Stacked and Interconnected INTV II?

[fdr4prez]

I'm curious about what the concept was for this drawn prototype of the Intellivision II that is stacked and interconnected with these other unknown devices?

 

http://www.ted-mayer.com/projects-archive/intellivision.html

 

It leaves much to the imagination > VCR - Hi-Fi - INTV II all interconnected

 

I like the convenient carrying handle, but it looks like the entire ensemble would be a bit off kilter when held by the handle. Maybe it is just a locking bar to hold them all together.

 

Is Ted Mayer a known name around here?

 

 

[+intvsteve]

Wow -- cool stuff! Wonder if this was some kind of vision of how the ECS and other add-on hardware would "stack" before the wheels all came off. As has been said, Mattel spent a LOT of time and money on hardware ideas that never came to fruition. I wonder if it's ECS, Intellivoice II, cassette (or other storage) for the ECS, etc. VCR is another neat idea… Around the time of the ECS they had posters pushing the idea of Mattel's hardware being the center of home entertainment.

 

Funny… game consoles are still aiming to do that. Streaming services for movies and music, more traditional media players (CDs, DVDs, Blu-Rays), games, DLC, web browsing, et. al. They were only 30+ years early.

[fdr4prez]

OK, this leads to a very interesting ideal for a concept.

 

Would it be possible to take two Intv II units and daisy chain the cart ports like in this drawing, could we have the two units playing the same game at the same time and have 4 player games without ECS?

 

Well, that might mean two TVs, but if the two units/games are interactive to each other, then this opens up many possibilities.

[+freewheel]

No, but it's a cool thought.

 

There is a chance of that sort of thing happening with a flash cart with an onboard serial port, but... well, let's just say we'll have to wait and see. It of course also opens up the possibility of online play. With a tremendous amount of work involved.

[Intymike]

He seems to be the original designer of the Intellivision II and the Synsonics Drums.

 

http://www.ted-mayer.com/projects-archive/mattel-electronics.html

[fdr4prez]

Edit: Yes, sorry, I saw that and failed to mention it in my first posting.

 

I'm curious if Ted Mayer could be contacted for an Intellivisionaries interview segment about his design drawing...hint hint to the Crack Research Team

Edited November 8, 2015 by fdr4prez

[+KylJoy]

I dropped him an email asking what those stacking components in his drawing represented. I'll see what he says and report back here, too.

[+freewheel]

I dropped him an email asking what those stacking components in his drawing represented. I'll see what he says and report back here, too.

 

Back in the day there was a lot of talk about expansion and component-based systems like this. Home computers of course usually had a proper data bus, so you could daisy-chain things together. Images of a fully laid-out TI-99/4 are legendary. I think it's 6 feet wide or more! Most systems ended up using flexible cables and whatnot, just like your home stereo system. There was no *need* to stack A/V gear, it just looked nicer that way.

 

Thanks to the Crash (and the practicality of it) we never saw much of this in the game console space. With the Intellivision, the closest we got was the monstrosity that I currently have on my desk - Console-ECS-Intellivoice-Cart, with the Music Synthesizer keyboard in front. In theory you can extend this a lot further - I suspect that in those concept drawings, they were just using C-shaped connectors to link the bus. What the actual components might have been is anyone's guess. A cassette player. A floppy disk drive. Given the ... constrained expansion abilities of the Intellivision, a CPU/RAM/graphics expansion would basically just be an entirely new console, bolted on and sharing the controllers/AV outputs - think System Changer on steroids. But that was certainly on the drawing board at one point. Most game manufacturers had an idea about that, Sega's 32X is a good example (and proof that most of them would have failed outright).

[+BBWW]

I really want to put my Intellivoice into an ECS, Intellivision II or System Changer shell just for the look.

Thanks to the Crash (and the practicality of it) we never saw much of this in the game console space. With the Intellivision, the closest we got was the monstrosity that I currently have on my desk - Console-ECS-Intellivoice-Cart, with the Music Synthesizer keyboard in front.

[m-crew]

I really want to put my Intellivoice into an ECS, Intellivision II or System Changer shell just for the look.

 

Now that's an idea.. I think the System Changer shell would work the best .. considering its the closest to the size of the intellivoice module...

[Intymike]

Now that's an idea.. I think the System Changer shell would work the best .. considering its the closest to the size of the intellivoice module...

 

Wasen't there someone to do a custom shell for the Intellivoice?

[+freewheel]

I've never taken apart an ECS. I wonder if it has the space to fit the Intellivoice board inside? You could easily remove a few inches in width from an Intellvoice, if you were so inclined. Probably height, too, if you wanted to spend the time moving a bunch of components around. Lotsa diodes and resistors to re-locate.

 

I'm weird. I kinda like the frankenlook of my setup right now. It screams 1980s expansion hardware. Kind of a mess right now, the A/V cables run through a VCR below so I can send a signal to the LCD monitor (that will be replaced this spring once I find a suitable CRT at a garage sale). The green cables patch the audio into my main PC so that I can listen with headphones and not disturb anyone as I muck about with my limited musical skills. Think screaming cats.

[SiLic0ne t0aD]

I've been thinking about trying to hack an Intellivoice into a 2609 but I haven't committed to it yet.. too many loose ends on other projects I need to take care of first.

It would be nice to get rid of that case and just have it built in.

 

I don't have an ECS yet though..

Edited November 9, 2015 by SiLic0ne t0aD85

[pimpmaul69]

I really want to put my Intellivoice into an ECS, Intellivision II or System Changer shell just for the look.

i can do it. Its best done in an ecs case because it has a volume knob in it and it has enough room to have parts of the ecs board and the entire intellivoice board in it. System changer would be the worst. Unusable buttons and no volume knob. And no room for modifications

[+intvnut]

I dropped him an email asking what those stacking components in his drawing represented. I'll see what he says and report back here, too.

 

Looking at the picture, I see (top-to-bottom): Intellivision II, ECS, System Changer, Intellivoice. Those are just guesses, but it lines up.

 

Such a tower looks cool, but seems likely to fall over in the heat of play. Especially given that the Intellivision 2's coiled cords are very stiff compared to the Intellivision 1.

 

 

I've been thinking about trying to hack an Intellivoice into a 2609 but I haven't committed to it yet.. too many loose ends on other projects I need to take care of first.

It would be nice to get rid of that case and just have it built in.

 

I don't have an ECS yet though..

 

If you have the skills to lay out your own circuit boards and don't mind surface mount components, it seems like it should be possible to do, especially since surface mount resistors and caps take up far less space than the old-school late 70s/early 80s parts. Of course, if you mount through-hole resistors vertically, that also reduces footprint and doesn't require surface mount. You'll have to source new resistors, but they're cheap.

 

 

I've never taken apart an ECS. I wonder if it has the space to fit the Intellivoice board inside? You could easily remove a few inches in width from an Intellvoice, if you were so inclined. Probably height, too, if you wanted to spend the time moving a bunch of components around. Lotsa diodes and resistors to re-locate.

 

The ECS has a lot crammed in there already. It has two circuit boards connected by a thick ribbon cable. There might be room for the Intellivoice if you can reduce its size quite a bit (again, mounting resistors vertically, for example). You end up with two volume knobs to deal with... or a trimmer pot on the Intellivoice board to match it to the ECS volume, at least, so the ECS volume knob can work for both.

 

 

 

Back in the day there was a lot of talk about expansion and component-based systems like this. Home computers of course usually had a proper data bus, so you could daisy-chain things together. Images of a fully laid-out TI-99/4 are legendary. I think it's 6 feet wide or more! Most systems ended up using flexible cables and whatnot, just like your home stereo system. There was no *need* to stack A/V gear, it just looked nicer that way.

 

Ah, the infamous "choo-choo train." (I'm told by some who were at TI at the time that that's what some called it internally.)

 

 

That's what lead to the PEB. Those PEBs weight a ton, BTW. (I finally ended up with one.) The cable from the TI-99/4A to the PEB was described as a firehose cable. That description is 100% accurate. It looks almost exactly like a flattened firehose, just black and rubbery.

[+intvnut]

i can do it. Its best done in an ecs case because it has a volume knob in it and it has enough room to have parts of the ecs board and the entire intellivoice board in it. System changer would be the worst. Unusable buttons and no volume knob. And no room for modifications

 

One problem with ECS modifications is that it has at least one chip-on-board epoxy covered blob. You can't migrate all the components to a new, more compact circuit board easily, unless you reimplement some of the hardware in a CPLD / FPGA, and hope you got it right. If the goal is just to play existing titles, that's fine. If your goal is to reverse engineer and find out what it was really capable of, you need the original componentry.

 

I could probably reimplement everything but the PSG and the FSK modem (the tape load/store stuff) in a single PIC24H (reusing the JLP/LTO Flash work I've done), but for the serial I/O (printer, and serial to/from the tape analog logic), you'd be limited to what we've reverse engineered.

[+KylJoy]

About Intellivoice in a new case, what about 3D printing something that matches the Intellivision II style and harvesting the volume control from one of the piles of available original Intellivoice units? I don't have a 3D printer but it "seems" doable. Not sure what available colors of 3D printing media there are but a quick paint job could cure that. is this undertaking too daunting?

 

I'd like to see more doohickeys available from 3D printing.

[+freewheel]

Meh. If you're re-implementing stuff that way, just shove a Pi in and emulate it.

Original hardware forever!

[+KylJoy]

Ooooey. I've been looking at some 3D printed objects. They are pretty rough. So, I don't think that'll work for something we would want to look pretty nice.

[+freewheel]

Ooooey. I've been looking at some 3D printed objects. They are pretty rough. So, I don't think that'll work for something we would want to look pretty nice.

 

You could just put an Intellivoice inside an empty ECS shell (say from a broken unit). Kinda bush league, but it'd be a start. You'd have to extend the connectors but otherwise no real hard work involved.

[pimpmaul69]

 

One problem with ECS modifications is that it has at least one chip-on-board epoxy covered blob. You can't migrate all the components to a new, more compact circuit board easily, unless you reimplement some of the hardware in a CPLD / FPGA, and hope you got it right. If the goal is just to play existing titles, that's fine. If your goal is to reverse engineer and find out what it was really capable of, you need the original componentry.

 

I could probably reimplement everything but the PSG and the FSK modem (the tape load/store stuff) in a single PIC24H (reusing the JLP/LTO Flash work I've done), but for the serial I/O (printer, and serial to/from the tape analog logic), you'd be limited to what we've reverse engineered.

i am not putting it on a new board. I would keep the old board. Then i would keep parts of the ecs board that have the input/output and the volume knob. I have 20 years experience in modifying electronics like this. This is really a simple job compared to a lot of stuff ive done. When it comes to modifying i hate and refuse to do a hack job. I want people to look at it and see it looking like it was made that way or a piece of art.

[JohnPCAE]

 

Wasen't there someone to do a custom shell for the Intellivoice?

I modeled the Intellivoice II shell in FreeCAD a while back and posted the models on the forums...

[fdr4prez]

I modeled the Intellivoice II shell in FreeCAD a while back and posted the models on the forums...

 

That's an interesting thread for the new case design.