Mattel Intellivision
This is the original release of the Intellivision, with the brown casing and
controllers that can't be detached. At the time of it's release, the
Intellivision was one of the most advanced game systems to yet appear and
used the GI CP1600 16-bit cpu running at 500khz. Mattel even promised an
add-on module that would turn it into a computer and this promise sold quite
a few of the units based on this alone. Unfortunately, Mattel found that the
planned computer add-on would be too expensive to produce and dropped the
idea after releasing approximately 4000 units as a test. Those people that
bought the Intellivision solely because of the promise of turning it into a
computer complained to the FTC and Mattel eventually did release the computer
add-on, though in a much different form than originally planned. The
Intellivision was test marketed in Fresno, California in late 1979 and
released nationwide in late 1980, selling 200,000 units the first year, and a
total of 3 million of all models by the time production ceased in 1990. The
Intellivision was also sold in Radio Shack stores as the 'Tandyvision One'
and in Sears stores as the 'Super Video Arcade'.
The Intellivision was eventually itself redesigned, dubbed the Intellivision
II, as well as having plans for a more advanced system. Unfortunately, only
the Intellivision II made it to market before the video game crash of '84
and Mattel closing it's electronics division. The Intellivision was then
sold to a company called INTV who revived it as the INTV System III,
selling $6 million worth of the machines and games in the fall of 1985. 35
new game titles were released btween 1985 and 1990, bringing the total
number of Intellivision games released up to 125.
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