The Intellivision Keyboard Component

Hello everyone and welcome to Floppy Days #83 for April, 2018.  My name is Randy Kindig and I host this little retrospective on vintage computers.  I’m stepping outside the normal timeline for this particular episode in order to cover a vintage gaming console and an upgrade that could be purchased for it that turned it into a home computer.  The gaming console is the Intellivision and the upgrade was called the Intellivision Keyboard Component. This system falls roughly into our current timeline, which sits currently at 1980, in that the Intellivision Master Componenet was released in 1979 and the Keyboard Component while work was started on it in 1978 it was never officially released except for about 4,000 units before it was officially canceled in 1982.

Paul Nurminen, aka Nurmix, of the Intellivisionaries Podcast, came to me some time ago and suggested that we collaborate on a podcast about this system as he thought it might be interesting to Intellivisionaries and Floppy Days listeners alike.  I agreed with him and we set about to pull together information and guests about this gaming/computing machine, code-named the Blue Whale, or whimsically occasionally called the Intelliputer. To that end, Paul was able to contact two gentlemen with intimate knowledge of the keyboard component.  The first is Dave Rolfe, who was involved in the development of the keyboard component. The second is Frank Palazzolo, who is working on emulating the keyboard component.

Paul will be co-hosting this show with me and we have a lot of information to pass on to you that I hope you find interesting.  I’ll first go over a few new acquisitions and upcoming shows and then we’ll jump right into the interview with David, followed by Frank.

Links Mentioned in the Show:

New Acquisitions

• Introduction to BASIC Programming, Steven L. Mandell, 1979 - https://www.amazon.com/Introduction-BASIC-Programming-Steven-Mandell/dp/0314680829/
• BASIC: A Guide to Structured Programming, Instructor’s Manual by Dwyer, Crutchfield, Shore, and Kaufman, 1985 - https://www.amazon.com/Basic-Structured-Programming-Thomas-Dwyer/dp/0395356539
• F18A (TI-99) - http://codehackcreate.com/store#!/F18A-V1-8-Video-Board/p/14022176/category=0
• Sofia RGB board for Atari 8-bit - http://atariage.com/forums/topic/258702-new-development-gtia-in-cpld/page-1
• CoCo3 RGB to SCART cable - https://boysontech.com/
• SCART to HDMI converter box - https://www.ebay.com/itm/Scart-HDMI-to-HDMI-adapter-720-1080P-HD-Video-Converter-Box-for-HDTV-DVD-STB-BH-/183032163582?var=&hash=item2a9d912cfe

Upcoming Shows

• CoCoFest - http://www.glensideccc.com/cocofest/ , April 21-22, HERON POINT CONVENTION CENTER, Lombard, IL
• VCF Southeast - http://vcfed.org/wp/festivals/otherevents/vintage-computer-festival-southeast/ , April 21 & 22, 2018, this year at the new location for the Computer Museum of America Roswell, GA
• TI Fest West - https://www.facebook.com/events/1857301137678595/   - Saturday, April 28 at 10 AM - 5:30 PM PDT, 901 C St, Vancouver, WA
• Vintage Computer Festival East - http://vcfed.org/wp/festivals/vintage-computer-festival-east/ , When: May 18-20, 2018, Where: InfoAge Science Center, 2201 Marconi Rd., Wall, NJ
• KansasFest - https://www.kansasfest.org/ , July 17-22, 2018, Kansas City, Missouri
• VCF West - https://vcfed.org/wp/festivals/vintage-computer-festival-west/ , August 4-5, 2018 - Computer History Museum, Mountain View, CA
• Commodore Vegas Expo v14 - http://www.commodore.ca/forum/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=12676 , Aug. 11-12, 2018, Las Vegas, NV
• Tandy Assembly - http://www.tandyassembly.com , Nov. 10-11, Springfield, OH
• Portland Retro Gaming Expo - http://www.retrogamingexpo.com/ - Oregon Convention Center on October 19-21, 2018
• other shows that will definitely occur but not yet announced:
• • VCF Midwest - Elk Grove Village, IL - http://www.vcfmw.org/ , September
  • TI International World’s Faire - http://www.chicagotiug.com/  - November
  • World of Commodore - http://www.tpug.ca/ , December - Toronto

Interview with Frank Palazzolo

• Frank Palazzolo - Keyboard Component - Knarfian on AtariAge, [email protected] 
• https://youtu.be/y7QjvgwThFA - Frank on emulating vintage computers 
• http://www.avoidspikes.com/dsplib/intv/index.html - Frank’s Web site 

Ads

• Keyboard Component ads - http://www.intvfunhouse.com/gte/cat/

Community

• Mailing Lists
• • Intellivision programming mailing list - https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/intvprog/info
• Forums
• • AtariAge - http://atariage.com/forums/forum/125-intellivision-aquarius/

Current Web Sites

• Keyboard Component information at intellivisionlives.com - http://www.intellivisionlives.com/bluesky/hardware/keyboard_tech.html
• KC at Intellivision Wiki - http://wiki.intellivision.us/index.php?title=Keyboard_Component
• Papa Intellivision - http://papaintellivision.com
• Joe z's website -  http://spatula-city.org/~im14u2c/images/kbd/
• Mattel Electronics Intellivision Master Component System and Keyboard Component commercial - https://youtu.be/UdveJuwHuGM
• Intellivision® Keyboard Demonstration Cassette - https://youtu.be/mvsT7ZI4ikU