The History of Overkal - The Spanish Magnavox Odyssey Clone

[MartinMartorell]

Hi!

My (official) name is Martin Martorell, I'm an user from the hot city of Seville, Spain. I've been in this forum for some years, but i'm not an active user by any means.

I like to share a research article i made regarding the history of Overkal and early videogames in Spain (and some from Argentina). It's a subject that i liked since i was pretty young and i decided to try to research by myself the origins of videogames in my country, and specially, try to find the mind behind the Overkal.

 

From previous posts from years ago in AtariAge i know that the Overkal is to my suprise, subject of interest (idk if this expression is used in English?) outside Spain because all the mystery around the system and being such an interesting pretty early console. So i thought that it will be a interesting subject for some users here.

 

This post maybe it can be considered as spam because i'm basically sponsor my website, so i share some photos and history of the system here. If you are interested in more info, you can read my full research article.

 

https://prehistoricgaming.com/en/overkal-history/

(I'm sorry if my English it's pathetic at times)

What is the Overkal?

 

(Yeah, this photo it's just a little bit "edited")

 

Overkal is a Spanish Magnavox Odyssey clone developed by Inter Electrónica, S.A.. launched commercially around February-March 1974 at the price of between 9,000 and 10,000 pesetas in "El Corte Ingles" and other department stores and consumer electronics shops that sold Inter products. The console instead of jumper carts, uses switches for selecting 6 variants to play 8 games. The controllers are identical to the Odyssey ones and are hard-wired to the system. All the text of the box, console and games is on Spanish.

 

 

Based on the documentation and testimonies i've compilated from people related to Inter Electrónica and from who know the console, i'm really sure to say that the Overkal it's the first home videogame console in history designed and commercially produced outside the US, and also the second home videogame console in history. And obviously, the first pirate game console system in history.

 

(Overkal "The Third Channel In Your TV", in Spain we had only 2 TV channels at that time)

 

Sorta like Magnavox in the US, Inter Electrónica was a big consumer electronics brand in Spain during the 1950s until the late 1970s, producing radio receivers, TVs sets and portables radios. The company was purchased by Grundig in 1978, becaming "Inter-Grundig".

 

 

The Overkal was designed in the first half of 1973 by Santiago Arcocha, an ambulance driver who was passionated by electronics and innovation since he was a student in the 1940s.

His design was filed at the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office in May 7, 1973, with the name "Dispositivo electrónico para la modulación y gobierno del haz en un tubo de rayos catódicos" (Electronic Device for Modulating and Controlling the Beam in a Cathode Ray Tube) (ES414491A1). This document shows a design for a TV game system that uses 6 switches for selecting games and hard-wired controllers.

 

This registry is possibly the third patent in history for a TV game. The first patent obviously belong to the one Ralph Baer filed for the Brown Box, and the second one was filed for a Odyssey-based system (JPS49147924U) in Japan by Sharp Corporation on April 9, 1973. Although, they never materialized this idea.

 

Because of their interest in common when they were young, Santiago Arcocha had a long friendship with Rafael Gómez Aparicio, Inter Electrónica's distribution and commercial director. Because of that, it's really easy to assume Santiago offered his design to Inter to be materialized and commercialized.


The "Overkal" was developed in the second half of 1973, being finished around late November and early December. The design of the console and controller cases were filed in the Spanish Industrial Property Registry in December 4, 1973.

 

 

And this is some photos of adverts and things i compiled. I hope you enjoy this post!!

 

[+cjherr]

Very cool. Thank you!

[Odysseus]

If anyone had any Overkal advertising for sale I’d like to find some 😀

[+eebuckeye]

Terrific information! Thank you!

[dodgyville]

That's so interesting. Thanks for sharing. The switches are really interesting. I wonder how they map to the Odyssey cards? It doesn't seem like it can do all the configurations. What a great find.