Magnavox Odyssey

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Magnavox Odyssey


Manufacturer	Magnavox
Type	Video game console
Generation	First generation
First available	May, 1972 1975
CPU	None
Media	Cartridge
Successor	Magnavox Odyssey²

The Magnavox Odyssey is the world's first video game console. It was released in fall 1972, predating the Atari PONG home consoles by several years. The Odyssey was designed by Ralph Baer, who had a working prototype finished by 1968. This prototype is affectionately known as the "Brown Box" to video game collectors. While many collectors consider the Odyssey analog rather than digital (because of the addition of analog circuitry for the output, game control, and the use of discrete components), Baer has said he considers the console to be digital. The electronic signals exchanged between the various parts (ball and players generators, sync generators, diode matrix, etc.) are binary.^[1] The games and logic itself are implemented in DTL, a common pre-TTL digital design component using discrete transistors and diodes. Unlike any conventional console today, the system was powered by batteries. The Odyssey lacks sound capability, something that was corrected with the "PONG systems" of several years later, including Magnavox's own Odyssey-labeled Pong consoles.

The Odyssey uses a type of removable circuit card that inserts into a slot similar to a cartridge slot; these do not contain any components but have a series of jumpers between pins of the card connector. These jumpers interconnect different logic and signal generators to produce the desired game logic and screen output components respectively. The system was sold with translucent plastic overlays that gamers could put on their TV screen to simulate color graphics, though only two TV sizes were supported*. Some of these overlays could even be used with the same cartridges, though with different rules for playing. It was also sold with plastic game tokens and score sheets to help keep score, much like traditional board games.

The Odyssey was released in fall 1972. Sales of the console were hurt by poor marketing by Magnavox retail stores. A few months later, many consumers were led to believe that the Odyssey would work only on Magnavox televisions. For that reason, most later "Pong" games had an explanation on their box saying "Works on any television set, black and white or color". Magnavox settled a court case against Nolan Bushnell for patent infringement in Bushnell's design of PONG, as it resembled the tennis game for the Odyssey. Over the next decade, Magnavox sued other big companies such as Coleco, Mattel, Seeburg, Activision and either won or settled every suit. ^[2]^[3]In 1985, Nintendo sued Magnavox and tried to invalidate Baer's patents by saying that the first video game was Higginbotham's Tennis For Two game built in 1958. The court ruled that this game did not use video signals and could not qualify as a video game, and as a result Nintendo lost and continued paying royalties to Sanders Associates.

The Odyssey was also designed to support an add-on peripheral, the first-ever commercial video "light gun" called the Shooting Gallery. This detected light from the TV screen, however pointing the gun at a nearby light bulb also registered as a "hit".

Ralph Baer went on to invent the classic electronic game Simon for Mattel in 1978. Magnavox later released several other scaled down PONG-like consoles based under the Odyssey name (which did not use cartridges or game cards), and at one point a truly programmable, cartridge based console, the Odyssey², in 1978.

Nintendo's first venture in the electronic gaming world was the distribution of the Magnavox Odyssey in Japan in 1975, before the company introduced its own consoles.

1 List of games
2 References
3 See also
4 External links

[edit] List of games

Analogic
Baseball
Basketball
Brain Wave
Cat & Mouse
Dogfight
Football
Fun Zoo
Handball
Haunted House
Hockey
Invasion
Interplanetary Voyage
Percepts
Prehistoric Safari
Roulette
Shooting Gallery
Shootout
Simon Says
Ski
Soccer
States
Submarine
Table Tennis
Tennis
Volleyball
Win
Wipeout

[edit] References

^ Bub, Andrew (2005-06-07). The Original GamerDad: Ralph Baer. GamerDad. Retrieved on November 10, 2006.
^ Magnavox Patent. NYT (1982-010-08). Retrieved on February 25, 2007.
^ Magnavox Settles Its Mattel Suit. NYT (1983-02-16). Retrieved on February 25, 2007.

[edit] See also

v • d • e Selected home game consoles
First generation
Magnavox Odyssey • PONG • Channel F
Early second generation
Atari 2600 • Interton VC 4000 • Odyssey² • Intellivision
Later second generation
Atari 5200 • ColecoVision • Emerson Arcadia 2001 • Vectrex
Third generation
NES • Master System • Atari 7800
Fourth generation
TurboGrafx-16 • Mega Drive / Genesis • Neo Geo • SNES
Fifth generation
3DO • Amiga CD32 • Jaguar • Saturn • PlayStation • Nintendo 64
Sixth generation
PlayStation 2 • GameCube • Xbox • Dreamcast
Seventh generation
PlayStation 3 • Wii • Xbox 360