Odyssey - The Original

[donemry]

I would like to introduce myself. I am Don Emry and I was the Assistant Product Planner for the original Oddessy at Magnavox. I did most of the user manual for the first release and then was responsible for developing new games and updating some of the old games for the second release.

During the time I was developing the new games, I spent almost all of my time playing games of various types so see if they would work on the Oddessy and then perfecting the graphics of the overlays and the game rules and actions. Thus, I claim to be the worlds first professional electronic game player.

I still have the Oddessy and the rifle that I used at that time.

I would happy to answer any questions about this interesting time.

Don

[Flack]

Wow Don! There are certainly a lot of people here around who are going to be excited to talk to you! Welcome to the forums!

If you ever feel like taking a nice vacation for yourself you should sign that Oddessy and rifle and put them on eBay -- but only if we get the first shot at them!

[donemry]

I had never thought about selling them and it never occurred to me that my signature would be valuable.

I just wanted to share any knowledge that anyone might find useful. It was a really interesting part of my life.

Don

[rbudrick]

Wow, Don!

Great to have you here. Joe, here's a major info source for that section of the guide!

Looking forward to seeing you post more.

-ROb

[digitalpress]

Welcome to the forum, Don.

I have dozens of questions... where to begin? I'll start with just a few.

1. What was the general attitude about this product at that time, when there was simply nothing to compare it to - did it come across to most as an expensive toy or as the forerunner to a new breed of gaming?

2. I've met Ralph Baer several times and his story is well-documented. When did you meet for the first time and what innovations were you part of?

3. Did you design/develop products after the Odyssey?

I've got more

[rolenta]

2. I've met Ralph Baer several times and his story is well-documented.

Ralph's story is going to be even better documented this summer with the publication of his book VIDEOGAMES: IN THE BEGINNING by Rolenta Press. Check my website www.rolentapress.com in the coming months for more information!

[donemry]

Yes, the product was well recevied at the time. The sales for the initial selling season were right on projections. Unfortunately, the marketing VP's got so caught up in the excitement that they built about 3 times the projection which interferred with development in the second year when I came aboard the team.

I joined the team in Jan 72, moving over from the Technical Support group where I had worked on the documentation. It was one of my better sales jobs talking my way into the marketing department to work on the project with Bob Fritche, who was the Product Planner.

I don't recall that I ever met Ralph, although I knew who he was from reading some the patent related materials at that time.

I invlountarily left Maganavox in Aug. 73 in a downsizing, a futile attempt to save the company from a long series of bad marketing decisions.

I played around with computers in 76, a Sol III, and in 82 went into the computer business full time, mosltly in software development. I never did do any further work on games.

Don

[donemry]

Oops, I mistyped the date. I started on the project in Jan 73.

As to the perception of the future of electronic games, yes it was apparent to me that it would be big. I remember some conversations we had with the guys from Chicago Coin. They had contacted Magnavox about building a coin game to compete with Pong. They told me how strong the customer reactions to Pong were as compared to the traditional electro-mechancial games. I learned a lot about "games" theory from them. Magnavox passed on the deal, not wanting to be associated with "that type of people". Yet another nail in the coffin!

Don

[omnedon]

"that type of people"

[donemry]

The VP's thought they were "mafiaoso"

[SoulBlazer]

Welcome, Sir, it's a great honor to have someone around with your experience and knowledge.

The Oddessy was well before my time, but I've seen one in action at a friend's house and read all about it. It amazes me that anyone could put a color overlay on a TV and be happy with the quality of a game.

I am curious, though -- do you recall which games you worked on? And when you say 'second release' do you mean the Oddessy 2?

Were there any games you WANTED to do for the system that just was'nt possible to do at the time?

Are you still playing video games today?

Does it bother you that almost nobody even remembers or has a Oddessy these days besides collectors compared to how much use other gaming systems from the 70's get?

I see you live in TN -- did you do your work at the main Magnavox plant in Knoxville?

Thanks again for your time and experience here.

[tom]

I have some questions:

I am one of the few in the world who have a complete Odyssey collection:

http://uk.geocities.com/thomas.holze...t.com/Odds.htm

Besides me, there are David Winter in France, Ulf Svensson in Sweden, and another person who's name I forgot (who has two complete sets).

Many collectors have the Odyssey with enclosed games and sometimes the 1972 extra games (and rifle with games).

With 'complete', I mean the 1973 run of games (4 games): Interplanetary Voyage, Baskteball, W.I.N., Brain Wave. According to David Winter, these games have only been found four times so far (in the whole world). When asking Ralph Bear, he didn't even know about the 1973 games.

1: Do you know how many of the 1973 run of games were produced and sold?

2: Do you know of the existance of card number 11, which is mentioned in the Service manual, but not supplied with any game?

(We have cards 1 -6 with the system, card 7 with Volleyball (1972 extra game), card 8 with Handball (1972 extra game) and also issued again with Basketball (1973 extra game), cards 9 & 10 (with Rifle), card 12 (Interplanetary Voyage (1973 extra game)). All other games (Percepts, Brain Wave, W.I.N., Fun Zoo and so forth, use the cards from the base system (1 -6)

3: What was the purpose of the blue double card (games 7 & 8 together on one card with opposite connecting ends)? When was it released and how (with games, on it's own, or was it a testing card?)

There will be more questions.

[Phosphor Dot Fossils]

Hi Don,

Welcome to the Digital Press forums - we're always glad to have someone from the industry itself share their stories with us!

I myself am the proud owner of a near-complete Odyssey collection; in fact, I think my console is from the "B" production run, which may be the second release you mentioned.

Here's another question to add to the others you've been deluged with (hey, we're nothing if not inquisitive!). As early as 1973, was there any talk of reformatting the Odyssey into the dedicated consoles (i.e. the Odyssey 100, 200, 2000 consoles that came later)? I'm just wondering if that repackaging was a product of competition from Atari's home Pong system, or if it actually predated Pong.

And again, welcome aboard - we hope you'll stick around!

[Gamemaster_ca_2003]

Glad to have you here. It is always a pleasure that someone in the indistry at DP to share stuff with. Ok this sounds like a dumb question but what is your favorite game on the odyssey, and is it your favorite game right now?

[o2william]

Hello Don, let me join everybody in welcoming you to the board!

My question is related to the Odyssey user manual. Not long ago, I interviewed Ron Bradford of Bradford/Cout Design, who was a lead designer for Odyssey promotional materials. You can read the inverview here:
http://www.classicgaming.com/o2home/...rd/index.shtml

I don't want you to be overwhelmed with questions, but I was wondering if you know Ron Bradford or if the two of you ever worked together on the design of the Odyssey user manual or other materials. If so, if you have any comments about Ron or the design process, I'd love to read them.

I look forward to reading your answers to all the questions in this thread!

[donemry]

Wow! I am impressed by all of the good questions.

Let me preface my answers with this caveat. I worked directly on the Oddessy project for the first 8 months of 1973 and that was 31 years ago. I have not thought a lot about the details of that experience in quite some time.

Back in those days, the overlays were a relatively unique concept and there was no other standard for how a TV game should look or work. (Actually there was a children’s TV show in the early 50’s that required the kids to use a clear overlay as a drawing board. The kids would use a grease pencil to follow the movements of the TV host and thus draw a cartoon style picture.)

I did all of the second release games for 1973. “Interplanetary Voyage” and “Basketball” were totally my own. “WIN” and “Brainwave” were concepts that came from a game consultant that I expanded and completed. As I recall, the original games for 1972 were mostly created by an outside consultant, with some input from Bob Fritche, who was the Product Planner.

All of the game work that I did was bounded by the electronics capabilities of the circuitry and game cards. At that time, early 73, there was no budget money to work on the electronics.

The production was in Knoxville, TN. I worked at the headquarters in Fort Wayne, IN.

I never really became much of a player, although I did become pretty proficient with the vector graphics “Star Wars”, but that was father/son thing.

Ralph Bear was not involved with the add-on games in 1973. I actually left Magnavox just as the add-on games went into production. As best as I can recall, the planned production run was 11,000 sets, but I don’t know how many were actually produced.

I am vague on card 11, but I think it was similar to one of the other cards, but had vertical line(s). I don’t think we ever had a game specifically for it.

I don’t recall the blue, double card at all, but I can see how it would have made sense. The cards were an “expensive” production item.

All of the graphic design for the first release was done outside of Magnavox. I don’t remember the company’s name as I was not involved at that time. I do recall that the advertising agency was Grey Advertising out of Chicago and that the game consultants were also out of Chicago. I did most of the original copy for the user manual, but someone else did the final draft and layout. My copy was “too technical”. I know I met some of those people, but I don’t remember the names.

The brochure shown with the Bradford interview is the 1973 brochure as it lists the 1973 games that I worked on.
I probably liked the Basketball game the best. I doubt that I have played any of them since 73 or 74. I don’t play any video games, but I am/was pretty proficient with chess and Scrabble.

As I recall, there were 180,000 sets of parts ordered for the 1972 production, of which about 100,000 were actually completed and packaged. In early 73, the warehouse was still full of them. I recall that the production people had to open all of them a replace the batteries.

In 1973, a “lite” or “junior” version was planned. It would have only 5 games and the console and controllers were to be tan and brown to differentiate it from the regular game set, they were going to paint the white plastic case parts. I do not know if that model actually went into production as I was history in August of 73

Speaking of history, Magnavox was bought out by Phillips in 1974 or 75, so the Oddessy2 was developed by that group and as far as I know, there was no carry over from the original group except for Bradford/Cout.

Also keep in mind that in the late 60’s and early seventies, Integrated circuits were just appearing in consumer electronics and the concept of Moore’s Law was not yet formulated, so there was no way to predict the games of the 80’s, let alone what has happened since. I remember working with IC’s that had dual JK flip flops in 72 and thinking that was really good technology. Actually the electronics in the original Oddessy is quite simple, though exceedingly clever, compared to some of the other Magnavox products of that time.

By the way, I just opend my Oddessy. It is complete except for the game cord, even the plastic bags. All of the extra paper and plastic games peices are in theie original packing. It even has the original Magnaovox batteries.

Don



Don

[Captain Wrong]

By the way, I just opend my Oddessy. It is complete except for the game cord, even the plastic bags. All of the extra paper and plastic games peices are in theie original packing. It even has the original Magnaovox batteries.

Wish I still had mine. The cool thing was, when it gave up the ghost, I got extra mileage out of all the play money and game pieces. A modern console breaks and all you get is a paper weight, but the Odyssey was still entertaining even after it bit the dust!

Welcome aboard!

[SoulBlazer]

I'm sure I speak for others besides myself when I say how much I've enjoyed your responses to our questions so far. Thanks for taking the time to share information with us.

I'm sure there are several people who are going to want to interview you, one of them possibly being Leonard Herman, who has allready posted in this thread. His book "Phoenix" is one of the best history of video games in existance. There's not much documented on on the original Oddessy, so a chance like this will make you a VERY popular person. Even with your limited knowledge -- and you recall a lot of stuff better then I think many others would.

Do you recal if you had any serious problems, issues, or diffucltiies with designing the manual and the games?

Were you upset that the Oddessy pretty much died out within a two year time period?

It's been suggested by several people that one of the main reasons the Oddessy sales suffered was because Magnavox implied strongly you needed one of 'their' TV's for the system to work. I know that was'nt the department you worked in, but do you recall hearing about that at the time and/or does it make any sence to you now, in hindsight?

And how did you find this board, anyway?

[tholly]

I just wanted to say that I pretty much knew nothing about the Odyssey other than it existed until I read this post. I am very happy that you decided to join DP and share your past with us. Thanks again for all the info and I look forward to reading more on what you have to say.

[can_dude]

I have a question: how come you keep spelling Odyssey wrong? :P
I'm just kidding, sorry for busting your balls...But seriously, do you know a way for me to get some games for the system...I have the complete system, but sadly no games...welcome to the DP.