CGC Round 9 core: Mattel Electronics Intellivision

[PistolsAtDawn]

mattel_intellivision_1s.jpg (57.63 KiB) Viewed 82253 times

System Info

Core info

The Intellivision is a home video game console released by Mattel Electronics in 1979. The name is a portmanteau of "intelligent television". Development began in 1977, the same year as the launch of its main competitor, the Atari 2600. In 1984, Mattel sold its video game assets to a former Mattel Electronics executive and investors, eventually becoming INTV Corporation. Game development ran from 1978 to 1990 when the Intellivision was discontinued. From 1980 to 1983, more than 3 million consoles were sold.

I was lucky enough to have one of these as a kid after my father bought it and a bunch of games when they were on a clearance sale. In my humble opinion, it was better than Atari's offerings at the time (but let's be real, those controllers are awkward on the Intellivision). There are a lot of high quality games, and I'm going to have to think about it before I can narrow my nominations down to only three!

Please make your nominations (up to three) for games to add to our first list, and please second others' nominations as well.

When a week has passed, we will again make a game selection at random and begin playing!

[RascalUK]

Dracula
Tron Deadly Discs
Astrosmash

Three games that defined my childhood playing with my parents and I re bought the system for these games and the memories.

[PistolsAtDawn]

Dracula
Tron Deadly Discs
Astrosmash

Three games that defined my childhood playing with my parents and I re bought the system for these games and the memories.

Second all three. Those are all great!

If you (or anyone!) has any advice over the best way to setup the controls on the MiSTer core, I'd appreciate it. I have three of these consoles and the Flashback mini in various working condition, so I may just sacrifice one of those controllers to hack something together through USB using a microcontroller if nothing else is a suitable replacement. I tried this core once with a regular gamepad, and it's not optimal.

[charmless]

Dracula
Tron Deadly Discs
Astrosmash

Three games that defined my childhood playing with my parents and I re bought the system for these games and the memories.

Second all three. Those are all great!

If you (or anyone!) has any advice over the best way to setup the controls on the MiSTer core, I'd appreciate it. I have three of these consoles and the Flashback mini in various working condition, so I may just sacrifice one of those controllers to hack something together through USB using a microcontroller if nothing else is a suitable replacement. I tried this core once with a regular gamepad, and it's not optimal.

I was just about to ask how playable this core is with a standard controller.

[RascalUK]

I’m fortunate in that years ago messing with emulation I bought an adapter from Canada (I think) that lets you plug a real Inty controller into a socket and it converts it all to USB and it works fine on the MiSTer.

I then picked up a couple of replacement controllers on eBay but would have bought a broken system as at the time you could pick them up for 20 quid. Not so much now.

I’ve never opened up the adapter to see what’s inside it but I’d imagine I could do one myself these days. There’s def something hidden in heat shrink. You have me intrigued now

[PistolsAtDawn]

I was just about to ask how playable this core is with a standard controller.

Some games still are just fine with a standard gamepad, but those that made heavy use of the plastic keypad overlays can be problematic as there may not be enough buttons to map 0-9 to the gamepad.

Astrosmash is one game that's easily enjoyed with a gamepad. Even with the simple control scheme games though it can sometimes still be a pain. One of the issues is games that require the player to input numbers to select options before the game starts.

[PistolsAtDawn]

I nominate:

Worm Whomper
Bomb Squad
Dungeons and Dragons Cloudy Mountain

That was a tough call. There were so many well-designed games for the Intellivision, and I've got a lot of nostalgia for them. This was my first game console. Picking only three and having to leave so many off the list felt cruel!

I'm thankful that Dracula got nominated, because that was a strong contender for me too.

Frog Bog is simple, yet fun and addictive. SNAFU as well.

Atlantis is a fun arcade-style invasion-defense shooter.

Microsurgeon is a colorful and original game about performing surgery on a patient's body parts from the inside as a tiny doctor.

The system was the first to have a 16-bit CPU and a cable service to download games through a peripheral!

[charmless]

I nominate:

Worm Whomper
Bomb Squad
Dungeons and Dragons Cloudy Mountain

That was a tough call. There were so many well-designed games for the Intellivision, and I've got a lot of nostalgia for them. This was my first game console. Picking only three and having to leave so many off the list felt cruel!

I'm thankful that Dracula got nominated, because that was a strong contender for me too.

Frog Bog is simple, yet fun and addictive. SNAFU as well.

Atlantis is a fun arcade-style invasion-defense shooter.

Microsurgeon is a colorful and original game about performing surgery on a patient's body parts from the inside as a tiny doctor.

The system was the first to have a 16-bit CPU and a service to download games wirelessly through a peripheral!

Nice. I second all three.

We used to have an Intellivision when i was 5 or 6 or my neighbours did. I can't really remember. Looking at all these games doesn't really trigger any memories. I don't know how popular the intellivision was in Sweden but I definitely remember playing on one before moving on to the C64.

[Yim]

It’s two player only, but for me the Intellivision’s greatest game is Biplanes, part of the Triple Action cart.

[PistolsAtDawn]

Nice. I second all three.

We used to have an Intellivision when i was 5 or 6 or my neighbours did. I can't really remember. Looking at all these games doesn't really trigger any memories. I don't know how popular the intellivision was in Sweden but I definitely remember playing on one before moving on to the C64.

According to what I've read, the Atari 2600 sold about 10x as many consoles with the InTV being in second place in sales for the second console generation (and I think those were worldwide figures. 30 million vs 3).

The output didn't flicker the way the 2600 did, and it had better sound. The real difference was in how they approached game design and polish. My understanding is that Atari just wanted to shovel out titles as much as possible (the E.T. game being the most notorious of terrible games). The InTV games seem to me to be labors of love in comparison.

Since I have the Flashback console with it's detachable controllers (the originals can be removed through disassembly, no solder), I decided to purchase this DB9 to USB adapter on Tindie: https://www.tindie.com/products/retroni ... k-adapter/

It should work with a Sega MD/Genesis controller too. Shipping was unfortunately almost as much as the adapter, but it was still cheaper than other options I found and won't require rewiring, soldering or a microcontroller hacked inline.

I doubt that it will be here in time for the weekend, so I think that I'm going to attempt to use a keyboard's number pad in addition to a regular gamepad. I'll report back if that's a viable option.

It’s two player only, but for me the Intellivision’s greatest game is Biplanes, part of the Triple Action cart.

That was a fun cartridge. I enjoyed all three of the mini games, but unfortunately as you said they require two players since there was no AI.

[RascalUK]

My original controllers don’t have a DB9 connection. Not sure if that’s what you meant.

[PistolsAtDawn]

My original controllers don’t have a DB9 connection. Not sure if that’s what you meant.

The Flashback mini console did, and there's a simple adapter to convert the originals to a DB9 first so that they can also be used with the USB adapter I linked.

[RascalUK]

Ah cool. Yeah the originals on mine have an ancient molex style thing on.

[PistolsAtDawn]

The random game is DRACULA. Very fitting given it's now October and Halloween is approaching!

[charmless]

Cool! Tme to find out how playable this is with a standard controller.

[PistolsAtDawn]

Cool! Tme to find out how playable this is with a standard controller.

According to my post office email, the adapter I ordered will be here today. I wasn't expecting it so soon since it had to go through customs. I guess I need to go dig out my Intellivision Flashback console and pluck a controller from it.

To map the controls to my standard gamepad, I had to set the number keys to the D-pad and the right joystick (NSWE and R3). It's inelegant, but it works. I was unable to setup a keyboard in conjunction with the gamepad, but I may have been doing something wrong.

[charmless]

Cool! Tme to find out how playable this is with a standard controller.

According to my post office email, the adapter I ordered will be here today. I wasn't expecting it so soon since it had to go through customs. I guess I need to go dig out my Intellivision Flashback console and pluck a controller from it.

To map the controls to my standard gamepad, I had to set the number keys to the D-pad and the right joystick (NSWE and R3). It's inelegant, but it works. I was unable to setup a keyboard in conjunction with the gamepad, but I may have been doing something wrong.

Cool! Hope it works well. I have daemonbite adapters for most things and they are great.

[panik]

What controllers are you all using for intellivion cores? I really want to play games like baseball that need the 0-9 number pad inputs

Edit: I got the flashback controllers working with the Ultimate PC interface. It took some fiddling but they work!

[insanityprawnboy]

What controllers are you all using for intellivion cores? I really want to play games like baseball that need the 0-9 number pad inputs

Edit: I got the flashback controllers working with the Ultimate PC interface. It took some fiddling but they work!

I found an Intellivision Flashback controller for sale on eBay.

But that alone won't work, as you need an Ultimate PC Interface as well (version 2 on the website here).
https://intellivision.us/interface.php

If you get those two items, you're laughing. But it's a little expensive in all (and it really was for me with the postage to the UK, but I was determined).

[M.Walrus]

Bump n Jump on Intellivision is an excellent port, even better than the NES version IMO. Would be great for a community challenge. I host the ones on the MiSTer Discord btw- currently we're doing Pirate Ship Higemaru

[PistolsAtDawn]

Bump n Jump on Intellivision is an excellent port, even better than the NES version IMO. Would be great for a community challenge. I host the ones on the MiSTer Discord btw- currently we're doing Pirate Ship Higemaru

I agree it's a good port. Most of the Intellivision's were.

The club is inactive for a lack of time on my part and participation in general. I'm sure the discord gets far more traffic.

[teller]

How did you map the Ultimate PC Interface on MiSTer? I can use one controller, but when playing UTOPIA, some of the direction keys are mapped doubled.