Introducing My Daughter to the Fairchild Channel F — Every* Game Console in Order
In the last entry in the series where I set out to introduce my daughter to every video game console in chronological order, I discussed Sarah’s experience with Atari’s home Pong console. In this entry, we take a look at Sarah and the Fairchild Channel F.
The Fairchild Channel F (F is for “Fun”)
Originally released in 1976 as the Fairchild “Video Entertainment System”, later renamed “Channel F”, the Channel F became the first video game console to use a microprocessor, Fairchild Semiconductor’s F8 CPU, and interchangeable cartridges, with work led by the esteemed Jerry Lawson.
While the Magnavox Odyssey, covered here, predates the Channel F, the Odyssey’s game cards function more like jumpers — they bridge connections on the console to tell it what to do and do not contain actual game code. The Channel F instead utilized programmable game cartridges, referred to as “Videocarts”, with ROM (Read-Only Memory), meaning custom game code was stored on the cartridges and executed by the CPU, enabling developers to create new games for consoles post-launch. This capability opened the door to a world of new possibilities in gaming, as well as the concept of third-party developers, independent from the original console manufacturer, developing new games for multiple consoles.
The Channel F set the stage for the current standard in video game consoles: games stored on a physical medium (not counting digital-only games), executed by a central microprocessor.
The interchangeable game cartridges, known as “Videocarts”, pictured below, resemble 8-track tapes. Most contained multiple games, usually slight variations of a base game concept. For example, with Videocart-10, the base game “Maze” lets players navigate an on-screen maze, but also included multiple variations on how to play through the maze, for example a blind mode and a cat & mouse mode. Sarah had a lot of fun picking out cartridges and putting them into the console.
The Controller
The controller was very much ahead of its time — far more innovative than the knob-based Pong controllers that were on the market at the time. It’s a lot.
The controller has four degrees of freedom, allowing for movement forward, back, left, right, up, and down, as well as the ability to twist left or right. It is similar to the more modern SpaceMouse by 3Dconnexion, a PC accessory for navigating 3D spaces in CAD environments. Unlike the SpaceMouse 3D navigation use case, the Channel F and its games don’t have 3D environments to navigate. Instead, movements on the vertical axis on the Channel F controller are often used to confirm or cancel, while twisting may be used for actions like incrementing or decrementing bets in Blackjack.
This was a time before ergonomically-placed buttons were an established way to handle user input on a game controller. This was before directional pads (D-pads) were a thing. Simple knobs were the go-to and the playbook wasn’t yet written. In the Wild West of game input, Fairchild’s unique take on a controller was certainly ambitious.
But what did Sarah think?
Controller Difficulties
The video above sums up Sarah’s feelings towards the controller early. Even by today’s standards, the controller does quite a bit and can be difficult to get used to. Many Channel F games also don’t utilize all the controller input options, making it confusing when a player makes an input on the controller and nothing changes on screen.
To make things worse, controls in many of the games are often inconsistent or do not make logical sense. For example, in the Tic-Tac-Toe game on Videocart-1, players select a square to mark with an X or an O. The controller is capable of moving in cardinal directions, so one would assume a player could go up, down, left, and right to pick a space. Instead, players can only cycle through spaces using the left and right input on the controller, while up and down do nothing. To select a space, the player needs to pull up on the knob. Pushing down on the knob erases the board and restarts the game. Game and input design has come a long way in the last 47 years, but I can’t imagine this control scheme made much sense back when this was released, before modern directional/D-pad conventions were adopted. It didn’t make sense to Sarah, who has been playing game consoles in chronological order and didn’t know of any alternatives, and it doesn’t make sense to me.
Sarah’s Channel F controller skills improved slightly over time, but she still gets confused and often forgets what input does what. Note: Sarah has never used an iPad or played a touchscreen game, so she is not bringing any input/output expectations related to touchscreen games into this.
Sarah’s Experience
At the time of this writing, Sarah had been playing the Channel F on and off for about two months. Sarah’s enjoyment varied greatly depending on the game being played. She had significant trouble using the controller, and as with the Magnavox Odyssey, she seemed to have preferred pointing to things on the screen while I used the controller.
Overall, I think she enjoyed her experience. The controller difficulties and the control mapping inconsistencies between games presented a frustrating barrier to entry for her and likely other younger gamers. I can see this being a common complaint among older gamers as well. It certainly takes some getting used to.
Sarah still asks to “play games”, but not quite as much as she did when we were playing Pong. I’m hoping the Atari 2600, coming up soon in the rotation, inspires confidence in her ability to play.
What’s Next
One of the biggest early flops in gaming, the RCA Studio II. This console was released in 1977, eight months prior to the release of the much more successful Atari 2600.
