The Philips Videopac+ G7400 is a third-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 a television, and an external power source as to play video games. Home consoles are generally less powerful and customizable than ...

released in limited quantities in 1983, and only in

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...

; an American release as the Odyssey³ Command Center was planned but never occurred. The G7400 was the successor to the Philips Videopac G7000, the European counterpart to the American

Magnavox Odyssey² The Magnavox Odyssey 2 (stylized as Magnavox Odyssey²), also known as Philips Odyssey 2, is a second generation home video game console that was released in 1978. It was sold in Europe as the Philips Videopac G7000, in Brazil and Peru as the P ...

. The system featured excellently tailored background and foreground graphics. The G7400 could play three types of games: all normal G7000 games, special G7000 games with additional high-res background graphics that would appear only when played on the G7400, and G7400-only games with high-res sprites and backgrounds.

Odyssey³

There were plans to release the G7400 in the United States as the Odyssey³ and later as the Odyssey³ Command Center; the system was demonstrated at the 1983

Consumer Electronics Show CES (; formerly an initialism for Consumer Electronics Show) is an annual trade show organized by the Consumer Technology Association (CTA). Held in January at the Las Vegas Convention Center in Winchester, Nevada, United States, the event typi ...

, and some prototypes have been found. The Odyssey³ was never released, mostly because company executives concluded that it was not technologically advanced enough to compete in the marketplace. Also, the

video game crash of 1983 The video game crash of 1983 (known as the Atari shock in Japan) was a large-scale recession in the video game industry that occurred from 1983 to 1985, primarily in the United States. The crash was attributed to several factors, including ma ...

ended all lingering hopes for a release. The Odyssey³ was to feature a real mechanical keyboard, unlike the

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, if ...

found in the G7000 and Odyssey², as well as a built-in

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. A joystick, also known as the control column, is the principal cont ...

holder for dual-joystick games. Prototypes for a 300

baud In telecommunication and electronics, baud (; symbol: Bd) is a common unit of measurement of symbol rate, which is one of the components that determine the speed of communication over a data channel. It is the unit for symbol rate or modulatio ...

modem A modulator-demodulator or modem is a computer hardware device that converts data from a digital format into a format suitable for an analog transmission medium such as telephone or radio. A modem transmits data by Modulation#Digital modulati ...

and a

speech synthesizer 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 Computer hardware, hardware products. A text-to-speech (TTS) system conve ...

are known to have been made, and a

laserdisc The LaserDisc (LD) is a home video format and the first commercial optical disc storage medium, initially licensed, sold and marketed as DiscoVision, MCA DiscoVision (also known simply as "DiscoVision") in the United States in 1978. Its diam ...

interface was planned to allow even more advanced games.

Specifications

CPU A central processing unit (CPU), also called a central processor, main processor or just processor, is the electronic circuitry that executes instructions comprising a computer program. The CPU performs basic arithmetic, logic, controlling, and ...

Intel 8048 The MCS-48 microcontroller series, Intel's first microcontroller, was originally released in 1976. Its first members were 8048, 8035 and 8748. The 8048 is probably the most prominent member of the family. Initially, this family was produced u ...

, 5.91

MHz The hertz (symbol: Hz) is the unit of frequency in the International System of Units (SI), equivalent to one event (or cycle) per second. The hertz is an SI derived unit whose expression in terms of SI base units is s−1, meaning that one he ...

* RAM: 6 KB + 192 Byte * ROM: 1 KB * Display: 320×238×16 ( Intel 8245 for G7000 compatible 128x64 16 color graphics and EF9340+ EF9341) * Audio: 1 channel, 8 sounds * Input / Output:

RF modulator An RF modulator (or radio frequency modulator) is an electronic device whose input is a baseband signal which is used to modulate a radio frequency source. RF modulators are used to convert signals from devices such as media players, VCRs and ...

Péritel SCART (also known as or , especially in France, 21-pin EuroSCART in marketing by 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 and associated 21- ...

/SCART connector (with

RGB The RGB color model is an additive color model in which the red, green and blue primary colors of light are added together in various ways to reproduce a broad array of colors. The name of the model comes from the initials of the three additiv ...

port(s),

ROM cartridge A ROM cartridge, usually referred to in context simply as a cartridge, cart, or card, is a replaceable part designed to be connected to a consumer electronics device such as a home computer, video game console or, to a lesser extent, electroni ...

port * Expansion ** The Voice – Speech synthesis unit, compatible with

G7000 The Magnavox Odyssey 2 (stylized as Magnavox Odyssey²), also known as Philips Odyssey 2, is a second generation home video game console that was released in 1978. It was sold in Europe as the Philips Videopac G7000, in Brazil and Peru as the ...

** Chess Module – Increased the G7400's computing power such that it could play

chess Chess is a board game for two players, called White and Black, each controlling an army of chess pieces in their color, with the objective to checkmate the opponent's king. It is sometimes called international chess or Western chess to disti ...

, also compatible with

Microsoft BASIC Microsoft BASIC is the foundation software product of the Microsoft company and evolved into a line of BASIC interpreters and compiler(s) adapted for many different microcomputers. It first appeared in 1975 as Altair BASIC, which was the first ve ...

Home Computer Module (C7420) – Similar to above, with the purpose of converting the G7400 into a "real" computer, not compatible with

. An additional

Z80 The Z80 is an 8-bit microprocessor introduced by Zilog as the startup company's first product. The Z80 was conceived by Federico Faggin in late 1974 and developed by him and his 11 employees starting in early 1975. The first working samples were ...

CPU with 16 KB RAM and 16 KB ROM.

References

External links

Technical data

Philips G7400 Manual
{{Third generation game consoles Videopac + G7400 Third-generation video game consoles 1983 in video gaming Computer-related introductions in 1983 Products introduced in 1983

Odyssey³

Specifications

See also

References

External links