RCA Studio II GOLD MINE! An interview with the Studio 2 Production Manager!

[Hwlngmad]

Those old pictures, especially the Studio II with the TV that has rotary dials, are awesome!

Some more cool stuff. I spoke with Paul Russo over the phone about two months ago, and he offered to lend me a few RCA-related items he still had from his time there (he was involved in FRED, the coin arcade, and to a lesser extent the Studio projects - by that point he was largely working on other commercial uses for the 1802). Among these was a book/magazine of articles about microprocessors by RCA engineers from around late 1977, and a series of photo prints taken of the Studio II, what I think is a telex conversion device using the 1802 that he was telling me about, and a COSMAC computer system. I'm still in the process of scanning the magazine (I'm using my work copy machine, which can only do 600 dpi but that's probably plenty for what is mostly text with some images) but I did scan in the photos. I'd love to get them at a higher dpi setting, but unless the copy machines at the library here can do better - or I just hold onto this stuff until such time that I can get a good scanner myself and find a place to set it up - 600 will have to do. Pertinent to this thread, here are those Studio II prints!

[flip]

Some more cool stuff. I spoke with Paul Russo over the phone about two months ago, and he offered to lend me a few RCA-related items he still had from his time there (he was involved in FRED, the coin arcade, and to a lesser extent the Studio projects - by that point he was largely working on other commercial uses for the 1802). Among these was a book/magazine of articles about microprocessors by RCA engineers from around late 1977, and a series of photo prints taken of the Studio II, what I think is a telex conversion device using the 1802 that he was telling me about, and a COSMAC computer system. I'm still in the process of scanning the magazine (I'm using my work copy machine, which can only do 600 dpi but that's probably plenty for what is mostly text with some images) but I did scan in the photos. I'd love to get them at a higher dpi setting, but unless the copy machines at the library here can do better - or I just hold onto this stuff until such time that I can get a good scanner myself and find a place to set it up - 600 will have to do. Pertinent to this thread, here are those Studio II prints!

 

The photo has a revision 'B' mainboard, meaning it is very probably a pre-production one. The earliest ones i've seen, the #131 (iFixit teardown) and #155 are revision 'C' boards...

 

The datecode on the CPU (7640) suggests it was put together after week 40 in 1976. Interestingly, two of the ROMs have different serial numbers: 84932 & 84933 are the same as in production machines, but the game roms are 84934 and 84935 - in production machines, they were 85456 and 85457... And the pixie chip has handwriting on it, suggesting it also was a pre-production!

 

 

Cool find!

FliP

Edited December 12, 2018 by flip

[sut]

Hope I’ve posted this in the right place apologies if not.

I might finally be able to source a European Studio II clone and was wondering if the multicart was still available ?

If so who do I speak to and how much does it cost ?

Does the multicart include the European and Japanese exclusives ?

I don’t want another console to collect for so the multicart is the ideal solution for playing on original hardware.

 

Thanks and again apologies if the wrong forum but this seems the go to place for Studio II.

Oh I’m based in the UK if that information is required.

[carlsson]

On question C, the answer is it contains all known RCA Studio II releases, all known MPT-03 releases and all known homebrew games from Paul & Lee. That would mean all European, but not Japanese titles as the Toshiba Visicom is similar but not identical to the Studio III in how it works, at least when it comes to colour resolution.

Edited January 4, 2019 by carlsson

[+stupus]

Yes, at this point there looks like no way the multicart could ever handle the visicom games.

All but one of them are dumped though and we considered the idea of a visicom multicart someday....especially if the last game can get dumped.

But there are what maybe half a dozen known people with a visicom so it would be a small batch

 

 

I was curious what clone you might be getting too?

 

I think flip will still make multicarts. But they would not come with a shell now I don't think. Not sure if he has labels and manuals left either.

I am not currently making more boxes but I may do more at some point in the future if more are sought after.

[sut]

Thanks for the information on the Visicom I didnt realise it ran slightly different to make incompatibilities. I just assumed it was like a Euro clone but obviously Japanese.

 

The model Im hoping to get is a Victory MPT 02 what I like about this one is the fact it has actual joysticks rather than that horrendous keypad.

[flip]

Hi,

 

The Visicom is actually substantially different from the Studio II (and the color clones) in both hardware and software, despite using the same processor and video chip as the Studio.

 

You might be disappointed with the MPT-02's joysticks: they simply sit on top of the keypad, which in itself is a lot worse than that of the Studio...

 

The multicart is still available, as @stupus pointed out without a shell. PM me for details...

 

FliP

[ubersaurus]

The Magfest RCA history panel and follow-up hands-on session went well! TCNJ Sarnoff curator Florencia Pierri was able to do an excellent job filling in the history of RCA and Joe Weisbecker's history with games and computers while I focused on the FRED and Studio II stuff myself (though I did end up skipping past a few items I did have on my outline to bring up). There was well over 50 people in the room - it wasn't packed, but it was still quite full. Probably a quarter of those folks came through the Magfest museum afterwards for the hands-on with the Studio II (using flip's multicart) and seemed to find it really cool. I was a bit busy, but I did pull a few photos some friends have posted to include here of the museum displays and the panel itself. The talk itself was filmed and should find its way onto the Magfest youtube channel within a few days, according to the staff member nearby. Thanks to Blazing Lazers, we had a full set of Studio II carts and a boxed system on display, and Florencia brought along some prototypes from TCNJ to have out for people to check out as well: a VIP, a FRED unit, a Microtutor, and Joe Weisbecker's own Elf.

[ubersaurus]

While at Magfest, TCNJ's Florencia Pierri passed along what has proved to be another gold mine resource: an oral history done by Alex Magoun with Billie Joe Call back in 2004! Call worked pretty closely with Joe Weisbecker as his hardware tech for the FRED project and on into the arcade, VIP and Studio lines, and had a lot to talk about there. Some of the highlights from the interview:

 

Joe Weisbecker was apparently not well liked by RCA management on account of him regularly telling them when they were doing something idiotic; as such he had a reputation of being kind of difficult to work with. Call felt that he was also incredibly forward-thinking, however, and had RCA listened to him and got behind his work they would have been well-positioned to be early leaders in home computing and video games. When Call was brought into the FRED project, he noted Weisbecker was splitting his time between working in the Labs and working from home; at home he'd be developing new prototypes, software, etc. which would be brought in on days he was in the office for the rest of the team to also work on. Later, Call remembers, they got into a huge fight when Nat Gordon (a manager at the labs) realized they were working on microprocessors, which he called a "fad." This led to the FRED team largely being moved to Somerville, with only Weisbecker and Call staying behind at the Labs as a "liaison." Phil Baltzer would eventually join them as sort of their local manager, who also happened to really be into software and hardware development.

 

BJ Call was also able to identify the different FRED units: we already know which one was FRED 1, but the white unit with yellow buttons (as seen in the photo from Magfest) is FRED 1.5, which he and Joe had built using the new 1801 components. FRED 2 was, it turns out, the briefcase units! They built five of them, and Call had no idea what happened to any of them; we know that Joyce Weisbecker brought one of them with her to school from when I corresponded with her, but the rest he was not able to account for.

 

Regarding the arcade machines: Call corroborated the paperwork that said there were six machines made, and said they were tested in pairs. Two were at a mall in Pennsylvania (which we now know is the mall in Feasterville where The Cave arcade was at the time), two were at a mall in South Jersey, which he didn't remember the name of, and the other two were at the Sarnoff Labs. After about a week or two, they returned to see how the machines were doing only to find the ones at the malls unplugged; the operators said the high voltage warnings on the monitors spooked them so they stopped plugging them in. Call suggests that he had also heard stories of the mob getting mad they put in machines that they weren't getting a cut from, but wasn't sure how true that was; either way they ended up bringing the four mall machines back to Sarnoff and tested them there. They were pretty popular, he recalls, but they couldn't find anyone in RCA willing to manufacture them, which led to the Studio II project. He corroborates what we heard elsewhere that the arcade machines were going to use physical carts to allow for the games to be changed, and that they could be set up for different inputs, including a track ball.

 

He said the consumer division wasn't interested in the fad of video games, which corroborates what Paul Russo told me in a recent interview I did, which is why DSP in Deptford ended up with the Studio II. He said Deptford had engineers but not ones that were well-equipped for the task, and took well over a year before they got boards back that could be a salable product (the videomate/studio II). By that time, the home Pong unit had come out (and outside the interview, of course, the Channel F came out before the Studio II could get FCC certified). He refers to the Studio II as being in many respects the home version of the arcade hardware they'd designed in 1974, and thus felt that had they gotten the support they needed, the machine could have been out well before the competition. Call felt the real reason RCA failed with the Studio II was that they never had a division set up specifically to do video games; they just didn't have the resources needed to do it at Sarnoff. He later feels they should have linked up with the New Products Division in Lancaster instead for the Studio II (the group that apparently were behind the VIP). Interestingly, he and Andy Modla both equate the Studio IV with the Atari 2600, and Call thinks they ended up moving out of the Studio IV project because they realized they just weren't in a position to catch up with Atari and their other competitors by that point with the amount of support they were getting.

 

Call said the Microtutor and the Cosmac Elf were essentially the same machine, just with one being an RCA project and the other being open source designs Weisbecker put forth (as Joyce told me, because he wanted to make sure this stuff was available to the public even if RCA didn't back it). The Cosmac 180 was a single-chip version of the Elf, with the 180A being a connecting module; combined the two 180 units essentially formed a VIP prototype (and now that I know this, I want to go back and check the photos I took at TCNJ - I think some of their mystery Cosmac machines are exactly these).

 

He mentions that Jef Winsor and Tom Chen were working on stuff for the Studio IV; he could have been misremembering but I think I'll have to loop back with Jef and see if he remembers anything.

 

Florencia also passed along a two-part oral history with Weisbecker's wife and daughters that I haven't listened to - it's 2 and a half hours! Interested to see what's in there, though.

Edited January 9, 2019 by ubersaurus

[Hwlngmad]

Great stuff! A great tale of what could've/should've been.

While at Magfest, TCNJ's Florencia Pierri passed along what has proved to be another gold mine resource: an oral history done by Alex Magoun with Billie Joe Call back in 2004! Call worked pretty closely with Joe Weisbecker as his hardware tech for the FRED project and on into the arcade, VIP and Studio lines, and had a lot to talk about there. Some of the highlights from the interview:

 

Joe Weisbecker was apparently not well liked by RCA management on account of him regularly telling them when they were doing something idiotic; as such he had a reputation of being kind of difficult to work with. Call felt that he was also incredibly forward-thinking, however, and had RCA listened to him and got behind his work they would have been well-positioned to be early leaders in home computing and video games. When Call was brought into the FRED project, he noted Weisbecker was splitting his time between working in the Labs and working from home; at home he'd be developing new prototypes, software, etc. which would be brought in on days he was in the office for the rest of the team to also work on. Later, Call remembers, they got into a huge fight when Nat Gordon (a manager at the labs) realized they were working on microprocessors, which he called a "fad." This led to the FRED team largely being moved to Somerville, with only Weisbecker and Call staying behind at the Labs as a "liaison." Phil Baltzer would eventually join them as sort of their local manager, who also happened to really be into software and hardware development.

 

BJ Call was also able to identify the different FRED units: we already know which one was FRED 1, but the white unit with yellow buttons (as seen in the photo from Magfest) is FRED 1.5, which he and Joe had built using the new 1801 components. FRED 2 was, it turns out, the briefcase units! They built five of them, and Call had no idea what happened to any of them; we know that Joyce Weisbecker brought one of them with her to school from when I corresponded with her, but the rest he was not able to account for.

 

Regarding the arcade machines: Call corroborated the paperwork that said there were six machines made, and said they were tested in pairs. Two were at a mall in Pennsylvania (which we now know is the mall in Feasterville where The Cave arcade was at the time), two were at a mall in South Jersey, which he didn't remember the name of, and the other two were at the Sarnoff Labs. After about a week or two, they returned to see how the machines were doing only to find the ones at the malls unplugged; the operators said the high voltage warnings on the monitors spooked them so they stopped plugging them in. Call suggests that he had also heard stories of the mob getting mad they put in machines that they weren't getting a cut from, but wasn't sure how true that was; either way they ended up bringing the four mall machines back to Sarnoff and tested them there. They were pretty popular, he recalls, but they couldn't find anyone in RCA willing to manufacture them, which led to the Studio II project. He corroborates what we heard elsewhere that the arcade machines were going to use physical carts to allow for the games to be changed, and that they could be set up for different inputs, including a track ball.

 

He said the consumer division wasn't interested in the fad of video games, which corroborates what Paul Russo told me in a recent interview I did, which is why DSP in Deptford ended up with the Studio II. He said Deptford had engineers but not ones that were well-equipped for the task, and took well over a year before they got boards back that could be a salable product (the videomate/studio II). By that time, the home Pong unit had come out (and outside the interview, of course, the Channel F came out before the Studio II could get FCC certified). He refers to the Studio II as being in many respects the home version of the arcade hardware they'd designed in 1974, and thus felt that had they gotten the support they needed, the machine could have been out well before the competition. Call felt the real reason RCA failed with the Studio II was that they never had a division set up specifically to do video games; they just didn't have the resources needed to do it at Sarnoff. He later feels they should have linked up with the New Products Division in Lancaster instead for the Studio II (the group that apparently were behind the VIP). Interestingly, he and Andy Modla both equate the Studio IV with the Atari 2600, and Call thinks they ended up moving out of the Studio IV project because they realized they just weren't in a position to catch up with Atari and their other competitors by that point with the amount of support they were getting.

 

Call said the Microtutor and the Cosmac Elf were essentially the same machine, just with one being an RCA project and the other being open source designs Weisbecker put forth (as Joyce told me, because he wanted to make sure this stuff was available to the public even if RCA didn't back it). The Cosmac 180 was a single-chip version of the Elf, with the 180A being a connecting module; combined the two 180 units essentially formed a VIP prototype (and now that I know this, I want to go back and check the photos I took at TCNJ - I think some of their mystery Cosmac machines are exactly these).

 

He mentions that Jef Winsor and Tom Chen were working on stuff for the Studio IV; he could have been misremembering but I think I'll have to loop back with Jef and see if he remembers anything.

 

Florencia also passed along a two-part oral history with Weisbecker's wife and daughters that I haven't listened to - it's 2 and a half hours! Interested to see what's in there, though.

[ekeefe]

Hello,

I own an original COSMAC 180. Here are a couple of pictures of it:

I also own an original Microtutor and Microtutor II:

ED

[ubersaurus]

Aha! Yes, that's it! And TCNJ has the other half needed to make it the full VIP prototype, the 180A.

 

And based on Call's memory and the notes at TCNJ, this white unit is very likely a surviving FRED 2 prototype. I should ask if Flori can see if Joyce can confirm this next time she visits TCNJ, as she did take one of the briefcase units with her to school at one point.

Edited January 9, 2019 by ubersaurus

[etxmato]

Hi,

 

Interesting stuff!

 

So are you guys saying that:

FRED 1 is the machine using the SYSTEM 01 chip set

FRED 1.5 is using the 1801

FRED 2 is using the 1802?

 

Which means I got the numbering system in Emma 02 wrong, I never expected it to be correct anyway but now I'm thinking that I should change the FRED 2 to a FRED 1.5.....

[ubersaurus]

Hi,

 

Interesting stuff!

 

So are you guys saying that:

FRED 1 is the machine using the SYSTEM 01 chip set

FRED 1.5 is using the 1801

FRED 2 is using the 1802?

 

Which means I got the numbering system in Emma 02 wrong, I never expected it to be correct anyway but now I'm thinking that I should change the FRED 2 to a FRED 1.5.....

That is what it looks like, from what I can tell! I want to go over Hagley docs again to be sure but based on BJ Call's memory and what I have scanned, that sounds correct.

[Blazing Lazers]

Originally, I was just trying to make sure my humble set of 10 games for the Studio II was indeed the complete collection, and to find out what the deal was about that one Bingo game everybody claimed to have seen back in 2001. I never expected to find my way to all the former RCA hands or all the awesome discoveries and creations that have followed these past few years, but I did at least figure that something definitive and conclusive about (TV) Bingo and whether or not it should count as part of a complete collection would quickly be sorted out. Almost 6 years later that's one of the few things I still haven't been able to nail down. I'm still at it though, and I can confidently assert that while the overwhelming odds are that there never was a retail release of any sort for TV Bingo, one possibility that there was one such "retail offering" remains: the RCA Family Stores. I've eliminated all other possibilities except these company-run locations. Sadly, every name I've found associated with them has either passed away or is now unreachable or unknown. If there was a real release back in the day for TV Bingo, it would have been at these locations, and would definitely explain both the immense (easily R10!) rarity and how both verified and all other possible copies were discovered associated with former RCA employees. The whole point of this is not to assert that TV Bingo was in fact sold at the Family Stores, but rather that it is at this point the only possibility of any sort of release at all, as opposed to the chance that both confirmed copies were just pre-production sales samples.

 

So really, it's still up to an individual collector as to just what constitutes part of a full set for a complete Studio II collection.

 

 

[ubersaurus]

RCA game history panel from MAGfest has gone up! Probably nothing monumental in here that folks in this thread aren't aware of, but TCNJ's Florencia Pierri and I had a pretty good audience (and one very loud guy trying to talk over us at a few points)!

 

[Blazing Lazers]

There's only a few box colors for the different Studio 2 genres: Red, Orange, Blue, light Blue, and White. Green also exists as part of the modern TV Complete Series. However, another vintage color does exist due to printing error: Yellow. Among the various spare Studio II games that I have is a set of games that are as close to factory direct as possible: they were graciously given to me by the former factory manager of the Swannanoa, NC plant where the games were assembled and shipped from. As he related, the various print materials, labels, and boxes were sourced from different suppliers. After production had ended, he obtained a set of games, which included several duplicates. Among these was an extra copy of TV Arcade III: Tennis/Squash, which has a Yellow colored box. Now, I thought that this might just be sunfading, but it doesn't appear to be. It is Yellow on all sides and the front, evenly distributed. It was stored away for decades with the other games, none of which have any sunfading. There are some examples of sunfaded Studio II game boxes, and those have been bleached white by the sun, not turned Yellow. So while I cannot know just how many of these miscolored Yellow boxes were originally printed (I've never seen any pop up on Ebay), I know that this is one special box variant that I wanted to share with the rest of the collecting community. Enjoy!

[ubersaurus]

Finished scanning that periodical Paul Russo lent me full of RCA engineers writing articles about microprocessors; it includes sections on FRED, the various computers (the Microtutor, the VIP, the 180), and the Studio II. Pretty interesting read! https://archive.org/details/RCAMicroprocessorTechnology

[ubersaurus]

Thanks to the Library of Congress's newspaper database access, I've been researching release dates on early video games based on when they're mentioned in advertising or articles. This has been tricky for RCA stuff, since outside of the ads and mentions that Hagley has on hand there's not too much. But coupled with information found in the Weekly Television Digest industry periodical that someone else scanned and made available to me, RCA's internal paperwork, and those documents at Hagley, I think this is the best arrangement of release info I've got (and possibly the only info out there):

 

February (circa the 15th): Console comes out in test markets alongside Space War, Fun with Numbers, and TV Schoolhouse 1

April: Console gets wide release, Tennis/Squash appears in ads and is noted as coming out later in the month in the company's own press materials

May (circa the 15th): Baseball is released, according to the press kit.

July-September: Blackjack is released; RCA's own press kit notes it as coming in the summer, the June 6 Television Digest says its to be released in July, and finally the Sept. 19 Television Digest lists it as one of the games that's been shipped. I'd lean towards it actually dropping in September after delays.

August-September: Math Fun is released; the same June 6 Television Digest says it was planned for an August release, and the same Sept. 19 issue says it's shipped.

September: Gunfighter/Moonship Battle is released, based on the Sept. 6 Galveston Daily News business article that was posted in this thread a while back.

November: Biorhythm is released on Nov. 15, as per RCA's own press release. Speedway/Tag is available at this time, as it is noted in the release that 10 cartridges are now available and both it and Gunfighter are singled out as being recent releases (the only ads I've seen mentioning either game or Biorhythm first appear in the Nov. 21 Hutchinson News, and none of them get any press time in Weekly Television Digest). Therefore my educated guess is that Speedway/Tag made it out around October or early November.

 

System is discontinued in mid-February as per reporting in the Wall Street Journal. I have seen no ads mention Bingo, though this means only so much for this console since they seemed to only have updated their ads from the launch ones come the Christmas season.

 

Tangentially related, it's really fun seeing the local newspaper articles about the Channel F, Atari VCS and Bally Arcade in 78-79!

[ubersaurus]

I'd forgotten to post this image earlier. It appears to be one of the "briefcase units" we've seen various fleeting mentions of.

 

I was digging in the thread looking for something else earlier and spotted this. It's a FRED II unit! Looks exactly like the white "Cosmac" machine in the TCNJ collection.

Edited February 8, 2019 by ubersaurus

[Blazing Lazers]

Well, it turns out that Blackjack isn't the only Studio II game with a major variant. TV Schoolhouse Series/ TV Schoolhouse I also has one. What I'm assuming is the earlier version has colored dots on the instruction/quiz booklets, white (in place of black) lettering on the booklets, and the cartridge labels say TV Schoolhouse Series instead of TV Schoolhouse I. My apologies in advance for uncompleting everyone's collection, for those of us that are also variant collectors. Anyone else ever notice this before?

[ubersaurus]

So I'm quite confident that the "far east" company listed by RCA in its April 1978 memo interested in the Studio III technology is Conic International, thus making it the originator of the Studio III clones.

 

I've attached three items - the 1978 RCA memo noting that there was interest in licensing the Studio III tech to produce 200,000 units for global shipment and two pieces based on the summer CES show that following June, one from Weekly Television Digest's June 19 issue, and the other from the July 1978 Merchandising issue wrapping up CES coverage. The WTD issue notes that the Hong Kong-based Conic indeed showed a "Studio II" prototype at the show, while the Merchandising issue specifies that it was a US subsidiary of the company based out of New Jersey that had brought a game machine along purely to judge buyer interest. Given that two-month turnaround time from the memo to CES, I don't see it terribly likely that any other of the companies involved in Studio III clones would have been in a position to beat Conic to the punch, and since Conic's subsidiary and RCA were both New Jersey-based outfits, even geographically there was an advantage there - the memo does go on to talk about turnkey production of units.

 

The question becomes, then, when did these clones start getting sold? 1978 seems awfully likely for at least Conic's. But it is interesting to see that, if nothing else, the Studio III did make an appearance on US shores, even if no one realized it at the time.

 

(also if I could figure out why this site keeps rotating everything side ways that would be great)

Edited March 5, 2019 by ubersaurus

[slydc]

If you wanna see what the game console looks like (the Studio III prototype) which was shown at the CES, check post #283:

 

http://atariage.com/forums/topic/209519-rca-studio-ii-gold-mine-an-interview-with-the-studio-2-production-manager/page-12?do=findComment&comment=2738151

 

And you are absolutely right about Conic, it was them who made those European clones and they had at least two affiliates: Accurate Electronics

Ind. LTD (US division) and also Soundic, which the office of Soundic was in the same building as Conic! The address of Conic was:

 

12/F Conic Investment Building, 13 Hok Yuen Street, Hung Hom , Kowloon, Hong Kong

 

 

And as for Soundic:

 

Soundic Electronics, Ltd. of Causeway Bay, Hong Kong.

11/F - Conic Investment Building,

13 Hok Yuen St.,

Kowloon, Hong Kong.

Raymond Ho, Director

(Only one floor below Conic!!)

And more info:

Soundic Electronics Ltd. (Hong Kong)

[Owned by Conic Investment Co.]

Started: July 2, 1975

Dissolved: October 5, 1990.

And the "Conic" trademark was owned by: Chee Yuen Industrial Co. Ltd., 36 Tai Yau St., San Po Kong Kowloon, Hong Kong

which was first used in Dec.31, 1974.

 

And finally, the picture of the building:

 

 

Picture from: https://www.hongkongoffices.com/en/conic_investment_building/1461/building_info

 

P.S: I love the name of the ownership described on the web page ( Ownership: Big Landlord ....LOL!!!!)

[+stupus]

It's always seemed like soundic was behind the electronics of all these mpt consoles. Which btw I still am dying to know what mpt stands for.

So it sounds like soundic is just the electronics division for conic.....makes sense with the similar words they are.

 

I wonder the relationship they had to sheen who seems to be behind the Australia clones....as well as the relationship to hanimex....

[carlsson]

Aren't Conic M1200 and Sheen M1200 the exact same machine with different labels on the front? I would suppose the latter was just a sales company, like Conic made an OEM version for anyone to put their label on as long as the model number was the same.

 

(See also how Dick Smith sold the VTech Creativision as Wizzard in Australia - exact same machine, different brand)