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History
Entex Industries, Inc. was founded in 1970 by G.A. “Tony” Clowes, Nicholas Carlozzi and Nick Underhill. It was based at 303 West Artesia Blvd in Compton, California. The name came from the initials of Nicholas and Tony plus an “X” at the end, forming NTX, which sounds like “Entex” when spoken. Nick Underhill’s initial was not included because he joined the company after the name had already been chosen, but before it opened for business.
Entex originally made model kits, toys and construction blocks called Loc Blocs, a direct competitor to Lego. The company’s turn to electronics came in the second half of the 1970s. In 1976, Entex released the Gameroom Tele-Pong, a dedicated home video game console. Then came the handheld boom. In 1977, Mattel’s handheld video games were selling like hot cakes, and all toy makers were looking at creating their own. Entex became a big competitor to Mattel and Coleco, making head-to-head sports games similar to theirs, and it quickly moved into making very good-quality vacuum fluorescent display (VFD) handhelds based on arcade games that competed directly with Coleco’s mini-arcade line. Entex games tended to retail at higher price points than the competition, but the company advertised them as “high end” for “the discriminating player” to compensate.
In 1980, Entex released a handheld version of Space Invaders. The handheld was an incredible success and sold more than 1.3 million units. Midway took legal action, but the judge declared that it was unclear whether the copyright on a coin-operated arcade game could be infringed by a handheld toy. This gray zone allowed Entex to keep selling the Space Invaders handheld without paying any royalties to Midway. In 1980, Entex achieved worldwide sales of $100 million, in part thanks to its electronic games based on sports and arcade games.
In 1981, Entex released the Select-A-Game, a handheld system that used cartridges, each one containing a microprocessor programmed with the game code. It displayed two colors, red and blue, which were combined with a static overlay for each game. In late 1981, Coleco, which held the licensing rights to handheld versions of Pac-Man at the time, sued Entex over Pacman 2, and the game was pulled shortly after release as part of the settlement. Entex released six games for the Select-A-Game before dropping support in 1982 in favor of the Adventure Vision.
For the Adventure Vision, Entex wanted to release something as close as possible to the arcade experience. Entex tested a CRT concept but abandoned it as too expensive. An LCD was also considered, but it was rejected because the technology was not advanced enough at the time. During one of the management meetings, Mike Round, one of the project managers at Entex, mentioned the rotating disk idea of Robert McCaslin, a close collaborator of Entex.
Entex had an open door policy, and every Thursday it would allow inventors and toy makers to come and present their products. Bob was one of these toy makers and had licensed multiple inventions to Entex.
By the time Mike met with Robert, Robert had already developed the idea of a rotating mirror as the base concept of the Adventure Vision. The concept was immediately licensed by Entex, and a team was assembled to deliver the project. The team included Steve Meadows, an employee of Robert McCaslin who designed the electronics and programmed the software. Larry Karr and Andy Barber were both assigned to the sound chip design. Ortega Orr was tasked with creating the casing. The most critical part of the system was the rotating mechanism, so Entex recruited Don Baker, the project engineer on the A6 Gunship.
Entex put a lot of effort into the design of the Adventure Vision, as it was sure this could be its next big release. The innovative display concept of the Adventure Vision also opened the door to expanding its use. To this end, the Adventure Vision had an expansion port, and Entex planned to build a home computer module.
Release
In 1982, the Adventure Vision was finally released at a price of $79.95. While the Adventure Vision was a very innovative, it arrived very late for Entex. By 1981, the reign of the handheld and tabletop market was already winding down, thanks to the rising popularity of home consoles. To stay competitive, the stronger handheld companies tried to produce handhelds with better graphics, or, as Coleco did with its 1981 tabletop line, licensed coin-op games reproduced in a smaller format. The Select-A-Game and now the Adventure vision were supposed to be Entex’s answer to that.
By the time the Adventure Vision release, the market had already slow down. To avoid over producing and be stuck with dead stock, only 10,000 units of the system were made at first and only 1,000 units of each game were produced.
Demise
But the declining market had already taken a toll on Entex. The Adventure Vision was discontinued in 1983, about a year after launch, and the console was fragile and prone to failure, which, together with the small production run, makes working units rare today. Besides the pack-in game Defender, only three other cartridges were ever produced. Tony Clowes left in 1984 to go to Tomy, and shortly afterward the company was sold off and all assets were liquidated.
Games
- Defender (pack-in game) – 10,000 units
- Turtles (#6076) – 1,000 units
- Super Cobra (#6077) – 1,000 units
- Space Force (#6078) – 1,000 units
Technical Specifications
The display is created by using a single vertical column of 40 LEDs and a rotating mirror. By flashing the LEDs and rotating the mirror very rapidly, the system was able to simulate a resolution of 150 × 40. This is similar to the later Virtual Boy. The system was one of the first to have a dedicated sound chip and also had an audio jack for headphones.
- Media: ROM cartridge
- CPU: Intel 8048 running at 733 kHz
- RAM: 1 KB, plus an additional 64 bytes inside the Intel 8048
- ROM: 1 KB, which holds the BIOS
- Display: 150 × 40 monochrome oscillating red LED display (the LED monitor can only display red pixels)
- Display technology: A single vertical line of 40 red LEDs combined with a spinning mirror inside the casing
- Light locations: 6,000 LED-based light locations, which gave more than 20 times the resolution of any tabletop game on the market at the time
- Sound: National Semiconductor COP411L running at 52.6 kHz
- Speaker: Full-fidelity built-in speaker
- Controls: One multi-position joystick and two sets of four buttons, one set on each side of the joystick (the design allowed use with either hand)
- Power: Four “D” batteries (not included)
- Dimensions: 13.25 × 10 × 9 inches (337 × 254 × 229 mm)
- Video output: None needed, since the screen is built in and no TV hook-up is required
- Expansion: Expansion port (planned for a home computer module)