Las Vegas Slots and TV-POWWW

[decle]

On 12/6/2019 at 9:31 PM, BSRSteve said:

So, I guess that Roulette just took more space than they expected and the other games couldn't fit in the cartridge. And then they never were released.

Yes, I think you're right Steve.  However, it seems that Slots did see the light of day, at least for those living in Sacramento...

 

As part of their book research Tom and Braxton uncovered this gem, complete with 80s innuendo, in the KeithR / BSR archive of documents:

 

 

It seems that this version of Slots did make it to Marvin Kempner at TV-POWWW and a bit of Googling turned up the following video with it being played on KTXL in 1980 (TV-POWWW wasn't just for kids it seems):

 

 

So there was at least one T-cart with a complete version of Slots on it.

 

Looking at this TV-POWWW marketing document, although the pictures of Basketball and Baseball are not the standard marketing images used in the various catalogues, the games seem to be the same as the cartridge releases.  Word Rockets differs to the released game, in that it seems to support four letter words, with letters missing from the beginning (and presumably end) of the word, and it uses an underscore to highlight the missing letter, rather than a space.  Football and two player Space Battle appear to be images of the TV-POWWW versions that can also be found on YouTube.

 

So I think there is video evidence of five Intellivision titles being used for TV-POWWW at the moment:

• Football - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CWLCKFMGEdo
• Slots - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cIqgKmY4DDo
• Soccer - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hGXf5V_UH7c
• Single player Space Battle - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=weZGElhgEY0
• Two player Space Battle - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G4tsMQl9fPo

 

Then potentially there are the additional titles identified in the Kempner marketing document:

•  Baseball
•  Basketball
•  Word Fun / Word Rockets

 

Plus the extra titles mentioned in a Kempner advert on page 106 and 107 of this 1983 Broadcasting magazine:

•  Boxing
•  Astrosmash
•  Frog Bog
•  Horse Racing
•  Space Hawk
•  Unspecified Intellivoice game(s) (coming soon!)

 

Marvin Kempner's autobiography lists the following games on page 216:

• Skiing
• Boxing
• Space Patrol - presumably Space Battle
• World Rockets - probably Word Rockets
• Astro Smash - he's doing well! ?
• Slots

 

The March 2002 Intellivision Newsletter talks about:

• Astrosmash
• Skiing
• Word Fun / Word Rockets

 

And finally, there are the games released on Sharp Shot.  The BSR website describes how APh submitted four games programmed for TV-POWWW as what became this title.  So this would add the cut down versions of:

• AD&D
• Sea Battle

 

As a consequence, there could be as many as 16 Intellivision titles adapted for TV-POWWW.  Presumably all on T-carts, as detailed in the marketing doc.  Now that would be some collection!  Perhaps a New Year challenge to CMart? ?

 

It's also interesting that there is no mention of voice activation in the Kempner sales spiel.  Evidence for voice control of Intellvision deployments seems to be very thin on the ground (basically non-existent).  This is in comparison with the earlier Fairchild implementations where there is reasonably strong circumstantial evidence for it being used.

 

Nevertheless, I feel a project coming on...

Happy (early) New Year!

 

decle

 

[mr_me]

That's quite a find.  And the video has been out there all along.

 

What evidence is there the Chanel F version had voice control.  When you look at the tv poww videos the intellivision version is consistently close to the action but the channel f is sometimes way off.

[+JasonlikesINTV]

Interesting stuff!  Thanks for compiling this.  Also thanks to Tom and Braxton.  I'm looking forward to their book and all they've learned during their research project.

[IMBerzerk]

I'd say the Intellivision versions were faster because someone was physically pressing the button on you shouting Pixx.  If they were using actual voice command back then over a phone line, passing through a Mux, then into the Intellivision unit would slow the reaction time considerably.

 

Is there anyone out there that has these T-Carts that can dump the ROMs?  How great would that be having these in a collection, or on an emulator.  Those of us that had a local TV station (ch.11 WPIX hosted TV-Pixx in the New York area) that used this system would love to have access to those games again.  The Sharp Shot versions were good, but not the same.  

Edited December 31, 2019 by IMBerzerk

[1980gamer]

I certainly remember Soccer on 11-Alive  WPIX..  But had not seen a video of it until today.

[IMBerzerk]

TV-Pixx from the Tri-State area.  (NY, NJ and CT)

 

 

And a pretty interesting history of the whole system, including where it started and what system was initially used (Chanel F).

 

aaahhhh... the good old days before cell-phones and computers! 

[dj_convoy]

Yeah, I saw an Oddity Archive recently about TV POWWW. Wild, but I guess a bit ahead of it's time, considering how poorly it worked. 

[+intvsteve]

Awesome!

[decle]

Sorry, this is a long one and a bit off-topic, hopefully it is interesting ?

 

On 12/31/2019 at 5:15 PM, IMBerzerk said:

Is there anyone out there that has these T-Carts that can dump the ROMs?  How great would that be having these in a collection, or on an emulator. The Sharp Shot versions were good, but not the same.  

The only two TV POWWW T-carts I'm aware of are the Kempner Football and KSpace T-carts owned by David Chandler's estate. I believe the whereabouts of these are currently unknown - David Chandler's estate sent them to the BSRs, but BSRSteve is not aware of them being received.

 

In what way do you think that the titles on Sharp Shot are not representative of TV POWWW?  The videos of two player KSpace and KFoot look to be very similar to the Sharp Shot versions of the games (there are one or two small differences - for example the use of the gun at the end of a KFoot game).

 

On 12/31/2019 at 2:21 PM, mr_me said:

What evidence is there the Chanel F version had voice control.  When you look at the tv poww videos the intellivision version is consistently close to the action but the channel f is sometimes way off.

I was wondering if this would pique someone's interest ?  I think there are three pieces of circumstantial evidence that support voice control being used in at least some Fairchild TV POWWW installations.

 

First Marvin Kempner's biography describes the trials of getting the technology working on page 205:

 

"Early in March, we received the news from Fairchild that they were running a little late, but they assured us they would be ready prior to the April start date of the NATPE convention. Normally, this convention, held annually, would start on a Thursday or Friday, go through the weekend and one or two days into the following week. I wanted to be on the air the Monday prior to the start of the convention so that we could get any bugs out of the equipment and have the A.M. Los Angeles show with Regis rolling by the time the general managers and program directors registered.

 

On the planned Monday morning, at 7:00 a.m., engineers from Fairchild and I entered the studios at KABC to set up our spanking new "TV POWWW" equipment. With everything ready to go by 8:30, Regis and Sarah having integrated the contest into the show, things looked great-until we discovered the equipment didn't work! Getting on line through the system was beautiful, but the voice activation was not operational. At 8:45, "TV POWWW" was cancelled for the show, and the engineers flew back to Santa Clara to continue working.

 

Tuesday, they were back with several changes only to discover once again it still wasn't operational. By Wednesday morning, when we were still having trouble I was almost at my wit's end. Still, the engineers assured me it was only a simple bug, and they once again returned to Santa Clara.

 

By Thursday morning, with Fairchild's engineers once again hooking up the system, I had visions of never making it for the convention, but lo and behold, everything worked. Regis, with his unusual ego, didn't make our life easier, but Sara Purcell, a tall sinewy blonde, was just precious. She was delightful to work with and had a wonderful sense of humor, even screaming out "POWWW" at the wrong time to see if she could make the equipment work from the studios. We went on the air, and Regis asked viewers to pick up the phone and call to play from home.

 

On Friday morning, again we had no problems. For two hours after the show went on the air, the Los Angeles telephone system was badly taxed with people calling trying to be first to play "TV POWWW" on KABC-TV and asking all kinds of questions."

 

Interestingly, I think that the final section of this video, starting at [18:41], might be a recording of that very first TV POWWW show which, if true, would be incredible:

 

 

I like the level of explanation given, and how surprised the presenters are that the whole thing works.  Also notice that Shooting Gallery has not been altered to add a timer, Sarah is using a stopwatch to time contestants.  Sarah Purcell left A.M. Los Angeles later in 1978 and so this ties the recording to roughly the right period.

 

The second piece of evidence is a Kempner advert on page 41 of Broadcasting magazine from February 26th 1979. This clearly states that the game is "Voice Activated!" and that this constitutes an "Electronic Break-thru!".  I know, marketing is marketing, but it's not nothing.

 

And the final piece of evidence, is a couple of videos of a Fairchild TV POWWW being demonstrated at the North Carolina State Fair in 1980:

 

 

The first thing to note is that when presenters are talking to Barney or the crowd [4:30] they use a single mic with a foam wind shield.  However, when playing the game this mic is augmented with a second one with no wind shield [10:53].  The additional mic is only used during play, once the game is over the host puts it down on the Fairchild console [11:49].

 

Later in the video we get a clearer picture of the monitor in the background [13:08]. You can see that the game seems pretty responsive to Danielle, I think a person would be doing well to keep up that fast, that accurately.  However, notice that as Danielle makes her POWWWs longer, the shot retriggers, and when she starts to laugh it goes fully auto-fire [13:29].  Something similar happens in this video from Bozo's Circus where a child in the background seems to trigger the shots.  I don't think an engineer pressing a button would do this.  Instead, this reminds me of an amplitude or "clap switch" type circuit being used to generate input.  Not exactly speech recognition as we would describe it today.  If this is correct, the main purpose of a secondary microphone at the State Fair would be to isolate sounds made by the player and filter out background noise.

 

Finally, later in the State Fair video Anessa seems to talk rather quietly, which the hosts think causes a couple of POWWWs to be missed [14:29].  As a consequence, they ask her to talk louder a couple of times.  Again, if a person was triggering the shots I would not have thought this would be necessary.

 

Oh, and if anyone can shed some light on what the black floppy disk looking object is, protruding from the front of the orange cartridge plugged into the Fairchild console, that would be great:

 

 

Not TV-POWWW evidence, but somewhat related, Kempner went on to sell other voice services later in the 80s, like the "Telephone Poll" product advertised on page 106 / 107 of Broadcasting.  Kempner received a patent for the technology behind this in 1984.  This product collated automated polls where viewers called in and responded to a yes / no question that was broadcast over the air.  It looks as though the "voice recognition" aspect of this was the caller making any sound at one of two silent points in a message generated by a voice synthesizer corresponding to yes and no.  The audio of the caller during these periods appears to have been amplified and converted to a digital signal which was then counted if it was above a volume threshold.

 

I'm not suggesting that any one of these is conclusive evidence that voice control was used at any particular deployment.  And of course there are examples of syndicates specifically stating that voice activation was not used, for example TV-PIXXX.  Rather, I think that together this is reasonable, if circumstantial, evidence that an amplitude based TV-POWWW voice technology probably existed, and may sometimes have been used.

 

Moving on to Intellivision TV POWWW, the nearest I have found to similar video evidence is the fact that in the Brazilian SBT installation of the mid-80s the presenters seem to fiddle with an Intellivision hand controller around the start TV POWWW games and then don't fiddle with it again during play, much like the hosts of Fairchild installations:

 

 

However, as the game starting sometimes seems to precede the disc tapping, and no power or A/V leads seem to be coming from the back of the console, I think there is the real possibility that this is an affectation and the Intellivision is a prop, or a shell with a controller linked back to the Kempner rack mounted Intellivision in the control room.  Regardless, nothing can be inferred about what may, or may not, be supplying input via another controller port.

 

I think it is also potentially telling that the later Intellivision POWWW advert from Broadcasting, the one that also advertises Telephone Poll as "able to actually recognize words spoken on the telephone!", does not mention voice activation as a feature of TV POWWW.

 

Of course the question is, if Kempner had working voice technology for the Fairchild implementation, why would they not use it in the later Intellivision ones?  One possible answer is patents.  According to Marvin Kempner's autobiography, Fairchild, who developed the voice input hardware, "requested the right to file for patents on the voice activation and anything else they felt was warranted".  Later, when discussing the origins of Telephone Poll, he states "TV POWWW was no longer using the Fairchild Camera Instrument Corporation's patents. The electronic industry had come far and we had found easier ways of producing our interactive equipment".

 

A bit of Googling into Fairchild patents turns up the nattily titled "Electronic device for subtracting signals and associated system employing such device".  Not obviously related to TV-POWWW, however, this patent covers technology to prevent the programme presenters' voices or other studio noise activating TV POWWW as a result of it being sent down the phone line and feeding back into the receiver.  Without it, sound from the studio could not be fed to the player during game play, and presenters would not be able to coach contestants.

 

Perhaps Kempner was wary of patent infringement and Fairchild's licensing costs were too high?  Perhaps it was just easier to drop voice recognition in the move to Mattel?

 

Obviously, much of this is speculation, however, if I was to hazard a guess, it would be that voice recognition did exist and was used in some Fairchild installations, but that it was dropped in the move to Intellivision for patent or contractual reasons.  As always, counter evidence and arguments are most welcome.

 

 

Cheers

 

decle

 

[Tempest]

This is all really fascinating.  Was slots supposed to be bundled with craps or was it supposed to be with another cart?  I honestly don't remember.  I never thought for a moment that footage of it existed. Amazing.

 

BTW does anyone other than the BSR have an Intellivision prototype site?  This should really be documented.

[mr_me]

Looking at the video, both the channel f and intellivision systems have the voice consistently close to the action.  Too close to be anything but voice activation.  The one I saw that was off was in fact the one with the baby crying in the background.

 

I see no reason the intellivision system didn't use the same voice activation used with channel f.  If Fairchild had a patent, they would simply license it.  They already had an agreement with fairchild in place.

 

--------

In an early promo video there was a cartridge labelled "las vegas roulette, craps, and slots".  The intellivisionlives web site said craps was completed but made no mention of slots.  That video and the screenshot was the first evidence of intellivision slots for me.

Edited January 3, 2020 by mr_me

[IMBerzerk]

Thank you for posting all of this!  This is great early console history. Funny how we watched (and a lucky few played) these TV games.  Now we actually have a good idea how it was all done.  Great nostalgia.

 

As for the game ROMs I asked about.  It's not really about Sharp Shot, as yes, they're close in nature. It's more about having the actual ROM dumped for archives and history.  These games were obviously designed for a unique purpose, therefore the ROM are unique.  But if they're not available, hopefully they will be one day and be catalogued. 

[Cellblock1138]

Cool info. Didn’t the original keyboard have a built in microphone for language learning? Maybe Mattel used a version of that tech.

[+Lathe26]

On 1/3/2020 at 10:41 AM, decle said:

Interestingly, I think that the final section of this video, starting at [18:41], might be a recording of that very first TV POWWW show which, if true, would be incredible:

 

 

 

 

 

Marvin Kempner: Let's make a family-friendly way for people to play video games via TV!

 

Meanwhile in Cleveland on a late-night adult ??‍❤️‍??‍❤️‍? should with a red-lips couch ?: <breathlessly> "Hi!"

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tdl-TbT3DGU&feature=youtu.be&t=725

 

[Walter Ives]

On 12/31/2019 at 5:46 AM, decle said:

Then potentially there are the additional titles identified in the Kempner marketing document:

•  Baseball
•  Basketball
•  Word Fun / Word Rockets

Immediately after inking the deal in 1979 Kempner was touting to the press football, baseball, basketball, space battle, armor battle, horse racing and children's math and spelling learning games. Chandler's group was looking forward to see how he was going to do the latter.

 

On 12/31/2019 at 5:46 AM, decle said:

As a consequence, there could be as many as 16 Intellivision titles adapted for TV-POWWW.  Presumably all on T-carts, as detailed in the marketing doc.  Now that would be some collection!  Perhaps a New Year challenge to CMart?

Sure. Neither Kempner nor the Mattel marketing department ever promoted vaporware.

Various individuals in Chandler's group assembled the T-cards actually delivered to Kempner. Kempner Space Battle (KSPACE) was by far the most popular. In addition to the titles for which you have video evidence, T-cards were definitely prepared for Kempner versions of Baseball, Armor Battle, Horse Racing, Adventure and Sea Battle. Of these, both Baseball and Armor Battle actually made it to air—can't say about the others. There were a few others in the works that didn't make it to T-card.

Kempner really pushed for horse racing as another adult-oriented cartridge, but it was hard to come up with reasonable game play. KHORSE addressed the problem by adding jumps to create a steeplechase-on-a-racetrack game. It was easy to get a perfect score using a hand controller after a few practice runs—that probably wouldn't have been true for a one-time phone caller on the air.

 

On 12/31/2019 at 5:46 AM, decle said:

Evidence for voice control of Intellvision deployments seems to be very thin on the ground (basically non-existent).

Sound activation definitely existed and worked. Chandler, at least two members of his group, someone from APh and someone from marketing actually went to a Los Angeles studio and saw it in operation with their own little beady eyes. After that their only contact was fielding pleas for more games and shipping T-cards into the void.

 

On 1/3/2020 at 10:41 AM, decle said:

Not obviously related to TV-POWWW, however, this patent covers technology to prevent the programme presenters' voices or other studio noise activating TV POWWW as a result of it being sent down the phone line and feeding back into the receiver.  Without it, sound from the studio could not be fed to the player during game play, and presenters would not be able to coach contestants.

A telephone connection uses only two wires, called Tip and Ring. The "Tip" wire is so-called because it is connected to the tip of the telephone plug, the "Ring" wire is connected to a conductor ringing its barrel. Two wires are necessary because there is no external ground reference signal. Those two wires simultaneously carry both the signal from the central office to the subscriber and the signal from the subscriber to the central office—while in transmission the two signals are summed. When speaking on a telephone, the signal from the mouthpiece would blast at high volume through the earpiece of the speaker's phone unless the speaker's signal was removed from the signal sent to the earpiece. To accomplish this, handsets contain an auto-cancellation circuit that subtracts ~90% of the mouthpiece signal from the signal on the wire before delivering it to the earpiece—telephone engineers figured out how to do that in the early days of telephony. The reason a small amount of the mouthpiece signal is allowed to go through is to give the speaker some sense that what he is saying is really being transmitted—it's a really weird sensation to speak into a telephone whose feedback has been totally eliminated. Another device attached to the same telephone line would have no way of knowing what part of the signal to cancel, so it is condemned to hearing both of the other parties more or less equally. Without special measures such as those described in the Fairchild patent, a TV Powww! setup would be wise to mute any extension attached to the phone line, such as the emcee's microphone, during game play and have all communication from the presenter to the player during that period occur over the air. You'll probably want the player to turn his TV volume down a bit too. In practice, any "coaching" during the 30-second game play is distracting to the player and is done more for the purposes of maintaining audience engagement than for assisting the player.

TV studios come equipped with sound engineers who like to demonstrate their expertise, so requiring sound checks, button pressings, VU meter readings and slider adjustments to make this work for any particular caller is not a problem. It gives the sound guys something to do and justifies their retention.

 

On 1/3/2020 at 10:41 AM, decle said:

Perhaps Kempner was wary of patent infringement and Fairchild's licensing costs were too high?

Nah. Fairchild would have given Kempner a free license to assuage its conscience for leaving him in the lurch. They would have been seen as a real a******* otherwise, with a reputation that would have made it harder for them to find playmates for other ventures. It was a small world and the SMPTE engineers all knew each other.

 

On 1/3/2020 at 11:54 AM, IMBerzerk said:

Now we actually have a good idea how it was all done.

Well, not quite. There is still the small matter of trying to figure out how Kempner managed to mesh the decidedly non-standard Intellivision video with the true RS-170 NTSC video needed for broadcast. Kempner claimed that his engineers modified Mattel's equipment for broadcast use and added that the modified equipment was able to accept house sub-carrier and composite video sync signals and produce RS-170 video. That claim raised eyebrows in Chandler's group at the time. Compared to that, voice activation was child's play. I don't know how they actually did it. Here are some ideas.

In a broadcast setup there is a master sync generator such as the Tektronix SPG600 that generates a "house sync" signal that is distributed to all of the video sources and to which all video sources "gen-lock." The signals from all of the synchronized video sources are then brought to a switcher that selects the signal to be aired. Since switching and fading work better when the color carriers for all sources are in close phase there may also to be a mechanism for adjusting the phase of the signals from the various sources—in the absence of appropriate rack-equipment ever-practical studio engineers were known to accomplish this by inserting video cables custom-cut to the appropriate length.

If the signal source is less than perfect, such as a video tape from a news team camera, that signal must be "time base corrected" to mesh with the studio signal. For many sources, time base corrections can be done on a scan line by scan line basis. Not so for an Intellivision signal. Even if an Intellivision's color oscillator could be locked to the house carrier the Intellivision scan line is a half color carrier cycle too long and so doesn't alternate phase on alternate lines. After solving that problem one is faced with the problem that the Intellivision generates 262 line fields instead of 262.5 line fields. That means each Intellivision frame (2 fields) is 227 cycles too short.

These two differences almost cancel each other out. Indeed, they come so close to doing so that it should therefore be possible to phase lock the Intellivision vsync to house vsync--that will at least align the frames, although the horizontal syncs and color carriers will drift with respect to each other.

One could always accomplish the synchronization using a "frame store" time base corrector. These devices read video from one source, such as an unsynchronized video tape, into a full-frame buffer and produced a synchronized RS-170 video signal from the data in that buffer. There were even "standards converters" that could synchronize 50 Hz 625-line PAL and 60 Hz 525-line NTSC so that video materials could be shared between the US and Europe. Ampex was one source. These devices were quite expensive, but the prices of everything RAM-based were falling rapidly, so look up the 1979 prices yourselves. It's possible Kempner included one in his leased equipment, or he could have required the station to have one.

Of course, there's always the poor man's standards converter: display the source signal on a studio monitor and point a properly sync'd video camera at it. You could even enclose such a standards converter in a mysterious looking black box. This potentially results in an effect called "roll bars," often seen when video monitors are filmed in old movies, but syncing Intellivision vsync to house vsync as described above should take care of that.

Anyway, that's what I come up with off the top of my head.

The non-standard TV game video was also an issue in the production of television commercials, but there the expense of recording in a studio with a frame store was warranted.