SDK-1600

Software Developers Kit for the Intellivision Video Game System

NOTE: SDK-1600 has been folded back into jzIntv.
Download the latest jzIntv here.
jzIntv includes the latest full SDK-1600.
The rest of this page is for historical purposes only.


Index

About SDK-1600

SDK-1600 is a fully-fledged development kit for the Intellivision * video-game system. The tools contained within it were used to write the first new game in a decade for the Intellivision: 4-Tris. SDK-1600 derives its name from the CP-1600 CPU that lies at the heart of the Intellivision. You can run the programs created with this kit using one of the available Intellivision Emulators, or by using Chad Schell's Intellicart.

The SDK itself (and all included source code) are available under the GNU General Public License (GPL). You're welcome to download the SDK, and share it with others. You can also takes its source code and modify it to suit your needs. This includes the wealth of programming examples and library functions that are included in the SDK. If you use some of SDK-1600's code in your own program (this includes all the library routines and examples), and distribute the result, you must do so according to the GNU General Public License.

Important: SDK-1600 is not in the Public Domain. I retain the copyright on the portions of SDK-1600 that I've written, and provide copies of SDK-1600 to you under the GNU General Public License. Please, if you redistribute SDK-1600, do so including this notice, so that others know of their rights under the GNU General Public License. Thanks!

What's Included

This kit contains a wealth of Intellivision assembly-language programming resources and tools. Among these are:

Some of you will recognize a few of the examples in SDK-1600 as demos I've released in the past. Some of these, such as Maze Demo and Bouncing Pixels, did not operate correctly on the real Intellivision even though they worked in the emulator. Others had problems on certain versions of the Intellivision (such as the Intellivision II or Sears unit).

I have fixed this for SDK-1600. All of these have been cleaned up, documented, and tested on an Intellivision I an Intellivision II using the Intellicart. Also, the bulk of these programs (but not all of them) have been tested on a Sears Intellivision as well. And thanks to Joanna Kurki, several (all?) were tested on a PAL Intellivision. Everything works. Thus, I think you'll find this code fairly solid, and much more solid than my earliest demos.

SDK-1600 Downloads and License

Screen Shots

Here are some screen shots from various demos included in SDK-1600. This is just a sampling. Altogether, 19 complete Intellivision programs and over 2 dozen library functions are provided.

Hello WorldBouncing Pixels
Hello World Bouncing Pixels
Maze DemoHand Controller Scanning Demo
Maze Demo Hand Controller Demo
John Conway's "Life"
Life Demo Life Demo
Psycho Balls
Psycho Balls 1
Tag-Along Todd -- a complete, fully playable game
Tag-Along Todd #2: Title Screen Tag-Along Todd #2: In Game

Other Links

Legal Note

The name "Intellivision" was, at various times, a trademark of Mattel Electrontics, Intellivision Inc., INTV Corporation, and possibly (though the USPTO website showed otherwise when I looked) Intellivision Productions. Intellivision Productions presently owns the rights to most of the original Intellivision documentation, tools, and software. This SDK is in no way related to Intellivision Productions, INTV Corp, Intellivision Inc., Mattel Electrontics, General Instruments, APh Consulting, or anyone else who has held rights to the Intellivision and its intellectual property over the last 25+ years. It is an independently produced package intended for the development of home-brew software for this once popular and always endearing videogame platform.

Intellivision WebRing!



Last update: Nov 20, 2002.