Philips G7000 Videopac computer . . .

This is were my  gaming passion really started, the ‘Philips G7000 Videopac Computer’ being my first ever computer console.  At the time I desperately wanted an Atari 2600 as it was the console to have at the time but I was absolutely bouncing when I recieved my Philips G7000 on Christmas Day.

It all started with Magnavox (being the Latin for ‘Great Voice’) creating the Odyssey 2.  A second generation console developed by Philips’ Odyssey division subsequent to its purchase of Magnavox in 1974.  Other versions such as the philips G7200 and the philips G7400 arrived later.

The Philips G7000 was known worldwide as it followed in the footsteps of the Atari 2600 and the Fairchild F.  In USA  was known as the Magnavox Odyssey 2 (or Odyssey 2)  and in 1983 the Brazilian branch of Philips released it as the ‘Odyssey’ where it became more popular than it ever did in the USA; Tournaments were even held for popular games like “Videopac 44′  –  ‘KC’s Crazy Chase’.  Television commercials for most of the videopacs games were made such as this Freedom fighters clip.

It was called a ‘Videopac Computer’ as the cartridges were known as  ‘Videopacs’ although in France they were called  ‘Jolpacs’ and as a ‘Computer’ as it had a fully Aplhanumerical Membraine Keyboard which no other console had at the time. The console used a 8048 intel processor and had 2kb of Ram, 4kb of Rom, although the cartridges only used 2k Roms.

The console sold very well as by 1983 the Philips G7000 had sold over 1 Million units just in the US alone.  Ron Bradford and Steve Lehner were the brains responsible for the games, graphics and the packaging.  Over the systems lifespan over 70 cartridges were produced for it.  There was a wide range of well known games that were similar to that of the atari like Munchkin which was like Pac-man, Space Monster which was like Space Invaders, Freedom Fighters which was like Defender and Satallite Attack which was basically Asteroids.

For me, the beauty of this console was in the  range of cartridges like the first Videopac cartridge – Videopac A – Newscaster, (Videopac 31) – Music Videopac which also came with a keyboard overlay that allowed the user to play basic  music  and Videopac 9 –  Computer Programmer videopac which allowed the user to do very Basic Programming.  This for me took the Philips G7000 to the next level.

Well known companies  like Imagic and Parker Bros also jumped on board with Imagic releasing versions of the well known Atari  2600 games Demon Attack and Atlantis and Parker Bros releasing versions of Frogger, Spiderman, Tutenkham, Super Cobra, Popeye and Q-Bert,  some of these titles are very rare such as videopac 65, Spiderman.  Only 65 of these videopacs were made and 50 of them had a rare box cover and an ever rarer title was Mission Impossible were only 30 cartridges were made by  Humanoid Games.

The kind of gaming that impressed me, not forgetting that these were made in the late 70’s were the large boxed interactive games.  Such titles as Conquest of the World, The Great Wall Street Fortune Hunt, and my personal favorite that was a fantastic version of  JRR Tolkiens – Lord of the Rings which on the videopac was called Quest for the Rings.  I suppose it could also be comapired to Dungeons and Dragons.

Basically these titles were computer interactive board games.  They came in a large cardboard box and inside would be a keyboard overlay, plastic tokens and characters that could be moved around a board that gave you the interactive element for that in-depth quality,  Fantastic. . .  For the time in which these game were produced, the videopac now seemed quite and advanced system.

There was also a few add-on’s later made available for the G7000.  The C7010 was a chess module that sat on top of the Philips G7000 with a lead from the module going into the Videopac.  The module was created purely because the G7000 did not have enough memory to run a decent chess game so a secondary CPU and memory were installed on the C7010 module to over come the problem.  There was also a Home Computer Module C7420 that was Microsoft based.  This had 16K of ram and let the user create very basic programming.  The best of the modules was called ‘The Voice’,  this was a basic speech synthesizer and also enabled much better music and enhanced sound effects to be produced.

 

Technical specifications

• CPU
  • Intel 8048 8-bit micro-controller running at 1.79 MHz
• Memory:
  • CPU-internal RAM: 64 bytes
  • Audio/video RAM: 128 bytes
  • BIOS ROM: 1024 bytes

• Video:
  • Intel 8244 custom IC
  • 160×200 resolution (NTSC)
  • 16-color fixed palette; sprites may only use 8 of these colors
  • 4 8×8 single-color user-defined sprites; each sprite’s color may be set independently
  • 12 8×8 single-color characters; must be one of the 64 shapes built into the ROM BIOS; can be freely positioned like sprites, but cannot overlap each other; each character’s color may be set independently
  • 4 quad characters; groups of four characters displayed in a row
  • 9×8 background grid; dots, lines, or solid blocks

• Audio:
  • Intel 8244 custom IC
  • mono
  • 24-bit shift register, clockable at 2 frequencies
  • noise generator
  • NOTE: There is only one 8244 chip in the system, which performs both audio and video functions.

• Input:
  • Two 8-way, one-button, digital joysticks. In the first production runs of the Magnavox Odyssey and the Philips 7000, these were permanently attached to the console; in later models, they were removable and replaceable.
  • QWERTY-layout membrane keyboard similar to that of the ZX81
• Output:
  • RF Audio/Video connector
  • Péritel/SCART connector (France only)
• Media:
  • ROM cartridges, typically 2 KB, 4 KB, or 8 KB in size.

1. Race – Spin-out – Cryptogram
2. Pairs – Space Rendezvous – Logic
3. American Football
4. Air-Sea War – Battle
5. Blackjack
6. Tenpin Bowling – Basketball
7. Mathematician – Echo
8. Baseball
9. Computer Programmer
10. Golf
11. Cosmic Conflict
12. Take the Money and Run
13. Playschool Maths
14. Gunfighter/Showdown in 2100 A.D.
15. Samurai
16. Depth Charge – Marksman
17. Chinese Logic
18. Laser War
19. Catch the Ball – Noughts and Crosses
20. Stone Sling
21. Secret of the Pharaos
22. Space Monster / Alien Invaders – Plus
23. Las Vegas Gambling
24. Flipper Game
25. Skiing
26. Basket Game
27. Electronic Table Football
28. Electronic Volleyball
29. Dam Buster
30. Battlefield
31. Musician
32. Labyrinth Game – Supermind
33. Jumping Acrobats
34. Satellite Attack
35. Electronic Billiards
36. Electronic Soccer – Electronic Ice Hockey
37. Monkeyshines
38. Munchkin
39. Freedom Fighters
40. 4 in 1 Row
41. Conquest of the World                                (Big box game)
    
42. Quest for the Rings                                      (Big box game)
    
43. Pickaxe Pete
44. Crazy Chase / K.C.’s Krazy Chase!
45. Morse
46. The Great Wall Street Fortune Hunt       (Big box game)
    
47. The Mousing Cat
48. Backgammon
49. Turtles
50. Super Bee
51. Terrahawks / Attack of the Timelord
52. Killer Bees!
53. Nightmare
54. Looney Balloon
55. Neutron Star
56. Norseman
57. The Blobbers
58. Air Battle
59. Helicopter Rescue
60. Trans American Rally
61. Interpol
62. Clay Pigeon
63. Flashpoint
64. Shark Hunter
65. Spider-Man
66. Route66
67. Melrep
68. Martian Threat
69. Play Tag

Expansion modules

• C7010 Chess Module
• C7420 Home Computer Module

Third-party games

Parker

• Frogger
• Popeye
• Q*bert
• Super Cobra
• Spider-Man
• Tutankham
• Mission Impossible

Imagic

• Atlantis
• Demon Attack

Other

• AMOK!
• Calculator
• Kill The Attacking Aliens
• Mr. Roboto
• Planet Lander
• Pong
• Puzzle Piece Panic
• Robot City
• Route 66