My New Channel F Time Line w/Documentation

[FND]

Channel F Time Line w/Documentation

 

If any of the few channel f collectors are interested I have put together what I think

is a fairly accurate time line for this system

 

It seems after collecting channel F paper work for years it looks like the pieces are

finally starting to fall into place

 

Since its a rather large file with scans of the supporting documentation I will just attach

a link here to the web page were I have posted it. Note all pictures of supporting documentation can

be enlarged by double clicking the image. The PDF of the PATENT can take a while to load after clicking it.

 

Channel F Time Line

 

Also I just completed a large update with alot of new Brochures, Flyers, Letter envelopes and

US cart variations. I think I may be very near to a complete set of Brochures

 

Here are a few samples of the new additions

 

 

 

FND

Edited February 21, 2008 by FND

[BassGuitari]

Very nice, as always!

 

Those fliers for Alien Invasion are really cool. As the scan was loading, the "Alien" part was slowly revealed, and reminded me of the movie "Alien." It actually really makes me want to play the game, goofy as that may be...

 

I had no idea those fliers even existed. Man, where do you find this stuff?

 

I recently acquired a copy of Alien Invasion, actually, but unfortunately my Channel F system is acting funny (it plays some games fine, but it automatically starts others on seemingly random game variations, or won't play them at all) and the reset button is damaged, so I can't really play it.

 

But yeah, anyway, great work!

[FND]

Very nice, as always!

 

I had no idea those fliers even existed. Man, where do you find this stuff?

 

 

Thanks I am glad to hear others enjoy them as much as me.

 

I do spend alot of time looking under every box, table, Trunk and Rock I can find not to mention asking

every ebay seller of this system if they have any documentation or brochures, I do get some interesting

responses at times.

 

Hope you get your system working, I still find it fun to play a few of these games every once in awhile

 

FND

[brucebidder]

I am an avid Fairchild collector also Ill have to look and see I think I have some documentation that you are missing. Ill have to look and see....

Bruce

[FND]

I am an avid Fairchild collector also Ill have to look and see I think I have some documentation that you are missing. Ill have to look and see....

Bruce

 

That would be great, I hope you have someting its been awhile since I found anything and I need a fix real bad

[Rev. Rob]

Completely awesome website. I totally loved it.

 

I too am a big Channel F fan, and I am happy to see each time that someone does something to preserve and showcase its place in history.

[brucebidder]

I am an avid Fairchild collector also Ill have to look and see I think I have some documentation that you are missing. Ill have to look and see....

Bruce

 

That would be great, I hope you have someting its been awhile since I found anything and I need a fix real bad

 

 

I have more stuff but at quick glance these two jump out as interesting... THey are for a company called Microtronix that sold Fairchild stuff. Whats interesting is if you look they have the keyboard controller listed for sell at 9.95 each and 22-24 games are listed as K-1, K-2, K-3 so it seems that originally those games should have used the rumored keyboard controller.

 

[FND]

I am an avid Fairchild collector also Ill have to look and see I think I have some documentation that you are missing. Ill have to look and see....

Bruce

 

That would be great, I hope you have someting its been awhile since I found anything and I need a fix real bad

 

 

I have more stuff but at quick glance these two jump out as interesting... THey are for a company called Microtronix that sold Fairchild stuff. Whats interesting is if you look they have the keyboard controller listed for sell at 9.95 each and 22-24 games are listed as K-1, K-2, K-3 so it seems that originally those games should have used the rumored keyboard controller.

 

 

Totaly awsome do you mind if I add them to my site( of course I will give credit )

 

I have found one of the Microtonix carts with a rear label, I don't see any difference Yet

 

 

 

 

The box and instructions have no differece either

 

 

Rev. Bob thanks for the complement, also I have been meaning to ask if you would mind if I set up a link to your Controller

page It would be direct link to your site and of course CREDIT will be included (If not I understand )

 

FND

[Rev. Rob]

I am an avid Fairchild collector also Ill have to look and see I think I have some documentation that you are missing. Ill have to look and see....

Bruce

 

That would be great, I hope you have someting its been awhile since I found anything and I need a fix real bad

 

 

I have more stuff but at quick glance these two jump out as interesting... THey are for a company called Microtronix that sold Fairchild stuff. Whats interesting is if you look they have the keyboard controller listed for sell at 9.95 each and 22-24 games are listed as K-1, K-2, K-3 so it seems that originally those games should have used the rumored keyboard controller.

 

 

Totaly awsome do you mind if I add them to my site( of course I will give credit )

 

I have found one of the Microtonix carts with a rear label, I don't see any difference Yet

 

 

 

 

The box and instructions have no differece either

 

 

Rev. Rob thanks for the complement, also I have been meaning to ask if you would mind if I set up a link to your Controller

page It would be direct link to your site and of course CREDIT will be included (If not I understand )

 

FND

 

That would be fine by me, sir!

[brucebidder]

I don't mind would you like better pictures I just kind of threw those up. I have some of those rear label games too. From my understanding they were just a reseller that added a label.

Bruce

[BassGuitari]

I am an avid Fairchild collector also Ill have to look and see I think I have some documentation that you are missing. Ill have to look and see....

Bruce

 

That would be great, I hope you have someting its been awhile since I found anything and I need a fix real bad

 

 

I have more stuff but at quick glance these two jump out as interesting... THey are for a company called Microtronix that sold Fairchild stuff. Whats interesting is if you look they have the keyboard controller listed for sell at 9.95 each and 22-24 games are listed as K-1, K-2, K-3 so it seems that originally those games should have used the rumored keyboard controller.

 

 

Did anyone else notice "Space Odyssey" in the fourth photograph?

 

I suspect it became Galactic Space Wars, but that screen illustration doesn't look like it. An unreleased game, perchance?

[brucebidder]

Did anyone else notice "Space Odyssey" in the fourth photograph?

 

I suspect it became Galactic Space Wars, but that screen illustration doesn't look like it. An unreleased game, perchance?

 

Yes I was half asleep last night when I put the pictures up and I did notice it, but Im not sure what to think of it. Probably most likely a moch up of space wars or something. What I think is funny is they were selling the keypad controllers for 9.95 I wonder what they did when those were not released.. Boy now that I would like to get my hands on..

[FND]

I don't mind would you like better pictures I just kind of threw those up. I have some of those rear label games too. From my understanding they were just a reseller that added a label.

Bruce

 

 

Better pictures would be great but the ones you have posted are very usable so either way I can use them.

 

I do have a couple question are the last two pictures the back of the second Photo ? Can you snap a picture of

the back of the first photo ? or can you take a picture of the back of any item not already shown also I can see part of an

envelope next to the first picture with two blue strips I would love to see a picture of that as well, Does it have a mailing date ?

 

I see there is a note about carts 1-12 being sold at a summer special price thru Aug 31 1978 so I am guessing this was

mailed sometime around June 1978

 

Interesting to note this date falls in line with the time frame that Fairchild was starting to shut down the Channel F

and it looks like maybe Microtronix was there first choice to sell out to

 

Another thing I have noticed is the Postage Paid stamp on the flyer with the santa hat is from Sunnyvale CA.

so its possable Microtonix had a office in sunnyvale

 

 

Thanks again

FND

[Rev. Rob]

I am an avid Fairchild collector also Ill have to look and see I think I have some documentation that you are missing. Ill have to look and see....

Bruce

 

That would be great, I hope you have someting its been awhile since I found anything and I need a fix real bad

 

 

I have more stuff but at quick glance these two jump out as interesting... THey are for a company called Microtronix that sold Fairchild stuff. Whats interesting is if you look they have the keyboard controller listed for sell at 9.95 each and 22-24 games are listed as K-1, K-2, K-3 so it seems that originally those games should have used the rumored keyboard controller.

 

 

Did anyone else notice "Space Odyssey" in the fourth photograph?

 

I suspect it became Galactic Space Wars, but that screen illustration doesn't look like it. An unreleased game, perchance?

 

Ya, it's clearly Galactic Space war. just be reading the description alone.

[ianoid]

Awesome.

[fusionaut74]

Wow, great job! I'm a total geek for this kind of chronological detail. Regarding the theory of when Fairchild themselves stopped distributing stuff, I could SWEAR I saw Video Whizball and Hangman in a J.C. Penny circa the spring/summer of '79, for whatever that's worth. I'd guess that was the tail end of their support for the system.

 

Also, regarding all this documentation that was released, I have a question for the Channel F experts here. I'm actually more of a magazine/newsletter collector than a game/system collector (weird, I know, but I just love old magazines...) and I remember reading in a Channel F FAQ about a supposed Fairchild newsletter that was released around the fall of '77. I think the FAQ this came from was quite old and outdated, so maybe the author was just mistaking it for a regular Channel F sales brochure, but I've long wondered about that. It would be of signifcant interest to me, because if it did indeed exist I'm sure that would make it the earliest "official" videogame newsletter ever released. I see that it's nowhere to be found on your excellent fndcollectables site, which makes me think it was just an error. But still.... Fairchild was definitely a "low key pioneer", if you get my meaning, so it seems plausible that this could have slipped through the cracks of history. Anyone have any knowledge and/or opinions on this?

 

-fusionaut74

[FND]

Also, regarding all this documentation that was released, I have a question for the Channel F experts here. I'm actually more of a magazine/newsletter collector than a game/system collector (weird, I know, but I just love old magazines...) and I remember reading in a Channel F FAQ about a supposed Fairchild newsletter that was released around the fall of '77. I think the FAQ this came from was quite old and outdated, so maybe the author was just mistaking it for a regular Channel F sales brochure, but I've long wondered about that. It would be of signifcant interest to me, because if it did indeed exist I'm sure that would make it the earliest "official" videogame newsletter ever released. I see that it's nowhere to be found on your excellent fndcollectables site, which makes me think it was just an error. But still.... Fairchild was definitely a "low key pioneer", if you get my meaning, so it seems plausible that this could have slipped through the cracks of history. Anyone have any knowledge and/or opinions on this?

 

-fusionaut74

 

 

Hi -fusionaut74

 

Thanks for taking a look and letting me know you liked it, its always nice to hear that others are interested.

 

I to have been looking and would love to see the "Newsletter" but I have not been able to find it and have only

seen it mentioned in the Channel F FAQ

 

I do believe this newsletter does exist but maybe not as a specific game system (public) type Newsletter, could be

part of a salesman pitch letter or part of a larger Fairchild company newsletter or even a company end of year outlook

type report, Its hard to say but If anyone knows anything more about this I would love to hear about it

 

Cut and past from FAQ:

 

======================

4c. Fairchild newsletter

 

First and only known newsletter, featured descriptions of carts 1-9, with preview

descriptions of carts 10-12. Dated October 1977. Mentions that Carts 10-12 should be

out by November 1977.

 

======================

[fusionaut74]

> I do believe this newsletter does exist but maybe not as a specific game system (public) type >Newsletter, could be

>part of a salesman pitch letter or part of a larger Fairchild company newsletter or even a >company end of year outlook

>type report, Its hard to say but If anyone knows anything more about this I would love to hear >about it

 

Yes, that definitely seems possible. Hopefully we'll be able to find out for sure one day!

 

Speaking of "industry" type brochures, I was poking around the awesome "Bally Alley" site the other day and noticed something interesting. There's a great Bally advertising supplement in the "Ads and Catalogs" section of the site called "Chain Store Age" from June '78. Aside from utterly fantastic late '70s aesthetics, it features some very interesting data about the emerging videogame market of the time, including some Channel F related info. Check out the sales chart on page 5. It indicates that 3% of the videogame sales from 1976 were of programmable systems (which can only mean the Channel F/VES), and that they accounted for a whopping (ahem...) 10,000 units! I don't recall ever seeing hard sales data like that from so early in the game, so I thought it was worth mentioning.

 

One other thing I'd like to ask about are those ancient newspaper articles you have on your site. Where did you come up with those things? Some of these are absolutely priceless, and it makes me wonder what else might be floating around out there from the early days. I especially love the Christmas report from the Reno Gazette, and the "Yuletime Game War" article. That has to be the earliest known example of "system wars" style smack-talk. The best part has to be: "Chuck Jacoby, Fairchild's marketing director, said Atari's games are merely take-offs of ball and paddle games. Jacoby says Atari's games are all similar. 'They call one game bi-plane, one jet, one submarine. Tanks, subs and ships. It's all just things floating across the screen.' " I nearly did a spit-take the first time I read that. Classic!

 

-fusionaut74

[FND]

Most of the Newspaper articles were found using a great resource called

NewspaperArchive.com Its a pay to use type site but has like 77 million Pages

on-line not to mention you can search by Month, day and year for any type of

keyword or name I had done a 3 month trial for like 13.00 and was finding all

kinds of interesting articles not only for video game systems but family members

as well you can refine the searches to specific city's or states found my mothers name

in a old 1926 article when she was in a school parade, aunt and uncles wedding notices

just about anything ever published can be found only draw back is it will only give you a

full page and then you have to read all the articles to find your keyword or name

 

Here is a link to there registration page

http://www.newspaperarchive.com/RegistrationLockdown.aspx