Note: written 12/08/01. All time references are in relation to this date.
More than one person has asked me why I spend my time and money on such an out of date and obsolete video game system. Well, Intellivision was the first system I was ever exposed to. My father owned one when I was a toddler, and we played it all the time until about 1990, finally upgrading to a Nintendo Entertainment System. In all honesty, we would still have that old Intellivision, but it had begun to show its age, and simply didn't function properly. With great reluctance, we tossed out our console and gave the games to a friend of mine who had a functioning system, but only a couple of games. Amazingly, he still has all of them, and they still work.
Years later, now owning an NES, a Sega Genesis, and a Nintendo 64, I had forgotten about our old Intellivision. Once in great while, while browsing the racks at Radio Shack, my gaze would fall on one of those silver boxes with a Game/TV slide switch that was used with the Intellivision, and memories would resurface. But this was ten years later, and my recollection of Intellivision has hazy at best. I really couldn't remember what it was like to play the games (I had never been very good at them, and most of the time I had simply watched my dad and my uncle play it), so the thought would disappear just as quickly as it had resurfaced. By the time I would leave the store, Intellivision was once again completely forgotten.
Then, about a year and a half ago, my dad summoned me to the family computer (a PowerMac G4) and said he had a surprise. He had discovered the Blue Sky Rangers website (since renamed Intellivision Lives) and had downloaded an Intellivision emulator package that contained a few of the most popular games. Within a short time, memories again began to surface, but armed with the information from the website, I now had a very clear recollection of what it was like play these games. My brother and I, pooling our resources, gave my father enough money to order the Intellivision Lives CD-ROM, and my how much fun I had with it. Still, the idea of going and buying an Intellivision hadn't even entered my mind. Instead, I arranged with my friend to borrow his system and games in exchange for the CD-ROM. What originally was meant to be a one-week exchange wound up lasting until the end of the summer. Literally the day before coming to Quinnipiac, I frantically drove to his house, gave him his stuff back, grabbed my CD, and went back home to finish packing for school.
Upon arrival at the Ledges (my QU dorm), I discovered that one of my roommates had brought a very extensive collection of video games. He had an NES, a Sega Genesis (with Sega CD attached), a Playstation 1, and a Nintendo 64, with many games for each system. While it was fun having such a wide selection of games at my disposal, I found myself missing the Intellivision. My only consolation was the Intellivision Lives website and the games that could be downloaded and played on my iBook. After reading through literally everything on the website, I began to really want an Intellivision again. I thought it would be interesting to see an Intellivision, an NES, a Sega Genesis, a Playstation, and a Nintendo 64 all lined up on the table ("We got a multigenerational gathering of players. Is that what we got here?" Detective Castelbeck, Gone in Sixty Seconds). But they stopped making them in the late 80s; where could I get one?
The answer came from the FAQ page of the Intellivision Lives website: eBay. Why hadn't I thought of that?
So, I registered myself on eBay, browsed through the listings, and BINGO! I got my own, brand-spanking used Intellivision. Since that time I've gone back to eBay several more times and made additional purchases. I'm having a blast with my Intellivision, even though every one thinks I'm nuts.
To those people; Intellivision Lives! And it Rocks!
OK, here's a quick run-down of what I have:
*Special Note on the Intellivision II. When I
bought it, it did not have a power supply. When Mattel Electronics
designed the Intellivision II, they made the power supply external,
and used a decidedly non-standard voltage (Input: 120VAC, 60Hz, 19W.
Output: 16.2VAC, 955mA). This, unfortunately, is not one that you can
pick up at Radio Shack. So a friend of mine (the same friend I
borrowed that Intellivision from), who studied electronics at Nashoba
Valley Technical High School, volunteered to custom build a power
supply for me in exchange for several of the games I had purchased
(Zaxxon, Atlantis, Auto Racing, and a duplicate copy of TRON
Maze-A-Tron that I had, plus a bunch of overlays that I designed for
him). He essentially took a 24V transformer and connected it to
several resistors, packed them into a plastic case, and soldered an
Adaptaplug power jack to it. Check
out his web site for more info on his design.
Here are my favorite Intellivision websites:
Intellifans have visited since
01/22/02
