User:PS3 wins/First generation

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Contents 1 First generation 1.1 Magnavox Odyssey 1.2 Pong 1.3 Coleco Telstar

[edit] First generation

[edit] Magnavox Odyssey

The Magnavox Odyssey was the world's first commercially sold video game console. It was released in May, 1972, predating the Atari Pong home consoles by roughly three and a half 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 collecters 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.[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-labled 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 analog signal generators to produce the screen output. 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 May 1972. Sales of the console were hurt by poor marketing by Magnavox retail stores. Many consumers were led to believe that the Odyssey would work only on Magnavox televisions. Magnavox won a court case against Nolan Bushnell for patent infringement in Bushnell's design of Pong, as it resembled the tennis game for the Odyssey.

The Odyssey was also designed to support an add-on peripheral, the first-ever commercial "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 Pong-like consoles based on the name Odyssey (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.

[edit] Pong

PONG is a video game by Atari, based on the sport of table tennis. "Pong" (lowercase) is the title of an entire genre of PONG derived arcade units, consoles and games based on the "ball" and "paddle" characteristic of game play. Though PONG is commonly thought to be the world's first video arcade game, Computer Space actually preceded it. The original PONG arcade unit was released by Atari on 29 November 1972. It was certainly the first video game to win widespread popularity, in both its arcade and home console versions; in that sense, it acted as the linchpin for the initial boom of industry in each of those sectors.

Its creators were among the first to recognize that technology had evolved sufficiently to make such a game possible. Displaying graphics on a video or television screen and reacting in real time to user input required more computer power than 1960s consumer products could afford. Even in 1970, the computing power of a modern cell phone would have required a mainframe computer the size of a small apartment.

However, by drawing only two lines for paddles, a line for the net and a square for the ball, Pong was playable as a graphical game on the technology of the early 1970s and could soon be sold as units to consumers.

[edit] Coleco Telstar

The Telstar is a video game console produced by Coleco which first went on sale in 1976. Originally a PONG clone based on General Instrument's AY-3-8500 chip, the many versions of the Telstar included: 1)Telstar - (model 6040, 1976) Three PONG variants (hockey, handball, tennis), two paddle controllers fixed on console. This was the very first game to use the AY-3-8500 chip. 2)Telstar Classic - (model 6045, 1976) Same as the Telstar, with deluxe wood case. 3)Telstar Deluxe - (1977) aka "Video World Of Sports", same as the Telstar but brown pedestal case with wood panel, made for Canadian market with French and English text. 4)Telstar Ranger - (model 6046, 1977) Four PONG variants (hockey, handball, tennis, jai alai) and two gun games(target, skeet), black and white plastic case, includes revolver-style light gun and separate paddle controllers. Uses the AY-3-8500 chip.

1)Telstar Alpha - (model 6030, 1977) Four PONG variants, black and white plastic case, fixed paddles. Uses the AY-3-8500 chip. 2)Telstar Colormatic - (model 6130, 1977) Same as the Telstar Alpha but with detached wired paddles as well as color graphics. Uses the AY-3-8500 game chip and the Texas Instruments SN76499N chip for color. 3)Telstar Regent - (model 6036, 1977) Same as the Telstar Colormatic but no color and black and white case. 4)Telstar Sportsman - (1978) Similar to Telstar Regent, but with an additional light gun and different setting switches. 5)Telstar Combat! - (model 6065, 1977) Four variations on Kee Games' Tank, four fixed joysticks (two per player), uses a General Instruments AY-3-8700 Tank chip. 6)Telstar Colortron - (model 6135, 1978) Four PONG variants, in color, built in sound, fixed paddles, uses AY-3-8510 chip.