Misplaced Pages

#632367

63-513: An international version of the Intellivoice was planned, but never released. The Intellivoice was discontinued in 1983 due to poor sales, with only five titles released with support for the device. Despite this, it has been called an important innovation in gaming, since the Intellivoice software used speech as an important gameplay element. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, General Instrument , like nearly every microelectronics manufacturer,

126-441: A 1200 baud rate , 8 data bits, 2 stop bits, and no parity; the printer needed to be set to these selections with no line feed (sometimes called " carriage return only", "CR", "new line invalid", or "line feed inhibit"), and Busy/Ready instead of X-on/X-off. Typical serial printers had DB-25 interfaces; some had DE-9 interfaces; and, some Radio Shack (RS) printers had round 4-pin female DIN connector serial interfaces (with

189-517: A cash deal valued at $ 7.4 billion including the repayment of debt. This acquisition brings back together two of the former General Instrument companies from the 1997 split. General Instrument produced receivers for old C and Ku band satellites. They also produced Videocipher units as well as digital equipment. 4DTV was a system for picking up free and encrypted analog and digital satellite subscription channels. It also included an interactive guide. The product line included: American Totalisator

252-498: A few months later. After being called Connected Home Solutions, it was renamed Home and Networks Mobility in 2007. When Motorola split on January 4, 2011, this division became part of Motorola Mobility . On December 19, 2012, ARRIS announced that it would acquire Motorola Mobility's Home unit (the former GI company) from Google for $ 2.35 billion in cash and stock. The acquisition was completed on April 17, 2013. On November 8, 2018, CommScope announced that it would acquire ARRIS in

315-550: A half-dozen titles were released for the ECS. (Note: the latter two options were never actually marketed with Intellivision/ECS boxes and logos. The system would use the same cassette and printer units which were being sold for the Mattel Aquarius home computer, but this fact seems to have not been widely advertised by Mattel.) Initially, at least a half-dozen ECS-supporting software titles were slated to roll out along with

378-538: A polyphonic synthesizer for playing, recording, or learning music. It would also allow two additional hand-held Game Controllers to be connected in place of the alphanumeric keyboard, which opened up the possibility of four-player games. In the fall of 1982, the LUCKI—now renamed the Entertainment Computer System, or ECS—was presented at the annual sales meeting, officially signaling the end of

441-427: A radio manufacturer, which was fully merged in 1951. In April 1957 they added Radio Receptor Company, in 1959 Harris Transducer, and among their more notable purchases, closed General Transistor in 1960. Most of these were left to operate as wholly-owned but independent divisions. The buying continued through the 1960s, added Signalite in 1966 and Universal Controls and American Totalisator in 1967. A more major purchase

504-547: A result, the ECS was not well-promoted, and few of the planned software titles were released before Richard Chang's "Design & Development" group was closed down in August 1983, effectively halting further work on ECS-supporting titles. A very few titles that were already well in progress were eventually completed, but none of them made it to production before Mattel Electronics ceased operations in January 1984. Melody Blaster

567-555: A secondary CPU to run all of these expanded features independently of the Intellivision's CP1610 processor . While the planned Keyboard Component was an ambitious design, it had reliability problems that proved difficult to overcome, and it was far too expensive to manufacture and sell. The Keyboard Component — originally planned for a 1981 release — was continually delayed and pushed back as Mattel's engineering group, headed by David "Papa Intellivision" Chandler, kept going back to

630-536: A simplified color-coded BASIC interpreter and an inexpensive keyboard. Only a few people within Mattel knew the team's real mission: to either fix the Keyboard Component, or replace it. Chang's "Design & Development" group (who had to keep the project's real purpose a closely guarded secret among themselves, fearing that if Chandler found out about it he would use his influence at Mattel, Inc. to get

693-765: A single-chip speech synthesizer, the SP0256 Narrator. A version of the SP0256 appeared in Mattel's Intellivoice . The popular SP0256-AL2 variant came with a set of allophones built in. In 1965, Frank Wanlass moved to General Instrument Microelectronics Division in New York. Wanlass and other GI engineers promoted four-phase logic throughout the industry. J. L. Seely, manager of MOS Operations at General Instrument Microelectronics Division, also wrote about four-phase logic in late 1967. Entertainment Computer System The Entertainment Computer System ( ECS )

SECTION 10

#1732791936633

756-518: A state-of-the-art voice lab at their Hawthorne, California facility to do the recording and digitization on site. This unit would have contained additional internal ROMs with the built-in "generic" library of words translated into French, German, and Italian, and would have been sold along with appropriately translated versions of the Intellivoice titles into those markets. While at least two prototypes were known to have been built, and translated versions of Space Spartans were programmed, neither they nor

819-403: A storehouse of such images in each individual Intellivision cartridge, and such sprites can then be manipulated by changing their colors (1 color available per sprite), doubling their height or width, flipping their shape to a mirror image, creating motion sequences, and so forth. However, the sprites are only "borrowed" and cannot be integrated into the user's own program unless the same cartridge

882-420: A time may be SHOWn or GRABbed from a storehouse of such images in each individual Intellivision cartridge, and such sprites can then be manipulated by changing their colors (1 color available per sprite), doubling their height or width, flipping their shape to a mirror image, creating motion sequences, and so forth. However, the sprites are only "borrowed" and cannot be integrated into the user's own program unless

945-419: Is explained in the back of the manual or can be discerned from direct observation, is useful in determining how the ECS understood (or misunderstood) any command. As to graphics, the background screen is composed of 240 "cards" (20 wide by 12 high, numbered 0 to 239, each composed of 8x8 pixels), in a choice of one of 16 colors (eight primary and eight pastel). Eight sprites at a time may be SHOWn or GRABbed from

1008-467: Is on board when the program is run. (Professional programmers found ways to create the illusion of putting more than eight sprites on the Intellivision screen at the same time through multiplexing-- redefining and repositioning a single object from one frame to the next and back again, resulting in flickering images of two objects-- and sequencing graphics RAM to animate background cards.) For 600-baud cassette tape recorder access to load and save programs,

1071-593: The Intellivision in late 1979, they advertised that the Intellivision — unlike its primary rival, the Atari 2600 (then known as the Atari VCS) — would be upgradeable to a fully functional home computer via a hardware add-on accessory called the Keyboard Component, internally sometimes called the "Blue Whale" or the "Intelliputer". Many potential buyers were excited by the notion (especially parents, who liked

1134-534: The Computer Module, Music Synthesizer, and additional hand controllers; each sold separately. Any Intellivision Master Component is compatible and a requirement to use the system. A second requirement is a cartridge plugged into the ECS, although any ECS or Intellivision cartridge will do; pressing anything on the Intellivision hand controllers will then bring up the three-option menu of BASIC, CARTRIDGE or MUSIC. When Mattel Electronics originally released

1197-476: The ECS has jacks marked OUT TO TAPE, IN FROM TAPE, and REMOTE. While almost any recorder with similar ports can be used, Mattel marketed the Aquarius Data Recorder for use with the ECS, and that unit has the appropriate sockets (labeled MIC, EAR and REM). To attach to the ECS, three straight-through cables are needed, two with mini-plugs on both ends and one with sub-mini-plugs on both ends (for

1260-400: The ECS, with more to follow. Unfortunately, as noted above, by the time the ECS made its retail debut in 1983 a new management team had taken over at Mattel Electronics which was no longer interested in selling or promoting hardware add-ons, which they viewed as money-losers that had tied up too much of the company's capital for too little return. (Perhaps not without some justification, given

1323-506: The Intellivoice did not sell nearly as well as Mattel had hoped; while initial orders were as high as 300,000 units for the module and its associated games, most of them just sat on retailers' shelves. Even a promotional giveaway of a free Intellivoice by mail with the purchase of an Intellivision Master Component failed to kick-start sales of the Intellivoice game titles; the fourth Intellivoice game release, Tron: Solar Sailer , sold 90,000 units. There were several issues that contributed to

SECTION 20

#1732791936633

1386-654: The Intellivoice: General Instrument General Instrument ( GI ) was an American electronics manufacturer based in Horsham, Pennsylvania , specializing in semiconductors and cable television equipment. They formed in New York City in 1923 as an electronics manufacturer. During the 1950s, the company began a series of acquisitions under the direction of Moses Shapiro. Among the more notable purchases

1449-519: The International Intellivoice were ever released. A restyled version of the Intellivoice module, designed to match the "white brick" style of the redesigned Intellivision II Master Component, appeared in the 1983 Intellivision catalog. However, no such restyled module was ever actually produced, not even as a prototype; the module seen in the catalog is simply a carved and painted block of wood. After testing Intellivoice games at

1512-479: The Keyboard Component division might never actually produce a sellable product, in mid-1981 Mattel Electronics' management set up a competing internal engineering team headed by Richard Chang. Ostensibly, this group was working on a low-cost add-on called the BASIC Development System, or BDS, which would be sold as an educational device to introduce kids to the concepts of computer programming via

1575-402: The Keyboard Component was a real product that was still being test-marketed, and even released a small number of Keyboard Components and a handful of software titles to a few select retail stores (as well as offering them via mail-order to any customers who complained loudly enough) in order to support this claim. Mattel Electronics already had a "plan B" in progress. Increasingly concerned that

1638-529: The REMOTE connection). Tape access on the ECS is supported by BASIC keywords for loading (CLOD), saving (CSAV) and verifying (CVRF). The Intellivision hand controllers are pressed to advance through the SET-GO-SAVE/LOAD/VERF sequence. While programs can be saved and accessed without file names, file names up to four characters long (e.g., CSAV PROG) are supported (quote marks are not used around

1701-404: The bare essential needed to save and load data (and was now an optional extra, rather than built-in), and there was no secondary CPU. Still, it fulfilled the original promises—turn the Intellivision into a computer, make it possible to write programs and store them to tape, and interface with a printer—well enough to allow Mattel to claim that they had delivered the promised computer upgrade and, it

1764-576: The betting systems as the company's primary profit center. In October 1982 they won a $ 100 million contract to supply over 300 cable TV stations with head end systems. Through the mid-1980s the company suffered a series of reversals. Looking for new markets, in 1986 they bought M/A-COM's cable division. M/A-COM had earlier purchased VideoCipher, who had developed the industry-standard system for scrambling and decoding satellite television signals, VideoCipher II. This product took some time to start to sell, but by 1987 they were seeing demand outstrip supply. By

1827-529: The company's financials improved, the buying spree started anew, buying another five companies by 1975. This had turned them into a $ 500-million-a-year company, but left them deeply in debt. Shapiro retired in 1975 and was replaced by Frank Hickey, who focused the company on its two most profitable markets, cable television and gaming. The gaming market was primarily through their purchase of American Totalisator, who ran racetrack systems. GI expanded this into off-track betting and by 1979 they supplied 90% of all

1890-484: The drawing board trying to find ways to overcome these problems. Eventually, complaints from Intellivision owners who had chosen to buy the Intellivision specifically on the promise of a "Coming Soon!" personal-computer upgrade caught the attention of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), which launched an investigation of Mattel Electronics for fraud and false advertising. Mattel tried to claim that

1953-404: The emerging high definition television (HDTV) market. To continue operations they laid off large numbers of staff, mostly at the headquarters. In 1992 they demonstrated their HDTV system and won a contract for 100,000 compressors. This led Rumsfeld to launch an initial public offering in 1993, after which he left the company in August. The HDTV market stabilized the company for a time, but by

Intellivoice - Misplaced Pages Continue

2016-491: The end of the year they had total sales of $ 1.16 billion. This success was short-lived, and by 1990 they were once again operating at a loss. In August 1990, the company was purchased in a friendly leveraged buyout of $ 1.6 billion by the FLGI Holding. In October 1990, they announced that Hickey would be replaced by Donald Rumsfeld . He sold off several divisions to cut overhead. The company then began investing heavily in

2079-572: The file names), and the computer will search for the named program to load or verify. The printer interface, being the AUX jack, is the same as on the Mattel Aquarius : a mini-stereo socket with just 3 lines. The Aquarius printers could be used with the ECS, and came with their own cables. However, the ECS like the Aquarius used standard RS-232C serial signals (±12VDC), so it was possible to interface many RS-232C serial printers. The ECS/Aquarius used

2142-469: The history of the long-delayed, never-released Keyboard Component and the lower-than-expected sales of the Intellivoice module.) The Marketing and Applications departments were also not particularly enthusiastic about the ECS unit, since it really didn't add any revolutionary features to the system and it was a struggle to come up with game ideas that would justify requiring the user to have one. As

2205-484: The idea of a machine that could be turned into an educational tool, or at least something more useful and practical than just a game-playing system), and many bought Intellivisions on that basis alone. The planned Keyboard Component would have offered a 16kB of RAM (expandable to an unprecedented 8 megabytes), built-in cassette storage for programs and data (plus a simultaneous audio track that could be played under computer control), an optional 40-column thermal printer, and

2268-600: The ill-fated Keyboard Component project. (Although it didn't go quietly. Not only did Mattel have to agree to buy back all of the existing Keyboard Components, but the manufacturer which had been contracted to make the Keyboards (Compro, Inc.) promptly sued Mattel for $ 10 million claiming breach of contract, fraud, and nonpayment for the last 1,300 units. At least a number were modified (and dubbed internally "Black Whales") to use as part of development systems for creation of Intellivision software. ) A new advertising campaign

2331-643: The late 1970s. At this time, GI became well known for their IC's including the CP1600 used in the Mattel Intellivision game console , the AY-3-8910 series of sound chips that were used in a huge variety of designs, and the PIC microcontrollers which remain in production as of 2024 . They also became increasingly active in the cable television field, emerging as the primary supplier in this market by

2394-425: The late 1980s. They sold off their IC division to form Microchip Technology in 1987, leaving them almost entirely dependent on the television market. GI became a major leader in the development of high definition television . As this market began to saturate, the company split into three parts in 1997; CommScope took the cable infrastructure products, NextLevel the consumer television side, and General Semiconductor

2457-599: The mid-90s other entrants were once again eroding the company's profits. In 1997 the company split into three parts, General Semiconductor (power electronics), CommScope (cable infrastructure) and NextLevel Systems (cable and satellite systems). NextLevel took over the GI name in February 1998. The "new" GI Corporation was acquired by Motorola in January 2000 for $ 17 billion and became the new Broadband Communication Sector (BCS) along with an acquisition of Zenith Network Systems

2520-508: The off-track systems in North America. By 1980, Hickey had managed to sell off most of the poorly-performing divisions and company debt had been reduced from 100% of assets to 20%. The success with American Totalisator began to wane as other companies, notably Control Data and Datatrol , began to push down profits. But any losses in this market were overshadowed by the massive expansion of cable television, which quickly took over from

2583-455: The power electronics products. NextLevel took over the GI name the next year. This new GI was purchased by Motorola in 2000, which was in turn purchased by Google who spun out the television side to ARRIS . ARRIS was then purchased by CommScope in 2018, once again bringing together all of GI's original television divisions. General Semiconductor continues to operate separately. Moses Shapiro, father of former Monsanto head Robert B. Shapiro ,

Intellivoice - Misplaced Pages Continue

2646-460: The project killed) eventually came up with an alternative to the Keyboard Component. Originally dubbed the LUCKI (from "Low User-Cost Keyboard Interface"), it lacked many of the sophisticated features envisioned for the original Keyboard Component: instead of a full 16kB of RAM, it only offered a mere 2kB (not all of which was actually available to the user); the cassette interface was stripped down to

2709-450: The prototype unit, all the device would do was repeat "Auk yooo! Auk yooo!" repeatedly to the Mattel executives and marketing personnel who had come to see the demonstration. This led to several heated phone calls between Hawthorne and New York, and considerable finger-pointing between the hardware and software camps until the problem was found. Once the bugs were resolved, Mattel Electronics committed itself to producing voice games and built

2772-410: The public's fascination, Mattel Electronics decided to develop an add-on speech-synthesis module for the console. Engineer Ron Carlson was put in charge of designing a device capable of utilizing the chip. Programmer Ron Surratt was hired to write the software for the module, and Patrick Jost would analyze the voice data for the device. The Narrator had 2  KB of Read-Only Memory (ROM), and this

2835-528: The resulting data was turned into a mask so that a customized version of the SP0256 could be manufactured with the generic phrases permanently stored inside the chip. Since the Orator chip could also accept speech data from external memory, any additional words or phrases needed for specific games could be stored inside the game cartridge itself. According to Ron Surratt, when he first received Carlson & Jost's data from G.I.'s New York facility and loaded it into

2898-443: The same cartridge is on board when the program is run. In BASIC mode, the display on the ECS is 20 columns across (while the maximum program line length is 39 characters), and any text is shown in all capital letters. The normal text color is black against a green background. Color codes are used by the ECS to mark different elements of a program as each line is entered or (in immediate mode) executed. The color-coding scheme, which

2961-524: The summer 1982 Consumer Electronics Show , Danny Goodman of Creative Computing Video & Arcade Games stated that the peripheral was "exciting" because "the initial games designed for it have made the voice an integral part of game play", unlike the Magnavox Odyssey² 's voice module. The device was brought to the public in 1982 with an initial lineup of 3 games: Space Spartans , Bomb Squad , and B-17 Bomber . Despite critical acclaim,

3024-489: The system's failure in the marketplace: In August 1983, all personnel related to Intellivoice game and hardware development were laid off, and development on all further Intellivoice games was halted except for two: Space Shuttle , and World Series Major League Baseball . Space Shuttle , a NASA space mission simulator, continued development for a time, but was eventually cancelled for being "too much simulation and not enough game". World Series Major League Baseball , however,

3087-411: The top levels of Mattel Electronics' management had caused the company's focus to shift away from hardware add-ons in favor of software, and the ECS received very little further marketing push. Further hardware developments, including a planned Program Expander that would have added another 16kB of RAM and a more sophisticated, fully featured Extended-BASIC to the system, were halted, and in the end only

3150-501: Was Jerrold Electronics in December 1967, which became the company's consumer-facing brand for television-related products, mostly through their cable television products. 1970 saw a series of layoffs and downsizing as the poorly performing parts of the conglomerate began to drag down profits. As part of this, the company's interest in several cable television stations were sold off, mostly through their Jerrold division. As soon as

3213-527: Was GI's original cable TV brand, active from 1948 into the early 1990s. Around 1993, GI dropped the Jerrold name from their product lines. The Jerrold brand was prominent on both addressable and non-addressable cable TV converter boxes that were used on non-cable ready sets and cable-ready sets with premium pay services. "Jerrold" is the middle name of the company's founder, Milton Jerrold Shapp , who became Pennsylvania's 40th governor in 1971. Shapp's given name

SECTION 50

#1732791936633

3276-513: Was General Transistor in 1960, which led to GI becoming a major producer of transistors , and later, integrated circuits (ICs). By the late 1960s, the company was mostly depending on sales into the television industry, which was further bolstered by the 1967 purchase of Jerrold Electronics . The company changed markets continually. Through the 1970s they focused mostly on the off-track betting market through their purchase of American Totalisator , but this market faced significant competition in

3339-544: Was Milton Shapiro. GI Microelectronics was a manufacturer of LSI circuits and a pioneer in MOS technology and Electrically Alterable ROM ( EAROM ), with both off-the-shelf and custom circuits. GI spun the division off as Microchip Technology in 1987. In 1980, their product catalog included: Other products included the famous AY-3-8910/11/12/14 series of sound chips , the AY-3-85xx , 86xx, 87xx series of game chips and

3402-500: Was a division of General Instrument Corp. It manufactured tote boards for the horse racing industry. It is now owned by horse-track operator Magna Entertainment Corporation . Underseas Lab, a division of General Instrument Corp., located in Westwood, Massachusetts . It invented and manufactured multibeam sonars used in ocean floor mapping. It was acquired by Channel Technologies and is now owned by L-3 Communications . Jerrold

3465-449: Was an add-on peripheral for the Intellivision . It was Mattel Electronics ' second attempt at creating a peripheral to upgrade the Intellivision into a home computer, and was rushed into production to appease the Federal Trade Commission after they began fining Mattel for false advertising following consumer complaints about the repeated delays in releasing the originally planned Intellivision Keyboard Component add-on. The ECS includes

3528-416: Was chairman from 1969 to 1975. Frank G. Hickey served as chief executive officer from 1975 to 1990, as did Donald Rumsfeld from 1990 to 1993. The company initially formed in New York City in 1923 as an electronics manufacturer. In the 1950s, the company president Moses Shapiro began buying a variety of electronics companies, mostly from the New York area. An early purchase was F. W. Sickles Company,

3591-551: Was completed as part of the initial round of games produced for the Entertainment Computer System add-on module, making it the final game produced with Intellivoice support. Unlike the other four Intellivoice games, WSMLB didn't actually require the use of the Intellivoice in order to play; the game was merely "voice enhanced" for those Intellivision owners who happened to have both the ECS and Intellivoice modules. A total of five games were released for

3654-524: Was hastily rushed onto the air in time for the 1982 Christmas season, promising once again that a home-computer upgrade was just around the corner, and the ECS itself was shown to the public at the January 1983 Consumer Electronic Show (CES) in Las Vegas. A few months later, the ECS hit the market, and the FTC agreed to drop the $ 10K/day fines. By the time the ECS made its retail debut, an internal shake-up at

3717-454: Was hoped, to get the FTC off Mattel's back. On the plus side, the ECS did include a built-in BASIC that was somewhat functional, if idiosyncratic and occasionally buggy, and a second AY-3-8910 sound chip which expanded the system's audio capabilities to six-voice synthesized sound and, when paired with the optional 49-key Music Synthesizer keyboard, could potentially turn the Intellivision into

3780-610: Was rolling out their own series of microprocessors and support chips in hopes of gaining a share of the then-new and rapidly exploding market for increasingly sophisticated consumer and industrial electronics. One of the peripheral and support chips introduced for G.I.'s microprocessors was the SP0256 Narrator speech synthesizer chip . Since the Intellivision was based on General Instrument's CP1610 microprocessor and support chips, and talking electronic products (such as Texas Instruments ' Speak & Spell ) had already captured

3843-712: Was shut down. World Cup Soccer was sold as a standard Intellivision cartridge but does support ECS 4-player with the Computer Adaptor and extra game controllers. The BASIC keywords built into the ECS, discussed at length in the manual, are a maximum of four characters long. Some ECS BASIC keywords are simply a truncation or abbreviation of the standard BASIC terms, e.g. "print" becomes PRIN, "input" becomes INPU, and "gosub" becomes GSUB. The ECS will display help menus covering its commands: type MENU 0 for monitor commands, MENU 1 for BASIC keywords, MENU 2 for BASIC functions, and MENU 3 for BASIC routines. Eight sprites at

SECTION 60

#1732791936633

3906-546: Was the only title ever released for the Music Synthesizer add-on unit. Mr. BASIC Meets Bits 'N Bytes plays without the ECS Computer Module with BASIC commands support disabled. Number Jumble plays without the Computer Module. Super NASL Soccer was eventually released as World Cup Soccer by Mattel Electronics' French division, which reformed under the name Nice Ideas when Mattel Electronics

3969-405: Was utilized to store a database of generic words that could be combined to make phrases in Intellivision games. The words included numbers, "press", "enter", "and", "or", and "Mattel Electronics Presents" in a generic male voice. These phrases (as well as the speech for the first game, Space Spartans ) were recorded and digitized by Carlson and Jost at General Instrument's facility in New York, and

#632367