website/content/museum/magnavox-odyssey.md

title, categories, origins, years, params

title	categories	origins	years	params
MAGNAVOX Odyssey	Consoles	U.S.A.	1972	name image logo company company_name specs tabs photos adverts emulators links videos comments oc_id source Odyssey /media/museum/photos/magnavox_odyssey_1.jpg /media/museum/logos/magnavox_odyssey_logo.gif /companies/magnavox MAGNAVOX label value NAME Odyssey label value MANUFACTURER Magnavox label value ORIGIN U.S.A. label value YEAR 1972 label value END OF PRODUCTION 1975 label value BUILT IN LANGUAGE None (sort of), in fact all game games potential are built-in the system. Cartridges are all only there to cable the components and program the different games label value KEYBOARD 2 largish block sized controllers with a round dial on either side. label value CPU None label value COLORS Black & white label value SOUND None label value I/O PORTS Cartridge slot label value BUILT IN MEDIA Cartridges label value OS 12 label value POWER SUPPLY 6 x 'C' batteries. Optional external adaptor (9V, 40MA) label value PERIPHERALS Optional rifle label value PRICE $100 (USA, 1972) photos adverts emulators links videos comments title subtitle text image MAIN UNIT /media/museum/photos/magnavox_odyssey_3.jpg title subtitle text image ODYSSEY /media/museum/photos/magnavox_odyssey_2.jpg title subtitle text image FRONT /media/museum/photos/magnavox_odyssey_front.jpg title subtitle text image TOP /media/museum/photos/magnavox_odyssey_top.jpg title subtitle text image CONTROLLER /media/museum/photos/magnavox_odyssey_controller.jpg title subtitle text image CONTROLLER /media/museum/photos/magnavox_odyssey_controller_2.jpg title subtitle text image LOGO /media/museum/photos/magnavox_odyssey_logo_1.jpg title subtitle text image CARTRIDGE Just simple contacts... Thanks to [www.pong-story.com](http://www.pong-story.com) for this picture /media/museum/photos/magnavox_odyssey_cart-7.jpg title subtitle text image SOME ACCESSORIES /media/museum/photos/magnavox_odyssey_accessories_1.jpg title subtitle text image SCREEN OVERLAYS Thanks to [www.pong-story.com](http://www.pong-story.com) for this picture /media/museum/photos/magnavox_odyssey_overlays.jpg title subtitle text image SUITCASE The Odyssey was sold in a suitcase or in a box with all its accessories. /media/museum/photos/magnavox_odyssey_valise_1.jpg title subtitle text image IN BOX /media/museum/photos/magnavox_odyssey_in-box.jpg title subtitle text image BOX /media/museum/photos/magnavox_odyssey_box_1.jpg title subtitle text image DOCUMENTATION /media/museum/photos/magnavox_odyssey_doc.jpg title subtitle text image FRENCH ADVERT Thanks to [www.pong-story.com](http://www.pong-story.com) for this picture /media/museum/adverts/magnavox_odyssey_advert_1.jpg title subtitle text image FRENCH PROMOTIONAL PICTURE Thanks to [www.pong-story.com](http://www.pong-story.com) for this picture /media/museum/adverts/magnavox_odyssey_promo-pic_1.jpg title subtitle text image GERMAN PROMOTIONAL PICTURE Thanks to [www.pong-story.com](http://www.pong-story.com) for this picture /media/museum/adverts/magnavox_odyssey_promo-pic_2.jpg title url platform text OdyEmu http://www.pong-story.com/odyemu.htm MS DOS This is the only emulator available, brought to you by Paul Robson & David Winter title url text Odyssey FAQ http://www.pong-story.com/o1faq.txt Useful file now maintained by David Winter title url text Online Odyssey Museum http://www.magnavox-odyssey.com/ Very complete site dedicated to the Odyssey title url text Pong-Story.com http://www.pong-story.com/odyssey.htm David has put up the most complete page on the net about the Odyssey. Worth a visit. title url text Magnavox Odyssey TV Commercial - February 1973 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2EIsnr_cv4 Length: 29 s title url text Ralph Baer and Bill Harrison Play Ping-Pong Video Game, 1969 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1LsRGUODHlQ Length: 2 min 43 s title url text History of the Odyssey https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iEVoqQ--_xM Length: 6 min 10 s title url text Magnavox Odyssey: unreleased Round Ball demo - Winter & Baer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mVrYV4Q7l3s Length: 6 min 32 s title url text Ralph Baer and Al Alcorn Play Ping-Pong Video Game - 2008 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oqyDmSobC54 Length: 2 min 09 s author date text Daniel (spain) Tuesday 9th February 2021 In Spain, a clone machine was launched circa 1973. It uses switch rather than cartridges to swap the games. author date text Tom (USA) Wednesday 29th August 2007 Just remember - Pong wasn't the first home video game. Magnavox Odyssey predated it by a year to the month. I worked part time in a Magnavox TV store at the time and we couldn't sell many Odysseys because people thought they had to have a Magnavox TV to use it! People had no previous experience with video games so their ignorance was excuseable. author date text Alex M. (Seattle, WA) Saturday 4th February 2006 The oddysey *IS* a digital system. But rather than using a general purpose CPU it has dedicated game circuitry. The behavior of the ball, and paddles, and the existence of bounce zones, etc, are controlled directly by the cartridge pins. One pin is output of +5V to the cartridge. The rest are all inputs, and the cartridge asserts +5V on any of those inputs to activate a given behavior. So all a cartridge is is wires running from the one input pin to a certain set of outputs, that set varying by cartridge... it's really just a bunch of jumpers! I am te proud owner of one of these, and when it failed on me, I took it apart and reverse-engineered it so I could figure out how to repait it. :) author date text Chad C. (California, USA) Tuesday 24th May 2005 SEARS & ROEBUCK offered a simple home-entertainment-system back in 1974-75 ? It was called: HOCKEY-JOCKARY from Telegames . It feature some of the games Odyssey had; Practice, Tennis-for-Two,\ Jokary, and Hockey . Variants made a total of eight games to be played . This game system did feature an onscreen player score count of up to 15 !\ A Digital Counter of Modulo-16 would be needed for this effect . . So it might have been analog crktry, but it needed Digital Logic IC's ! Controls were very simple; Potentiometers in handheld dial-knob tubes .\ They only created an up or down motion control . . It was Model# 362.997310 author date text Chad Castagana (California, USA) Tuesday 24th May 2005 The first game of PONG, or 'Tennis For Two' (the first electronic video game) was realized at Brookhaven Institute . It utilized the laboratory's Giant Analog Computers and Relay Logic to create a, on an Oscilloscope Screen, a game of Tennis For Two(PONG) . . The article from Old-Computers.com said that this game console of Magnavox ODYSSEY had no c.p.u. , does that mean it had not have digital logic chips ? It had game cartridges ? Were they not ROM ? If this was an analog system, then what were the game cartridges made of ? Was the game system a hybrid of digital ROM chips and analog video circuitry ? Sincerely, Chad Castagana, USA author date text Steeeeeeev (Atlanta, GA) Thursday 5th August 2004 Groan.. I am OLD... My brothers and I had this when we were little... where did 30 years go? : ) author date text materia_chocomog (Canada) Sunday 29th June 2003 Ahh, I remember this.\ When I was 8 my friend's mom had one. It was quite cool, although (even to this day) I thought the controllers were really weird.\ Funky games, though. Never turn down the chance to play it!! author date text Elisha (male) (USA) Monday 9th June 2003 I think this system is very cool because it is the first ever system.... 883 url date https://web.archive.org/web/20230613152926/http://www.old-computers.com/museum/computer.asp?c=883 2023-06-13

The Magnavox Odyssey was the first home video game system, invented by Ralph Baer, who started work on it as early as 1967. It was then launched in 1972 at the end of which over 100,000 units were sold.

This system is very basic, having no CPU, score mechanism, colour or sound. In fact there were only 40 diodes and 40 transistors inside. Six cartridges could be used to play up to 12 games - sometimes the same cartridges being used more than once to play different games. The large number of game accessories that came with it allowed for different games to be played, with some games using the accessories as a main focus for the game instead of the console. Each game used a plastic transparent colour overlay which was to affixed to the TV set. The overlays compensated for the fact that the Odyssey could only produce a vertical line, a dot for the ball and 2 shorter lines (representing each player controller) on the screen. The overlays were meant to attach to the TV by use of static electricity and smoothed over by hand or a soft cloth, but the instruction manual said if this didn’t work one should use tape instead. It even suggested that you could trim them down to fit your TV set!

The controllers are in fact two largish block sized controllers with a round dial on either side. Twisting the dial on the left for horizontal movement, and the right for vertical movement. An `English’ dial on the left of each one controlled the `deflection ‘ of the ball. Ball speed could also be controlled.

Despite the basic nature of the games by today's standards, the system marked a crucial change in the way people used their TVs. In 1972 the marketing stated that the user could now actually `participate’ in television and not just be a spectator, with the system manual describing it as: `The exciting casino action of Monte Carlo, the thrills of Wimbledon, the challenge of ski trails – can be duplicated right in your own living room.’

The games included tennis, ski, hockey, table tennis, simon says, analogic, states, cat and mouse, submarine, football, haunted house, roulette, invasion and shooting games (with the optional rifle that could be purchased separately). Most games were also played with cards, dices, paper money or game chips delivered with the system.

Odyssey’s cartridges contain no components: they are basically wirejumper sets. When plugging a cartridge into the console, internal diode logic circuits are interconnected in different ways to produce the desired result. As a matter of fact, the Odyssey contains everything to make a game based around a ball, one or two paddles representing the players, and a central or off-side vertical line which serves as a net or a wall. The cartridges act to connect some the machine’s diode logic circuitry to set the aspect and the position of the vertical line (normally centered for ping pong and tennis but located on the left or on the middle for handball and volleyball respectively, or not displayed at all for Chase games and gun games), and to determine the interaction between the ball and the other graphic objects: bounce or erase either a player or a ball spot when there is a collision with a player or the central line (a player could even be erased after a collision with the ball).

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Text and info from Abi Waddell & David Winter.