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# Radofin 1292 advanced programmable video system

By Ricardo Cividanes da Silva, January 10 in Classic Console Discussion

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### CatPix

### CatPix 2,572

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- #26

Posted January 12

Neat I guess the "1980" date commonly seen for the European release is an average . It also may depend how you consider sale figures; does a system that was released for December 1979 count for 1979 (when talking on a general scale of influence) or more 1980? In France the 2600 was delayed up to 1981 (a side result being that no 6 switch variants of the SECAM 2600 are know to exist, and probably never existed).

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### carlsson

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- #27

Posted January 12

Given the importance of Christmas sales, I think a system released on December 1 counts towards that year. A system released on December 27 probably accounts for very few sales on the remainder of the year, depending how weekdays lie of course.

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### Mikebloke

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- #28

Posted January 12

Interesting stuff regarding dates, my understanding is that Backgammon and Planet Defender (32, 33 on the acetronic line) came out in 1982 so presumably it was still selling for a portion of the year. I've not seen any evidence for the Acetronic/Radofin line being released before 1979 but 1978 seems to be a commonly mentioned date. I have similar issues dating the PC-50x line, as its claimed to be 1975/6 but the chips used I don't think came out for a year or two further up. Confusing stuff.

Is there any dating for games beyond what year they came out for (months, any magazines with games for sale etc)? It would be great to know.

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### Ricardo Cividanes da Silva

### Ricardo Cividanes da Silva 23

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- #29

Posted January 14

Were these games made by each company or were there third parties developing since it seems that they are compatible between them?

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### carlsson

### carlsson 17,575

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Posted January 14 (edited)

Most games are listed as copyright "??? 19xx" but a few have been pinpointed.

http://amigan.yatho.com/igg/

Note that the oldest verified games are dated 1980, one game is dated 1979 with question mark. Certainly if the VC-4000 was released in 1978 the earliest games must date from then or slightly before but it hasn't been verified. Possibly back then it would be a drawback to put dating on the games as it quickly would be apparent if the games were a couple years old or not.

Edited January 14 by carlsson

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### Ricardo Cividanes da Silva

### Ricardo Cividanes da Silva 23

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Posted January 14

Thanks Carlsson!

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### Rolo

### Rolo 338

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- #32

Posted January 15

@Ricardo Cividanes: Did you have a look at http://www.vc4000.de/html/geschichte.html?

There is somebody, who specialized on Interton VC4000. He already was in contact with the son of one of the former owners of INTERTON (Gerald W. Türk). Maybe he has more information, than presented on the web-site.🤔

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### Ricardo Cividanes da Silva

### Ricardo Cividanes da Silva 23

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- #33

Posted January 15

No, I didn`t.
Thanks for tip!

This website has a lot interisting information. I will try to contact with the responsable.

Thanks @Rolo

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### Mikebloke

### Mikebloke 647

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- #34

Posted January 17

> On 1/14/2021 at 1:04 PM, Ricardo Cividanes da Silva said:

> Were these games made by each company or were there third parties developing since it seems that they are compatible between them?

Most of the games were coded independently, and then the machines franchised out to various different companies in different countries. As part of this, there is a few main types of cartridge sizes, some are physically compatible and others are not - however they are all compatible software wise,and with a converter it's possible just fine. Converters existed back then too, I have a database game converter to run on an Acetronic system. This seems to have been sold by database themselves, rather than pushing sales of their own console, which is interesting.

It was a lot more common at the time, but nearly never seen now. There was a big rumour that the New X Box was going to be franchised in Japan under a sega name but it didn't happen.

@carlsson thanks, I've used this site a lot as it has possibly the most centralised and useful information on the system, but no luck with much else. I've been dubious of the 1978 start date for awhile, and a late 1979 seems more likely (December can be a popular month!).

As almost the entire system is cloned games from atari, the dating works being later. As the 1292 line was very European as well, it had more chance of fair competition with delayed 2600 releases.

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### alex_79

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- #35

Posted January 20

This article from may 1978 "Personal Computing" presents the Signetics chip set 2650/2636/2622 (NTSC).

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### Ricardo Cividanes da Silva

### Ricardo Cividanes da Silva 23

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- #36

Posted January 20

@alex_79 this is terrific! It's exactly the information what I going to need to conect the Signetics and videogame Manufacturers. This can be answer the question of how different manufacturers have released so many consoles with the same hardware.
Thank you!

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### boulinha

### boulinha 6

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- #37

Posted January 21

Note that also German magazine Elektor published from Apr to Dec 1979 some articles and schematics explaining how to build and program a "TV Game Computer" that is quite similar to Interton/Radofin one, based on Signetics 2650A & 2636. Then, from Jan 1080 to Jul 1982 they published some other articles regarding this machine.

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### Ricardo Cividanes da Silva

### Ricardo Cividanes da Silva 23

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- #38

Posted January 21

Great! This shows how Philips was disseminating its project in order to sell Signetics components.
And the pieces will fit together.

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### alex_79

### alex_79 1,004

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- #39

Posted January 21 (edited)

> 6 hours ago, boulinha said:

> Note that also German magazine Elektor published from Apr to Dec 1979 some articles and schematics explaining how to build and program a "TV Game Computer" that is quite similar to Interton/Radofin one, based on Signetics 2650A & 2636. Then, from Jan 1080 to Jul 1982 they published some other articles regarding this machine.

Yes, the Elektor "TV games computer" uses the same hardware as the Interton/1292 APVS consoles. The expansion board for the computer published In one of the later articles included, among the other improvements, two cartridge ports to use the commercial games for the Interton and Radofin consoles.

The Elektor articles also mention that a few readers actually modified their consoles instead of building the computer from scratch.

The Hobby module for the Radofin console (and the similar units for the Voltmace, Rowtron and Occitane) basically turn the console into the Elektor computer in its basic version. Apparently the tape format is also compatible, so you can load the software published by the Elektor magazine into an Hobby module. The two monitor software look almost identical to each other, and all the commands and the layout of the keys are the same.

I tried both (with an home built eprom cartridge) on my Interton VC4000 console.

elektor TVGC:

Hobby Module:

I'd like to build the cassette interface some day...

Edited January 21 by alex_79

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