The Story of the First Video Game Cartridge

the video game cartridge is an icon in video game history it changed how we play games it gave players a physical representation of video game software but the console that introduced cartridges the Fairchild channel f has become a mere footnote in video game history but the story of the channel f deserves more than just a footnote the team behind the console were the first to figure out how to make market and sell games based on the game itself not the technology behind it the channel f is a tale of a hard-working team on the edge of innovation and many of the people involved would go on to play significant roles in the early years of the video game industry this is the story of how the video game cartridge was made [Music] foreign Our Story begins in a place far from the center of Technology the state of Connecticut in the 1960s bowling company AMF established a research and development group in the state to explore automation using computers one of the engineers working there was Norman Alpert a trained electronics engineer who successfully LED projects for a computer-based food ordering system an automatic score trackers for bowling lanes in 1968 AMF moved their r d facilities out of Connecticut to South Carolina but Albert didn't want to move so he and a few fellow Engineers split off to form their own company aimed at creating computer-controlled devices they called it alpex computer named after Albert in the following years alpex entered into an agreement with the company Pitney Bowes to create a computerized cash register the project did not go well competition from other firms in a Fallout between the companies in late 1973 left alpex in deep financial debt they laid off nearly all of their employees and didn't have any idea what to do next that was until one of the co-founders Wallace kirschner spoke up what about doing video games video games sometimes called TV games were brand new in the early 1970s computer space and pong arrived only a few years earlier and made their mark on the arcade game industry however kirschner was more familiar with magnavox's Odyssey the first home video game console released in 1972 though not as advanced as the arcade games The Odyssey did have one big Advantage the ability to play many different types of games circuit cards were used to unlock the system's limited features however Hardware could only go so far there were now better ways to add games to a system alpex's cash register system contained an Intel microprocessor a small chip which could run computer programs to that point nobody had created a commercial video game that ran off of a microprocessor which made sense CPUs were expensive and not many people knew how to program for such a limited computer creating a video game console that could run software would be a huge technological breakthrough knowing that others were likely working on the same idea alpex felt pressure to develop the concept quickly they brought in software engineer Lawrence Haskell who had worked with Norman Albert at AMF and on the alpex cash register project Haskell and kirschner determined that they could create a game system robust enough to play many small simple games the console would be based around an Intel 8-bit microprocessor and have a small amount of memory since memory was expensive they limited their games to less than 256 bytes in size less than a few lines of text per game in 1974 project Raven was underway a code name which stood for remote access Video Entertainment the console used a calculator keypad to control the games to draw the graphics the engineers implemented an advanced method of drawing the screen called a bitmap The Raven system divided the screen into a grid of pixels providing a nearly endless amount of graphical possibilities even though it was only in black and white this opened the door for any type of game to be made for the console for his first game Lawrence Haskell took the best elements of the Odyssey ping pong game in atari's pong and created a game that more closely resembled hockey unlike other ball and paddle games the paddles could be rotated and each player had a goalie with the ability to move the paddle all around the screen it was an intense and competitive game which in some ways was better than what was available in the arcade Wallace kirschner later said to this day I still think that is the most challenging game that I've played a killer app was born it would be the first of many games for the console but the team knew that they wouldn't be able to make every game available inside the hardware like on the Odyssey they didn't want the console to be limited by what they developed before release in order to solve this problem they needed a type of media that could load games onto their Hardware standard storage methods on computers like floppy disks and paper tape were expensive slow and easily damaged by consumers they needed a solution that would allow them to safely and quickly transfer data onto the system other electronics such as programmable calculators used cards but alpex took a different approach they combined circuit boards that were plugged into larger computers with a plastic outer casing borrowed from new types of media storage film and music were now being stored in special cases which Protected Their fragile tapes within from damage the cases were often called cassettes but sometimes called cartridges we went to Radio Shack and we bought these little plastic boxes and we were able to plug the little box into the console with a connector we put on it Wallace kirschner it was the first video game cartridge and it was a revolutionary idea the bosses at alpex knew that they could sell the concept to a company that had the money to make their idea a reality since Magnavox had taken a chance on the Odyssey alpex approached other television companies about the idea Albert and kirschner gave demonstrations to RCA Zenith and Sylvania but none of them were interested The Odyssey had not done particularly well and by 1975 even video games in the arcade were struggling nobody expected much from the video game Market alpex would not give up easily though they tried a new tactic approaching companies in the Consumer Electronics Market recently a boom in Pocket calculators had created a buzz in the microchip industry some of the chip companies were even beginning to eye video games alpex bought components from those electronics manufacturers so they pitched the idea to some of their parts suppliers they eventually found an interested partner in Fairchild semiconductor Fairchild was one of the Premier Companies in the area becoming known as Silicon Valley from their origins in the 1950s bear child had been at the Forefront of several important Innovations in electronics however by the 1970s the company was struggling they were slow to adapt to cutting-edge technology and many of their Founders departed to form other companies like Intel in addition they missed out on the calculator Market which was making a lot of money for other chip companies Fairchild wanted to reassert itself as a major supplier of microchips they had two products on the horizon they wanted to sell the first were digital watches the latest electronic product craze the second was their very own microprocessor set the Fairchild f8 which consisted of two separate chips the company was looking for more products to Market so when alpex pitched their video game system they were intrigued additionally they happened to know an engineer in the company who was experienced with video games so they asked him to be involved with the project his name was Gerald Anderson Lawson but most people referred to him as Jerry Lawson hailed from Brooklyn New York growing up he taught himself Electronics by tinkering with radios and televisions after leaving College without a degree and working odd jobs up and down the East Coast Lawson headed out west for better opportunities he worked on electronics in Silicon Valley before eventually Landing a job at Fairchild Lawson stood out among his co-workers at the time he was one of only a few black Engineers working in the industry and stood a towering six foot six the 34 year old Lawson also knew a lot about fun and games he had played computer space and seen the future of video games he got to know the people at Atari while they were building the first units of pong and while attending meetings at the pioneering Homebrew Computer Club in California he made his very own arcade game in his garage using the Fairchild f8 microprocessor after he sold the game to an arcade company his bosses found out about this Moonlighting job he could have been in serious trouble but instead he was drafted into the secret project of evaluating The alpex Raven console alongside him would be Gene Landrum an independent marketer who previously worked at Fairchild rival National Semiconductor in late 1975 Lawson and Landrum flew into Connecticut to view the Raven system it didn't look like much the hardware was stuffed inside a metal box and the keypad controller was confusing however the games were impressive on top of the hockey game Haskell created several other games including tic-tac-toe a shooting gallery game and a doodling program Lawson and Landrum determined that if they could properly present the system to Fairchild management it it could be huge by the time the two flew back from Connecticut video games were once again on everybody's Minds for 1975 Atari Magnavox and several other companies produced consoles that played variations on the pong arcade game while some of them had different versions of the game all of them were built into the system like the Odyssey pong consoles became the surprise hit of the 1975 holiday season suddenly many companies were now interested in the video game Market making a console with better technology suddenly made a lot more sense for Fairchild in November of 1975 Gene Landrum wrote up a market study to convince the executives at Fairchild to enter the video game Market he predicted that the company could easily sell 200 000 consoles in their first year and potentially Millions more more in following years it could cost as little as one hundred dollars the price of atari's home pong system but offer better quality games and the potential to sell more games throughout the year via cartridges Jerry Lawson also worked with industrial designer Nicholas tullisfor to Envision a new controller for the system what they came up with was halfway between an arcade joystick and an explosives Detonator it featured a top piece that could rotate be pulled up or down and pushed in eight directions it was a futuristic design that communicated how their games would be different from the competition after some consideration Fairchild made the call they were going to make the very first programmable home video game console in February of 1976 they signed a deal with alpex for a non-exclusive license to their Raven patents for two years a new player was about to enter video games [Music] for their new console project Fairchild management named Jerry Lawson the head electronics engineer fellow engineer Ron Smith would handle the physical designs their first order of business was to convert The alpex Raven system to use the Fairchild f8 microprocessor set rather than Intel's Lawrence Haskell would reprogram his games and in the process upgrade them from black and white to color very few video games in 1976 were in true color even in the arcade it was yet another Showcase of the console's impressive technology the team decided that the hockey game and a similar tennis game would be built into the system providing value even to people who didn't purchase any cartridges as Haskell recoded his other demos he also found time to add a few colorful additions in the tic-tac-toe game for example he added a small reference to Lawson who was fond of using the word turkey as an insult this screen became something of a calling card for fairchild's new console it had personality the team also decided with ROM prices coming down that they could Implement multiple small games onto single cartridges they hired programmers and brought in others from within Fairchild to create new titles one of them called desert fox was similar to atari's tank arcade game and Lawson along with two of the designers of the f8 microprocessor programmed an impressive blackjack game they considered to be a standout for the system however a big challenge still lay in front of the team the cartridges alpex created were not ready for prime time the edge connectors stuck out and could be easily broken if used aggressively by children or adults a consumer needed to be protected from their own ignorance of the complex Electronics inside the cartridge the Fairchild team needed something similar to The Odyssey circuit cards which could be inserted and removed repeatedly without failing due to static shocks or loose connections Nicholas Tallis IV who had helped design the controller Drew on the design of an 8-track music cartridge for their game shells it would be vertically oriented stuck into the front of the system and easily removable using grip lines at the top of the plastic inside the cartridge a circuit board and gold plated contacts were hidden by a small plastic cover these would hook onto a set of connectors inside the console which were pressed down for a firm connection secured with a latch fellow designer Ron Smith created the mechanism which made it impossible for a consumer to accidentally put the cartridge in the wrong way or damage the electronics inside Smith also designed the look of the console he made the controllers a reality though they were permanently attached to the system to save on money and parts to compensate for the inconvenience he made sure the wires were extra long so players wouldn't have to sit too close to the television perhaps the oddest decision for the console was a built-in speaker all sounds came out of the console rather than the television Lawson's team worked on the console for six months ignoring the usual bureaucratic procedures of making a product within a large company like Fairchild some managers were concerned but Lawson held firm when you break New Horizons you have to break some rules and we were rule Breakers we were known as Mavericks crazy guys Jerry Lawson his team defined the whole system from its look to its functionalities on the front of the console a series of five buttons could be used to select a game reset choose a different mode or even pause the action an entirely new feature for video games all of these advances came at a cost literally missing their intended target of one hundred dollars the console would retail for one hundred and fifty dollars equivalent to nearly eight hundred dollars today each individual cartridge called video carts cost an additional twenty dollars cartridges contained one to four games and each game featured user options for time or difficulty video cards were each given a number with the promise of countless more to come in the future it seemed like a foolproof plan in June of 1976 at the summer Consumer Electronics Show in Chicago Fairchild unveiled their first video game console the video entertainment system or VES other game companies at the show were shocked a new future had come to video games some of the other game companies were even exploring similar ideas but Fairchild arrived there first Jerry Lawson recalled not being able to move from his Booth because it was so crowded with people eager to see what they had made the console had a Sleek design similar to a stereo system of the 1970s the cartridge style was unique and were colorfully illustrated by commercial artist Tom Kami Fuji three cartridges would be available at the system's launch a four-game cartridge featuring Lawrence Haskell's games a shooting game cartridge with a rolling Target game and the desert fox tank game plus the impressive Blackjack cartridge Fairchild came away from the Consumer Electronics Show feeling confident they lined up orders for their console and prepared for a launch date of late August 1976. everything was in place for Fairchild to take over the video game Market then the hammer Came Crashing Down in the United States all electronic products that were to be sold at retail had to pass a test from the Federal Communications Commission the FCC the FCC tested for signals which could radiate off of electronic devices potentially blocking broadcasts of radio television or even police bulletins many companies that wanted to launch home consoles in 1975 were unable to due to failing the fcc's very strict standards Lawson submitted the VES for emission testing at the FCC lab in Washington DC a few weeks after the Consumer Electronics Show in August they were told the bad news the console had failed testing Fairchild couldn't put it on the market fairchild's technical team was left scrambling for a solution they tried everything they could think of to cut down on the radiation Lawson thought he solved the problem by shortening the length of the controller cables but it didn't cut down the emissions enough every day the console was delayed was another day Fairchild couldn't manufacture it and another day that competitors could catch up to them Lawson stayed in the FCC offices every day calling back to the office to give suggestions until they finally landed on a solution to prevent the electrical signals from leaking out the entire inside of the system would have to be encased in metal shielding it was an expensive fix but it finally got them over the hurdle in October of 1976 Fairchild could finally start producing the console with barely any time left in the year to create systems or games Fairchild did what they could to meet shipments for the 1976 holiday buying season because they needed to prioritize making consoles available the additional cartridges were left by the wayside only the first cartridge video cart one could be picked up at the delayed launch in November sales results were underwhelming while 1976 would be successful for other home video game consoles with over 3.5 million systems sold the Fairchild Video Entertainment System only sold 50 000 units by the end of the year [Music] tomorrow yeah on the day after Christmas of 1976 the Fairchild semiconductor Customer Support Center started receiving calls Jerry Lawson who was in the office finishing up some paperwork started answering the phones people were confused about their consoles one man took apart the entire machine looking for a place to put batteries even though it had a power cord others tried to shove the game cartridges into eight-track players and eight track tapes into the console nobody had ever experienced anything like this before towards the end of the day that was getting a little frazzled a woman called off and she said my game hums do you know why I said cause it don't know the words lady bye Jerry Lawson even with all the customer calls the launch of the Fairchild VES was still disappointing but there were still reasons to be optimistic the console sold out wherever it was available and retailers were eager to have more reviews for the system were positive saying that it offered more value than most of the other consoles available on the market once the cartridges were in stock they sold well and the team behind the VES hired additional programmers to create even more games for 1977. there was still a chance to rule in the new programmable video game Market however Fairchild did not feel like they could compete in the holiday season of 1976 they also sold their new digital watches and wound up producing too many they were stuck with excess inventory leaving the company on unstable ground Fairchild was also forced to increase the price of the VES from 150 to 170 after Christmas due to the cost of the extra shielding they installed to comply with the FCC finally even by the early part of 1977 competitors like RCA were creating their own cartridge-based consoles getting around fairchild's patents on the technology competition was coming and the company was not willing to risk producing too many consoles or cartridges the console team shifted their strategy to try and gain more support the name of the console was changed to a more marketable one the Fairchild channel f in advertising the F stood for fun it mirrored the idea of a TV channel with many different types of programs spelling out the advantages of buying a cartridge system they also began to provide games with more value than doodling or Blackjack mirroring hits in the arcade there were games like Spitfire drag strip baseball and Maze which were all far more impressive than what they provided at launch however their weak start made the channel f easy to dismiss when Atari entered the cartridge Market in late 1977. atari's video computer system or VCS later known as the Atari 2600 retailed for around the same price as the channel f their cartridge was designed by someone who had briefly consulted with Ron Smith on the channel f cartridge design though Atari was not first to the market they had a large library of games out of the gate most of them based around their own popular arcade titles and clones of other companies games in 1977 Atari sold more than 300 000 of their new VCS consoles by comparison Fairchild sold one hundred thousand channel f consoles only double the amount from 1976. the name of the Atari system also reflected a new rising market in personal computers several companies were exploring the idea of providing value by making their game systems function more or like computers this idea particularly appealed to parents Fairchild decided to follow suit in 1977 they released several educational titles in adult targeted board games then in 1978 the company redesigned their machine calling it The channel f system 2. while it was the same console not new hardware it had a new look and was cheaper to manufacture than the previous system they removed the internal speaker allowing the sound to come through the television and used less internal shielding to keep the price down hoping that this new model would reverse their fortunes they began to advertise the potential of using keypads with the console which would help kids learn how to program in a new computer-centric world but it wasn't enough to keep up with Atari and other competitors Jerry Lawson and the channel f team begged for increased support a Fairchild wooden budge the previous year the console Market suffered an overproduction problem and pong consoles were sold at a discount that scared the Fairchild Executives while the company continued to produce games and Market the channel f they were fearful of committing fully to the console even with the channel f selling out each year it wasn't enough to persuade Fairchild to risk making too many units the marketing team tried to be creative they marketed the system in both Japan and the UK and continued to push their library of games which competed well with atari's early offerings they also made price cuts to the system to encourage software sales as the number of games continued to increase the channel f team also experienced against a stroke of luck a television producer came to them to pitch a series called TV pal an interactive game show that people could play from home using their voice and the gameplay system ran on channel f consoles and games wow wow the concept was introduced on live TV by Regis Philbin and was subsequently picked up by numerous local television stations starting in October of 1978. they hoped the show could potentially help increase sales of the console but despite the potential it did not improve the situation for Fairchild by the end of 1978 Fairchild no longer had any lead on their Innovations numerous companies had entered the cartridge market and were offering more exciting possibilities Valley and Magnavox were already outshining them soon Mattel would enter The Fray with a much more advanced in television the channel f only increased in sales another 50 000 units that year totaling just three hundred thousand over three years meanwhile Atari sold more than 500 000 consoles in 1978 alone there was no longer any place left in the market for Fairchild the company still hoped to announce several new cartridges at the 1979 winter Consumer Electronics Show however they canceled their appearance at the last second before long the people working in Jerry Lawson's group were told the bad news Fairchild was exiting consumer electronics including video games the channel f project was shut down [Music] in the aftermath of the decision to cancel the channel f Fairchild sold their remaining inventory to Zircon International inventors of the stud finder Zircon would later ship some of the channel f games intended for release in 1979. they even created a few new games sometimes calling on the fired Fairchild programmers for their expertise they continued selling the system up until the video game crash in the early 1980s Fairchild was acquired by another company and never achieved its ambition of being on The Cutting Edge of consumer electronics however the Fairchild channel f the video entertainment system and project Raven cast a long Shadow despite their failure the Innovative marketing techniques used to sell the channel F's cartridges opened up an entirely new way for people to play and purchase video games Atari used the technique of advertising multiple games per cartridge making their early Library seem bigger than it truly was fairchild's custom in-store displays would be imitated by Future companies to Show Off Systems to potential buyers even TV pal would continue to air on various stations though the console would eventually switch to the Mattel in television more important were the legacies of the people who helped the channel f during its lifetime Gene Landrum the marketer Who convinced Fairchild to go forward with the console later completed a market study for Atari and was brought into their consumer division he later helped make the concept of the Chuck E cheese Arcade restaurant a reality later a young NBA student named Tripp Hawkins assisted in a Fairchild marketing study he would go on to found Electronic Arts several Fairchild Engineers would play an important role in the explosion of the home video game industry the designers of the channel f cartridge Ron Smith and Nicholas Tallis for helped the first third-party developer Activision develop a cartridge which got around atari's patents for the VCS one of fairchild's game designers Rich Marr who created several games for the channel f moved to making games for Atari he produced the first massive home video game hit on their system in 1980 Space Invaders the game made cartridge video games a huge business overnight the head engineer on the channel f Jerry Lawson started his own third-party video game development company called videosoft in 1982. they produced a number of games and test equipment for the Atari system including games utilizing 3D glasses sadly the games never saw a commercial release in the mid-2000s Lawson was recognized for his role in leading the engineers behind the first video game cartridge he passed away in 2011 at the age of 70. what about alpec's computer the company that created the idea of the cartridge to begin with Wallace kirschner and Lawrence Haskell helped develop the coleco Telstar one of the most popular pong consoles of 1976. however their Innovations couldn't override alpex's massive debt the company was sold to investors in 1979 and co-founder Norman Albert passed away in 1981. alpex's creditors used the company's patents for bitmapped graphics to threaten legal action against other console makers like Atari in 1994 they successfully sued Nintendo for a 200 million dollar judgment however Nintendo was able to overturn the ruling as well as defend themselves from fairchild's claim to the cartridge design on the original Nintendo Entertainment System the channel f story proves that being first is not enough without the parent company's desire to be in video games the people who brought the first modern video game console to Market had no chance of succeeding however sometimes invention stands on its own and many of the people who invented the channel f can be called important creators in the history of video games that's all for this episode of the gaming historian thanks for watching the one with all the fun the Fairchild Video Entertainment System at your larger JCPenney the home entertainment system that never gets old plug in a new video card and change the fun play Tic-Tac-Toe shooting gallery or just doodle switch video cards and play desert fox which again it's blackjack or play the two built-in Games Pro Hockey or tennis champ channel f for fun the Fairchild Video Entertainment System just 169.95 video card cartridges 19.95 each at your larger JCPenney funding for gaming historian is provided in part by supporters on patreon thank you [Music]

Channel: Gaming Historian

Views: 671,410

Keywords: fairchild channel f, channel f, video game cartridge, cartridge, jerry lawson, fairchild, intel, alpex, ron smith, lawrence haskel, atari, fairchild video entertainment system, fairchild ves, mattel intellivision, video game history, gaming historian, amf bowling, atari vcs, atari 2600, wallace kirschner, nicholas talesore, tom kamifuji, microprocessor, consumer electronics show, video game documentary, videocart, coleco telstar, bally, magnavox odyssey, chuck e cheese, tv powww

Id: Nio3hYAx_Tc

Length: 37min 7sec (2227 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 09 2023