1975: Philips Tele-Spiel ES-2201
Category: Home Console
Three years after the Magnavox Odyssey invented the game cartridge system, and one year before the Fairchild Video Entertainment System introduced programmable ROM cartridges, there was this rather obscure European game console, technically somewhere in between. While in contrast to the Odyssey, the ES-2201 cartridges contained actual game logic and not just reconfiguration jumpers, it was not yet microprocessor-based. Where Fairchild’s system contained a CPU that executed game code read from the cartridges, the ES-2201 system contained some basic discrete TTL game logic components which were completed by more TTL components contained in the cartridges.
Five game cartridges were available for the system, of which the first came with the system: Tennis, Pelota, Skeet Shooting, Racing, Ghostchaser.
Links
1976: Fairchild Channel F
Category: Home Console
The Fairchild Channel F, previously called the Fairchild VES (Video Entertainment System) was released in 1976 as the world’s first programmable, cartridge-based home console. Therefore it was the first to exploit the concept of selling people a base system that they could later extend by buying new add-on games. It predated the Atari 2600 (or Atari Video Computer System) by about a year.
The system was only moderately successful, with Fairchild selling their rights to Zircon in 1978, who would continue production and support for another couple of years. The Channel F saw 26 add-on cartridges in its lifetime.
Graphics were very simplistic, even more so than those of the Atari 2600. A special feature of the system are its controllers: they are sticks that are held in one hand, while the other hand controls a knob on top. This knob can not only be moved in all directions, but also pushed down, pulled up, and twisted both ways.
TV commercial
Play it
The Fairchild Channel F is fully emulated by MESS.
Information about game cartridge ROM dumps is available (e.g. GoodChaF 3.13, TOSEC 2006-05-05, No-Intro 20060701)
Links
- Wikipedia
- MobyGames
- Allgame
- Channel F Information Pages
- Channel F Cartridge Gallery
- Old-Computers.com (with game screenshots)
1976: Dedicated home games
Category: Home Console (dedicated)
Atari follows up their Sears production with Pong games under their own label: Atari Pong and the extended Atari Super Pong.
Magnavox extends their product range, too: the Odyssey 300 has 3 levels of difficulty and automatic serving and English for 2 players, the Odyssey 400 adds digital scoring, the Odyssey 500 is in colour, has a fourth game called Soccer, and represents players as real figures for the first time.
Mattel releases the electronic handheld games Auto Race, Missile Attack, and Ski Slalom. Today, they are very hard to find and sought after by collectors.
Related videos
Atari Super Pong commercial:
Atari Super Pong gameplay:
1975: PONG comes home
Category: Home Console (dedicated)
In collaboration with Sears, and under the Sears Tele-Games label, Atari finally releases a dedicated console version of PONG that people could take home and play on their own TV sets. It was the sensation of the 1975 Christmas toy sales. Sears requested 150,000 units from Atari, and people were waiting in line for hours to get one before they were sold out. In addition to their good reputation as an Arcade game designer and manufacturer, Atari instantly also became a big name in the consumer entertainment market. A year later, Atari would follow up with a PONG console under their own label, as well as several extended versions.
Of course, it didn’t take long until other manufacturers would come up with their own dedicated consoles (consoles that play only built-in games.) While some of these consoles offered new concepts (such as the motorcycle jump game Stunt Cycle or the battle game Tank by Atari, as well as their clones,) most of them just played variations of the old ball-and-paddle titles. Among them were new microchip-based offerings by Magnavox, Odyssey 100 and Odyssey 200, that only played 2 and 3 game variations respectively. With hundreds of these dedicated consoles playing the same basic games, the market would soon be oversaturated. And with customers growing tired of the same old games, this would ultimately lead to the first big videogame crash in 1977, when stores threw out these consoles by the thousands, trying to minimise their losses.
Related videos
Original Atari Pong Commercial
Original Atari Super Pong Commercial
Unfortunately, the sound and picture quality of these recordings is pretty bad, and turn down your speakers, they are loud! Also note that they were originally in colour, and even the original Atari PONG console already had a colour display!And a bit less directly related, but just cool to watch, this invitation to a 2008 retrogaming event:
1972: Magnavox Odyssey
Category: Home Console
This year, Magnavox finally produces a commercial version of Ralph Baer’s TV game vision, which he started designing in 1966, and the idea of which actually reaches back to 1951. The game is only a moderate success as people weren’t yet sure what a TV game console was about, and Magnavox did not know how to market and sell one. But there is no doubt that this console started the home videogame business all on its own.
The console did not contain a microprocessor but was built from discrete logic parts. The game could actually play a number of different games through plug-in cartridges, however these did not contain ROM chips but simple jumper-like wire connections, that would configure the components in the console itself in a different way, resulting in a different behaviour of the on-screen elements. Most games were played in conjunction with some of the plentiful accessories that came with the game, classic material such as cards or game boards. Overlays to be put on the TV provided colour and graphics. That’s why the Odyssey was really only part of the actual games, and they could not really be enjoyed without all the rules and accessories.
Play it
The console’s discrete logic nature means that it cannot be emulated on a computer. There is one simulator, which also contains all cartridge configurations. Although you cannot really play the games without the game rules, overlays, and accessories, the program is almost perfect in its simulation of the actual console.
Download ODYEMU
1973 Odyssey TV Commercial
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