This page has been visited times since 1st december 1999.
FastCounter by LinkExchange

 

Remember 1972, when Magnavox released Odyssey, the most exciting video game system ?

Well, it is now time for you to play again with a virtual Odyssey on your PC with a true Odyssey emulator.


Why making an Odyssey emulator ?

Because Paul Robson and David Winter decided to revive the Odyssey and let you discover the very first video game system, or just revive some nice moments of your life if you were there when the video game industry just started 25 years ago.

Both David and Paul have been involved in emulation since 1996, and their perpetual love for emulation never ended. Since David is a computer and video game collector who loves repairing his old machines, and since Paul is a talented programer who also knows how to reverse-engineer a system, they wanted to design an emulator for the Odyssey. If this idea stayed in their mind for years, this was due to the only missing thing until it became availble a few weeks ago: the schematics of the Odyssey. Once they got those schematics, they decided to study them in order to make an emulator, which is now available for free.


How is it possible to make an Odyssey emulator ?

The Odyssey is an analog system which does not use a computer running a software to produce the games. The Odyssey is a small analog computer made of several basic parts. Some were not relevant in the development of the emulator because they only concerned the generation of the video signals. Some others were necessary to produce the games, and those ones were emulated. The emulator reproduces the operation of those parts, thus giving the impression of playing with a real Odyssey on a PC.


What does the emulator offer ?

The Odyssey is so basic that it mainly consists in two sort of parts: the electronic system, and the numerous accessories required to play most of the games it offered.

The system is completely emulated. The rifle extension is also emulated through the mouse, thus allowing to play the rifle games.

All the cartridges are implemented, including the ultra rare #11 and #12. Their emulation is not a remake of their effects on the system. The emulator reads the configuration the cartridges, and acts on all the internal parts of the Odyssey as if it was a real one. This means that all the 26 Odyssey games are emulated, but most of their accessories are missing.

All the accessories are not implemented yet, because a lot of artwork is required to put them on screen. Moreover, a basic manager for those accessories is required, but this is by far the easiest task to do. For now, the overlays are usable, and two of them are implemented: TENNIS and FOOTBALL. Since the overlays were not mandatory for using the system, the emulator can either run the games with or without the overlays.

A last detail: the controllers of the odyssey have three knobs. Two are used to move the players, and a third one controls the "english" (ball deviation). Since the english level cannot be seen on the screen (but on the controllers), the level is shown using two little spots on the extremities of the players.


Current development status:

The emulator is still in early development stage, and requires quite a lot of work to be done. For now, the only games which don't require missing accessories are TENNIS, TABLE TENNIS, VOLLEYBALL and FOOTBALL (partial).

But this is just a start and you can still enjoy playing the first video game ever made: TENNIS, with or without the game overlay.

Please do not report that the TENNIS game does not operate correctly. The emulation has been compared to a real Odyssey and what you will see on your screen is nearly same as in reality. Remember: you are running an Odyssey, not a system based around a single digital game chip.

 


TENNIS, played with the overlay

 


TENNIS, played without the overlay

 


VOLLEYBALL, played without the overlay

 


FOOTBALL, played with the overlay

 


DOWNLOAD IT NOW !!!
Click the link above to download the actual version of the emulator.
AND READ THE DOCS BEFORE COMPLAINING !!!


Artwork contributions needed:

In order to improve the emulator and make it much easier of use, we need to add some artrwork. If you want to contribute, you only have to deal with the following rules: your artwork must look exactly like the original Odyssey stuff, and you should supply your pictures in large definition so we can always reduce it if we decide to use a lower resolution. We are aware that the actual 320x200 resolution is insufficient, but the sections requiring artwork will use higher resolutions.


What we need:

We need to add all the game overlays. Basically, this consists in scanning them, refining them and make them available for the emulator. Don't forget that the emulator comes with the BMPTORLE.EXE utility, so you can try your own bitmaps.

We need to add a nice graphic Odyssey accessory manager in order to manipulate the Odyssey objects (plastic chips, paper cards, dice, etc...). As a matter of fact, some accessories have to be manipulated for playing. Since we can't provide real accessories, we will implement them graphically. This will require that these accessories be pictured and/or scanned, and then converted to bitmaps. This interface will have a retro look adapted to the early 1970s video games style, and will include photos of original Odyssey stuff.

We need a nice front-end too. As a matter of fact, most of the Odyssey cartridges allow playing several games, and only the rules and accessories of those games change. The front-end will allow accessing to the original documentation of the games (typically nice scans of the manuals), and will have to show the games, either with different pictures, or animated pictures. Since we can't display the whole manual of the games, the front-end will briefly explain the selected game, so the user knows what he/she can play with.

We will of course add a small section describing the story of the Odyssey. Users will then go to our site to get more information.