--- title: WORLD BOOK Tutor Vision categories: - Consoles params: name: Tutor Vision image: /media/museum/photos/worldbook_tutorvision_2.jpg logo: /media/museum/logos/tutor-vision_logo.gif company: /companies/world-book company_name: WORLD BOOK tabs: - photos - hardware - emulators - links - docs photos: - title: THE SYSTEM subtitle: '' text: Someone holding the rare Tutor Vision from World Book. image: /media/museum/photos/worldbook_tutorvision_someone.jpg - title: DETAIL subtitle: '' text: '' image: /media/museum/photos/worldbook_tutorvision_detail.jpg - title: MOTHERBOARD subtitle: '' text: '' image: /media/museum/photos/worldbook_tutorvision_mobo.jpg hardware: - title: COMPUTER ADD-ON subtitle: White version text: Mattel was in a bind to compete with the increasing amount of game systems and computers entering the market so they set up competing internal engineering teams, each trying to either fix the Keyboard Component or replace it. The result was a new component system dubbed "the Entertainment Computer System" that proved to be was much smaller, sleeker, and easier to produce than the original Keyboard Component. Users who opted to keep their old "Keyboard Components" were offered the new system in exchange. In the end, however, the "ECS" was a retail flop. Although the original Keyboard Component offered some promise if it could have been fixed, the new one was designed to be cheap, not functional and simply could not compete with the likes of computers like the Commodore 64, never mind that it was totally incompatible to the older "Intellivision Keyboard Component". image: /media/museum/hardware/mattel_intellivision_white_ecs.jpg - title: RIGHT SIDE subtitle: '' text: Thanks to this connector it's possible to connect other Intellivision expansions image: /media/museum/hardware/mattel_intellivision_ecs_r-side.jpg - title: LEFT SIDE subtitle: '' text: The ECS is attached to the Intellivision master console thanks to this interface image: /media/museum/hardware/mattel_intellivision_ecs_l-side.jpg - title: KEYBOARD subtitle: White version text: '' image: /media/museum/hardware/mattel_intellivision_ecs_keyboard.jpg - title: OPENED LID subtitle: '' text: The connectors are used to attached the keyboard via a special "Y" cable. image: /media/museum/hardware/mattel_intellivision_ecs_opened.jpg - title: BOX subtitle: '' text: '' image: /media/museum/hardware/mattel_intellivision_ecs_box.jpg - title: PROMOTIONAL PICTURE subtitle: Brown version text: '' image: /media/museum/hardware/mattel_intellivision_ecs_1.jpg - title: ITALIAN PROMOTIONAL LEAFLET subtitle: featuring also the music synthesizer text: '' image: /media/museum/hardware/mattel_intellivision_ecs_ita_1.jpg - title: ITALIAN PROMOTIONAL LEAFLET subtitle: featuring also the music synthesizer text: '' image: /media/museum/hardware/mattel_intellivision_ecs_ita_2.jpg - title: DOWNLOAD GAMES subtitle: '' text: 3rd party developer Schell Electronics during the late 1990's developed the Intellicart to transfer Intellivision games from selected Internet sites and play them directly on their Intellivision unit. It connected via a 9pin serial connected to the back of a PC via a wire while it remained connected to the Intellivision via it's cartridge port. The device is no longer made. image: /media/museum/hardware/mattel_intellivision_intellicart.jpg - title: LET YOUR CONSOLE SPEAK ! subtitle: '' text: |- The "Intellivoice" was launched in 1982 to much fanfare when it was introduced as the second voice synthesis system ever made for video games (The first was Magnavox's voice module for the Odyssey). Innovative for the time, "Intellivoice" produced speech when used with certain games, most of which would not work without the add-on component. The VSM was a large, brown cartridge that could be plugged into the Intellivision, at which point games specifically designed for the device could be inserted like a normal cartridge into the right side of the module. More information available in the [READ MORE](/museum/mattel-electronics-intellivision/) section. image: /media/museum/hardware/mattel_intellivision_intellivoice.jpg - title: TURN YOUR INTELLIVISION INTO A REAL COMPUTER ! subtitle: '' text: Sometime before the failed Aquarius home computer scheme was hatched by Mattel, the Intellivision team had attempted to expand Intellivision into the growing home computer market by turning it into a full fledged computer dubbed as the "Intellivision Keyboard Component", much in the same way Coleco was soon to do with their Adam computer. The unit featured a built-in cassette tape drive for loading and saving data. The Keyboard Component would plug into the cartridge slot on the Intellivision, and had an additional cartridge slot of its own to allow regular Intellivision game cartridges to be played in the usual way. It used the famous 6502 microprocessor as its base. This device was a promise made by Mattel way back in 1979 when they claimed the Intellivision could be upgraded to become a 64K computer. image: /media/museum/hardware/mattel_intellivision_component-keyboard.jpg - title: PROMOTIONAL PICTURE subtitle: '' text: '' image: /media/museum/hardware/mattel_intellivision_component-keyboard_2.jpg - title: PROMOTIONAL PICTURE subtitle: '' text: '' image: /media/museum/hardware/mattel_intellivision_component-keyboard_3.jpg - title: PROMOTIONAL PICTURE subtitle: '' text: '' image: /media/museum/hardware/mattel_intellivision_component-keyboard_4.jpg - title: PROMOTIONAL PICTURE subtitle: '' text: '' image: /media/museum/hardware/mattel_intellivision_component-keyboard_5.jpg - title: KEYBOARD & BOX subtitle: '' text: |- The Intellivision Music Synthesizer was a real music keyboard providing 49 keys, 6 polifonic notes (it can play 6 notes at the same time). The keyboard demands the ECS component in order to work: it would be connected through a double 9 pin connector to the controller doors of the Mattel adapter. The Music Synthesizer could be found in the traditional but rare color brown color typical of the first Intellivision model, or in the gray color of Intellivision II. Unfortunately Mattel created only one game to take advantage of the musical add-on, that being "Melody Blaster". image: /media/museum/hardware/mattel_intellivision_piano-keyboard_2.jpg - title: ITALIAN PROMOTIONAL LEAFLET subtitle: '' text: '' image: /media/museum/hardware/mattel_intellivision_synthe_1.jpg - title: ATTACHED TO THE INTELLIVISION subtitle: '' text: The Intellivision was the first system to feature downloadable games (though without a storage device the games vanished once the machine was turned off). In 1981, General Instrument (manufacturer of the Intellivision's CPU) teamed up with Mattel to roll out the "PlayCable", a device that allowed the downloading of Intellivision games via cable TV using what we would now call a primitive "Cable DSL Modem". This device of course assumed the user had Cable TV, as in the Early 1980's most people still did not. image: /media/museum/hardware/mattel_intellivision_playcable.jpg - title: 'PICTURE #2' subtitle: '' text: '' image: /media/museum/hardware/mattel_intellivision_playcable_2.jpg - title: SCREENSHOT subtitle: '' text: This screenshot is what appears when you turn the unit on since the Playcable service doesn't exist anymore (you bet!). This all you get... image: /media/museum/hardware/mattel_intellivision_playcable_ss.jpg - title: LABEL subtitle: '' text: '' image: /media/museum/hardware/mattel_intellivision_playcable_label.jpg - title: PLAY ATARI 2600 GAMES ! subtitle: '' text: 'The System Changer plugs into the Master Component and lets the owner play Atari VCS games. This new add-on is actually a VCS clone in a box complete with Atari joystick ports and game select/reset buttons. 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 VCS by other manufacturers.' image: /media/museum/hardware/mattel_intellivision_system-changer.jpg - title: PLAY 8 DIFFERENT GAMES subtitle: without changing cartridges text: Third party developer Compro created an Intellivision device knoiwn as "Videoplexer", a gamer could plug in up to 8 games at a time at the same time instead of pulling each cartriudge out when finished. Very few of these units were ever made. The device would sit connected to Intellivision's cartridge port with the games pluggged into any or all of the 8 cartridge slots, and the user would push a button corresponding the the game they wished to play. image: /media/museum/hardware/mattel_intellivision_videoplexer_1.jpg emulators: - title: Nostalgia url: http://www.shiny-technologies.com/nostalgia.php platform: Windows text: many features including ECS, Intellivoice,CGC support, network play, menu system, box/overlay display and text manual reader - title: Bliss url: http://bliss.kylesblog.com/ platform: Multiplatform text: Intellivision emulator for Windows and PalmOS - title: IntellivisionWorld url: http://www.intellivisionworld.com/Download/List.asp?iwCat=1 platform: Multiplatform text: More emulators at IntellivisionWorld - title: jzINTV url: http://spatula-city.org/~im14u2c/intv/ platform: Multiplatform text: Good emulator for Unix, Windows and MacOS links: - title: Intellivision Exhibition url: http://www.hotcom.com/intellivision text: Overlays and screenshots for more than 100 games! - title: Intellivision FAQ url: http://www.intellivisionworld.com/FAQ/#_Toc140592017 text: Excellent FAQ. Very complete and good quality - title: Intellivision Gaming Network url: http://intvgn.roarvgm.com/ text: News, emulators and downloads - title: Intellivision Gumbo Website url: http://home.earthlink.net/~classic-videogames/intellivision/ text: At this site you'll find a tasty Intellivision stew, with pictures of rare Intellivision hardware, games, catalogs and fanzines - title: Intellivision Hot Spot url: http://www.intellivision.org/HomePage.asp text: custom overlays, hardware, software, rarity and more - title: Intellivision Lives - Tutor Vision story url: http://www.intellivisionlives.com/media/newsletters/news030715.html text: Excellent info about the Tutor Vision here - title: Intellivision World - Tutor Vision info url: http://www.intellivisionworld.com/Hardware/World-Book-Tutorvision.asp text: Nice info from this excellent site - title: INTELLIVISIONlives.com url: http://www.intellivisionlives.com/ text: Must see site from the Blue Sky Rangers, original Intellivison programmers - title: IntellivisionWorld.com url: http://www.intellivisionworld.com/ text: Excellent website full of info. Wonderfuly designed. - title: INTV Funhouse url: http://intvfunhouse.com/ text: Intellivision fun, facts, tips & pics - title: Wikipedia - Intellivision entry url: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellivision text: Nice article from Wikipedia docs: - title: INTELLIVISION MASTER COMPONENT - OWNER'S MANUAL url: http://www.intellivisionlives.com/bluesky/games/instructions/console.shtml cover: /media/museum/docs/couvs/mattel_intellivision_owner-manual.jpg text: |- [**INTELLIVISION MASTER COMPONENT - OWNER'S MANUAL**](http://www.intellivisionlives.com/bluesky/games/instructions/console.shtml)written by Mattel  compiled/archived by www.intellivisionlives.com\  type of document : HTML\  source : [www.intellivisionlives.com](http://www.intellivisionlives.com) comments: - author: Steve Ettinger date: Sunday 3rd August 2014 text: |- Your history of the World Book Tutor Vision saga is quite thorough and accurate! As one of the programmers of the software for the system (I wrote 5 or 6 of them as I recall), your recap brought back tons of memories! I do also recall that at about the same time as the titles were being completed, and the system was about to launch, a new kids-oriented learning game system hit the stores - one that was superior in most ways - a system that was called Socrates. The sound capabilities of the Socrates were inferior (at least as was demonstrated by the few examples I heard), but the system did in fact beat the Tutor Vision to market. And it appeared to have better graphics, and superior processing power. I''m sure that Dave Warhol and/or Keith Robinson would have more information should you care to contact them. related: - /museum/intv-corp-system-iii - /museum/mattel-electronics-intellivision - /museum/mattel-electronics-keyboard-component oc_id: 1214 source: url: https://web.archive.org/web/20221205170304/http://www.old-computers.com/museum/computer.asp?c=1214 date: '2022-12-05' --- In 1989, INTV Corp. signed a joint business deal with World Book Encyclopedia to manufacture the Tutorvision. The Tutorvision was basically just a modified version of the original [Intellivision Master Console](/museum/mattel-electronics-intellivision/) except it's exterior was gold coloured, the buttons on the keypad are bubble-style and not flat like the INTV III version, it featured a power-on LED, the original two circuit boards were now merged into one with the chips all dated 1988-90, and the logos were changed to the Tutorvision logo on the top portion of the console and the World Book emblem on the bottom. The plan for this new system was to release two sets of eight educational game cartridges for children; one set for the very young and the other for older kids. These cartridges would only work on the TutorVision model and not on a regular Intellivision unit, although the TutorVision would also be able to play regular Intellivision cartridges also. The World Book direct sales staff would market Tutorvision as they did encyclopedias; i.e.: get the console and one set of the cartridges for a set of monthly payments. --- Contributors: "Skel" (Derek McDonald)
We need more info about this console ! If you designed, used, or have more info about this system, please send us pictures or anything you might find useful.