Binatone is a British-Chinese telecommunications company. Binatone was started in the United Kingdom in 1958 by two brothers, Gulu Lalvani and Partap Lalvani, to import and distribute consumer electronics. The company was named after Gulu and partap's sister Bina.

Between 1976 and 1979, Binatone produced the "Binatone TV Master" series of first generation video game consoles.

In 1983 Binatone was the first in Europe with fixed-line consumer products that could be bought at electronics retailers. This marked the beginning of a gradual change from Binatone's focus on audio and vision to telecom products.

Dino Lavani, the son of Gulu, purchased Binatone from his father in 2000 and assumed the position of chairman.

The Binatone TV Master MK 10 features 10 built in color games that could be played with two detachable controlers. The console also included a gun peripheral for shooting games. The unit itself has switches for difficulty levels, ball speed and manual vs automatic serve.

List of games for the MK 10

1. Target 1
2. Target 2
3. Basket 1
4. Basket 2
5. Gridball
6. Squash 1
7. Squash 2
8. Football
9. Tennis
10. Hockey

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.