Well, I’m starting my journey down console memory lane with the Fairchild Channel F. As far as I know, the Channel F was the first home video game console to use cartridges. I remember when I first saw this system in a Meier and Frank department store in 1977. A demonstration unit set amongst several Pong variants in the display area. While the cartridge games available on the system are pretty primitive even by Atari 2600 standards, they were an amazing step up from basic Pong. Much to my amazement, I received a Channel F for Christmas that year along with Cartridge 1 – Tic,Tac,Toe & Shooting gallery. Tic, Tac, Toe got boring pretty quick, but one of my neighborhood friends and I spent hours playing the built-in tennis and hockey games. So, it was pretty much a Pong game until I got more game cartridges. I finally ended up with an even dozen of the bright yellow eight-track-like cartridges. Later that year, my friend got an Atari VCS for his birthday and the poor Fairchild became a shelf relic, with all of our gaming time was spent on the Atari. Sometime in the early 1980s, my once treasured Channel F became garage sale material, complete with its original box and cartridges. I really wish I had that system today.
My journey through console game history would require that I find another Fairchild Channel F, which would not be easy. Sure, I could surf ebay and overpay, but that is no fun. As luck would have it, I struck gold (maybe bronze) at the 2018 Portland Retro Gaming Expo. If you are into video games and you haven’t been to this event, do yourself a favor and make plans to go to next years event. Ok, so back to striking gold. While looking around in the Video Game Wizards (VGW) booth I noticed a few Channel F cartridges. Even if I hadn’t yet found the console yet, I wasn’t going to leave without the cartridges, so I picked up all of them I could find and went to the counter. While standing in line, another another customer asked me if I collected for the Fairchild, and wondered if I had seen the Channel F unit buried in the back corner. I left the line and ran back to the corner. Paydirt! I added the Channel F system to my stack of cartridges and went back to the counter. The guys at VGW were great. They let me connect the console up to a TV to check for signs of life before we made a deal. The poor old Channel F was alive, but just barely. As an electronics hobbiest, this is actually the condition of system I enjoy finding. No doubt about it, this is a rescue mission as you will see.
The system is full of dust, has a cracked and poorly glued lid, and one of the controllers has the top snapped off. It has been taken apart and reassembled with glue and sheet metal screws. It only boots if you give it a gentle smack on the top of the system (I suspect reseating the chips will solve this). But that is just the bad stuff.
On the plus side, it does actually boot up and play games. It does have the box, though that will be a restoration project all of its own. There are nine cartridges with it, all with boxes and booklets. Even the instruction book and color cartridge catalog are in fairly good shape.
The biggest challenge with this system will be in dealing with the broken controller. The controllers are hard-wired to the console, so finding a direct replacement usually requires finding another donor Channel F. It goes against my principles to sacrifice another of these rare consoles just for the controller, so I’ve found another solution. The eight-way controller was the best part of the Channel F system, so Zircon manufactured a version of it for the Atari 2600 called the Video Command Controller (VCC). Luckily, I have been able to find and order one of these via ebay. I will use the VCC as a parts donor to repair the original controller.
While I wait for the ebay package to arrive, I’ll begin the disassembly and cleaning of the console, and post more as I make progress. I plan to eventually post a video of the restoration process. Until then, I’ve posted a few links below to the Fairchild Channel F content that you may find interesting. I’ve also posted a link to a YouTube video from the Metal Jesus Rocks channel relating to the Portland Retro Gaming Expo. Thanks for reading, and feel free to comment.
Interesting Links
Jerry Lawson, a self-taught engineer, gave us video game cartridges
The Fairchild Channel F (Wikipedia)