Inside the Magnavox Odyssey (40th Anniversary)
May 28th, 2012 by Benj Edwards
Believe it or not, it’s been almost two years since I did my last tech teardown slideshow for PC World. After 11 visual disassemblies with my haggard workbench as a backdrop, I figured I’d give the series a rest until an interesting new venue came along.
Fast forward to April 2012 — it was a beautiful spring day outside, and I had decided to take apart a 1972 Magnavox Odyssey (the first commercial video game console) in honor of its 40th anniversary. I walked out to my back yard, sat down on the moss, and the result is now up on PCWorld.com.
I hope you enjoy it.
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Here are my previous tech teardowns: Nintendo NES, Atari 1040STf, Atari 800, Commodore Amiga 1000, Commodore 64, Nintendo Game Boy, Nintendo Famicom, Apple IIc, IBM Model M Keyboard, TRS-80 Model 100, and Macintosh Portable.
May 28th, 2012 at 3:24 pm
Very cool! Amazing how far video games have come.
May 28th, 2012 at 9:48 pm
Great to hear! Did some basic googling, is there no known precise release date? All I see is May 1972.
May 29th, 2012 at 9:37 am
Iggy, the Odyssey was introduced to the press in April 1972, and it was sold to the public in August 1972. My source for these dates is Ralph Baer’s book, “Videogames: In the Beginning.”
There is some erroneous information out there about an Odyssey introduction in May 1972. That confusion arose because Nolan Bushnell viewed the Odyssey at a Magnavox traveling profit caravan on May 24th, 1972 (he signed his name in a guest book to prove it). That was not the first showing of the Odyssey.
June 1st, 2012 at 9:34 am
lol at confused ant. 🙂