Mattel Electronics retailers were offered special interactive displays to show off the Intellivision system. The dealer catalog distributed at the 1983 Consumer Electronics Show describes two versions of these in-store displays. The first picture below shows a large floor-standing display, which had room for a master component, television, display of dozens of game boxes and storage; the inset to the picture shows a smaller "counter-top" version. The second picture below, from an unknown source, shows a later version of the floor-standing display, in which the Keyboard Component has been replaced with more advertising literature, and space for an Intellivoice unit has been added.
The guts of the floor-standing displays are contained in the "Advertising Display, Non-Illuminating" unit,
Model 3806. The dealer catalog says that both versions of the display accepted 10 games, but it's not
clear whether this means that they both used the same inner hardware, because the picture of the counter-top
version shows an actual game cartridge plugged into the master component, without any apparent connection
to a demonstration unit.
I've obtained the Model 3806 demonstration unit (without the outer display) – here is a description of its appearance, and, as best as I can determine, its operation.
Appearance:
The Model 3806 demonstration unit is a gray metal box, roughly the size of a master component. It has its own power cord, a ribbon cable on the left side leading to a connector (male) in a cartridge shell, 10 cartridge slots (female) on the top, and both an additional cartridge slot (female) and a cartridge connector (male) on the right side.
A sticker on the top of the box (lower portion) numbers the cartridge slots 1 through 10 (left to right) and
designates slot 1 as "VOICE / DEMO ONLY," slot 2 as "VOICE CARTRIDGE ONLY" and
slots 3-10 as "EIGHT CARTRIDGES WITH OR WITHOUT VOICE."
Another sticker on the top of the box (right portion) is split into two sections, separated by a
thick red line. The left section of the
sticker reads, "CUSTOMERS [sic] ACCESSIBLE CARTRIDGE," with an arrow pointing in the direction of
the cartridge slot on the side of the box, and the number "11." The right section of the sticker
reads, "FOR INTELLIVOICE USE VOICE CARTRIDGE ONLY" but as described below, it's not clear whether
that's referring to the male cartridge connector on the side of the box (which is roughly below this portion
of the sticker), or further describing cartridge slot (female) 11.
A third sticker on the top of the box (upper portion) identifies it as the "Mattel Electronics Advertising Display,
Non-Illuminating Model 3806," copyright 1981 and made in Mexico. Next to the ID sticker,
hand-written in pen, is the following: "S/N 5209 Rev D."
The only other example of this unit that I've seen is hand-numbered "S/N 2819 B." On that unit,
the sticker on top (lower portion) designates cartridge slot 1 as "VOICE OR REGULAR," slot 10 as
"VOICE DEMO ONLY" and slots 2-9 as "EIGHT REGULAR CARTRIDGES - NO VOICE CAPABILITY." That unit
didn't have a sticker labeling the right-side slot and connector.
According to a schematic that's available on the Internet, the unit's circuit includes two 2716 (2048x8 bit) EPROMs and a RO-3-9502 (2048x10) RAM chip.
Operation:
The unit demonstrates multiple games by allowing automatic switching between cartridges plugged into the various slots, as well as containing special circuitry to take advantage of the Mattel Electronics demonstration cartridges. In short, it's a souped-up Videoplexer. (Actually, as I theorize below, it's probably more accurate to say that the Videoplexer is a commercialized version of the demonstration unit.)
The ribbon cable is plugged into an Intellivision master component. When the master component is powered up, it cycles through three text advertisement screens (similar themes to the No. 1682 demonstration cartridge, but with a different script and without sound), and then displays the name of the cartridge in the 1st occupied slot. After about 10 seconds, it returns to cycle through the three ad screens, then proceeds to display the name of the second cartridge, and so on. You can manually cycle through the names of the cartridges in the unit's slots by pressing the master component's reset button or a controller disc, or start playing the displayed game by pressing a controller button or keypad number.
The cartridges names that are displayed are abbreviated versions – "BASEBALL," "POKER,"
etc. – of the full names that appear on the actual title screens of games. The unit must contain
in its ROM a list of names that correspond to an identifying code in each game cartridge.
Plugging in a game released after the unit's era (e.g. BurgerTime) displays a random game name.
(The rainbow effect is an artifact of my camera - the actual titles are a solid color.)
If you put a demonstration cartridge in slot 1, the unit automatically launches the demo cart,
which means the demo cart's title screen is displayed (rather than displaying an abbreviated
version of the cartridge title),
and the cartridge's demo program launches thereafter. The unit's ROM must have a
special routine to identify the demo cartridge in slot 1, because placing the demo cart in slots 2-10
displays the title screen only but the demo program won't launch until a controller button is
pushed, and regular game cartridges won't launch automatically when placed in slot 1.
Cartridge slot 11 ("CUSTOMERS [sic] ACCESSIBLE CARTRIDGE"), on the right side of the box, appears to operate in the same way as slots 3-10, and must have been positioned next to an opening in the main display unit so a customer or store employee could plug in a cartridge different from the 10 already in the display, without having to open up the display unit. It's not clear from the picture of the floor-standing version of the demonstration display where this opening would have been located.
I'm not sure how the Intellivoice operation was supposed to work. As far as I can tell, to get the Intellivoice games to work, you simply plug the demonstration unit's ribbon connector into the Intellivoice and then the Intellivoice into the master component (same set-up as plugging a regular game into the Intellivoice). This is the set-up shown in the picture of the later version of the floor-standing display. The top-right sticker and the male cartridge connector hint at a different order, but I haven't figured it out. There's no way to plug the male connector into an Intellivision or Intellivoice cartridge slot because the metal case of the demo unit interferes with the cases on the Intellivision and Intellivoice. I haven't figured out the logic of the Intellivoice operation for the main slots, either – slot 2 says "VOICE CARTRIDGE ONLY" but regular cartridges work there. And voice cartridges work in any of the other slots, as long as the Intellivoice is inserted between the master component and the demonstration unit's ribbon cable.
Some theories: the male connector is designed for a pre-release version of Intellivoice, the case for which fits properly with the demo unit (or the Intellivoice was meant to be taken out of its case in order to be plugged in); the demo units could be daisy-chained together, with an as-yet-unfound cable; or the male connector plugs into the Keyboard Component.
The floor-standing version of the display shown in the dealer catalog has room for a Keyboard Component. (It's not clear whether Mattel Electronics actually sent Keyboard Components out to stores for demonstration, given that the Keyboard Component never made it into full release and only a few thousand units were produced. On Intellivisionlives.com, the Blue Sky Rangers say that a "trickle" of Keyboard Components did make their way to stores for sale.) In the picture, at least, there are actually two master components located in the demonstration unit - one stand-alone, and another that is inserted into the Keyboard Component.
As with the Intellivoice, it's unclear exactly how the Keyboard Component is supposed to be interfaced with the demonstration unit. The Keyboard Component has a few types of connectors: (1) a male connector in a cartridge shell connected by ribbon cable to the Keyboard Component (same as the type of cable on the demonstration unit) that is intended to plug into the Intellivision's cartridge slot when the Intellivision is placed in the Keyboard Component's cavity; (2) two male edge connectors on the back of the Keyboard Component, one of which is designed to accept the Basic expansion cartridge (the Basic cartridge has a female slot in its shell, reverse from the scheme of normal Intellivision game cartridges); and (3) a regular female game cartridge slot. So there are at least two possibilities that come to mind: (A) the demonstration unit's male port is designed to link up to the Keyboard Component, by an as-yet-unfound cable that has female slots on both ends (plugging into the male connector on the demonstration unit and either the ribbon cable or the back male connector on the Keyboard Component), or (B) the male connector on the demonstration unit is designed to accept the Keyboard Component's Basic cartridge (or some other Keyboard Component-related accessory).
The Blue Sky Rangers also say that a demonstration cassette was produced for the Keyboard Component but there is absolutely no information on this anywhere, and no one has ever found it. I have no idea if it was designed to be controlled by the demonstration unit as is the normal Intellivision demonstration cartridge.
Because the Blue Sky Rangers say that Mattel Electronics contracted with Compro to build the Keyboard Component, and because it was Compro that released the Videoplexer, I speculate that Compro also built the Model 3806 demonstration unit for Mattel Electronics, and later modified its design to be released as the Videoplexer. As with the Model 3806 demonstration unit, the Videoplexer was also made in Mexico.
If you happen to own the floor-standing demonstration cabinet, I'm VERY interested in acquiring it from you - drop me an e-mail.