2nd generation console discussion(Intellivision, Colecovision, 2600, Odyssey 2)

[Yharnamresident]

I've recently became fascinated with this generation for the first time in my life.

These consoles were essentially the Cambrian Explosion of video games. Before the Explosion, the most complex animal was a jellyfish(aka pong consoles), but then after the explosion we started seeing crab relatives(aka Fairchild F) and octopus relatives(aka Intellivision).





Another reason I've become fascinated with this generation, is I've learned theres so many other consoles in this generation besides the Atari 2600, and ones with better graphics and sound.





So basically these were the consoles that existed before the revolutionary NES came into existence.

Now I am a fan of playing games on original hardware, but this generation kinda makes that unappealing to do. Theres 2 things I don't like:

1. insanely outdated video connections
2. exotic controllers

I do know theres ways to get around this. Like you can use a Genesis controller on a 2600, and combined with an S-video mod, those problems are gone. But thats not the same solution for every console.

You can easily tell by my post that I did not grow up with these consoles, and they predate my existence by a decade. But I'm sure theres tons of members here who grew up with these consoles and could share their stories and advise to newcomers interested in them.

[Team Andromeda]

The Intellivision was my 1st ever console, that I had along with the Philips G7000. I loved the Intellivision and still have it and play it to this very day (I had a video output mode so I can use RCA cables). I wasn't the biggest fan of the Philips G7000 and sold mine for £5 and a ton of games (which I now regret) I did love playing Pickaxe Pete on it mind

[Black_Tiger]

Intellivision was the first console with tiles, sprites and hardware scrolling. It has a built-in operating system which made it easy to develop 2600 quality games with better aesthetics and keep rom sizes low, but it also capped game potential to a fraction of what the hardware can really do.

The Colecovison's only practical advantage over the Intellivision is the overall resolution. The Intellivision's sprite layer is more or less the sane resolution, but many games use the hardware supported stretching to make them appear larger and chunkier on screen.

The Intellivision only has 8 hardware sprites, but it can display them all on the same line, while the Colecovision can only display 4 sprites on a line. This is why Colecovision is known for flicker. All of these sprites are 2-color, which typically means 1 visible color. So multi-colored sprites are stacked layers of sprites, which reaches sprite caps quicker.

The Intelliciaion has a true 16-directional disc. 8 - 16-bit d-pads only have 4 directions. The only issue with the controller is that it can't send the signal from a disc touch and keypad press at once. Some early games were developed oblivious to this. But some games allow you to use two controllers at once, allowing for twin stick style control.

[Genesis Knight]

Intellivision was my first console as well. The box art is excellent, and the games have a level of polish and "solidity" to them that makes 2600 hard to adjust to after Intellivision.

[CrossBow]

Well, the Odyssey 300 (Pong clone) was technically my first console but we didn't 'play' on it much. However, in 1982 we did get our first game system. That was the 2600. I never knew about the Intellivision or Colecovision really back then because everyone I knew had Atari and Atari was aggressive in marketing back then as I can remember Atari commercials but not really Colecovision and especially Intellivision commercials. So for me the 2600 will always be my first. Lots of memories of going to friends houses to play games because while $40 might seem cheap for a new released game today, it wasn't cheap in the early 80s. So we didn't all tend to have the same games from house to house and would borrow each others games. Great times and fun back then.

As for the games? Well I can remember playing a lot of the Activision games back then as we all thought those were amazing games graphically etc. For the time they were!

[Team Andromeda]

Intellivision was my first console as well. The box art is excellent, and the games have a level of polish and "solidity" to them that makes 2600 hard to adjust to after Intellivision.

I think Mattel set a very early high standard with its sports games, My me uncle and brother used to love playing many of them, especially so, for PGA Golf. I used to love playing the card based on it, along with the likes of Night Stalker, Frogger and Popeye. But my fav game of all for it was the stunning port of Super Cobra.

[Sik]

Get out of my head, I happened to be talking about the Intellivision yesterday.

Mainly because YouTube recommended me this video:



And yeah, it has scrolling (something pretty much missing from other 2nd gen systems), and while it only has eight sprites, bear in mind that (assuming the usual size) they covered the same area as 16×16 on a NES (which is limited to 8×8 or 8×16 sprites), so the situation wasn't as bad as it sounds. The sound hardware is also more comparable to the SG-1000 and Master System one (three square waves + one noise). In this sense the main drawback is the lack of RAM (only 240 bytes, and the Executive ROM uses up quite a large chunk if you rely on its routines).

Also the Executive ROM may have been slow but if the alternative was to cram everything into 5KB (not 4KB because the CPU used 10-bit opcodes) you weren't really going to get much further anyway… (and from what I looked, not only it has basic stuff, but also has some math routines and even built-in sound effects and a basic music player). The GROM graphics also help, by letting you avoid having to spend memory on text graphics and some basic shapes.


Also I have no freaking idea what was with all the console vendors thinking that a keypad was a good idea. Yes, I get the logic behind it (games providing overlays to give you custom layouts), but in practice it was awful. The Atari joystick wasn't exactly the greatest but at least Atari had the right idea. And the Channel F had… something (I admit I'm surprised we haven't seen more 3D sticks over time).

[Yharnamresident]

Ok I see the direction this thread is going. And its perfect because my question was in that direction anyway.


I've been playing Smurfs for the Colecovision. Surely this console's hardware must be closer to the NES than the 2600, look at the resolution and how many frames of animation the character has:



Has there been much discussion about Colecovision vs NES?

[Sik]

It's the same video chip as the SG-1000 and MSX1 (i.e. TMS9918A). That's probably a good starting point.

Supposedly Nintendo was impressed at the Donkey Kong port for Colecovision and influenced the Famicom's design (although to be fair, the Famicom seemed to have been mostly copying the design from early '80s arcades, down to having separate program and graphics ROMs).

[Yharnamresident]

And yeah, it has scrolling (something pretty much missing from other 2nd gen systems), and while it only has eight sprites, bear in mind that (assuming the usual size) they covered the same area as 16×16 on a NES (which is limited to 8×8 or 8×16 sprites), so the situation wasn't as bad as it sounds. The sound hardware is also more comparable to the SG-1000 and Master System one (three square waves + one noise). In this sense the main drawback is the lack of RAM (only 240 bytes, and the Executive ROM uses up quite a large chunk if you rely on its routines).

Oh yes, 240 bytes is definitely a 2nd gen amount of RAM. Its kinda like the OG Xbox has elements of 7th gen consoles(native HD support and 5.1 Dolby in-game, an HDD), but then it has this 6th gen 64 MB RAM and a Pentium 3, and 6th gen polycounts.

[Black_Tiger]

Ok I see the direction this thread is going. And its perfect because my question was in that direction anyway.


I've been playing Smurfs for the Colecovision. Surely this console's hardware must be closer to the NES than the 2600, look at the resolution and how many frames of animation the character has:



Has there been much discussion about Colecovision vs NES?

How about Intellivision vs NES?

[Yharnamresident]

I haven't tried the Intellivision yet via emulation. Those games do look pretty impressive, but they do have that low sub-240p resolution.

Also I absolutely love Old West games. In fact I made a thread about them a couple years ago.

[Genesis Knight]

I really enjoy the anedotes about some of the games on Blue Sky Rangers (the old site):

https://history.blueskyrangers.com/m...htstalker.html

[Leynos]

Superman- Atari 2600. My very first time playing a video game. SO when I was a wee lad at Pre-school the lady who ran it had a son who on occasion volunteered there. He was a good artist and put a TMNT mural on one of the walls. He was also really into gaming. So they had a room set up with Atari and NES consoles. At that age I was really into Superman. So when I saw Superman on Atari I had to play it. I had no idea what I was doing but loved every minute of it. I was 3. It introduced me to the world of video games and I never stopped. Funny enough. I have not played it since then. The only thing I remember is no music and he looked like a flying Spiderman.

[BonusKun]

Ok I see the direction this thread is going. And its perfect because my question was in that direction anyway.


I've been playing Smurfs for the Colecovision. Surely this console's hardware must be closer to the NES than the 2600, look at the resolution and how many frames of animation the character has:



Has there been much discussion about Colecovision vs NES?

Watching this game gives me an eerie feeling of an early Super Mario Run.