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. When plugging a cartridge into the console, internal diode logic circuits are interconnected in different ways to produce the desired result. Odyssey’s cartridges contain no components: they are basically wirejumper sets. 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. It even suggested that you could trim them down to fit your TV set!ĭespite the basic nature of the games by today's standards, the system marked a crucial change in the way people used their TVs. 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. 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. Each game used a plastic transparent colour overlay which was to affixed to the TV set. 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. Six cartridges could be used to play up to 12 games - sometimes the same cartridges being used more than once to play different games. In fact there were only 40 diodes and 40 transistors inside. This system is very basic, having no CPU, score mechanism, colour or sound. It was then launched in 1972 at the end of which over 100,000 units were sold. In retrospect, all ROM-based cartridge manufacturers may have been required to pay a royalty to Sanders Associates had Ralph Baer filed a patent for his "active cartridges".The Magnavox Odyssey was the first home video game system, invented by Ralph Baer, who started work on it as early as 1967. Unfortunately the idea did not catch any interest. Ralph Baer also proposed the concept of "active cartridges" containing additional electronic components allowing adding more game features such as sound effects, variable net position, variable ball speed, etc. It was also sold with dice, poker chips and score sheets to help keep score, much like a traditional board game. Some of these overlays could even be used with the same cartridges, though with different rules for playing. The system was sold with translucent plastic overlays that gamers could put on their TV screen to simulate color graphics, though only two TV sizes were supported. These jumpers interconnect different logic and signal generators to produce the desired game logic and screen output components respectively. The Odyssey uses a type of removable printed circuit board card that inserts into a slot similar to a cartridge slot these do not contain any components but have a series of jumpers between pins of the card connector. Ralph Baer proposed a sound extension to Magnavox in 1973, but the idea was rejected. The Odyssey lacks sound capability, something that was corrected with the "Pong systems" of several years later, including Magnavox's own Odyssey-labeled Pong consoles. The games and logic itself are implemented in DTL, a common pre-TTL digital design component using discrete transistors and diodes. The electronic signals exchanged between the various parts (ball and players generators, sync generators, diode matrix, etc.) are binary. While many collectors consider the Odyssey analog rather than digital (because of the addition of analog circuitry for the output, game control, and the use of discrete components), Baer has said he considers the console to be digital. In 2009, video game website IGN named the Odyssey number 25 in the Top 25 video game consoles of all time. This prototype, known as the Brown Box, is now at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C. The Odyssey was designed by Ralph Baer, who began around 1966 and had a working prototype finished by 1968. It was first demonstrated on and released in August of that year, predating the Atari Pong home consoles by three years. The Magnavox Odyssey is the world's first home video game console.
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