This mini forum is intended to provide a simple means of discussion about the INTERTON VC 4000 videogame system. If you want to share your own experience or memories, or add relevant information about this system: post a message!

The console designers forgot to include a "reset on power-up" circuity so the user had to manually press reset... that button was just called "load game" for marketing reasons. It''s just like all the other consoles from that era that directly execute code from ROM.

The console did not have any RAM chip, just 37 bytes of unused but still readable/writeable video registers were used as RAM by games.

Just a few cartridges for which 37 bytes wouldn''t have been enough (such as Chess) came with extra RAM inside the cartridge.

Examining the emulators:
The games look a little too familiar... (2600 ripoff, cough...$-)

But it is still refreshing to see similar programs from a different perspective$ A nice addition to MESS.

About the Reset button :
as emu fan mentionned, the Interton have only 43 bytes of RAM$ but, it also have 4Ko of VRAM. Much like for the Colecovision, RAM accessible by the processor was extremely expensive, so most of the RAM would be put on the VRAM, allowing the us of cheaper ram, at the cost of more difficult programming and slower games.
The 43 bytes would be used to tell to the sytem to load the game into the 4Ko of VRAM.
Also, later game cartridge include 128Ko of RAM to improve either graphisms or game mechanics.

LOL, this page needs overhauling...
The interton does not have any RAM chips (only about 43 bytes onboard the 2636!) so there aint no way the cartridge could be copied from the cartridge to the RAM. The Reset is for the sake of the CPU.

Anyone remember the Golf game? Two could play and each button on the controller selected a different club.

I swear my version of this was cream though - not black. And I don't remember it having a name at all. May have been a bootleg?

What an advanced console for its time! My mother was a manager in the Ennis plant. I grew up playing the Interton.

The Interton was my first games console too, with the added excitement that we won one on a Coca Cola promotion. It seemed however that the company went bust before we managed to buy any extra games for it....

Wow, flashback. This was the first 'computer' I had access to as a kid in late 70's. My Aunt was working in a factory in Ennis Co. Clare(Ireland) nearby where they were assembling them and got one cheap for us. Most of the games had card overlay sheets for the keypads. I remember the joystick was very precise and made playing the bowling game as tricky as the real thing.