[game_preservation] Release date of the Odyssey?

[Benj Edwards]

Frank and co.,

     I thumbed through Ralph's book again and found the scan you 
mentioned, and realized that must be where I got the August 1972 release 
date.  I'm afraid I have to take credit for that bad date circulating 
now because I believe someone updated Wikipedia to that effect after one 
of my recent pieces on the Odyssey (I remember that the entry previously 
read May 1972, which is obviously wrong).

Normally I'm much more careful about dates, but I was just trying to 
provide a rough estimate for my article since I couldn't put my finger 
on the precise month.

Of course, the only thing that August 1972 Electronic Design article 
proves is that the Odyssey still wasn't released at the time that issue 
of ET went to press, and as someone mentioned (maybe you, Frank), 
there's the standard lead-time before publication.  That, and the 
article mentions availability in the fall of 1972.

So I just emailed Don Emry, a former Odyssey game designer (and the only 
former Magnavox employee I know how to contact at the moment). I asked 
him if he remembered or had any documents about the Odyssey's launch 
date.  His answer: "My best recollection of the release time is October."

If anyone really, really wants to get to the bottom of this, I recommend 
trying to find and contact George Kent (leader of the Odyssey 
engineering team) or Bob Fritsche (Odyssey product manager).  I don't 
know if either man is alive, but Baer says Kent was alive in 2003.  
Neither Baer nor Emry know their whereabouts. They both lived in Ft. 
Wayne, Indiana at some point.

You'd need some internal Magnavox documents or a good matching 
recollection from various folks to put together a somewhat accurate 
estimate of the actual release date.

I may make some calls later.  If I find anything out, I'll let everybody 
know.

Regards,
Benj

On 8/7/2012 4:53 PM, Frank Cifaldi wrote:

> I still can't find where August came from. The closest I can find is 

> the review in the August 17, 1972 issue of Electronic Design (scanned 

> and printed in Ralph's book), which simply says "starting this fall." 

> Anyone able to back this up, or is this another one of those "internet 

> truths" that gets spread without an actual source? 


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