I was born in 1970 in Lancaster, Pa. I grew up in a neighborhood with a lot of kids who had atari 2600. I told my dad we have to get an atari 2600. Wewent to the mall and he bought an intellivision with a bunch of games!! When wegot home and got it hooked up I couldn't put it down!! All I wanted to do was play Intellivision. Often my dad would play it with me! The good old days!! Thanks for the video!!
I was born in 1971. We did not have much money, but somehow my dad saved and surprised me with an Itellivision. Like you, I was hooked. I can’t tell you how many countless hours we spent playing Sea Battle and Utopia. Maybe my favorite games on the system followed by Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. So many great titles.
When we went to the mall shopping with my parents, my brother and I would disappear into Sears for hours at a time playing the demo game they had set up. My Mom and Dad were standing there watching us play end I still remember them looking at each other and smiling. They saw the potential of that beautiful game right then and there.
I love it! You could just say "Dad we must have an intellivision" and he just goes and buys one! Christ, I asked my mum for a 50p Dr.Who paperback in about 1976 and my dad clipped me round the ear. Good old days for some!
I had the Radio Shack knock off version the Tandyvision One. It was very much identical in every way and about $50.00 cheaper. My mom was a single mom and went all out on Christmas. As a very poor kid seeing that I can never thank her enough. God bless moms everywhere.
I love those wonky car-phone controllers and the wood paneling. Why the F!@ did game consoles have fake wood paneling and why did I ask this question back then?
You guys completely missed the Intellivoice Synthesis Module and limited run of talking games, with an impressive voice modulator. (for the time, anyway) With games such as Bomb Squad and B17 Bomber, it was an impressive addition to the console. Mine still works!
I had an Intellivision growing up. I remember playing it for many hours with my older brother Joel. Major League Baseball, Tron Deadly Discs, Auto Racing, Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, Sea Battle, Snafu, Las Vegas Poker & Blackjack, Motocross, etc. Good memories!
Yes I did call it Body Surgeon instead of Microsurgeon, No I have no idea how that was missed in sevral proofreads! It's particularly silly when the right title is right there on screen
My favorite Christmas present in 1981...loved this system (thanks mom and dad!). Football, Baseball, and and B-17 Bomber (Intellivoice) were my favorite games. Such great memories from my childhood.
I totally forgot about Intellivoice. Yes, baseball and B-17 Bomber (I had forgotten about that game) were probably two of the most-played games for me and my brother.
Me too. And as much as I loved this machine back then, and as much fun we had together back then, knowing now, just how much it cost my parents, at the time, makes me feel so much more grateful for what they gave to me.
2023 and I am still playing Intellivision games with my brother and cousins, albeit with an emulator, not a console. Nonetheless, Utopia, Atlantis, Swords and Serpents, Demon Attack and many others are still getting a ton of play at my house. These games bring back awesome memories of a really great time to grow up. Long live Intellivision!
As a kid born in 1980, we had an Intellivision...and got made fun of for it not being an Atari. As I got older, I got made fun of because I had an Intellivision and not a Nintendo. I still loved my Intellivision none the less. Still have it and play it today.
I'm a bit surprised at that. I never owned either, but trying the Intellivision on display in shops, it was impressive compared to the Atari, which was already starting to look old fashioned. Mind you, the Atari 2600 died much faster here in the UK than in the USA, swept away by home computers. I've thought for a long time that the American Video Game Crash was that moment in a bubble when everyone suddenly realised the Atari was old cr*p, and the contribution of Pac Man and ET was just to make everyone realise that. Anyway, the Intellivision had way better graphics and sound, and even those weird controllers seemed more advanced than the Atari's wrist-breaking joystick.
@@ian_b pac-man was brilliant, as pure gameplay. In those relatively early days, that was enough for me. I was about 3 and 4 years old at the time and was unschooled in graphic comparison. ET as a game was even worse than anyone has heard. Awful graphics atrocious slow pointless gameplay. I had friends who had Intellivision. While I absolutely recognized it was better than Atari, I was not the slightest bit jealous. Somewhat oddly, in retrospect. 😃
I think that the Atari issue for me as a kid was more related to the fact that everyone around us had an Atari hence it was the system to have. And kids will find and exploit things that are different. I liked the game choice and controller for the Intellivision better than Atari....but once the NES came out, it was the Atari kids versus me again and this time they had a point. I still enjoy my Intellivision and got a NES about 15 years ago. I enjoy both immensely and have my kids play them.
@@ian_b actually Pac Man was hugely popular and successful for Atari. It was Atari’s version of the Super Mario Brothers game franchise, albeit only featuring the single game, plus Ms. Pac Man. I was extremely young, as I have said. But even so, I believe the ET game was the most efficient contributor to Atari’s demise in The States. It was absolutely rancid.
I was one of the 1 of 500 people that had the "Keyboard Component" of Intellivision. They had a recall at one point. It was a failed attempt to create an Intellivision computer. It was amazing what they could deliver on a tape drive that was software controlled.
@@ChrisDreher I was from Fresno as one of the locations that test launched the product. We got a letter in the mail that we could get a full refund of the product after having it for about 6 months so my parents did that. I wish I had the original letter but my guess was that the company was going to cancel developing for it and wanted to make things right by refunding customers. I remember just having the BASIC Programming Language, Jack LaLanne's Physical Conditioning. I was hoping Conversational Spanish and Super Football would come out but they never did. Jack LaLanne's voice was played while exercising which was really impressive. The tape drive struggled at times and probably prone to problems for people that expected to keep it for years.
Loved Utopia, Sub Hunt, Pole Position, NFL, Sea Battle, D&D. Triple action was so much fun with biplanes,racing and tanks. I am sure there were others I have forgotten. Those were the days of being a teenager when only responsibilities of school, TV and video games.
I played Utopia all summer long. Now I play Minecraft all the time. Minecraft is sort of the great-great-great-grandchild of Utopia (Sim City is also down the line related)
@@Scotty-Z70 I still recall one game of Utopia where I was playing my brother and I was winning by developing my country and he knew he could never catch me so he started planting rebels is my country. Made me so mad. I felt like it was cheating. To this day I hate when the US tries to sabotage other nations. Loved the hurricanes that popped up too. It was such a cool model of real world.
@@Scotty-Z70 Most games that was case too. In sub hunt my goal was to get ahead of the convoy and then just go dead stop and wait for convoy to pass over me and then I would come up to periscope depth and pick off the targets. That was really quite an advanced simulation too. Fun times.
I still have one (not my original one, that is a painful story for which I will not go into) with about 115 cartridges and it works well still. I did buy the new classic machine to save wear and tear on the old machine, but all the Imagic games aren't included, so still have to fire up the original sometimes.
My dad had this back in the day and was so thankful I got to play it! I am a later generation growing up with the orginal nes. My father busted this out the closet when I was super little and let me play it and I remember really liking it ! Playing games such as burger time and many more games. Since my fathers recent passing my oldest brother now has this console. So glad it’s still in the family and something he can enjoy since he grew up with it.
My dad bought one shortly after they came out and it was awesome. I played a lot of sports games, mostly baseball, some bowling, skiing, horse racing and others. I remember Snafu, I can actually hear some of the music in my head. A game called Utopia, Burger Time, Tron. Im 51 now and will be turning on the xbox shortly. Ive had a system in my life ever since Intellivision.
Parents got us one of these about ‘81. Beat the snot out of Atari which some of my friends had and seemed crude. Always surprised my parents got this for us this as we were poor. Lots of good memories of playing Armor Battle, Sea Battle, and Our favorite 2 player game, Auto Racing, with my dad. Only complaint was controllers wore out in 2-3 years but we got new ones and kept playing until they were no longer available. I remember the video game crash around ‘83-‘84 when people were saying they were a fad and they were going away. Couple years later Nintendo came out and started the game console craze all over again. Never got into Nintendo though. We couldn’t afford the new consoles which were more expensive and grew out of video games for several years until I got into PC games. Good times.
This was my second console, the first being the Fairchild Channel F. But the Intellivision was the first console I ever really got "into" and loved! I had 45 games, and had it from 1979 to 1988 before I switched to computers full time. (The last console I ever owned was the N64). The Intellivision was amazing, and had some of the greatest games ever made for a console, even compared to today's monstrosities. I have, of all things, an Atari 2600 I picked up as a collector's item, and a few games, but what I really want, and am in the process of acquiring, is the Intellivision and a batch of games. Hopefully I'll get one soon, because the emulator on my PC just doesn't do it, even though the games are a perfect match for their cartridge counterpoints.
my first was in late 60s it had 3 games tanks tennis / pong i had loads of martel hand held games including the footbal one on here also ice hocky basket ball baseball ok then my freinds had atari you could go to toy section of store play the atari and this new game intelvision i played boxing skiing and night stalker asked for that for christmass ever since owning it that was the consol for me
Hi, just wondering? How was the Fairchild? It's one of the few consoles I've never played. How were the controls? Any standout games? Any feedback would be awesome! Cheers from Canada
@@steveharvey2102 Howdey! It's been a LOOOONG time since I played that system, but from what memories I can conjure up, it was fun. The graphics were crude compared to even the Intellivision I got later. The controls were probably not the strong suit of the system. They consisted of a joystick-like controller, with a triangle top that you pushed in the direction you wanted to go, and pushed down on it to fire or whatever the game called for. Most games were of the pong like or tank battle like games we saw back then. Very little in the way of detail. No really true standouts, since the games were colorful versions of what we saw on other systems. Most of my memories are undoubtedly tainted from that time period, and if I had one today, I'd probably not play it much. The Intellivision was vastly superior in almost every aspect compared to the Fairchild AND the Atari 2600. What's ironic, is I have an Atari 2600 and must say, there is a kind of charm to those games I do have for it. I have an Intellivision Emulator for my PC, and the games are true to their cartridge counterparts, but the keyboard just doesn't "do it" for those games like the controller that the Intellivision had. I DO want to get one of these one day. Then I'll have both systems, the Atari 2600 and the Intelivision that I grew up with as a kid! Cheers from Texas! Hope I was able to answer your questions as best as I could! 🙂
I still remember that Christmas when we got ours and played the heck out of Astrosmash that day. The sports games were great, with the 2nd basketball game where you customize your team being ahead of it's time. So many great memories.
I had an Intellivision back in 1981. AT 9 years old I saved up the money to buy it on my own (which back then was saying something). We went with the Intellivision specifically because of the computer feature, but gave up in 1983 and got an Apple IIe. There was a way to hold the controller to hit the directional pad and the side buttons at the same time. Honestly, there were only a handful of games that even made use of the number pad during game play, and even few that had the buttons do much more than just be numbers. The football game allowed you to key in your play with either a 2 or 5 digit code (run or pass). Baseball the number keys determined who you threw the ball to, and Night Stalker had the number keys allow you to fire in 4 directions. The biggest drawback (especially with the first generation console) was that the curly controller cord would always pull back against the controller and the connections would eventually become loose and the controller wouldn't work. Since they were hard wired in, the entire machine would need to be taken in for servicing.
Now THAT is saying something! Because in 1981, a new Intellivision console cost a cool $300. That’s the equivalent of mowing 30 lawns for a kid! And the discipline in took a nine year old to hang onto that cash is noteworthy.
@@jcraigshelton I probably spent a good 7 or 8 months saving - for my Birthday that year I just asked for money towards the game, and my grandfather kicked in the last $100 after I saved up $200.
I was born in 1973 in Toronto and my neighbor had it and we would go play Astrosmash! We loved it so much that We begged our Dad for one and he got it with Baseball, Tron Deadly Discs, Night Stalker and Lock N Chase, Skiing, Soccer and Sea Battle..which was my fav! Loved the cheering in the sports games!
When I was in my early 20's a friend brought over his shiny new Atari 2600...he was blown away by it's capabilities, but I found it lacklustre and boring. (I lacked the imagination to recognize the potential of moving graphics across a screen) In my mid 20's another friend brought over his new Intellivision. I expected to be similarly unimpressed, but this time the graphics were not flickering blocks, Baseball looked like baseball and the Space game he had was jaw dropping. But as you said, this was the advent of the home computer. The Intellivision was clearly superior to the 2600, but it was seeing arcade games on a Texas Instruments TI-99/4A that finally parted my money from my wallet. It remains a daily driver computer for me (and what I use to play Bump 'n Jump today (called Bounce and Pounce on the TI) ). But my interest on what was possible, and the decision that I wanted to be part of this new frontier, lays at the feet of Mattel, and the Intellivision. It fired my imagination in a way Atari would not do until the ST line of computers over a decade later. Thank you for the video. 'Twas excellent!
I had an original intellivision in the early 80's and it had a threaded hole in the center of the control disc on the controller that you screw a stick into to make it a joystick.
First Atari 2600 on the block. I used to have the neighborhood kids come over to play on it. But a friend got an Intellivision when it came out, and we quickly decided it was a superior product...with the exception of the controllers. Though they could do things a 1-button joystick could not, they were not as robust, didn't hold up to eager 10-year-olds very well, and we often had some input problems. My friend struggled with them wearing out faster. I still remember a weekend sleep-over in which several of us played Sea Battle for hours. It was the most sophisticated home game we'd seen to that point and we were fascinated by it.
Mattel not only got the main processor by General Instruments but the whole chip set with the graphics and sound chip. It was 125 original games between 1979 and 1990. The homebrew scene has produced more than 100 games in the last 20 years for the Intellivision. Btw. the Odyssey2 was quite successful in Europe and South America.
I think you are correct. I would have to ask my father. He was an Engineering Manager at Mattel Electronics. He was in charge of moving production of Intellivision from GI on the East Coast to Hong Kong. BTW Of course our family had most of the games and the keyboard unit with 6502. Sidenote many of the Engineering Managers were from Rockwell Microelectronics which second sourced the 6502 and also built the earlier handhelds.
IIRC intv was a rare cpu architecture, 16 bit but using 12 bit instructions, running at half a megahertz. I only saw a single Odyssey2 in my life, a friend had it, wasn't too bad but almost no games for it.
We first had the Sears version then when that wore out got the Intellivision II. Couldn’t tell you how many hours my dad and I(along with some friends) would play NFL football and MLB baseball.
I was 12 when our family got both Atari and the original intellivision. I remember preferring Intellivision over the Atari. It had better graphics and more complex game play, or more depth to the games is how I see it. Atari's Pitfall vs Intellivision's version was a great example. My parents did good, restricted my game playing time to a few hours a day so I still spent my time playing outside unlike kids today...good times, good times.
I remember going with my dad to Gemco in Tempe Arizona when he bought this system. I was about to start Kindergarten and I rememember talking to my teacher on the Sunday before the first day of school. This was back in the day when teachers would call you to welcome you to a new school year. I remember my dad whispering to me to tell her about the new Intellivision system we just got.
Had a Intellivision, and later a Intellivision Ii, when the former wore out. One thing I remember is how the console would heat up over time, and you'd have to turn it off at some point to avoid heat damage. The Intellivision II didn't have that problem.
I had one in high school…around 1982ish. My parents subscribed to a cable offering that provided approx 10 - 15 games a week or month. They changed out and new games were offered. They provided all the controller sleeves for all games so you were ready to go when the games changed out. Still purchased a few…baseball was may favorite. My friend and I picked teams and kept a score boom for each game we played. We had player stats, etc…..good time! We played so. I h that we wore out the controllers.
There was so much that needed to be brought up for this video that I didn't find time to discuss the Mattel Aquarius, which we've covered on our other channel in the past
The Aquarius, while kind of interesting, showed up in the market for a few months in 1983 and happened during the great video game crash. It really is just a footnote to the Intellivision story in my opinion.
I got mine at the Gottschalks store in Manchester Center, in Fresno on May 2, 1983. I remember it well because as we were walking out of the store there was a big earthquake near Coalinga, and it shook the store pretty well. My favorite games were B-17 Bomber and the one where you defused the bomb.
A commonly overlooked chapter in the Intellivision timeline is the Tutorvision, a joint partnership with World Book Encyclopedia which was INTV's attempt to branch out into the new-at-the-time "edutainment" market. Three of the 16 titles developed for it have been discovered so far, and I created an indie title last summer to add to its limited library.
Wow! Never heard of this before. So are you saying this was an Intelliviion system that played only those 16 Educational games? Was it ever available for retail? Any info or links to informative videos would be greatly appreciated :) Cheers from Canada
@@steveharvey2102 Yep. It was a last-gen Intellivision console that had a few modifications: 4x Graphics RAM, additional 16-bit RAM, expanded Executive ROM, a slightly modified graphics chip, and a new system font. INTV ran out of money just after it was showcased at the Summer 1989 Consumer Electronics Show in Chicago, and 3 or 4 prototype units were found so far. One of those units ended up in the right hands to be fully reverse-engineered, and as a result, jzIntv now supports Tutorvision emulation. That's why I wrote a program that supports the extra hardware features.
My Dad owned a photography studio in the 70’s and did TONS of product photography. Many of the photos in this video are actually ones he took. But what was real cool was he typically got products one YEAR before they available in stores. But what was really interesting was that the manufacturers didn’t want, or ask for, the products back after they were photographed. I still remember friends at school looking at me like I was crazy when I was explaining what Atari was to them in 1976. We had the Intellivison in fall of 1978, but there were so few games we didn’t use it much. One other interesting thing was getting the games for photography purposes. It was hit or miss with IF there was a REAL functional cartridge or not. About 85% of the time it was a real game, but that other 15% were just empty cassettes.
There are actually 125 games that are considered to be original releases for the system. The 'homebrew' scene is actually quite active. I'm surprised that you didn't mention recent releases such as Defender of the Crown.
As a kid I wanted one of these so bad. I didn't even know what games it had lol - I just loved the look of it. Like alien tech with all the gold brushed metal paneling.
My Intellivision was a hand me down from my older bros and i loved that thing as a little kid... 1st Person Advanced Dungeons & Dragons was way ahead of its time IMO. Also really loved Golf & B17 Bomber with the voice expansion kit.
I remember taking a Polaroid photograph of my high score on Astrosmash and mailing it in to a competition I saw in a magazine. I didn't win the competition but I won a childhood memory, and in the final analysis that is far more valuable.
Exciting times... Intellivision, Atari, Coleco! Computers were also beginning to arrive. I fondly remember the TV ads, stores ads in the mail and newspaper. The kiosk displays in stores like Sears, Kmart, JC Penny's, Toys R Us, etc. The excitement of new releases and addons. Maybe there were but I dont remember shortages back in those days, having to stand in line for new releases.
Wow! Really fantastic and well done video! Thank you for helping to keep the Intellivision name alive! Loved this! Will make sure to promote this on our Intellivision social media channels!
Thank you very much for watching the video. Sharing the video would be awesome! We pre-ordered an Amico (of course in Vintage Woodgrain) and are really looking forward to it. Also, I just watched your office tour video and really enjoyed it. Your office is really cool!
I can still remember vividly getting off the bus after school, walking in the front door, and seeing my dad sitting cross-legged in front of the TV playing Astrosmash. Good times! And did anybody else look for shortcuts thru the trees in auto racing?
Yes! you could go from one course to another if you took the path through the trees. If you lined it up exactly, you could endlessly loop through the courses hands free in a straight line. I had forgotten about that until I saw your post.
Born in '77, and playing our Intellivision is a core memory of my young years. Having all the number buttons on the controller and different inserts for each game made it incredibly versatile. I spent countless hours playing NFL Football, Pitfall, Truckin', and more. But my favorite was BurgerTime!
I have never played intellivision as I grew up with a colecovision and own one today which I absolutely love! The more videos I see about the intellivision the more it does peak my interest… great video!
The Colecovision was a great console, the only thing was the unique disc controller, many people don't get how great those were, its a 16 directions control, not 4 like everyone else. Not all games made use of it, but in those games that did, like Sea Battle, its a experience you could only get later with analog controls. Instead the Colecovision wasted people's money with custom controls for like 1 or 2 games, like that driving wheel or that trackball.... But what i don't get is how they managed to make such a blunder with the Adam.
I was one of the Intellivision testers in El Segundo, CA. Received a test unit for my time spent testing. It was way ahead of the industry at that time.
This was my first console (thanks dad!). I loved it and had several great games for the system that I played for years, right next to my NES. Loved the intellivoice as well. B-17 bomber was amazing at the time.
Great video! The only thing I wish you could add is the actual games being played. I loved my Intellivision! I had a long run when I was in junior high when I came straight home after school and played Night Stalker every day. The race car game was intriguing also because you raced through neighborhoods and could drive off road, through yards, and get way off course. I wondered if the designers anticipated this because it seemed like there were Easter eggs locations you could drive to. Anyone else remember that?
I just got my first Intellivision, and started collecting for it about a month and a half ago. So far, I've not really found any games that I am doing backflips over. I find I actually like the Atari 2600 versions a bit better, because the controls are easier and more responsive. It is an awesome console though, and really brought a lot of advancement to the table in the '80s. I love how you have the video clips of people making deals and packing up their offices regarding the Intellivision, and they all have modern laptops sitting on the desk. Hahaha. Not many authentic video clips of that kind of stuff from back in the '80s! Great work, keep it up guys!
Some games I remember playing- SNAFU (kind of like Tron motorcycles concept), Burger Time (arcade game if I remember), Sea Battle (he mentioned), Astrosmash, Pitfall (Activision game), B 17 Bomber (requires Intellivoice module), and for sure sports games- I think baseball and soccer were good. Best of luck finding the gems.
My Dad bought me an Intellivision in the summer of 1981 at Service Merchandise. I loved going there to see all the games they had on display. A year or so later, game prices dropped like crazy, and I was very lucky to have a record store on my street liquidate their inventory. I ended up with about 30 games for $5 or less each! I've had nearly every system, but the Intellivision is still my favorite with the original Xbox a close second (because of modding).
I remember playing baseball on intellivision as a kid at a neighbor's house. It was fun. Skiing was fun too. I had a 2600 and remember thinking the graphics were better on the intellivision. It was much easier to find games for the 2600 and it seemed that that the popular arcade releases were a big deal for the 2600.
Had one, but my dad sold it early on because he didn't approve of how into it me and my older brother got. We were not allowed another gaming console until I won a GameBoy many years later as a prize for raising the most money in a local minor sports fundraiser. He couldn't very well deny me that, because I'd worked to get it. He even bought me a new one a couple of months later when my little brother broke the screen on it because he could see how devastated I was. Anyway, I had lots of fun with the Intellivision while I had it, but when I had the chance to try one again a few years ago I just couldn't do it. It was so primitive, and I just had no desire to fuss with that controller.
Two of our neighbors had them and eventually, I think around 82 or 83, my dad bought one. It was great, we all swapped games with each other. I had one friend who had a Colecovision and several that had the 2600's. About 20 years ago I bought another one with a ton of games to relive my childhood. It's been ages since I had it hooked up, I might have to do that again soon.
I remember most of these Intellivision rereleases mentioned around 13:32 being handled by Intellivision Productions, most often by licensing their IP to existing manufacturers. They were also responsible for the Intellivision Lives! and Intellivision Rocks! compilations, that were released on PC and various older consoles.
1982, this system came into my life. I grew up on Commodore 64, Magnavox Odyssey and Atari 2600. When I got this (and later the Intellivoice), my tween years were secure! If I had any complaints, it’s the fact you can’t get games from this system on an emulator. Due to Mattel having proprietary rights and a different way of coding. Maybe one day. Great video, man!🤘🏻🤘🏻
The Intellivision was an amazing console, but those controllers. Oh my god. They hurt my fingers. Those side buttons are so damn stiff. You have to push them with full damn force to get them to register. It's almost impossible when you have arthritis. I have no problem with the Atari joystick. But the Intellivison just.. hurts. The thing that puts the Colecovision controllers over the Intellivision ones for me is just the fact that the side buttons are more substantial and are just.. easier to push. And having that joystic, while not the greatest, it made things so much easier to control than that disk. And of course, that controller is easier on hands with arthritis. And my god. Look at those Intellivision 3 joysticks. You can't tell me that those would be comfortable to use. It looks like someone got the impression that people used Atari joysticks by holding the joystick from underneath in the palm, while moving the joystick and pushing the button with the other hand. It was clear that these people who were designing these things weren't actually PLAYERS of these games, and had no concept of comfort while playing. This was the case all over for this time period. There were so many nutty joysticks and game pads manufactured in all kinds of strange and painful shapes.
I never had a problem with the Intellivision controllers - I found them more comfortable than the 2600, which made my hands ache. In fact, looking back, I view the Intellivision's controller is the distant cousin to today's modern controllers: you use (mainly) thumbs, not holding it by gripping it.
I agree that the side buttons were a nightmare (Intellivision II), but the disc was a blessing. if it had the Coleco buttons in the sides, it would have been perfect.
I remember being angry when intellivision came out. I figured that I didn't need to buy a new radio for each station. And I didn't need to but a new record player for each record. So, why should I need to buy a new machine to play video games. I understand better now, of course.
Well-produced video. This was just before my era as I was an NES and C64 kid, but this video was extremely interesting and engaging. I rate it a 5/5! Thanks.
My brother and I (as young adults) played Intellivision games many many times back in the 80s. Dungeons, Auto Racing, Bi-plane, Football, Baseball... and others I can't remember at the moment. Simple games, yes. Fun, yes! Thanks for the history!
I remember trying to play one of these as a kid (who hated sports) support and giving up in frustration at the confusing controller. Great research. I find the stock footage appropriately hilarious.
I LOVED it!!! and all the kids in the neighborhood wanted to come to my house to play because they all got Atari 2600's for Christmas ....I BEGGED my parents for a Atari and my Dad had me thinking thats what I was getting......Opening that present as a kid is probably my favorite Christmas memory .....mostly because I remember vividly the look on my Dads face, See I didnt even ask for the Intellivision because it was so much more expensive but my Dad over heard me and a neighborhood friend talking about how much better the intellivision was....so only the "rich" kids were going to get that, that was 40 some years ago but feels like yesterday to me. I had the best Dad ever....I miss him
I was born in 1979 and grew up with Intellivision and Odyssey 2. Me and my brother and sister had a 19" black and white TV that we played them on, and more fun than I can ever remember.
I had an Intellivision growing up and aside from Atari-envy, I loved it. I definitely enjoyed the games on it and as you showed clips I was like "Oh, I remember that one!" and such. Which I guess makes sense considering you're saying it had a small game library. I have particular memories about their version of space invaders which you briefly shows in the video where 'demons' would swoop down at your land based turret in waves. I remember playing this at xmas time on my Aunt's bedroom TV set (the main one was for the adults), but as I was playing and got towards the game end, my father and Uncle were around hanging curtains or something and I remember my father, who never before or after expressed ANY interest in video games insisted that they take a break and watch me beat the game...which I did. I was never a sports star or musically inclined or anything, so this kind of accomplishment based attention from my father was rare for me. It was this strange moment that has remained laser-engraved in my brain every since.
I was 4 years old in 1981 and I got Intellivision for Christmas. My birthday is January 1 so when I turned 5 I met a girl that became my first Girlfriend because Kimberly had an Atari 2600. I remember being 5 years old playing Pac Man on her Atari and thought to myself this is nothing like the Pac Man at the Bowling Alley and these games don't even look nearly as good as my Intellivision games. Funny thing was during the video game crash of '83 my father brought us home the motherload and we got an Atari 2600 with about 12 games and then for Christmas the holy grail a ADAM Colecovision Computer. Coleco was smart and made Donkey Kong the pack-in game. Much better than Poker/BlackJack my intellivision came with. After we got the ADAM Colecovision all of a sudden my Intellivision and Atari2600 started gathing quite a bit of dust. However in 1981 Intellivision game "Triple Action" was the game that got me hooked on gaming. Triple Action really should have been the pack in title for the Intellivision.
I had the Intellivision and my 2 friends on the block had the Atari and ColecoVision. Loved playing the sports games, Sea Battle, and REALLY enjoyed Microsurgeon!
My aunt and uncle lived in Fresno. My cousins got one on that first release. A year later they upgraded as my oldest cousin was complaining about the controllers getting worn and I got the original as a hand me down. I loved playing the Las Vegas poker and Burger Time.
I got one of these from my parents back around 1978-80. I still have it and the original store receipt, too. Man, those little number button covers wore out quickly in my house. As soon as I saw the D&D pic in this video, I immediately started remembering the snake hissing and my annoying everyone in my house by getting 99 arrows and telling the game to tell me how many I had (It would ping 99 times.) Astrosmash still rocks!! (pun intended)
I was born in 72. I think the console was a Santa gift for Christmas. I had 2 brothers and we would fight over who would play next, but also had fun watching each other play. My favorite games were Sea Battle, Night Stalker, and one kind of like Donkie Kong, I think it was called Beauty and the Beast not sure... We had the keyboard too, I thought it was kinda useless at the time, but boy I wish I could find it now! My brother may still have it, I'm checking in that now haha.
Yes, Beauty and the Beast was one of Imagic gems. It was different to Donkey Kong. You gotta love reaching the top floor and then suicide to increase the game difficulty...
We had the Magnavox Odyssey 2 when I was growing up in the early 80's. Loved it. My favorite game was Pick-Axe Pete. My favorite Intellivision game was probably Sub Hunt and the Poker & Blackjack game.
I still have my Intellivision at my home, but I haven't used it since analogy TV phased off twenty years ago. I do not know if it is still working or not. My best memorable games of the Intellivision were Tron Deadly Discs, Advanced Dungeons and Dragons, and Sea Battle. I played all night on Tron Deadly Discs for a week. I jumped high into the celebration when I hit two million in a score of Tron Deadly Discs! Tron Deadly Discs was my favorite Intellivision game of all time. It was a fantastic game toy in those days in 1979 and 1980. My brother gave it to me for my Christmas and birthday. It was expensive - it cost $199 at JC Penney in December 1979.
There was also a GTE/Sylvania branded Intellivision, probably the rarest variation. I was in a GameStop around the time Neo•Geo Pocket Color games were getting re-released in 4 and 6 packs, and the sales guy proudly told me that he had just finished his Intellivision collection by buying a GTE/Sylvania console. That was also the last time I ever met a GameStop employee who was knowledgeable about anything.
I had one of these in my very late teens. Yes, it was cool and fun, but it absconded with my motivation to get on with building my life. As such, when I married and brought children into this world, I forbade video games in the house and stuck to it. The result was two well-adjusted, over achieving, highly educated daughters who came out ahead of their peers. They still have better heads on their shoulders than their contemporaries. Best parenting move ever.
The Intellivision was definitely a favorite, even many years after the crash, and you could find them at garage sales and flea markets for cheap. They had a style of their own compared to other consoles. Demon Attack and Treasue of Tarmin were among my favs. Good memories.
What's your favorite Intellivision game?
BurgerTime!
Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, TRON Deadly Discs & Solar Sailer, Burgertime, Bump 'n' Jump, Beauty & the Beast, Dreadnaught Factor, Mind Strike
Worm Whomper!
AD&D, burgertime, lock'n chase, b17 bomber, utopia, and microsurgeon; honorable mentions to night stalker, space hawk, and astrosmash.
Commando, Demon Attack, Lock N Chase, Space Armada, Astrosmash and Chip Shot Pro Golf
I was born in 1970 in Lancaster, Pa. I grew up in a neighborhood with a lot of kids who had atari 2600. I told my dad we have to get an atari 2600. Wewent to the mall and he bought an intellivision with a bunch of games!! When wegot home and got it hooked up I couldn't put it down!! All I wanted to do was play Intellivision. Often my dad would play it with me! The good old days!! Thanks for the video!!
I loved that system. My friend Will Play Horse Racing while making bets! Lol
I was born in 1971. We did not have much money, but somehow my dad saved and surprised me with an Itellivision. Like you, I was hooked. I can’t tell you how many countless hours we spent playing Sea Battle and Utopia. Maybe my favorite games on the system followed by Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. So many great titles.
When we went to the mall shopping with my parents, my brother and I would disappear into Sears for hours at a time playing the demo game they had set up. My Mom and Dad were standing there watching us play end I still remember them looking at each other and smiling. They saw the potential of that beautiful game right then and there.
I love it! You could just say "Dad we must have an intellivision" and he just goes and buys one! Christ, I asked my mum for a 50p Dr.Who paperback in about 1976 and my dad clipped me round the ear. Good old days for some!
@@douglasfreeman3229 yeh we got lucky at times we didn’t get everything we wanted of course but we did OK with a lot less than kids have now
I had the Radio Shack knock off version the Tandyvision One. It was very much identical in every way and about $50.00 cheaper. My mom was a single mom and went all out on Christmas. As a very poor kid seeing that I can never thank her enough. God bless moms everywhere.
My parents bought mine from Sears. It was exactly the same except it was white. Much cheaper as well.
My Mom was in the same boat. God bless her for working her ass off to get me a factory reconditioned Atari 2600. Thanks, Mom. ❤️
wasn't a knock off moron - but a licensed product just given a generic name - if it were a knock off radio shack would have been sued out of existence
I would buy my games from Radio Shack for my Intellivision because were so much cheaper
Ahhh.... Tandy computers. I had it when I was a kid.
I loved the look of the Intellivision. It looked like the dashboard of my 78 Cutlass Supreme.
I love those wonky car-phone controllers and the wood paneling. Why the F!@ did game consoles have fake wood paneling and why did I ask this question back then?
You guys completely missed the Intellivoice Synthesis Module and limited run of talking games, with an impressive voice modulator. (for the time, anyway) With games such as Bomb Squad and B17 Bomber, it was an impressive addition to the console. Mine still works!
That thing annoyed the living shit out of me... 😒
Uh oh! That was not a target!
@@R.B. Watch out for flack!!
@@Ploobstill Bandits 3 o'clock!
B17 BAWWWWWMMMMEEERRR!!!!
MAJOR GAFFE that you did not even mention B-17 Bomber and the Intellivoice module. This was groundbreaking videogame news and rocked the industry.
B17 Bomber & Intellivoice made my house the place to be everyday after school
Bae-seventaen Baohmer!
B17 Bahhhhhmmmaarrr. I can still hear it today.
Fighters 3 o'clock....bombs away!!!
@@timstappler5522 "That was close!" LOL
I had an Intellivision growing up. I remember playing it for many hours with my older brother Joel. Major League Baseball, Tron Deadly Discs, Auto Racing, Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, Sea Battle, Snafu, Las Vegas Poker & Blackjack, Motocross, etc. Good memories!
burgertime was a gem
Intellivison was awesome. Spent many a hour playing the games they came out with. School work suffered greatly.
AD&D was why I wanted a Intellivison. It just blew my mind at the time.
Yes I did call it Body Surgeon instead of Microsurgeon, No I have no idea how that was missed in sevral proofreads! It's particularly silly when the right title is right there on screen
My favorite Christmas present in 1981...loved this system (thanks mom and dad!). Football, Baseball, and and B-17 Bomber (Intellivoice) were my favorite games. Such great memories from my childhood.
I totally forgot about Intellivoice. Yes, baseball and B-17 Bomber (I had forgotten about that game) were probably two of the most-played games for me and my brother.
Me too. And as much as I loved this machine back then, and as much fun we had together back then, knowing now, just how much it cost my parents, at the time, makes me feel so much more grateful for what they gave to me.
Baseball was amazing. And I haven't really looked a baseball game since.
2023 and I am still playing Intellivision games with my brother and cousins, albeit with an emulator, not a console. Nonetheless, Utopia, Atlantis, Swords and Serpents, Demon Attack and many others are still getting a ton of play at my house. These games bring back awesome memories of a really great time to grow up. Long live Intellivision!
As a kid born in 1980, we had an Intellivision...and got made fun of for it not being an Atari. As I got older, I got made fun of because I had an Intellivision and not a Nintendo. I still loved my Intellivision none the less. Still have it and play it today.
Intellivision had better graphics than the Atari 2600.
I'm a bit surprised at that. I never owned either, but trying the Intellivision on display in shops, it was impressive compared to the Atari, which was already starting to look old fashioned. Mind you, the Atari 2600 died much faster here in the UK than in the USA, swept away by home computers. I've thought for a long time that the American Video Game Crash was that moment in a bubble when everyone suddenly realised the Atari was old cr*p, and the contribution of Pac Man and ET was just to make everyone realise that. Anyway, the Intellivision had way better graphics and sound, and even those weird controllers seemed more advanced than the Atari's wrist-breaking joystick.
@@ian_b pac-man was brilliant, as pure gameplay. In those relatively early days, that was enough for me. I was about 3 and 4 years old at the time and was unschooled in graphic comparison. ET as a game was even worse than anyone has heard. Awful graphics atrocious slow pointless gameplay. I had friends who had Intellivision. While I absolutely recognized it was better than Atari, I was not the slightest bit jealous. Somewhat oddly, in retrospect. 😃
I think that the Atari issue for me as a kid was more related to the fact that everyone around us had an Atari hence it was the system to have. And kids will find and exploit things that are different. I liked the game choice and controller for the Intellivision better than Atari....but once the NES came out, it was the Atari kids versus me again and this time they had a point. I still enjoy my Intellivision and got a NES about 15 years ago. I enjoy both immensely and have my kids play them.
@@ian_b actually Pac Man was hugely popular and successful for Atari. It was Atari’s version of the Super Mario Brothers game franchise, albeit only featuring the single game, plus Ms. Pac Man. I was extremely young, as I have said. But even so, I believe the ET game was the most efficient contributor to Atari’s demise in The States. It was absolutely rancid.
I was one of the 1 of 500 people that had the "Keyboard Component" of Intellivision. They had a recall at one point. It was a failed attempt to create an Intellivision computer. It was amazing what they could deliver on a tape drive that was software controlled.
@dbloyd2 Do you (or your parents) still have the Keyboard Component or any of the associated software or paperwork?
@@ChrisDreher I was from Fresno as one of the locations that test launched the product. We got a letter in the mail that we could get a full refund of the product after having it for about 6 months so my parents did that. I wish I had the original letter but my guess was that the company was going to cancel developing for it and wanted to make things right by refunding customers. I remember just having the BASIC Programming Language, Jack LaLanne's Physical Conditioning. I was hoping Conversational Spanish and Super Football would come out but they never did. Jack LaLanne's voice was played while exercising which was really impressive. The tape drive struggled at times and probably prone to problems for people that expected to keep it for years.
@@dbloyd2 Thanks. It's good to hear the bit of personal history. If any tidbits show (though unlikely), just ping me here.
Loved Utopia, Sub Hunt, Pole Position, NFL, Sea Battle, D&D. Triple action was so much fun with biplanes,racing and tanks. I am sure there were others I have forgotten. Those were the days of being a teenager when only responsibilities of school, TV and video games.
I played Utopia all summer long. Now I play Minecraft all the time. Minecraft is sort of the great-great-great-grandchild of Utopia (Sim City is also down the line related)
@@Scotty-Z70 I still recall one game of Utopia where I was playing my brother and I was winning by developing my country and he knew he could never catch me so he started planting rebels is my country. Made me so mad. I felt like it was cheating. To this day I hate when the US tries to sabotage other nations. Loved the hurricanes that popped up too. It was such a cool model of real world.
@@tims2501 i rarely played it with other people. it was fun alone.
@@Scotty-Z70 Most games that was case too. In sub hunt my goal was to get ahead of the convoy and then just go dead stop and wait for convoy to pass over me and then I would come up to periscope depth and pick off the targets. That was really quite an advanced simulation too. Fun times.
@@tims2501 i've never played that game. interesting.
Good rundown of the system. I played thousands of hours of Intellivision in my early teens and look back on that system with much nostalgia.
I still have one (not my original one, that is a painful story for which I will not go into) with about 115 cartridges and it works well still. I did buy the new classic machine to save wear and tear on the old machine, but all the Imagic games aren't included, so still have to fire up the original sometimes.
Just pick yourself up one. Pity I cant find a multi cart for mine though (I also bought the flashback which does the trick as well)
My dad had this back in the day and was so thankful I got to play it! I am a later generation growing up with the orginal nes. My father busted this out the closet when I was super little and let me play it and I remember really liking it ! Playing games such as burger time and many more games. Since my fathers recent passing my oldest brother now has this console. So glad it’s still in the family and something he can enjoy since he grew up with it.
My dad bought one shortly after they came out and it was awesome. I played a lot of sports games, mostly baseball, some bowling, skiing, horse racing and others. I remember Snafu, I can actually hear some of the music in my head. A game called Utopia, Burger Time, Tron. Im 51 now and will be turning on the xbox shortly. Ive had a system in my life ever since Intellivision.
I remember staying up way past my bedtime with my older brother trying to get as far as we could on Astrosmash. Tron Deadly Disks was awesome too
Parents got us one of these about ‘81. Beat the snot out of Atari which some of my friends had and seemed crude. Always surprised my parents got this for us this as we were poor. Lots of good memories of playing Armor Battle, Sea Battle, and Our favorite 2 player game, Auto Racing, with my dad. Only complaint was controllers wore out in 2-3 years but we got new ones and kept playing until they were no longer available. I remember the video game crash around ‘83-‘84 when people were saying they were a fad and they were going away. Couple years later Nintendo came out and started the game console craze all over again. Never got into Nintendo though. We couldn’t afford the new consoles which were more expensive and grew out of video games for several years until I got into PC games. Good times.
Jeeze, your story is exactly my story! Except I wish my dad had played games with me.
You were not poor.
The invisible mines were cool in Armor Battle!
This was my second console, the first being the Fairchild Channel F. But the Intellivision was the first console I ever really got "into" and loved! I had 45 games, and had it from 1979 to 1988 before I switched to computers full time. (The last console I ever owned was the N64). The Intellivision was amazing, and had some of the greatest games ever made for a console, even compared to today's monstrosities. I have, of all things, an Atari 2600 I picked up as a collector's item, and a few games, but what I really want, and am in the process of acquiring, is the Intellivision and a batch of games. Hopefully I'll get one soon, because the emulator on my PC just doesn't do it, even though the games are a perfect match for their cartridge counterpoints.
my first was in late 60s it had 3 games tanks tennis / pong i had loads of martel hand held games including the footbal one on here also ice hocky basket ball baseball ok then my freinds had atari you could go to toy section of store play the atari and this new game intelvision i played boxing skiing and night stalker asked for that for christmass ever since owning it that was the consol for me
Hi, just wondering? How was the Fairchild? It's one of the few consoles I've never played. How were the controls? Any standout games?
Any feedback would be awesome!
Cheers from Canada
@@steveharvey2102 Howdey! It's been a LOOOONG time since I played that system, but from what memories I can conjure up, it was fun. The graphics were crude compared to even the Intellivision I got later. The controls were probably not the strong suit of the system. They consisted of a joystick-like controller, with a triangle top that you pushed in the direction you wanted to go, and pushed down on it to fire or whatever the game called for. Most games were of the pong like or tank battle like games we saw back then. Very little in the way of detail. No really true standouts, since the games were colorful versions of what we saw on other systems.
Most of my memories are undoubtedly tainted from that time period, and if I had one today, I'd probably not play it much. The Intellivision was vastly superior in almost every aspect compared to the Fairchild AND the Atari 2600. What's ironic, is I have an Atari 2600 and must say, there is a kind of charm to those games I do have for it.
I have an Intellivision Emulator for my PC, and the games are true to their cartridge counterparts, but the keyboard just doesn't "do it" for those games like the controller that the Intellivision had. I DO want to get one of these one day. Then I'll have both systems, the Atari 2600 and the Intelivision that I grew up with as a kid!
Cheers from Texas! Hope I was able to answer your questions as best as I could! 🙂
My childhood system! What memories. Baseball and football were the bomb. I was a Astrosmash champ!
I’m the Astrosmash champ of the east coast lol😂
I also remember the Intellivoice add on too. There were so many cool games for Intellivision! I liked Demon Attack.
I still remember that Christmas when we got ours and played the heck out of Astrosmash that day. The sports games were great, with the 2nd basketball game where you customize your team being ahead of it's time. So many great memories.
I had an Intellivision back in 1981. AT 9 years old I saved up the money to buy it on my own (which back then was saying something). We went with the Intellivision specifically because of the computer feature, but gave up in 1983 and got an Apple IIe. There was a way to hold the controller to hit the directional pad and the side buttons at the same time. Honestly, there were only a handful of games that even made use of the number pad during game play, and even few that had the buttons do much more than just be numbers. The football game allowed you to key in your play with either a 2 or 5 digit code (run or pass). Baseball the number keys determined who you threw the ball to, and Night Stalker had the number keys allow you to fire in 4 directions. The biggest drawback (especially with the first generation console) was that the curly controller cord would always pull back against the controller and the connections would eventually become loose and the controller wouldn't work. Since they were hard wired in, the entire machine would need to be taken in for servicing.
Now THAT is saying something! Because in 1981, a new Intellivision console cost a cool $300. That’s the equivalent of mowing 30 lawns for a kid! And the discipline in took a nine year old to hang onto that cash is noteworthy.
@@jcraigshelton I probably spent a good 7 or 8 months saving - for my Birthday that year I just asked for money towards the game, and my grandfather kicked in the last $100 after I saved up $200.
dang so you were a 9-yr-old drug dealer?
Liar
I was born in 1973 in Toronto and my neighbor had it and we would go play Astrosmash! We loved it so much that We begged our Dad for one and he got it with Baseball, Tron Deadly Discs, Night Stalker and Lock N Chase, Skiing, Soccer and Sea Battle..which was my fav! Loved the cheering in the sports games!
When I was in my early 20's a friend brought over his shiny new Atari 2600...he was blown away by it's capabilities, but I found it lacklustre and boring. (I lacked the imagination to recognize the potential of moving graphics across a screen)
In my mid 20's another friend brought over his new Intellivision. I expected to be similarly unimpressed, but this time the graphics were not flickering blocks, Baseball looked like baseball and the Space game he had was jaw dropping.
But as you said, this was the advent of the home computer. The Intellivision was clearly superior to the 2600, but it was seeing arcade games on a Texas Instruments TI-99/4A that finally parted my money from my wallet. It remains a daily driver computer for me (and what I use to play Bump 'n Jump today (called Bounce and Pounce on the TI) ).
But my interest on what was possible, and the decision that I wanted to be part of this new frontier, lays at the feet of Mattel, and the Intellivision. It fired my imagination in a way Atari would not do until the ST line of computers over a decade later.
Thank you for the video. 'Twas excellent!
Auto racing, Astro Smash, Tanks and Baseball were all night fun for a kid in the early 80's good times..
I had an original intellivision in the early 80's and it had a threaded hole in the center of the control disc on the controller that you screw a stick into to make it a joystick.
First Atari 2600 on the block. I used to have the neighborhood kids come over to play on it. But a friend got an Intellivision when it came out, and we quickly decided it was a superior product...with the exception of the controllers. Though they could do things a 1-button joystick could not, they were not as robust, didn't hold up to eager 10-year-olds very well, and we often had some input problems. My friend struggled with them wearing out faster. I still remember a weekend sleep-over in which several of us played Sea Battle for hours. It was the most sophisticated home game we'd seen to that point and we were fascinated by it.
Mattel not only got the main processor by General Instruments but the whole chip set with the graphics and sound chip. It was 125 original games between 1979 and 1990. The homebrew scene has produced more than 100 games in the last 20 years for the Intellivision. Btw. the Odyssey2 was quite successful in Europe and South America.
I remember an Odyssey II game like Dungeons and Dragons that kept me enthralled. hah, to be so innocent again...
Hi, are you talking about The Odyssy 1 or 2? I'm assuming it's the 2nd one, but you know what they say about assuming. Lol
Cheers from Canada
I think you are correct. I would have to ask my father. He was an Engineering Manager at Mattel Electronics. He was in charge of moving production of Intellivision from GI on the East Coast to Hong Kong. BTW Of course our family had most of the games and the keyboard unit with 6502.
Sidenote many of the Engineering Managers were from Rockwell Microelectronics which second sourced the 6502 and also built the earlier handhelds.
@@martinmartinez250 Consider interviewing your father for a video, or get him on one of these UA-cam shows. Show off hardware you may have.
IIRC intv was a rare cpu architecture, 16 bit but using 12 bit instructions, running at half a megahertz.
I only saw a single Odyssey2 in my life, a friend had it, wasn't too bad but almost no games for it.
We first had the Sears version then when that wore out got the Intellivision II. Couldn’t tell you how many hours my dad and I(along with some friends) would play NFL football and MLB baseball.
Great sports games.
I was 12 when our family got both Atari and the original intellivision. I remember preferring Intellivision over the Atari. It had better graphics and more complex game play, or more depth to the games is how I see it. Atari's Pitfall vs Intellivision's version was a great example. My parents did good, restricted my game playing time to a few hours a day so I still spent my time playing outside unlike kids today...good times, good times.
I remember going with my dad to Gemco in Tempe Arizona when he bought this system. I was about to start Kindergarten and I rememember talking to my teacher on the Sunday before the first day of school. This was back in the day when teachers would call you to welcome you to a new school year. I remember my dad whispering to me to tell her about the new Intellivision system we just got.
Had a Intellivision, and later a Intellivision Ii, when the former wore out. One thing I remember is how the console would heat up over time, and you'd have to turn it off at some point to avoid heat damage. The Intellivision II didn't have that problem.
I remember it got very warm in the upper right corner I think.
I had one in high school…around 1982ish. My parents subscribed to a cable offering that provided approx 10 - 15 games a week or month. They changed out and new games were offered. They provided all the controller sleeves for all games so you were ready to go when the games changed out. Still purchased a few…baseball was may favorite. My friend and I picked teams and kept a score boom for each game we played. We had player stats, etc…..good time! We played so. I h that we wore out the controllers.
There was so much that needed to be brought up for this video that I didn't find time to discuss the Mattel Aquarius, which we've covered on our other channel in the past
The Aquarius, while kind of interesting, showed up in the market for a few months in 1983 and happened during the great video game crash. It really is just a footnote to the Intellivision story in my opinion.
I got mine at the Gottschalks store in Manchester Center, in Fresno on May 2, 1983. I remember it well because as we were walking out of the store there was a big earthquake near Coalinga, and it shook the store pretty well. My favorite games were B-17 Bomber and the one where you defused the bomb.
A commonly overlooked chapter in the Intellivision timeline is the Tutorvision, a joint partnership with World Book Encyclopedia which was INTV's attempt to branch out into the new-at-the-time "edutainment" market. Three of the 16 titles developed for it have been discovered so far, and I created an indie title last summer to add to its limited library.
Wow! Never heard of this before. So are you saying this was an Intelliviion system that played only those 16 Educational games? Was it ever available for retail?
Any info or links to informative videos would be greatly appreciated :)
Cheers from Canada
@@steveharvey2102 Yep. It was a last-gen Intellivision console that had a few modifications: 4x Graphics RAM, additional 16-bit RAM, expanded Executive ROM, a slightly modified graphics chip, and a new system font. INTV ran out of money just after it was showcased at the Summer 1989 Consumer Electronics Show in Chicago, and 3 or 4 prototype units were found so far. One of those units ended up in the right hands to be fully reverse-engineered, and as a result, jzIntv now supports Tutorvision emulation. That's why I wrote a program that supports the extra hardware features.
My Dad owned a photography studio in the 70’s and did TONS of product photography. Many of the photos in this video are actually ones he took. But what was real cool was he typically got products one YEAR before they available in stores. But what was really interesting was that the manufacturers didn’t want, or ask for, the products back after they were photographed. I still remember friends at school looking at me like I was crazy when I was explaining what Atari was to them in 1976. We had the Intellivison in fall of 1978, but there were so few games we didn’t use it much. One other interesting thing was getting the games for photography purposes. It was hit or miss with IF there was a REAL functional cartridge or not. About 85% of the time it was a real game, but that other 15% were just empty cassettes.
It's 2021 and I am still waiting to buy a Smellivision.
Many fond memories of playing hours of B-17 Bomber and still gaming 30 years later.
There are actually 125 games that are considered to be original releases for the system. The 'homebrew' scene is actually quite active. I'm surprised that you didn't mention recent releases such as Defender of the Crown.
LOL. I love doing speedruns of DotC
My favorite Christmas gift ever. I still remember 9219 as my go to play in Football, and loved Skiing, Sea Battle and Utopia.
As a kid I wanted one of these so bad.
I didn't even know what games it had lol - I just loved the look of it. Like alien tech with all the gold brushed metal paneling.
My Intellivision was a hand me down from my older bros and i loved that thing as a little kid... 1st Person Advanced Dungeons & Dragons was way ahead of its time IMO. Also really loved Golf & B17 Bomber with the voice expansion kit.
I remember taking a Polaroid photograph of my high score on Astrosmash and mailing it in to a competition I saw in a magazine. I didn't win the competition but I won a childhood memory, and in the final analysis that is far more valuable.
I did the same thing! Woke my mom up in the middle of the night to borrow her camera. She wasn't happy. Haha
Exciting times... Intellivision, Atari, Coleco! Computers were also beginning to arrive. I fondly remember the TV ads, stores ads in the mail and newspaper. The kiosk displays in stores like Sears, Kmart, JC Penny's, Toys R Us, etc. The excitement of new releases and addons. Maybe there were but I dont remember shortages back in those days, having to stand in line for new releases.
Wow! Really fantastic and well done video! Thank you for helping to keep the Intellivision name alive! Loved this! Will make sure to promote this on our Intellivision social media channels!
Thank you very much for watching the video. Sharing the video would be awesome! We pre-ordered an Amico (of course in Vintage Woodgrain) and are really looking forward to it. Also, I just watched your office tour video and really enjoyed it. Your office is really cool!
@@danielrjones Thanks Daniel! I'll be promoting your video this week!
I can't wait for the Amico Tommy, I have one on pre-order, the classic wood grain model.
I can still remember vividly getting off the bus after school, walking in the front door, and seeing my dad sitting cross-legged in front of the TV playing Astrosmash. Good times!
And did anybody else look for shortcuts thru the trees in auto racing?
Yes! you could go from one course to another if you took the path through the trees. If you lined it up exactly, you could endlessly loop through the courses hands free in a straight line. I had forgotten about that until I saw your post.
Someone make an all-in-one retro console that can play all Atari, intellivision, coleco, TI/994A, and Commodore carts.
As long as AtGames won't be the one making it. 😰
Born in '77, and playing our Intellivision is a core memory of my young years. Having all the number buttons on the controller and different inserts for each game made it incredibly versatile. I spent countless hours playing NFL Football, Pitfall, Truckin', and more. But my favorite was BurgerTime!
I have never played intellivision as I grew up with a colecovision and own one today which I absolutely love! The more videos I see about the intellivision the more it does peak my interest… great video!
The Colecovision was a great console, the only thing was the unique disc controller, many people don't get how great those were, its a 16 directions control, not 4 like everyone else. Not all games made use of it, but in those games that did, like Sea Battle, its a experience you could only get later with analog controls. Instead the Colecovision wasted people's money with custom controls for like 1 or 2 games, like that driving wheel or that trackball.... But what i don't get is how they managed to make such a blunder with the Adam.
Had one in our house in 1981. A lot of great fun. Thanks for the retro video. Love it.
I remember the Intellivision quite well. It definitely had it’s unique characteristics and in my opinion it blew away the Atari 2600.
I was one of the Intellivision testers in El Segundo, CA. Received a test unit for my time spent testing. It was way ahead of the industry at that time.
This was my first console (thanks dad!). I loved it and had several great games for the system that I played for years, right next to my NES. Loved the intellivoice as well. B-17 bomber was amazing at the time.
Yes! The voice module was awesome. Lots of fun!
When you put up the modern price equivalents, I gained a newfound appreciation for the money my dad spent that Christmas in '78.
I LOVED the advanced D&D game!! And Burger Time!
Great video! The only thing I wish you could add is the actual games being played.
I loved my Intellivision! I had a long run when I was in junior high when I came straight home after school and played Night Stalker every day. The race car game was intriguing also because you raced through neighborhoods and could drive off road, through yards, and get way off course. I wondered if the designers anticipated this because it seemed like there were Easter eggs locations you could drive to. Anyone else remember that?
@Neb6 auto racing
I just got my first Intellivision, and started collecting for it about a month and a half ago. So far, I've not really found any games that I am doing backflips over. I find I actually like the Atari 2600 versions a bit better, because the controls are easier and more responsive. It is an awesome console though, and really brought a lot of advancement to the table in the '80s.
I love how you have the video clips of people making deals and packing up their offices regarding the Intellivision, and they all have modern laptops sitting on the desk. Hahaha. Not many authentic video clips of that kind of stuff from back in the '80s!
Great work, keep it up guys!
Some games I remember playing-
SNAFU (kind of like Tron motorcycles concept), Burger Time (arcade game if I remember), Sea Battle (he mentioned), Astrosmash, Pitfall (Activision game), B 17 Bomber (requires Intellivoice module), and for sure sports games- I think baseball and soccer were good. Best of luck finding the gems.
There was also Tron Maze game, Tron Deadly disc's game and a Tron Light Sail game that used the voice
My Dad bought me an Intellivision in the summer of 1981 at Service Merchandise. I loved going there to see all the games they had on display. A year or so later, game prices dropped like crazy, and I was very lucky to have a record store on my street liquidate their inventory. I ended up with about 30 games for $5 or less each! I've had nearly every system, but the Intellivision is still my favorite with the original Xbox a close second (because of modding).
I remember playing baseball on intellivision as a kid at a neighbor's house. It was fun. Skiing was fun too. I had a 2600 and remember thinking the graphics were better on the intellivision. It was much easier to find games for the 2600 and it seemed that that the popular arcade releases were a big deal for the 2600.
Skiing was the best man. Watch out for that tree!!
That wasn’t the iconic Mattel Football handheld 1977 game you showed at 1:20… but the Classic Football redo form many years later.
Are you going to mention anything about the PlayCable years??? Streaming video games in the early 80s was quite the feat!
Had one, but my dad sold it early on because he didn't approve of how into it me and my older brother got. We were not allowed another gaming console until I won a GameBoy many years later as a prize for raising the most money in a local minor sports fundraiser. He couldn't very well deny me that, because I'd worked to get it. He even bought me a new one a couple of months later when my little brother broke the screen on it because he could see how devastated I was.
Anyway, I had lots of fun with the Intellivision while I had it, but when I had the chance to try one again a few years ago I just couldn't do it. It was so primitive, and I just had no desire to fuss with that controller.
Great documentary! I own a Mattel IntelliVision 2, and enjoy it immensely.
Two of our neighbors had them and eventually, I think around 82 or 83, my dad bought one. It was great, we all swapped games with each other. I had one friend who had a Colecovision and several that had the 2600's. About 20 years ago I bought another one with a ton of games to relive my childhood. It's been ages since I had it hooked up, I might have to do that again soon.
Brings back lots of good childhood memories
we had one !!!!!!!! our only video game system ! we got one and even mom loved Space Amarda..i loved snakes! memories!
I remember most of these Intellivision rereleases mentioned around 13:32 being handled by Intellivision Productions, most often by licensing their IP to existing manufacturers. They were also responsible for the Intellivision Lives! and Intellivision Rocks! compilations, that were released on PC and various older consoles.
Damn you Tommy Tallarico, now every time I hear your music in a game a small part of me gets MAD 😂
BeeeeseventeeeeenBommmmerrrrrr I still have my Intellivision, and I love it.
Add the voice module to the system and that game got pretty good, for its time.
1982, this system came into my life. I grew up on Commodore 64, Magnavox Odyssey and Atari 2600.
When I got this (and later the Intellivoice), my tween years were secure!
If I had any complaints, it’s the fact you can’t get games from this system on an emulator. Due to Mattel having proprietary rights and a different way of coding.
Maybe one day. Great video, man!🤘🏻🤘🏻
The Intellivision was an amazing console, but those controllers. Oh my god. They hurt my fingers. Those side buttons are so damn stiff. You have to push them with full damn force to get them to register. It's almost impossible when you have arthritis. I have no problem with the Atari joystick. But the Intellivison just.. hurts. The thing that puts the Colecovision controllers over the Intellivision ones for me is just the fact that the side buttons are more substantial and are just.. easier to push. And having that joystic, while not the greatest, it made things so much easier to control than that disk. And of course, that controller is easier on hands with arthritis. And my god. Look at those Intellivision 3 joysticks. You can't tell me that those would be comfortable to use. It looks like someone got the impression that people used Atari joysticks by holding the joystick from underneath in the palm, while moving the joystick and pushing the button with the other hand. It was clear that these people who were designing these things weren't actually PLAYERS of these games, and had no concept of comfort while playing. This was the case all over for this time period. There were so many nutty joysticks and game pads manufactured in all kinds of strange and painful shapes.
I never had a problem with the Intellivision controllers - I found them more comfortable than the 2600, which made my hands ache.
In fact, looking back, I view the Intellivision's controller is the distant cousin to today's modern controllers: you use (mainly) thumbs, not holding it by gripping it.
I agree that the side buttons were a nightmare (Intellivision II), but the disc was a blessing. if it had the Coleco buttons in the sides, it would have been perfect.
You forgot the Tutorvision!!! INTV via World Book Encyclopedia, with a modified executive code to allow for half-sized font, etc
I remember being angry when intellivision came out. I figured that I didn't need to buy a new radio for each station. And I didn't need to but a new record player for each record. So, why should I need to buy a new machine to play video games.
I understand better now, of course.
It's not that unreasonable of a thought process for the time
this is the thinking of some parents when the snes came out and wondering y the new games didnt work on the nes.
Baseball, burger time, stampede, and carnival. I can still hear the chiptune carnival music. We had the Tandyvision.
I had an Atari, but my cousins had an Intellivison. We had a blast when we were kids. Loved baseball and Frog Bog.
Another awesome retro console covered! Which video game system should we tell the story of next?
Odyssey2
Vectrex
Well-produced video. This was just before my era as I was an NES and C64 kid, but this video was extremely interesting and engaging. I rate it a 5/5! Thanks.
Mattel never made G.I. Joe. That's Hasbro. Mattel makes Barbie, Hot Wheels and Masters of the Universe.
Sea Battle was a great game. Spent hours playing with friends of my youth. The D&D game was iconic as well.
My brother and I (as young adults) played Intellivision games many many times back in the 80s. Dungeons, Auto Racing, Bi-plane, Football, Baseball... and others I can't remember at the moment. Simple games, yes. Fun, yes! Thanks for the history!
I remember trying to play one of these as a kid (who hated sports) support and giving up in frustration at the confusing controller.
Great research. I find the stock footage appropriately hilarious.
I never liked the controller until we found this aftermarket joystick conversion gadget that you stuck to the original button.
I LOVED it!!! and all the kids in the neighborhood wanted to come to my house to play because they all got Atari 2600's for Christmas ....I BEGGED my parents for a Atari and my Dad had me thinking thats what I was getting......Opening that present as a kid is probably my favorite Christmas memory .....mostly because I remember vividly the look on my Dads face, See I didnt even ask for the Intellivision because it was so much more expensive but my Dad over heard me and a neighborhood friend talking about how much better the intellivision was....so only the "rich" kids were going to get that, that was 40 some years ago but feels like yesterday to me.
I had the best Dad ever....I miss him
I was born in 1979 and grew up with Intellivision and Odyssey 2. Me and my brother and sister had a 19" black and white TV that we played them on, and more fun than I can ever remember.
I had an Intellivision growing up and aside from Atari-envy, I loved it. I definitely enjoyed the games on it and as you showed clips I was like "Oh, I remember that one!" and such. Which I guess makes sense considering you're saying it had a small game library.
I have particular memories about their version of space invaders which you briefly shows in the video where 'demons' would swoop down at your land based turret in waves. I remember playing this at xmas time on my Aunt's bedroom TV set (the main one was for the adults), but as I was playing and got towards the game end, my father and Uncle were around hanging curtains or something and I remember my father, who never before or after expressed ANY interest in video games insisted that they take a break and watch me beat the game...which I did. I was never a sports star or musically inclined or anything, so this kind of accomplishment based attention from my father was rare for me. It was this strange moment that has remained laser-engraved in my brain every since.
I was 4 years old in 1981 and I got Intellivision for Christmas. My birthday is January 1 so when I turned 5 I met a girl that became my first Girlfriend because Kimberly had an Atari 2600. I remember being 5 years old playing Pac Man on her Atari and thought to myself this is nothing like the Pac Man at the Bowling Alley and these games don't even look nearly as good as my Intellivision games. Funny thing was during the video game crash of '83 my father brought us home the motherload and we got an Atari 2600 with about 12 games and then for Christmas the holy grail a ADAM Colecovision Computer. Coleco was smart and made Donkey Kong the pack-in game. Much better than Poker/BlackJack my intellivision came with. After we got the ADAM Colecovision all of a sudden my Intellivision and Atari2600 started gathing quite a bit of dust. However in 1981 Intellivision game "Triple Action" was the game that got me hooked on gaming. Triple Action really should have been the pack in title for the Intellivision.
Still have mine. Loved the sports games, especially hockey. Loved seeing how many guys you could hack before being penalised.
I had the Intellivision and my 2 friends on the block had the Atari and ColecoVision. Loved playing the sports games, Sea Battle, and REALLY enjoyed Microsurgeon!
My aunt and uncle lived in Fresno. My cousins got one on that first release. A year later they upgraded as my oldest cousin was complaining about the controllers getting worn and I got the original as a hand me down. I loved playing the Las Vegas poker and Burger Time.
I got one of these from my parents back around 1978-80. I still have it and the original store receipt, too. Man, those little number button covers wore out quickly in my house. As soon as I saw the D&D pic in this video, I immediately started remembering the snake hissing and my annoying everyone in my house by getting 99 arrows and telling the game to tell me how many I had (It would ping 99 times.) Astrosmash still rocks!! (pun intended)
I was born in 72. I think the console was a Santa gift for Christmas. I had 2 brothers and we would fight over who would play next, but also had fun watching each other play. My favorite games were Sea Battle, Night Stalker, and one kind of like Donkie Kong, I think it was called Beauty and the Beast not sure... We had the keyboard too, I thought it was kinda useless at the time, but boy I wish I could find it now! My brother may still have it, I'm checking in that now haha.
Yes, Beauty and the Beast was one of Imagic gems. It was different to Donkey Kong. You gotta love reaching the top floor and then suicide to increase the game difficulty...
HAD GREAT Times playing with MY Friends back in the day. Thanks again for the info.
We had the Magnavox Odyssey 2 when I was growing up in the early 80's. Loved it. My favorite game was Pick-Axe Pete.
My favorite Intellivision game was probably Sub Hunt and the Poker & Blackjack game.
I still have my Intellivision at my home, but I haven't used it since analogy TV phased off twenty years ago. I do not know if it is still working or not. My best memorable games of the Intellivision were Tron Deadly Discs, Advanced Dungeons and Dragons, and Sea Battle. I played all night on Tron Deadly Discs for a week. I jumped high into the celebration when I hit two million in a score of Tron Deadly Discs! Tron Deadly Discs was my favorite Intellivision game of all time. It was a fantastic game toy in those days in 1979 and 1980. My brother gave it to me for my Christmas and birthday. It was expensive - it cost $199 at JC Penney in December 1979.
There was also a GTE/Sylvania branded Intellivision, probably the rarest variation. I was in a GameStop around the time Neo•Geo Pocket Color games were getting re-released in 4 and 6 packs, and the sales guy proudly told me that he had just finished his Intellivision collection by buying a GTE/Sylvania console. That was also the last time I ever met a GameStop employee who was knowledgeable about anything.
I had one of these in my very late teens. Yes, it was cool and fun, but it absconded with my motivation to get on with building my life. As such, when I married and brought children into this world, I forbade video games in the house and stuck to it. The result was two well-adjusted, over achieving, highly educated daughters who came out ahead of their peers. They still have better heads on their shoulders than their contemporaries. Best parenting move ever.
The Intellivision was definitely a favorite, even many years after the crash, and you could find them at garage sales and flea markets for cheap. They had a style of their own compared to other consoles. Demon Attack and Treasue of Tarmin were among my favs. Good memories.