PC-50x  Acetronic Tele-Sports IV
Previous System
acetronic_iv
Next System

AceTronic Tele-sports IV

The AceTronic Tele-sports IV is identical to the Radofin Tele-sports IV, but with different branding obviously. The console is designed around the AY-3-8500 chipset. However, in contrast to many other consoles of that era, the Tele-Sports IV housed the chip in cartridges, making the console much cheaper.

Each cartrdige offers up to 10 games, although the games were basic variants on the single bat-and-ball game that the AY-3-8500 chip offered. Each game had its own AY-3-8500 chip, making the games expensive. There were only seven cartridges released for the Tele-Sports IV.

PC-50x family of Consoles

The PC-50x family is a series of first generation home video game consoles produced between 1977 and 1982. These consoles were all produced in Asian countries for various different brands.

The consoles do not have a central processing unit (CPU), but rather the games themselves have game logic on them, based on the General Instrument AY-3-8xxx chipset. This chip-set started with the AY-3-8500, or the "Ball and Paddle" chip. The consoles varied in that some produced color output, while others produced black-and-white to reduce cost. All of the consoles in this series have 10 buttons on the console to choose between the different games that were on the cartridge. The cartridge contained one of the AY-3-8xxx chips, and the buttons chose a variation of the game that the chip could play. The first versions of these chips produced games like tennis, soccer and other ball and bat variants. Later the chips would produce racing and shooting games.

AY-3-8xxx Games

Some of the AY-3-8xxx chips and their games are listed below. The different consoles sometimes used a different cartridge format so not all of the cartridges could be exchanged between the systems, although technically there is no difference between the system itself.

  • AY-3-8500

    Pong games (Original Paddle&Bat chip)
  • AY-3-8603

    2 racing games
  • AY-3-8605

    2 submarine games
  • AY-3-8606

    10 pong/wipe-out style games
  • AY-3-8607

    3 rifle games
  • AY-3-8610

    8 pong games, 2 rifle games
  • AY-3-8710

    2 tank games
  • AY-3-8760

    4 race games

Cartridge with an AY-3-8610 chip

The AY-3-8500 "Ball & Paddle" IC

The AY-3-8500 "Ball & Paddle" integrated circuit was the first in a series of ICs from General Instrument designed for the consumer video game market.

In 1975 General Instruments developed the AY-3-8500 chip that would revolutionize home gaming. Initially there was no interest in the chip, General Instruments could not find interested buyers. At the same time Coleco had the desire to built a home console. Thanks to Ralph Baer, the brain behind the Magnavox Odyssey, Coleco and GI found each other and in 1976 Coleco Telstar was put on the market. It immediately became serious competition for the Magnavox Odyssey.

Ultimately the AY-3-8500 was used in more than 200 consoles, from the APF TV Fun, the Philips Tele-Spiel Las Vegas, the Sears Hockey Tennis game to the Tandy TV-Scoreboard and many, many more.

The AY-3-8500 was designed to output video to an RF modulator, which would then display the game on a domestic television set. The AY-3-8500 contained six built in games:

  1. Tennis/Pong
  2. Soccer/Hockey
  3. Squash
  4. Practice game
  5. Shooting 1
  6. Shooting 2

The AY-3-8500 was the 625-line PAL version and the AY-3-8500-1 was the 525-line NTSC version. It was introduced in 1976 with Coleco the first manufacturer to implement the chip in its Telstar console. Only a few external components were needed to build a complete system, which made this chip an attractive option to produce cheap pong machines.

The AY-3-8500 was the first iteration of the chip with black-and-white video output. It was possible to colorize the game by using an additional chip, such as the AY-3-8515.

The AY-3-8500 Pin-Out

Technical Details
Released 1981 Brand AceTronic Type PC-50x Programmable Game Console Name Acetronic Tele-Sports IV CPU Class AY-3-8xxx CPU General Instruments AY-3-8xxx (on cart) Memory RAM: none Sound Chip none Display Chip AY-3-8xxx (on Cart) Display Color Best Color Color Best Graphics ` Sprites none Storage Cartridges
Related Systems
 
PC-50x Programmable Game Console
» 
Acetronic  Tele-Sports IV (1981)
Related Media
World Wide Web Links
 
PC-50x family of Consoles
Wikipage about the PC-50x family of Consoles
 
Ball and Paddle IC (AY-3-8500)
Wikipage about the Ball and Paddle IC, the AY-3-8500