Intellivision History

[Ricardo Cividanes da Silva]

Hi fellows!

I'm writing about history from Mattel Intellivision and I  came across a narrative that I can't validate.
That narratives say these Mattel stoped the Intellivision project in 1977 or 1978. But the can't be true as Intellivision was ready in 1979. Setting up the timeline these narratives make no sense.
Does anyone knows how is the history?

[+DZ-Jay]

Hi, @Ricardo Cividanes da Silva,

 

That doesn't sound right, for as you say, the Intellivision was actually released in 1979, and Mattel continued production until they closed the Mattel Electronics division in 1983.

 

You can find much information on the history of the Intellivision at the "Blue Sky Rangers" site:

• https://history.blueskyrangers.com/

Although there are some unknowns regarding unfinished projects and other prototypes mentioned by Mattel in the past, the things that are known are well established.

[mr_me]

From papaintellivision.com, around september 1977, "All Mattel work on video games was ordered shutdown."  Two months later the project was reinstated.

[Ricardo Cividanes da Silva]

@mr_me , yes it's make sense.

This matches the information that Mattel executives decided to continue seeing the success of the Atari VCS.

[mr_me]

1 hour ago, Ricardo Cividanes da Silva said:

@mr_me , yes it's make sense.

This matches the information that Mattel executives decided to continue seeing the success of the Atari VCS.

Where did you read that.  The Atari 2600 would have only been out a few weeks when Mattel reinstated the Intellivision project.  Looks like it had something to do with what GI had to say.  Here are a couple of pages from that document.

 

 

[Zendocon]

On 1/31/2021 at 9:05 AM, Ricardo Cividanes da Silva said:

Hi fellows!

I'm writing about history from Mattel Intellivision and I  came across a narrative that I can't validate.
That narratives say these Mattel stoped the Intellivision project in 1977 or 1978. But the can't be true as Intellivision was ready in 1979. Setting up the timeline these narratives make no sense.
Does anyone knows how is the history?

I believe the project was suspended due to the overwhelming popularity of Mattel's Football handhelds at the time, and then resumed before the Intellivision's launch.

[mr_me]

The Mattel Electronics handheld angle is interesting and there have been a few interviews with people involved including Howard Cohen, the handheld project manager at Mattel Electronics.  Apparently, Mattel halted production of the Football handheld in 1977 as it approached 100k units (500k units were planned).  The decision was based on feedback from Sears.  Then in January 1978, Sears advised they made a mistake and wanted 200k a week, production of the handheld then went to 500k a week.

 

So, yes the handhelds might have contributed to the decision to suspend the Intellivision but they reinstated the intellivision before resuming the football handhelds production.

https://www.handheldmuseum.com/Mattel/Trivia.htm

[Peripheral]

I loved those handheld games, both football and basketball.

 

Seems like it would be trivial for one of the many game designer folks in this forum to whip up Intellivision versions,

except that they would need to know the algorithms for moving the blips.

 

Are those algorithms obtainable?

[Ricardo Cividanes da Silva]

Do you think that APh consulting had an influence on the choice of Intellivision's chipset?

[mr_me]

The story goes that at a seminar, a Mattel engineering manager bumped in to the head of APh who suggested the GI chip set.  However, Mattel did select National Semiconductor after that.   I don't know anything about the National chipset and why they changed to GI, maybe price, maybe risk management was better with gi.

[Ricardo Cividanes da Silva]

I read in https://web.archive.org/web/20170630220531/http://www.intellivisionlives.com/bluesky/hardware/intelli_tech.html  that APh had an influence, because GI had a complete chipset solution and was willing to make all the changes that Mattel asked for.

[Games For Your Intellivision]

4 minutes ago, Ricardo Cividanes da Silva said:

I read in https://web.archive.org/web/20170630220531/http://www.intellivisionlives.com/bluesky/hardware/intelli_tech.html  that APh had an influence, because GI had a complete chipset solution and was willing to make all the changes that Mattel asked for.

From my memory, I recall that the Intellivision was based on the GI Mini (Gimini) video game system but there was no way to modify the graphics. The Intellivision is basically the GI Mini with a custom controller and a way to program custom characters. 

[BSRSteve]

1 hour ago, Ricardo Cividanes da Silva said:

I read in https://web.archive.org/web/20170630220531/http://www.intellivisionlives.com/bluesky/hardware/intelli_tech.html  that APh had an influence, because GI had a complete chipset solution and was willing to make all the changes that Mattel asked for.

This information, along with most of the information from intellivisionlives.com has been reposted at https://history.blueskyrangers.com/ . This particular information is at https://history.blueskyrangers.com/mattelelectronics/index.html

 

I haven't got all of the unreleased games information across yet, but hopefully soon.

[+DZ-Jay]

2 hours ago, mr_me said:

The story goes that at a seminar, a Mattel engineering manager bumped in to the head of APh who suggested the GI chip set.  However, Mattel did select National Semiconductor after that.   I don't know anything about the National chipset and why they changed to GI, maybe price, maybe risk management was better with gi.

 

From the Dave Chandler's document you posted, it seems that the meeting with National did not go well; so as you say, they may have gotten the impression that there was too much risk in the deal.

 

Quote

"HANDSHAKE" meeting became "Scare Mattel into postponing project" meeting.

 

[+Lathe26]

10 hours ago, Games For Your Intellivision said:

From my memory, I recall that the Intellivision was based on the GI Mini (Gimini) video game system but there was no way to modify the graphics. The Intellivision is basically the GI Mini with a custom controller and a way to program custom characters. 

The only system I know of that used the original Gimini Mid-Range system (including the fixed AY-3-8800 graphics chip) is the Unisonic Champion 2711.  Some folks call it the Intellivision's Little Brother.  I've read the GI datasheet for it's video chip and it is extremely limited.

 

http://pre83.com/platform/champion-2711

[+DZ-Jay]

3 hours ago, Lathe26 said:

The only system I know of that used the original Gimini Mid-Range system (including the fixed AY-3-8800 graphics chip) is the Unisonic Champion 2711.  Some folks call it the Intellivision's Little Brother.  I've read the GI datasheet for it's video chip and it is extremely limited.

 

http://pre83.com/platform/champion-2711

Ah, yes ... @decle introduced us to that ...

 

[Ricardo Cividanes da Silva]

14 horas atrás, BSRSteve disse:

Essas informações, junto com a maioria das informações de intellivisionlives.com, foram republicadas em https://history.blueskyrangers.com/ . Esta informação específica está em https://history.blueskyrangers.com/mattelelectronics/index.html

 

Eu não consegui todas as informações de jogos não lançados ainda, mas espero que em breve.

Thanks. I think I managed to build the timeline.

[Walter Ives]

On 1/31/2021 at 6:05 AM, Ricardo Cividanes da Silva said:

I'm writing about history from Mattel Intellivision and I  came across a narrative that I can't validate.
That narratives say these Mattel stoped the Intellivision project in 1977 or 1978. But the can't be true as Intellivision was ready in 1979. Setting up the timeline these narratives make no sense.
Does anyone knows how is the history?

According to D. Johnson, The Design and Development of the Mattel Intellivision, Preliminary Design began laying the groundwork in 1975. APh did the first related circuit design work in December of that year. The suits alternated between hot and cold until the Plimpton advertising campaign started bearing fruit. [A gestão da empresa interrompeu, recomeçou, desacelerou e acelerou o desenvolvimento muitas vezes ao longo dos anos, até que os anúncios de George Plimpton fizeram o produto decolar.] Yes, that's many months after the project began shipping. Throughout the roller coaster ride Chang kept everything going on an even keel.

On 1/31/2021 at 11:44 AM, mr_me said:

From papaintellivision.com, around september 1977, "All Mattel work on video games was ordered shutdown."  Two months later the project was reinstated.

Chang misplaced the memo. Good thing for Chandler, who would otherwise have been let go.

 

On 1/31/2021 at 3:31 PM, Ricardo Cividanes da Silva said:

This matches the information that Mattel executives decided to continue seeing the success of the Atari VCS.

That may be the popular narrative, but it's wrong. Totally. Totalmente T.O.T.A.L.M.E.N.T.E.

 

On 1/31/2021 at 4:58 PM, mr_me said:

Looks like it had something to do with what GI had to say.

That's the really short version. It neglects to acknowledge the rather important roles played by Ray Wagner's dinner with Lew Solomon, Jeff Rochlis' silver tongue and Chang's continuing progress.

 

[+DZ-Jay]

On 12/3/2022 at 8:16 AM, Walter Ives said:

According to D. Johnson, The Design and Development of the Mattel Intellivision, Preliminary Design began laying the groundwork in 1975. APh did the first related circuit design work in December of that year. The suits alternated between hot and cold until the Plimpton advertising campaign started bearing fruit. [A gestão da empresa interrompeu, recomeçou, desacelerou e acelerou o desenvolvimento muitas vezes ao longo dos anos, até que os anúncios de George Plimpton fizeram o produto decolar.] Yes, that's many months after the project began shipping. Throughout the roller coaster ride Chang kept everything going on an even keel.

 

 

Chang misplaced the memo. Good thing for Chandler, who would otherwise have been let go.

 

That may be the popular narrative, but it's wrong. Totally. Totalmente T.O.T.A.L.M.E.N.T.E.

 

That's the really short version. It neglects to acknowledge the rather important roles played by Ray Wagner's dinner with Lew Solomon, Jeff Rochlis' silver tongue and Chang's continuing progress.

 

 

 

Mr. Ives, is here a chance that you would fill in the blanks on the details of those comments, rather than provide mere oblique insinuations?  I mean that respectfully, for the oblique insinuations are still interesting in themselves, just not very satisfying for us hungry for more history.

 

    dZ.

[Ricardo Cividanes da Silva]

On 12/3/2022 at 10:16 AM, Walter Ives said:

According to D. Johnson, The Design and Development of the Mattel Intellivision, Preliminary Design began laying the groundwork in 1975. APh did the first related circuit design work in December of that year. The suits alternated between hot and cold until the Plimpton advertising campaign started bearing fruit. [A gestão da empresa interrompeu, recomeçou, desacelerou e acelerou o desenvolvimento muitas vezes ao longo dos anos, até que os anúncios de George Plimpton fizeram o produto decolar.] Yes, that's many months after the project began shipping. Throughout the roller coaster ride Chang kept everything going on an even keel.

 

 

Chang misplaced the memo. Good thing for Chandler, who would otherwise have been let go.

 

That may be the popular narrative, but it's wrong. Totally. Totalmente T.O.T.A.L.M.E.N.T.E.

 

That's the really short version. It neglects to acknowledge the rather important roles played by Ray Wagner's dinner with Lew Solomon, Jeff Rochlis' silver tongue and Chang's continuing progress.

 

 

 

Dear Mr. Ives.

 

I managed to piece together the history of the Intellivision. But I would be grateful if you could tell us more about what you know.

I'm sure any detail will always enrich the story.

Mainly about this story that the project was stopped and only came back after Mattel saw Atari's success.

 

Tks.

   Ricardo

[Walter Ives]

On 12/5/2022 at 4:09 AM, DZ-Jay said:

Chang misplaced the memo. Good thing for Chandler, who would otherwise have been let go. That may be the popular narrative, but it's wrong. Totally. Totalmente T.O.T.A.L.M.E.N.T.E. That's the really short version. It neglects to acknowledge the rather important roles played by Ray Wagner's dinner with Lew Solomon, Jeff Rochlis' silver tongue and Chang's continuing progress.

 

Mr. Ives, is here a chance that you would fill in the blanks on the details of those comments, rather than provide mere oblique insinuations?  I mean that respectfully, for the oblique insinuations are still interesting in themselves, just not very satisfying for us hungry for more history.

I was afraid I'd gone a bit overboard with the whozits and whatzits galore. But you want more? Well, here are some more words, but I'm not convinced they convey more information:

1. Preliminary Design began laying the groundwork in 1975.

Richard Chang was a director of Preliminary Design with a charter to explore strange new worlds, seek out new life and new civilizations and boldly go where no man has gone before. He was intrigued by the possibility of having Mattel produce video games and in 1975 began beamed out away teams to investigate and report back, preferably bringing samples. They occasionally found knowledgeable creatures which they duly transported to their headquarters, extracted information from their neural networks and returned unharmed to their original habitat. In order to unobtrusively comply with the Prime Directive, the Preliminary Design personnel on the away teams usually left their distinctive red dots at home, which undoubtedly contributed to them all coming back alive. [This telling really does convey the essence of the situation. I'm not in a position to provide you with a list of all instances in which a particular person went to a particular arcade on a particular date and played a particular game, or when a particular potential vendor was invited to send certain particular individuals to Hawthorne to present a particular capability.]

2. APh did the first related circuit design work in December of that year.

In November 1975 APh was asked to brief a group of Mattel middle managers on how a microprocessor could be combined with a custom VLSI circuit to create a home video game system. During December it prepared a proof-of-concept demonstration that showed how a microprocessor based "TV typewriter" capable of displaying 25 rows of 40 characters (which you know today as BACKTAB) on a normal TV set could be modified/enhanced to include writeable character memory (which you know today as GRAM) plus a small number of additional characters specified by registers containing the character number that could be positioned anywhere on the screen using x- and y-position registers and optionally mirrored or magnified in x and y (which you know today as Moving Objects). Its demonstration implemented two such characters, which it called "Thing 1" and "Thing 2." The general architecture proposed by APh informed Chang's thinking and heavily influenced Mattel's subsequent vendor selection, and as such can be regarded as the genesis of the Intellivision. I'm not saying Maine and Harrower based their STIC on this work—they developed that independently—but that rather that it was behind Mattel's decision to go with GI's STIC and not with, say MOS Technology's VIC, for the Intellivision.

 

As an aside here, I'd like to note that the APh/STIC architecture is relatively easy to program. You can even get useable results programming it in BASIC, which is why BASIC II was being prepared for the Keyboard Component and Bits 'n Bytes for the ECS. I suspect that is an important contributor to the fact that today, forty-seven years later, there is an active Intellivision programming group in this forum.

3. From papaintellivision.com, around september 1977, "All Mattel work on video games was ordered shutdown."  Two months later the project was reinstated.

    Chang misplaced the memo. Good thing for Chandler, who would otherwise have been let go.

I'm not sure what else to say here. As an officially sanctioned explorer, Chang had considerable discretion and wasn't closely monitored. When word came down that management had decided against going into this space, he pretty much ignored it. When management decided to continue, Chang had only lost two weeks out of eight. Chandler had no other function at Mattel—without the Intellivision, he was gone. Chang was hardly unique—engineers sneak things over on their management all over the world, to the benefit of all.
 

4. This matches the information that Mattel executives decided to continue seeing the success of the Atari VCS.

    That may be the popular narrative, but it's wrong. Totally. Totalmente T.O.T.A.L.M.E.N.T.E.

I'm not sure what else to say here either. As all y'all can plainly see from documentation you've dug up elsewhere, Mattel began planning for the Intellivision well before Atari introduced the VCS. Chandler was hired in early 1977 to help execute a plan that was already underway. When Atari introduced the VCS a few months later Mattel business unit leaders [thanks for the phrase, DZ-Jay], meaning specifically Rochlis, Wagner and Spear, simply didn't see it as a product that lived in the same space as would the Intellivision. (Mattel was not monolithic: others within the organization felt otherwise.) You may find that inconceivable, given your visceral understanding of games and your knowledge of the subsequent Console Wars, but that's the way it was with respect to those particular management individuals from 1977 to early1980, and they were the ones controlling the purse strings. Look carefully at Mattel's marketing materials from the era: their thrust is more focused on promoting Keyboard Component capabilities than it is at promoting the games. And as to games, where Atari concentrated on bringing its arcade games to the home, the initial Intellivision lineup assiduously avoided arcade-like games. Space Battle was the only game in the initial lineup that could be played in a few minutes, and it was an entirely APh invention to fill a gap, not at all the game the suits initially had in mind for the title (which was basically the existing mainframe game known as Trek somehow enhanced with graphics, totally unimplementable in 4K [Insert your laughing emoji's here.]). The VCS didn't originally sell nearly as well as expected; Atari was stuck with a quarter of a million unsold units after Christmas of 1978. It didn't become a success worth emulating until its Space Invaders cartridge was released in early 1980. It took a while for Mattel to see the impact of Space Invaders, but when it did it immediately commissioned Space Armada. So strike that sentence from your history. It's wrong. Totally wrong. Whatever you may have heard elsewhere, it doesn't fit with other the known facts for which you have ample evidence from other sources. If it doesn't fit you must acquit, whatever rioting may ensue. I'm sorry, but you'll have to leave a gap in this part of your narrative—I just don't have anything juicy to replace it.

 

WJI

[Walter Ives]

On 12/5/2022 at 4:22 AM, Ricardo Cividanes da Silva said:

Dear Mr. Ives.

 

I managed to piece together the history of the Intellivision. But I would be grateful if you could tell us more about what you know.

I'm sure any detail will always enrich the story.

Mainly about this story that the project was stopped and only came back after Mattel saw Atari's success.

 

Tks.

   Ricardo

The timing doesn't support that narrative: The first VCS units hit store shelves in August of 1977, Intellivision development was ordered stopped the next month because National pulled out, the project was resurrected in November because GI's Lew Solomon spoke with Mattel's Ray Wagner.

 

WJI

[+DZ-Jay]

39 minutes ago, Walter Ives said:

I was afraid I'd gone a bit overboard with the whozits and whatzits galore. But you want more? Well, here are some more words, but I'm not convinced they convey more information:

1. Preliminary Design began laying the groundwork in 1975.

Richard Chang was a director of Preliminary Design with a charter to explore strange new worlds, seek out new life and new civilizations and boldly go where no man has gone before. He was intrigued by the possibility of having Mattel produce video games and in 1975 began beamed out away teams to investigate and report back, preferably bringing samples. They occasionally found knowledgeable creatures which they duly transported to their headquarters, extracted information from their neural networks and returned unharmed to their original habitat. In order to unobtrusively comply with the Prime Directive, the Preliminary Design personnel on the away teams usually left their distinctive red dots at home, which undoubtedly contributed to them all coming back alive. [This telling really does convey the essence of the situation. I'm not in a position to provide you with a list of all instances in which a particular person went to a particular arcade on a particular date and played a particular game, or when a particular potential vendor was invited to send certain particular individuals to Hawthorne to present a particular capability.]

2. APh did the first related circuit design work in December of that year.

In November 1975 APh was asked to brief a group of Mattel middle managers on how a microprocessor could be combined with a custom VLSI circuit to create a home video game system. During December it prepared a proof-of-concept demonstration that showed how a microprocessor based "TV typewriter" capable of displaying 25 rows of 40 characters (which you know today as BACKTAB) on a normal TV set could be modified/enhanced to include writeable character memory (which you know today as GRAM) plus a small number of additional characters specified by registers containing the character number that could be positioned anywhere on the screen using x- and y-position registers and optionally mirrored or magnified in x and y (which you know today as Moving Objects). Its demonstration implemented two such characters, which it called "Thing 1" and "Thing 2." The general architecture proposed by APh informed Chang's thinking and heavily influenced Mattel's subsequent vendor selection, and as such can be regarded as the genesis of the Intellivision. I'm not saying Maine and Harrower based their STIC on this work—they developed that independently—but that rather that it was behind Mattel's decision to go with GI's STIC and not with, say MOS Technology's VIC, for the Intellivision.

 

As an aside here, I'd like to note that the APh/STIC architecture is relatively easy to program. You can even get useable results programming it in BASIC, which is why BASIC II was being prepared for the Keyboard Component and Bits 'n Bytes for the ECS. I suspect that is an important contributor to the fact that today, forty-seven years later, there is an active Intellivision programming group in this forum.

3. From papaintellivision.com, around september 1977, "All Mattel work on video games was ordered shutdown."  Two months later the project was reinstated.

    Chang misplaced the memo. Good thing for Chandler, who would otherwise have been let go.

I'm not sure what else to say here. As an officially sanctioned explorer, Chang had considerable discretion and wasn't closely monitored. When word came down that management had decided against going into this space, he pretty much ignored it. When management decided to continue, Chang had only lost two weeks out of eight. Chandler had no other function at Mattel—without the Intellivision, he was gone. Chang was hardly unique—engineers sneak things over on their management all over the world, to the benefit of all.
 

4. This matches the information that Mattel executives decided to continue seeing the success of the Atari VCS.

    That may be the popular narrative, but it's wrong. Totally. Totalmente T.O.T.A.L.M.E.N.T.E.

I'm not sure what else to say here either. As all y'all can plainly see from documentation you've dug up elsewhere, Mattel began planning for the Intellivision well before Atari introduced the VCS. Chandler was hired in early 1977 to help execute a plan that was already underway. When Atari introduced the VCS a few months later Mattel business unit leaders [thanks for the phrase, DZ-Jay], meaning specifically Rochlis, Wagner and Spear, simply didn't see it as a product that lived in the same space as would the Intellivision. (Mattel was not monolithic: others within the organization felt otherwise.) You may find that inconceivable, given your visceral understanding of games and your knowledge of the subsequent Console Wars, but that's the way it was with respect to those particular management individuals from 1977 to early1980, and they were the ones controlling the purse strings. Look carefully at Mattel's marketing materials from the era: their thrust is more focused on promoting Keyboard Component capabilities than it is at promoting the games. And as to games, where Atari concentrated on bringing its arcade games to the home, the initial Intellivision lineup assiduously avoided arcade-like games. Space Battle was the only game in the initial lineup that could be played in a few minutes, and it was an entirely APh invention to fill a gap, not at all the game the suits initially had in mind for the title (which was basically the existing mainframe game known as Trek somehow enhanced with graphics, totally unimplementable in 4K [Insert your laughing emoji's here.]). The VCS didn't originally sell nearly as well as expected; Atari was stuck with a quarter of a million unsold units after Christmas of 1978. It didn't become a success worth emulating until its Space Invaders cartridge was released in early 1980. It took a while for Mattel to see the impact of Space Invaders, but when it did it immediately commissioned Space Armada. So strike that sentence from your history. It's wrong. Totally wrong. Whatever you may have heard elsewhere, it doesn't fit with other the known facts for which you have ample evidence from other sources. If it doesn't fit you must acquit, whatever rioting may ensue. I'm sorry, but you'll have to leave a gap in this part of your narrative—I just don't have anything juicy to replace it.

 

WJI

 

That is all fascinating.  Thank you so much for taking the time to respond.

 

     -dZ.

[Sinjinhawke]

6 hours ago, DZ-Jay said:

 

That is all fascinating.  Thank you so much for taking the time to respond.

 

     -dZ.

Agreed, Walter Ives comments are quite interesting to read.  Quite the window to a business world that was happening while I was a wee child.   I'm worried CMART might track down Walter and box him up to store him in his secret underground lair.

Think Woody from Toy Story 2, not Kathy Bates and James Cain from Misery.

[+cmart604]

35 minutes ago, Sinjinhawke said:

Agreed, Walter Ives comments are quite interesting to read.  Quite the window to a business world that was happening while I was a wee child.   I'm worried CMART might track down Walter and box him up to store him in his secret underground lair.

Think Woody from Toy Story 2, not Kathy Bates and James Cain from Misery.

Still have some room....