Talk:Entertainment Computer System

Fine
The Intellivision article says that the FTC fined Mattel $10,000 per day, but this article says it was $10,000 per month.
 * also, the Intellivision article says the Keyboard Component actually did get a limited release via mail order before it was replaced by the ECS, but this one claims it was cancelled entirely. so. yeah.


 * The fine was $10,000/day (although it was paid on a monthly basis), and the Keyboard Component did get a limited release in an (obviously unsuccessful) attept to placate the FTC by claiming the unit was still being "test-marketed". I have rewritten the entire article to better explain these issues and the history behind them. (--The MCP)  —Preceding unsigned comment added by The mcp (talk • contribs) 16:53, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Statement from the designer of the prototype BDS/LUCKY hardware
I was the group leader engineer who designed the prototype Low Cost Keyboard Yinterface (and that was the way it was pronounced at the memory map meeting where LUCKY was coined) hardware, and had a small group under Jan Chodak (an engineering Director under VP Richard Chang) that produced the hardware used by developers and for demos.

It was called BDS to begin with, but it was not my knowledge that it was being considered as a Blue Whale (the internal nickname for the Keyboard Component) until much later. I was finishing up the paper design when Jan Chodak came to me, gave me a list of Keyboard Component advertising claims, and asked if I could add functionality that matched the ad claims. I could, and did. One example; we had an audio input where a simple cassette tape deck could be plugged in and programs read in or stored. The KC advertisement promised a computer controlled tape storage, so we added a relay that could start and stop the tape decks of the time, thus controlling the deck with the computer. It was then that marketing started to get very interested, as the cost of good sold for the ECS with keyboard, handcontrollers and a cartridge with BDS specific software was something like $35, versus about $700 for the bloated Keyboard Component that wasn't selling in the test markets at $800. At COOGS of $35, retail could be for not much more than $100.

We were given one month to produce prototypes for a showing for the biggest customers (buyers from the likes of Sears and K-Mart, referred to as the "vermin slime" by Mattel marketing and sales), and we didn't even have the first one built yet. Folks from Chandler's group refused to help, saying it was impossible to do, so we did it without their help. Something like five tested prototypes were loaded into my FIAT X1/9's trunk at the office in western LA, and I drove to the resort in Scottsdale, AZ to set them up.

The ECS keyboard was made by Gelco, same as the unit used in the Radio Shack "Color Computer", and was held up by George Plimpton in a teaser advertisement (I believe it aired during the Super Bowl). The music keyboard, designed by Jan Chodak, was full sized and used the dual hand controller connection. Either the alphanumeric keyboard, the music keyboard (a separate option) or the extra hand controllers could be plugged in.

Marketing was also very busy; they made up a bunch of last minute very professional looking ad copies that had text in Latin pasted in because they ran out of time. It was inspiring! (photo to follow). All in all it was a major coup for us in Richard Chang's Design & Development Department, and the downfall of the Blue Whale was complete.

Prototypes were also shown in Tokyo (by Mattel Electronic's partner Bandai) immediately followed by a New York toy show. News that singer and drummer Karen Carpenter of The Carpenters death was announced during the Bandai Show in the Sunshine City building (mentioned here only for dating purposes; a marketing guy and I were sharing a Tokyo cab ride when a whole slew of Carpenters was played on the radio followed by the news).

About 5,000 ECS were produced before the plug got pulled on Mattel Electronics. The story I recall is that many more Intellivision II's were being made than could be sold, and the inventory kept on the books at a high price, with sales only being made with special offers with hot game titles. A large write down was inevitably made and the financial house of card began to fall. Nearly 2,000 were laid off at one time, with just a few games programmers kept with the hope that a hit game might breathe life into the company, but that failed to last very long.

I intend to have this reviewed and edited by a more experienced wiki author for inclusion due to the issues of verification.

Greg Goodknight, Nevada City, California USA Ggoodknight (talk) 22:28, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Keyboard Component Specs
The Keyboard Component wasn't advertised as having 64K. It was advertised as having 16K (10-bit words). Here's the specific blurb from the brochure:

MASTER COMPONENT AND KEYBOARD COMPONENT COMBINED CPU: Two processor system: - 16 bit microprocessor/Master Component - 8 bit microprocessor/Keyboard Component Memory: 16K RAM resident (10 bit) words memory can be expanded up to 1000 8K pages (8 megabytes) Keyboard: 60 key typewriter-like keyboard including specialized control keys. Upper/lower case. Tape Cassette Drive: Built-in completely computer controlled. Records/plays two digital and two audio tracks in one direction. 30 minutes of program material and data storage. Drive accepts all Mattel video cassettes. Video Resolution: Standard: 160 horizontal, 192 vertical picture elements. High resolution alphanumerics: 24 lines of 40 characters. Expandability: Two parallel peripheral I/O expansion ports which allow addition of external memory, peripherals, plus access to CPU bus. Intended Peripherals: Telephone modem, voice synthesizer (planned for 1981 introduction, subject to change).

--Mr z (talk) 20:29, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

Article Mention
The system is mentioned in Computer Gaming World Issue 3.2 (Avalible on Commons) page 11 as printed or as page 13 on e-readers if that assists any editors working on this article. --Mbrickn (talk) 00:07, 19 January 2022 (UTC)