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Intellivision TutorVision found w/games


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Just a bit of an update. There are three of these in existence that I know of. Ted Brunner has one just like mine, google him and you can see some photos. Someone else emailed me photos of one he had found. Unfortunately it had all the TutorVision and World Book emblems scratched off. I can't recall his name offhand. All three of these were found in the greater Chicago area. World Book did have their offices there. I would imagine The Blue Sky Rangers probably have one as well.

 

I'm not sure how many of the game cartridges for it exist.

 

-Chuck

 

chuck remember that i always want to buy it, if you change idea;)

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  • 5 years later...
  • 2 months later...

So I am friends with chuck gill thru the Midwest gaming classic museum group.

My plan was to have somebody well versed in intellivision come to mgc to dump his 2 games and system bios.

1 person who was a possibility ended up not being able to come to mgc.

But he sent chuck his dumper and chuck successfully dumped his 2 carts a couple weeks ago.

They are not usable though without the unique exec I believe.

The tutorvision uses a 2nd font that the regular intellivision does not have.

I don't know if this is the only difference as the boards look quite different. And the tutorvision games do nothing at all in a regular intellivision which seems odd if it's just the font.

Anyway me and my friend dan set up for frank Palazzola to come to mgc to dump the system files in person there.

He is the guy who dumped the intellivision computer component system files and all the tapes.

And he is currently working on an emulator for it.

My hope us that a multicart could possibly be made someday with the 2 games and the special bios on the cart that could somehow be set to supercede the regular inty bios.

Or at least have it emulated on a pc.

I know some involved think making these on real carts would not be popular enough to justify making them....but I am not sure they realize how many of us obsessed hardcore inty collectors there is turning out to be!

 

Hopefully it happens in 2 weeks and works!

I believe this is the last piece of known missing inty dumps! :)

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Yes, I am quite excited about it :) as if mgc is not enough fun on its own!

I will let you all know how it works out! Maybe I can get some news on the computer component emulator status as well. :)

Excellent. Also, please ask Chuck how much money I'd need to throw at him to get him to part with his Tuturvision. Lol!

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The wbexec could be different but it doesn't have to be. The Revised Exec for Tutorvision and the narrow font routines could be put on each cartridge.

 

The boards look different but the components are the same as a regular intellivision. You can see it has a full 2KB of gram, 2609s had 512B and IIs had 1KB. The Intellivision memory map always supported 2KB gram but Intellivisions were wired to ignore more than 512B. A regular Intellivision could only buffer 25% of the screen. From Tutorvision screenshots it would need at least 50%. 2KB gram is enough to buffer the entire screen.

 

Modifying an Intellivision emulator to support Tutorvision should be a matter of increasing addressable gram. Jzintv source code is there for anyone.

 

If Tutorvision cartridges don't start in an Intellivision II it could be because of a possible revised exec rom. Or it could be because the cartridge checks for extra gram (otherwise text would be garbled). Or it could be because it fails the intellivision II Mattel lockout.

 

Edit:

How many regular Intellivision cartridges were tested? Its possible some might have messed up graphics on a Tutorvision but they all should run. Does the standard font look normal with regular Intellivision games on a Tutorvision?

Edited by mr_me
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Modifying an Intellivision emulator to support Tutorvision should be a matter of increasing addressable gram. Jzintv source code is there for anyone.

 

 

Already done :)

 

This file contains a patch for Jzintv 1.0 beta4 (the latest version for which source code is available)

 

 

This patch does two things. Firstly, it fixes a small bug that prevents keyboard hack files working correctly (Joe fixed this some time ago in the dev releases). Secondly, it adds a new flag (-G) to the command line to select the amount of Intellivision GRAM. Valid values are:

  • 0 - 512bytes / 64 GRAM characters, the default value and the size of the standard Intellivision
  • 1 - 1024bytes / 128 GRAM characters
  • 2 - 2048bytes / 256 GRAM characters, enough to make the whole screen addressable as a bitmap

The extra RAM is required to play StudioVision in large screen mode (click to animate):

 

post-46336-0-57029600-1484983296_thumb.gif post-46336-0-16470100-1484983295_thumb.gif
decle
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Very Very nice find! icon_lust.gif

 

I hope that you will allow the carts to be dumped so that they can be shared among the community. You have a very unique find there.

The carts have been dumped and we are going to try and dump the EXEC and GROM at the 2017 Midwest Gaming Classic.

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The wbexec could be different but it doesn't have to be. The Revised Exec for Tutorvision and the narrow font routines could be put on each cartridge.

 

The boards look different but the components are the same as a regular intellivision. You can see it has a full 2KB of gram, 2609s had 512B and IIs had 1KB. The Intellivision memory map always supported 2KB gram but Intellivisions were wired to ignore more than 512B. A regular Intellivision could only buffer 25% of the screen. From Tutorvision screenshots it would need at least 50%. 2KB gram is enough to buffer the entire screen.

 

Modifying an Intellivision emulator to support Tutorvision should be a matter of increasing addressable gram. Jzintv source code is there for anyone.

 

If Tutorvision cartridges don't start in an Intellivision II it could be because of a possible revised exec rom. Or it could be because the cartridge checks for extra gram (otherwise text would be garbled). Or it could be because it fails the intellivision II Mattel lockout.

 

Edit:

How many regular Intellivision cartridges were tested? Its possible some might have messed up graphics on a Tutorvision but they all should run. Does the standard font look normal with regular Intellivision games on a Tutorvision?

Since I acquired the TutorVision I have amassed a decent number of Intellivision games and they all look fine on the TutorVision. I also have a couple of orginal Intellivision Master Components and the TutorVision games just present a black screen on those.

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I don't think he would want to sell it anytime soon. He brings it every year to display at mgc and I think he really enjoys doing so.

Can you believe he got it for $5

I do enjoy bringing it and so does my wife. The MGC is a blast I'd hate to miss it, this year (2017) we will be bringing the TutorVision, a regular Intellivision and a Vectrex. We may bring an Atari 800 XL if space permits.

 

Oh and I promised Alessandro Pace first crack at it when and if I do sell it.

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Hey Chuck!

 

I was just about to email you the patched jzintv emulator above that decle made.

I was hoping you could try it with the 2 game dumps and see if they run at all or you get anything more than the black screen.

That would be very interesting to know!

 

Thanks!

Mark

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Very Very nice find! icon_lust.gif

 

I hope that you will allow the carts to be dumped so that they can be shared among the community. You have a very unique find there.

The carts have been dumped and will be released along with the exec and grom in a couple of weeks.

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I do enjoy bringing it and so does my wife. The MGC is a blast I'd hate to miss it, this year (2017) we will be bringing the TutorVision, a regular Intellivision and a Vectrex. We may bring an Atari 800 XL if space permits.

 

Oh and I promised Alessandro Pace first crack at it when and if I do sell it.

That's awesome that you bring it for folks to see since it seems quite unlikely most of us will ever come across one in person. Maybe you could make the hike to Portland for PRGE one year.

 

I shudder to think what it would be worth in an auction. :)

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If anyone can test these with the patched emu and report back please do.

I would but my computer is having issues and I am super sick and at the er getting a breathing treatment :(

I did. With a full 2KB gram in jzintv, Shapes in Space starts with a black screen and crashes. I think someone has already looked at the rom and found calls to a Revised Exec.

 

I did find out that with 2KB gram the worms in Worm Whomper become invisible. Most of the old games seem okay, but you might not know if something is missing.

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