Strange Odyssey 1 Paddles

[Tempest]

At the CGE I picked up a strange pair of paddle controllers that appear to go to the Odyssey 1. The weird thing is that they look just like the paddles that go to the Pong Wonder Wizard Bullseye, but that wasn't made by Magnavox. These clearly say Magnavox on the top and they don't look like they've been spliced with an O1 cable (not to mention the Wonder Wizard Bullseye came out years after the O1).

Has anyone ever seen something like this before? Are they prototype paddles or someone's weird hack job? Here are some pics:

http://www.atariprotos.com/personal/matt/paddle_top.png
http://www.atariprotos.com/personal/matt/paddle_side.png
http://www.atariprotos.com/personal/matt/paddle_cord.png
http://www.atariprotos.com/personal/matt/paddle_plug.png


Tempest

[rolenta]

Tempest,

I forwarded this post to Ralph Baer. I'll let you know what his response is.

[Tempest]

Thanks Len. I appreciate it.

Tempest

[rolenta]

Ralph Baer responded:

"I have no idea, Lenny.

I've sent this one on to David Winter...if anyone knows the answer, it's David.

Ralph"

[rolenta]

Response from David Winter:

Ulf Svensson forwarded these pictures to me and I know several PONG
games that used the same ones. Plus, Magnavox sold a TV set that
included an AY-3-8500 PONG circuit board, hence the need of extra
controllers in mono-directional mode (opposed to bi-directional
motion for ITL200). Wonder Wizzard "Bulles Eyes" and "Sharp Shooter"
used the same controllers, as some other european systems did.

I suppose that the Wonder Wizard units were made under contract with
Magnavox since their first model (called "Wonder Wizard") used an
Odyssey 300 circuit board and an Odyssey 1 bottom case. I have also
heard of a Magnavox "Smash 4" PONG game in France but never saw it
(never bothered asking for a picture). The one detail that puzzles me
is the plug which is same than those used with Odyssey ITL200. That
plug was not used by Wonder Wizzard games so I presume that they were
either used by another Magnavox PONG game. It couldn't be an Odyssey
ITL200 add-on since Odyssey has bi-directional motion, which would
cause the players to be ouside of the screen (no resistor on one
direction circuit, hence no spot on the screen). It can only be
a mono-directionnal PONG game. Quite strange controllers indeed.

I'm quite sure that these controllers came with the Magnavox TV
set (model 4305) that contained a PONG game. Hence the need of
extra controllers as you wouldn't put knobs on the TV as there
were knobs on Odyssey 300 for example...

There's a picture of this 4305 TV set on my site:

http://www.pong-story.com/systems.htm

Scroll down under the whole table of Odyssey 100....4000 models
and you'll see the advert for their TV set with PONG games. I
think the controllers came from this TV set. I can't see any
other answer.


David.

[Tempest]

Well that makes sense to me. Too bad I don't own a Pong TV to test it out on (that would be so cool BTW). Well I think I traded a loose 5200 Frogger II for them so I guess I'm not out much. I suppose someone will want them sooner or later, I guess I'll hang onto them until then.

Thanks for all the help guys, I really appreciate it.

Tempest