Odyssey - The Original [Archive] - Retrogaming Roundtable

donemry

03-08-2004, 02:45 PM

Yes, the product was well recevied at the time. The sales for the initial selling season were right on projections. Unfortunately, the marketing VP's got so caught up in the excitement that they built about 3 times the projection which interferred with development in the second year when I came aboard the team.

I joined the team in Jan 72, moving over from the Technical Support group where I had worked on the documentation. It was one of my better sales jobs talking my way into the marketing department to work on the project with Bob Fritche, who was the Product Planner.

I don't recall that I ever met Ralph, although I knew who he was from reading some the patent related materials at that time.

I invlountarily left Maganavox in Aug. 73 in a downsizing, a futile attempt to save the company from a long series of bad marketing decisions.

I played around with computers in 76, a Sol III, and in 82 went into the computer business full time, mosltly in software development. I never did do any further work on games.

Don

donemry

03-08-2004, 02:57 PM

Oops, I mistyped the date. I started on the project in Jan 73.

As to the perception of the future of electronic games, yes it was apparent to me that it would be big. I remember some conversations we had with the guys from Chicago Coin. They had contacted Magnavox about building a coin game to compete with Pong. They told me how strong the customer reactions to Pong were as compared to the traditional electro-mechancial games. I learned a lot about "games" theory from them. Magnavox passed on the deal, not wanting to be associated with "that type of people". Yet another nail in the coffin!

Don

omnedon

03-08-2004, 04:15 PM

"that type of people"

LOL

donemry

03-08-2004, 04:20 PM

The VP's thought they were "mafiaoso"

SoulBlazer

03-08-2004, 04:50 PM

Welcome, Sir, it's a great honor to have someone around with your experience and knowledge.

The Oddessy was well before my time, but I've seen one in action at a friend's house and read all about it. It amazes me that anyone could put a color overlay on a TV and be happy with the quality of a game. LOL

I am curious, though -- do you recall which games you worked on? And when you say 'second release' do you mean the Oddessy 2?

Were there any games you WANTED to do for the system that just was'nt possible to do at the time?

Are you still playing video games today?

Does it bother you that almost nobody even remembers or has a Oddessy these days besides collectors compared to how much use other gaming systems from the 70's get?

I see you live in TN -- did you do your work at the main Magnavox plant in Knoxville?

Thanks again for your time and experience here. :)

tom

03-08-2004, 06:07 PM

I have some questions:

I am one of the few in the world who have a complete Odyssey collection:

http://uk.geocities.com/thomas.holzer@btinternet.com/Odds.htm

Besides me, there are David Winter in France, Ulf Svensson in Sweden, and another person who's name I forgot (who has two complete sets).

Many collectors have the Odyssey with enclosed games and sometimes the 1972 extra games (and rifle with games).

With 'complete', I mean the 1973 run of games (4 games): Interplanetary Voyage, Baskteball, W.I.N., Brain Wave. According to David Winter, these games have only been found four times so far (in the whole world). When asking Ralph Bear, he didn't even know about the 1973 games.

1: Do you know how many of the 1973 run of games were produced and sold?

2: Do you know of the existance of card number 11, which is mentioned in the Service manual, but not supplied with any game?

(We have cards 1 -6 with the system, card 7 with Volleyball (1972 extra game), card 8 with Handball (1972 extra game) and also issued again with Basketball (1973 extra game), cards 9 & 10 (with Rifle), card 12 (Interplanetary Voyage (1973 extra game)). All other games (Percepts, Brain Wave, W.I.N., Fun Zoo and so forth, use the cards from the base system (1 -6)

3: What was the purpose of the blue double card (games 7 & 8 together on one card with opposite connecting ends)? When was it released and how (with games, on it's own, or was it a testing card?)

There will be more questions.

Phosphor Dot Fossils

03-08-2004, 07:46 PM

Hi Don,

Welcome to the Digital Press forums - we're always glad to have someone from the industry itself share their stories with us!

I myself am the proud owner of a near-complete Odyssey collection; in fact, I think my console is from the "B" production run, which may be the second release you mentioned.

Here's another question to add to the others you've been deluged with (hey, we're nothing if not inquisitive!). As early as 1973, was there any talk of reformatting the Odyssey into the dedicated consoles (i.e. the Odyssey 100, 200, 2000 consoles that came later)? I'm just wondering if that repackaging was a product of competition from Atari's home Pong system, or if it actually predated Pong.

And again, welcome aboard - we hope you'll stick around!

Gamemaster_ca_2003

03-08-2004, 07:55 PM

Glad to have you here. It is always a pleasure that someone in the indistry at DP to share stuff with. Ok this sounds like a dumb question but what is your favorite game on the odyssey, and is it your favorite game right now?

o2william

03-08-2004, 08:36 PM

Hello Don, let me join everybody in welcoming you to the board!

My question is related to the Odyssey user manual. Not long ago, I interviewed Ron Bradford of Bradford/Cout Design, who was a lead designer for Odyssey promotional materials. You can read the inverview here:
http://www.classicgaming.com/o2home/articles/bradford/index.shtml

I don't want you to be overwhelmed with questions, but I was wondering if you know Ron Bradford or if the two of you ever worked together on the design of the Odyssey user manual or other materials. If so, if you have any comments about Ron or the design process, I'd love to read them.

I look forward to reading your answers to all the questions in this thread!

donemry

03-08-2004, 09:52 PM

Wow! I am impressed by all of the good questions.

Let me preface my answers with this caveat. I worked directly on the Oddessy project for the first 8 months of 1973 and that was 31 years ago. I have not thought a lot about the details of that experience in quite some time.

Back in those days, the overlays were a relatively unique concept and there was no other standard for how a TV game should look or work. (Actually there was a children�s TV show in the early 50�s that required the kids to use a clear overlay as a drawing board. The kids would use a grease pencil to follow the movements of the TV host and thus draw a cartoon style picture.)

I did all of the second release games for 1973. �Interplanetary Voyage� and �Basketball� were totally my own. �WIN� and �Brainwave� were concepts that came from a game consultant that I expanded and completed. As I recall, the original games for 1972 were mostly created by an outside consultant, with some input from Bob Fritche, who was the Product Planner.

All of the game work that I did was bounded by the electronics capabilities of the circuitry and game cards. At that time, early 73, there was no budget money to work on the electronics.

The production was in Knoxville, TN. I worked at the headquarters in Fort Wayne, IN.

I never really became much of a player, although I did become pretty proficient with the vector graphics �Star Wars�, but that was father/son thing.

Ralph Bear was not involved with the add-on games in 1973. I actually left Magnavox just as the add-on games went into production. As best as I can recall, the planned production run was 11,000 sets, but I don�t know how many were actually produced.

I am vague on card 11, but I think it was similar to one of the other cards, but had vertical line(s). I don�t think we ever had a game specifically for it.

I don�t recall the blue, double card at all, but I can see how it would have made sense. The cards were an �expensive� production item.

All of the graphic design for the first release was done outside of Magnavox. I don�t remember the company�s name as I was not involved at that time. I do recall that the advertising agency was Grey Advertising out of Chicago and that the game consultants were also out of Chicago. I did most of the original copy for the user manual, but someone else did the final draft and layout. My copy was �too technical�. I know I met some of those people, but I don�t remember the names.

The brochure shown with the Bradford interview is the 1973 brochure as it lists the 1973 games that I worked on.
I probably liked the Basketball game the best. I doubt that I have played any of them since 73 or 74. I don�t play any video games, but I am/was pretty proficient with chess and Scrabble.

As I recall, there were 180,000 sets of parts ordered for the 1972 production, of which about 100,000 were actually completed and packaged. In early 73, the warehouse was still full of them. I recall that the production people had to open all of them a replace the batteries.

In 1973, a �lite� or �junior� version was planned. It would have only 5 games and the console and controllers were to be tan and brown to differentiate it from the regular game set, they were going to paint the white plastic case parts. I do not know if that model actually went into production as I was history in August of 73

Speaking of history, Magnavox was bought out by Phillips in 1974 or 75, so the Oddessy2 was developed by that group and as far as I know, there was no carry over from the original group except for Bradford/Cout.

Also keep in mind that in the late 60�s and early seventies, Integrated circuits were just appearing in consumer electronics and the concept of Moore�s Law was not yet formulated, so there was no way to predict the games of the 80�s, let alone what has happened since. I remember working with IC�s that had dual JK flip flops in 72 and thinking that was really good technology. Actually the electronics in the original Oddessy is quite simple, though exceedingly clever, compared to some of the other Magnavox products of that time.

By the way, I just opend my Oddessy. It is complete except for the game cord, even the plastic bags. All of the extra paper and plastic games peices are in theie original packing. It even has the original Magnaovox batteries.

Don

Don

Captain Wrong

03-09-2004, 12:10 AM

By the way, I just opend my Oddessy. It is complete except for the game cord, even the plastic bags. All of the extra paper and plastic games peices are in theie original packing. It even has the original Magnaovox batteries.

Wish I still had mine. The cool thing was, when it gave up the ghost, I got extra mileage out of all the play money and game pieces. A modern console breaks and all you get is a paper weight, but the Odyssey was still entertaining even after it bit the dust! LOL

Welcome aboard!

SoulBlazer

03-09-2004, 02:29 AM

I'm sure I speak for others besides myself when I say how much I've enjoyed your responses to our questions so far. Thanks for taking the time to share information with us.

I'm sure there are several people who are going to want to interview you, one of them possibly being Leonard Herman, who has allready posted in this thread. His book "Phoenix" is one of the best history of video games in existance. There's not much documented on on the original Oddessy, so a chance like this will make you a VERY popular person. ;) Even with your limited knowledge -- and you recall a lot of stuff better then I think many others would. :)

Do you recal if you had any serious problems, issues, or diffucltiies with designing the manual and the games?

Were you upset that the Oddessy pretty much died out within a two year time period?

It's been suggested by several people that one of the main reasons the Oddessy sales suffered was because Magnavox implied strongly you needed one of 'their' TV's for the system to work. I know that was'nt the department you worked in, but do you recall hearing about that at the time and/or does it make any sence to you now, in hindsight?

And how did you find this board, anyway? LOL

tholly

03-09-2004, 03:00 AM

I just wanted to say that I pretty much knew nothing about the Odyssey other than it existed until I read this post. I am very happy that you decided to join DP and share your past with us. Thanks again for all the info and I look forward to reading more on what you have to say.

can_dude

03-09-2004, 04:29 AM

I have a question: how come you keep spelling Odyssey wrong? :P
I'm just kidding, sorry for busting your balls...But seriously, do you know a way for me to get some games for the system...I have the complete system, but sadly no games...welcome to the DP.

donemry

03-09-2004, 11:22 AM

The only big issue with designing the games was cost. All of the bits and pieces and packaging had to produced and we had a target figure of about $3 for a game. I learned a lot about purchasing and production costs. The whole project had a budget which was strictly enforced.

I don't buy the Magnavox only theory, that topic never came up in any discussion. It is possible that some of dealers may have promoted that concept. As an opinion, I think the early bad decisons on the build quantities stifled our ability to make changes that would have improved the system.

I was long gone from Magnavox when they were bought out and did not give Odyssey much thought after leaving. I was too busy raising a family.

I found you guys after watching the "Remember That!" show on HGTV. They did a piece on video games, mentioned the Odyssey and said that people collected old video games. A Google search then turned up this site.

Am I spelling it right now?

By the way, my system is still in the original shipping carton. It was given to me shortly after I left Magnavox. The Shooting Gallery was taken home before I left and just never got returned.

I would probably part with my stuff to give it a better home than it would find with my kids and grandkids.

Don

SoulBlazer

03-09-2004, 12:36 PM

Yeah, I've seen that show from time to time. Well, we'll awfully glad that you decided to come and share your experiences. :)

Are there any stories, funny incidents, etc that you can recall from your days from working on the Odessey?

As someone else pointed out, the system is not the most popular to collect for -- but a mint pristine very valuable system and setup like yours would go for MAJOR money. If you decide to go through with, ask here for help so we can help you to maximize your profits. You'd want to post a add here and on several other major collecting sites, take MANY pictures of it, write a complete description, and make it a banner auction on EBay. I'm only taking a shot in the dark here, but I assume it could go for several hundred dollars at least. That price would also ensure that only a collector who loves the system would buy it and make sure it gets a good home. :)

donemry

03-09-2004, 02:32 PM

Since my curiosity was piqued by these postings, I looked at about every web site that I could find that discussed Odyssey. Certainly a lot of overlap and repetition. I see where the the qustion about "only with Magnavox TV's" comes from. There is nothing that I can recall from any meetings or discussions or advertisng or marketing plans at headquarters that would support that contention as Magnavox policy.

At that time, Magnavox was a premium brnad and was only sold through carefully selected and monitored franchised dealers. Retail pricing was never broken except for authorized sales. It is possible that some or even many of those dealers may have made the suggestion, I just don't know.

If Bob Fritsche could be found, he would know a lot more than I would. He was the product manager form the beginning to 1975.

Another odd thing that I noticed in my web browsing was the three occurences of a picture of the Odyssey "Lite" that I had mentioned before. It had a brown case and a brown instruction book. I did not find any reference to that model actually being produced. Has anyone ever seen the brown model?

Stories?

When I joined the marketing department I also became a member of the Magnavox Managment Club, which was open to anyone above line supervisor. Turned out to be a good excuse for a monthly night out. Anyway, got tagged with entertainment chairman due to my involvement with Odyssey. On event that I did was a Las Vegas night. I ordered several crates of the Odyssey money and poker chips from the warehouse and rented the gaming tables. Turned out pretty well except for the big winner finally admitted that he was walking around stealing all the loose Odyssey money to run up his score.

Don

tom

03-09-2004, 07:03 PM

First: Thanks for all your answers.

Did you ever meet Nolan Bushnell, as he clearly ripped off the Pong design for his arcade machine. Did you knew about the Magnavox/Atari lawsuit?

What about the sellotape? Some say it's for holding the TV-overlays on the screen, but I reckon it's for sticking onto the scoreboard to use (with felt-tip or whatever) for writing the score onto it, and later just remove the tape to keep the scoreboard clean (that's what I make of it anyway).

Did you (or Magnavox) know about Space War from 1962 on those DEC machines?

And wow, you did Interplanetary Voyage. That is one excellent game.

donemry

03-09-2004, 07:51 PM

No I did not ever meet Nolan Bushnell, but I was aware of the litigation. The courts agreed that Magnavox had the legal rights to the concept. My understanding is that Busnell became a licensee of Magnavox. I think that occured after I left. I did get to see the workings of the arcade Pong game. The electronics were far more sophisticated than Odyssey, but then the thing sold for about $850 compared to the $100 for Odyssey.

The tape was for holding the overlays. Usually the static electricty was sufficient. I never used the tape.

No I was not aware of Space War. In context, in the early 70's computers were the domain of really big business and university engineering departments. Ordinary people never got close to them. Actully Magnavox had a pretty good size computer system, they were even doing circuit designs with them, but I never got closer than peeking through the window. I did get to handle a lot of "greenbar" printouts. Then I had to distill the info by hand to something that we could use. Computer time was horribly expensive as a departmental charge.

Thank you for compliment on Interplanetary Voyage. I aways wished I had gotten a final release copy of it.

Phosphor Dot Fossils

03-09-2004, 09:53 PM

Hi Don,

That's priceless that not much computer time could be afforded for development - those were definitely the analog days!

Couple more questions for you, and these are out-of-left-field:

Were there any other "specialty" controllers on the drawing boards other than the Shooting Gallery rifle? Anything even remotely along those lines?

Also, how long did Magnavox envision the Odyssey being a viable product? Were they hoping to keep turning out different games for the system past the 18-24 month life span that it eventually had?

Thanks again for sharing with us. This is great stuff. :)

donemry

03-10-2004, 11:51 AM

There was discussion of using a joystick, but that was considered to be too expensive. I think you are aware that there was a 4 player engineering prototype, but I never got to use it. I think that would have been interesting.

Magnovox would not have actually launched the product if the expected lifespan was only to be 2 years. The upfront costs were pretty high and there had to be some expectation of recovery. Once a product type is established, ongoing upgrades are a lot cheaper and expected.

The drag on additional development of the product caused by the overbuy of parts and overbuild of product in 72 limited everything we proposed or considered.

Keep in mind that every product manger was competing for budget with the claim that their products were going to the most profitable and that TV's, Radios, Stereos and Tape recorders/players were proven products.

Overlaying all of this was some incredibly poor management at the top levels of the company. In 1968, Magnavox stock was part of the Dow and priced around $60. In late 1974 the stock was down to $4 and NAP bought the company at $8.

In my opinion, that in spite of very good engineering and production, the infighting and indecisiveness and impulsive decisons of top management were to blame for the downfall. Odyssey was a minor casualty in this process.

Don

tom

03-10-2004, 07:51 PM

Thanks again for all your answers, that is a great help after all this time.

So that was it? 6 cards with the machine making 12 games, 6 extra games from 1972, 4 Rifle games, 1 special game (Percepts), and 4 extra games from 1973.
Did Magnavox plan to do any more games, at least on paper? Were you going to write more games, or had you left before being approched? You said you left by the time the 1973 games were put into production, but maybe there was talk of more before that?

One more question: What's the cardboard memory banks in Brain Wave for? I never figured that out. Coming to think of it, I never figured Brain Wave out.

Also, coming back to card 11, do you reckon there was, what we call nowadays, a 'proto' card available? This is really a card every Odyssey collector is after, kinda 'Holy Grail' of protos.

Do you know of any 'foreign' Odyssey, or exports? In Germany the Odyssee (German name) arrived in 1974, distributed by ITT (not Philips weirdly enough). In Japan the Odyssey arrived in 1974/75, imported by Nintendo.
In Sweden there is talk of a Odyssey clone called 'Canal 75', does that sound familiar?

rolenta

03-10-2004, 10:01 PM

In Germany the Odyssee (German name) arrived in 1974, distributed by ITT (not Philips weirdly enough).

Not so weird. Philips purchased Magnavox in 1974, the same year that the German Odyssee was released. The deal between Magnavox and ITT was probably made before Philips entered the picture.

donemry

03-11-2004, 10:43 AM

I think your game count is correct. I was working on some others that apparently did not go into production. One of them was a very nice upgrade to the "Ski" game that wad a ski jump and a slalom course. I am drawing a blank on the others, but I think I had 8 games planned.

Based on everything that I have read over the past week or so, it would seem that no new games or system variations were produced after I left. Which would make sense, since their was no warm body there to do the work and very little support from managment.

On Brain Wave, do you have the instructions? As I recall, that game was full of word play and/or puns. I would think that the Memory Banks would be the cards where you build the "Trains of Thought"

Engineering would have used something similar to what you call a "proto" card in the early stages of development to finalize the traces on the priduction cards. The 12 cards would have exercised all of the logical capabilites of the system.

I did get a call from Ralph Baer yesterday, plesant converasation. He did say that 350,000 units were actually built in all of the variations, which is a much higher number that any other web site report. That would explain the "Run 2" versions. The "Run 1" was the original production that occured while I was there, about 120,000 units as I recall, with another 60,000 parts sets left to assemble.

It would seem likely that a large quantity of units would have carried a "renewal" designation to either replace the batteries or to update the production date for warranty purposes.

All of the export versions occured after I left, so I have no knowledge of them.

The person who would really have all the answers would be Bob Fritsche, who was the product manger from inception until 1975.

One other point to consider in the context of that time. Youth was not a virtue in the industry, unlike today. Experience was absolutley a requirement. I was 30 at the time and would have been the youngest person on the project. There were only two other guys in the marketing department younger than I, and they were treated like interns.

Don

Phosphor Dot Fossils

03-11-2004, 07:56 PM

I remember hearing about how there were really 12 different games that could be done on the Odyssey, and you mention that again here. How hard was it to keep coming up with something new for this machine? Was it down to the extra trappings (overlays, game pieces, cards, etc.), or was it really possible to create something new that wasn't a variation on one of those dozen games?

donemry

03-11-2004, 10:56 PM

The game box electronics was designed to have certain screen attributes and reactions to the control movements. Each of the 12 cards selected a set of these attributes.

Now the real esotric concept is that no game existed until a human defined the manipulations according to set of rules. Therefore, you can take the same set of attributes and define different games. The game rules were enhanced (or limited) by the overlays. Then you add the extra bits and pieces, primarily as scoring deviices or used the game attributes as "psuedo set of dice" to manipulate the external bits and pieces.

For example, I created basketball and Interplanetry voyage by redefining to the players what the contollable screen attributes represented. Then reinforced that definition with the overlays. Brain wave used the "psuedo dice" concept, a battle session that was another game when played with another overlay, to determine the movement/placement of pieces on an external game board.

If you carefully examine any video game, you will see the same phenomon. A set of controlable attributes defined by context to create the "game". You can really extend this insight to almost any board game. Look at the motion/attributes that determine the flow of play.

Now, the really good question is what makes a particular set of attributes and visual support into a poor, good, great or superb game?

Don

omnedon

03-12-2004, 01:09 AM

This is an excellent thread. :eek 2:

Thanks for generously sharing with us Mr. Emry.

DavidWinter

03-12-2004, 09:05 AM

Hello everybody,

I just discovered this very interesting discussion and have some interesting information to add.

About the #11 cartridge: according to the original Magnavox documents I own, it was initially designed for the Basketball game. I still need to know why Basketball used #8 instead. If you compare the pinouts, you'll see that the cartridges are almost same, so only a minor change in the game play would have allowed using cartridge #8, and so reducing the production cost.

About the Apex/Magnavox "blue" card: I have it complete. Its double-A4 manual says that it might not have overlays (a gentle manner to say that they were not supplied as planned). This card just plays the same games as Magnavox cartridges #7 and #8, and since those games only had overlays in addition to the cartridges, the Apex card is only a rarer version (only two ones seen so far).

About the 1973 games: I own two complete sets so far. It is interesting to know that I got one Odyssey set with the 10-game set. The first brown shipping box contained the first six games made in 1972. The other box had only those four 1973 games, so I presume that one could order the ten games (hence a box with only four games), or the separate six-game pack could be ordered as well, in which case it contained two of the 1972 games.

About the "junior" Odyssey project: I have the original Magnavox documents that talk about it. Simply put, Magnavox did a survey to check what people preferred most. The general answer was "the games like Tennis which don't require extra accessories". Thus started the Odyssey 100 and 200 projects in 1974. All the history of these ones are on my PONG-Story site, so have a tour on it for more information. Note that Odyssey 200 was NOT a later production. Both models 100 and 200 were made at the same time. They even have exactly the same circuit board, which only differs by two additional TI chips in model 200.

Pirate and Odyssey clones: currently, three pirate/clones of the Odyssey are known to exist. Amazingly, two of them used puch-buttons instead of jumper cartridges. You'll find more information about these two systems on my site here:
http://www.pong-story.com/overkal.htm
http://www.pong-story.com/panoramic_telematch.htm

Please not that the above two pages are far from finished. I need to picture the Overkal parts (it's almost an Odyssey with overlays). However, the second Argentinian clone needs no additional pictures. It did not use overlays, as it only plays Ball & Paddle games with additional Football games (in some sort, it's an improved Odyssey unit).

Last point: you might know about Ralph Baer's incoming book. I just wanted to say that I did some significant work on this book, mostly by providing key documents Ralph didn't know, detalied scans and pictures of unique stuff, etc. You all recognize my picture on the front cover, don't you ?....

Any serious questions please email me (no prototype/document sales/trades requests please).

David Winter - http://www.pong-story.com

rolenta

03-12-2004, 09:37 AM

You all recognize my picture on the front cover, don't you ?....

Sorry David. Your picture is not on the cover of the book.

DavidWinter

03-12-2004, 09:43 AM

rolenta

03-12-2004, 09:49 AM

Hi Lenny,

My appology for writing text that don't reflect what I meant.
Of course I did not mean to have my face on the cover !!!! That would not make sense. :)
I just wanted to say that some people might recognize this picture, because it is also present on my site as it was taken when I visited Ralph two years ago. In fact I must thank you for choosing this picture (I really like it). It's a major souvenir of my relationship with Ralph.

David Winter - http://www.pong-story.com

Actually, Ralph chose the photo, but the one he sent me had you cropped out (I didn't even know you were in it until he showed me the original at his house.) Anyway, the photo is being moved to the back cover.

David, please send me your email address because there are other parts of the book that I need to discuss with you.

donemry

03-16-2004, 11:18 AM

Hello everybody,

About the #11 cartridge: according to the original Magnavox documents I own, it was initially designed for the Basketball game. I still need to know why Basketball used #8 instead. If you compare the pinouts, you'll see that the cartridges are almost same, so only a minor change in the game play would have allowed using cartridge #8, and so reducing the production cost.

When I designed the Basketball game, I made the decision to use the number 8 card. I don't recall the exact difference in the attributes of the 11 card. I see from the pin-out charts on David's site that there is only one small difference. I suspect that the 11 card had an additional vertical ine, but one could easily modify an 8 to simulate the 11 and see what happens.

There was no basketball game in the original game set or proposed games that used the 11 card when I took over the game development in 73.

Don

DavidWinter

03-16-2004, 11:45 AM

It was not possible to draw two vertical lines. The Odyssey contained only two spot (player) generators, one central line generator (height and location could be changed), and one ball generator. A second vertical line would have required a second line generator.

However, I have one console (Odyssey clone) which has been slightly upgraded to play Football games with goals. This particular system had additional line generators, as well as an additional gate matrix board to manage additional collisions on those "goal" lines.

David Winter - http://www.pong-story.com

rbudrick

03-16-2004, 06:25 PM

Hmmm...this whole card 11 mystery just got thicker....

-Rob

donemry

03-16-2004, 09:30 PM

I don't see any "mystery" regarding card 11. Neither I nor anyone else ever came up with a game that rerquired that card. It simply represented a set of attributes that COULD be done, but didn't have a practical application in the set of produced and proposed games.

So it was just an engineering proposal that never was used, not uncommon at all.

Don

DavidWinter

03-17-2004, 04:03 AM

Note that you can still use the Odyssey emulator to emulate card #11 and see how it plays. The emulator can be downloaded from this page: http://www.pong-story.com/odyemu.htm

David Winter - http://www.pong-story.com

donemry

03-17-2004, 09:02 AM

I downloded your emulator. In the emulator, card 11 does not generate a ball object. Assuming this is correct, it would not make a very good basketball game.

DavidWinter

03-17-2004, 11:33 AM

Did you reset the virtual Odyssey while using the emulator ?
This particular game has, as fart as I remember, the "hide" effect enabled (ball disappears on collision).

David Winter - http://www.pong-story.com

rbudrick

03-17-2004, 01:18 PM

as fart as I remember
:D
Sorry, couldn't resist. <dodges rotten tomatoes>

-Rob

Stark

03-17-2004, 04:57 PM

I bought my Odyssey about 10 years ago complete in its original box which also included a complete copy of Percepts. What it also had was the original store receipt which I find interesting. Price for the Odyssey was $99.95 and this individual also purchased a Magnavox AC adaptor for $6.95 (I wonder what gamers today would say if the power cord did not come with their PS2 or XBox?). With tax the total was $112.25 and it was bought at a Barrett Home Entertainment Center which I believe was the largest Magnavox retailer in the Chicagoland area at the time. They had 4 stores and it appears they only sold Magnavox products. At the bottom of the receipt they wrote 90 days exchange and No Refund. No extended warranty back then I guess.
Just thought I'd share. 8-)

rolenta

03-17-2004, 11:21 PM

I wonder what gamers today would say if the power cord did not come with their PS2 or XBox

Well since the Odyssey ran on batteries, and even came with the batteries, it wasn't a big deal. No different then buying a GBA today.

rbudrick

03-18-2004, 02:45 AM

Well since the Odyssey ran on batteries, and even came with the batteries, it wasn't a big deal. No different then buying a GBA today.

Ummm, yeah, except the Odyssey isn't portable....portable sysems never come with AC adapters, as far as I remember. Most systems in the 70s ran on batteries, though. I'm sure the Odyssey started that trend!

We should try to convince Ben Heckendorn ?sp? (maker of the NESp and SNESp et al) to make the Op. LOL LOL LOL

Yeah, I'm sure he'd wanna hack one of them babies up and shrink the overlays :roll:

-Rob

donemry

03-18-2004, 02:04 PM

After playing with the emulator:

card7.mo1 and card8.mo1 were identical files. I created a correct (?) card8.mo1 and tried that. It now behaves the same as card11.mo1 in that neither will present a ball on reset, only on intialization. So I assume that there is a bug in the code (I have seen many of those critters over the last 20 years).

However, your thought about the "ball blank on collison" as the difference could be plausible, I suppose.

In any event, I do not recall ever creating any type of game with card 11.

Don

mrhaboobi

03-18-2004, 10:44 PM

I am one of the few in the world who have a complete Odyssey collection:

http://uk.geocities.com/thomas.holzer@btinternet.com/Odds.htm

Besides me, there are David Winter in France, Ulf Svensson in Sweden, and another person who's name I forgot (who has two complete sets).

With 'complete', I mean the 1973 run of games (4 games): Interplanetary Voyage, Baskteball, W.I.N., Brain Wave. According to David Winter, these games have only been found four times so far (in the whole world). When asking Ralph Bear, he didn't even know about the 1973 games.

Could you do me a favour and add me to that list :) I have all of the gear as well all boxed etc..

I have a question regarding the overseas release of the systems, in the gear i have a noticed that i have a few asian inserts, i cant specifically say if its chinese or japanese..

so did this system make it into asia? I cant understand how the insert got in with my gear as every came out of the US..

Ok i just caught up with the thread.. my questions already been answered..

Cheers

rolenta

03-19-2004, 02:08 AM

so did this system make it into asia? I cant understand how the insert got in with my gear as every came out of the US.

Well according to Ralph's book, and information from David Winter, the Odyssey was exported to 12 countries: Australia, Belgium, England, France, Germany, Greece, Israel, Italy, Spain, Switzerland, USSR, Venezuela.

SoulBlazer

03-19-2004, 04:14 PM

Here's a question I ment to ask eariler:

You say you were the first profesional game tester, and I believe you and admire you for being the first. :) I just wonder what kind of 'testing' and play control went into these games.

Now a days, a game is tested and played by dozens of people and betas are sent to major magazines to try out and get feedback on. Even during the Intelivision and Atari days, they would have many people, not even involved with the company, try the game out.

What was the process between when a game idea was born and the game was released?

tom

03-19-2004, 05:37 PM

The Odyssey made it to Japan, as Nintendo imported the US version of the console (source: Book Game Over, page 19).

donemry

03-19-2004, 10:24 PM

The short answer to the testing question is "not much", by the early standards you reference, and essentially none by todays standards.

From the standpoint of the electronics, they were so simple that it was pretty much when enginerring said the circuits were stable and all of the attributes worked, the testing was done and engineering did that testing. I was not directly involved at that time and this was a "secret" project so I have to do some inference based on what I later learned.

The original overlay games with all the bits and peices were essentially developed by an outside game consultant. Bob Fritsche told me that he and his family did most of the testing on those games. I did some of the user instructions on the original games and those instructions were written after the complete game designs were completed. I recall going over to a tennis center to find out how a game of tennis was scored. I don't think there was a great deal of play testing on the low action games like roulette. It was always my impression that "filling up the box" was more important to the marketing guys than the playability of the games.

In context of the times, consider that the simple fact that you could do anything on a TV, besdies watching, it was an amazement for most everyone. The initial "wow" factor carried the project.

One of the specific reasons that I was transferred to the project was to improve the games and do more testing. I also had to respond to all of the user letters (people really wrote letters on paper then), so I got a lot of feedback from the customers. Bob Fritsche was so overwhelmed by the marketing issues, he no longer had time to play the games, let alone develop them.

So I sat in my office and played with the bare game to understand how the screen actions worked and then drew up simple overlays to try various concepts. I would then grab anyone who could spare a few minutes to play the concept with me on the two player games. However, I could seldom get anyone to play with very long because by that time I was really proficient in using the controls. Baketball was an exception. I had a friend that was really excited about Odyssey and he and I spent a lot of time on that game, hours (not days and not certainly not weeks).

So ultimatley, I really created, designed (or finalized WIN) and tested the 1973 games by myself. I just had to show the marketing people what I had done. As I had previously mentioned, I also proposed some changes to the 1972 games, but none of the changes were ever implemented due to the large inventory on the shelf. By the way, I did most of Interplaneary Voyage before I joined the project. That game was my ticket to ride.

So, when you consider the context of the time, no one really thought about play testing the games, no one had any experince, this was the first time for everyone.

Don

DavidWinter

03-29-2004, 12:00 PM

Indeed Odyssey was released in many other countries, including Singapore. Could you email me some large definition scans of what you have ?

So far I have one French, one German and one Austrian Odyssey. All made by Magnavox and playing 10 games of the 12 supplied in the US version. I also have the ITT/Schaub-Lorentz Odyssee released in Germany, of which about five specimens are known to exist (basically, ITT imported US Odyssey consoles in very limited amount and repackaged them; under the large ITT stickers on the carton box, are the Magnavox name and the original 1TL200 reference). This particular version was announced in France in December 1973 for the first semester of 1974, but the Magnavox version with 10 games replaced it. Only one "french" specimen is known to exist (it does have the french flyer, which can be seen on my site). The original US version from 1972 was imported in limited amounts in the UK (and possibly other countries, yet this has never been verified).

There might be other versions, possibly with translations and/or flyers/manuals in foreign languages, but so far I never got aware of them.

David Winter - http://www.pong-story.com