Intellivision FAQ Section 4.0 People

Intellivision Master Component model 2609

The Classic Intellivision FAQ

Composed, arranged, and produced by Intv Prime, Artifact Productions Division
https://www.intvprime.com/intellivision-faq

Section 4.0: People

Anyone, past or present, that has contributed to making the Intellivision memorable.

  • 4.1 People
  • 4.2 Organizations and Clubs

4.1: Who is Adan Toledo Gutierrez?

Adan is responsible for some of the best music scores ever heard on the Intellivision, from Sydney Hunter soundtracks to multiple independent song releases. He uses custom tools to make the AY-3-8912 really "sing". He releases music on CD as well for games like Intellivania and Sydney Hunter.

4.1: Who is Alan Smith?

Alan Smith was a programmer for Dracula.

4.1: Who is Anders Carlsson?

Carlsson is an independent Intellivision developer that makes great games like Norseman and shares IntyBASIC music with others.

4.1: Who is Arnauld Chevallier?

Arnauld Chevallier was a programmer for Stonix, and Defender of the Crown. He has also developed a world-class music engine for the Intellivision, capable of pushing the PSG to its absolute limit to make great music and sound effects.

4.1: Who is Arthur Dorf?

Arthur Dorf was behind spearheading the Intellivision before Mattel’s electronics division split off.

4.1: Who is Bill Fisher?

Bill Fisher was a programmer for Space Hawk, Space Spartans, and B-17 Bomber.

4.1: Who is Bill Grubb?

Bill Grubb Founded Imagic with Mattel Electronics veterans Jim Goldberger and Brian Doughtery, and Atari veterans Bob Smith, Denis Koble, Mark Bradley, and Rob Fulop.

4.1: Who is Bob Newstadt?

Bob Newstadt was a programmer for Pinball (with Minh Chou Train).

4.1: Who is Brett Stutz?

Brett Stutz was a programmer for Star Strike (with Hal Finney), and Tron Deadly Discs (with Jeff Ronne)

4.1: Who is Brian Dougherty?

Brian Dougherty was a programmer for Space Spartans, and Swords n Serpents.

4.1: Who is Brian Pudden?

Brian creates Youtube content about the Intellivision and other systems. In Spring 2021, he began coding new games on his own.

4.1: Who is Carlos Madruga?

Carlos Madruga is a 21st Century independent developer of Intellivision games. He has developed releases on Intellivision Collector, Elektronite, and other publishers using IntyBASIC. His works include H.E.L.I., Operation Cloudfire, Goofinuf, and several more.

4.1: Who is Carol Shaw?

Carol Shaw was a programmer for Happy Trails.

4.1: Who is Chou Train Minh?

Chou Tran Minh was a programmer for Pinball (with Bob Newstadt).

4.1: Who is Chris Hawley?

Chris Hawley was a programmer for Horse Racing, and Space Armada (with John Brooks).

4.1: Who is Chris Kingsley?

Chris Kingsley was a programmer for Armor Battle.

4.1: Who is Chris Martin?

CMart is a co-host of The Intellivisionaries podcast, and also the number one collector of Intellivision hardware and software and peripherals. He owns one of everything related to the Intellivision, and almost all of the variants of those things. If Las Vegas Poke Blackjack was manufactured in 4 different countries, CMart has each one, shrinkwrapped, for example.

4.1: Who is Connie Goldman?

Connie Goldman was a graphic designer for Thunder Castle. She had so much success there she consulted to other Blue Sky Rangers for their games. From Keith Robinson in 2013:

She started at Mattel Electronics in 1982. Although hired as a programmer, Connie’s real talent was as an artist. She managed to get more personality out of an eight by sixteen pixel figure than anyone ever had before. Although she had created and was working on a game ("Mystic Castle, " later renamed "Thunder Castle") she was soon spending most of her time helping the other programmers, designing graphics and animations for their games. Programmer Dave Warhol was assigned to help her finish Thunder Castle, starting a working relationship that lasted 30 years After Mattel, Dave hired Connie to create the graphics for most of the Intellivision games he produced for INTV Corp., including Slap Shot Super Pro Hockey, Diner, Commando and Body Slam! Super Pro Wrestling! After Intellivision, she continued to work at Dave’s company Realtime Associates on newer platforms. As game graphics got more realistic and more complex to create, she was heard to lament once, "I want my pixels back!", yearning for those simpler days of the eight by sixteen pixel characters.

4.1: Who is Daniel Bass?

Daniel Bass was a programmer for Loco-Motion, and ADnD: Tower of Doom.

4.1: Who is Dave Chandler?

Dave Chandler is known as "Papa Intellivision", the visionary electrical engineer who created and led the development team for the original Intellivision hardware and expansions.

4.1: Who is Dave Durran?

Dave Durran was a programmer for Fathom.

4.1: Who is Dave James?

Dave James is an artist responsible for many of the original Intellivision game graphics.

4.1: Who is Dave Rolfe?

Dave Rolfe was a programmer at APh responsible for the Intellivision operating system "EXEC" and coded Las Vegas Poker n Blackjack, Major League Baseball, Checkers, and Beamrider.

4.1: Who is Dave Warhol?

Dave Warhol was a programmer for Thunder Castle, and Mind Strike.
In the Intv Corp. years, he was the producer for all of the games released.

4.1: Who is David Harley?

Dave Harley is one of the masterminds that helped ignite Intellivision homebrew/independent game development from 2004 to today. With Intelligentvision, Intellivision Revolution, and others, he wrote or contributed to games like Stonix, Minehunter, Scarfinger, and many others.

4.1: Who is decle?

No one knows the true identity of the extremely talented person called "decle" on Atari Age forums. Decle has reverse-engineered Intellivision technology like TV POWWW and PlayCable and Keyboard Component tech that would otherwise be lost to time.

4.1: Who is Dennis Clark?

Dennis Clark was a rogrammer for Bump n Jump (with Joe Jacobs).

4.1: Who is Don Daglow?

Don Daglow was a programmer for Utopia, is veteran of companies as diverse as Mattel Electronics (where he worked on the Intellivision), Electronic Arts (where he worked as one of its first producers) and Broderbund (where he ran its entertainment software

He programmed Utopia, World Series Major League Baseball (with Eddie Dombrower).

Issue 215 (Jan-2021) of Retro Gamer Magazine has an interview where Don gives details on the making of Utopia, his iconic game.

4.1: Who is Douglas Fults?

Douglas Fults was a programmer for White Water!

4.1: Who is Eddie Dombrower?

Eddie Dombrower was a programmer for World Series Major League Baseball (with Don Daglow).

4.1: Who is Eric Wells?

Eric Wells was the sound developer for Pac-Man.

4.1: Who is Frank Evans?

Frank Evans was a programmer for Sharp Shot.

4.1: Who is Frank Johnson?

Frank Johnson programmed Donkey Kong, Carnival, Mouse Trap, Zaxxon, Star Wars, Tutankham, Donkey Kong Jr, Qbert, Popeye, and Super Cobra while working for Roklan. Until Sepember 2023, it was unknown why the codebases of these games was so similar, but now it appears it is because Frank did the work.

It would have been interesting to learn why Donkey Kong was created as it was, as the generally most-hated game in the original catalog, while the other games are so well regarded. It may be due to time, he produced 10 games in approximately 18 months, alotting time to reverse-engineering and creating a toolchain and all of the "developer overhead" beyond programming and testing each title.

4.1: Who is Gary Moskovitz?

Gary Moskovitz was the former marketing director for Mattel Electronics hardware and was responsible for several new directions related to Teletext and PlayCable. He also, while often trapped on the 405 in bad traffic, came up with names for several games like Jetsons Way with Words and Mr. BASIC Meets Bits and Bytes.

4.1: Who is Gavin Claypool?

Gavin Claypool was a programmer for Tennis.

4.1: Who is Gene Smith?

Gene Smith was tahe programmer for Bomb Squad (with Shatao Lin).

4.1: Who is George Plimpton?

George Plimpton (1927-2003), a famous sports writer/personality was hired to advertise Intellivision on television. Side by side comparisons of Atari sports games were made, with enough energy that a new generation came to know him as "Mr. Intellivision". Atari versus Mattel became just as common as Coke versus Pepsi, and Plimpton led the first real game platform rivalry in the industry. Mattel became famous for their Sports conversions.

By 1982, George Plimpton was featuring Space games in his commercials. No doubt these commercials ate into profits quite substantially. During 1982, Mattel spent in excess of $50 million so that Mr. Plimpton could lampoon the "unrealistic" features of the Atari 2600.However, on a positive note, Intellivision became a household word in the early 1980’s.

4.1: Who is Glenn Case?

Glenn is a top-tier game retro game player.

He was most recently seen playing live in the November-2020 edition of the Intellivision Virtual Expo Game Room.

4.1: Who is Glenn Hightower?

Glenn Hightower created APh to fit the game design from Richard Chan’s research. Without Hightower and Chandler, there would be no Intellivision. Their research pointed them to the General Instruments Gimini 6900 prototype, built from mostly off-the-shelf chips. Mr. Hightower was very unimpressed with titles, even having one business card labeled "Bottlewasher".

4.1: Who is Greg Favor?

Greg Favor was a programmer for Reversi.

4.1: Who is Hal Finney?

Hal Finney was a programmer for Space Battle, Star Strike (with Brett Stutz), Conversational French, and Jack LaLanne Physical Conditioning as an employee of APh, which took CalTech graduates and paid them very little to create million dollars of revenue content.

4.1: Who is James Pujals?

James, also known as "DZ-Jay" (as in parachute drop-zone), created the legenday game "Christmas Carol vs the Ghost of Christmas Presents", a maze style game that makes total use of the Intellivision hardware and software in a fun, pac-maze style of game with high replay value. In 2020, he released a children’s book about the protagonist of the game, Carol Greenleaf, in her quest to help Santa save Christmas. He is working a project that will improve IntyBASIC music with Arnauld Chevalier’s assembly routines. He recently converted and embedded Christmas Carol into a true stand-up arcade machine in an arcade.

4.1: Who is Jeff Rochlis?

Jeff Rochlis was the marketing director who reviewed all dev efforts in 1983.

4.1: Who is Jennell Jaquays?

Jennell Jaquays was the head of game design at Coleco during the 1980s. She claimed in 2023 that Coleco did not intentionally make bad Coleco ports for the Intellivision.

4.1: Who is Jerrol Richardson?

As an on-staff employee at Mattel Toys, Jerr Richardson created the distinctive box art brand/style with oil paint for games released by Mattel and APh through approximately 1983. His art also covered Barbie and other child toys throughout the 1970s. Little more is known about Jerr other than he was born in 1928 and died in 1991.

4.1: Who is Ji-Wen Tsao?

Ji-Wen Tsao was a programmer for Shark! Shark!

4.1: Who is Joe Jacobs?

Joe Jacobs was a programmer for Bump n Jump (with Dennis Clark).

4.1: Who is Joe Santulli?

Digital Press (DP) co-founder Joe Santulli has been playing video games since the original retail version of Ralph Baer’s Odyssey appeared under his Christmas tree in the early 70’s. Since that time he’s been hopelessly addicted. He claims to own just about every system – domestic and import – that there is, and well over 10,000 unique games. Time NOT spent playing video games is dedicated to writing about playing video games. When he’s not doing that, he’s thinking about writing about video games.

Joe is also the director of the National Video Game Museum (403c) in Frisco, TX with partners of the Classic Gaming Expo in 2011.

4.1: Who is Joe Zbiciak?

Joe Z. is the modern "godfather" of the classic Intellivison console, with numerous innovations on the platform that push the hardware and programming to the maximum limits. He can be found online in forums with the name "Intv Nut".

  • Developer of the AS-1600 cross assembler used by every Intellivision programmer since 2010 (earlier?).
    — AS1600 forms the base for assembly-centric environments like P-Machinery as well as the final compiler for IntyBASIC.
  • Creator of the top-tier hardware board design used by homebrew and independent devlelopers: JLP. The JLP platform optimizes ROM swapping for massive amount of ROM storage space, game saving, fast math routines, and other features.
  • Major contributor to reverse-engineering Intelliviion hardware, including the Master Component, Keyboard Component, Intellivoice, ECS, and PlayCable.
  • Developer of 4-Tris.
  • Developer of Space Patrol.
  • Developer of back-end libraries and routines for Christmas Carol vs Ghost of Christmas Presents.
    Developer of Intellivoice libraries and foundation tech for speech in many modern games like Steamroller, Hover Bovver, and The Minstrel’s Legend.
  • Owner of Left Turn Only, distributors of his LTO Flash cartridge (that he created based on his JLP design).
  • and much much more.

4.1: Who is Joey Silvian?

Joey Silvian was a voice developer for Bomb Squad.

4.1: Who is John Brooks?

John Brooks was a programmer for Vegas Roulette, Space Armada (with Chris Hawley), and the prototype Vegas II (with Walter Bright).

4.1: Who is John Sohl?

John Sohl was a programmer for Astrosmash, and B-17 Bomber.

4.1: Who is John Tomlinson?

John Tomlinson was the programmer for Mission-X.

4.1: Who is Julian Chappell?

Julian Chappell was a programmer for Beamrider.

4.1: Who is Julie Hoshizaki?

Julie Hoshizaki was a programmer for Lock n Chase, and Thin Ice.

4.1: Who is Karen Nugent?

Karen Nugent was the graphic artist for Burgertime and Mystic Castle.

4.1: Who is Keith Robinson?

Many will recognize Robinson as one of those of saved the Intellivision brand during the ’90s, when he obtained the rights to the console and its games with fellow programmer Stephen Roney. His long-running affiliation with the retro console began in 1981, when Mattel Electronics brought in Robinson to program and design a number of Intellivision titles, including TRON Solar Sailer. He shifted to developer management until Mattel closed its doors, and after INTV Corp ceased to support the Intellivisoin in the 1990s, Robinson bought the original IP and began to introduce the console/platform to new generations of players.

Robinson made headway with the idea that keeping graphics and gameplay simple and pick-up-and-play fun would resonate with people in an era when most game publishers focused on 3D "eye candy graphics".Intellivision Lives, Intellipacks, ROM preservation, and ports emulation to modern consoles/devices are all the legacy of Keith Robinson. He curated the Intellivision brand of fun and preserved it before the concept of "game preservation" became popular.

Keith Robinson

4.1: Who is Ken Smith?

Ken Smith was a programmer for NHL Hockey, NBA Basketball, Sea Battle, and NFL Football (with Kevin Miller).

4.1: Who is Kevin Miller?

Kevin Miller was the programmer for APBA Backgammon, NFL Football (with Ken Smith), and NASL Soccer.

4.1: Who is Kimo Yap?

Kimo Yap was a programmer for Math Fun, Word Fun, Learning Fun I, and Learning Fun II.

4.1: Who is Larry Zwick?

Larry was the programmer for Auto Racing, while employed at APh.

4.1: Who is Mack Morris?

Mack Morris was the president of Mattel Electronics in 1983, at the time responsible for terminating the Intellivision IV project plus all hardware efforts, and moving the company to software-only.

4.1: Who is Manuel Rodriguez?

Manuel Rodriguez was the winner of the Astrosmash Shootoff competition in Houston, TX in 1982.

4.1: Who is Mark Kennedy?

Mark Kennedy was a programmer for Kool-Aid Man (with Vladimir Hrycenko), Scooby-Do’s Maze Chase, Centipede, and Dig Dug.

4.1: Who is Mark Thompson?

Mark creates non-game media like new overlays and new manuals. His overlay making techniques were licensed by Intellivision Productions, because his manufacturing technique is the closest to the original Mattel method.

4.1: Who is Mark Urbaniec?

Mark Urbaniec was the programmer for Vectron.

4.1: Who is Marvin Mednick?

Marvin Mednick was a programmer for Safecracker.

4.1: Who is Michael Breen?

Michael Breen was a programmer for Buzz Bombers.

4.1: Who is Michael Hayes?

Michael is a leading independent Intellivision developer.

  • President of Midnight Blue International, an Intellivision game development operation.
  • Developer of 21st Century games: SameGame n Robots, Blix, FUBAR, Blix n Chocolate Mine, Hunt the Wumpus, X-Ray n Dilligas, and Little Man Computer for Tutorvision.
  • Creator fo the Bump n Jump Level Editor tool.
  • Creator of the Intellivision Portable Development Environment.

4.1: Who is Mike Minkoff?

Mike Minkoff was a programmer for PBA Bowling (with Rick Leving), and Snafu.

4.1: Who is Mike Winans?

Mike Winans was a programmer for Lock n Chase (with Julie Hoshizaki), and Pac-Man.

4.1: Who is Oscar Toledo G.?

Ă“scar created the IntyBASIC language and compiler, used by developers of all levels making new games for the Intellivision. He has also written two books on IntyBASIC programming, and several games (including the Sydney Hunter series and Princess Quest).
Oscar has won awards for the tiniest chess programs ever written (x5 IOCCC winner), and DOS boot sector games.
He also has one of the larges Spanish-language, Mexican national variants of Intellivision games and collects printed media.

4.1: Who is Papa Pete?

Papa Pete "the old ass gamer" produces a regular video show, exploring original 125 and current Intellivision games. Pete also broadcasts live events for special releases like Beachead during the 2022 Intellivision PRGE Streaming event.

4.1: Who is Patrick Aubry?

Patrick Aubry was a programmer for Spina the Bee ("Maya l’Abeille" in France and "La Abeja Maya" in Latin America), co-founding Nice Ideas at the end of the Intellivision’s heyday in France.

4.1: Who is Patrick Jost?

Patrick Jost was a programmer for Space Spartans, previously working for Pacific Telephone.

4.1: Who is Patrick Ransil?

Patrick Ransil was a programmer for Atlantis and Dragonfire.

4.1: Who is Patrick Schmitz?

Patrick Schmitz was a programmer for Ice Trek.

4.1: Who is Paul Crowley?

Paul Crowley wrote Frogger while working for Roklan.

4.1: Who is Paul Nurminen?

Paul is the creator and lead of The Intellivisionaries Podcast. This podcast showcases extremely deep dives into knowledge and details and play of each Intellivision game in the classic catalog (30+ and counting), including original programmer interviews. Each episode is extremely long and extremely well produced. As someone who had a relationship with Keith Robinson, his insight into what makes the games fun is top-notch. He reportedly can even beat Tommy Tallarico in Intellivision Hockey!

4.1: Who is Peter Farson?

Peter Farson was a programmer for Defender.

4.1: Who is Peter Kaminski?

Peter Kaminski was a programmer for Frog Bog (with Tom Soulanille), Frogger (with Tom Soulanille), and later for Activision to develop River Raid.

4.1: Who is Ray Kaestner?

Ray Kaestner was a programmer of Burgertime, Masters of the Universe (with Rick Koenig), Diner, Super Pro Hockey, and Super Pro Football., previously working on Mattel’s original handheld games (Computer Gin, World Champ Football, Computer Chess).

4.1: Who is Rich O’Keefe?

Rich O’Keefe was a programmer for Triple Action, and Royal Dealer.

4.1: Who is Richard Chang?

Richard Chang was the head of Mattel Toys Design and Development Department. He was intrigued by the possibility of having Mattel produce video games in 1975. He hired Glenn Hightower to define the system that would later become the Mattel Intellivision.

4.1: Who is Rick Koenig?

Rick Koenig was the programmer for Motocross (with Rick Levine), and Power of He-Man (with Ray Kaestner).

4.1: Who is Rick Levine?

Rick Levine was the programmer for Microsurgeon, Motocross (with Rick Koenig), Truckin’, PBA Bowling (with Mike Minkoff), and Mattel Handheld Bowling.

4.1: Who is Rick Reynolds?

Rick is the co-host of The Intellivisionaries Podcast, along with Paul Nurminen. Rick goes deep on gameplay and quality analysis of the games he covers in the podcast (including his favorite, "Sharp Shot").
Rick also plays for the Extra Life organization each year in a charity pledge, and of course Intellivision games make his circuit!

4.1: Who is Russ Haft?

Russ Haft was a programmer for Tron Maze-a-Tron.

4.1: Who is Russ Lieblich?

Russ Lieblich was the sound developer for Bomb Squad.

4.1: Who is Ryan Winslow?

Ryan is known as "Winslator" and holds multiple Intellivision game high scores on Twin Galaxies. He played live during the 2020 Intellivision Virtual Expo.

4.1: Who is Scott Bishop?

Scott Bishop was a programmer for PGA Golf.

4.1: Who is Scott Reynolds?

Scott Reynolds was the programmer for US Ski Team Skiing.

4.1: Who is Shatao Lin?

Shatao Lin was the programmer for Bomb Squad (with Gene Smith).

4.1: Who is Stav Prodromou?

Stavro Evangelo "Stav" Prodromou was Mattel Electronics Senior Vice President of Worldwide Operations, with responsibility for Research & Development, Software Development, Manufacturing and Field Service. During his tenure, the company developed the Intellivision II and numerous game cartridges

4.1: Who is Stephen Maine?

Stephen Maine invented the STIC at General Instruments, creating the base of all Intellivision graphics.

4.1: Who is Stephen Montero?

Stephen Montero was the programmer for Night Stalker.

4.1: Who is Stephen Wiley?

Stephen Wiley was a programmer for Blockade Runner, and Sewer Sam. Stephen was also the owner/founder of Interphase.

4.1: Who is Steve Burstein?

Steve Burstein developed the AY-3-8914 chip, used as the Programmable Sound Generator (PSG) on the Intellivision. Using this chip was a fallback as Steve and GI initially worked on a combination music and speech chip, but was not complete in time for Mattel Electronics to launch a console. GI was not good at patenting their work, and the chip was copied around the world, with clone implementations coming from Yamaha and many others.

4.1: Who is Steve Craft?

Steve Craft supplies, through Intv Prime, music in IntyBASIC format for use in new games. He is also known to help Intv Prime with other special projects, as assigned. In addition, he is a member of the Junior Reynolds Research Department at the Intellivisionaries WHQ.

4.1: Who is Steve Ettinger?

Steve Ettinger was a programmer for Hover Force.

4.1: Who is Steve Roney?

Steve Roney was the programmer for Space Spartans, B-17 Bomber, and also Aquarius titles.

4.1: Who is Steve Sents?

Steve Sents was the programmer for Tron Deadly Discs.

4.1: Who is Terry Valeski?

Terry Valeski was the head of Marketing at Mattel Electronics in 1983.
By summer 1983, Mattel had laid off all employees involved in hardware development and then programmers, so by 1984 the Intellivision division was "gone". Valeski and a group of investors bought all the remaining stock and the rights to all the Intellivision product line. Known as Intellivision Incorporated, they began to sell off the remaining stock of Intellivision games, and to sell games which had been ready for release right before Mattel Electronics demise and sold the catalog through the INTV Corporation.

4.1: Who is Tom Loughry?

Tom Loughry was the programmer for Boxing, Sub Hunt, Advanced Dungeons n Dragons, Treasure of Tarmin, Dreadnaught Factor, and Worm Whomper. He was not the programmer for Boxing, Sub Hunt, or Advanced Dungeons n Dragons. Note the contradiction: In The Intellivisionaries podcast, Tom mentioned that college summer interns were responsible for the actual game creation, and he finished them when the students returned to school.

4.1: Who is Tom Mariner?

Tom Mariner worked for General Instruments and developed the prototype STIC (originally called TIC) and initial programming to present to Mattel what would become the Intellivision, at CES.

4.1: Who is Tom Soulanille?

Tom Soulanille was a programmer for Frog Bog (with Peter Kaminski) and Frogger (with Tom Kaminski).

4.1: Who is Tommy Tallarico?

Tommy Tallarico is an American musician, video game music composer, host/producer of Video Games Live, and founder of Intellivision Entertainment, the IP holder for all classic Intellivision content and the Amico console.

Rumors abound that he is the best Intellivision NHL Hockey game player on 3 continents.

4.1: Who is Vladimir Hrycenko?

Vladimir Hrycenko was a programmer for Kool-Aid Man (with Mark Kennedy).

4.1: Who is Walter Bright?

Walter Bright was a APh employee that programmed the prototype Vegas II.

4.1: Who is Walter Ives?

Walter Ives is someone who knows a lot about the early days of Intellivision. Not much more is known about him yet! 🙂

4.1: Who is Wendel Brown?

Wendel Brown was a programmer for Beauty n the Beast, and Nova Blast.

4.1: Who is William Moeller?

William Moeller is a pioneer in Intellivision revival starting in the late 1990s with supporting reverse-engeering the hardware for emulation, then publishing true commercially-partnered games like Boulderdash with First Star.

4.1: Who is William Olds?

William Olds was an original host of The Intellivisionaries Podcast.

4.1: Who is 1hatman?

Steve Jones (1hatman on Atari Age forums) makes cardboard boxes with some great techniques. His work rivals and surpasses original boxes in several ways!
Official

  • Super Pro Baseball by IntelligentVision – Steve Jones Box Company
  • Mystic Castle by IntelligentVision (also overlays)
  • Lock ‘N’ Chase 8K by Naborhood Games
  • Fight For The Cup 2017: NHL All-Star Super Pro Hockey by IntelligentVision
  • Slap Shot Super Pro Hockey by Blue Sky Rangers, reissue of original Intellivision content
    Unofficial/Renegage
  • Piggy Bank by Blah Blah Woof Woof
  • Blix by Good Deal Games
  • Deadly Dogs by INTV Corp

4.1: Who is the Intellivision mascot?

Intellivision Productions, under Keith Robinson, made "The Running Man" an official mascot in the early 2000s.
There were other personality tie-ins during the 1980s, but Mattel Electronics never tied the console to a dedicated personality.

Fun characters:

  • Sewer Sam
  • Kool Aid Man
  • Lupin
  • Voochko the Wolf
  • Peter Pepper
  • Tron

4.1: Who managed operations Mattel Electronics?

Heather Edison, Sandy Shrader, and Marilyn Mehren were project administrators. Dave Rolf, Dean Inada, Hal Finney, and Tom Soulanille created development software.

4.2: Who is APh Technological Consulting?

APh Technological Consulting was an engineering firm based in Pasadena, California. It was formed in 1974 as a limited partnership by two California Institute of Technology (Caltech) students, Glenn Hightower and John Denker. APh is an abbreviation for "applied physics". In 1976, APh was hired by Mattel to help design the Intellivision system. They also developed the operating system and the first games. College students wrote the code for the early games, and received very low pay, not equivalent to the hundreds of thousands of games that were sold.

Several members of APh left in 1982 and started Cheshire Engineering after a dispute over profits from developing Mattel’s "M Network" line of Atari 2600 games.

4.2: Who are the Blue Sky Rangers?

In 1979, Mattel Electronics decided that programmers should not get credit for their work, or be mentioned in documentation; the idea was secrecy would maximize profits and keep future competitors from trying to hire them away. TV Guide magazine produced an article calling these anonymous people "Blue Sky Rangers" based on their staff sessions called "Blue Sky Meetings", and the dev group decided to just keep the name afterwards.

The BSR List

  • Bill Fisher

  • Connie Goldman

  • David Akers

  • David Stifel

  • Dave Warhol

  • Don Daglow

  • Eddie Dumbrower

  • Eric Del Sesto

  • Ji-Wen Tsao

  • Joe Ferreira King

  • Juli Hoshizaki

  • Karen Nugent

  • Karen Tanouye

  • Keith Robinson

  • Mark Urbaniec

  • Michael Breen

  • Mike Minkoff

  • Pat Dulong

  • Ray Kaestner

  • Rick Levine

  • Ronald Surratt

  • Steve Ettinger

  • Steve Roney

  • Steve Tatsumi

  • Tom Priestley

  • Traci Roux

In a time when few women were in the technology development, and fewer were in the game programming/creation space, and even fewer were given credit, the Blue Sky Rangers were a very elite group.

4.2: Did Mattel ever give programmers credit?

By 1983, headhunters had learned the identities of every formerly-anonymous Blue Sky Ranger (often bribing employees hundreds of dollars for copies of internal phone lists). Sure that everyone knew their identities but the public, and rankled by Activision’s publicizing of their designers, the Blue Sky Rangers started pushing for names on cartridges.
VP Gabriel Baum later sent a memo "The names of our key personnel are available to any investigative headhunter and I believe that we are more likely to retain employees than to lose them by publicly recognizing their connection with a cartridge. I also believe that our Marketing group could use programmer/designer recognition to their advantage."
On May 27, Mattel Electronics announced credits would appear on future game packages.

Stamp: 2023-11-26T03:29:17

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Intellivision is a trademark of © Intellivision Entertainment, Inc. Intellivision, Blue Sky Rangers Inc, the Intellivision logotype and the Running Man logo are registered trademarks ® of Intellivision Entertainment, Inc. Other trademarks are the properties of the trademark owners. Use of these trademarks is for historical and contextual purposes only and do not imply any endorsement or connection with IE or its properties.