Hello, everyone. I'm debuting a new regular video series entitled, "Armchair Arcade TV". The first one, with the surprising name of "Episode 1" is on little known Centuri arcade game, Route 16 (Route-16), from 1981, with feature coverage of its first home translation for the Emerson Arcadia-2001 and its family of systems. Other games and systems are also featured. This is my first time on Adobe Premiere and on a new computer system, so the usual issues cropped up in the creation of this, but naturally these will improve in all ways over time, including the host segments. In the mean-time, enjoy the first episode. The full transcript follows the video.

Microsoft Game Room ImageAccording to a Microsoft Press Release and confirmed at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Microsoft will be releasing something called the "Microsoft Game Room" some time this spring, and, within three years, will see the release of over 1000 classic videogame titles, including arcade, Atari and Mattel Intellivision games, the latter of which was confirmed by Facebook friend Keith Robinson of Blue Sky Rangers fame as one of the available launch systems (other systems TBC). Apparently this area will be avatar-based, where your Xbox avatar will roam an arcade-like setting to find and play games (a bit like Sony's Home on PS3). There's a two-tier price structure, with one being an outright purchase of the game in question, and the other being a low cost, single play option, just like putting a quarter in an arcade machine in the days of old. We'll keep you posted as more news develops, but this is great news for those of us - like the readers of Armchair Arcade - who are passionate about classic gaming. The more love the current three consoles give (and each already has given a lot) to gaming's past, the better it is for all us as gamers, particularly since it looks like this is going to be a long generation with the big three. It's unclear how this will work with the PC as of this writing, but the fact that PC gamers are being invited to the party just makes it all the better, as well as the fact that owning it on one gives you access to it on the other.

Today's casual iPhone photos are of 1979's Checkers by Mattel Electronics for the Mattel Intellivision. It was programmed by David Rolfe and produced by APh Technological Consulting. This game was also rebranded by Sears (as Super Video Arcade Checkers), as they were wont to do with Intellivision and Atari Video Computer System items at the time so they could pretend they were their own, and also renamed by Mattel as Draughts in Great Britain because they probably wouldn't have known what a "Checkers" was over there (Warning: They also like to incorrectly call soccer "football" and the Sega Genesis the Sega "Mega Drive" as well apparently, so it's probably best to avoid that region entirely). Not surprisingly for such a hot commodity, there was a fourth version of Checkers released on the platform through INTV Corporation in 1987, this time as part of Triple Challenge. Though it's unclear from the title, Checkers was actually one of three games included in the Triple Challenge cartridge, with the other two being previously released as well, Chess and Backgammon, which were originally in the form of the licensed USCF Chess (1983) and ABPA Backgammon (1979).

If you guys remember an earlier blow-out feature I did with Matt Barton that Gamasutra ran back in May 2008, we discussed all aspects of the Intellivision platform, including the infamous Keyboard Component, which was the precursor to the wide release Enhanced Computer System (ECS) add-on. There were only about 4000 Keyboard Components made, many of which were recalled, leaving only a handful in active circulation, making them very, very rare and highly sought after - and valuable - collectibles. Charles Ray recently got in contact with me requesting some help with the tape drive for his Keyboard Component. It turns out he has quite a bit of other stuff in his collection related to the Keyboard Component, which he both described and took photos of, the latter of which he gave me the kind permission to show, below. More importantly, I'm also soliciting suggestions for his problem, which I'll describe via his original e-mail to me.

Just received a Intellivision Intellivoice module, in celebration I scanned and posted a Intellivision product catalog from cover to cover as well as a brochure and some keypad overlays for 3 Intellivoice games and Intellivoice manual.

Someone requested scans of the manual for the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Treasure of Tarmin Cartridge for the Mattel Aquarius computer for an article they were working on that would apparently compare and contrast that lesser known version of the game with the better known Mattel Intellivision version. As such, I did a semi-forensic scan of the box and box contents, including a full scan of the manual from my collection. You can click the preview widget below for access to the full high resolution Flickr set, or here. Enjoy!

Gamasutra has just posted the fifth of six entries from me and Matt Barton in the "A History of Gaming Platforms" series, this time on the Mattel Intellivision, here. This was one of my favorite entries to write in the book this series is based off of, so I hope that you enjoy it as much as I did writing it. As a bonus, I've included here on Armchair Arcade the additional captions and images that Gamasutra chose not to include (I think I again improved image quality - by the way, those screenshots are DIRECT video captures straight from an Intellivision II, NOT from an emulator, and everything else of course is also straight from my personal collection). The next and presumably final entry will be on the Atari 8-bit. Enjoy and I'd love to hear some feedback, as I think it ranks right up there with the best overall articles ever written on platform (said with all due modesty and respect, of course ;-) ).

The unused images and all the captions (used and unused):

Beeslife is making available the new Moon Patrol take-off, Space Patrol, for the Mattel Intellivision, along with an updated version of the Tetris take-off, 4-Tris. I've been anticipating the release of Space Patrol for some time, so this is welcome news.

A copy and paste from the release:

CC3 Package MenuAs many of you know, Chad Schell's Cuttle Cart 3 for the Intellivision was recently released and was a boon to enthusiasts who wanted a ROM flash cart/development environment for Mattel's system. The one "downside" to the Cuttle Cart 3 was that you needed to set up your own menus, manuals and ROMs for use with the miniSD card. Obviously, one solution is to get the official ROM releases from Intellivision Productions, but it still requires a lot of setup work and is not all-inclusive (support them and their products anyway!). An even better solution - an addition to everything else you might want to do with the Cuttle Cart 3 or Intellivision emulation in general if you will - is get David Harley's new release, which includes ROMs that have never been seen before and a variety of patched software (for instance, the amazing Ehanced Computer System (ECS)-based World Series Major League Baseball is fully functional now!).

From David's e-mail: