The Magnavox Odyssey 2 (stylized as Magnavox Odyssey²), also known as Philips Odyssey 2, is a

home video game console A home video game console is a video game console that is designed to be connected to a display device, such as a television, and an external power source as to play video games. While initial consoles were dedicated units with only a few game ...

of the second generation that was released in 1978. It was sold in Europe as the Philips Videopac G7000, in Brazil and Peru as the Philips Odyssey and in Japan as Odyssey2 (オデッセイ2 ''odessei2''). The Odyssey 2 was one of the five major home consoles prior to the 1983 video game market crash, along with

Atari 2600 The Atari 2600 is a home video game console developed and produced by Atari, Inc. Released in September 1977 as the Atari Video Computer System (Atari VCS), it popularized microprocessor-based hardware and games stored on swappable ROM cartridg ...

, Atari 5200,

Intellivision The Intellivision (a portmanteau of intelligent television) is a home video game console released by Mattel Electronics in 1979. It distinguished itself from competitors with more realistic sports and strategic games. By 1981, Mattel Electronic ...

and ColecoVision. In the early 1970s,

Magnavox Magnavox (Latin for "great voice", often stylized as MAGNAVOX) is an American electronics brand. It was purchased by North American Philips in 1974, which was absorbed into Dutch electronics company Philips in 1987. The predecessor to Magnavox w ...

pioneered the home video game industry by successfully bringing the first home console to market, the

Odyssey The ''Odyssey'' (; ) is one of two major epics of ancient Greek literature attributed to Homer. It is one of the oldest surviving works of literature and remains popular with modern audiences. Like the ''Iliad'', the ''Odyssey'' is divi ...

, which was quickly followed by a number of later models, each with a few technological improvements (''see

Magnavox Odyssey series Magnavox Odyssey is the general brand name of Magnavox's complete line of home video game consoles released from 1972 through 1978. The line includes the original Magnavox Odyssey console, the Magnavox Odyssey series of Dedicated console, dedica ...

''). In 1978, Magnavox, now a subsidiary of North American Philips, decided to release an all-new successor, Odyssey 2. In 2009, the video game website

IGN ''IGN'' is an American video gaming and entertainment media website operated by IGN Entertainment Inc., a subsidiary of Ziff Davis, Inc. The company's headquarters is located in San Francisco's SoMa district and is headed by its former e ...

named the Odyssey 2 the 21st greatest video game console, out of its list of 25.

Design

The original

had a number of removable circuit cards that switched between the built-in games. With the Odyssey 2, each game could be a unique experience, with its own foreground graphics, gameplay, scoring, and

music Music is the arrangement of sound to create some combination of Musical form, form, harmony, melody, rhythm, or otherwise Musical expression, expressive content. Music is generally agreed to be a cultural universal that is present in all hum ...

(some Odyssey 2 games were later re-released for the G7400 with added background and updated foreground graphics that the Odyssey 2 was not capable of displaying). The potential was enormous, as an unlimited number of games could be individually purchased; a game player could purchase a library of video games tailored to their own interest. Unlike any other system at that time, the Odyssey 2 included a full

alphanumeric Alphanumericals or alphanumeric characters are any collection of number characters and letters in a certain language. Sometimes such characters may be mistaken one for the other. Merriam-Webster suggests that the term "alphanumeric" may often ...

membrane keyboard A membrane keyboard is a computer keyboard whose keys are not separate, moving parts, as with the majority of other keyboards, but rather are pressure pads that have only outlines and symbols printed on a flat, flexible surface. Very little tacti ...

, which was to be used for

educational game Educational games are games explicitly designed with educational purposes, or which have incidental or secondary educational value. All types of games may be used in an educational environment, however educational games are games that are design ...

s, selecting options, or programming (Magnavox released a cartridge called ''Computer Intro!'' with the intent of teaching simple

computer programming Computer programming or coding is the composition of sequences of instructions, called computer program, programs, that computers can follow to perform tasks. It involves designing and implementing algorithms, step-by-step specifications of proc ...

). The Odyssey 2 used the standard

joystick A joystick, sometimes called a flight stick, is an input device consisting of a stick that pivots on a base and reports its angle or direction to the device it is controlling. Also known as the control column, it is the principal control devic ...

design of the 1970s and early

1980s File:1980s replacement montage02.PNG, 335px, From left, clockwise: The first Space Shuttle, ''Space Shuttle Columbia, Columbia'', lifts off in 1981; US president Ronald Reagan and Soviet Union, Soviet General Secretary of the Communist Party of ...

: the original console had a moderately sized silver controller, held in one hand, with a square housing for its eight-direction stick that was manipulated with the other hand. Later releases had a similar black controller, with an 8-pointed star-shaped housing for its eight-direction joystick. In the upper corner of the joystick was a single 'Action' button, silver on the original controllers and red on the black controllers. The games, graphics and packaging were designed by Ron Bradford and Steve Lehner. During the time of Odyssey 2's manufacturing, some came with controllers that could be plugged and unplugged from the back of the unit via their DB9 connector, while others had their controllers hardwired into the rear of the base unit itself. One of the strongest points of the system was its

speech synthesis Speech synthesis is the artificial production of human speech. A computer system used for this purpose is called a speech synthesizer, and can be implemented in software or hardware products. A text-to-speech (TTS) system converts normal langua ...

unit, which was released as an add-on for speech, music, and sound effects enhancement. The area that the Odyssey 2 may be best remembered for was its pioneering fusion of board and video games: ''The Master Strategy Series''. The first game released was '' Quest for the Rings!'', with gameplay somewhat similar to ''

Dungeons & Dragons ''Dungeons & Dragons'' (commonly abbreviated as ''D&D'' or ''DnD'') is a fantasy tabletop role-playing game (TTRPG) originally created and designed by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson. The game was first published in 1974 by TSR (company)#Tactical ...

'', and a storyline reminiscent of

J. R. R. Tolkien John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (, 3 January 1892 – 2 September 1973) was an English writer and philologist. He was the author of the high fantasy works ''The Hobbit'' and ''The Lord of the Rings''. From 1925 to 1945, Tolkien was the Rawlinson ...

's ''

The Lord of the Rings ''The Lord of the Rings'' is an Epic (genre), epic high fantasy novel written by English author and scholar J. R. R. Tolkien. Set in Middle-earth, the story began as a sequel to Tolkien's 1937 children's book ''The Hobbit'' but eventually d ...

''. Later, two other games were released in this series, ''Conquest of the World'' and ''The Great Wall Street Fortune Hunt'', each with its own gameboard. Its graphics and few color choices, compared to its biggest competitors at the time—the

, Mattel's

and the

Bally Astrocade The Bally Astrocade (also known as Bally Arcade and initially as Bally ABA-1000) is a second-generation home video game console A home video game console is a video game console that is designed to be connected to a display device, such as ...

—were its "weakest point". Of these systems, the Odyssey 2 was listed by Jeff Rovin as being the third in total of sales, and one of the seven major video game suppliers.

Market life

United States

The console sold moderately well in the U.S. Prior to the nationwide release of the

Mattel Mattel, Inc. ( ) is an American multinational corporation, multinational toy manufacturing and entertainment company headquartered in El Segundo, California. Founded in Los Angeles by Harold Matson and the husband-and-wife duo of Ruth Handler, ...

in 1980, the console video game market was dominated by the competition between the Odyssey 2 and

. It remained one of the three primary consoles from 1980 to mid-

1982 Events January * January 1 – In Malaysia and Singapore, clocks are adjusted to the same time zone, UTC+8 (GMT+8.00). * January 13 – Air Florida Flight 90 crashes shortly after takeoff into the 14th Street Bridge in Washington, D.C. ...

, though a distant third behind the Atari 2600 and Mattel Intellivision. To sell would-be customers on its resemblance to a

home computer Home computers were a class of microcomputers that entered the market in 1977 and became common during the 1980s. They were marketed to consumers as affordable and accessible computers that, for the first time, were intended for the use of a s ...

, the Odyssey 2 was marketed with phrases such as "The Ultimate Computer Video Game System", "Sync-Sound Action", "True-Reality Synthesization", "On-Screen Digital Readouts" and "a serious educational tool" on the packaging for the console and its game cartridges. All games, aside from Showdown in 2100 AD, produced by Magnavox/Philips ended with an exclamation point, such as '' K.C. Munchkin!'' and '' Killer Bees!''. No

third-party Third party may refer to: Business * Third-party source, a supplier company not owned by the buyer or seller * Third-party beneficiary, a person who could sue on a contract, despite not being an active party * Third-party insurance, such as a veh ...

game appeared for the Odyssey 2 in the United States until

Imagic Imagic ( ) was an American video game developer and publisher that created games initially for the Atari 2600. Founded in 1981 by corporate alumni of Atari, Inc. and Mattel, its best-selling titles were ''Atlantis'', '' Cosmic Ark'', and '' De ...

's '' Demon Attack'' in 1983. The lack of third-party support kept the number of new games very limited, but the success of the Philips Videopac G7000 overseas led to two other companies producing games for it:

Parker Brothers Parker Brothers (known as Parker outside of North America) was an American toy and game manufacturer which in 1991 became a brand of Hasbro. More than 1,800 games were published under the Parker Brothers name since 1883. It remained family owne ...

released ''

Popeye Popeye the Sailor Man is a fictional cartoon character created by E. C. Segar, Elzie Crisler Segar.Frogger'', ''

Q*bert ''Q*bert'' () is a 1982 Action game, action video game developed and published by Gottlieb for Arcade video game, arcades. It is a Video game graphics, 2D action game with Puzzle video game, puzzle elements that uses Isometric video game gr ...

'' and ''

Super Cobra ''Super Cobra'' is a horizontally scrolling shooter developed by Konami, originally released as an arcade video game in 1981. It was published by Konami in Japan in March 1981 and manufactured and distributed by Stern in North America on June ...

'', while

also released ''

Atlantis Atlantis () is a fictional island mentioned in Plato's works '' Timaeus'' and ''Critias'' as part of an allegory on the hubris of nations. In the story, Atlantis is described as a naval empire that ruled all Western parts of the known world ...

''.

Europe

Europe Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...

, the Odyssey 2 did very well on the market. The console was most widely known as the Philips Videopac G7000, or just the Videopac, although branded variants were released in some areas of Europe under the names Philips Videopac C52, Radiola Jet 25, Schneider 7000, and Siera G7000.

Philips Koninklijke Philips N.V. (), simply branded Philips, is a Dutch multinational health technology company that was founded in Eindhoven in 1891. Since 1997, its world headquarters have been situated in Amsterdam, though the Benelux headquarter ...

used their own name rather than Magnavox's for European marketing. A rare model, the Philips Videopac G7200, was only released in Europe; it had a built-in black-and-white

monitor Monitor or monitor may refer to: Places * Monitor, Alberta * Monitor, Indiana, town in the United States * Monitor, Kentucky * Monitor, Oregon, unincorporated community in the United States * Monitor, Washington * Monitor, Logan County, Wes ...

. Videopac game cartridges are mostly compatible with American Odyssey 2 units, although some games have color differences and a few are completely incompatible, such as Frogger on the European console, being unable to show the second half of the playing field, and Chess on the American model, as the extra hardware module could not work with the console. A number of additional games were released in Europe that never came out in the U.S.

Brazil

In Brazil, the console was released simply as Philips Odyssey (since the original Odyssey had had only a limited release by a local company, Planil Comércio, under license). The Odyssey 2 became much more popular in Brazil than it ever was in the U.S.; tournaments were even held for popular games like ''K.C.'s Krazy Chase!'' (''Come-Come!'' in Brazil). Titles of games were translated into Portuguese, sometimes creating a new story, like ''Pick-axe Pete!'', that became ''Didi na Mina Encantada!'' (Didi in the Enchanted Mine) referring to Renato Aragão's comedy character, and was one of the most famous Odyssey games in Brazil.

Japan

The Odyssey 2 was released in

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

in December 1982 by Kōton Trading Toitarii Enterprise (コートン・トレーディング・トイタリー・エンタープライズ, a division of DINGU company) under the name オデッセイ2 (''odessei2''). "Japanese" versions of the Odyssey 2 and its games consisted of the American boxes with

katakana is a Japanese syllabary, one component of the Japanese writing system along with hiragana, kanji and in some cases the Latin script (known as rōmaji). The word ''katakana'' means "fragmentary kana", as the katakana characters are derived fr ...

stickers on them and cheaply printed black-and-white Japanese manuals. The initial price for the console was , which is approximately . It was apparently not very successful; Japanese Odyssey 2 items are now very difficult to find.

Games

Technical specifications

* CPU ** Intel 8048

8-bit In computer architecture, 8-bit integers or other data units are those that are 8 bits wide (1 octet). Also, 8-bit central processing unit (CPU) and arithmetic logic unit (ALU) architectures are those that are based on registers or data bu ...

microcontroller A microcontroller (MC, uC, or μC) or microcontroller unit (MCU) is a small computer on a single integrated circuit. A microcontroller contains one or more CPUs (processor cores) along with memory and programmable input/output peripherals. Pro ...

running at 5.37

MHz The hertz (symbol: Hz) is the unit of frequency in the International System of Units (SI), often described as being equivalent to one event (or cycle) per second. The hertz is an SI derived unit whose formal expression in terms of SI base u ...

(

NTSC NTSC (from National Television System Committee) is the first American standard for analog television, published and adopted in 1941. In 1961, it was assigned the designation System M. It is also known as EIA standard 170. In 1953, a second ...

) or 5.91 MHz (

PAL Phase Alternating Line (PAL) is a color encoding system for analog television. It was one of three major analogue colour television standards, the others being NTSC and SECAM. In most countries it was broadcast at 625 lines, 50 fields (25 ...

) * Memory: ** CPU-internal

RAM Ram, ram, or RAM most commonly refers to: * A male sheep * Random-access memory, computer memory * Ram Trucks, US, since 2009 ** List of vehicles named Dodge Ram, trucks and vans ** Ram Pickup, produced by Ram Trucks Ram, ram, or RAM may also ref ...

: 64

byte The byte is a unit of digital information that most commonly consists of eight bits. Historically, the byte was the number of bits used to encode a single character of text in a computer and for this reason it is the smallest addressable un ...

s ** CPU-external

: 128

s ** Audio/video RAM: 128 bytes **

BIOS In computing, BIOS (, ; Basic Input/Output System, also known as the System BIOS, ROM BIOS, BIOS ROM or PC BIOS) is a type of firmware used to provide runtime services for operating systems and programs and to perform hardware initialization d ...

ROM Rom, or ROM may refer to: Biomechanics and medicine * Risk of mortality, a medical classification to estimate the likelihood of death for a patient * Rupture of membranes, a term used during pregnancy to describe a rupture of the amniotic sac * ...

: 1024 bytes * Video: ** Intel 8244 (NTSC) or 8245 (PAL) custom IC ** 160×200 resolution (NTSC) ** 16-color fixed palette (8 basic colors - black, blue, green, cyan, red, magenta, yellow and white - with a half-brightness variation ( 4-bit RGBI)); sprites may only use 8 of these colors ** 4 8×8 single-color user-defined sprites; each sprite's color may be set independently ** 12 8×8 single-color characters; must be one of the 64 shapes built into the ROM BIOS; can be freely positioned like sprites, but cannot overlap each other; each character's color may be set independently ** 4 quad characters; groups of four characters displayed in a row ** 9×8 background grid; dots, lines, or solid blocks * Audio: ** Intel 8244/8245 custom IC ** mono ** 24-bit

shift register A shift register is a type of digital circuit using a cascade of flip-flop (electronics), flip-flops where the output of one flip-flop is connected to the input of the next. They share a single clock signal, which causes the data stored in the syst ...

, clockable at 2 frequencies ** noise generator ** NOTE: There is only one 8244/8245 chip in the system, which performs both audio and video functions. * Input: ** Two 8-way, one-button, digital

s. In the first production runs of the Magnavox Odyssey and the Philips 7000, these were removable and replaceable; in later models, they were permanently attached to the console. **

QWERTY QWERTY ( ) is a keyboard layout for Latin-script alphabets. The name comes from the order of the first six Computer keyboard keys#Types, keys on the top letter row of the keyboard: . The QWERTY design is based on a layout included in the Sh ...

-layout

* Output: ** RF Audio/Video connector ** Péritel/

SCART SCART (also known as or , especially in France, 21-pin EuroSCART in marketing by Sharp Corporation, Sharp in Asia, Euroconector in Spain, EuroAV or EXT, or EIA Multiport in the United States, as an EIA interface) is a French-originated standard ...

connector (France only ''Videopac C52'') * Media: ** ROM cartridges, typically 2 KB, 4 KB, or 8 KB in size. * Expansion modules: ** The Voice: provides speech synthesis and enhanced sound effects. Unlike Intellivoice, games compatible with The Voice did not require it;

Danny Goodman Danny Goodman is a computer programmer, technology consultant, and an author of over three dozen books and hundreds of magazine articles on computer-related topics. He is best known as the author of ''The Complete HyperCard Handbook'' (1987, Banta ...

of ''

Creative Computing ''Creative Computing'' was one of the earliest magazines covering the microcomputer revolution. Published from October 1974 until December 1985, the magazine covered the spectrum of hobbyist/home/personal computing in a more accessible format t ...

Video & Arcade Games'' predicted "that eliminates any incentive to buy the $100 voice module". ** Chess Module: the Odyssey 2 did not have enough memory and computing power for a decent implementation of

chess Chess is a board game for two players. It is an abstract strategy game that involves Perfect information, no hidden information and no elements of game of chance, chance. It is played on a square chessboard, board consisting of 64 squares arran ...

on its own, so the C7010 chess module contained a secondary NSC800 CPU with its own extra memory to run the chess program Gambiet 80 ** Videopac+/Jopac-compatible only, Microsoft Basic. The rare ''C7420 Home Computer Module'', made available in 1983 by Philips, was a costly extension for the newer Videopac+ and Jopac consoles only. It went with a thick A4 manual, and required an optional external tape recorder to save the programs. This module was the sole valuable justification of the presence of a so-called keyboard, which was supposedly designed to look like a hybrid educational toy, as read in header lines describing earlier this family of pluri-purpose consoles, even in the TV commercials that echoed the slogan written on these brand-new machines: "Video Computer". Unfortunately, this late niche concept, even limited to learning game code contrary to the more professional packaging, could not resist at all the already overwhelming market of the real 8-bit home computers, where the Atari 400 shared the same look in 1979, surprisingly. he latter was advertised itself: « The affordable home computer that's easy to use even for people who've never used a computer before ».This expensive module is not to be confused with the cheap cartridge #9: ''Computer Intro!'')

Emulation

open source Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use and view the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open source model is a decentrali ...

console emulator A video game console emulator is a type of emulator that allows a computing device to emulate a video game console's hardware and play its games on the emulating platform. More often than not, emulators carry additional features that surpass ...

for the Odyssey 2 called ''O2EM'' is available. It includes Philips Videopac G7400 emulation among other features. The emulator works on

Linux Linux ( ) is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an kernel (operating system), operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically package manager, pac ...

Microsoft Windows Windows is a Product lining, product line of Proprietary software, proprietary graphical user interface, graphical operating systems developed and marketed by Microsoft. It is grouped into families and subfamilies that cater to particular sec ...

, DOS and other platforms, and is included within OpenEmu for

Mac OS X macOS, previously OS X and originally Mac OS X, is a Unix, Unix-based operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple since 2001. It is the current operating system for Apple's Mac (computer), Mac computers. With ...

. ''O2EM'' (originally not open source) was created in 1997 by

computer programmer A programmer, computer programmer or coder is an author of computer source code someone with skill in computer programming. The professional titles ''software developer'' and ''software engineer'' are used for jobs that require a progr ...

Daniel Boris and further enhanced by André Rodrigues de la Rocha. The open source multi-platform multi-system emulator

MAME MAME (formerly an acronym of Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator) is a free and open-source emulator designed to emulate the hardware of arcade games, video game consoles, old computers and other systems in software on modern personal computers and ...

has Odyssey 2 support, and is the only emulator to emulate The Voice expansion module without using sound samples.

References

External links

Ed Averett
– Programmer of 24 game titles for the Odyssey 2.
The Odyssey2 Homepage!
– William Cassidy's Odyssey 2 site.
Dan Boris's Odyssey 2 Tech Page
– technical documents on the Odyssey 2's hardware by the author of O2EM

on the Magnavox Odyssey2 / Philips Videopac
The Dot Eaters article
on the history of the Odyssey 2 ("Taking a Journey With the Odyssey²". 9 December 2013.)
Inside the Magnavox Odyssey²
(By Gabriel Torres – 30 April 2012. 8-page feature.) {{DEFAULTSORT:Magnavox Odyssey2 Odyssey2 Home video game consoles Philips products Second-generation video game consoles 1970s in video gaming 1980s in video gaming 1978 in video gaming Computer-related introductions in 1978 Products introduced in 1978 Products and services discontinued in 1984 Discontinued video game consoles 1970s toys 1980s toys