From: portuesi@tweezers.esd.sgi.com (Michael Portuesi)
Subject: Re: Intellivision questions
Organization: Silicon Graphics, Inc.  Mountain View, CA
Date: Thu, 17 Dec 92 17:06:45 GMT


In article <1992Dec17.121520.26393@news.Hawaii.Edu>, gkomatsu@uhunix.uhcc.Hawaii.Edu writes:
> 
> 	What do you usually use to clean dirty cartridge (contacts)?  
> (actually this can apply to all systems, but I didn't want to put this
> in a lone post...)

I use TV Tuner Cleaner, readily available at Radio Shack.

> 	Do Intellivision carts "pop" open?  How?  I notice no screws
> in it, and I don't want to accidentally wedge a screwdriver in the wrong
> place to get it open.

No, they don't pop open.  They have some funny triangular bolts
on the back, which you could probably open if you had the right
tool.  A standard screwdriver might end up messing up the
cartridge.

> 	What's "Space Spartans"?  I found it in a thrift shop w/o manual
> or box.  Looking through an Intellivision catalog, it's displayed
> plugged into the voice unit.  A screen shot is on the next page (with
> other "available soon" voice games)  But there's no catalog entry anywhere
> for it.

"Space Spartans" is an out-the-window space combat game made for
the Intellivoice module.  It's similar in concept to Atari's
Star Raiders.  The graphics are cruder and less smooth than
the Atari version, but the voices in Space Spartans add an extra
dimension to the game that Star Raiders doesn't have.  The
Intellivoice module plays the parts of ship's computer, command
control at starbase, etc.  The voice module does an excellent
job of providing recognizable and distinguishable male and female
voices.

> 	Why do they say "For Color TV Viewing Only"?  Were colors that
> critical to gameplay in these games?

You can play them on a black-and-white set, but I'd be willing
to bet that some of the colors the unit produces show up
identically on a black-and-white TV (different chroma, but
same luminance).  I'd imagine that might cause confusion
in some cases ("is that your ship or mine on the screen?")

> 	What are the specs of the Intellivision consoles?
	
I got some of the specs from someone on the net who used to
program the Intellivision, but I've long since lost the
info (I believe he still posts here, perhaps we'll hear
more).

But the Intellivision unit has a character-based display
for the backgrounds which provides 160x96 resolution with
16 colors, and a sprite generator (I believe the Intellivision
programmers called them "stamps") which provides 160x192
resolution for the sprites.  The system came with several
characters pre-defined in the unit's ROM (sort of like an
operating system for video game support), and also provided
for the program to provide their own bitmaps for backgrounds
and sprites in addition to the pre-defined bitmaps.

I'm pretty sure the system has a custom 16-bit processor
(which makes me laugh about all the hoopla we see on
rec.games.video over 16-bit versus 8-bit game systems - the
reality is that "16-bit" is merely a marketing buzzword to
describe a system with sophisticated graphics and sound
processors.  The machine has a sound chip made by General
Instruments; I'm not sure what its specs are.

--
Michael Portuesi   Silicon Graphics, Inc.   portuesi@sgi.com