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the official Channel F thread!


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Incidentally I was revisiting the CGE 2004 panel Jerry Lawson and Rick Maurer did, and they talk a bit about Michael Glass. Apparently either his Spitfire or democart easter egg turned up while he was still working at Fairchild - the service department brought Jerry a cart that had gotten stuck in a mode that just kept showing the message "programmed by Michael Glass" as Lawson recalled it. When he asked Glass, Glass showed him how to bring it up by using the console inputs; he said he put it in because he liked going into stores and making the message pop up on demo units.

 

Also spoke highly of Glass's Spitfire program adjusting how fast or slow a plane would go depending on how well the opponent was doing, which I never noticed. Like if you shot down the computer a lot it would speed up, or if it shot you down a lot it would slow down.

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And if by magic....! https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/RARE-FAIRCHILD-VIDEOCART-25-CASINO-POKER-VIDEO-GAME-CARTRIDGE-F-BOX-INSTRUCTIONS/274235061362?hash=item3fd9aef472:g:2ekAAOSwGpBeMKMI

 

Also I got a counter offer, but I've put in another offer. If I don't get a response/rejected I'll post what got offered to me in case anyone else wanted to have a go.

 

Edit: noticed this from same seller:

 

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/RARE-FAIRCHILD-VIDEOCART-17-PINBALL-CHALLENGE-VIDEO-GAME-CARTRIDGE-F-BOX-WARRAN/254496009352?hash=item3b4124ec88:g:OUsAAOSwD9JeMKTk

 

Con job? 17 never came with a clear box did it?

Edited by Mikebloke
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12 minutes ago, e5frog said:

Nice, 25 for some rich fellow.  ;)

 

Yes, a lot of carts were released by Zircon in white boxes, as long as it's a Zircon labeled cart there's really no suspicion of a fake IMHO. 

Ahhh I see the back now, I looked at the front label and because I didn't see the Z logo I thought it was dodgy looking. 15 hours till my offer for the cart only one is over, will probably be sad and then buy a bunch of unneeded 2600 carts to cheer me up.

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It's part of what I call Zircon orange series. Fairchild logo has been removed and they have a purple/brown-ish hue. Kind of the same as Bowling, maybe someone liked the color combination. 
I'm still missing a few of these, wonder if there's a "full" set. 
I'm actually missing #17 but haven't really got the money right now for the one on eBay - and it's less appealing when the instruction booklet missing. Would be nice if someone here bought it and could share a better image (see the horror below), current image on eBay may help but won't look that good after processed. 
Anyone with the orange 1,3,6,7,810,11,20,25,26... take a picture or scan it and send it over. 

label.videocart.02z.jpglabel.videocart.04z.jpglabel.videocart.05z.jpglabel.videocart.09z.jpglabel.videocart.12z.jpglabel.videocart.13z.jpglabel.videocart.14z.jpglabel.videocart.15z.jpglabel.videocart.16z.jpglabel.videocart.17z.jpglabel.videocart.18z.jpglabel.videocart.19.jpglabel.videocart.21.jpglabel.videocart.22.jpglabel.videocart.23z.jpglabel.videocart.24b.jpg

 

 

There's an odd #6 as well, I image they might have lost the print material - look at that F, new and old style mixed. The B/W #7 is "normal" - there are some other B/W as well, but they're the same as the color ones - but without the color. ;-) 
Dennis has it on hos page, it has the "normal" edge label: http://fndcollectables.com/CHANNEL_F_INFO/U_S_/Carts_Boxs_Labels/6_THRU_10/6_thru_10.html
label.videocart.06z.jpglabel.videocart.07z.jpg

 

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Todays Instagram # was about games you loved as a child. Well the Fairchild was all I had as a child so...easy choice. My sister and I used to love the hockey game best. We used to play where you kept the controller knob held twisted so the "paddle" continually changed angles..made for a random fun game. I had my youngest (21) try it and he was shocked how fun a game made of a few lines and a dot could be. anyway, took this pic for it, thought you guys might enjoy..tried capturing the days of playing on the floor in front of the TV (Still working on getting a big furniture style CRT). 

 

 

FCFL.jpg

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I did win the loose casino poker. I thought I might as well go as high as I could go, I'm on the final stretch for games and I'm happy enough just having the UK released ones CIB. 

 

I did offer $75 for it. $25 postage and then the super import tax for an extra $25-30 on top. I like looking at the number in £££ because it makes me feel better about spending that much for just a cart. 

 

It does mean the fairchild is plugged back in now, so it'll get some use. Gamecube went back into storage! 

DSC_0422.JPG

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4 minutes ago, e5frog said:

Nice, not cheap but I have seen much more expensive ones. Well done! 

Yeah, I imagine it was a tad expensive, but hey, I'm earning a bit more than I used to these days so what the hell! I can still count the number of games I spent more than £50 on one hand, so I can't complain. 

 

Ps: I won that hand with that pair ?

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On 1/30/2020 at 5:31 AM, ubersaurus said:

I blanked!

No worries! I've never cultivated much of an internet presence beyond a handful of small forums, and my handle is practically nonsense anyway. :P 

 

Anyhow, for a while I've been working on a disassembly of my favorite Channel F game, Dodge It. I've reached the milestone recently where I've figured out the basic meaning of every chunk of code. There's still a lot of clean-up and documentation to be done, but I'm proud of what I've done so far (though currently the drawing function is the only thing I'd consider fully up to my standards).

 

Some interesting things I found:

- After the rest of the character set, there are the letters "F", "A", "S", and "T". There is no place in the code that would display those letters.

- There is an unused function that makes the screen flash (using the row attributes). I think it used to be the game over animation.

- Unlike a lot of earlier games (and some later ones) it doesn't make any calls to the BIOS.

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4 hours ago, RT-55J said:

You can link to it, but I'd hold off on posting the code there until I clean it up some more.

Well, it's better than the raw disassembly that's there now.   ;-)
Just wanted a backup copy where other Channel F related stuff is collected (and I'll find it myself in five years if I want to check something). 
I would probably remember there was some Channel F game disassembled at some site that had "FAST" and some flash thingy... and start googling.   :D

I'll wait until you feel it's done and hope I don't miss it. 

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  • 2 weeks later...

I have never seen an orange Hangman. They've all been purple. But this one is orange.

An orange #18 Hangman on eBay.

Same seller is selling #26, #15, and #22. I would buy #22...but a.) shipping is too expensive, and b.) It's the only one he set as an auction so it's a 4-day wait for everyone. Boo hiss.

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29 minutes ago, atari2600land said:

I have never seen an orange Hangman. They've all been purple. But this one is orange.

An orange #18 Hangman on eBay.

Same seller is selling #26, #15, and #22. I would buy #22...but a.) shipping is too expensive, and b.) It's the only one he set as an auction so it's a 4-day wait for everyone. Boo hiss.

How much are they charging for shipping for you regarding 22? 

 

I've messaged the seller in a round about way as the usual system didn't let me to plead to consider overseas sellers. Given that I got another loose game for under $25 postage to UK it can't be that expensive domestically.

 

I've pushed how every use I've had with global shipping program has been successful and its basically me as a buyer having to pay extra for the privilege.

 

As the seller only sells to US, I can't even see the items when I look it up - but I was able to use your link to browse the US section to get it to show it to me - but does not show a price for shipping.

 

Edit: I think they've just set it as I now see shipping prices, but 22 has gone. Being reset as buy it now perhaps??????? maybe...

Edited by Mikebloke
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On 2/10/2020 at 12:59 PM, Ashevent said:

Todays Instagram # was about games you loved as a child. Well the Fairchild was all I had as a child so...easy choice. My sister and I used to love the hockey game best. We used to play where you kept the controller knob held twisted so the "paddle" continually changed angles..made for a random fun game. I had my youngest (21) try it and he was shocked how fun a game made of a few lines and a dot could be. anyway, took this pic for it, thought you guys might enjoy..tried capturing the days of playing on the floor in front of the TV (Still working on getting a big furniture style CRT). 

 

 

FCFL.jpg

2 years ago I actually used classic consoles to help a student learn to write essays (basically he loved video games, so getting an argumentative essay about which console is better really helped him get over his opposition in writing essays)

Anyway he compared the channel f, 2600, studio 2, intellivision, odyssey 2 and mp 1000, he actually concluded the channel f was the second best after the 2600 because he thought the built in games were pretty good, was impressed by how old it was and  still working and thought the controllers were really clever.

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Hi guys,

 

Great article i found on USA Today discussing Jerry Lawson and the  Channel F. Enjoy. :)

 

https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2020/02/27/how-black-engineer-forever-changed-video-game-consoles/4752682002/

 

Before Nintendo and Atari: How a black engineer changed the video game industry forever

Mike Snider
USA TODAY
 
 
Atari. Magnavox. Intellivision. 

Each evokes memories of the golden age of video games, which brought the first wave of consoles you could connect to your home television.

But there's an oft-forgotten person from that era whose contributions to the industry still resonate today: a black engineer named Jerry Lawson.

Lawson oversaw the creation of the Channel F, the first video game console with interchangeable game cartridges – something the first Atari and Magnavox Odyssey systems did not use.

Those initial consoles had a selection of games hardwired into the console itself.  But Lawson, an engineer and designer at Fairchild Camera and Instrument Corp., led a team at the Silicon Valley semiconductor maker charged with creating a game system using Fairchild's F8 microprocessor and storing games on cartridges.

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Jerry Lawson, who oversaw the creation of Fairchild Camera and Instrument Corp.'s Channel F home video game system, the first to use interchangeable game cartridges; shown here in a scanned photo from Black Enterprise magazine.
 

"A lot of people in the industry swore that a microprocessor couldn’t be used in video games and I knew better," Lawson said during a speech at the 2005 Classic Gaming Expo in San Francisco posted on YouTube

The Fairchild Video Entertainment System, later named the Channel F (for "Fun"), which began selling in 1976, had games such as hockey, tennis, blackjack and a maze game that foreshadowed Pac-Man.

 

Before Atari, there was Channel F

The console beat the Atari 2600 to market by one year. But Atari's name recognition and marketing heft basically pushed the Channel F into video game history obscurity. The system would sell about 250,000 units while the Atari 2600, which would get hits such as "Space Invaders" and "Asteroids," would go on to sell about 30 million units.

Regardless, the Channel F established the concept of console that could play an unlimited number of games, the foundation for today's global video game market, which is projected to surpass $160 billion in 2020, according to research firm Newzoo.

The Fairchild Camera and Instrument Corp.'s Channel F home video game system, the first to use interchangeable game cartridges, on display at The Strong Museum.
 

Lawson, who died in 2011 at the age of 70 due to complications of diabetes, "literally created an industry that is bigger than the movie industry," said John William Templeton, executive producer of curriculum and content for ReUNION: Education-Arts-Heritage, which creates programming for schools.

How Jerry Lawson got into games

A groundbreaker as one of the few African-American engineers in the industry at the time, Lawson grew up in Queens, New York. He was a lifelong inventor who attended college but did not earn a college degree, according to his obituary in The New York Times. As a teen, he made money by repairing televisions.

 

After he moved to the Bay Area and was working at Fairchild, Lawson belonged to a home inventors club that included Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak; the pair would go on to found Apple. Lawson also built his own coin-operated arcade game called "Demolition Derby" in his garage, which led the company to ask him to focus on games, according to an interview in 2009 with Vintage Computing and Gaming

When he left Fairchild, Lawson founded his own video game company, Videosoft, which created games for the Atari 2600 and made some of the first 3-D games. But he closed the company during the video game crash of the mid-1980s.

 

Lawson got some recognition before he died. He was included in the 2009 documentary, "Freedom Riders of the Cutting Edge," produced by Templeton, who had served as editor of the San Jose Business Journal from 1987 to 1989.

Soon after that, Templeton mentioned Lawson to Joseph Saulter, chairman of the International Game Developers Association's diversity advisory board. "I just said to him, 'Well, you know the person who did the first video game console was black.' He just literally stopped in his tracks," Templeton said. "I just interviewed him I can bring him over and have him speak to folks."

 
 

As a result, Lawson was invited to a Blacks in Gaming gathering at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco in 2011. "The most important part of it was that there were maybe 70 or so black developers there listening to him," Templeton said. "It was just extremely emotional for them because for their entire lives, their professional lives, they had been feeling like outsiders and, then they (could say), 'Hey, wait a minute, somebody who looks like me started the whole thing'." 

Gordon Bellamy, who at the time was the IGDA's executive director, recalled how the event helped younger African-Americans working in video games embrace "our reality, to learn and value and celebrate the very history of how our careers were built on (Lawson's legacy)," he said.

In the early '90s, Bellamy was one of the few African-Americans working in video games and he rose to become a lead designer on Electronic Arts' John Madden Football franchise. "We are a continuation of a history," said Bellamy, who seven years later got an IGDA lifetime achievement award named after Lawson.

Meeting Lawson, he said, "was great and obviously for me resonant. I think for him it was his first time seeing his legacy live on not only in the recognition of his work but in all of us existing in the craft."

"As I reflect on it, I was an engineer myself coming out of school," said Bellamy, who is currently a visiting scholar at the University of Southern California and president of Gay Gaming Professionals. "I am just so thankful for his contributions that afforded me my career."

Some of the artifacts relating to the career of Jerry Lawson, who oversaw the creation of Fairchild Camera and Instrument Corp.'s Channel F home video game system, the first to use interchangeable game cartridges
 

His place in video game history

An exhibit of Lawson's handiwork is on permanent display at The World Video Game Hall of Fame at The Strong National Museum of Play in Rochester, New York. There, you can see the Channel F game system and some of Videosoft's games. The museum has Lawson's papers in its archive, too. Lawson and the Channel F game system are also included in A History of Video Games in 64 Objects, a book published by the museum in 2018.

Among the museum's missions: bringing to light the contributions of minorities and women in the video game industry. Lawson's contributions counter a lack of representation of black game developers in the industry, said Jeremy Saucier, an assistant vice president for interpretation and electronic games at the museum.

"The major figures often tend to be white men," Saucier said. "We really want to get the history right and tell a more inclusive history than the meta-narrative that we have stuck with in the past."

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The creation of the Channel F system by Lawsons's team at Fairchild was "an achievement (that) ends up completely changing what was at the time a really burgeoning video game industry," he said. "It laid that groundwork for the business model of the industry, the razor blade model, of (putting) a console in the hand of consumer for a low profit or loss and make much higher profits on all these individual games."

Violence in today's video games 

As he aged, Lawson became upset with how video games glorified violence. "Most of the games that are out now – I’m appalled by them," he told Vintage Computing and Gaming. "They’re all scenario games considered with shooting somebody and killing somebody. To me, a game should be something like a skill you should develop – if you play this game, you walk away with something of value. That’s what a game is to me."

Lawson's story is told almost daily still. Templeton co-produced (with William Hammons II) another documentary, "A Great Day in Gaming: the Gerald Anderson Lawson Story" in 2011 and it is shown in schools that participate in the ReUNION network.

As he works with children in Brooklyn and Queens, Templeton says he often evokes Lawson's career, "as an example of how they can be creators and not just consumers."

Follow USA TODAY reporter Mike Snider on Twitter: @MikeSnider.

 

Anthony...

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