Intellivision

In 1979 Mattel test marketed their first home video console called the Intellivision (combination of the words “intelligent” and “television”) in Fresno, California, and at that time only four games were available. After a successful test market Mattel released the Intellivision nationwide for $299 in 1980 including the pack-in game Las Vegas Poker & Blackjack.

In their first year, Mattel sold 170,000 Intellivision consoles, and the game library grew to 35 games. By 1982 the Intellivision console was a huge success for Mattel, and they had sold over two million consoles by the end of that year. The sales of the Intellivision had earned Mattel $100,000,000 profit in 1982, and soon many third-party Atari developers including Imagic and Activision were also developing games for the Intellivision

Like many of the video game companies in the early 1980’s, Mattel suffered the same fate with the video game crash in 1983, and eventually sold all rights to INTV Corp. INTV continued to develop new games for the Intellivision up until 1991.

This is a video from the Intellivision game 'BurgerTime'.

This is the original design for the Intellivision console.

Technical Specifications

CPU: General Instrument CP1610 16-bit microprocessor

Memory: 1456 bytes of RAM

Sound and Video: AY-3-8900/AY-3-8900-1 Chips.