10 Classic Game Console Mods

The very first console-to-PC upgrade to hit the market appeared in 1979 courtesy of APF Electronics, an obscure company then known mostly for calculators and printers. Its cartridge-using MP-1000 game console shipped simultaneously with an optional computer upgrade called the IM-1 Imagination Machine, which added a keyboard, cassette drive, and a built-in BASIC language interpreter. It also allowed the console to use advanced computer peripherals such as floppy drives and modems.

The most imaginative feature of the console/computer combo at the time was the fact that the MP-1000 nestled perfectly into the larger computer base unit—a configuration that inspired later manufacturers like Mattel and Coleco. Despite its novelty, the MP-1000 and Imagination machine sold poorly and disappeared from the market within a few years of its introduction. (Photo: APF Electronics)

Of the (at least) four planned computer upgrades for the legendary Atari 2600 console, only one made it to market. Spectravideo, a company known for its line of home computers, released the CompuMate SV010 computer keyboard in 1983.

The CompuMate contained three built-in software packages: a version of the BASIC programming language, a music composition program, and a "Magic Easel" painting program. The keyboard unit plugged into the cartridge and joystick ports of the 2600, and saved user-created data on cassette tape via audio in/out jacks. The user had to supply the cassette recorder, though.

Atari had been preparing its own Atari 2600 Computer upgrade for release in 1983, but the video game market crash that year left that project dead in the water. (Photo: Spectravideo)

Few have heard of the Bally Professional Arcade (later known as the Astrocade), an early, short-lived game console released as a contemporary of the Atari 2600. From the earliest days of the console, engineers at Bally intended to release an add-on that would turn the game machine into a full-fledged PC, but the eventual design came about in a strange way.

The Professional Arcade contained an unusually powerful graphics chip for the time that attracted the attention of a group of computer graphics researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago. One of these researchers, Tom DeFanti, had developed a special graphics-oriented programming language called GRASS. Enamored, Bally convinced DeFanti to port the GRASS to Bally's console, and it became the basis for an add-on known as the ZGrass-32.

The ZGrasss-32 never saw mass production or a general release; instead, some believe it may have been sold in limited numbers by mail-order in the early 1980s. Only seven units are known to exist, so it is a very rare peripheral indeed. (Photo: Bally)

Mattel launched the Intellivision in 1979 with the promise of a future upgrade that would turn the console into a home computer. It was a bold marketing move designed to influence customers to pick the Intellivision over its competitors; Mattel's offering supposedly carried with it a clear upgrade path that could extend the value of the hardware.

As it turned out, Mattel's plans for the computer add-on were never particularly serious. At Mattel's R&D labs, the Keyboard Component (as it was then called) became an over-engineered pet project that overshot its target audience technologically and became too costly to sell for a consumer-level price.

By 1982, repeated delays of the keyboard unit aggravated customers who had bought the Intellivision hoping to upgrade it. Mattel decided to sell a small number of the Keyboard Components via mail order to customers who complained. Eventually, the Federal Trade Commission stepped into the middle of the ruckus and began fining Mattel $10,000 a month until Mattel offered the computer upgrade more widely. That never happened. Instead, Mattel punted with the ECS module. What’s the ECS module? Read on. (Photo: Mattel)

Of all the surprisingly varied computers and video game consoles that Hong Kong-based electronics firm VTech created in the 1980s, the CreatiVision stands as one of the most unique. At first glance, its base unit seemed like your average console at the time: an 8-bit machine that played games on cartridge using two detachable hand controllers. However, when users placed those hand controllers into the base unit, the controllers' keypads combined into a QWERTY keyboard. Sha-zam!

The clever integrated keyboard was only the first trick up this mighty mite's sleeve; upon the addition of a cassette drive and a BASIC cartridge, users could write their own complex programs and save them to tape. VTech also offered memory expansion modules, disk drives, printers, and even a modem for the hybrid console/computer. The CreatiVision never sold well (it is especially rare in the US), but it remains a favorite oddity for video game collectors today. (Photos: VTech)

With the ColecoVision, Coleco took a page from Mattel's playbook. From day one of the console's launch in 1982, Coleco promised a computer add-on for its system. Unlike Mattel, however, it actually delivered on its promise in a timely manner with "Expansion Module #3." The computer module, also known as the Coleco Adam, launched in 1983 with a standalone version as a big brother.

The Adam upgrade set plugged into the ColecoVision base unit and included a daisy wheel printer, a keyboard, and a box that contained a data cassette drive and a bay for expansion cards. As a fully-featured computer system, Coleco supported the Adam with a line of peripherals (including a modem) and varied software, from Donkey Kong Jr. to the CP/M operating system.

Coleco gambled the company on the Adam, which fared poorly in the market due to questionable design choices. Low sales triggered financial losses that nearly bankrupted Coleco, marking the beginning of a downward corporate spiral from which the company never recovered. (Photo: Coleco)

In response to shifting fashions and economic pressures, Mattel redesigned its Intellivision console in 1983. It emerged as the "Intellivision II" in a compact, lower-cost, light gray unit. Around the same time, Mattel offered the Entertainment Computer System (ECS), an underwhelming add-on module designed by a different group within Mattel than the ill-fated Keyboard Component seen earlier.

The ECS module had been developed somewhat secretly as a backup to the Keyboard Component, a project that had been repeatedly dragged down and delayed by a quagmire of over-engineering. When the FTC began fining Mattel for false advertising of its long-promised Keyboard Component in 1982, Mattel quickly rushed the ECS to market.

The ECS contained a very rudimentary BASIC interpreter and a simple music synthesizer program. For data storage, it included jacks that allowed users to save and load programs from a cassette tape. Nobody really cared either way, because the bottom fell out of the video game market that year. (Photos: Mattel Intellivision FAQ)

The Odyssey 2, a 1978 game console that competed with the Atari 2600, held its own for a few years in the US (with one million units sold—not bad) but ultimately succumbed to the Atari juggernaut. The console did sell more units in Europe, though, where it was known as the Philips Videopac G7000.

Understandably, the G7000 received a Europe-only followup console called the Videopac G7400 in 1983. Around the same time, Philips released the C7460 Home Computer Module that plugged into the top of the G7400 and turned it into a fully programmable computer system. The computer module contained a more powerful CPU, 16 kilobytes of RAM, and a Microsoft BASIC interpreter built in. With it, users could program their own applications and save them to cassette tape. (Photo: Philips)

You may be familiar with the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), the famous console released in 1985 that defined a generation of gamers. Few Westerners know, however, that NES made its debut in Japan two years earlier as the Family Computer (Famicom), a small red and white console seen in the upper left-center of the photo above.

In 1984, Nintendo launched the Family BASIC add-on set, which included a keyboard and a cartridge containing a version of the popular BASIC programming language for use with the Famicom. Using Family BASIC, Famicom owners could program their own graphically rich sprite-based video games (Nintendo sold a cassette tape drive separately for data storage) and run special educational programs. The upgrade never saw release outside of Japan. (Photo: Nintendo)

And now we fast forward to 2002, when Sony surprised the video game world by releasing a port of the open source operating system Linux for its PlayStation 2 console. By doing so, Sony allowed users to develop homebrew software for the PS2 in the Linux environment with very low barriers to entry compared to an official PS2 development system. A PS2 owner need only buy a $199 PS2 Linux Kit—which contained an OS disc, a keyboard, mouse, hard drive, Ethernet adapter, and a VGA cable—to get started.

Opening its flagship console to authorized amateur tinkering wasn't a completely unprecedented move for Sony; the company had released a user-programmable version of its original PlayStation console called Net Yaroze in 1997. The Net Yaroze required a separate PC for development, though. In the case of PS2 Linux, the game system itself became the PC.

From 2006 to 2010, Sony allowed Linux to be installed on its PlayStation 3 console without any hardware modifications, opening a new era of console-to-PC transformations. They have since rescinded that ability with a firmware upgrade, citing security concerns. Only time will tell if Sony—or any other console maker—will continue the console-to-PC tradition in the future. (Photo: Sony)