The Blue Sky Rangers is a group of Intellivision game programmers who previously worked for Mattel in the early 1980s.
109-537: When the Intellivision first came out in 1978, its games were all developed by an outside firm, APh Technological Consulting . Realizing that potential profits are much greater with first party software , Mattel formed its own in-house software development group. The original five members of that Intellivision team were manager Gabriel Baum , Don Daglow , Rick Levine , Mike Minkoff and John Sohl . Levine and Minkoff (a long-time Mattel Toys veteran) both came over from
218-486: A PC graphics company; Gulbransen Inc, a digital audio technology maker; ComCore Semiconductor Inc, a maker of digital signal processing for LANs; Cyrix , the maker of Intel x86 clones. On March 11, 1997, National Semiconductor Corporation announced the US$ 550 million sale of a reconstituted Fairchild to the management of Fairchild with the backing of Sterling LLC, a unit of Citicorp Venture Capital. Fairchild carried with it what
327-624: A collaborator into a competitor with Intel. National lost its business with Intel. Intel reinstated the relationship after the sale of Cyrix. The acquisition of Cyrix also carried with it a business obligation to use the IBM Microelectronics Division to fabricate the Cyrix chips, , as well as technical constraint to do the same, while National Semiconductor had plans to transfer their fabrication to its South Portland fab. National incurred huge losses in its processor business and announced
436-496: A compensation dispute with Sporck. In 1968, National shifted its headquarters from Danbury, Connecticut, to Santa Clara, California . However, like many companies, National retained its registration as a Delaware corporation , for legal and financial expediency. Over the years National Semiconductor acquired several companies like Fairchild Semiconductor (1987), and Cyrix (1997). However, over time National Semiconductor spun off these acquisitions. Fairchild Semiconductor became
545-471: A competitive advantage in its team of experienced and talented programmers. As competitors often depended on licensing well known trademarks to sell video games, Mattel focused on original ideas. Don Daglow was a key early programmer at Mattel and became director of Intellivision game development. Daglow created Utopia , a precursor to the sim genre and, with Eddie Dombrower, the ground-breaking sports simulation World Series Major League Baseball . Daglow
654-428: A diversification into personal computer and graphics business. He advocated PC-on-a-chip (aka system-on-a-chip) as a business direction for National Semiconductor. During his tenure at LSI, LSI had successfully applied similar concepts. However, LSI had steered clear of getting involved with PC technologies that would make it a competitor with Intel. Halla held the vision that information appliances (IAs) would succeed
763-574: A faster CP1610 for backward compatibility, APh developed an updated graphics STIC chip with 4x the resolution, more sprites, and more colors. Mattel Electronics programmers developing the EXEC software. When Mattel Electronics cancelled the project in mid-1983, Toshiba was laying out the new graphics chip, consoles expected to be in production by Christmas, cartridges to be ready by January 1984, according to Glenn Hightower of APh. A Mattel document titled Target Specification Intellivision III has
872-638: A focus on profits implemented by Sporck was the key element to National surviving the price war and subsequently in 1981 becoming the first semiconductor company to reach the US$ 1 billion annual sales mark. However, the foundation that made National successful was its expertise in analog electronics , TTL ( transistor–transistor logic ) and MOSFET (metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effect transistor) integrated circuit technologies. As they had while employed in Fairchild, Sporck and Lamond directed National Semiconductor towards
981-579: A hardware modification, a service provided by Mattel, to work with the System Changer . Otherwise the Intellivision II was promoted to be compatible with the original. It was discovered that a few Coleco Intellivision games did not work on the Intellivision II. Mattel secretly changed the Exec internal ROM program in an attempt to lock out third-party games. A few of Coleco 's early games were affected but
1090-504: A home computer and the direction of Mattel Electronics questioned. Krakauer and Rochlis resigned, and Josh Denham became the new president of Mattel Electronics. The Keyboard Component was no longer promoted in advertising. A series of advertisements starring George Plimpton used side-by-side game comparisons to demonstrate the superior graphics and sound of Intellivision over the Atari 2600 . One slogan called Intellivision "the closest thing to
1199-500: A limited number of Intellivision Master Components produced that year. In Fall 1979, Sylvania marketed its own branded Intellivision at $ 280 in its GTE stores at Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington, D.C. On December 3, Mattel delivered consoles to the Gottschalks department store chain headquartered in Fresno, California , with a suggested list price of $ 275 . The Intellivision
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#17328560009721308-760: A pair of West Coast investment firms and a New York underwriter to take control as the chairman of National Semiconductor. At that time Sprague was 27 years old. Jeffrey S. Young characterized the era as the beginning of venture capitalism . That same year National Semiconductor acquired Molectro. Molectro was founded in 1962 in Santa Clara, California, by J. Nall and D. Spittlehouse, who were formerly employed at Fairchild Camera and Instrument Corporation. The acquisition also brought to National Semiconductor two experts in linear semiconductor technologies, Robert Widlar and Dave Talbert, who were also formerly employed at Fairchild. The acquisition of Molectro provided National with
1417-577: A printer. It even offered, via an additional sound chip ( AY-3-8917 ) inside the ECS module and an optional 49-key music synthesizer keyboard, the possibility of turning the Intellivision into a multi-voice synthesizer which could be used to play or learn music. In the fall of 1982, the LUCKI, now renamed the Entertainment Computer System (ECS), was presented at the annual sales meeting, officially ending
1526-520: A prototype to retailers, leading to a Christmas release. Delays at GI pushed that into 1979. Magnavox backed out as manufacturer, replaced with Sylvania . Chandler considered replacing the GI chipset and working with Texas Instruments and their new TMS9918 video processor. The TI chip had more moving objects but half the number on a horizontal line compared with the GI STIC , it also lacked hardware scrolling that
1635-570: A relationship that Mattel had with Data East and produced all new cartridges such as Commando in 1987 and Body Slam Wrestling in 1988. Also in 1987, INTV Corp released Dig Dug , purchased from Atari where the game was completed but not released in 1984. They also got into producing next-generation games with the production of Monster Truck Rally for Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) in 1991, also released as Stadium Mud Buggies for Intellivision in 1989. Licensing agreements with Nintendo and Sega required INTV Corporation to discontinue
1744-534: A separate company again in 1997, and the Cyrix microprocessors division was sold to VIA Technologies of Taiwan in 1999. From 1997 to 2002, National enjoyed a large amount of publicity and awards with the development of the Cyrix Media Center, Cyrix WebPad, WebPad Metro and National Origami PDA concept devices created by National's Conceptual Products Group. Based largely on the success of the WebPad, National formed
1853-593: A side, defence/offence patterns and floating field background. Second, calculator based games . With Mattel executives skeptical, Chang's group moved forward with handheld electronic games enlisting Hightower's help with a prototype. Mattel hired Michael Katz as Marketing Manager for New Product Categories in 1975, Katz asked Chang to prototype a calculator sized electronic game for 1976. In Fall 1976, Mattel hired Ed Krakauer as Vice President of New Business Development, who hired Jeff Rochlis as Director of New Business Development. In an October 1977 newspaper article, Rochlis
1962-551: A state of the art voice processing lab to produce the phrases used in Intellivoice games. However, the amount of speech that could be compressed into an 8K or 12K cartridge and still leave room for a game was limited. Intellivoice cartridges Space Spartans and B-17 Bomber did sell about 300,000 copies each, priced a few dollars more than regular Intellivision cartridges. However, at $ 79, the Intellivoice did not sell as well as Mattel expected; Intellivoices were later offered free with
2071-512: A team engineering the hardware, including the hand controllers. In 1978, David Rolfe of APh developed the onboard executive control software named Exec, and with a group of Caltech summer student employees programmed the first Intellivision games. Hal Finney of APh contributed sound and music processing routines to the Exec. Graphics were designed by a group of artists at Mattel led by Dave James. James also creating detailed game proposal documents. During June 1978 CES , Mattel privately showed
2180-682: A threefold increase over October 1981. However, the same report predicted a loss for the upcoming quarter. Hiring still continued, as did the company's optimism that the investment in software and hardware development would pay off. The M Network brand expanded to personal computers. An office in Taiwan was opened to handle Apple II programming. The original five-person Mattel game development team had grown to 110 people under new vice president Baum, while Daglow led Intellivision development and top engineer Minkoff directed all work on all other platforms. In February 1983, Mattel Electronics opened an office in
2289-577: A variety of broad electronics markets, including medical, automotive, industrial and test and measurement applications. On September 23, 2011, the company formally became part of Texas Instruments as the " Silicon Valley " division. National Semiconductor was founded in Danbury, Connecticut , by Dr. Bernard J. Rothlein on May 27, 1959, when he and seven colleagues, Edward N. Clarke, Joseph J. Gruber, Milton Schneider, Robert L. Hopkins, Robert L. Koch, Richard R. Rau and Arthur V. Siefert, left their employment at
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#17328560009722398-556: A variety of computers and video game platforms, as well as mobile phones . Rights are currently held by Tommy Tallarico. This video game corporation or company-related article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . APh Technological Consulting 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 Electronics had close to 20% of
2507-643: A video game system with rich graphics and long-lasting gameplay to distinguish itself from its competitors and took over responsibility for its engineering. Prior to Chandler’s arrival, Chang's group had already met with National Semiconductor about their new, although expensive, chip set. Chandler negotiated better pricing for a simpler design. At the Consumer Electronics Show in June 1977, Chandler saw two more chipsets. One from MOS Technology lacked moving objects. The other from General Instrument , listed as
2616-412: Is 4K of ROM containing the Exec software. It provides two benefits: reusable code that can effectively make a 4K cartridge an 8K game and a software framework for new programmers to develop games more easily and quickly. It also allows other programmers to more easily review and continue another's project. Under the supervision of David Rolfe at APh, and with graphics from Mattel artist Dave James, APh
2725-605: Is enough graphics RAM to define unique graphic tiles for the entire screen. National Semiconductor National Semiconductor Corporation was an American semiconductor manufacturer , which specialized in analog devices and subsystems, formerly headquartered in Santa Clara , California . The company produced power management integrated circuits , display drivers , audio and operational amplifiers , communication interface products and data conversion solutions. National's key markets included wireless handsets, displays and
2834-574: Is for regular Intellivision cartridges. It uses the Intellivision's power supply. David Rolfe of APh wrote a control program for the Keyboard Component called PicSe (Picture Sequencer) specifically for the development of multimedia applications. PicSe synchronizes the graphics and analog audio while concurrently saving or loading tape data. Productivity software for home finances, personal improvement, and self education were planned. Subject experts were consulted and their voices recorded and used in
2943-474: Is not clear how many of them were sold and they are rare. Many of the units were dismantled for parts. Others were used by Mattel Electronics programmers as part of their development system. A Keyboard Component could be interfaced with an Intellivision development system in place of the hand-built Magus board RAM cartridge. Data transfer to the Keyboard Component RAM is done serially and is slower than
3052-458: Is optional, but almost all Intellivision games released by Mattel Electronics use it and thus run at 20 Hz. The limited ROM space in the early years of Intellivision game releases also means there is no space for a computer player, so many early multiplayer games require two human players. Initially, all Intellivision games were programmed by an outside firm, APh Technological Consulting, with 19 cartridges produced before Christmas 1980. Once
3161-435: Is tremendous". Activision and Imagic began releasing games for the Intellivision, as did hardware rival Coleco . Mattel created " M Network " branded games for Atari's system. The company's advertisement budget increased to over $ 20 million for the year. In its October 1982 stockholders' report Mattel announced that Electronics had, so far that year, posted a nearly $ 100 million profit on nearly $ 500 million sales;
3270-448: Is used to store the speech for numerical digits, some common words, and the phrase "Mattel Electronics presents". Speech can also be processed from the Intellivoice's SP650 buffer chip, stored and loaded from cartridge memory. That buffer chip has its own I/O and the Intellivoice has a 30-pin expansion port under a removable top plate. Mattel Electronics planned to use that connector for wireless hand controllers. Mattel Electronics built
3379-605: The INTV System III , also branded as the Intellivision Super Pro System , using the same design as the original Intellivision model but in black and silver. That same year INTV Corp introduced two new games that were completed at Mattel but not released: Thunder Castle and World Championship Baseball . With their early success INTV Corp decided to produce new games and in 1986 introduced Super Pro Football , an update of Mattel NFL Football . INTV Corp continued
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3488-416: The "Basic Development System", or BDS, to be sold as an educational device to introduce kids to the concepts of computer programming. The rival BDS engineering group eventually came up with a much less expensive alternative. Originally dubbed the "Lucky", from LUCKI: Low User-Cost Keyboard Interface, it lacked many of the sophisticated features envisioned for the original Keyboard Component. Gone, for example,
3597-403: The 1977 success of their Mattel Electronics branded handheld electronic games, Mattel Electronics became a division within the company, with separate marketing, finance, and engineering. In September, Krakauer made Rochlis its president. Chang, becoming director of its new Design and Development department, responsible for Intellivision software. Chandler, became director of Product Engineering led
3706-542: The 1980s, followed by globalisation of Taiwanese and South Korean companies. On May 27, 1991, Charles E. Sporck was replaced by Gil Amelio as CEO and president. Amelio was then president of Rockwell International 's semiconductor division and had a Ph.D. in physics from Georgia Institute of Technology . Amelio had also been formerly employed at Fairchild. Amelio was faced with a company plagued with over-capacity and shrinking market share. Amelio found that, just prior to his taking helm, despite having spent US$ 1 billion over
3815-493: The 3rd party developers quickly figured out how to get around it. Mattel's own Electric Company Word Fun , however, will not run on the Intellivision II due to this change. In an unrelated issue but also due to Exec changes, Super Pro Football experiences a minor glitch where the quarterback does not appear until after the ball is hiked. There were also some minor changes to the sound chip ( AY-3-8914A/AY-3-8916 ) affecting sound effects in some games. Programmers at Mattel discovered
3924-609: The April 4, 2011, closing share price of $ 14.07. The deal made Texas Instruments one of the world's largest makers of analog technology components. On September 19, 2011, the Chinese minister approved the merger, the last one needed. The companies formally merged on September 23, 2011. The reconstitution was characterised by the new Fairchild being allotted the formerly National Semiconductor locations at Penang (Malaysia), Cebu (Philippines), West Jordan/Salt Lake City (Utah) while National retained
4033-585: The Entertainment Computer System series, also supports the Intellivoice if both the ECS and Intellivoice are connected concurrently. Unlike the Intellivoice-specific games, however, World Series Major League Baseball is also playable without the Intellivoice module (but not without the ECS). In the spring of 1983, Mattel introduced the Intellivision II , a cheaper, more compact redesign of the original, that
4142-493: The Exec framework to create smooth 30 Hz and 60 Hz Intellivision games such as The Dreadnaught Factor . Cheaper ROM prices also allowed for progressively larger games as 8K, 12K, and 16K cartridges became common. The first Mattel Electronics Intellivision game to run at 60 Hz was Masters of the Universe in 1983. Marketing dubbed the term "Super Graphics" on the game's packaging and marketing. Mattel Electronics had
4251-716: The GI STIC provides. Further, the TI chip requires more RAM and software already developed would have to be reworked. The Intellivision was introduced at the 1979 Las Vegas CES in January as a modular home computer with the Master Component priced at US$ 165 and a soon-to-follow Keyboard Component also at $ 165 (equivalent to $ 690 in 2023). At Chicago CES in June, prices were revised to $ 250 for each component. A shortage of key chips from manufacturer General Instrument resulted in
4360-596: The Gimini programmable set in the GI 1977 catalog. The GI chipset lacked programmable graphics and Mattel worked with GI to implement changes. GI published an updated chipset in its 1978 catalog. Mattel initially chose National Semiconductor, who advised Mattel to postpone the project, turning them to GI . Mattel corporate management reacted by putting a halt to video game development for several months. On November 9, 1977, Mattel , GI , and Magnavox (their initial contract manufacturer) met to plan contracts and production. With
4469-515: The Information Appliance Division (highly integrated processors & "internet gadgets") in 1998. The Information Appliance Division was sold to AMD in 2003. Other businesses dealing in such products as digital wireless chipsets, image sensors , and PC I/O chipsets have also been recently closed down or sold off as National has reincarnated itself as a high-performance analog semiconductor company. Peter Sprague, Pierre Lamond and
Blue Sky Rangers - Misplaced Pages Continue
4578-518: The Intellivision home computer was meant to run pre-programmed software and bring "data flow" ( Videotex ) into the home. The Keyboard Component adds an 8-bit 6502 processor, making the Intellivision a dual-processor computer. It has 16K 10-bit shared RAM that can load and execute both Intellivision CP1610 and 6502 program code from tape, which is a large amount as typical contemporary cartridges are 4K. The cassettes have two tracks of digital data and two tracks of analog audio, completely controlled by
4687-517: The Intellivision in 1990. INTV Corporation did publish 21 new Intellivision cartridges bringing the Intellivision library to a total of 124 cartridges plus one compilation cartridge. In 1989, INTV Corp and World Book Encyclopedia entered into an agreement to manufacture an educational video game system called Tutorvision. It is a modified Intellivision, the case molded in light beige with gold and blue trim. The Exec ROM expanded, system RAM increased to 1.75K, and graphics RAM increased to 2KB. That
4796-729: The Intellivision project became successful, software development was brought in-house. Mattel formed its own software development group and began hiring programmers. The original five members of that Intellivision team were Mike Minkoff, Rick Levine, John Sohl, Don Daglow , and manager Gabriel Baum. Levine and Minkoff, a long-time Mattel Toys veteran, both transferred from the hand-held Mattel game engineering team. During 1981, Mattel hired programmers as fast as possible. Early in 1982 Mattel Electronics relocated from Mattel headquarters to an unused industrial building. Offices were renovated as new staff moved in. To keep these programmers from being hired away by rival Atari , their identities and work location
4905-589: The Intellivision specifically on the promise of a "coming soon" personal-computer upgrade eventually caught the attention of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), who started investigating Mattel Electronics for fraud and false advertising . Mattel explained to the FTC that the Keyboard Component was a failed product, avoiding fines. Mattel subsequently cancelled the product in August 1982, and offered to buy back all of
5014-622: The Intellivision was discontinued. In 2009, IGN ranked the Intellivision No. 14 on their list of the greatest video game consoles of all time. The Intellivision was developed at Mattel in Hawthorne, California . By 1969, multiple research and development groups came together as the Preliminary Design department on the third floor of the head office. Mattel had a history with technology R&D as design engineer Jack Ryan , who joined
5123-480: The Magus board parallel interface. The keyboard component debacle was ranked as No. 11 on GameSpy ' s "25 dumbest moments in gaming". In mid-1981, Mattel's upper management was becoming concerned that the Keyboard Component group would never be able to produce a sellable product. As a result, Design and Development set up a competing engineering team whose stated mission was to produce an inexpensive add-on called
5232-591: The ability to find keypad buttons by the tactile feel of the original controller bubble keypad. One functional difference was the addition of a video input to the cartridge port, added specifically to support the System Changer, an accessory also released in 1983 by Mattel that played Atari 2600 cartridges through the Intellivision. The Intellivision hand controllers could be used to play Atari 2600 games . The System Changer also had two controller ports compatible with Atari joysticks. The original Intellivision required
5341-480: The affectionately called Charlie Sporck worked hand-in-hand, with support of the board of directors to transform the company into a multinational and world-class semiconductor concern. Immediately after becoming CEO, Sporck started a historic price war among semiconductor companies, which then trimmed the number of competitors in the field. Among the casualties to exit the semiconductor business were General Electric and Westinghouse. Cost control, overhead reduction and
5450-482: The amount of the previous year. Mattel Electronics became a subsidiary and relocated to another building to accommodate their growth. In 1982, they sold 1.8 million Intellivisions. The Intellivision Master Component was branded and distributed by various companies. Before Mattel shifted manufacturing to Hong Kong , Mattel Intellivision consoles were manufactured by GTE Sylvania . GTE Sylvania Intellivision consoles were produced along with Mattel's, differing only by
5559-675: The appropriateness of organisational strategies of National Semiconductor under Sporck. "For 13 of 14 years at National, I was a gung-ho guy. Then, the company started to get big. I kept looking at all the companies whose butts we'd been kicking. And then National started organizing itself like them. It was frustrating." Swanson said in the May 13, 1991, Business Journal-San Jose . Sporck's strategy of outsourcing sales to external sources meant National Semiconductor did not have sufficient or responsive resources to respond to requests from innovators, inventors and academic research—which would have been helpful in
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#17328560009725668-870: The audio differences and avoided the problem in future games. As early as 1981, Dave Chandler's group began designing what would have been Mattel's next-generation console, codenamed Decade and now referred to as the Intellivision IV . It would have been based on the 32-bit MC68000 processor and a 16-bit custom designed advanced graphic interface chip. Specifications called for dual-display support, 240×192 bitmap resolution, 16 programmable 12-bit colors (4096 colors), antialiasing , 40×24 tiled graphics modes, four colors per tile (16 with shading), text layer and independent scrolling, 16 multicolored 16×16 sprites per scan-line, 32 level hardware sprite scaling. Line interrupts for reprogramming sprite and color registers would allow for many more sprites and colors on screen at
5777-708: The brand name. The Sears Super Video Arcade, manufactured by Mattel in Hong Kong, has a restyled beige top cover and detachable controllers. Its default title screen lacks the " Mattel Electronics " captioning. In 1982, Radio Shack marketed the Tandyvision One, similar to the original console but with the gold plates replaced with more wood trim. In Japan, Intellivision consoles were branded for Bandai in 1982, and in Brazil there were Digimed and Digiplay consoles manufactured by Sharp in 1983. Inside every Intellivision console
5886-475: The company in 1955 from Raytheon , led a group of engineers, chemists, sculptors. With a large budget they were expected to be forward thinking, dubbed the blue-sky group. In 1975, mechanical engineer Richard Chang, a director under Ryan, contacted MOS Technology for a demonstration of their new 6502 microprocessor in a video game application. MOS arranged for their client Glenn Hightower of APh Technological Consulting and teacher at CalTech University to do
5995-501: The company's focus to shift away from hardware add-ons in favor of software, and the ECS received very little in terms of furthering the marketing push. Further hardware developments, including a planned Program Expander that would have added another 16K of RAM and a more intricate, fully featured Extended-BASIC to the system, were halted. In the end, six games were released for the ECS; a few more were completed but not released. The ECS Computer Module also offered four player game-play with
6104-421: The company's president and chief operating officer, to CEO. Don Macleod became National Semiconductor's chief executive officer on November 30, 2009. He was named chairman of the board on May 31, 2010. On April 4, 2011, Texas Instruments announced that it had agreed to buy National Semiconductor for $ 6.5 billion in cash. Texas Instruments paid $ 25 per share of National Semiconductor stock, an 80% premium over
6213-587: The company's president, chairman and chief executive officer on February 2, 1996. National Semiconductor announced the appointment of Brian L. Halla as its chairman, president and CEO on May 3, 1996. Halla was then the head of LSI logic products division. Prior to LSI, he had been with Intel for 14 years. Halla reinforced Amelio's emphasis on the expertise of National Semiconductor in analog technology. He also was, on occasions, an evangelist for analog technology. However, he found that National Semiconductor under Amelio had too few product offerings. Halla embarked on
6322-556: The computer. In 1982, Mattel introduced the Intellivoice Voice Synthesis Module, a speech synthesizer for compatible cartridges. The Intellivoice was novel in two respects: human sounding male and female voices with distinct accents, and speech-supporting games designed with speech as an integral part of the gameplay. Like the Intellivision chipset, the Intellivoice chipset was developed by General Instrument . The SP0256-012 orator chip has 2KB ROM inside and
6431-496: The computer. Two tracks are read-only for the software, and two tracks are for user data. The tape drive is block addressed with high speed indexing. A high resolution 40×24 monochrome text display can overlay regular Intellivision graphics. There is a microphone port and two expansion ports for peripherals and RAM . The Microsoft BASIC programming cartridge uses one of these ports. Expanded memory cartridges support 1,000 pages of 8 KB each. A third pass-through cartridge port
6540-421: The consumer market. Sporck had applied strategies that made National Semiconductor function as a low-cost mass manufacturer of semiconductor commodities. A few key executives and engineers left the company in 1981. Among them was Pierre Lamond , who had been the chief IC designer (now partner at Sequoia Capital ). Robert Swanson's departure in the same year to found Linear Technology was another indication of
6649-510: The deal better for Sporck's hiring and appointment at half his former salary at Fairchild, Sporck was allotted a substantial share of National's stock. In essence, Sporck took four of his personnel from Fairchild with him as well as three others from TI, Perkin-Elmer, and Hewlett-Packard to form a new eight-man team at National Semiconductor. Incidentally, Sporck had been Widlar's superior at Fairchild before Widlar left Fairchild to join Molectro after
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#17328560009726758-408: The demand for video games increased in 1983. Valeski found investors and purchased the rights to Intellivision, the games, and inventory from Mattel. A new company, Intellivision Inc, was formed and by the end of 1984 Valeski bought out the other investors and changed the name to INTV Corporation. They continued to supply the large toy stores and sold games through direct mail order. At first they sold
6867-411: The demonstration. Shortly after, Dave James, an industrial engineer under Chang, wrote a memo dated January 26, 1976, documenting two product concepts. First, a microprocessor programmed video system with "plug-in" ROM modules or cassettes, and a list of applications that include war games, gambling games, strategy and board games, video Etch-a-Sketch, driving simulator, pinball; and football with 10 player
6976-413: The domestic video game market, selling more than 3.75 million consoles and 20 million cartridges through 1983. At its peak Mattel Electronics had about 1800 employees in several countries, including 110 videogame developers. In 1984, Mattel sold its video game assets to a former Mattel Electronics executive and investors, eventually becoming INTV Corporation. Game development ran from 1978 to 1990, when
7085-521: The eventual disposal of low-margin commodity products, which came to fruition later with the sale of a reconstituted Fairchild. National Semiconductor under Amelio chose to build a brand new eight-inch (200 mm) wafer fabrication plant in South Portland, Maine . It chose to divest itself of its then somewhat new plant in Migdal HaEmek , Israel, which became Tower Semiconductor . In 1995, Amelio
7194-649: The existing Keyboard Components from customers. Mattel provided a full refund, but customers without a receipt received $ 550 for the Keyboard Component, $ 60 for the BASIC cartridge, and $ 30 for each cassette software. Any customer who opted to keep the products was required to sign a waiver with the understanding that no more software would be written for the system and absolving Mattel of any future responsibility for technical support. They were also compensated with $ 1,000 worth of Mattel Electronics products. Though approximately 4,000 Keyboard Components were manufactured, it
7303-756: The existing inventory of games and Intellivision II systems. When the inventory of games sold out they produced more, but without the Mattel name or unnecessary licenses on the printed materials. To lower costs, the boxes, instructions, and overlays were produced at lower quality compared to Mattel. In France, the Mattel Electronics office found investors and became Nice Ideas in April 1984. They continued to work on Intellivision, Colecovision, and other computer games. They produced Intellivision World Cup Soccer and Championship Tennis , both released in 1985 by European publisher Dextel. In 1985, INTV Corporation introduced
7412-470: The expansion. Among Sporck's cost control efforts was his offshore outsourcing of labour. National Semiconductor was among the pioneers in the semiconductor industry to invest in facilities to perform final manufacturing operations of integrated circuits in developing countries, especially in Southeast Asia. National Semiconductor's manufacturing improvements under Sporck (in collaboration with Lamond)
7521-404: The following. According to the company's 1982 Form 10-K , Mattel had almost 20% of the domestic video-game market. Mattel Electronics provided 25% of revenue and 50% of operating income in fiscal 1982. Although the Atari 2600 had more third-party development, Creative Computing Video & Arcade Games reported after visiting the summer 1982 Consumer Electronics Show that "the momentum
7630-549: The formerly Fairchild location of Toa Payoh (Singapore). National Semiconductor also had operations in Migdal (tower) Ha'Emeq (valley), Israel. National Semiconductor had six inch (152 mm) wafer fabrication operations there. In 1993, National Semiconductor divested to retain 19% ownership of the plant. The plant in Migdal Ha'Emeq , Israel is now constituted as Tower Semiconductor of Israel. The following picture excerpts illustrate
7739-498: The growing industrial and commercial markets and began to rely less on military and aerospace contracts. Those decisions coupled with inflationary growth in use of computers provided the market for the expansion of National. Meanwhile, sources of funds associated with Sprague coupled with creative structuring of cash flow buffering due to Sporck and Lamond provided the financing required for that expansion. Lamond and Sporck had also managed to attract and extract substantial funds to finance
7848-463: The hand-held Mattel games engineering team. To keep these and later programmers (the Mattel team peaked at 110 people in 1983) from being hired away by rival Atari , their identity and work location was kept a closely guarded secret. In 1982, TV Guide published an article about Intellivision's secret programming team. The writer of the article wanted to come up with some group name other than "The Application Software Programmers," so he came up with
7957-550: The ill-fated keyboard component project. A new advertising campaign was aired in time for the 1982 Christmas season, and the ECS itself was shown to the public at the January 1983 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas. However, it would not see release until late December as the Intellivision Computer Module . Prior to release, an internal shake-up at the top levels of Mattel Electronics' management had caused
8066-668: The last five years on research and development, National Semiconductor had a disappointing record in new products. The Business section of The New York Times January 11, 1991, reflected the over-capacity generated by Sporck that had to be inherited by Amelio. Amelio disposed of the non-core products and assets in which National Semiconductor had no market motivation or expertise and turned the company towards its core expertise—analog semiconductors. National Semiconductor under Amelio emphasized on reduction of cost of sales, improving capacity utilization, scrap reduction and cycle-time reduction. Redundant facilities were sold and consolidated. With
8175-484: The name "The Blue Sky Rangers." This was based on the programming group's "Blue Sky Meetings," which were a series of brainstorming sessions for new game ideas. This name stuck and the programmers were (and still are) collectively referred to as the Blue Sky Rangers. One of the early programmers, Keith Robinson, re-acquired the rights to Intellivision in recent years and the Blue Sky Rangers' games are now available on
8284-599: The optional addition of two extra hand controllers. Four player games were in development when Mattel Electronics closed in 1984. World Cup Soccer was later completed and released in 1985 by Dextel in Europe and then INTV Corporation in North America. The documentation does not mention it but when the ECS Computer Adapter is used, World Cup Soccer can be played with one to four players, or two players cooperatively against
8393-455: The personal computer as a trend. He predicted that IAs would overtake sales of PCs by the year 2000. To achieve the goal, National Semiconductor started acquiring companies that would provide the needed technological complements. Among the acquisitions were Cirrus Logic Inc's PicoPower business, for its specialised expertise in small form factor devices; Mediamatics Inc, which makes multimedia connectivity products; Future Integrated Systems Inc,
8502-425: The pick-up-and-play format like arcade games . Reading the instructions is often a prerequisite. Every cartridge produced by Mattel Electronics includes two plastic controller overlays to help navigate the 12-button keypad, although not every game uses it. Game series, or networks, are Major League Sports , Action , Strategy , Gaming , Children's Learning , and later Space Action and Arcade . The network concept
8611-526: The price of home computers, particularly the Commodore 64 , came down drastically to compete with video game system sales. The market became flooded with hardware and software, and retailers were ill-equipped to cope. In spring 1983, hiring at Mattel Electronics came to a halt. At the June 1983 Consumer Electronics Show in Chicago, Mattel Electronics had the opportunity to show off all their new products. The response
8720-877: The progress of restructuring, National Semiconductor increased revenues each year. In 1994, National Semiconductor under Amelio posted record net revenues of US$ 2.29 billion. It was also a time when US semiconductor companies had regained market leadership. Amelio introduced benchmarking to evaluate productivity, restructured marketing strategies and reorganised management by introducing modern management practices and workplace environments. Amelio divided products into two divisions: Standard Products Group which comprised low-margin, logic and memory chips—commodity products which were more susceptible to cyclical demands and through which National Semiconductor had matured; and Communications & Computing Group which comprised high-margin, value-added analog and mixed-signal chips. Amelio's division of products seemed to prepare National Semiconductor for
8829-541: The purchase of a Master Component. In August 1983, the Intellivoice system was quietly phased out. A children's title called Magic Carousel and foreign-language versions of Space Spartans were completed but shelved. Additional games Woody Woodpecker and Space Shuttle went unfinished with the voice recordings unused. Four Intellivoice games were released: Space Spartans , B-17 Bomber , Bomb Squad , and Tron: Solar Sailer . A fifth game, Intellivision World Series Major League Baseball , developed as part of
8938-414: The real thing". One such example compared golf games; where the 2600's games had a blip sound and cruder graphics, the Intellivision featured a realistic swing sound and striking of the ball and a more 3D look. In 1980, Mattel sold out its 190,000 stock of Intellivision Master Components, along with one million cartridges. In 1981, more than one million Intellivision consoles were sold, more than five times
9047-413: The redesigned Intellivision II. Using an external AC Adapter (16.2V AC ), consolidating some ICs , and taking advantage of relaxed FCC emission standards, the Intellivision II has a significantly smaller footprint than the original. The controllers, now detachable, have a different feel, with plastic rather than rubber side buttons and a flat membrane keypad. Users of the original Intellivision missed
9156-447: The remaining programming staff were laid off. The Taiwan and French offices continued a little while longer due to contract and legal obligations. On February 4, 1984, Mattel sold the Intellivision business for $ 20 million . In 1983, 750,000 Intellivision Master Components were sold, compared to 1.8 million in 1982. Former Mattel Electronics Senior Vice President of Marketing, Terrence Valeski, understood that although losses were huge,
9265-1022: The sale of Cyrix to VIA in 1999. In 1999, National Semiconductor also put out feelers for selling if not the whole, then a majority stake of, its fabrication plant in South Portland, Maine. However, that did not come to fruition. On June 28, 2000, National Semiconductor and TSMC Taiwan signed an agreement that would allow transfer of advanced fabrication technologies from TSMC to the National Semiconductor fabrication plant in South Portland, Maine. On March 11, 2009, National announced plans to close its assembly and test plant in Suzhou, China, and its wafer fabrication plant in Arlington, Texas. On October 9, 2009, Brian Halla announced his retirement as National's CEO. He remains executive chairman. The company promoted Donald (Don) Macleod, who had previously served as
9374-473: The same time. It was intended as a machine that could lead Mattel Electronics into the 1990s; however, on August 4, 1983, most hardware people at Mattel Electronics were laid off . Also in 1981, Mattel Electronics executives indicated to APh, interest in a successor system for 1983. Although planned for some time, APh redirected staff efforts on the Intellivision III hardware around summer 1982. Based on
9483-489: The semiconductor division of Sperry Rand Corporation . The founding of the new company was followed by Sperry Rand filing a lawsuit against National Semiconductor for patent infringement. By 1965, as it was reaching the courts, the preliminaries of the lawsuit had caused the stock value of National to be depressed. The depressed stock values allowed Peter J Sprague to invest heavily in the company with Sprague's family funds. Sprague also relied on further financial backing from
9592-596: The software. Only two applications using the PicSe system were released on cassette tape : Conversational French and Jack Lalanne's Physical Conditioning . Cassettes in development include Super Football , Spelling Challenge , Chartcraft Stock Analysis , and Jeanne Dixon Astrology . Programs written in BASIC do not have access to Intellivision graphics and were sold at a lower price. Five BASIC applications were released on tape: Family Budgeting , Geography Challenge , and Crosswords I, II, and III . The Keyboard Component
9701-483: The south of France to provide European input to Intellivision games and develop games for the ColecoVision . At its peak Mattel Electronics employed 1800 people. Amid the flurry of new hardware and software development, there was trouble for the Intellivision. New game systems ( ColecoVision and Atari 5200 ) introduced in 1982 took advantage of falling RAM prices to offer graphics closer to arcade quality. In 1983,
9810-552: The technological innovation boom of the 1980s. National Semiconductor's lack and loss of innovation meant it was producing products that were easily copied and reproducible. It may have been the cheapest manufacturer in the United States, but it was not the cheapest compared to the Asian manufacturers. This weakness in National Semiconductor was evident in its failure to compete during the globalisation of Japanese semiconductor companies in
9919-433: The technology to launch itself in the fabrication and manufacture of monolithic integrated circuits. In 1967, Sprague hired five top executives away from Fairchild, among whom were Charles E. Sporck and Pierre Lamond . At the time of Sporck's hiring, Robert Noyce was de facto head of semiconductor operations at Fairchild and Sporck was his operations manager. Sporck was appointed president and CEO of National. To make
10028-412: Was able to quickly create the Intellivision launch game library using mostly summer students. The drawback is that to be flexible and handle many different types of games, the Exec runs less efficiently than a dedicated program. Intellivision games that leverage the Exec run at a 20 Hz frame rate instead of the 60 Hz frame rate for which the Intellivision was designed. Using the Exec framework
10137-508: Was also involved with the popular Intellivision games Tron Deadly Discs and Shark! Shark! . After Mattel Electronics closed in 1984, its programmers continued to make significant contributions to the videogame industry. Don Daglow and Eddie Dombrower went on to Electronic Arts to create Earl Weaver Baseball , and Don Daglow founded Stormfront Studios . Bill Fisher, Steve Roney, and Mike Breen founded Quicksilver Software , and David Warhol founded Realtime Associates . The Intellivision
10246-415: Was also listed in the nationally distributed JCPenney Christmas 1979 catalog along with seven cartridges. By April 1980, markets expanded to Los Angeles, New York, and Chicago. It was in stores nationwide by mid-1980 with the pack-in game Las Vegas Poker & Blackjack and a library of ten cartridges. By September 1980, there was internal debate about the effectiveness of marketing the Intellivision as
10355-540: Was an ambitious piece of engineering for its time, and it was repeatedly delayed as engineers tried to reduce manufacturing costs. In August 1979, a breadboard form of the Component was successfully entered into the Sears Market Research Program. In December 1979, Mattel had production design working units but decided on a significant internal design change to consolidate circuit boards. In September 1980, it
10464-425: Was designed as a modular home computer; so, from the beginning, its packaging, promotional materials, and television commercials promised the addition of a forthcoming accessory called the Keyboard Component. The Master Component was packaged as a stand-alone video game system to which the Keyboard Component could be added, providing the computer keyboard and tape drive . Not meant to be a hobbyist or business computer,
10573-577: Was designed to be less expensive to manufacture and service, with updated styling. It also had longer controller cords. The Intellivision II was initially released without a pack-in game but was later packaged with BurgerTime in the United States and Lock'N'Chase in Canada . In 1984, the Digiplay Intellivision II was introduced in Brazil . Brazil was the only country outside North America to have
10682-405: Was dropped in 1983, as was the convenient gatefold-style box for storing the cartridge, instructions, and overlays. Starting in 1981, programmers looking for credit and royalties on sales began leaving both APh and Mattel Electronics to create Intellivision cartridges for third-party publishers. They helped form Imagic in 1981, and in 1982 others joined Activision and Atari. Cheshire Engineering
10791-456: Was elected as the chairman of the board of directors of National Semiconductor. In 1996, Amelio accepted an invitation from Apple Computer , a customer of National Semiconductor, to join its board of directors. Troubles at Apple later prompted the board to invite Amelio to take on the position of CEO, which he accepted in February 1996. National Semiconductor announced the resignation of Amelio as
10900-423: Was enabled not by emphasizing process innovation but by improving and standardizing processes already established by other companies like Fairchild and Texas Instruments, as well as by frequent raiding to hire from Fairchild's pool of talents. National Semiconductor under Sporck was not particularly invested in marketing strategies, even though it had the vision to launch itself into new and apparent opportunities in
11009-510: Was formed by a few senior APh programmers including David Rolfe, author of the Exec, and Tom Loughry, creator of one of the most popular Intellivision games, Advanced Dungeons and Dragons . Cheshire created Intellivision games for Activision. Third-party developers Activision, Imagic, and Coleco started producing Intellivision cartridges in 1982, and Atari, Parker Brothers , Sega , and Interphase followed in 1983. The third-party developers, not having legal access to Exec knowledge, often bypassed
11118-459: Was kept a closely guarded secret. In public, the programmers were referred to collectively as the Blue Sky Rangers . Most of the early games are based on traditional real-world concepts such as sports, with an emphasis on realism and depth of play within the technology of the time. The Intellivision was not marketed as a toy; as such, games such as Sea Battle and B-17 Bomber are not made in
11227-808: Was mostly the Standard Products group previously segregated by Amelio. Incidentally, the effective price of acquisition of Cyrix was also US$ 550 million. On November 17, 1997, National Semiconductor and Cyrix announced the merger of the companies. Cyrix would become an autonomous wholly owned subsidiary. Halla had earlier emphasized that National was after the low-end CPU market as part of the system-on-a-chip pursuit and therefore would not place emphasis on Cyrix's current development of high-end 6x86MX design. However, Cyrix later announced that its merger with National Semiconductor would not change its development or marketing plans. The acquisition of an independent-minded Cyrix subsequently turned National Semiconductor from
11336-467: Was only available by mail order. The Keyboard Component's repeated delays became so notorious around Mattel headquarters that comedian Jay Leno , when performing at Mattel's 1981 Christmas party, got his biggest response of the evening with the line: "You know what the three big lies are, don't you? 'The check is in the mail', 'I'll still respect you in the morning', and 'The keyboard will be out in spring.'" Complaints from consumers who had chosen to buy
11445-562: Was quoted saying, "Basically these things are fore-runners of the home computer. There's a logical transition involved. One way to get into the home-computer market is to sell games." In April 1977, David Chandler, with a doctoral degree in Electrical Engineering, a career in Aerospace, also having prototyped an early word processor as well as an arcade video game, joined Prelimanary Design under Chang. Chandler shared Chang's vision for
11554-406: Was stopped when 660 jobs were cut on August 4. The price of the Intellivision II (which launched at $ 150 earlier that year) was lowered to $ 69 , and Mattel Electronics was to be a software company. However, by October 1983, Electronics' losses were over $ 280 million for the year and one third of the programming staff were laid off. Another third were gone by November, and, on January 20, 1984,
11663-514: Was test marketed in Fresno, California, but without software, except for the BASIC programming cartridge. In late 1981, design changes were finally implemented and the Keyboard Component was released at $ 600 (equivalent to $ 2,010 in 2023) in Seattle and New Orleans only. Customers who complained in writing could buy a Keyboard Component directly from Mattel. The printer, a rebadged Alphacom Sprinter 40,
11772-411: Was the 16K (8MB max) of RAM, the secondary CPU, and high resolution text; instead, the ECS offered a mere 2KB RAM expansion, a built-in BASIC that was marginally functional, plus a much-simplified cassette and printer interface. Ultimately, this fulfilled the original promise of turning the Intellivision into a computer, making it possible to write programs and store them to tape as well as interfacing with
11881-413: Was underwhelming. Several people in top management positions were replaced due to massive losses. On July 12, 1983, Mattel Electronics President Josh Denham was replaced with outsider Mack Morris. Morris brought in former Mattel Electronics president and marketing director Jeff Rochlis as a consultant and all projects were under review. The Intellivision III was cancelled and then all new hardware development
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