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The Fairchild Channel F, short for "Channel Fun", is a video game console, the first to be based on a microprocessor and to use ROM cartridges instead of having games built-in. It was released by Fairchild Camera and Instrument in November 1976 across North America at a retail price of US$169.95. It was launched as the "Video Entertainment System", but when Atari released its Video Computer System the next year, Fairchild rebranded their machine as "Channel F" while keeping the Video Entertainment System descriptor.
Pong is a table tennis–themed twitch arcade sports video game, featuring simple two-dimensional graphics, manufactured by Atari and originally released on November 29, 1972. It was one of the earliest arcade video games; it was created by Allan Alcorn as a training exercise assigned to him by Atari co-founder Nolan Bushnell, but Bushnell and Atari co-founder Ted Dabney were surprised by the quality of Alcorn's work and decided to manufacture the game. Bushnell based the game's concept on an electronic ping-pong game included in the Magnavox Odyssey, the first home video game console. In response, Magnavox later sued Atari for patent infringement.
The Magnavox Odyssey is the first commercial home video game console. The hardware was designed by a small team led by Ralph H. Baer at Sanders Associates, while Magnavox completed development and released it in the United States in September 1972 and overseas the following year. The Odyssey consists of a white, black, and brown box that connects to a television set, and two rectangular controllers attached by wires. It is capable of displaying three square dots and one line of varying height on the screen in monochrome black and white, with differing behavior for the dots depending on the game played. Players place plastic overlays on the screen to display additional visual elements for each game, and one or two players for each game control their dots with the knobs and buttons on the controller by the rules given for the game. The console cannot generate audio or track scores. The Odyssey console came packaged with dice, paper money, and other board game paraphernalia to accompany the games, while a peripheral controller—the first video game light gun—was sold separately.
Adventure Vision is a cartridge-based video game console released by Entex Industries in either August or October 1982. The launch price of the system was $79.95. The monitor, game controls, and computer hardware are all contained within a single portable unit. The LED monitor can only display red pixels. Four games were released, all of which are arcade ports. Approximately 10,000 were produced.
1975 had new titles such as Western Gun, Dungeon and dnd. The year's best-selling arcade game was Taito's Speed Race, released as Wheels and Wheels II in North America.
The Color TV-Game is the first video game system ever made by Nintendo. The system was released as a series of five dedicated home video game consoles between 1977 and 1983 in Japan only. Nintendo sold three million units of the first four models: one million units of each of the first two models, Color TV-Game 6 and 15; and half a million units of each of the next two models, Block Breaker and Racing 112. The Color TV-Game series has the highest sales figures of all the first generation of video game consoles.
The APF TV Fun brand is a series of dedicated home video game consoles manufactured by APF Electronics Inc. and built in Japan starting in 1976. The systems were among the first built on the General Instrument "Pong-on-a-chip", the AY-3-8500, that allowed many manufacturers to compete against the Atari Home Pong. The APF TV Fun consoles were one of the earliest Pong clone consoles.
In the history of video games, the first generation era refers to the video games, video game consoles, and handheld video game consoles available from 1972 to 1983. Notable consoles of the first generation include the Odyssey series, the Atari Home Pong, the Coleco Telstar series and the Color TV-Game series. The generation ended with the Computer TV-Game in 1980 and its following discontinuation in 1983, but many manufacturers had left the market prior due to the market decline in the year of 1977 and the start of the second generation of video game consoles.
The Video Pinball brand is a series of first-generation single-player dedicated home video game consoles manufactured, released and marketed by Atari, Inc. starting in 1977. Bumper controllers on the sides or a dial on the front are used to control the games depending on the game selected. There are three game types in the first model of the Video Pinball series: Pinball, Basketball, and Breakout.
The TV Scoreboard is a Pong-like dedicated home video game console manufactured in Hong Kong from 1976 through the early '80s and made by Tandy. Distribution was handled exclusively by RadioShack.
The AY-3-8500 "Ball & Paddle" integrated circuit was the first in a series of ICs from General Instrument designed for the consumer video game market. These chips were designed to output video to an RF modulator, which would then display the game on a domestic television set. The AY-3-8500 contained six selectable games — tennis, hockey, squash, practice, and two shooting games. The AY-3-8500 was the 625-line PAL version and the AY-3-8500-1 was the 525-line NTSC version. It was introduced in 1976, Coleco becoming the first customer having been introduced to the IC development by Ralph H. Baer. A minimum number of external components were needed to build a complete system.
Unisonic Products Corporation was an American manufacturer and distributor of consumer electronics from the 1970s to the 1990s. Although headquartered in New York City, Unisonic outsourced its manufacturing operations to various facilities in East Asia. Unisonic developed a variety of electronics, including calculators, CRT television sets, video game consoles, digital watches, telephones, answering machines, and digital alarm clocks.
Grandstand is a video game console and electronic game manufacturer and distributor. It was based in the United Kingdom and New Zealand and was active in the 1970s and 1980s.
Entex Industries, Inc. was an American toy and electronic game manufacturer based in Compton, California. The company was active during the 1970s and 1980s.
Magnavox Odyssey is the general brand name of Magnavox's complete line of home video game consoles released from 1972 through 1978. The line includes the original Magnavox Odyssey console, the Magnavox Odyssey series of dedicated home video game consoles, and the Magnavox Odyssey 2 ROM cartridge-based video game console released in 1978. Philips Odyssey is the brand name that includes the Philips Odyssey series of dedicated home video game consoles.
The 1970s was the first decade in the history of the video game industry. The 1970s saw the development of some of the earliest video games, chiefly in the arcade game industry, but also several for the earliest video game consoles and personal computers.
The Philips Tele-Game series was a series of six dedicated first-generation home video game consoles manufactured, released and marketed between 1975 and 1978 by Dutch company Philips.
The SHG Black Point FS 1003/FS 2000 is a first-generation PC-50x home video game console that was released in 1982 by Süddeutsche Elektro-Hausgeräte GmbH & Co. KG only in Germany for 168 Deutsche Mark (DM). The console has been manufactured by Radofin.
The Wonder Wizard is a dedicated first-generation home video game console which was manufactured by Magnavox and released by General Home Products in June 1976 only in the United States.
References
- ↑ TV games turn your set into a sports arena, By William J. Hawkins, Popular Science, Nov 1976, Page 91, Table: ...Entex / Tele-Pong / $60 / Tennis, tabble tennis, handball, practice / Digital scoring, sound, skill selector, (H-V movement on table tennis)...
- 1 2 ENTEX Gameroom Tele-Pong, OLD-COMPUTERS.COM Museum
- ↑ Vox. "Entex Gameroom Tele-Pong is a video game console". Vox Odyssey. Retrieved 2019-06-17.
- 1 2 "OLD-COMPUTERS.COM : The Museum". www.old-computers.com. Retrieved 2020-07-24.