Mattel Intellivision: Some Intelligent Competition

As Atari’s game console project Stella moves off the drawing boards and approaches its eventual release as the Video Computer System (VCS), Mattel Development head Richard Chang becomes interested in developing a competing system for his company, known largely as the makers of the hugely lucrative Barbie doll line. In 1976 he contacts Glen Hightower, president of Pasadena California based consulting firm APh to research the possibilities. They eventually find the chipset for the new system in a 1977 General Instruments catalog: the GIMINI Programmable Game Set. After some alterations to the off-the-shelf GI components, they build a motherboard around the 16-bit (while the CPU is a kludge of a 16 and 10 bit processor they still beat 16-bit systems Sega Genesis and NEC Turbo Grafix-16 by 10 years) CP1610 microprocessor in GIMINI, operating at 3.6 MHz accompanied by a dedicated graphics processor and 4K of available system RAM.

But by now Stella has become the VCS and is gathering steam in the marketplace, and Mattel balks at the thought of going head-to-head with Atari. Their new video game design is put on hold while the Hawthorne, CA-based Mattel Electronics tries their luck at handheld LED games created using modified calculator chips, with their 40 x 10 LED matrix displays and PPS-4/1 microprocessors designed by Rockwell International. Mattel’s first release, 1976’s Auto Race, is the first handheld electronic game on the market using all solid-state components. The company scores other handheld game hits like Mattel Baseball (1978), and Sub Chase (1978). You could say these meet with success: Mattel Electronics Football, released in 1977, becomes the top-selling toy in history at the time, hiking in around $25 million in wholesale purchases within a year. Mattel Electronics handhelds pull in a total of $112 million in sales by 1978, jumping 270% in fiscal year 1979 and accounting for around 25% of Mattel’s overall domestic toy sales.

As far as the burgeoning video game market goes, it is estimated that 3.5 million video games have been sold in 1977, with a projected increase to 10 million for 1978. This public appetite for electronic fun gives cover for Mattel Electronics president Jeff Rochlis to convince the head honchos to give TV videogames another serious look. A team headed by Dave Chandler designs the hardware for their home gaming system using GI’s chipset, with David Rolfe of APh creating the core “Executive” operating system. Having been appointed president when the Mattel Electronics division was first formed several years previous, Jeff Rochlis would leave his position in the later part of 1980, replaced by former vice-president of the toy division of Mattel, Joshua W. Denham.

JUMP: Video playlist of Mattel Electronics’ LED handheld games

Mattel Intellivision: Inventing the Wheel

Mattel Introduces their new system at the 1979 Winter CES, with the game console inserted into a mock-up of a computer expansion system promising to turn it into a 64K computer complete with 64-key keyboard, cassette drive for storage and retrieval of data, and a microphone to be used by programs allowing audio input. Apropos, Atari also announces their 8-bit computer lineup at the same show. Along with the Intellivision, Mattel announces advanced sports games for their new system, as well as financial planning and personal database software. The system is dubbed Intellivision, a portmanteau of “intelligent television” that alludes to the brains of the computer add-on. A release date for the video game portion of the system is given as June 1, 1979, with 14 games and educational programs available for purchase in ROM packs alongside it. A price of $165 is reported for the game unit, and an NFL-licensed football game pack is to be bundled with it.

Click button to play NFL Football on the Mattel Intellivision

This info is later revised by Mattel, with the game console’s price rising to $250, and a release nationwide in July, which slips yet again. Mattel promises a 4 million dollar ad budget for the Intellivision, used largely for TV commercials. Test marketing of the game system eventually gets underway in Fresno, California in December 1979, at a price tag of 269.95 for the master component.

The computer keyboard portion of the system, the development cost of which will eventually surpass $10 million,  is initially given the same retail price as the gaming box had at its announcement, $165, with a release date of October 1, 1979. Other pie-in-the-sky promises from Mattel include dial-in modem access with the computer that will allow games to be downloaded on demand, an electronic mail system, and daily newspapers sent electronically to your home. The price tag for the computer system is subsequently upped to match the game console at $250. The release date slips to March of 1980, and the price adjusted to a hefty $800 for both the gaming and computer components together. Then Mattel promises to have the first shipments of the computer expansion out to stores in May of 1980, for a full release to the public by July. An explanation for the previous hold-ups is given by the magazine Consumer Electronics that the system was “delayed by engineering changes the firm made to the system, and by Mattel’s inability to obtain semiconductors”. The company then announces yet another slide to January of 1981, THEN to March, and gives a finalized price tag for the keyboard unit: a daunting $700 at retail and, lo and behold, the computer still fails to materialize. The continual delays for the keyboard become such a joke to employees that, when comedian Jay Leno entertains at the Mattel Electronics Christmas party in 1981, he draws a big laugh with the following line:

The Master Component, as the first videogame stage is called, is a distinctive looking device, low and rectangular in shape with wood grain trim and two very unusual controllers. They are flat rectangles, and instead of a joystick, they utilize a round, 16-position gold-coloured disc that the player presses to move the on-screen characters, presaging the D-Pad button that Nintendo would popularize later on their Game & Watch handhelds, Famicom and NES game console. There’s also a keypad, over which plastic overlays included with certain games can be inserted and used for extra commands during play. Unfortunately, the control discs are not a huge hit with players, along with the fact that their flimsy design leads to frequent controller breakdowns. Hardwired right into the system, this becomes a big problem for owners who have to slog the whole machine back to the dealer for repair.

Rolling Out the Mattel Intellivision

As the test marketing of Intellivision rolls along in Fresno, three large urban markets are also opened up to testing: L.A., New York City and Chicago. To get their foot in the door, Mattel executives first pitch the modular gaming/computer system to top management at certain large retail chains in these areas. The system is initially put up for sale during February and March of 1980 in The Broadway in L.A.,  Macy’s in New York and Marshall Field in Chicago. These outlets enjoy exclusive rights to sell the system for a week, as well as being the only stores listed in Mattel’s local ad spots. After this grace period, other retailers can join the party. Considering the relative complexity of Intellivision, in comparison to other available game systems (with the exception, perhaps, of the Odyssey² and its membrane keyboard), Mattel runs a training course for store staff who will serve as demonstrators of the system to boggled customers. These training courses take 18 hours over three days, both on site at Mattel’s HQ in Hawthorne, as well as in the field at various stores.

These first test runs generate a lot of interest with shoppers and media, and when the Intellivision Master Component finally goes into wide release in the early summer of 1980, the entire run of 175,000 systems sell out. The initial price is now $299.95, 100 dollars higher than the VCS by that time, but with features far superior to its Atari rival, offering 16 available on-screen colours and three channel sound. Twelve games have made it to market along with the system, designed by Glen Hightower and programmed by the gang at APh. The cartridges are smaller profile than the VCS carts, with a cool angled end to them. Each game released from Mattel falls under a category, or Network, to niche the game…i.e. the Action Network, Arcade Network, Education Network. Personal Computer Networks are also announced, for the always-coming computer add-on, such as Financial Network, Self-Improvement Network, Self-Education Network ect., but this concept is later dropped as game genres start blending together. These are not to be confused with the later M Network series of games, introduced in 1982 by Mattel for competing systems like the VCS, ColecoVision and even some Apple II and IBM PC ports.

Click button to play Astroblast, M Network version of Astrosmash, for Atari 2600

 

While Mattel’s computer keyboard initially has no way for the user to create their own programs (user-programmability is expected to arrive in 1981), pre-programmed tapes for the computer component are promised, priced in the $30 – $35 range, They include: a Jack LaLanne licensed fitness program called  Jack LaLanne’s Physical Conditioning, a French language tutor titled Conversational French, J.K. Lasser’s 1980 Federal Income Tax Preparation, and even Jeane Dixon Astrology. These programs and the Computer Component remain in perpetual text-marketing phase in areas like Fresno, at a price of $700. As a signal that the video game side of the system is being more strongly skewed to an older age-bracket, the pack-in cartridge with the Intellivision Master Component ends up being Las Vegas Poker & Blackjack, featuring a shifty-eyed croupier dealing cards to the player over a field of casino-table green.

Click button to play Intellivision pack-in game Las Vegas Poker & Blackjack

Intellivision Lawsuit: Magnavox v. Mattel

Mattel eventually finds itself across the table from Magnavox in 1982, owners of the infamous U.S. patent 28, 507. This is better known as the Television Gaming Apparatus patent, the first home video game patent, granted in 1975 due to their release of the original Odyssey video game system. When Atari had released the VCS, they paid a minor sum to Magnavox for a license to produce a TV based game. Magnavox soon realizes the error of their ways in the wake of Atari’s success, and they demand a large payment from Mattel for the same rights. Confident that the patent would not hold up to legal scrutiny, Mattel refuses to cough up. Taking them to court, Magnavox wins a patent infringement lawsuit, and Mattel ends up paying several million in damages.

JUMP: History of the Magnavox Odyssey

Atari vs. Intellivision: The Console Wars Begin

This payoff notwithstanding, the Master Component is a solid success. Mattel also enters into lucrative deals with some large-scale retailers. Tandy sells its branded version of the Intellivision, called the Tandyvision One and priced at $249.95, through Radio Shack stores starting in November 1982. Sears markets the console under the Sears Tele-Games label as the Super Video Arcade. A $6 million ad campaign pushes 600,000 Intellivision units off store shelves through the 1981 Christmas season, with total sales for the console reaching 1 million for the year. 5.8 million cartridges for the system have also been sold in 1981. With Mattel as a whole pulling in $1.13 billion, their electronics division makes up 25% of net sales for the company, and 50% of the profits of the mother corporation. Another million Intellivision units move between 1982-83, giving the Intellivision a 22% market share in video games and becoming the first real threat to Atari’s dominance of the industry.

A comparison of the tank combat games available for both Atari’s and Mattel’s systems lays bare the differences between the two: while Combat on the VCS is a simple affair with small blocky tanks surrounded by small blocky walls, Armor Battle on the Intellivision features much more realistically designed tanks, with landscape features like trees, water, roads and buildings that effect movement on maps, and that are randomized each level across 240 different possible permutations.

The game that rapidly becomes the biggest  system-seller for the Intellivision is Major League Baseball, programmed by David Rolfe of APh and going on to become the biggest selling game in the Mattel Electronics library. 1,085,700 cartridges are sold over three years, and foreshadowing what would happen nearly ten years later between Nintendo’s NES and the Sega Master System, the Intellivision becomes known as the “adult” videogame, the serious sports fan’s choice over Atari. MLB and the other spectacular sports titles take centre stage in Mattel’s massive promotion of their machine.

Click button to play best-selling Intellivision game Major League Baseball

Mattel v. Atari: The Console Wars

Featuring prominently in Mattel’s advertising push over Christmas 1981 is spokesman/sportswriter/actor/author George Plimpton, famous for his 1966 book Paper Lion, about his tryouts for the Detroit Lions football team. In the hard-hitting Plimpton attack ads, Intellivision sports games like MLB and NFL Football are seen running next to their Atari equivalents, with the blocky graphics of the VCS looking laughingly primitive by comparison. While EXTREMELY annoying to an Atari VCS owner like myself at the time, they are without a doubt highly persuasive and put the name Intellivision on the lips of many video game buyers come Christmas. Atari does have ammunition of its own, however, in the form of the huge number of available VCS games, dwarfing the library of its arch rival.

Click button to play action game Night Stalker on the Intellivision

Atari’s ads also highlight the fact that the Intellivision has a weak selection of action games, but Mattel later fights back by pushing such fare as Night Stalker, by Mattel designer David Rolfe.  With the digital ball back in their court, Atari counters with their own spots, featuring a young child sporting nerdy glasses and speaking in similar dulcet tones as Plimpton, comparing Atari’s many arcade ports to blank screens, representing the Intellivision‘s lack thereof. Mattel, of course, then spoofs this child with their own pint-sized pitch-kid. Speaking of kids, Mattel also abducts  E.T.: The Extraterrestrial star Henry Thomas for a series of ads with Plimpton, perhaps as an answer to the hype surrounding Atari’s release of their licensed video game based on Spielberg’s monster of a movie.

This war on the electronic battlefield between Atari and Mattel sparks quite a bit of animosity between the two videogame giants, with Atari president Ray Kassar complaining to the big-three TV broadcast networks of Mattel “misleading the facts” with their attack ads. ABC and NBC eventually pull both company’s spots off the air, while CBS continues to air Mattel’s advertising. In a classic case of “If you can’t beat ’em…”, Mattel starts making product for the “inferior” VCS, via what’s initially called the Breakthrough line of games. This fraternizing with the enemy is explained to the New York Times by Mike Doepke, director of marketing for the new division: “There will be between 8 and 11 million Atari units in the marketplace by Christmas. Why shouldn’t we make software for a hardware base like that?” As a precaution against decreased sales on Intellivision, Mattel will hold off usually between four to six months after a game’s initial release on their system before putting it out on competing game machines. These games include Frogs & Flies and Dark Cavern, ports of the popular Intellivision games Frog Bog and Night Stalker, respectively. Air Raiders for the Atari VCS is the only entry released through this line of games that is a fully original concept, not based on or associated with a previous Intellivision game.

This charge onto the Atari is snafu’d at the start when released in July of 1982: the tooling of the cases of the initial batch of what are now labelled as M Network games is a bit off so that they don’t quite fit into the VCS cartridge slot. The affected games include the first three released: Astroblast which is a version of Astrosmash for Atari’s console, and the two Super Challenge sports games, Baseball and Football. Space Attack, a version of the Intellivision’s Space Battle for Atari, is also found to have the same problem. These initial cartridges are also determined to have code inside their ROM chips that renders them unplayable on the older version of the VCS. Mattel promises to replace these under warranty, and takes steps that further releases of these games are fully compatible. Later, Coleco also loses some troops when they cross over into enemy territory. Their first batch of games for the 2600 also turns out to be incompatible with the older VCS.  Both Coleco and Mattel eventually recall these non-working games and send in more compatible reinforcements.

Click button to play M Network game Space Attack on the Atari VCS

JUMP: Intellivision vs. Atari attack ads, YouTube video compilation

Games for the Mattel Intellivision: Hidden Rangers

When it becomes apparent to Mattel that their system is on the road to success, they begin hiring designers and programmers to produce games in-house. But, spurred on by the personnel shake-ups happening over at Atari with employees leaving and forming independent game companies such as Activision and Imagic, Mattel keeps the game design department shrouded in secrecy and refuses to publicize the names of its members. In press releases and magazine articles, they are only identified as the Blue Sky Rangers, a name adopted by the group from their brainstorming process when trying to think up new game ideas, known as “blue-skying”. This secrecy extends even to Mattel’s own newsletter, titled Intellivision Game Club News. A winter 1983 issue features strategy game Utopia and offers an interview with the creator, referred to only as “the man who designed and programmed the game”. Thus is Don Daglow’s identity safely kept hidden from Intellivision users.

Starting with nine core members, the department eventually peaks at 200 at the height of the video game boom. One of the Rangers‘ creations, John Sohl’s action game Astrosmash, follows close behind Major League Baseball in popularity. It originally starts out as an Asteroids clone called Meteor, but the lawsuits in the air cause a shift in the focus of the game to a variation where rocks fall vertically down the screen at the player’s ship. Astrosmash features an innovative, self-adjusting difficulty level, where if the player starts losing ships the game will become easier…allowing for long game play, even for beginners. 984,900 copies of the program are shipped for the Intellivision, along with a later port to the VCS, making it the most popular of the Blue Sky Rangers’ releases. Even an X-rated version is produced of the game, obviously for in-house consumption only with the none-too-marketable title Space Cunt.  The whole thing is a joke at the expense of a game made via Mattel’s license from Disney to make games based on their video game themed movie TRON. Designed for use with the Intellivoice speech synthesis module for the Intellivision (see below), Solar Sailer has a hard time pronouncing the word “can’t” without sounding salacious, and this becomes a running joke with the programmers. Space Cunt‘s title screen touts it for use on the Genitaliavision. Instead of rocks and alien craft, players shoot their “semen” at falling I.U.D. devices, birth control pills, and the infamous title character.

Click button to play the hit game Astrosmash on the Intellivision

JUMP: Tron and Solar Sailer

The Intellivision Has Something to Say

By 1982 the promised computer keyboard add-on is still MIA, but Mattel does introduce the $100 Intellivoice that year, scheduled for release in September. This device adds human voices played through the TV to games that support it. It utilizes a GI speech synthesis chip called the Orator, containing 16K ROM space for voice data. Speech is realized through a process called linear-predictive coding, where highly compressed recordings of human speech is stored on special cartridges, which the GI chip within the Intellivoice then replicates according to its internal pronunciation rules. Design and Development engineer Ron Carlson is in charge of hardware development of the device, with Ron Surratt writing the software. At GI’s voice lab in New York, the standard phrases to be contained in the Orator’s ROM are recorded, along with the voice data for the first Intellivoice cartridge Space Spartans. When Surratt receives the data at Mattel headquarters in Hawthorne, he loads it into the Intellivoice prototype hardware. But in demonstrations for Mattel executives and marketing personnel, the device can only say the unfortunate sounding phrase “Auk youuu!”, due to a hardware malfunction.

When the bugs are finally squashed out of the system, Mattel begins production of Intellivoice units and games. The add-on is plugged into the cartridge slot of the Master Module and can accept any type of Intellivision cart, although only those specially designed for the add-on contain speech. Even though Space Spartans is given double the ROM of the previous 4K Intellivision carts, it is still a very limiting space for speech synthesis, so all the vocal cues in the game except for the female computer are sampled at a low rate, greatly reducing their quality. The game is extremely similar in game play to Space Battle for the Atari VCS, with the player piloting a space fighter through a galaxy divided into quadrants, protecting space stations scattered throughout. With the Intellivoice, however, we get verbal information such as which stations are under attack and status conditions like what shape our forward shields are in.

Along with Spartans, two other Intellivoice carts are initially released alongside the device:  B-17 Bomber and Bomb Squad. One of the products of Mattel’s Tron licensing deal with Disney, Tron Solar Sailer, is the final Intellivoice cartridge published for the Intellivision, released later in 1982. Space Shuttle is another Intellivoice game developed in 1983, featuring voices from ground control and another astronaut along for the ride. The game is previewed to the press during the 1983 Jan. CES for scheduled release in August, but is eventually shelved due to play value issues. World Series Major League Baseball (detailed below in ECS section) would be the last completed game for Intellivoice, although only for the Entertainment Computer System addon.

While initial sales for the Intellivision Voice Module and its first games are fairly good, it is obvious that while the public appreciates voice synthesis in their videogames, they don’t enjoy purchasing a new addon to get it. After a quick burst of orders for the new unit and games, sales slump. By 1983, Mattel is offering a free Intellivoice with the purchase of every Master Component at any Intellivision dealer.

Intellivision Online Games: Downstream

Also developed for the Intellivision is PlayCable, a joint venture between Mattel and The PlayCable Company that in the fall of 1979 undergoes test marketing in several municipalities including Moline, Illinois, Jackson, Mississippi and Boise, Idaho. Two games are on offer for these test areas: Major League Baseball and Electric Company Math. Officially introduced to the wider public in 1981, the system offers a 24-hour video gaming service to customers via their local TV cable outlet. For $12 a month, a rotating schedule of 15 Intellivision games is made available to subscribers who receive the General Instrument manufactured PlayCable Adapter box from their cable company and plug it into the cartridge slot of their Master Component. Into that goes their cable connection, and voila! Streaming videogames on demand downloaded to the adapter via a special data channel on the cable line. People who don’t already own Mattel’s console must pony up $250 for an Intellivision/PlayCable equipment package. Considering that Major League Baseball is on the menu for users, baseball legend Mickey Mantle goes to bat for PlayCable in local ad campaigns, but the system struggles in the limited markets it is available, offered on only 15 cable systems two years after launch. The PlayCable module also suffers reliability issues. The game library is eventually upped to 20 titles per month but does little to improve the approximately one-percent subscriber penetration rate. The increasing demand for bandwidth for new cable channels, the system’s inability to play the newer 8K+ Intellivision games, and the collapse of the videogame market hobbles the system. After attracting about 10,000 subscribers, the PlayCable scheme is shuttered in 1983.

And Now, the News

Mattel gains the license to produce home games based on Tron, a 1982 movie by Disney that sends filmgoers into the inner world of computers, facilitated by the most extensive use of computer generated imagery ever used in a film. To herald this, the company produces an eye-catching two-minute ad to accompany the film in theatres, promoting the first Intellivision Tron game, Deadly Discs, as well as other games for the system. It’s presented as a galactic news broadcast, with the newsreaders rendered in rotoscoped animation and applied with a pixellated effect similar to the graphics of the games.

While your excitement about this might depend on whether or not you came of age watching cartoons in the movie theatres during WWII, Mattel announces in 1982 a deal with Walter Lantz Productions to produce games based on their well-known and well-aged cartoon character Woody Woodpecker, along with his fellow Lantz stablemates Chilly Willy and Andy Panda, among others. The Woody game, supporting Intellivoice, promises to terrorize unwary kids with a mechanical version of the title character’s trademark maniacal laugh.  Intellivision owners get more good (and possibly more relevant to current audiences) news this year when third party manufacturer Imagic starts making games for the system. Imagic boosts the Intellivision library with product like Atlantis, Microsurgeon and Beauty and the Beast. As for the company’s biggest VCS hit Demon Attack, Gary Kato is in charge of porting Rob Fulop’s space shooter to Mattel’s console.  The problem is that the Inty version bears an even stronger resemblance to the 1980 Centuri coin-op Phoenix, to which Atari has purchased exclusive home video game rights. Thus the company, with its home version of Phoenix slated to hit store shelves in January of 1983, sues Imagic for copyright infringement. The two parties eventually settle out of court.

 

Mattel Intellivision Outplayed

The bad news is, Mattel has been dogged with complaints from gamers that while some major urban centres receive cartridges of new Intellivision games in quantity, while other city centers and less populated places in the U.S. are starved for content. And when Coleco releases their powerhouse third-wave video game system ColecoVision in 1982, Mattel suddenly finds themselves no longer the owners of the most graphically advanced game machine on the market.

Intellivision Remastered

In an effort to refresh the sagging Intellivision line, they debut the Intellivision II at the 1983 Winter CES, as a replacement for the old Master Component which will be discontinued. Starting a process that becomes one of the major factors in the entire industry’s destruction one year later, the new system is more of a simple compact redesign of the same old technology than an innovative new product. In a slick new white box, the Intellivision II is cheaper for Mattel to produce, as the component list on the motherboard is streamlined. It retails for $99, with a few new improvements over the original. The controllers are now removable through joystick ports, facilitating their easy repair, and have longer cords so players aren’t quite so tightly tethered to the console. A LED light is placed next to the power button, to help prevent the machine being left on unattended. The power button is now dual-mode; after turning on the machine, a tap of the power button will soft reset the unit. Users must hold down the button for approximately five seconds to power off the Inty II. Along with these updated features, Mattel also replaces the pack-in game for the Intellivision II: the excellent port of the Data East/Bally Midway arcade blockbuster Burgertime.

Click button to play the hit arcade game Burgertime on the Intellivision

Also added to the internal Intellivision II design is a video input along the cartridge port, allowing an interesting peripheral to be sold. Expansion System A is a box that plugs into the new Master Component and lets the owner play Atari 2600 games. Intellivision owners now have access to the largest library of video games on the market, touted by Mattel with the Intellivision II‘s tagline: “It’s got the most going for it”. Code-named Portofino while under development and eventually renamed System Changer, this add-on is actually a VCS clone in a box complete with Atari joystick ports and game select/reset buttons. It is also wired only to work with the updated Intellivision II; Mattel will provide motherboard modifications on the original Master Component to make it compatible with the System Changer if users take theirs to an authorized repair shop.

Spurred on by the System Changer, as well as Coleco’s Expansion Module #1 Atari adapter for their own ColecoVision, Atari starts to threaten lawsuits. It is helpfully pointed out that clones of the Atari machine are legal due to the off-the-shelf components and un-copyrighted software contained in them. Atari backs off, opening up the floodgates for various versions of the 2600 by other manufacturers. While the older version still works with Intellivision II, an update of the Intellivoice is planned and announced in 1983. Don’t let the pretty product shots of the new and improved speech add-on fool you, though. This mock-up is only a carved, painted and labelled block of wood. The device ends up eventually shelved by Mattel.

Dungeons & Dragons on the Mattel Intellivision

1982 also sees a version of the perennial paper-and-dice role playing game Dungeons & Dragons for the Intellivision, known as Minotaur while under development and eventually titled Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Cartridge upon release. Mattel’s first dealings over D&D licensing comes by way of the company’s electronic version of Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson’s table-top game rules, in fact, the first electronic version of the game, licensed from TSR and sold as Dungeons & Dragons Computer Labyrinth Game. Rights to produce home console, stand-alone and hand held games based on D&D are secured by Mattel in 1981. The Intellivision version of D&D concerns itself with a team of three adventurers traveling across a mountainous landscape in a bid to retrieve the two halves of a broken royal crown, secreted away by a cadre of dragons.  The game would later be renamed Advanced Dungeons & Dragons: Cloudy Mountain to distinguish it from another first-person AD&D game from Mattel called Advanced Dungeons & Dragons: Treasure of Tarmin, released in 1983.

Click button to play Advanced Dungeons & Dragons: Treasure of Tarmin on the Intellivision

Active Intellivision

Later in 1982 the Intellivision game library expands again when Activision joins Imagic as a third-party manufacturer making games for the system. Their first offerings are ports of Bob Whiteheads’s Stampede, as well as David Crane’s immensely popular Pitfall!. Activision’s translations to Mattel’s console don’t bring anything new to the table, however, as they are merely duplicates of the VCS versions. Intellivision owners will have to wait for Activision’s console-exclusive creations for their system, with product like Worm Whomper by Tom Loughry, and Carol Shaw’s Happy Trails.

Click button to play Intellivision-exclusive game Worm Whomper, from Activision

Click button to play Intellivision-exclusive game Happy Trails, from Activision

Intellivision II and Intellivision III

Also at the 1983 winter CES in January, Mattel announces a real technologically advanced addition to their Intellivision line with the Intellivision III, to be released in the fall with a suggested retail price of around $300. It is intended as a bulwark against the ColecoVision and the new Atari 5200, with graphical capabilities that surpass its rivals. The Inty 3 has approx. 12K of ROM and 10K of RAM, and sports a screen resolution of 320 x 192 pixels, compared to 256 x 192 for the other two next-gen systems. It can also handle 64 sprites on-screen at a time, whereas Coleco’s unit can only handle 32 and Atari’s system a measly five. The Inty 3 will also include microwave wireless controllers with real joysticks, a multi-coloured LED status display on the case, built-in voice synthesis and an automatic TV/Game switcher similar to that offered in the 5200. Not to be left off the shopping list of new features are six music channels in stereo sound and built-in backward compatibility with original Intellivision games and peripherals for the Inty II like the Intellivoice and computer add-on (see below). Oh, and a real 16-bit CPU is also to be included in the mix. A launch title library of six to eight games is expected, including the Hanna-Barbera tie-in game Yogi Bear’s Adventures, along with other titles like Treasure of the Yucatan and Grid Shock. Air jockeys should revel in the planned Air Ace, an air combat game allowing the player to soar over a full landscape in three-quarter perspective. The system is previewed in a private room during the CES show, to a select group of individuals.

The plan is to have the Intellivision III hold the line until a top-secret project code-named Decade can come to fruition sometime in 1984, intended to develop the Intellivision IV as the next generation of video games. By the fall of 1983, however, Mattel has scrapped the Intellivision III. The company reports that this is because of an advanced graphics handling technique developed by Ray Kaestner for the aborted system. When applied in games for the current Intellivision systems,  Super-Graphics, aka Mattel Electronics Graphic Development System GDS-7809, displays the same high-resolution as the Intellivision III. One such game is Masters of the Universe: The Power of He-Man, part of which Kaestner designs.

 Intellivision Computer: For the HECS of It

After fraud investigations by the Federal Trade Commission in 1982 due to consumer complaints about the vapourware Keyboard Component computer add-on Mattel had heavily hyped upon introduction of the original Master Module, monthly $10,000 FTC fines are levied against the company until a computer add-on is offered nationally to consumers. Mattel has the Keyboard Component in a four-city test marketing stage, said cities including Seattle and New Orleans. The computer add-on is a box into which the Master Component fits, giving users access to a 60-key tactile keyboard, built-in cassette tape storage, and an 8-bit 6502 CPU. It provides a screen resolution of 160×192 pixels and allows for 15 colours and eight moving sprites on-screen at a time. It is also to include a voice synthesizer chip to add speech effects to compatible games.

The low-priced Commodore computers, however, have lowered price expectations for consumer computers, and the high production expense for Mattel’s unit means a daunting price tag of up to $800 for the 18K RAM version, while the 2K version will only set you back $300. At these prices, at least two major retail chains have let it be known they wouldn’t carry the expansion device. Due to this out-of-reach pricing, the Keyboard Component is eventually dropped by Mattel, and at the January 1983 CES announces its replacement:  the HECS, or Home Electronic Computer System, which will retail for around $150. The new system revolves around the Computer Adapter, adding 12k of ROM and 2K of RAM to the Intellivision. Included with this is the plug-in 49-key chiclet-style Computer Keyboard, and support a magnetic data storage system and a thermal printer is promised for later. An optional RAM cartridge called the Program Expander, pluggable into the top of the Computer Adapter, promises to add as much as 32K of RAM and 12K of ROM to the HECS.

This computer module add-on for the Intellivision also adds three new sound tones, for a total of six. Offered optionally is the four-octave 49-key Music Synthesizer keyboard. Mattel Electronics Design & Development VP Richard Chang’s love of musical toys and games ensures the keyboard is including in the design of the ECS. Taking advantage of this piece of equipment unique to a video game console is  a program initially titled Astromusic, a musical version of Astrosmash where instead of falling rocks and spinners, the player shoots down notes by hitting the right keys on the synthesizer. Two other programs are planned to support the Synthesizer:  Melody Maker and Music Conductor. The former allows users of the music keyboard to record up to six musical tracks for later playback and saving using the cassette interface, along with the ability for real-time adjustment of tempo and key to any track. The latter program provides exercises and drills to increase user proficiency at playing. Despite all this musical potential for the Music Synthesizer, only Astromusic, renamed as Melody Maker, is released for the device.

An advanced baseball game for the system is previewed by Mattel spokesperson George Plimpton over the 1982 Christmas season. Titled World Series Baseball, it features close-up pitching views and split screen inset boxes of the base runners al la Coleco’s Super Action Baseball for the ColecoVision. Also, as the last game designed to use the Intellivoice, users with that device, as well as the ECS, can enjoy speech synthesis in the baseball game. This also makes World Series Baseball the first and only Intellivoice game not to require the Intellivoice unit in order to play it.  Speaking of America’s favourite pastime,  one of the big drawbacks of the original Major League Baseball game for the Intellivision is addressed with the announcement of Major League All Star Baseball for the Master Component. To be released in the latter half of 1983 with the revised title World Series Major League Baseball, the game allows for solitaire play against the computer.

Also announced for the computer add-on are educational games to utilize the license agreement with animation studio Hanna-Barbera, featuring Flintstones, Scooby-Doo and Jetsons characters. Users who want to program their own games will have to contend with the built-in Intellivision BASIC, and can use the provided cassette recorder interface with a regular tape recorder and tapes to store their creations. On the upside, this unique flavour of BASIC includes a function called “Character Extraction”, where would-be game programmers can lift character figures out of the program code from any Intellivision cartridge, for use in their own game designs.

Intellivision Computer: A Keyboard At Last

This all sounds very good, but after the system reaches stores later in 1983 as the Entertainment Computer System (ECS), the printer, storage system, and RAM expanders never materialize. It is good news for Mattel, however: along with the company offering a rebate for the 4000 Keyboard Components that have been produced and sold to consumers, the FTC is satisfied with the initial release of the ECS and stops the fines. The RS-232 port included in the design is a kind of consolation prize for users who might be disappointed with the missing peripherals from Mattel, allowing them to purchase compatible printers and equipment from other manufacturers for use with the ECS. 

The Age of the Mattel Aquarius Computer

Mattel Electronics then feels the need to enter the growing stand-alone home PC market, and they find the system close to home… Radofin Electronics of Mountain View, California. Based on Radofin’s line of computers utilizing Zilog’s ubiquitous CPU, Mattel develops the Aquarius Home Computer System and introduces it at what is a very busy 1983 CES in Las Vegas for the company. The price of this new machine will be steadily slashed as the home computer price wars rage, starting from around $140 when introduced at the show, down to around $100 before its slow rollout in April, and then quickly down to $79 after that. This, in the face of speculation by market analysts that the Aquarius computer system has cost the company $50 million in development costs. Mattel’s entry in the home computer shootout sports a 3.5 MHz Z80A CPU, but only a paltry 4K of standard system RAM. There are 4K and 16K memory packs available to boost this . Two graphics modes are offered: a high-res display at 320×192 and a low-res text mode at 40×24; 256 total characters are available, including the full ASCII character set. Also on the graphics front, the system has access to 16 colours. A barebones version of MS BASIC is built into the 8K of ROM of the computer; an extended version is promised later. Users can expand their computer language library with an available cartridge version of LOGO. All of this in a discreet case measuring just 13 in. by 6 in. by 2 in.

The Aquarius has a 49-key keyboard but in the dreaded rubber-chiclet style, only literally this time: an honest appraisal would probably have the tiny keys SMALLER than chiclets . To further muddy the waters for users trying to operate the computer, there is no space bar… a small SPACE key is located on the far side of the bottom left row. Opposite this on the other end is the RETURN key, therefore flying in the face of a standard computer keyboard layout. The format of this keyboard does, however, make possible keyboard templates that can be installed over top to give quick reference for commands. To save works pecked out on the anemic and non-standard keyboard is a tape cassette Data Recorder device. Offered as well is a thermal printer rated at 80 characters a second, up to 40 columns wide, utilizing rolls of 4 3/4″ thermal paper. A switch located at the back of the printer can put the device in either graphics, mixed or text mode. These devices are also to be available along with the computer in a complete package called the COM/PAC at a price pegged around $500. 

While the Aquarius computer is incompatible with Intellivision cartridges, Mattel also promises that hit software for that system, such as Astrosmash, the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons games, Tron Deadly Discs, Football and Lock ‘n’ Chase, will get Aquarius versions. In all, thirty-two titles are planned for the first half of 1983, all in cartridge format, with more to follow by the end of the year. They will fall into delineated categories to make things clear for consumers, including Education, Home Management, Personal Improvement and Entertainment. These plug-in cartridges are inserted into the Aquarius via a slot at the rear of the device, protected by a dust cover when not in use. Into this slot can also be inserted the Mini Expander, which can accept program cartridges, the memory expansion modules, or a combo of the two. It also offers two hand controllers (similar to the design of those of the Intellivision, but incompatible with the console) and two additional sound channels.

Click button to play Aquarius computer version of Night Stalker

Several additional peripherals are touted for the computer. Since it contains a Z80A CPU, it can also handle the vast library of CP/M software, via a the Master Expansion Module promised for late 1983 that would add dual floppy drives to the Aquarius. This module would also allow 16K memory expansion boards to be added. An Aquarius Modem is also to be made available, and can be used to an online service dubbed Aquarius Home Services. Getting in on the 80’s home automation craze, a device called the Command Console will be sold for the Aquarius, allowing modules to be programmed to control aspects of the household such as a coffee maker and light fixtures. Further productivity products Fileform and Finform are announced with the system; the former is a file system and word processor, the later being a spreadsheet program.

At the Summer 1983 CES in Chicago, Mattel boldly announces that a “higher-end” version, the Aquarius II, is to be released later in the year. It is to sport 20K of RAM expandable to 64K, and a real keyboard with fully-travelling, and properly located, keys. Fully compatible with software for the first Aquarius, the later model is to offer 12K ROM and 20K RAM expandable to 64K. Its screen resolution is pegged at 320×192 and will sell somewhere between $130-$175.

Mattel Aquarius Computer: Jupiter Definitely Doesn’t Align With Mars

On April 21, 1983, the initial Aquarius is advertised and sold in a four-city roll out: Los Angeles, Chicago, Detroit, and Atlanta, and is eventually offered nationwide. The COM/PAC bundle is also made available, including all current peripherals and the keyboard, retailing at $340. To the press, Mattel Electronics VP and general manager of home computer systems William F. Gillis makes some bold predictions of Aquarius penetration into the crowded market – a minimum of 200,000 computers are expected to be sold, equating to around a 5% market share. Making a softer pitch in TV spots is actor Mason Adams, probably known by most viewers as Lou Grant’s editor from his titular TV spin-off from The Mary Tyler Moore Show. Adams’ calm, friendly voice will definitely be familiar, since it features in voiceovers for practically every other ad on television. Mason’s ads are a result of what Mattel defines as the largest advertising campaign budget they’ve ever assigned to a product, although they don’t reveal the exact value of it.

Despite the big budget ad campaign and the friendly exultations from Mr. Adams, Aquarius tanks badly upon release, perhaps because of its extremely obsolete specs in the context of home computers of the era. While the official slogan for the Aquarius is “Truly Simple”, Mattel programmers appropriate the advertising slogan used by Atari for their newly introduced XL line of home computers (The Home Computers for the 80’s) by loathingly suggesting “The System for the 70’s” as the advertising line for Aquarius. Mattel gets the cane out for spokesperson Adams, and other advertising support for the computer, a mere four months after its release. It is announced in October of 1983 that Mattel has dropped the price of the Aquarius to $59, a prelude to handing marketing rights back to manufacturer Radofin.

Heads start rolling at Mattel Electronics in early July of 1983, with 260 administrative employees let go. This is followed by a further 400 axed a month later, along with a culling of top executives. This constitutes around 37% of the workforce. The price slashing in November fails to improve matters for the Aquarius. It is little surprise, to dealers and everyone else, when Mattel bins plans for the sequel computer Aquarius II and officially hands their home computer line to Radofin in January of 1984. Surplus computer hardware and software ends up being sold to Odd Lot Trading Inc., an outfit out of New York City that specializes in selling discontinued merchandise.

Mattel Intellivision: Impaired Vision

These expensive projects, along with the collapse of the videogame industry, are the beginning of the end of Mattel Electronics. Even with the company adapting their original games and arcade licenses to the expanding computer game market, second quarter sales for 1983 have sagged to $3.5 million, a staggering decline from $125 million the same quarter the previous year. Tandy, having purchased Intellivision units for their branded Tandyvision One consoles at a set price at the beginning of the video game craze, watch as Mattel steadily offers discounts and rebates on their own machines, effectively cutting the legs out from under their version of the console. With Radio Shack dealers paying more than what consumers are for Mattel’s units, Tandy dumps their inventory and games and discontinues the Tandyvision line within six months of its debut in Radio Shack stores.

Click button to play late-stage Intellivision game Sewer Sam

Mattel Electronics reports a loss of $166.7 million for the first six months of 1983, leading to division head Joshua Denham stepping down. Marketing whiz William Mack Morris, president of the diversified companies division of Mattel, is moved to the head of Mattel Electronics and announced as such on July 12, 1983. Morris is famous in marketing circles because, previously as president of LifeSavers, Inc., he had come up with the idea of putting a simple blue-coloured dot in the centre of the company’s Breath Savers mints, greatly increasing their sales. With Morris heading Mattel Electronics, soon a particularly catchy hook in a video game that sets it apart from the others becomes known as its “blue dot” to Mattel employees. Morris lacks the magic touch here, however, with reports that Mattel has put its electronics division up for sale, and production scaled back dramatically to help clear their massive inventory pileup. Total losses for the company also pile up, to the tune of $229.3 million for the year. With Mattel saddled with almost 400 million dollars of short-term debt, Morris lays off practically all the staff in hardware development, and another round of layoffs in the fall decimate the Blue Sky Rangers. While it had vowed to the press that its support for the Intellivision would continue in the new year, on January 20, 1984, Mattel Electronics closes its doors.

TV commercial featuring Mattel Intellivision head Mack Morris’ former big idea: the blue dot in Breath Savers mints, 1981

Hitting the Reset Button on the Mattel Intellivision

But the mighty Intellivision refuses to go down with the ship. On February 3, 1984, Mattel announces that it has signed a letter of intent to sell all existing stock and rights to the Intellivision division of Mattel Electronics to Terrence E. Valeski, former sr. vice president of marketing and sales at Mattel Electronics, for 16.5 million dollars. Bankrolling the purchase with Valeski is Tangible Industries, Inc., a division of the Revco drug store chain, the largest such franchise in the U.S.. While the team face stiff penalties from Mattel if they fail to continue the Intellivision line, they float such ideas as using the Intellivision brand on other appliances like hair dryers and VCRs. Valeski insists that he is committed to continuing the Intellivision line as a viable game console, going so far as announcing a 3-D games for the Intellivision, via a licence for technology developed by Richard Steenblik of the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta. The first such game for the Inty is to be Hover Force 3-D, a game developed by Mattel as a bid to save their withering console.

Click to play non-3D version of Hover Force on the Intellivision

Valeski subsequently incorporates a new company called Intellivision, Inc (changed to INTV in November 1984, when he takes over Revco’s share of the company). They release the INTV System III (aka the Super Pro System) in the fall of 1985, priced around $60. The System III‘s method of sale is partly retail, and partly through direct mail marketing by an outfit out of San Francisco called Triton Products Company. Taking a cue from the same-old Intellivision II, the “new” System III  is nearly an exact replica of the original Intellivision Master Component, both inside and out, but with new labelling and game pack-ins. As a cost-saving measure, none of the licenses for the sports games are renewed, and a game like NFL Football is demoted to simply Super Pro Football. INTV forms an agreement with Mattel to continue service of Intellivision equipment, as well as assemble new carts via a one-year contract. Prices for System III games are cheap: between $10 – $20 each or less, and one can pick up an Intellivoice for $19.95. The “new” system brings in $6 million worldwide in sales over Christmas 1986, prompting INTV to hire back many of the original Blue Sky Rangers to finish unreleased games and create new ones. Between 1985 and 1990, when INTV closes its doors and the Intellivision is finally laid to rest for good, over 35 new games are released for the Mattel Intellivision and INTV System III, with Spiker: Super Pro Volleyball and Stadium Mud Buggies being the final two games officially released for the system. This makes a total of 125 games released over 10 years. The Blue Sky Rangers currently have exclusive rights to publish  Intellivision system and games, granted to them by Ultimatte Corporation, purchasers of the Intellivision rights from Valeski in 1997.   Via Intellivision Productions,  a company set up by former Mattel programmers Keith Robinson and Stephen Roney, they continue to keep the system alive today, with Intellivision emulation packs for the Mac, PC  and various mobile platforms.

Click to play non-Dungeons & Dragons version of Tower of Doom on the Intellivision

Its roller-coaster ride through the videogame industry nearly sinks Mattel itself. But its divestment of the Intellivision division of Mattel Electronics in February of 1984 is met with a positive response from the stock market, with shares in the company rising 50 cents on the news, to $7.25 a share. Through restructuring, the company eventually claws its way back to the top of the toy heap, and in 1996 re-enters the videogame industry with a vengeance under the Mattel Media label. They release the Barbie Fashion Designer CD-ROM for the PC that year, going on to sell 15.5 million dollars worth and breaking previous CD-ROM sales records. E.J., the 9-year-old daughter of Mattel Media’s Vice President of Design Andy Rifkin, is one of the designers. In the program, clothes are created and modeled by Barbie on-screen and then the designs can be printed out on special cloth-backed paper and assembled to be worn by real Barbie dolls. It retails at $44.99 USD and spawns a lucrative Barbie line of computer programs, such as Barbie Magic Hair Styler. It is hypothesized that Mattel has broken into the untapped female market for videogames, but others figure that the success has more to do with Mattel’s marketing and the fearsome Barbie brand-name.

Lasting Intelligence of the Mattel Intellivision

Out of the ashes of the Intellivision system has come an amazing amount of quality product by spin-off companies, not the least of which is the continuing emulation work of the Blue Sky Rangers. In 1998 they release two emulation CD-ROMs, Intellivision Lives! for the PC and Mac, and A Collection of Classic Games From the Intellivision for the Sony PlayStation console. Both feature plenty of perfectly emulated original games, including some never seen outside of the development labs, along with historical information on their creation. Keeping the love alive for classic Intellivision games for continuing generations of video gamers, further Intellivision Lives! packages are released for the subsequent later generation consoles such as Sony’s PlayStation 2 and Microsoft’s XBox. Outside of emulation, here are just some samples of games put out by software companies created by former Intellivision programmers: Quicksilver Software – Castles I(1991) & II(1994), Conquest of the New World(1996), Star Trek: Starfleet Command(1999); Realtime Associates – Q*Bert 3 (1992); M:TG-Battlemage (1997), Crusader: No Remorse (console versions-1997); and Stormfront Studios né Beyond Software, headed by Don Daglow of Utopia fame – Gateway to the Savage Frontier (1991), Tony LaRussa Ultimate Baseball (1991), Madden 97(1996), Byzantine: The Betrayal (1997), NASCAR Revolution (1999), NASCAR 2000 (2000).

Click to play A Collection of Classic Games From the Intellivision on Playstation

As pointed out previously, the Intellivision‘s unique control disc could be seen as a precursor to the modern D-Pad control scheme, pioneered by Nintendo in their Game & Watch handhelds and Famicom home console.  In 2013, the influence can also be seen when venerable video game developer, publisher, and distributor Valve Software introduce the Steam Controller, for use on PCs and presumably their Steam game console.  With two flat, round touch surfaces, Valve’s product is met with about the same acrimony from gamers as Mattel’s original controllers.

Carving out 15% of the video game market during its heyday (compared to 80% for Atari’s 2600) and selling around 3 million units across its production life (and another 3 million as the System III), the Intellivision may have come up second-best against Atari in the heated battle for videogame supremacy during the early 1980’s. But the Master Component, its varied sequels and components, and its thoughtful and sophisticated library of games continue to be highly appreciated by videogame enthusiasts. With continued support through emulation, Intelligent Television lives on.