presumed to control the baud rate The plastic case has 4 parts: the top shell, bottom shell, paper compartment cover, and the back panel. The back panel contains the serial connectors and the Text/Mixed/Graphics switch. It appears the back panel and the internal space next to it was intended to be replaceable to support other interfaces (Centronics? DE-9 serial? Commodore 64?). The top shell front internally has space for 2 unused punch-outs in the plastic, each with mounting points in an internal metal bracket. Potentially, these could support addition buttons and/or lights. Wiring Adapters / Cables Here are schematics for building either a wiring adapter to connect the Aquarius printer directly to a PC's 9-pin serial port or to the Intellivision ECS. Note that similar schematics elsewhere don't allow a direct connection to a PC since they require additional adapters like null-modem cables. Aquarius Printer Adapter Cables v1.pdf
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Found, this post can be deleted
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While doing some other research, I discovered that Mattel actually was issued a patent for the color coding they implemented in ECS BASIC! US Patent 4,617,643: Syntax error correction method and apparatus I've attached the full PDF. Or, you can follow the link above. US4617643.pdf
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For sale are the following items. Paypal only, please All items will be safely and securely shipped - I will cover the shipping (CONUS only, sorry). All items are coming from a smoke/pet-free home. All items have been tested and are working good. Please assume that it is the original battery in any carts that may contain a battery for saving progress. Please see pictures - any further questions shoot me a PM Sega Genesis bundle $100 (includes Genesis system, RF module, power adapter, one controller, and the following games: Alien 3- CIB Centurion - CIB Kid Chameleon- CIB Mortal Combat- CIB Flashback- CIB World Series Baseball- CIB Virtua Racing (box and cart only - no manual) Ghouls n Ghosts- cart only Awesome Possum- cart only WWF Super Wrestlemania- cart only Art of Fighting- cart only Aladdin- cart only X-Men- cart only Batman Forever- cart only The Lion King- cart and manual ECS w/ World Series Major League Baseball, Mindstrike and Mr. Basic $100 Tested and working ECS in very good shape. Comes with power adapter, WSMLB cart and 2 overlays (no manual), Mindstrike cart, 1 overlay and manual, Mr. Basic Meets Bits 'N Bytes cart, 2 overlays and manual NES game lot $65 All are cartridge only Bubble Bobble Super Mario Brothers 3 Ikari Warriors Karnov Baseball Stars Jackal Nintendo World Cup Rad Racer Skate or Die 2 Rush 'N Attack TNMT II The Arcade Game Bionic Commando 1942 Kung Fu Sesame Street ABC & 123 Atari 5200 Rescue on Fractalus CIB and Space Shuttle w/one overlay and manual $30.00 (for both) Used DVD Lot - ALL OF THESE for $40.00 Kolchak: The Night Stalker complete TV series King of the Hill - complete seasons 4-6 Christopher Lee - 4 Dracula movies. New! (DVD is still in the shrink wrap) Aliens - Blu-Ray The Return of the Living Dead - Blu-Ray
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Time for another Cmart mini-collection. This time we'll look at all the ECS games, including all variations, as well as all the hardware. Let's start with an overview of everything. (Except the bloody ECS Synths, which I forgot about and had to include later). This includes all the variations of the 6 games, 13 in total, plus the two new Intelligentvision games just for fun (and completeness ). There are also two versions of the ECS Computer Module, the more common white version (the North American release), and the less common brown version (for PAL land). There are also white and brown versions of the ECS Music Synth, but strangely they both come in the box with the white Synth on the front. For reasons I'm not clear on, I now seem to be able to only post one picture per post, so I'm going to take up the next nine posts to fill in the details. And now for the usual disclaimer....if anyone finds something ECS related that I don't have, you know what to do. I'll make it worth your while. (In trade Rev, and by that I mean games.)
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I started looking at a disassembly of Melody Blaster, after I became curious as to which ECS games supported tape expansions. My hope is to create virtual tape images for jzintv that can be used to allow extra music into the game. As an intermediate step, I'll try creating a ROM hack with new music in it. The ROM follows the standard memory map for 12K Mattel games: 8K in the $5000-6FFF range, and 4K in the $Dxxx range. Most of what's in $6xxx is the Help text, and it overflows a little into $D0xx. After that is the 11 tunes. There are a bunch of calls in the code to functions at $40xx and $41xx, so the ECS "Executive ROM" must be located there. The ECS does have onboard RAM, and I'm pretty sure tunes are loaded there and then parsed by the ECS EXEC. The list of pointers to the starting addresses of each tune starts at $57E7 (cartridge ROM), with the low-order byte listed first, and the starting address for the current tune is loaded into $354 (16-bit system RAM address). The game allows for one extra tune to be loaded into memory, either from a tape or by playing a tune (one channel only). I hope tape tunes aren't limited to a single channel, but I don't know yet. All the music data fits into 8-bit words, probably because that's the width of the ECS RAM. As for the tunes, the first 18 bytes comprise the title. I looked at the first 2 tunes so far, which both had a 9-byte signature starting with 0 1 1 9 6 6 9 4. After that was the data for each of the 4 channels used by the game (2 sprite-based notes per channel). The channels' lines are listed separately, in order from low to high, and not all of them are used. The music data consists of byte pairs: a note ($18 is Middle-C) or $80 for a rest, and then a duration in "ticks". In most cases, channel data is separated by the signatue 1 1 $80 1, but I found an exception in Tune 2 "ROW,ROW THE BOAT". That signature appears twice in a row in Tune 1 "BLASTER'S BLUES" because one channel is not used. In many cases, channels' music data is prefaced with a rest, because another channel has a starting pick-up. The first channel for BLASTER'S BLUES is the left-hand harmony line, which has a small pause to allow the pickup in the right hand melody line. Then the channel-separator signature appears twice, followed by the melody line. Strangely, the fourth channel has a series of rests which add up to 234 ticks, where it is then used to play a second note in the right hand at the tune's end. There are a total of 9 consecutive rests here, the first 8 of which are 25 ticks each ("$19"), and the last of which is 34 ticks ("$22"). There's a little more data here which I haven't yet deciphered. ROW,ROW THE BOAT is played as a round, with the harmony line picking up a measure behind the melody line. The same value $18 is used for the C note in their respective octaves, which leaves me to believe that the ninth byte in the signature following the title contains bits to tell us which channels have octave offsets (in other words, are meant to be played by the left hand or the right hand). The end-of-channel signature is also absent at one point, so maybe the header signature tells us which channels are not used at all? That's as far as I got so far. I'll take the time to study the other tunes later today. Another interesting point is that there will sometimes be tiny spaces between notes at what appear to be arbitrary points: a note played for 2 ticks followed by a 1-tick rest in one hand and for the full 3 ticks in the other hand. That indicates to me that the music data was created by a device that a MIDI keyboard was connected to, and that data was only moderately cleaned up afterwards to get a consistent tempo across all channels.
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Introduction The ECS has two different keyboards you can connect to it: The alphanumeric keyboard and the synthesizer keyboard. This topic intends to describe the process of reading both, as well as to provide useful code for reading each. If you just want to use the code, you can skip most of this post and just download the code. You don't need the low level detail to use the code. I'm providing the low-level detail so that you can understand the code if you want to, or write your own routines if you want to. Hardware Background The ECS provides a second sound chip to the Intellivision (AY-3-8917), which is similar to the AY-3-8914 in the Master Component, only mapped at $00Fx rather than $01Fx. Like the Master Component's sound chip, the ECS's provides two 8-bit I/O ports. (Side note: David "Papa Intellivision" Chandler's recently released documentation indicates that the AY-3-8914 was modified at some point to make its I/O ports input-only, unlike every other variant of the device with I/O ports. That is not relevant to this discussion; the AY-3-8917's I/O ports are bidirectional. It is an interesting historical footnote, though.) Introduction to Matrix Scanning Both keyboards connect to the AY-3-8917's 8-bit I/O ports. Both keyboards employ a basic technique called matrix scanning. The basic idea is simple. Making a matrix-scanned keyboard takes four steps: Construct a grid of "row lines" and "column lines". Connect your keyboard switches so that each one connects one "row line" to one "column line" when closed. Connect an output port to the "rows", so that you can selectively drive one row at a time. Connect an input port to the "columns", so that you can see what switches are closed on any given row when that row is driven. That gives you a basic matrix-scanned keyboard. Here's a simple example of a 3x3 keyboard with the keys A through I. (Note: This is just meant to be an example; it is not the actual ECS keyboard matrix.) When you press 'A' in this example keyboard, it connects Row 0 to Col 0. When you press 'I', it connects Row 2 to Col 2. To read such a keyboard, you need to scan each of the rows, one at a time, reading the columns after each. To start, you drive Row 0, and then read the columns. If one of the switches is closed in that row, then the signal on the Row 0 line will show up on the appropriate column. For example, if you press "B", then you'll see a signal on column 1. Next, you switch to driving Row 1 (and stop driving Row 0), and read the columns. And so forth. Now, the observant will notice I left out a couple details in the diagram and description above. Now to add those back in. In the Intellivision, the keyboards use an "active low" scheme to scan the keyboard. That is, each row and column have pull-up resistors on them that cause them to read as 1 by default. So, to drive a row, you need to set that row's bit to 0. To detect a driven column, you need to look for a 0 in that column's bit. Problems (and Solutions) with Matrix Scanning Refer back to the example matrix above. What happens when you press multiple keys at the same time? Let's say you press A and E at the same time. When you scan Row 0, you'll see Col 0 light up, and when you scan Row 1, you'll see Col 1 light up, as in the following diagrams. So far, so good. Now what happens when you also press B in addition to A and E? Let's scan Row 0: We light up Row 0, and both Col 0 and Col 1 light up as we expect. But, the fuschia line above shows another line that gets lit up... Row 1! So far, that hasn't caused a problem. But if your Spidey Sense is tingling, telling you that things are about to go horribly wrong, you'd do well to listen to it. Let's scan Row 1 and watch it go pear shaped: Since we've only pressed E in Row 1, we only want to see Col 1 light up. But, because the switches at B and A are also closed, we also have a complete circuit to Col 0, so both Col 0 and Col 1 light up. It looks to us as if both D and E are pressed at the same time. Oops! This is sometimes called "ghosting," and can happen whenever you press keys on three corners of a rectangle in the keyboard matrix. It turns out that there's an easy fix for this: Diodes! Now, partly because I'm lazy, partly because I'm still learning Inkscape and partly because I want to keep the diagram general, I'm just going to represent the diodes as rectangles below. The direction they face depends on whether you use an active-low scheme, like the Intellivision, or an active-high scheme. And, it depends on whether you scan by row (as we have so far) or scan by column. (More on this in a moment.) With diodes, the keyboard matrix looks like this: Now if we press A, B and E, everything works like you expect, because the diodes block the ghost paths: Even though B lights up when we light up Row 1, the diode prevents that from inadvertently lighting up Row 0 and flowing (via the switch at A) to Col 0. What's in the Intellivision's ECS Keyboards? Both ECS keyboards are basic matrix scanned keyboards. The alphanumeric keyboard is a simple 48-key matrix with no diodes. There are 49 actual keys, but the "Shift" keys are wired to the same row/column in the matrix. If you press the wrong keys at the same time, you will see ghosting. The following diagram gives the matrix for this keyboard: You'll notice Row 6 only has the shift key, and Row 7 is empty. Also, there's no key associated with Row 0/Col 7. The synthesizer keyboard, on the other hand, is a diode-filled 49-key matrix. This allows you to press whatever keys you like, without restrictions, and without ghost paths. The piano keys are mapped to matrix points in a very straight forward manner, so I won't bother with a matrix diagram. The lowest note on the keyboard corresponds to Col 0, Row 0, and the highest note is in Col 0, Row 6. [TO BE CONTINUED: Since this post is getting fairly lengthy, I am going to save what I have, and then resume with an edit.]
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Well, I spotted an ECS on Ebay, and since I like the Intelli quite a bit, I decided to buy it, for the joy of collectionning. Now, I just wonder if there is homebrews planned to use the ECS features? Either fully ECS-only games or game featuring enhanced sound or something else (I don't think it's possible to have better graphisms à la Vidéopac+, but who knows?) like 4 players games?
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Took a gamble and bought the ECS on eBay for $88 CDN shipped. Paid off. Now I need to figure out how to get it on the internet to watch YouTube.
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Looking for an Intellivision ECS in good working order. No box needed. A good working power supply would be a bonus, but apparently I can get by with an Atari 1050 power supply.
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Introducing Inty ECS GPS https://youtu.be/_8zZaOlPb58 Have you ever wanted to hook up your Intellivision to GPS? Now you can! The hardware setup for the Inty ECS GPS software is: Intellivision ECS GPS unit that outputs Garmin TextOut serial data, set to 1200 baud, 8N1 Cable that adapts ECS AUX to serial (Tx/Rx version) Cable wiring: ECS ECS DE-9 Signal Plug pin ------ ------ ---- Tx Tip 2 (optional, not used by Inty ECS GPS) Rx Ring 3 GND Sleeve 5 Note: the cable in the video also has internal loopback on the DE-9 for when it is plugged into a PC, but this is not relevant to connecting to the GPS hardware. This project grew out of my studying of the ECS's UART registers, which were poorly understood. As far as I know, this program demonstrates the first time in decades that anyone has read data from the AUX port into the ECS (writing out the AUX port previously known from the ECS's printer code in ROM). I eventually plan to present more formal register documentation later. For eager/curious developers, the source code here contains preliminary definitions of the registers and bit-fields. Since further research is still being done, expect some of the bit-field names to change in the future. For example, one unnamed bit field has recently been observed to change values but is still not fully understood at this time. ROM and source code provided below. Inty_ECS_GPS.zip
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I like collecting systems and accessories for them. So when I heard about the Intellivision ESC, I started to look for one, and.. I may be able to get one. Tho, I try to collect things I can enjoy and play, and not having "dust catcher" pieces of hardware that would make the joy of someone else. I heard there is 6 games that use the ECS; of these, were all 6 released in Europe? Just wondering. And more important; since the ECS got a standard "tape data" interface, is there homebrew games using the ECS capabilities? Or maybe, homebrew games for regular Intellivision available in MP3 format to feed to the ECS? If not, does some community or developer plan to make some ECS games? If not, what do you consider being a fair price for an ECS with the keyboard (not the music one) and boxed?
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Hey all. How many people that play Intellivision games own an ECS (hardware or emulated)? I have a game in the works (destination is a cartridge), and it would be cool to use the extra sound chip in the ECS, but I don't want to make something that will please like 6 people. 100 people, I could do.... (not actual size) Thanks.
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Hello all, I'm relatively new to this forum so hope this hasn't already been answered somewhere else. I acquired two Intellivision ECS synthesizers over the course of the last year or so over eBay (one U.S. white version and the other the European brown version). I only have the white U.S. ECS console to play with them both (for now; some day hope to have the European console as well). All of the keys on both synthesizers work and appear to depress normally. The white synthesizer works 100% perfectly where you push down the key once and hold it plays one continuous note; no problem. When I push down any of the brown synthesizer keys about half of the time the note plays like the white version I have. The other half of the time, however (doesn't matter which key I push), the brown synthesizer will quickly play the same note two or three times in succession with only one key depression where you hold it, so the keys appear to be much more sensitive. Also, if you hold down a key on the brown synthesizer and subtly "wobble" your finger back and forth on the key it will play multiple notes, whereas this does not happen with the white one at all. Is this normal for the brown one to be so much more "sensitive" when depressing keys than the white version or does it probably need some degree of maintenance to have the keys become less sensitive like the white one? Could I be missing or need replacement of some sort of part in the brown synthesizer to help not make the keys so sensitive to play? Is there anywhere we can send a synthesizer to in order to have it repaired if it needs to be assessed by a technician? I assume that this is not due to the fact I am using a white ECS with a brown synthesizer as the different ECS versions should not work differently than the other? Any thoughts you have would be most appreciated.
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Hello! I’m starting a BRAND-NEW COLLECTION of archival materials (overlays, rules booklets, ancilliary items, and game cartridge boxes) for the INTELLIVISION video game computer system. This new project will take me quite some time, so—I’ll set up my 1st relevant post. I uploaded a .SVG template for an INTELLIVISION game overlay on Google Drive; please click on this link: https://drive.google.com/drive/#folders/0B126UWeG-OsRN0Zlc0UtNXo4T2M/0B126UWeG-OsRSnFrNlBtdjVqeFU/0B126UWeG-OsROTJFQkE5c3NtTkU/0B126UWeG-OsRfmRibU9VTXZSWUhZSl9lWU4ycVpiR0F6enV2WHEzNU4zeE9tcDY0TVktdDQ Intellivision Overlay Template—.SVG When you do use it in your graphics application, please select the whole overlay template, and select UNGROUP to break apart the separate elements to make editing easier. After doing your overlay design, select ALL the separate elements, and select GROUP to reconnect them into a SINGLE item. Choose SAVE AS, and enter an appropriate filename ([GAMENAME]_overlay.SVG) Thank You!
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Hello, y’all! I recently started doing mock-ups with Elektronite’s new Intellivision Graphics Tile Editor (INTV GTE); so far, I did several title screens and playfield screens. I’d like to learn how to create animated sprites (the moving objects in the video games)—how do I go about it?! I do know about the 8 animated sprites limit per video game. Thank You!
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I can't seem to get past the title screen in jzIntv or Nostalgia. Granted, I have not hooked up a CGC or Ultimate interface yet, but jzIntv doesn't recognize the .itv from Intellivision Rocks as WSMLBB, it lists it as (Incomplete) in the title bar of the window. Also, my searching skills must be lame, as I can't determine if either of these emulators allow you to provide ECS keyboard input without a CGC. TIA for any advice.
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Looking to purchase an ECS Computer Module with Keyboard and Power Adapter for the Intellivision. Hope you can help.
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Hi, I have an ECS Computer Module that I really don't want any more. I used to have World Series Baseball for it, but I sold that (to Kefka14). It was my only game for it and I don't really anticiapte getting any more so if anybody wants it, I'll sell it. Actually come to think of it, I have a loose copy of Mind Strike for it, I'll throw that in. It has the keyboard and the actual attachment, and it has the power adapter. And like I said I have played it before so it does work. I don't have a price in mind or anything like that, just message me if you're interested. I have done some selling on here before, you can ask IntellivisionDude or Kefka14 for some feedback if you like. Thanks! Oh and I can send you pictures upon request. As of right now I don't have any but I can take some for you.
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