 The other All-in-One video game console If you thought the Vectrex was the only second generation video games console with its own built in screen in 1982, you would be wrong. That very same year as General Consumer Electronics released the vector based marvel, Entex brought out their own all-in-one, self contained gaming system with interchangeable cartridges, the Entex Adventure Vision. No TV required. That’s right, both the Vectrex and the Adventure Vision allowed you to game without having to plug into the family TV, interrupting your parents viewing of Coronation Street. So this display, that according to the box is “The most realistic display system since television”, is it a warm glowing CRT like your home TV or Vectrex uses? Nope, it’s a much cheaper, but clever setup of a mirror and a column of 40 red LEDs. By spinning a mirror really fast and reflecting the light from the LEDs at different angles, your eyes perceive a 150x40 pixels tall display using an effect known as Persistence Of Vision. In practice you get a pretty wobbly display that is updated 15 frames per second, all the while with the spinning hum from the mirror. Surprisingly a similar setup was later used in the twin displays of the Nintendo Virtual Boy. But by 1995 they had improved things with vertical strips of 224 tiny LEDs, bouncing 4 shades of red off of extremely fast and stable oscillating mirrors to give the perception of a display, that is 384x224 pixels in size updating at 50 frames per second. The rest of the console is this miniature looking retro arcade bartop cabinet affair, in cream and black, with red accents and a metallic control overlay. The marquee emblazoned with its name, Adventure Vision, is in white on red (sadly not backlit). The controls are a mini four way joystick in the centre and two sets of 4 action buttons, in a diamond configuration, either side. There’s a switch to turn the console ON, OFF, or ON with sound. Just above the joystick is the cartridge slot for one of the four games released, speaking of which, on top of the console there are four spaces where you can place said game cartridges. The Adventure Vision can be powered by either 4x D cell batteries, or using an AC adapter. Curiously there’s an expansion port on the side behind a panel, but to what functionality is has, we may never know. The Entex Adventure Vision brain is an Intel 8048 CPU running at 0.733 MHz, with a National Semiconductor COP411L chip for sound. It has 1K of RAM internally and the games came on 4K ROMs. Which is befitting as there were only ever 4 games released for it. The pack in Defender, Space Force (Asteroids clone), Super Cobra and Turtles. These were all competent conversions of arcade games of the time. Well the best you could expect to see on a 150x40 resolution wobbly display. Due to its, to be frank, poor display and lack of games, the Adventure Vision didn’t sell so well and was discontinued within a year. This along with how fragile they are, due to having mechanical parts, make this video game console one of the holy grails for collectors, even though they are rubbish. - Asobi Quang DX September 2019 Back |