Intellivision vs Atari, which were you?

[lamarvenoy]

I grew up in the early video game world,I'll never forgot the Christmas my family got an intellision-this is when it first came out. I had an uncle who was an executive at Matel and we got one before they were even released to the public! I loved that thing, it had the best games and it seemed to be lightyears ahead of anything else out there,microsurgeon,utopia,dracula,D & D II. I also remember back in like 81-82 we had a module that plugged into the game system that fed through our cable that had 30 games that changed every month(new Jersey). Does anyone else remember these systems? What family were you I or A ?

 

[WDWspider]

Intellivision Rocks! or Lives!

Intellivision was the lifeblood gaming experience of my childhood.

Snafu, D & D, Burgertime, Auto Racing, Astrosmash, and Demon Attack were some of my favorites.

I had about 50+ games. I never did the online thing. But I did get the Catalogs and the Intellivoice.

 

[JBSLJames]

Atari 2600. Lived on Donkey Kong.

 

[Erika]

Atari 2600...


And I still play

 

[GaryT977]

Atari, then Colecovision. I couldn't work that Intellivison controller!

For those of you who want to re-live the glory days of the Intellivision, some of the best games on that system are being released as an X-Box game. In fact, it may already be out.

 

[WDWspider]

Originally posted by GaryT977
I couldn't work that Intellivison controller!

It was an artform. For a 5 year old kid, you learned to master the controller. If a system today had a controller like that I would throw it out the window.

Of course the ol Atari Joystick wasn't the greatest controller on earth either.:lol:

 

[GaryT977]

Originally posted by WDWspider
Of course the ol Atari Joystick wasn't the greatest controller on earth either.:lol:

Nope, but it was nice and simple. And big!

 

[xfkirsten]

I was Atari all the way. Ya can't beat Pitfall and Circus Atari and Frogger. Ya just can't.

-Kirsten

 

[WDWspider]

Originally posted by xfkirsten
I was Atari all the way. Ya can't beat Pitfall and Circus Atari and Frogger. Ya just can't.

-Kirsten

We had Frogger and Pitfall.

The variety of Controllers was nice in Atari.

But Intellivision games looked waaaay better. :animwink:

 

[Wckd Queen]

We were actually a PONG family :lol: Right down to the cat who would go nuts trying to get that little white blip on the old black and white console tv :lol:

Then we upgraded to Intellivision. Two of the games I remember we had were Astrosmash and NHL hockey with "lifelike" graphics. My mother was the champ on Astrosmash. Naturally...she wouldnt let anyone else play! :lol: My friend and I used to play the hockey whenever we could. We loved that you could check someone into the boards and the poor guy would go "Uugghh!" :lol:

Wasnt there some sort of "computer" you could hook up to Intellivision? I remember it was supposed to be some expandable system or something and that was why my father chose it over Atari. That and the superior graphics...or what constituted superior graphics in 1981 :lol:

 

[DMC-12]

Another Shout out for Coleco here! :sohappy:

 

[WDWspider]

For those who are interested and do not know... some free Intellivision games are available for download to your computer - straight from the gang who originally created them.

http://www.intellivisionlives.com/download.shtml

 

[GenerationX]

I had Intellivision as a kid. The two games I remember were the Downhill Skiing and the Baseball game. After the play was over in Baseball and the ball was automatically given back to the pitcher, you could make the pitcher throw the ball to himself. My friends and I thought this was hysterical. Of course, we were rather easily amused. :lol:

 

[artvandelay]

I was an Atari boy. My favorite game was Adventure. Does anyone else remember this game? Did you ever find the hidden microdot? It was a fun game, but the graphics were awful. You're sword was an arrow.

I had a friend who had Intellivision and we loved Sea Battle, B17 Bomber (Bandits! 4 o'clock!), and all the sports games (even soccer). I hope the XBOX version of Intellivision has these.

Anyone from the NY area remember Channel 11's TV Pix? They would show an Intellivision game after a cartoon and you had to phone in to play the game. They would have football and you would have to PIX to make the QB throw the ball. If you got a touchdown you won some crappy prize. The funny thing is, the game wasn't voice activated. There was a stagehand sitting in the studio waiting for some kid to say PIX so he could hit the button.

 

[Wckd Queen]

Originally posted by artvandelay
Anyone from the NY area remember Channel 11's TV Pix? They would show an Intellivision game after a cartoon and you had to phone in to play the game. They would have football and you would have to PIX to make the QB throw the ball. If you got a touchdown you won some crappy prize. The funny thing is, the game wasn't voice activated. There was a stagehand sitting in the studio waiting for some kid to say PIX so he could hit the button.

Im from NY and I do have a very vague recollection of this on Channel 11, along with Pride of the Yankees before the start of every baseball season, (since it was the channel for Yankee games...for free!) and the Yule Log every Christmas Eve! :lol: Had NO idea it was a guy sitting there with the controls though :lol:

 

[Lovecraft]

I was an Atari boy.

 

[lamarvenoy]

Did anyone else have that plug in module that sent games through the cable system? That thing rocked,there were lots of games that never were released to the public that we played as their test subjects. It was always a tuff debate amongst kids, Atari had a cult following just like intellivision, then Intellivision changed the module and it could play both games systems games.There are hundreds of Tntellivion things on E bay at any given time. I got Intellives for PS 1, and it just came out with PS2, but I don't really play the games anymore, they are just to outdated but when I want to think about the good old innocent days of youth I'll play a game of astrosmash or snfu and suddenly I'm 6 years old again.
koolaid man! safe cracker,burgertime, any game by Imagic-in the silver foil box. Utopia, the precursor to SimCity. By thumb hurts just thinking about it.

 

[WDWspider]

Here's some of the stuff talked about.

1. The Keyboard attachment:

 

[WDWspider]

2. The Cable Adaptor:

"PlayCable
INTELLIVISION/CABLE TV ADAPTER (MODEL PCR)

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
DEVELOPMENT HISTORY

Introduced in 1981, PlayCable: The All Game Channel enabled local cable operators to send Intellivision games over the wire with the TV signal. Subscribers used a special converter -- the PlayCable Adapter -- to download the games to play on their Intellivision Master Components. While reportedly popular in the areas in which it was available, PlayCable was discontinued in 1983.

The PlayCable Company was a joint venture of Mattel and General Instrument, the company that designed the Intellivision chip set. The units themselves were manufactured by General Instrument's Jerrold Division, which supplies cable TV converter boxes.

The PlayCable matched the original Intellivision Master Component in design. It plugged into the Master Component's cartridge slot and hooked up to the TV cable. Switching on the Intellivision brought up several pages of on-screen menus, displaying the available games. Twenty titles were available at a time, rotated monthly. The object code for these games was being continuously broadcast over the cable; when one was chosen, its code would be "tuned in" and fed into the PlayCable's memory (taking about 10 seconds). The Intellivision would then read the PlayCable's memory as if it were a game cartridge.

Several factors contributed to the systems demise:

The PlayCable Adapter contained insufficient memory to download the larger (8K and above) games introduced in 1983. The converter boxes would either have to be upgraded or the system limited to older games.
With the growing number of channels that subscribers were demanding ("I want my MTV!"), most cable operators felt reserving bandwidth for PlayCable wasn't worth it (especially considering the hardware investment needed to provide the service).

At least two people figured out that a PlayCable could make a dandy Intellivision development system. By hooking up a personal computer to a PlayCable and poking around by trial and error, they quickly decoded the EXEC software and started writing their own games. While these two were kept from competing with Mattel by hiring them to program the Intellivision Bump 'N' Jump arcade conversion, management was afraid PlayCable would make it too easy for small companies to get into the Intellivision-compatible business. "

 

[WDWspider]

3. The Intellivision II elaporated on the Computer attachment side a lot but it never went over too well.

The Intellivision II had removeable controllers, a computer adaptor, a printer, an Atari Game adaptor, and a Musical Keyboard available as add-ons.

Here is the Computer adaptor, and Intellivision II and a Musical Keyboard: