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The Arcadia 2001 is a second-generation 8-bit console released by Emerson Radio Corp . It was meant to outshine the Atari 2600 , but came out right before the more-advanced Atari 5200 and the ColecoVision . It was a failure as soon as it came to market. The game library was composed 51 unique games and about 10 variations. The graphics were similar to those of the Intellivision and the Odyssey� . The system is considered one of the biggest game console flops of all time.

The Arcadia was not named after the company of the same name. Arcadia Corporation, makers of the 2600 supercharger , was sued by Emerson for trademark infringement. Arcadia Corporation changed its name to Starpath .

Description

The Arcadia was originally intended to be a portable console, one can see that it was much smaller than it’s competitors at the time. The console is powered by a standard 12-volt power supply, so it could be used in a boat, or a camper, and so on. This portability feature, however, required a portable television, which was extremely rare in the early 1980s. It also has two outputs(or inputs) earphones jacks types on the back of the unit, on the far left and far right sides.

The system came with two Intellivision -style control pads, but with a lighter touch on the side ‘fire’ buttons. The control pads have screw holes in their centers, so that one could transform them into a joystick, a la Gravis Gamepad. Most games came with mylar overlays which could be applied to the controllers. The console itself had five buttons: power, start, reset, option, and select.

There are at least three different types of cartridge case styles and artwork, with variations on each. Emerson-family carts come in two different lengths of black plastic cases; the short style is similar to Atari 2600 carts in overall size. This family uses a unique “sketch” type of picture label. MPT-03 family cart cases (see below) resemble Super NES carts in size and shape, except that they are molded in brown plastic. Their labels look much more modern and stylized, with only a minimal picture on each. There are also a family of what look like pirate carts, that look nothing like the others in shape, size or label artwork. The different labeled versions however all used the same cartridges.

Market Failure

The console was essentially considered dead upon arrival. The system came out at the same time that much better systems came onto the market — the Atari 5200 and ColecoVision — which immediately crushed sales. In addition, Atari’s use of exclusive rights to many games made it very virtually impossible for Emerson to get popular games to the console.

Emerson actually created many popular arcade titles including Pacman, Galaxian and Defender for the Arcadia and had them manufactured. However, Atari started to sue it’s competitors for companies that it had exclusive-rights agreements and Emerson was stuck with thousands of manufactured games that could no longer be sold.

Today, only a very limited number of console collectors even bother to go after the Arcadia.

Variants

Unlike almost all other consoles, the Arcadia 2001 was sold from many different firms under different names:

These include: The Leonardo from Italy The Tele-fever from Germany

Name	Country	Manufacturer
Advision Home Arcade	France	Advision
Bandai Arcadia	Japan	Bandai
Hanimex Fever 1	Germany	Hanimex
Hanimex HMG-2650	Germany	Hanimex
Hanimex MPT-03	France?	Hanimex
Intercord	Germany	???
Leisure-Vision	Canada	Leisure-Dynamics
Leonardo	Italy	Leonardo?
Palladium	Germany	Palladium?
Prestige MPT-03	France	???
Rowntron MPT-03	??	Rowntron?
Schmidt TVG-2000	Germany	Schmidt
Soundic MPT-03	??	Soundic?
Tele-Fever	Germany	???
Tyrom	???	Tyrom?
Tunix Home Arcade	New Zealand	Monaco Distributors Ltd
Video Master	New Zealand	Grand Stan

Each console had a different number of games releaed for them; some like the Schmidt had every game released for them, others like the Tele-fever only had 4 games released. The Palladium gas a different cartridge connector/pinout, 4 extra keys per controller.

Technical specifications

• Main Processor: Signetics 2650 CPU running at 3.58 MHz
• Some clones run a Signetics 2650A
• RAM: 1k (originally promised 28k)
• ROM: None
• Video Display: 9 Colors (4 characters, 4 sprites, background)
• Video Controller: Signetics 2637
• Sound: Single Channel “Beeper”
• Hardware Sprites: 4 independent, single color
• Controllers: 2 x 2 way
• Keypads: 2 x 12 button

Games

Many of the games for the Arcadia 2001 are lesser-known arcade game such as Route 16 and Jungler . Different games were available for the various clones of the Arcadia 2001, consult the Arcadia FAQ for more information. These game ROMS have been released into the public domain as abandonware .

• 3-D Bowling
• 3-D Raceway
• 3-D Soccer
• Alien Invaders
• Astro Invader The SNES style cartridge
• American Football
• Baseball
• Brain Quiz
• Breakaway
• Capture
• Cat Trax
• Crazy Gobbler
• Crazy Climber (Unreleased)
• Escape
• Funky Fish
• Galaxian
• Grand Prix 3-D
• Grand Slam Tennis
• Hobo
• Home Squadron
• Jump Bug An Intellivision style cartridge
• Jungler
• Kidou Senshi Gundamu (only in Japan)
• Math Logic
• Missile War
• Ocean Battle
• Pleiades
• RD2 Tank
• Red Clash
• Robot Killer (clone of Berzerk )
• Route 16
• Soccer
• Space Attack
• Space Chess
• Space Mission
• Space Raiders
• Space Squadron
• Space Vultures
• Spiders
• Star Chess
• Super Gobbler
• Tanks A Lot
• The End
• Turtles/Turpin

References

• Arcadia 2001 @ Classic Gaming.com
• Emerson Arcadia 2001 and Clone Systems
• Obscure Pixels: Weird UK & New Zealand Consoles
• Emerson Arcadia 2001 FAQ

External links

• Arcadia 2001 emulator

This article is copied from an article on Wikipedia.org – the free encyclopedia created and edited by online user community. The text was not checked or edited by anyone on our staff. Although the vast majority of the wikipedia encyclopedia articles provide accurate and timely information please do not assume the accuracy of any particular article. This article is distributed under the terms of GNU Free Documentation License .

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