APh Technological Consulting
Moby ID: 3738
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APh Technologies, located in Pasadena, California, was hired by Mattel in 1976 to help design what became the Intellivision system; eventually they programmed the system's software, most of the development tools, and all of the first Intellivision, M Network and Keyboard Component games.
The staff of graduates and students from the nearby California Institute of Technology, under APh President Glenn Hightower, designed and programmed the games. Dave James, an artist from the Mattel Design & Development Department, worked with APh to define the Intellivision graphics (including the familiar running-man animation).
In addition to their work for Mattel, APh had many non-videogame contracts, so they survived the 1983 industry collapse in good shape. As of 2005, they are still at the same location and program computer processors embedded in everything from consumer products to spacecraft.
Credited on 34 Games from 1979 to 1987
Displaying most recent · View all
| Learning Fun I (1987 on Intellivision) |
| Learning Fun II (1987 on Intellivision) |
| Triple Challenge (1986 on Intellivision) |
| World Championship Baseball (1986 on Intellivision) |
| Advanced Dungeons & Dragons: Treasure of Tarmin Cartridge (1983 on Intellivision, Mattel Aquarius) |
| Adventures of Tron (1983 on Atari 2600) |
| Sharp Shot (1983 on Intellivision, Xbox 360, Windows) |
| Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Cartridge (1982 on Intellivision) |
| Frog Bog (1982 on Atari 2600, Intellivision, Windows...) |
| Royal Dealer (1982 on Intellivision) |
| Space Armada (1981 on Intellivision, Xbox 360, Windows) |
| Star Strike (1981 on Atari 2600, Intellivision, Windows...) |
| Sub Hunt (1981 on Intellivision, Windows, Xbox 360) |
| Triple Action (1981 on Intellivision, Xbox 360, Windows) |
| Boxing (1980 on Intellivision, Windows, Xbox 360) |
| Checkers (1980 on Intellivision) |
| Horse Racing (1980 on Intellivision, Windows, Xbox 360) |
| Major League Baseball (1980 on Atari 2600, Intellivision, J2ME...) |
| NASL Soccer (1980 on Atari 2600, Intellivision, Xbox 360...) |
| NBA Basketball (1980 on Intellivision, Xbox 360, Windows) |
[ view all ]
Trivia +
Mattel
Hal Finney, along with Glenn Hightower, reverse engineered the Atari 2600 so that APh could begin developing Atari games for Mattel.
The company developed Mattel's handheld games before their work on the Intellivision. In that time, money to rent time on Caltech's PDP-10 was so tight that the team would leave a few bytes at the end of each subroutine so they could make hand patches and avoid recompiling.
Conflict between Glenn Hightower and an absent partner triggered a departure of the entire senior staff, who left to form Cheshire Engineering, who ended up developing games for Activision.
APh had a contract to write a BASIC that operated with the Intellivision and an unreleased add-on to turn the Intellivision into a home computer.
Frequent Collaborators
Companies- 31 games with Mattel Electronics
- 18 games with Microsoft Corporation
- 18 games with Xbox Game Studios
- 18 games with Krome Studios Pty Ltd.
- 10 games with Intellivision, Inc.
- 5 games with Sears, Roebuck and Co.
- 5 games with Mattel Canada Inc.
- 4 games with INTV Corp.
- 2 games with Blue Sky Rangers, Inc.
- 2 games with Lavastorm Engineering, Inc.
- 4 games with Ken Smith
- 4 games with Tom Loughry
- 4 games with David Rolfe
- 4 games with Kevin Miller
- 3 games with Hal Finney
- 2 games with Lisa M. Dawson
- 2 games with Keith Robinson
- 2 games with Jeremy S. Barnes
- 2 games with Howard Liebeskind
- 2 games with Peter Dille
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