Fairchild Channel F

In 1974, Alpex Computer Corporation employees Wallace Kirschner and Lawrence Haskel developed a home video game prototype consisting of a base unit centered on an Intel 8080 microprocessor and interchangeable circuit boards containing ROM chips that could be plugged into the base unit. The duo attempted to interest several television manufacturers in the system, but were unsuccessful. Next, they contacted a buyer at Fairchild, which sent engineer Jerry Lawson to evaluate the system. Lawson was impressed by the system and suggested Fairchild license the technology, which the company did in January 1976.[1][4]

Lawson worked with industrial designer Nick Talesfore and mechanical engineer Ron Smith to turn the prototype into a viable project. Jerry Lawson replaced the 8080 with Fairchild's own F8 CPU; while Nick Talesfore and Ron Smith were responsible for adapting the prototype's complex keyboard controls into a single control stick, and encasing the ROM circuit boards into plastic cartridges reminiscent of 8-track tapes.[4][5] Talesfore, providing Industrial Design (ID), and Ron Smith, providing Mechanical Engineering (ME), collaborated on the styling and function of the 8 degrees of freedom hand controller. They were responsible for the design of the hand controllers, console, and video game cartridges. In addition to providing the ID for this system, Talesfore also art directed Tom Kamafugi, the graphic designer who did the original graphic design for the early video cartridges cartons.

The system was also released in Japan (チャンネル F[6]) in October 1977.

Channel F System II

Channel F System II

Lawson moved on to form his own company, Video Soft. Talesfore continued working on the system at Fairchild, and eventually a number of these improvements resulted in the improved System II. The major changes were that the controllers were now removable, using the Atari joystick port, and their storage was moved to the back of the machine. The sound was now mixed into the RF modulator, coming out through the television and removing the need for the internal speaker. The internal electronics were also simplified, with custom logic chips instead of standard logic, resulting in a much smaller circuit board. This version also featured a simpler and more modern-looking case design.

Sometime in 1979, Zircon International bought the rights to the Channel F and released the re-designed console as the Channel F System II to compete with Atari's VCS. Channel F II struggled, managing to only release six new games after the debut before its demise; several of these were developed at Fairchild before they sold the rights.

Licensed variants

A number of licensed versions were released in Europe, including the Luxor Video Entertainment System in Sweden, Adman Grandstand Video Entertainment Computer in the UK, the SABA Videoplay, ITT Telematch Processor and Nordmende Color TelePlay µP from Germany, and the Dumont Videoplay and Barco Challenger from the Barco/Dumont company in Italy and Belgium.

Nordmende Color TelePlay µP

Adman Grandstand Video Entertainment Computer

Luxor Video Entertainment Computer

SABA Videoplay

The palette of the Channel F

The F8 was very complex compared to the typical integrated circuits of the day and had more inputs and outputs than other contemporary chips. Because chip packaging was not initially available with enough pins, the F8 used in the original form of the VES/Channel F (replaced by System II) was instead fabricated as a pair of chips that had to be used together to form a complete CPU. However, due to the F8's design, there was a considerable savings in terms of pins that enabled the inclusion of 64 bytes of internal scratchpad RAM. A single-chip variant of the F8 was used by both the System II and the VideoBrain computer system.

The Channel F is able to use one plane of graphics and one of four background colors per line, with three plot colors to choose from (red, green, and blue) that turned into white if the background is set to black, at a resolution of 128 × 64, with approximately 102 × 58 pixels visible and help from 64 bytes of system RAM, half the amount of the later Atari 2600.[7][8] The Maze game (cartridge 10) required 1K of on-cartridge static RAM, adding to the cost to manufacture it. The Chess game contained considerably more on-cartridge RAM than that. The F8 processor at the heart of the console is able to produce enough AI to allow for player versus computer matches, a first in console history. All previous machines required a human opponent. Tic-Tac-Toe on Videocart-1 had this feature, it was only for one player against the machine. The same is true for the chess game, which would have very long turn times for the computer as the game progressed.

In the original unit, sound is played through an internal speaker, rather than the TV set. However, the System II passed sound to the television through the RF modulator.

The Channel F is also the first video game console to feature a pause function; There is a 'Hold' button on the main unit of the console which allows players to freeze the game and change several game settings in the meantime.[9]

Technical specifications

PCB Scan of the Grandstand Video Entertainment Computer (UK Channel F II variant)

• CPU microprocessor: Fairchild F8 (8-bit)[14] operating at 1.7897725 MHz (NTSC) (PAL gen. 1: 2.0000 MHz, PAL gen. 2: 1.7734475 MHz)
• RAM: 2 KB (128 × 64 × 2 bits)[15] for the framebuffer plus the 64 bytes of scratchpad memory.[16]
• Additional SRAM supported via add-in cartridges. Maze and Chess contain static RAM (SRAM), with the latter containing significantly more than the 1 KB for Maze.
• Resolution: 128 × 64 pixels,[14] approximately 102×58 pixels visible depending on TV. Columns 125 and 126 controls palette (per row). i. e. 125 × 64 pixels for drawing the screen.
• Refresh rate: 60 Hz[17]
• Colors: 8 colors[14] (either black/white lines or one of three background colors per line combined with red, green or blue pixels)
• Audio: 120 Hz, 500 Hz and 1 kHz beeps (can be modulated to produce different tones). Quality is quite superior on the System II, versus the original model.
• Input: two custom game controllers, hardwired to the console (original release) or removable (Channel F System II)
• Output: RF modulated composite video signal, cord hardwired to console in gen. 1, detachable in gen. 2

Twenty-seven cartridges, termed "Videocarts", were officially released to consumers in the United States during the ownership of Fairchild and Zircon, the first twenty-one of which were released by Fairchild. Several of these cartridges were capable of playing more than one game and were typically priced at $19.95 (equivalent to $91 in 2020).[18][19] The Videocarts were yellow and approximately the size and overall texture of an 8 track cartridge.[20] They usually featured colorful label artwork. The earlier artwork was created by nationally known artist Tom Kamifuji and art directed by Nick Talesfore. The console contained two built-in games, Tennis and Hockey, which were both advanced Pong clones. In Hockey, the reflecting bar could be changed to diagonals by twisting the controller and could move all over the playing field. Tennis was much like the original Pong.

A sales brochure from 1978 listed "Keyboard Videocarts" for sale. The three shown were K-1 Casino Poker, K-2 Space Odyssey, and K-3 Pro-Football. These were intended to use the Keyboard accessory. All further brochures, released after Zircon took over Fairchild, never listed this accessory nor anything called a Keyboard Videocart.

There was one additional cartridge released numbered Videocart-51 and simply titled "Demo 1". This Videocart was shown in a single sales brochure released shortly after Zircon acquired the company. It was never listed for sale after this single brochure which was used in the winter of 1979.

Unreleased carts:

• Democart
• Democart 2
• Keyboard Videocart-1: Casino Poker
• Keyboard Videocart-2: Space Odyssey
• Keyboard Videocart-3: Pro-Football

German electronics manufacturer SABA also released a few compatible carts different from the original carts: translation in Videocart-1 Tic-Tac-Toe to German words, Videocart-3 released with different abbreviations (German), and Videocart-18 changed graphics and German word list.

A clone of Pac-Man for the Channel F was released in 2009.[22]

In 2021, a number of new 'Homebrew' games were released on itch.io by retro developer Arlasoft. These included ports of mobile puzzle games Tents & Trees, 2048 and Threes, as well as a port of the classic arcade shooter Centipede. [23]

Gamers playing on a Fairchild Channel F

The Channel F had beaten the Atari VCS to the market, but once the VCS was released, sales of the Channel F fell, attributed to the types of games that were offered. Most of the Channel F titles were slow-paced educational and intellectual games, compared to the action-driven games that launched with the VCS. Even with the redesigned Channel F II in 1978, Fairchild was unable to meet the sales that the VCS and its games were generating. By the time Fairchild sold the technology to Zircon in 1979, around 350,000 total units were sold.[1]

Ken Uston reviewed 32 games in his book Ken Uston's Guide to Buying and Beating the Home Video Games in 1982, and rated some of the Channel F's titles highly; of these, Alien Invasion and Video Whizball were considered by Uston to be "the finest adult cartridges currently available for the Fairchild Channel F System".[24] The games on a whole, however, rated last on his survey of over 200 games for the Atari, Intellivision, Astrocade and Odyssey consoles, and contemporary games were rated "Average" with future Channel F games rated "below average".[25] Uston rated almost one-half of the Channel F games as "high in interest" and called that "an impressive proportion" and further noted that "Some of the Channel F cartridges are timeless; no matter what technological developments occur, they will continue to be of interest." His overall conclusion was that the games "serve a limited, but useful, purpose" and that the "strength of the Channel F offering is in its excellent educational line for children".[26]

In 1983, after Zircon announced its discontinuation of the Channel F, Video Games reviewed the console. Calling it "the system nobody knows", the magazine described its graphics and sounds as "somewhat primitive by today's standards". It described Space War as perhaps "the most antiquated game of its type still on the market", and rated the 25 games for the console with an average grade of three ("not too good") on a scale from one to ten. The magazine stated, however, that Fairchild "managed to create some fascinating games, even by today's standards", calling Casino Royale (Video Blackjack) "the best card game, from blackjack to bridge, made for any TV-game system". It also favorably reviewed Dodge-It ("simple but great"), Robot War ("Berzerk without guns"), and Whizball ("thoroughly original ... hockey with guns"), but concluded that only those interested in nostalgia, video game collecting, or card games would purchase the Channel F in 1983.[27]

• TV Powww

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Fairchild Channel F.

• The Dot Eaters article with a history of the Channel F and games
• Interview with designer Jerry Lawson
• MobyGames list of Channel F games
• Channel F wiki and gallery of labels, instructions, and boxes
• Patent: Cartridge programmable video game apparatus US 4095791 A
• The Untold Story of the Invention of the Video Game Cartridge—how the Channel F's video game cartridge was created (January 22, 2015).
• Channel F was 1977's top game system—before Atari wiped it out at The A.V. Club's AUX (4/09/2017)
• Channel F games playable for free in the browser at the Internet Archive Console Living Room