G7200 at the Philips Museum

See the picture? Imagine driving along next to a fenced-in construction site and seeing this hanging on the side! It could've happened if you were in Eindhoven, Netherlands – the Philips Museum there is undergoing renovation and (as of July) had this picture of a G7200 console on the construction fence. Pretty cool, huh?

Thanks to alert Videopac.nl forum member blanka, who found this photo on Noud!'s flickr stream, for pointing it out.

Fall 1981: A Time for Video Action

The latest addition to the Library is an oddity: excerpts from the Fall 1981 issue of Video Action, an early '80s publication dedicated to all forms of video entertainment. The cover story is "Pac-Man Takes Over," but that's not why it's in the Library. It's there because this issue contains reviews of Casino Slot Machine and Showdown in 2011 A.D. (both games generally met with approval). There's also an article about videotaping your console gaming sessions to improve your strategy, which I've included not because it deals with Odyssey² games specifically, but because it uses graphics from Alien Invaders—Plus in the title.

This is a rather interesting relic of an era when serious home video was available only to hardcore enthusiasts, a fact which leads to some odd juxtapositions. Such as? The Showdown review appears next to a (thankfully text-only) ad for XXX male video. Enjoy!

Video Game History Museum

In case you haven't heard, the folks behind Classic Gaming Expo have opened a Kickstarter project to fund a proposed Video Game Museum. If funded, the project would produce an actual, physical museum dedicated to video game history and showcasing a huge collection of gaming artifacts.

The Videogame History Museum is a 501 (c)(3) non-profit charity dedicated to preserving, archiving, and documenting the history of the videogame industry. Our Board of Advisors is comprised of some of the biggest names in the history of gaming! More information on our goals and vision can be found at the Videogame History Museum website. All contributions are tax-deductible and an acknowledgement letter of your donation will be provided upon request. If you would like to donate after the kickstarter project is complete, you may do so by going directly to the donations page on our web-site.

This is a worthy project, and is sorely needed. But time is running out! There are only 19 days left to donate, and the project is still quite a bit short of its goal. If you wish to donate, you'll need to hurry.

The Odyssey² Library Is Now Open!

I am pleased to open up a new section of this web site: the Odyssey² Library, where (eventually) I hope to archive any and every Odyssey²-related document for your reading pleasure. Game manuals, magazines, catalogs – every page of every printed document pertaining to the Odyssey² can have a home in the Library. Using some open-source JavaScript libraries, I've written a viewer application that allows you to "turn" the pages of Library documents, enabling you to view them with their original layout. The application requires you only to have a modern browser with JavaScript enabled. It works best on desktops with a vertical resolution of 1080 pixels or higher. I've also tested it (briefly) on tablets, and most documents seem readable. I may look into optimizing the Library for tablets eventually, but first I have to concentrate on adding more content.

Over the years, I've amassed quite a collection of Odyssey² related items, including page after page of printed material. A lot of these items have been lumped into the Collectibles area of the web site, but they really cried out for their own section. I've experimented with the Library concept in the past, but without the "page turning" capability, it never looked right. Luckily, modern Internet tools really let you do some cool things! I'm very interested in document preservation, so I really like what the Library allows me to do. For example, I've translated the first issue of Odyssey Aventura into English, preserving the original magazine layout, using online translation software. Now us non-Portuguese speakers can finally read Marcello Zanchetta's tips for scoring high in K.C.'s Krazy Chase (or Eat-Eat, as it was known in Brazil). That's important history right there!

Not many documents are in the Library yet, but more will be added as I have time to scan them. For now, please enjoy the full manual to Power Lords, an article from the March 1982 issue of Friends: The Chevy Owner's Magazine that features an Odyssey² on its cover, and the full grandeur of the cheap black-and-white Japanese Baseball manual. Happy reading!

Five Alive! Five New Prototypes Discovered!

This is amazing news: Robbert, the owner of Videopac.nl, has obtained a number of prototypes from a developer in the UK who worked for Philips in the early 1980s. In addition to several prototypes of released games, Robbert discovered four games that have never been seen before – and one that is unknown except to all but the most advanced prototype collectors. The latter proto is a sound tool used by developers to help create game audio. The other four are totally new games! They seem to be in various states of completion. They are Himalaya, a game whose goal is unclear but seems to involve flying to Kathmandu; Bastion, which allows you to lay seige to a tower; Catburglar which is a Videopac clone of the Crazy Climber arcade game(!); and a game called "Terrahawks" that is completely different from the Terrahawks that was actually released. Videos of all five prototypes can be found on the Videopac.nl Forum. Another, non-working prototype (labeled "A4800") was also found; attempts are being made to get it functioning.

No announcements regarding ROM or cartridge releases have been made yet, but judging from the forum comments, one or both will probably happen. Robbert has already promised to release Catburglar. Videopac and Odyssey² collectors will be anxiously awaiting – I know I will!

Pursuing the Pink Panther

Some of the most infamous unreleased games of the classic era were those that starred the neon-hued, animated feline known as the Pink Panther. An Odyssey² release was planned, as were versions for Atari and Coleco machines. None made it to market, but a number of artifacts from the planned games survive, as do at least three prototypes for Atari systems. I have written an article which attempts to collect all that is publicly known about the pink cat's unplayed games.

This article has been mostly finished for a while; I just kept neglecting to finish it. I hope you find it interesting! Thanks to 2600 Connection and AtariProtos.com for screenshots used in the article. If anybody has any new information regarding the Pink Panther prototypes, please contact me.

Testing... 1, 2, 3...

Bas Kornalijnslijper, who is well-known for his Videopac prototype reproductions, is offering something new and rather unusual. It's the Videopac Service Test Cartridge, a utility cart that can be used to diagnose problems with PAL Videopac machines. Unfortunately, this cartridge does not work on American NTSC consoles. Nevertheless, it's still an interesting piece for collectors. The release is limited to 50 pieces, and comes with a cover insert, index label, and nice spiral-bound instruction manual. The cost is 45 Euros plus shipping.

Dear Imagic...

Thanks to one of my readers named Brian Gotsch, I just added something unique to the Flyers area of the Collectibles section. It's a letter from Imagic's Consumer Affairs division about Atlantis and Demon Attack. Brian purchased it, along with some other Odyssey² merchandise, from an antique store. The letter's original owner received it in 1983 in response to a request for information about Imagic's Odyssey² games. Apparently you could buy cartridges directly from Imagic in those days, by mail order. The letter is a most interesting and uncommon document. Thanks, Brian!

Catching Up… With Power!

I haven't been updating the site much lately, but it's not for lack of things to add. I've been collecting new information and pictures for a long time, but honestly I've done a really poor job of keeping it organized. So when I find time to update the site, I have a hard time figuring out what to do next. I've been trying to organize everything, but that project has pretty much gone nowhere. There's just too much!

I finally just decided to dive into my pile of data and post whatever I noticed first. And first on my list are some Power Lords photos from a past prototype auction. A screenshot and cartridge scan has been added to the Atari 2600 Power Lords entry in the Games Database. Also added is this photo of Power Lords dealer advertisements, which applied to the Odyssey² version of game, as well as the unreleased Atari and Coleco versions. Take a look, and watch for more updates to come!

Go, Go WICO!

What do you know? I found time to update the site!

One of the rarest, commercially-produced items for the Odyssey² is the WICO Joystick Adapter – a small box that allows you to use Atari 2600-compatible controllers on your detachable-joystick model Odyssey² console. This thing is so uncommon that I've never even seen one before, yet somehow a reader named Brandon Opdahl managed to score TWO of them. What's more, his two adapters have differing part numbers and identifying stickers. He was kind enough to send me several photos, which I've added to a new page in the Collectibles section. Thanks Brandon!

I actually have a lot of cool things like this that I need to add to the site, but I've done a very poor job of keeping track of it, so I'm not sure exactly what I have. My next project is to organize all the contributions I've received recently and begin adding them. Stay tuned!

Reviews Revived

Over the course of the past few site updates and server changes, a few of the Game Reviews had become lost. I still had copies of the review text, but never got around to re-posting them. But over the past few days, I finally took care of it. The old reviews are back, and I also posted a few new ones that I had written earlier but hadn't yet published.

While doing this, I also restored the three In-Depth Reviews, which had been offline for a while. Now you can enjoy reading about the fantastic depths of Quest for the Rings, the ultra-violence of Showdown in 2100 A.D., and the brain-busting grade-school challenge of I've Got Your Number. I even re-coded the I've Got Your IQ Number Intelligence Test, which is good for a chuckle if you haven't taken it before.

I must say, while re-coding the IQ test, I realized how just old this site is. The IQ test is something I wrote to help teach myself JavaScript back in 1998. It required frames, which I don't want to use anymore, so I rewrote it using the awesome jQuery library. Before that, I hadn't touched that code in probably 10 years. It's hard to believe the site has been around that long!

Get Your Kicks... On Route 66+!

In 2007, programmers Rafael A. Cardoso da Silva and René van den Enden produced a homebrew racing game called Route 66. An extremely limited cartridge run was produced, and unfortunately not all collectors who wanted the game were able to obtain it.

Now, Classic Consoles Center has teamed with Rafael and René to rectify this situation by producing a new 100-cartridge run of the game. The latest version, dubbed Route 66+ features enhanced background graphics when played on Videopac G7400-compatible machines (the game will still work on normal Videopac and Odyssey² machines as well, only without the fancy backgrounds). Route 66+ also features support for The Voice module.

Route 66+ comes with both Videopac- and Odyssey²-style labels and box inserts, so you can make it look appropriate for your part of the world. The game costs 29 Euros plus shipping. Motor on down to the Classic Consoles Center web site to place your order today!

O2 Sound Chip Analysis

Plogue.com's chipsounds is a software synthesizer that emulates a number of 8-bit-era sound chips, including the Odyssey²'s (the P824X). This chipsounds blog post describes the hardware analysis of the P824X that led to its inclusion in the synthesizer. The post is highly technical, but it may be useful to anyone interested in Odyssey² sound architecture or chiptunes in general. I added a link to it in the Off-Site section of the Articles page. Thanks to Justin for the heads-up!

After sending that link, Justin pointed out that the information on the Emulation Resources page was really out-of-date. Sorry about that. It has now been updated. Thanks again Justin!

Tag, You're It!

Bas Kornalijnslijper of the Netherlands, who was responsible for the recent prototype reproductions of Spider-Man and Melrep, has struck again! The newest cartridge release is Play Tag, a Videopac prototype that is finally seeing the light of day after a surprisingly long history. Longtime classic game collectors might remember a game that was sometimes listed in rarity guides as "Plantage." I'm fairly certain that Play Tag is that game. It was discovered at a Dutch flea market way back in November 1996 and soon found its way into the hands of a Videopac collector. Other than the fact that it was a "catch" game, little information surfaced about the prototype. Eventually, a screenshot or two and even a short video clip appeared on some European web sites, but those sites eventually went offline the game all but fell off the radar screen. Now, thanks to Bas, this rather obscure (and, from the looks of the screenshots, fairly primitive) Videopac prototype is getting a proper release, complete with Videopac-style cartridge label and custom, oddly streetwise box art.

Play Tag is being released as Videopac #69, and will be limited to a 69-copy run. The cost is 25 Euros (about $37 US) plus shipping. Order your copy at the official web site.

Welcome To The Next Level!!

If you found your way here, then you probably already saw that I've had to switch web hosts. Months ago, GameSpy/IGN (the parent company of my old host, ClassicGaming.com) announced that they were terminating all their web hosting services as of August 31. So that put me in a position of needing to find a new host, something I hadn't had to do for about 10 years (has it really been that long?!). Coincidentally, this happened at the same time I was trying to find a new home in Real Life. But luckily, I was offered hosting here at The-NextLevel.com, which many of you will know from their excellent forums and articles about the gaming industry. Nick, the managing editor, assured me that my old Odyssey² site would have a nice home here and helped me get things set up. I've just about gotten everything moved over now -- and just in time too; not only is the ClassicGaming hosting shutting down soon, I am closing on my new home this week! If you've been wondering why the site has been so quiet lately, that's why. It's been a busy summer!

I'd like to thank Nick and Jason at The-NextLevel for their help, and I'd also like to thank Marty Goldberg of Atari Gaming Headquarters for his offers of help. And while I feel it's a shame that ClassicGaming.com won't be hosting fan sites any more, I'd like to thank them for hosting me for so long. It was fun while it lasted. I hope all of the other former ClassicGaming sites will continue in new homes. They were some of the best ones out there!

I've moved the entire O2 Homepage to The-NextLevel's servers, and ran some batch updates to make sure that most of the links still work. I'm sure a few still don't. I know that many of the links in the old news stories, for example, won't work until I have a chance to update the database. I'll fix broken links as I find them. Since I am moving very soon, I probably won't be updating the site much in the next few weeks. But after that I want to get back to it. I've really missed working on it.

Anyway, Welcome to the new place!

Contact Broken; Contact Reestablished

I've just become aware of a bug on the Contact Page. The bug was preventing me from seeing the email addresses of people who used the form. This was a major problem, because it meant I couldn't send a reply!

The bug has been fixed now. If you've tried to contact me using the form and are expecting a reply, please Contact Me again. I should be able to reply this time! Sorry for the inconvenience.

Attack of the Timeline!

I am pleased to announce The Odyssey² Timeline!, a detailed chronology of events throughout Odyssey² and Videopac history. The Timeline traces O2 happenings from the console's beginnings in 1977, through its death in 1984, all the way to its "second life" with the homebrew releases of today. All the important dates are here: the exact day Ralph Baer saved the O2 project (Aug. 10, 1977), the date K.C. Munchkin was banned by court order (Mar. 2, 1982), the day Odyssey² was announced in Japan (Sept. 30, 1982), and many more. Naturally there are many less important dates too, such as when the Great Game Giveaway ended or when Philips filed a patent application for the Odyssey3 hand controller. All in all, there are over 130 dates in the Timeline, each one carefully researched.

The Timeline is the largest research project I've ever conducted for this web site. I've been tracking down dates on and off for about three years now, each one revealing a small part of how Odyssey² history actually played out. It's really been fascinating. Many of these dates were unexpectedly hard to find, which probably shouldn't be too surprising considering that they happened about 30 years ago! The Internet -- not to mention my being married to a librarian (thanks Lori!) -- really helped. However, despite all the time I've spent working on this, I know there are many dates waiting to be added. As it is now, the Timeline is fairly centered on events in the U.S.A. One of my next projects is to begin looking for European and Brazilian dates. In the meantime, please enjoy a trip through time with the Ultimate Video Computer Game System!

The Real Munchkin: Revealed!

One of the more interesting tidbits I uncovered while researching The Timeline is that a long-known piece of Odyssey² trivia is actually incorrect. For several years, it's been established that K.C. Munchkin was named after Magnavox President K.C. Mencken. This piece of trivia was revealed in an interview with none other than Ed Averett, the game's programmer. Turns out that we had the name wrong all this time. Magnavox's President was actually named "Meinken." His full name was Kenneth C. Meinken, Jr. (I was never able to find out what the "C" stood for). An alumnus of the University of Pennsylvania, Meinken became President of Magnavox sometime between 1978 and 1980. He went on to become an executive VP at North American Philips, and eventually retired to Florida. Sadly, he passed away on April 25, 1999. However, his name (or at least his initials) live on in the name of our favorite munchkin. I've updated the Odyssey² Essentials FAQ with the correct name (and to include a G7400 list correction sent to me by an alert reader -- thanks Peter!).

FAQ Attack

I realize it's been a little while since my last site update, but it's not because I haven't been working. First, I restored the "Region" pages to the Games Database. These pages provide general information about how games were released in different parts of the world. Click on a region in the GamesDB sidebar or search for one to read more about it.

But more importantly than that, I have restored the FAQs section, the last area of the site remaining to be put back online. The reason I saved this section until last is that I have been working on a brand new Odyssey² FAQ, which I felt was necessary since Robert Kaiser's old O2 FAQ hasn't been updated for so long. That FAQ, while very good for its time, devoted a lot of space to game listings -- an effort better served today by online databases and so forth. So I created a more traditional, question-and-answer style FAQ containing all the important things you need to know about the Odyssey², such as its history, how to hook it up to a TV, what "Videopac" means, and so on. I call this the Odysey2²/Videopac "Essentials" FAQ, and you can read it here. I spent several weeks researching this FAQ, and learned quite a few things I didn't know before! It's been 99% ready for quite a while now, but I've finally gotten around to finishing it.

Interesting note: While researching this FAQ, and with the help of fellow posters at the Videopac.nl forums, I've been able to finally identify GST Video, the company responsible for several of the late-release Videopacs. Turns out it was a division of UK development firm General Systems Technology, which is still around today (kind of). More information can be found in the FAQ, and if you're interested to see how we found GST, read the forum thread.

New CCC Site Unleashes Martian Threat!

Dieter König's Classic Consoles Center, which has previously produced cartridge runs of Videopac prototypes such as Tutankham and Spider-Man, recently announced a new cartridge release! When Marco Kerstens discovered this prototype in 1996, its real title was unknown. The word "Jake" appeared on the title screen, so the game became commonly known by that name. In recent years, documents for the game -- including a typewritten manual -- have surfaced, proving that the final game title was to have been "Martian Threat." (Jake is probably the name of the game's programmer, GST developer Jake Dowding.) CCC's release of Martian Threat includes a cartridge with an original style-label, an original-style manual in English, and an original-style inlay for a Videopac+ plastic box. The cost is 29 Euro plus shipping. Only 100 copies have been made, so go order it now!

While you're there, take a look around at the brand new, redesigned Classic Consoles Center web site! Featuring a cleaner new design and brand new forum, CCC aims to create the largest PAL classic gaming community worldwide!