Table of Contents
1st and 2nd Generation
The first 2 generations of home game consoles, commonly considered as having began in 1972 with the Magnavox Odyssey and ending in 1985 with the release of the NES. This page is essentially for just the 2nd generation, as the 1st generation's capabilities are too limited to allow even the slightest EOP to be developed.
1st Generation
(entirely excluded; they’re all discrete logic)
2nd Generation
Assorted
Potential:
Emerson Radio Arcadia 2001 (Signetics 2650)
Interton Video Computer 4000 (Signetics 2650A)
Ultravision Video Arcade System (Unreleased, hybrid computer/console)
No Potential:
Bandai Super Vision 8000 (NEC D780C)
GCE Vectrex (Motorola MC68A09)
RCA Studio II (COSMAC 1802)
APF-M1000
A forgettable Motorola 6800 based game console released by “APF Electronics” (otherwise known for their calculators) in October 1978. It didn't sell much or do much, but it achieved enough sales success to keep APF afloat until the video game crash in 1983.
Operating Systems (Motorola 6800)
APF Basic
The bundled APF Basic compiler allows any users to develop their own programs.
This is only available for an APF-M1000 paired with the “The Imagination Machine” addon. The “Imagination Machine” also had an Operating System that appears undocumented, a telephone modem addition, and a few other little things.
Atari 2600
See Atari 2600.
Atari 5200
See Atari 5200.
Audiosonic 1292 Advanced Programmable Video System
Horrible name aside, the 1292 was a simple cartridge-based early game console, featuring a Signetics 2560AI. It featured many console variations which mostly altered it's physical appearance, although some variations prevented playing games from other regions in the system. It died off in the 1983 video games crash.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1292_Advanced_Programmable_Video_System
Operating Systems (Signetics 2650AI)
Hobby Module
This allowed access to a 6.5kb programmable memory module, and saving software to cassette tapes. This system runs a 2650AI, which might open it up to a few variants of DOS that ran on the 2560.
Bally Astrocade
One of the more interesting “Forgotten” consoles of this era, releasing in April 1978. Featuring a Zilog Z80, 4-64K of RAM, 8KB of ROM, and 320×204 (with RAM expansion) or 160×102 resolution with 4 or 8 colors, the Astrocade is now remembered for it's surprisingly powerful graphics capability of the time, despite the difficulty in accessing this power. Nowadays, it is one of the few “obscure” names of this era to have a surviving homebrew/hobbyist community.
Operating Systems (Zilog Z80)
Astro BASIC
The Astrocade also included a BASIC programming language cartridge
Yet another typical early console days BASIC instance.
Coleco ColecoVision
See Coleco ColecoVision.
Fairchild Channel F
See Fairchild Channel F.
Magnavox Odyssey 2
See Magnavox Odyssey 2.
Mattel Intellivision
See Mattel Intellivision.
VTech CreatiVision
A rare non-children's oriented VTech product, back when that wasn't their thing. Releasing in 1982 for Hong Kong, the CreatiVision featured a “Rockwell” MOS 6502 CPU, 1 Kb of RAM, and a resolution of 256×192 at 16 colors, the system was enough to keep VTech going, with them eventually pivoting into the holy grail of sales known as targeting children.
Operating Systems (“Rockwell” MOS 6502)
BASIC cartridge and extras
had interfaces for a cassette player, an extra rubber keyboard, parallel I/O interface, floppy disk drive and modem (likely unreleased) and one memory expansion module for use with the Basic language cartridge
The quote essentially explains everything of interest.