Dave Chandler, Lead Intellivision Engineer

I just read the sad news that Jerry Lawson, developer of the Fairchild Channel F, has passed away. It reminded me that we haven't yet noted the passing of another of the video game industry's pioneers: Dave Chandler, the man responsible for the Mattel Intellivision. From the notice posted by Intellivision Productions on March 23rd:

Quote

Dave "Papa Intellivision" Chandler, lead engineer on the Intellivision for Mattel Electronics, passed away this morning at his home in Downey, California. In 1978 Dave Chandler and his team designed the familiar brown & gold console and the famous hand controllers. The family asks that anyone who wishes to remember Dave and his contribution to the early days of videogaming make a donation in his name to UMCOR for disaster relief in Japan.

The Atari 2600 is rightfully lauded for its elegantly simple and versatile architecture, and for the long life it enjoyed as a result. But it should be remembered that the Intellivision also had a remarkably long and productive run, from the first test-marketed games in 1979 to the last of the INTV titles (Deep Pockets Super Pro Pool & Billiards) in 1990. When one compares the earliest Intellivision games to the ones that were produced late in its life, it is astonishing to see how the developers continued to discover new ways to tap its power and versatility well into the Nintendo era. However, as impressive as its graphics and sound capabilities are, I think the Intellivision's most groundbreaking characteristic of all is its unique controllers. As much as some people like to complain about it, it's clear to me that the Intellivision hand controller introduced a richer and more sophisticated way of interacting with video games: it is impossible to imagine playing Utopia, or the genre-defining Intellivision sports games, using only a one-button Atari joystick.

In addition to the technology that the Intellivision brought to the video game industry, I think it also played an important role in changing the perception of video games among the general public, making them seem like something more than "just kid stuff." Its contemporary design blended in perfectly with home entertainment centers of the late 1970s, and its overall level of sophistication appealed to a much more diverse demographic than the Atari systems did. As I wrote in another thread late last year ...

jaybird3rd, on Mon Sep 6, 2010 9:56 PM, said:

The 2600 was intended primarily for home conversions of popular arcade games, and the initial games that were made for it reflected that. On the other hand, the Intellivision seems to have been aimed at more of an upscale market: it was much more expensive, it was advertised in mature outlets like Playboy Magazine, its woodgrain and brown plastic shell didn't look like something that belonged on a spaceship, its pitchman was the urbane and erudite George Plimpton, and its games were seen as more sophisticated and more realistic: "the closest thing to the real thing." Its initial library of games were aimed at a wider audience than kids who hung out at video arcades, so you had very detailed implementations of classic games (card games, board games, Horse Racing, etc.), sports games, simulations, and other types of games that the general public was familiar with. So, in the beginning, the Atari was the "kid's console," while the Intellivision was the "thinking man's console" (hence its full name, "Intelligent Television").

I think this kind of broad appeal is something that the video game industry lost in later years and has only recently begun to recapture. Systems like the Nintendo Wii, and the novel game concepts that the "Wiimote" has made possible, seem to be leading that transition today. I believe the Intellivision brought the same kind of innovation to the video game industry in its own time, and widened the audience for video games in much the same way, thanks in large part to the pioneering design work of Dave Chandler.