Adventure Vision is a cartridge-based

video game console A video game console is an electronic device that Input/output, outputs a video signal or image to display a video game that can typically be played with a game controller. These may be home video game console, home consoles, which are generally ...

released by

Entex Industries Entex Industries, Inc. was an American toy and electronic game manufacturer based in Compton, California. The company was active during the 1970s and 1980s. Background The company was formed in 1970 by ''G.A. (Tony) Clowes'', ''Nicholas Carlozzi ...

in either August or October 1982. The launch price of the system was $79.95. The monitor, game controls, and computer hardware are all contained within a single portable unit. The LED monitor can only display red pixels. Four games were released, all of which are arcade ports. Approximately 10,000 were produced. Adventure Vision was Entex's second-generation system following the

Entex Select-A-Game The Entex Select-a-game is a handheld game system released in 1981 by Entex Industries. Entex released six games for the device before they dropped support in 1982 in favor of the Entex Adventure Vision. Hardware The Select-a-Game uses a 7 x 1 ...

, released a year earlier in 1981.

Description

Control is through a single multi-position

joystick A joystick, sometimes called a flight stick, is an input device consisting of a stick that pivots on a base and reports its angle or direction to the device it is controlling. Also known as the control column, it is the principal control devic ...

and two sets of four buttons, one on each side of the joystick, for ease of play by both left- and right-handed players. Rather than using an

LCD A liquid-crystal display (LCD) is a flat-panel display or other electronically modulated optical device that uses the light-modulating properties of liquid crystals combined with polarizers to display information. Liquid crystals do not em ...

screen or an external

television Television (TV) is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. Additionally, the term can refer to a physical television set rather than the medium of transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertising, ...

set like other systems of the time, the Adventure Vision uses a single vertical line of 40 red

LED A light-emitting diode (LED) is a semiconductor device that emits light when current flows through it. Electrons in the semiconductor recombine with electron holes, releasing energy in the form of photons. The color of the light (corresp ...

s combined with a spinning mirror inside the casing. This allows for an effective screen resolution of 150 × 40

pixel In digital imaging, a pixel (abbreviated px), pel, or picture element is the smallest addressable element in a Raster graphics, raster image, or the smallest addressable element in a dot matrix display device. In most digital display devices, p ...

s. The mirror motor draws a great deal of power from the batteries, which can be avoided by using the built-in AC adapter.

Games

Entex released four Adventure Vision games, all of them ported from arcades: *'' Defender'', originally by

Williams Electronics WMS Industries, Inc. was an American electronic gaming and amusement manufacturer in Enterprise, Nevada. It was merged into Scientific Games in 2016. WMS's predecessor was the Williams Manufacturing Company, founded in 1943 by Harry E. Williams ...

*''

Super Cobra ''Super Cobra'' is a horizontally scrolling shooter developed by Konami, originally released as an arcade video game in 1981. It was published by Konami in Japan in March 1981 and manufactured and distributed by Stern in North America on June ...

'', originally by

Konami , commonly known as Konami, , is a Japanese multinational entertainment company and video game developer and video game publisher, publisher headquartered in Chūō, Tokyo, Chūō, Tokyo. The company also produces and distributes trading card ...

*''

Turtles Turtles are reptiles of the order Testudines, characterized by a special shell developed mainly from their ribs. Modern turtles are divided into two major groups, the Pleurodira (side necked turtles) and Cryptodira (hidden necked turtle ...

'', originally by Konami *''Space Force'', originally by Venture Line (similar to ''

Asteroids An asteroid is a minor planet—an object larger than a meteoroid that is neither a planet nor an identified comet—that orbits within the Solar System#Inner Solar System, inner Solar System or is co-orbital with Jupiter (Trojan asteroids). As ...

'')

Technical specifications

* CPU:

Intel 8048 The MCS-48 microcontroller series, Intel's first microcontroller, was originally released in 1976. Its first members were 8048, 8035 and 8748. The 8048 is arguably the most prominent member of the family. Initially, this family was produced ...

@ 733

kHz The hertz (symbol: Hz) is the unit of frequency in the International System of Units (SI), often described as being equivalent to one event (or cycle) per second. The hertz is an SI derived unit whose formal expression in terms of SI base uni ...

* Sound:

National Semiconductor National Semiconductor Corporation was an United States of America, American Semiconductor manufacturing, semiconductor manufacturer, which specialized in analogue electronics, analog devices and subsystems, formerly headquartered in Santa Clara, ...

COP411L @ 52.6 kHz, headphone jack * RAM: 64 bytes (internal to 8048), 1K (on main

PCB PCB may refer to: Science and technology * Polychlorinated biphenyl, an organic chlorine compound, now recognized as an environmental toxin and classified as a persistent organic pollutant * Printed circuit board, a board used in electronics * P ...

) * ROM: 1K (internal to 8048), 512 bytes (internal to COP411L), 4K (cartridge) * Input: 4 direction joystick, 4 buttons duplicated on each side of the joystick * Graphics: 150x40 monochrome red pixels * Expansion port * Dimensions:

Legacy

A similar display technique combining red LEDs with a moving mirror was used by

Nintendo is a Japanese Multinational corporation, multinational video game company headquartered in Kyoto. It develops, publishes, and releases both video games and video game consoles. The history of Nintendo began when craftsman Fusajiro Yamauchi ...

in the 1995

Virtual Boy The Virtual Boy is a 32-bit tabletop portable video game console developed and manufactured by Nintendo and released in 1995. Promoted as the first system capable of rendering stereoscopic 3D graphics, it featured a red monochrome display viewe ...

. Because of the moving parts used by the system, many units no longer work, with an estimated 100 known operational units left. On March 31, 2013 at the Revision demoparty, the first-ever homebrew/demo ROM for the system was demonstrated by MEGA - Museum of Electronic Games & Art. MEGA also released the source code for the demo as well as all development tools. The system is supported by the

MESS The mess (also called a mess deck aboard ships) is a designated area where military personnel socialize, eat and (in some cases) live. The term is also used to indicate the groups of military personnel who belong to separate messes, such as the o ...

emulator In computing, an emulator is Computer hardware, hardware or software that enables one computer system (called the ''host'') to behave like another computer system (called the ''guest''). An emulator typically enables the host system to run sof ...

and AdViEmulator.AdViEmulator, a specialized Open Source Adventure Vision emulator
/ref>

References

Internet Archive The Internet Archive is an American 501(c)(3) organization, non-profit organization founded in 1996 by Brewster Kahle that runs a digital library website, archive.org. It provides free access to collections of digitized media including web ...

''Console Living Room''. {{Video game consoles, Generation=Second Discontinued handheld game consoles Handheld game consoles Handheld electronic games Monochrome video game consoles Products introduced in 1982 1980s toys Entex Industries consoles

Description

Games

Technical specifications

Legacy

See also

References

External links