The RCA Studio II

Background/History:

The RCA Studio II was launched in January 1977, making it one of the first video game consoles to take programmable cartridges.

At the time the Studio II was introduced, the video game market was dominated by machines that could play a small selection of built in games. A little over a year earlier, in late 1975, Atari had introduced a home version of its very popular arcade game Pong. Within months, "clones" of Atari Pong flooded the market. Over time, "Pong" systems, both from Atari and clones, introduced new games (typically variations on Pong) and added new features such as color graphics. By 1977, most "Pong clones" on the market featured several games and color graphics.

In November 1976, in the midst of the "Pong clone" era, Fairchild Semiconductor launched a system called the Video Entertainment System, later known as the Channel F. This was the first ever system to use programmable cartridges. Several consoles followed in 1977, the first of which was the Studio II. The "Pong Clones" still found a niche for a time, as they were lower priced than the cartridge systems.

What Makes It Obscure?

The biggest drawback to the Studio II was that it was outdated, even at launch. While the Channel F featured color graphics and relatively smooth animation, the Studio II featured black and white graphics, animation that was often choppy and prone to flicker, and was only capable of simple audio "beeps". At $150 at launch, it was only $20 cheaper than the vastly superior Channel F.

Other drawbacks to the system included a lack of standalone controllers; two keypads were built into the console itself, forcing the players very close to one another to play a two player game. 

The Atari 2600, introduced in September 1977, had technical capabilities that were far better than the Channel F and a quickly growing, high quality game library. While the Channel F was able to survive until early 1981 due to its established game library and lower price, the Studio II died a quick death. Production was cut on the system in early 1978, and the system was discontinued entirely in 1979. 

Other Aspects of the System

The Studio II featured five built in games: Addition, Bowling, Doodle, Freeway, and Patterns. Only 10 cartridge games were released for the system, making a total of 15 games. 

The system featured an RCA 1802 microprocessor running at 1.78 MHz, 2 kilobytes of ROM including the five built in games, 512 bytes of RAM, and displayed in 64x32 resolution.