Intellivision
The Intellivision is a home video game console released by Mattel Electronics in 1979. It distinguished itself from competitors with more realistic sports and strategic games. By 1981, Mattel Electronics had close to 20% of the domestic video game market, selling more than 3.75 million consoles and 20 million cartridges through 1983. At its peak, Mattel Electronics had about 1,800 employees in several countries, including 110 videogame developers. In 1984, Mattel sold its video game assets to a former Mattel Electronics executive and investors, eventually becoming INTV Corporation. Game development ran from 1978 to 1990, when the Intellivision was discontinued.
In 2009, IGN ranked the Intellivision No. 14 on their list of the greatest video game consoles of all time.
History
The Intellivision was developed at Mattel in Hawthorne, California. By 1969, multiple research and development groups came together as the Preliminary Design department on the third floor of the head office. Mattel had a history with technology R&D as design engineer Jack Ryan, who joined the company in 1955 from Raytheon, led a group of engineers, chemists, and sculptors. With a large budget they were expected to be forward thinking, dubbed the blue-sky group.Early design concepts
In 1975, mechanical engineer Richard Chang, a director under Ryan, contacted MOS Technology for a demonstration of their new 6502 microprocessor in a video game application. MOS arranged for their client Glenn Hightower of APh Technological Consulting and teacher at CalTech University to do the demonstration.Shortly after, Dave James, an industrial engineer under Chang, wrote a memo dated January 26, 1976, documenting two product concepts. First, a microprocessor programmed video system with "plug-in" ROM modules or cassettes, and a list of applications that include war games, gambling games, strategy and board games, video Etch-a-Sketch, driving simulator, pinball; and football with 10 player a side, defense/offense patterns and floating field background. Second, calculator based games. With Mattel executives skeptical, Chang's group moved forward with handheld electronic games enlisting Hightower's help with a prototype.
Mattel hired Michael Katz as Marketing Manager for New Product Categories in 1975, Katz asked Chang to prototype a calculator sized electronic game for 1976. In Fall 1976, Mattel hired Ed Krakauer as Vice President of New Business Development, who hired Jeff Rochlis as Director of New Business Development. In an October 1977 newspaper article, Rochlis was quoted saying, "Basically these things are fore-runners of the home computer. There's a logical transition involved. One way to get into the home-computer market is to sell games."
Choosing a platform
In April 1977, David Chandler, with a doctoral degree in Electrical Engineering, a career in Aerospace, also having prototyped an early word processor as well as an arcade video game, joined Prelimanary Design under Chang. Chandler shared Chang's vision for a video game system with rich graphics and long-lasting gameplay to distinguish itself from its competitors and took over responsibility for its engineering. Prior to Chandler’s arrival, Chang's group had already met with National Semiconductor about their new video display controller that would be paired with an Intel 8080 CPU. Chandler negotiated better pricing for a simpler design. At the Consumer Electronics Show in June 1977, Chandler saw two more video driver chipsets. One from MOS Technology lacked moving objects which would make it difficult to program sports games. The other from General Instrument, listed as the Gimini programmable set in the GI 1977 catalog. The GI chipset lacked programmable graphics and Mattel worked with GI to implement changes. GI published an updated chipset in its 1978 catalog. Mattel initially chose National Semiconductor, who wanted to postpone the project, forcing Mattel to turn to GI. Mattel corporate management reacted by putting a halt to video game development for several months. On November 9, 1977, Mattel, GI, and Magnavox met to plan contracts and production.Around this same time, the previous slow sales of Mattel Electronics branded handheld electronic games reversed and began to be a hit product. Management responded by spinning off the designs to the newly formed Mattel Electronics division, with separate marketing, finance, and engineering. In September, Krakauer made Rochlis its president. Chang became director of its new Design and Development department, responsible for Intellivision software. Chandler, became director of Product Engineering led a team engineering the hardware, including the hand controllers. In 1978, David Rolfe of APh developed the onboard executive control software named Exec, and with a group of Caltech summer student employees programmed the first Intellivision games. Hal Finney of APh contributed sound and music processing routines to the Exec. Graphics were designed by a group of artists at Mattel led by Dave James. James also creating detailed game proposal documents.
During June 1978 CES, Mattel privately showed a prototype to retailers, leading to a Christmas release. Delays at GI pushed that into 1979. Magnavox backed out as manufacturer, replaced with Sylvania. Chandler considered replacing the GI chipset and working with Texas Instruments and their new TMS9918 video processor. The TI chip had more moving objects but half the number on a horizontal line compared with the GI, it also lacked hardware scrolling that the GI provides. Further, the TI chip requires more RAM and software already developed would have to be reworked.
Master Component
The Intellivision was introduced at the 1979 Las Vegas CES in January as a modular home computer with the Master Component priced at and a soon-to-follow Keyboard Component also at. At Chicago CES in June, prices were revised to for each component. A shortage of key chips from manufacturer General Instrument resulted in a limited number of Intellivision Master Components produced that year. In Fall 1979, Sylvania marketed its own branded Intellivision at in its GTE stores at Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington, D.C. On December 3, Mattel delivered consoles to the Gottschalks department store chain headquartered in Fresno, California, with a suggested list price of. The Intellivision was also listed in the nationally distributed JCPenney Christmas 1979 catalog along with seven cartridges. By April 1980, markets expanded to Los Angeles, New York, and Chicago. It was in stores nationwide by mid-1980 with the pack-in game Las Vegas Poker & Blackjack and a library of ten cartridges.By September 1980, there was internal debate about the effectiveness of marketing the Intellivision as a home computer and the direction of Mattel Electronics questioned. Krakauer and Rochlis resigned, and Josh Denham became the new president of Mattel Electronics. The Keyboard Component was no longer promoted in advertising. A series of advertisements starring George Plimpton used side-by-side game comparisons to demonstrate the superior graphics and sound of Intellivision over the Atari 2600. One slogan called Intellivision "the closest thing to the real thing". One such example compared golf games; where the 2600's games had a blip sound and cruder graphics, the Intellivision featured a realistic swing sound and striking of the ball and a more 3D look. In 1980, Mattel sold out its 190,000 stock of Intellivision Master Components, along with one million cartridges. In 1981, more than one million Intellivision consoles were sold, more than five times the amount of the previous year. Mattel Electronics became a subsidiary and relocated to another building to accommodate their growth. In 1982, they sold 1.8 million Intellivisions.
The Intellivision Master Component was branded and distributed by various companies. Before Mattel shifted manufacturing to Hong Kong, Mattel Intellivision consoles were manufactured by GTE Sylvania. GTE Sylvania Intellivision consoles were produced along with Mattel's, differing only by the brand name. The Sears Super Video Arcade, manufactured by Mattel in Hong Kong, has a restyled beige top cover and detachable controllers. Its default title screen lacks the "Mattel Electronics" captioning. In 1982, Radio Shack marketed the Tandyvision One, similar to the original console but with the gold plates replaced with more wood trim. In Japan, Intellivision consoles were branded for Bandai in 1982, and in Brazil there were Digimed and Digiplay consoles manufactured by Sharp in 1983.
Software
Inside every Intellivision console is 4K of ROM containing the Exec software. It provides two benefits: reusable code that can effectively make a 4K cartridge an 8K game and a software framework for new programmers to develop games more easily and quickly. It also allows other programmers to more easily review and continue another's project. Under the supervision of David Rolfe at APh, and with graphics from Mattel artist Dave James, APh was able to quickly create the Intellivision launch game library using mostly summer students. The drawback is that to be flexible and handle many different types of games, the Exec runs less efficiently than a dedicated program. Intellivision games that leverage the Exec run at a 20 Hz frame rate instead of the 60 Hz frame rate for which the Intellivision was designed. Using the Exec framework is optional, but almost all Intellivision games released by Mattel Electronics use it and thus run at 20 Hz. The limited ROM space in the early years of Intellivision game releases also means there is no space for a computer player, so many early multiplayer games require two human players.Initially, all Intellivision games were programmed by an outside firm, APh Technological Consulting, with 19 cartridges produced before Christmas 1980. Once the Intellivision project became successful, software development was brought in-house. Mattel formed its own software development group and began hiring programmers. The original five members of that Intellivision team were Mike Minkoff, Rick Levine, John Sohl, Don Daglow, and manager Gabriel Baum. Levine and Minkoff, a long-time Mattel Toys veteran, both transferred from the hand-held Mattel game engineering team. During 1981, Mattel hired programmers as fast as possible. Early in 1982 Mattel Electronics relocated from Mattel headquarters to an unused industrial building. Offices were renovated as new staff moved in. To keep these programmers from being hired away by rival Atari, their identities and work location was kept a closely guarded secret. In public, the programmers were referred to collectively as the Blue Sky Rangers.
Most of the early games are based on traditional real-world concepts such as sports, with an emphasis on realism and depth of play within the technology of the time. The Intellivision was not marketed as a toy; as such, games such as Sea Battle and B-17 Bomber are not made in the pick-up-and-play format like arcade games. Reading the instructions is often a prerequisite. Every cartridge produced by Mattel Electronics includes two plastic controller overlays to help navigate the 12-button keypad, although not every game uses it. Game series, or networks, are Major League Sports, Action, Strategy, Gaming, Children's Learning, and later Space Action and Arcade. The network concept was dropped in 1983, as was the convenient gatefold-style box for storing the cartridge, instructions, and overlays.
Starting in 1981, programmers looking for credit and royalties on sales began leaving both APh and Mattel Electronics to create Intellivision cartridges for third-party publishers. They helped form Imagic in 1981, and in 1982 others joined Activision and Atari. Cheshire Engineering was formed by a few senior APh programmers including David Rolfe, author of the Exec, and Tom Loughry, creator of one of the most popular Intellivision games, Advanced Dungeons and Dragons. Cheshire created Intellivision games for Activision. Third-party developers Activision, Imagic, and Coleco started producing Intellivision cartridges in 1982, and Atari, Parker Brothers, Sega, and Interphase followed in 1983. The third-party developers, not having legal access to Exec knowledge, often bypassed the Exec framework to create smooth 30 Hz and 60 Hz Intellivision games such as The Dreadnaught Factor. Cheaper ROM prices also allowed for progressively larger games as 8K, 12K, and 16K cartridges became common. The first Mattel Electronics Intellivision game to run at 60 Hz was Masters of the Universe in 1983. Marketing dubbed the term "Super Graphics" on the game's packaging and marketing.
Mattel Electronics had a competitive advantage in its team of experienced and talented programmers. As competitors often depended on licensing well known trademarks to sell video games, Mattel focused on original ideas. Don Daglow was a key early programmer at Mattel and became director of Intellivision game development. Daglow created Utopia, a precursor to the sim genre and, with Eddie Dombrower, the ground-breaking sports simulation World Series Major League Baseball. Daglow was also involved with the popular Intellivision games Tron Deadly Discs and Shark! Shark!. After Mattel Electronics closed in 1984, its programmers continued to make significant contributions to the videogame industry. Don Daglow and Eddie Dombrower went on to Electronic Arts to create Earl Weaver Baseball, and Don Daglow founded Stormfront Studios. Bill Fisher, Steve Roney, and Mike Breen founded Quicksilver Software, and David Warhol founded Realtime Associates.