Surpassed in number of uns sold only by the Atari VCS

REVIEW

OF INTELLIVISION II/BY OWEN LINZMAVER

Surpassed in number of uns sold only by the Atari VCS, the original lition is the second mest popular parne system in houses tonday. With the duction of a revamped and lew expen sivemaster component, the II. Mattel is trying to prevens a whole new look"

In an effort to provide a more conge itive system, the designers at Metch have pured the unit down to the bure essentials. What is left is a very compact white plastic console (1 65 2.75") that is compatible with the map ity of Betelfecision cartridges already on the market. (For some reason, the the game p camodges currently manufactured by Coleco Industries do not work with the Intellivision I. Ellerts are being made by Colcco to correct this problem)

The most notable feature of the Fresion It is that sunlike those found on the original system, the new controllers are detachable. This means that thind party joystick manufacturers will be able to provide better conteolliers dut plug right into the joystick port intcad of requiring the user to disavenible the unit

Unless you are a true glatten for Felishment, you are bound to find that the dose celler of the Intellesson is innereal pain in the Unfoly in thane who would like to install att Injoy-A-Stick, the controllers them selves can not be opened up. Until a new joystick is moslaced, you can alleviate the problems created by the controller with a set of Thanh Saver disc canhices available Inom Video Masters of Mt.

Asode trees the directional dise, there is a 12-function keypad and a set of fout action buttons on the controller. The plastic couted keypad effers tactile respose when prewed. The four buttons are positioned two to a side. Each button is addressed individually, which meass that cach can control a separate action. The cord that connects the controller to the master console is of the coil variety commonly found on telephone hand

The cartridge slet is located on the right of the unit. Since ca idges are inserted horizontally, there in no way for dust to build up on the edge connector imide Both the old bell

veice and the redesigned speech synthe sis module can be plugged w tridge shot On the top face of of th the hel

is a light emitting diode (LED) power indicator and a dual function button 1 like the idea of the light to tell you that the power is on, but the button is another mutter The first time that you press the button the master console is turned on If you tap it at any time when the an on, the game in progress resets. This hine. The thing that bugs me is that you must press the buttos down, and keep it depressed for three to five seconds to shut the vystem off. I would have liked ts see two separate switches, one for power and another to reset, instead of this both ensome dual function button

Both the video and power cables at detachable and plug into the hack of the unit. The switch to select the viewing channel teither 3 or 4 is cicarly marked and cauly accessible. The te package comes complete with a low voltage power transdonner and a TV switch bos to flip between regular tele vioon viewing and game playing The 15 page owner's munaal is detailed aالح

has many illustrations to help you get your system installed and running. A rather extensive troubleshooting check list and a copy of the 90-day limited war-ranty can both be found in this manu

Mattel plans to support their new machine by introducing an Atari VCS emulator module sometime this sammer. Coupled with the Expansion System A. the Intellivision II will be able to play any of the hundreds of Atari 2600 game cartridges on the market.

Abo planned for release this year is the Entertainment Computer System which is really the long-awaited Intelli vision keyboard. The ECS will feature a 16-bit micropocessor, 2K of random access memory (RAM), and the Basic program language residing in read only memory (ROM). The ECS is set to sell for under 5150. .

THE CARTRIDGE SLOT IS LOCATED ON THE RIGHTHAND SIDE OF THE UNIT. BOTH THE OLD INTELLIVOICE AND THE REDESIGNED SPEECH SYNTHESIS MODULE CAN BE PLUGGED INTO THE CARTRIDGE SLOT.

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