#Magnavox odyssey 2 planet lander manual

In 1972 the marketing stated that the user could now actually `participate’ in television and not just be a spectator, with the system manual describing it as: `The exciting casino action of Monte Carlo, the thrills of Wimbledon, the challenge of ski trails – can be duplicated right in your own living room. It even suggested that you could trim them down to fit your TV set!ĭespite the basic nature of the games by today's standards, the system marked a crucial change in the way people used their TVs. The overlays were meant to attach to the TV by use of static electricity and smoothed over by hand or a soft cloth, but the instruction manual said if this didn’t work one should use tape instead. The overlays compensated for the fact that the Odyssey could only produce a vertical line, a dot for the ball and 2 shorter lines (representing each player controller) on the screen. Each game used a plastic transparent colour overlay which was to affixed to the TV set. The large number of game accessories that came with it allowed for different games to be played, with some games using the accessories as a main focus for the game instead of the console.

Six cartridges could be used to play up to 12 games - sometimes the same cartridges being used more than once to play different games. In fact there were only 40 diodes and 40 transistors inside. This system is very basic, having no CPU, score mechanism, colour or sound. It was then launched in 1972 at the end of which over 100,000 units were sold.

The Magnavox Odyssey was the first home video game system, invented by Ralph Baer, who started work on it as early as 1967.