Toby Russell Posted October 12, 2019 Share Posted October 12, 2019 I just opened up my Intellivision in order to perform an AV mod on it (the RF output is just awful) and the innards are unlike other pictures I've seen on the web. There appears to be some kind of auxiliary video board, there is no metal shielding and some of the chips are in different orientations to the ones I've seen elsewhere. Is this normal for a PAL machine or have I got some kind of early revision? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mr_me Posted October 12, 2019 Share Posted October 12, 2019 (edited) Looks right for a UK part # 1591 intellivision. What's the serial number? Did the UK have any other hardware variations? Edited October 12, 2019 by mr_me Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mr_me Posted October 16, 2019 Share Posted October 16, 2019 Here's a 1983 magazine article with a photo of the same model. https://archive.org/stream/PersonalComputerNews/PersonalComputerNews032-19Oct1983#page/n23/mode/2up Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Intymike Posted October 16, 2019 Share Posted October 16, 2019 I think the UK got the first PAL models, a year earlier than other countries (Germany August 1982). Maybe they smashed together a working system and later the did more refined versions for other countries. And the UK has a slightly different PAL system (most people don‘t remember this because TVs from the 80s on could handle the UK and Continental PAL systems). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Lathe26 Posted October 16, 2019 Share Posted October 16, 2019 1 hour ago, mr_me said: Here's a 1983 magazine article with a photo of the same model. https://archive.org/stream/PersonalComputerNews/PersonalComputerNews032-19Oct1983#page/n23/mode/2up Interesting article. The review is of the ECS is a good assessment. However, I was a little surprised at the number of typos that went to print in a published article (ex: "de acto standard"). 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mr_me Posted October 16, 2019 Share Posted October 16, 2019 (edited) He obviously spent some time with the computer module and even the music keyboard. He praised the intellivision graphics capabilities even though it's less than half the resolution of other home computers. The thing is, even if Mattel did make a ram upgrade and a decent version of basic I doubt they would have given users full access to the hardware. Edited October 16, 2019 by mr_me Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HunterZero Posted October 18, 2019 Share Posted October 18, 2019 The Intellivision uses a STIC chip to generate the picture, and a supporting chip/circuit to generate the required colour signal. Old analogue TV signals were compatible with both black and white and colour TVs. The STIC chip comes in NTSC and CCIR variants. NTSC Intellivisions use the PAL STIC for 60Hz timings, and an AY-3-8915 IC to generate the colour signals. PAL Intellivisions use the CCIR STIC for the 50Hz timings, instead of an AY-3-8915 color PROM, a discrete circuit is used to generate the PAL colours. There must have been some frequency tolerance reason why the AY-3-8915 was deleted and replaced for PAL systems. - J Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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