Intellivision start up screen

[+videofx]

Just found a brand new intellivison. When I power it on I get a black screen. If I insert a cartridge and power on it works.

 

So my question is on powering on the Intellivision, is there any kind of boot screen telling you its intellivison without a cart plugged in? or does it require a cartridge to boot?

 

Thanks!

[+DZ-Jay]

1 minute ago, videofx said:

Just found a brand new intellivison. When I power it on I get a black screen. If I insert a cartridge and power on it works.

Hmm, others with more knowledge of electronics may answer differently, but I always thought that powering up the console without a cartridge is a Bad Thing.

 

1 minute ago, videofx said:

So my question is on powering on the Intellivision, is there any kind of boot screen telling you its intellivison without a cart plugged in? or does it require a cartridge to boot?

 

Thanks!

 

It requires a cartridge to boot.  There is no "console idle" screen.

 

   dZ.

[+fdr4prez]

8 minutes ago, DZ-Jay said:

Hmm, others with more knowledge of electronics may answer differently, but I always thought that powering up the console without a cartridge is a Bad Thing. 

Well, I don't know if it is Bad Thing to do, but it certainly isn't a smart thing to do since the console will just sit there giving you a black screen. 

 

Unless you are into staring at a blank black screen

 

[IMBerzerk]

1 hour ago, videofx said:

Just found a brand new intellivison. When I power it on I get a black screen. If I insert a cartridge and power on it works.

 

So my question is on powering on the Intellivision, is there any kind of boot screen telling you its intellivison without a cart plugged in? or does it require a cartridge to boot?

 

Thanks!

It won't do anything to the CPU, it was just something they wrote in the manuals to keep common rabble like us from doing stupid things.  It will always go to blank screen if no cart is inserted. 

 

A blank screen can be caused by a mile long list.. but first and easiest is to get a few working carts, clean the contacts, then insert the cart several times to "clean" the port contacts.  Eventually you'll get a title screen or come to the conclusion that the INTY actually has issues.  It's very rare for a cartridge to go bad, so you know it's the INTY

[+DZ-Jay]

1 hour ago, fdr4prez said:

Well, I don't know if it is Bad Thing to do, but it certainly isn't a smart thing to do since the console will just sit there giving you a black screen. 

 

 

Well, good to know, because I've done it more than I care to count!  
 

6 minutes ago, IMBerzerk said:

It won't do anything to the CPU, it was just something they wrote in the manuals to keep common rabble like us from doing stupid things.  It will always go to blank screen if no cart is inserted. 

 

 

It worked, then.  When I was a kid, I would cringe every time I turned on the console and forgot to insert a cartridge.  I always half-expected it to explode or something! 😱

   dZ.

[+fdr4prez]

4 minutes ago, DZ-Jay said:

It worked, then.  When I was a kid, I would cringe every time I turned on the console and forgot to insert a cartridge.  I always half-expected it to explode or something! 😱

I've certainly powered up without a cart in my youth.

 

15 minutes ago, IMBerzerk said:

It's very rare for a cartridge to go bad

I have a few that don't work.

 

Although it could be from pulling them out without remembering to power down first.

 

I don't recall ever inserting a cart while powered on.  I'm at least smart enough to have never done that before.

[+fdr4prez]

Just now, fdr4prez said:

I'm at least smart enough to have never done that before.

Although one should never say "never".

 

I certainly could have in my dumb youth and have forgotten about it.

 

So many cart insertions and extractions as a kid.

 

I can't remember them all!!!

[IMBerzerk]

23 minutes ago, fdr4prez said:

I've certainly powered up without a cart in my youth.

 

I have a few that don't work.

 

Although it could be from pulling them out without remembering to power down first.

 

I don't recall ever inserting a cart while powered on.  I'm at least smart enough to have never done that before.

Lol.. I'm dumb enough that I've done it all.  Never had an issue, even on my units now.  Every now and then I'll yank out the cart with the power on and go.. Oh Sh...    But then it's all fine.  I've even put one in with the power on and hit reset.  No issue.  This stuff is solid state.  Built really well. Only thing that really kills it is heat.

[+videofx]

Thanks everyone for answering so quickly and confirming my suspicions.

 

 

[+DZ-Jay]

10 hours ago, fdr4prez said:

Although it could be from pulling them out without remembering to power down first.

 

I've done that too! 😱

 

10 hours ago, fdr4prez said:

I don't recall ever inserting a cart while powered on.  I'm at least smart enough to have never done that before.

 

Like you, I do not think I've ever done this.  Thankfully there is a limit to my stupidity. 😄

 

     -dZ.

[mr_me]

The cartridge loops back the bus control signals to the exec rom chip.  So without a cartridge, it's not possible to run Exec code.  Otherwise I would have thought we might see some sort of title screen.  The Stic with grom/gram runs fine, and I guess is why we see a black screen.

 

Surprisingly, the master component instructions doesn't warn about inserting/removing cartridges with the power on.  It says "Cartridge may be inserted prior to turning on TV set and Master Component.  If not, insert the cartridge."  Then there's a note to push reset if something non-rational appears on the TV.  As kids we thought to only do that with the power off.  The thing was very expensive and didn't want to risk anything.

[+DZ-Jay]

32 minutes ago, mr_me said:

The cartridge loops back the bus control signals to the exec rom chip.  So without a cartridge, it's not possible to run Exec code.  Otherwise I would have thought we might see some sort of title screen.  The Stic with grom/gram runs fine, and I guess is why we see a black screen.

 

Thanks for the information.  I sort of thought something similar -- I seem to recall reading something about the cartridge becoming an "extension of the main board circuitry" -- but that could have been about some other console, or even the original implementation of the Odyssey or something like that.

 

In any case, I always assumed that the cartridge needed to be inserted in order for the console to work at all (with a vestige of the fear I had as a kid of damaging such an expensive device).

 

 

 

32 minutes ago, mr_me said:

Surprisingly, the master component instructions doesn't warn about inserting/removing cartridges with the power on.  It says "Cartridge may be inserted prior to turning on TV set and Master Component.  If not, insert the cartridge."  Then there's a note to push reset if something non-rational appears on the TV.  As kids we thought to only do that with the power off.  The thing was very expensive and didn't want to risk anything.

 

I would imagine that inserting/removing the cartridge while the Master Component is powered on would increase the chance of a static charge damaging either.  I am surprised to see that the instruction manual appears to suggest that you could insert the cartridge while power is on when you forgot to do so before hand. 😱

 

Then again, some of these consoles have survived for over 40 years of environmental or user abuse (or both), some of it I'm sure much harsher.

 

     -dZ.

Edited September 17, 2022 by DZ-Jay

[Intymike]

19 hours ago, mr_me said:

The cartridge loops back the bus control signals to the exec rom chip.  So without a cartridge, it's not possible to run Exec code.  Otherwise I would have thought we might see some sort of title screen.  The Stic with grom/gram runs fine, and I guess is why we see a black screen.

 

I assume that’s the reason why you have to plug in a cart with the ECS even when you use the built in programs.

[IMBerzerk]

On 9/17/2022 at 9:51 AM, mr_me said:

The cartridge loops back the bus control signals to the exec rom chip.  So without a cartridge, it's not possible to run Exec code.  Otherwise I would have thought we might see some sort of title screen.  The Stic with grom/gram runs fine, and I guess is why we see a black screen.

 

Surprisingly, the master component instructions doesn't warn about inserting/removing cartridges with the power on.  It says "Cartridge may be inserted prior to turning on TV set and Master Component.  If not, insert the cartridge."  Then there's a note to push reset if something non-rational appears on the TV.  As kids we thought to only do that with the power off.  The thing was very expensive and didn't want to risk anything.

Like I said, I've done it... not because I wanted to, but by oops moment.  It didn't hurt anything, I just pressed reset, and up came the screen.  I had no idea it even said that in the manual.  It was more of a gut reaction to doing something so stupid.

[+fdr4prez]

6 minutes ago, IMBerzerk said:

Like I said, I've done it... not because I wanted to, but by oops moment.  It didn't hurt anything, I just pressed reset, and up came the screen.  I had no idea it even said that in the manual.  It was more of a gut reaction to doing something so stupid.

I don't recall doing that, but if I did I probably would have turned it off and back on and not simply pressed reset. 

[Walter Ives]

On 9/16/2022 at 3:37 PM, DZ-Jay said:

Hmm, others with more knowledge of electronics may answer differently, but I always thought that powering up the console without a cartridge is a Bad Thing.

Nah.

On 9/17/2022 at 6:51 AM, mr_me said:

The cartridge loops back the bus control signals to the exec rom chip.  So without a cartridge, it's not possible to run Exec code.

Without something plugged into the cartridge slot it's not possible to run anything. The bus control lines are not looped back so the CPU never even gets a valid reset vector.

On 9/17/2022 at 6:51 AM, mr_me said:

Surprisingly, the master component instructions doesn't warn about inserting/removing cartridges with the power on.

The cartridge slot is designed to ensure that there is no reasonable possibility of touching the wrong cartridge pin to the wrong connector pin. With that precaution, nobody involved with engineering could identify a mechanism by which inserting a cartridge while the Master Component is powered on would hurt the system, but none of them was going to stick his neck out and guarantee that in writing. However, if this had in fact caused failures in the field the return rate would have been unsustainably high.

 

On 9/17/2022 at 7:22 AM, DZ-Jay said:

I would imagine that inserting/removing the cartridge while the Master Component is powered on would increase the chance of a static charge damaging either.

Nope. Provided, of course, that you don't deliberately pre-charge the cartridge by reaching through the narrow opening and touching the contacts with your fingers. The cartridge was designed to make that moderately difficult.

 

On 9/17/2022 at 6:51 AM, mr_me said:

It says "Cartridge may be inserted prior to turning on TV set and Master Component.  If not, insert the cartridge."  Then there's a note to push reset if something non-rational appears on the TV.

 

On 9/17/2022 at 6:51 AM, mr_me said:

It says "Cartridge may be inserted prior to turning on TV set and Master Component.  If not, insert the cartridge."  Then there's a note to push reset if something non-rational appears on the TV. 

Cartridges ground the console's reset pin in order to automatically "press" reset when a cartridge is inserted into a powered system—if the cartridge is inserted cleanly, this often works as intended. If it doesn't, press reset yourself, as the instructions say.

[+DZ-Jay]

42 minutes ago, Walter Ives said:

Nah.

 

 

Without something plugged into the cartridge slot it's not possible to run anything. The bus control lines are not looped back so the CPU never even gets a valid reset vector.

 

 

The cartridge slot is designed to ensure that there is no reasonable possibility of touching the wrong cartridge pin to the wrong connector pin. With that precaution, nobody involved with engineering could identify a mechanism by which inserting a cartridge while the Master Component is powered on would hurt the system, but none of them was going to stick his neck out and guarantee that in writing. However, if this had in fact caused failures in the field the return rate would have been unsustainably high.

 

Nope. Provided, of course, that you don't deliberately pre-charge the cartridge by reaching through the narrow opening and touching the contacts with your fingers. The cartridge was designed to make that moderately difficult.

 

 

Cartridges ground the console's reset pin in order to automatically "press" reset when a cartridge is inserted into a powered system—if the cartridge is inserted cleanly, this often works as intended. If it doesn't, press reset yourself, as the instructions say.

 

Good to know!  I've been overly and unnecessarily cautious over the years ... :)

 

   -dZ.

[bikeguychicago]

I think the Colecovision was the first console to have some sort of message saying that a cart needed to be inserted if one wasn't.