Magnavox and Intel: An Odyssey

Stanley Mazor, with Peter Salmon Editor: Dave Walden

Today we have high-resolution videogames connectedto our television sets, but let us reflect on a pioneeringsystem in this field from 30 years ago. As an Intel appli-cations engineer in 1976, my job (Mazor) was to findnew customer applications for microcomputers and totranslate customer needs to chip designers like PeterSalmon, who used our technology to solve customerproblems. Analog integrated circuits (ICs) were promi-nently used in the entertainment products, but digitalcircuits were just making their debut—particularlywith digital readouts for time, station, and counters.I visited manufacturers of videogames, gamblingmachines, pinball machines, and consumer electronicsto find new microcomputer applications. Althoughmicrocomputers are versatile, they were not fast enoughto deliver a video stream in real time. Hence, additionalcircuitry was needed between a microcomputer and aTV monitor. Arcade videogames and gaming machinesused a large amount of video screen buffer memoryand ICs, along with microcomputers and ROM residentgame-control programs.

Unlike arcade videogames that are produced in thethousands, consumer products are sold in the millions.Accordingly, several special factors strongly differentiateconsumer products. First, because these products aremostly bought at Christmas, retail stores make theirchoices and place orders at the June Consumer Elec-tronic Show (CES) and stock them in September. AtCES, retailers are particularly concerned with whethera demonstration is a ‘‘real’’ product that will be availablein volume that year. Second, home videogames needFederal Communications Commission (FCC) approvalto insure they do not radiate energy, which in additionto normal design and manufacturing issues, causes anunpredictable delay. Missing any of these deadlineswould delay a consumer product’s release an entireyear. Third, consumer products are extremely cost sensi-tive and there is a sweet spot—usually in the $100 to$150 retail price range—that severely impacts designchoices.

Magnavox contracted with Intel for a custom video-game ‘‘stunt’’ chip (8244)1,2 in 1977. As the Intel liaison,my job was to work with the Magnavox designers andproject managers to stay within all these restrictionsand produce the IC chip for less than $20 each.

Magnavox Odyssey game consoleMagnavox enjoyed considerable success with its

Odyssey analog home TV Pong game (1973), but theywanted to build a more versatile and programmable con-sole. Based on the proliferation of arcade games by Mid-way, Bally, and Atari, Magnavox launched the Odyssey2

project (http://odyssey2.classicgaming.gamespy.com/

articles/timeline/index.php) to build a home game con-sole featuring ROM game cartridges because the com-pany realized that more money could be made fromselling cartridges than from the console itself. Thishome game console connected to the antenna inputon a TV set and used a custom Intel videogame chip,controlled by a microcomputer, that ran a game pro-gram from a removable ROM cartridge (see Figure 1).This system had both keyboard and joy stick inputs toallow truly interactive games. Magnavox developed ap-proximately 30 different ROM game cartridges, mostlydesigned by a contractor. Many of these games werefirst popularized by arcade videogames (quarter eaters).

A standard TV screen has more than 300,000 pixels,so approximately 4 million RAM bits are needed tostore a colored image, and that’s just using 4-bits percolor. (TV displays use an additive red, blue, green[RBG] color model.) Most arcade videogames hadmore colors and used more memory. But in 1976,RAM was expensive and was not practical for low-costhome TV games. Intel and Magnavox overcame thisproblem by having just four one-inch squares of col-ored video (a sprite) that could be placed anywhereon the screen. This made it possible to deploy coloredobjects on the screen with a minimum of RAM at aminimum cost. Additional chip facilities included acharacter generator for text and numbers. The examplescreen in Figure 2 shows that the graphics were prettyprimitive by modern standards, but this was state-of-the-art in 1980.

Intel 8244 chipAs the Intel liaison to Magnavox on the Intel 8244

chip, I made monthly trips in 1977 to Fort Wayne Indi-ana to visit Magnavox’s project leader Gene Kale. Thisvideo IC contained counters synchronized with theTV’s raster scan to determine what video informationto send to the TV. It had four variable objects (sprites)defined in on-chip RAM plus eight group objects.These grouped outputs provided background, titles,and scores using predefined fixed characters from anon-chip ROM. The chip also had a programmablesound generator enabling various sounds and an inter-face for joysticks.

The 8244 IC had four sprites; each sprite’s 8� 8 pixelmatrix implemented a colored, moveable object in agame as shown in Figure 3. The game’s program loadedeach 64-bit sprite RAM with a particular game’s object.Each of the sprites had its own position register thatplaced the object on the 2D TV screen in a singlecolor defined in the color register. Dynamic motionoccurred during a game when the program changedthe sprite’s position on the screen, usually during

Anecdotes

64 IEEE Annals of the History of Computing 1058-6180/09/$26.00 �c 2009 IEEEPublished by the IEEE Computer Society

video vertical retrace, which was a dead pe-riod inserted to avoid screen jitter.

Object animation occurs when the programchanges the sprite’s pixel pattern as shown inthe circle to simulate a hand movement.Objects could also be displayed using two col-ors by changing the sprite. Because the screenwas redrawn 60 times/second, an object couldbe displayed in two successive passes underprogram control. Part of the object wasdrawn on the first pass in the first color andthe remaining part drawn in a second coloron the next pass. Two sprites could also becombined to create a larger game object,such as the tall cowboy shown in Figure 4. Be-cause the objects intersected and overlapped,the actual output was a composite of thesefour sprite objects, along with the groupedobjects and a selected background color.

The background color of the screen waschosen under program control. Group objectswere used for titles and scores. In Figure 2, thescore is 6 to 5 and the remaining ‘‘bullets’’ areindicated by the dots. These characters werefixed within an internal ROM memory onthe graphics chip, and their selection andposition was under program control. Thesound generators worked by placing appro-priate bit patterns into recirculating shiftregisters. This gave maximum flexibilitywhile minimizing the computer program’swork. Sounds are an important ingredient tovideogame players.

Intel/Magnavox relationshipsIn addition to selling this video chip,

Intel also provided standard 8048 micro-computer IC chips. This microcomputeralso contained 1 kilobyte of program ROMmemory, which in this case provided gameconsole control and keyboard input. The8048 permitted external program memoryexpansion, so each 2 Kbyte ROM cartridgeextended the program memory with a spe-cific game. The game cartridge size was cho-sen to make it easy to handle, but it onlycontained a small printed circuit board

a b

Color

Position

Figure 3. Example 8 3 8 pixel matrix sprites.

Figure 4. The lower half of the sprite for the

cowboy figure in Figure 2.

Figure 2. Sample TV screen display showing

one-inch squares of video, or sprites. The original

was a color image, using just 4-bits per color.

Figure 1. Magnavox Odyssey2 console with

cartridge.

July–September 2009 65

with one single IC ROM chip. Intel alsoexpected to get orders for ROM chips tobe used in cartridges, but that businessmainly went to Intel competitors. Electroni-cally erasable programmable real-only mem-ory (EEPROM) chips were also providedto Magnavox to help them prototype anddebug game program cartridges.

Before doing the detailed chip design,Intel provided a breadboard prototype ofthe 8244 chip to Magnavox for their initialtesting and evaluation. I awaited signoff ofthe prototype as a certification of the designspecification, but the Magnavox chief engi-neer was reluctant to give me the final accep-tance approval, which caused considerablestrife to the both parties, especially in lightof the tight deadlines.

Intel relied on the expertise and needs asdefined by their Magnavox customer, andthe 8244 was developed exclusively for Mag-navox. Peter Salmon had a few minor bugs inhis chip design, and the last fix was done onthe fourth mask revision in July 1977. Hepatiently hand-wired a few off-chip logicpieces to a partially working chip to test hisproposed bug fix. Subsequently, the Intelteam made a triumphal trip to Magnavox inFort Wayne to deliver the first productionchips.

In the meantime, however, Magnavoxhad decided that the videogame businesswas ‘‘too rich’’ for their blood and were exit-ing the business. They might have hopedthat the Intel team would fail to deliver sili-con chips on time, avoiding a multimilliondollar penalty payable to Intel. As Magnavoxbacked away from this business, they elimi-nated most of their game programmers leav-ing an open field for former Intel employeeEd Averett,3 who designed most of theirgames on a royalty basis.

Ultimate resultsReportedly, a prototype Magnavox Odys-

sey2 game created long lines of interestedcustomers at CES in January 1979. Magnavoxis a subsidiary of Philips, and there arerumors that there were disputes withinthese companies on this project. We don’thave first-hand information about these,but several websites provide interestingfurther reading.3,4 However, Magnavox soldnearly 1 million Odyssey2 systems andmany game cartridges. Intel was also in thedigital watch business and decided to pullthe plug on its consumer products pursuitconcurrently with its decision to exit the

watch business. Accordingly, by 1979 Istopped visiting consumer electronics com-panies. Within a couple of years, the homevideogame industry crashed. Even so, Intelproduced millions of 8048 microcomputersand followed it with the even more popularsingle chip controller 8051.

The 8244 video-game chip had 40,000transistors. The ‘‘random logic’’ was hand-drawn using color pencils. At the time,there weren’t many CAD tools to assist in get-ting an error-free chip, so Salmon offeredcash bonuses to draftsmen for each designrule violation they found—a nickel on thefirst day to a quarter on the last.

Recently, Nvidia announced the GT200graphics processor unit that has 1.4 billiontransistors—a 35,000 times increase. Al-though the Nvidia chip’s power is impressive,the 8244 was also impressive for the day andprovides a nostalgic glimpse of the modernchip industry’s history.

Acknowledgments

Other people involved in this project wereGene Kale (Magnavox project manager)and, from Intel, Sam Schwartz (designer),Gary Bastian (designer), Ed Averett (market-ing), and Bill Lattin (program manager).

References and notes1. S. Mazor, ‘‘The History of the Microcomputer,’’

Readings in Computer Architecture, M. Hill,

N. Jouppi, and G. Sohi, eds., Morgan Kaufman,

2000, p. 60.

2. The 8244 utilized a novel content addressable

memory to detect matches. S. Schwartz,

P. Salmon, and G. Bastian, ‘‘Video Display

Circuit for Games,’’ US patent 4,169,262,

to Intel Corp., Patent and Trademark Office,

1979.

3. E. Averett, interview by J. Hague on ‘‘Halycon

Days,’’ http://www.dadgum.com/halcyon/

BOOK/AVERETT.HTM.

4. Ted Szczypiorski, an amateur game developer, said

his favorite Odyssesy2 game is K.C. Munchkin.

He likes its ‘‘smooth graphics—even the sound

is good.’’ See http://odyssey2.classicgaming.

gamespy.com/articles/teds/index.php.

Readers may contact Stanley Mazor at stanmazor@sbcglobal.net.

Contact department editor David Walden atannals-anecdotes@computer.org.

Anecdotes

66 IEEE Annals of the History of Computing

The Early Days of the ArpanetBy Peter T. Kirstein

Arpanet’s first access controlIn September 2003, University College London (UCL)

had had their Arpanet terminal interface processor (TIP)for only six weeks. There was a major networks meetingin Brighton, which was the first public demonstration ofinternational usage.

Immediately after the meeting, I had an Arpanet proj-ect meeting at UCL and then invited all the attendees tomy house for dinner. There were at least a dozen attend-ees, including most of the developers of the TIP softwarefrom BBN. Of course, all of them were suffering with-drawal symptoms because they had not been onto thenet for a whole week, so they lined up to get on myhome system. Although they could dial in easily, theycould not get any further because the TIP requesteda password. The BBN developers were particularlyastounded; their software did not at the time have anyaccess control, so they could not understand this request.

At UCL, we were very concerned about security. I hada DEC PDP-9 host and had found a security hole in theirsoftware. For a fraction of a second, after users connectedin but before they had time to do anything else, it waspossible to seize the session and force it to go throughour host. We had used this to request that the user putin a password, before we released the connection andlet the normal software continue. I believe that this wasthe first network-level access control on the Arpanet!

The first use of the Arpanet by a head of stateToward the end of 1975, DARPA was worried that in-

ternational usage of the Arpanet would raise questions

in the US Congress or Senate and asked me to keep alow profile. I agreed, of course, in principle. In January1976, the Queen was opening a new building in theBritish Royal Signals and Radar Establishment at Malvernin England. The British were starting a collaboration be-tween US and British defense contractors on the newADA language. As part of that, a link between RSREand UCL, and hence into the Arpanet was being estab-lished, and it was arranged that the Queen would inau-gurate the link.

During the preparation for this event, I was told thatthe provision of the link between RSRE and UCL wasgiven the second highest priority of any link by thethen carrier, the British Post Office. The only activitywith higher priority was repairing telephone exchangesin Northern Ireland that were blown up by the IRA! Weintended that the link would be inaugurated by theQueen logging in to an account at ISI in Los Angelesand sending a welcome e-mail. The only accountsI had at ISI were in my own name, so I requested anaccount for her called HM EII because to use another ac-count would be lese majeste (i.e. the crime of violatingmajesty). (This is the only time I have used that phrasecompletely correctly!)

When the event happened, all considerations of a lowprofile were forgotten. All the relevant DARPA officials,from the director downward, wanted to participate inthe event—even though it was at 6:00 a.m. EST.

Readers may contact Peter T. Kirstein at P.Kirstein@cs.ucl.ac.uk.

July–September 2009 67