The Intellivision keyboard and other failures

Intellivision is plagued by problems: a bug in the console ROM may cause a system crash under certain circumstances. Games must therefore contain additional code that prevents the crash.

Another stumbling block is of legal nature. Magnavox still holds the patent to the idea of a game console. While Atari licenses this correctly when the VCS appears, Mattel chooses not to license it, believing that the patent would not stand up in court – which proves to be a costly mistake.

The biggest problem is the announced home computer extension. For months, the development team has failed to build a working version of this keyboard until the Federal Trade Commission sentenced Mattel to fines for misleading advertising. In all haste one develops the Entertainment Computer System, a simplified version of the original extension, which meets the promises made.