What is Nintendo's first home video game 'Color TV Game'?
Nintendo has made great strides as a world-famous game company thanks to huge hits such as the Family Computer (Famicom) released in 1983 and the Game Boy released in 1989.
First is the Worst: Nintendo's Color TV Game 6 & 15
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Color TV Game is a home game console released by Nintendo in 1977. The TV commercial of the color TV game that was aired in Japan at the time of release can be seen below.
Nintendo's color video games 15 - YouTube
There were two types of color TV games, ``Color TV Game 15'' and ``Color TV Game 6'', depending on the built-in game.
Color TV Game 15 includes tennis A, tennis B, hockey A, hockey B, volleyball A, volleyball B, ping pong, and shooting games. Other than shooting games, you can choose between singles and doubles, so you can play a total of 15 types of games. The price was 15,000 yen. The starting salary for a university graduate at that time was approximately 100,000 yen .
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Color TV Game 6 only includes volleyball, hockey, and tennis, and you can select singles and doubles for each, so you can play a total of 6 types of games. The price of Color TV Game 6 is 9800 yen.
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And the main board of the color TV game looks like this. The color video game was originally jointly developed by calculator manufacturer Systech and Mitsubishi Electric, but when Systech went bankrupt, Mitsubishi Electric partnered with Nintendo again to commercialize it. The main chip is Mitsubishi Electric's M58815P, and the M51342P is an RF modulation chip. This M58815P is exclusive to Nintendo and is included in both Color TV Game 15 and Color TV Game 6.
The play video of the color TV game looks like this. Basically, the visuals are reminiscent of '
Color TV Game 15 Play Video - YouTube
Color video game controllers were knob-type and used a variable resistor called a potentiometer . Below is a photo of the color video game 15 controller with the knob removed, and the silver bar in the center is the potentiometer.
A potentiometer is a variable resistor, so the resistance has a minimum and maximum value set. A mechanism in which the position of the character paddle (bar at the left and right ends) moves up and down depending on the resistance value of the potentiometer. Therefore, if left as is, the range of rotation angle of the potentiometer is finite.
However, if you reset the game while playing a color video game, the character paddle (the bar at the left and right ends) will be displayed in the center of the top and bottom. If you reset the potentiometer with it fully twisted, you will not be able to move the paddle up from the center. This means that when starting or resetting a game, the potentiometer must be perfectly centered.
According to Brannagan, a method to solve this problem was invented as early as 1977, and the
Furthermore, color video game controllers are too simple and have very poor operational accuracy, making detailed control impossible. In particular, even if you turn the knob all at once, the paddles on the screen don't follow, and they move a lot with a delay after you turn the knob, so the feeling of playing is quite bad.
According to Mr. Brannagan, there are at least the early model 'CTG-15S/6S' and the later model 'CTG-15V/6V' in the product numbers of color video games, and the problem with this potentiometer is only in the early days of color video games. It seems to be a problem with the mold.
The late model has an updated M58816P chip, and while the early model has the code '751R' printed on it, the later model has the code '7714' printed on it. Mr. Brannagan speculates that the code 7714 means the 14th week of 1977. It seems that by updating this M58816P chip, the movement of the paddle can properly follow the movement of the potentiometer.
In addition, Mr. Branagan seems to think that by wiring an additional switch to the M58816P chip, it will be possible to play games that cannot originally be played with Color TV Game 6.
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