A Magnavox Odyssey², known within Europe as the Philips Videopac G7000, inside Brazil as the Philips Odyssey, & as well by numbers of more names, is a video game console released in 1978.

In the early 1970s, Magnavox was an innovator in the at home video game industry. It succeeded within bringing a foremost house streaming videos game patterns to market, a Odyssey, which was quickly followed by a total recently system, from each one by having two or three technical improvements. Around 1978 Magnavox, now the subsidiary of North American Philips, released a Odyssey², their fresh 2nd-generation streaming videos game console.

Features

A original Odyssey had a total of obliterable circuit cards that switched between the around-integral games, of which there were Ten around Europe & Asia, or even Dozen around United states of america. A Odyssey² followed in the steps of the Fairchild Channel F and Atari 2600 by being designed to play programmable ROM game cartridges. Sustaining this improvement, from each one game can be the entirely unique case, by having its have background graphics, foreground graphics, gameplay, scoring, & music. the likely was tremendous, as an limitless total of games can be separately purchased; the back streaming video player can choose a library of videogames tailored to his or even her have interest. Unlike any more formulas at that instance, the Odyssey² involved a to the full alphanumeric membrane keyboard, which was to be utilized for educational games, selecting choices, or even programming. (Philips actually freed a stake cartridge using the intent of teaching elementary programing.)

A Odyssey² was a foremost page streaming videos game console to introduce what was to turn into a standard joystick design of the 1970s & 80s: a moderately sized melanise joystick unit, held in the left hand, using an eight-counsel stick that was manipulated sustaining the right hand. In the upper corner of the joystick was one 'Action' button.

One of a metier of the technique was its first-class speech synthesis unit, which was released as an add-in for speech, music, & healthy-results sweetening. A region that a Odyssey² might swell become better remembered for was its pioneering fusion of board and video games: The Master Strategy Series. A foremost game freed was a instant classic Quest for the Rings!, with gameplay somewhat similar to Dungeons & Dragons, and a storyline reminiscent of J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings.

Market life

United States

A Odyssey² sold moderately swell in the U.s.. Potentially forswearing third-person developers, eventually (by 1983) over the million Odyssey² units were sold in the Usa alone. For quite a few period, Odyssey² fans griped that there was there is no third-person trend lines, so keeping a total of fresh games super limited. Unbeknown to Our contries gamers, a profits of the Philips Videopac G7000 overseas led to deuce more corporations producing games for it: Parker Brothers released Popeye, Frogger, Q*Bert and Super Cobra, when Imagic released outstanding versions of their hit games Demon Attack & Atlantis. Eventually, inside 1983 them Imagic games were bring back the states; these became heavy vender.

Overseas

Around Europe and Brazil, the Odyssey² did super easily on the market. Around Europe, a console was virtually all widely called a Philips Videopac G7000, or even just the Videopac, although branded variants were freed inside a select few areas of Europe under a list Radiola Jet 25, Schneider 7000, & Siera G7000. Philips, when Magnavox's European parent company, utilized their have title like than Magnavox's for European marketing. a uncommon model, the Philips Videopac G7200, was just freed withinbuilt Europe; it got the built-in black-&-white monitor. Videopac bet on cartridges come mostly compatible by using Western Odyssey² units, although a select few games develop color differences & two or three come entirely incompatible. The total of extra games were freed around Europe that never come call at the U.s..

Around Brazil, a console wwhen freed as a Philips Odyssey; a Magnavox Odyssey was never released within Brazil, and then there was there are no want to specify the total. Odyssey became lot extra popular around Brazil than it ever was in the Usa; tournaments were possibly held for popular games rather ''K.C.'s Krazy Chase! (Came-Came around Brazil).

A Odyssey² was freed inside Japan 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 Odyssey² & its games consisted of the U.s. boxes sustaining katakana stickers on the children & cheaply printed black-&-white Japanese manuals. A initial price for the console was ¥49,800. It was apparently does'nt super successful; Japanese Odyssey² things come currently super hard to call for.

Technical Specifications

CPU Intel 8048 8-bit microcontroller running at 1.79 MHz Memory CPU-internal RAM: 64 bytes (1/16 KiB) Audio/video RAM: 128 bytes (1/8 KiB) BIOS ROM: 1024 bytes (1 KiB)

Input Two 8-way, a single-button, digital joysticks (in a select few Philips G7000 system, directly attached to console, i personally.e. non obliterable) QWERTY-layout membrane keyboard Output RF Audio/Video connector Media: 2/4/8 kibibyte ROM cartridge; cartridge slot likewise utilized for expansion modules like: The Voice - Speech synthesis Chess Module - Increased a Odyssey²'s computing power such that it may play chess

Emulation

An open source console emulator for the Odyssey² called O2EM is available. O2EM was originally written by Daniel Boris within 1997. Late versions were developed by André first state la Rocha & include Philips Videopac G7400 emulation among other sweetening. A imitator works in Linux, Mac OS X, Microsoft Windows, DOS and other platforms. the imitator doesn't have a friendly GUI, thus it is recommended to apply a frontend. A official 1 is known as O2EMLauncher & was developed by Heitor Barcellos & André first state la Rocha.

A open source multi-platform multi-technique aper MESS has rudimentary Odyssey² support, although numerous games keep around problems & 4KB Challenger Series games come all unsupported.