Magnavox Odyssey: unreleased Round Ball demo - Winter & Baer

Demonstration by video game inventor Ralph Baer and video game historian David Winter of the Round Ball generator, which was part of an improved (but unreleased) Magnavox Odyssey console. This would have been the only model to fearture a round ball, unlike the rest of the Ball & Paddle games of the 1970s. The main reason for this is the unique and very clever design of this generator. Only games designed with transistors and/or CMOS chips could have featured this round ball. TTL games like arcades could not have featured this, as the generator would have required too many chips supposing it was really possible with this technology.

Note to collectors: I plan to make a small run of those round ball generators. The individual price will depend on the quantity made. However, I will need to salvage the original ball generator of your Odyssey, but I will install sockets on both PCBs so that you can put the transistors back without soldering. This way you can switch to square or round ball at will. Full documentation with schematic will be provided on demand with the pcb, and I will be happy to provide either the assembled and tested pcb, or a kit if you want to make it yourself and save a few bucks to ship the original ball generator. There is currently no date of release as I need to see how much interest there is.

Category:

Entertainment

Tags:

• magnavox
• odyssey
• tennis
• pong
• atari
• video
• game
• telstar
• coleco
• unreleased
• prototype
• david
• winter
• ralph
• baer
• games