Activities and actions that happened in the Intellivision universe, over time.
Late in 1981, Mattel held a series of local tournaments in Washington, DC, Baltimore, New York, Philadelphia, Chicago and Los Angeles, benefitting Variety Clubs International. Contestants competed for prizes (Grand Prize: an RCA projection TV) playing Major League Baseball, Auto Racing, and U.S. Ski Team Skiing. Another competition for parent+child was held in Summer/Fall in 1982, and then one more challenge competition in Chicago in 1982 for individuals. The Marketing Department knew that they were on to something. The publicity was so good, that Marketing took the idea national in 1982 with the $100,000 Astrosmash Shootoff.
Info from one of the contestants:
We arrive at the mall to a remarkable sight: 30 TVs and Intellivision sets in the big center court lounge area, like something out of a NASA control room. Many of the specifics of the day are lost to the sands of time, but I can still feel the excitement of having a chance to show off and compete. Most off all, I remember the fun of doing so as a family and how fitting it is that we should all be there together. For several hours, there are 15-team qualifying rounds on Skiing with the winning team of each round advancing to the 2nd round. My Dad and I set a solid time and win our round on the 1st attempt. After several attempts, my Mom and Sis manage to beat out 14 other teams to win a round of Skiing and claim a spot in the top 15 teams moving onto the second round. How huge is that?? The only family with 2 teams making it through! The second round is a timed game of Astrosmash, which none of us had needed practice on thanks to the recent Astrosmash Shootoff high score contest (more on that next time), but with only one shot to set a score, it's not a sure thing we'll make the 2 team finals. My Dad and I pull out a comfortable second and Mom & Sis manage to come in a very respectable 7th!
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The Astrosmash Shootoff was first held in 1982 with a $25,000 cash prize won by Manuel Rodriguez of Stockton, California (score 935,180).
73 entrants were flown to Houston, Texas for an all-expense-paid weekend to play for a high score within one hour.
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Mattel Electronics All Stars
West Team
| Name | Score |
|---|---|
| Manuel Rodriguez | 851,505 |
| Michael Miller | 769,715 |
| Martin Huard | 752,940 |
| Byron Nelson | 750,830 |
| Randy White | 735,760 |
| James West | 730,390 |
| Chad Junge | 723,585 |
| Andrew Staines | 714,730 |
| Ernie Fisher | 707,525 |
| Torn Lodgard | 703,640 |
| Mike Todd | 692,280 |
| Mike Siegler | 666,195 |
| G. Strada | 646,585 |
| Larry Sease | 646,265 |
| Derek Drew | 641,605 |
| Charlie Spears | 636,705 |
| John Roberts | 632,320 |
| Steve Little | 624,490 |
| D. J. Stamm | 611,970 |
| Richard Yamagata | 611,320 |
| Brad Brown | 604,855 |
| Larry Arnold | 593,320 |
| Peggy Hampton | 514,250 |
| T. R. Morgan | 512,485 |
| Stephen Glowacz | 511,730 |
| Phillip Culver | 481,305 |
| Janice Haycraft | 464,980 |
| Stephen Rochter | 457,720 |
| Rodney Zalewski | 448,010 |
| Robert McDonald | 441,040 |
East Team
| Name | Score |
|---|---|
| Charles Tappan | 795,750 |
| Bernard Heydenbu | 784,390 |
| John Malley | 774,435 |
| Gary Lynch | 769,240 |
| Jim Jacob | 755,530 |
| Michael McCauley | 726,450 |
| Robert Kessler | 710,100 |
| Joseph Johnson | 708,810 |
| Ira Rubenstein | 697,870 |
| David Loh | 686,420 |
| Paul Souzer | 681,425 |
| Matt Wilson | 666,000 |
| C. Mark Boyle | 654,425 |
| Charles Grundy | 653,390 |
| Dough Leighty | 647,320 |
| Edward Manziuk | 639,520 |
| Mike Arvol | 639,325 |
| Scott Jacob | 637,550 |
| Rick Marchini | 633,825 |
| Donald Mason | 630,505 |
| Meyer Van Dam | 625,430 |
| Mathias Beran | 624,250 |
| Richard Smith | 622,805 |
| Kurt Sherry | 616,385 |
| Jefferey Zwier | 606,350 |
| Patrick Shrake | 590,175 |
| Thomas Fairbrother | 588,165 |
| Wayne Spoor | 573,110 |
| Richard Fulmer | 567,435 |
| Michael Obrzut | 562,650 |
| Michael Jacobi | 560,950 |
| T. Dodson | 543,350 |
| James Knaus | 540,935 |
| Ronald Fischer | 536,290 |
| Tom Reeves | 517,080 |
| Joseph Gendusa | 507,095 |
| John Parker | 493,925 |
| Steven Zickel | 467,460 |
| Paul Redmond | 451,480 |
| Brian Sheehey | 406,395 |
| Vinvent Gendusa | 405,295 |
| Gary Hanson | 392,190 |
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The Astrosmash Shootoff in 2015 was held at the National Museum of Pinball. Famed videogame music composer Tommy Tallarico came in first in the 5-minute times challende with 13,220 points, second place was Patrick Wyrick with 13,195 points. 12 players competed for the top prize of an Intellivision Flashback unit.
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CGE has been held since 1999 in early Fall in Las Vegas, NV, USA. It is run by John Hardie, Sean Kelly, and Joe Santulli to cover retro video game collecting and playing, with classic Intellivision games playing a prominent role.
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Multiple authorities exist for reporting the highest high scores across the Intellivision catalog. That sounds like an oxymoron, because it is. :) Pick a group you like, play the game fully recorded, and post it. At the end of the day, it's all about fun. Different score platforms have different rules (real hardware vs Flashback vs emulation, time limits, controller variations, etc).
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The Expo is a multi-hour marathon showcasing the latest and best in games, hardware, development, and news - strictly related to the classic Intellivision.
The first event took place on 21-November-2020 via Zoom, from 12:00pm to 8:00pm, US-Eastern-Standard time.
| Time | Session |
|-------|----------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| 12:05 | Intellivision Revolution Introduction & Presentation (10 min) |
| 12:15 | Commercial Break |
| 12:20 | What's New Presentation by Nanochess (25 min) |
| 12:45 | Commercial Break |
| 12:50 | Midnight Blue International Intellivision update by Michael Hayes (25 min) |
| 1:15 | Commercial Break |
| 1:20 | 2600Connection Presentation by Timdu (25 min) |
| 1:45 | Commercial Break |
| 1:50 | TV-PoWWW! By Decle (25min) |
| 2:15 | Commercial Break |
| 2:20 | Intellivisionaries Homebrew Highlights (45 min) |
| 3:05 | Intermission |
| 3:30 | From Pac-Man to Carol: A Post-Mortem by DZ-Jay (60 minutes) |
| 4:30 | Commercial Break |
| 4:35 | Amico Moment by OEB Pete (25 min) |
| 5:00 | Commercial Break |
| 5:05 | Intellivision Arcade Games Top 10 by ArcadeUSA (10 min) |
| 5:15 | Commercial Break |
| 5:20 | Argon Intellivision Emulator Presentation (25 min) |
| 5:45 | Commercial Break |
| 5:50 | The Immortal John Hancock Intellivision Favorite Games (15 min) |
| 6:05 | Elektronite Greetings by Vaulter Prette |
| 6:10 | Elektronite Update by Michael Bergeron |
| 6:30 | Expo Closing session |
In addition to the sessions and presentations, the event also hosted live game streaming via the Virtual Game Room. Multiple players in 4 different Azure Media "streaming rooms" played for high scores and recognition, or deep-dove into a few new homebrew games, or or generally played for fun.
2020 Game Streamers:
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The contest was open to all IntyBASIC programmersm sponsored by GroovyBee, nonner242, nanochess, CollectorVision and Albert of Atari Age from 2015-July-01 to 2016-Jan-01.
12 contestants competed to create a ROM that was evaluated for game play, graphics, sound, and originality.
Entrants, in order of award:
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The contest was open to all IntyBASIC programmersm sponsored by Albert Yarusso, Crossbow, Dz-Jay, GrovvyBeeand IntyMike, mthiompson, OTG, and Tarzilla of Atari Age from 2018-July-01 to 2018-Dec-31
12 contestants competed to create a ROM that was evaluated for game play, graphics, sound, and originality.
Entrants, in order of award:
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The contest was open to all IntyBASIC programmersm sponsored by intvdave, IntyMike, OTG, Tarzilla, Zendocon, and ZillaRUSH of Atari Age from 2020-July-01 to 2020-Dec-31 .
Contestants competed to create a ROM that was evaluated for game play, graphics, sound, and originality.
Entrants, in order of award:
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The Expo is held, in years when a pandemic is not occuring, in Portland in mid-Autumn. It has been the congregation point for 21st Century independent and homebrew game publishers, console fans, and expert players. It is typically held in the Oregon Convention Center.
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The Intellivision Baseball League is a virtual league played by ten teams representing Intellivision games. The season culminates with a three-game championship series between the first place teams of each network. The Intellivision Baseball League has run for multiple seasons, a complete league running C-vs-C teams on Super Pro Baseball.
It is a ton of fun to watch (and wager?) on the teams, skill makes a difference!
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In 1989, A man named Bart Elliot combed every phone book until he found the number of Steve Ettinger, and asked him for a special modification to the game, so he could host a private party with the names of players and modified stats as Bart's friends names and changes for the league name and stats and etc. The version was created for an agreement of few thousand dollars, including art from Connie Goldman. The single cartridge was mailed to Bart, who never paid for the work. The source code for this conversion is currently unavailable.
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In 1978 Magnavox introduced the Odyssey 2 which had a microprocessor which traced its roots to the ...507 patent filed by Sanders Associates granted in 1967/68. In 1979 Mattel introduced the Intellivision with a General Instruments microprocessor. Magnavox had previously successfully sued Atari (over Atari's Pong console)for patent violation. Atari settled by becoming a Magnavox exclusive licensee. With that confidently behind them, Magnavox sued Mattel for patent violation over Mattel's introduction of the Intellivision. Mattel's defence was that its console was not based on '507 but on the computer prior art, Space War!, the 1962 game played on a DEC PDP-1 mainframe at MIT. The court found for Magnavox ...it is clear from the evidence that Mattel did not in fact follow the prior art but, instead, followed developments in the television game industry, an industry which was created because of the work done at Sanders in developing the first television games and an industry which expanded and developed and become economically viable largely because of television games which followed the teachings of the '507 Patent.
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