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Halcyon (console)
The Halcyon is a home video game console produced by RDI Video Systems. The system was planned to be released in January 1985, with the initial retail price for the system being US$2,500 (equivalent to $7,484 in 2025). Fewer than a dozen units are known to exist and it never reached most retailers because of a lack of affordable disc players. The design featured a LaserDisc player and an attached computer, each the size of an early-model VCR. Of the six games planned, only two games were released: Thayer's Quest and NFL Football LA Raiders vs SD Chargers. RDI Video Systems claimed that the system would be entirely voice-activated, and would have an artificial intelligence akin to HAL 9000 from 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Rick Dyer was one of the many fans of the interactive fiction game, Adventure, and wanted to develop his own game, Shadoan, which was an expansive fantasy game inspired by The Lord of the Rings. System costs were intended to range from $1,800 to $2,100 (equivalent to $5,388 to $6,286 in 2025), depending on the model.
Although there wasn't a nationwide release, a few consoles were sold at Beverly Stereo and Video for $2,498 and later on clearance for $999. It was sold at Video Scene in San Diego, California for $1,898.
The console is on display at the National Videogame Museum in Frisco, Texas.
Halcyon was based around the Z80 microprocessor, with its 64K memory partitioned out to ROM and RAM. A separate speech recognition computer provided the additional power needed to recognize human speech. Its firmware was proprietary, and its chief communications with the Z80 were indications of what word it had recognized, and what probability of confidence it calculated for the match. Other functions this subsystem provided were non-volatile memory storage, and speech recognition training.
Video content existed on a special computer-controlled CED player provided by RCA. Because of video encoding and stylus positioning constraints inherent in this technology, still frames (where action would be suspended pending player input) had to be encoded as a repeat of 2 or 3 seconds of video. Late in its development, Halcyon had to be re-designed to use Laserdisc players because CED units were put out of production by RCA. The Laserdisc player used by Halcyon was an unbadged unit made by Pioneer Corporation.
Communications with CED players were serial. Communications with Laserdisc players were via infrared LED attached via suction cup.[clarification needed][citation needed]
Speech synthesis was produced using a licensed text-to-speech algorithm included as part of the base Halcyon Operating System, including a special English vocabulary which would correctly pronounce hundreds of proper names. The phonetic output of this algorithm was fed into a Votrax chip.
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Halcyon (console) AI simulator
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Halcyon (console)
The Halcyon is a home video game console produced by RDI Video Systems. The system was planned to be released in January 1985, with the initial retail price for the system being US$2,500 (equivalent to $7,484 in 2025). Fewer than a dozen units are known to exist and it never reached most retailers because of a lack of affordable disc players. The design featured a LaserDisc player and an attached computer, each the size of an early-model VCR. Of the six games planned, only two games were released: Thayer's Quest and NFL Football LA Raiders vs SD Chargers. RDI Video Systems claimed that the system would be entirely voice-activated, and would have an artificial intelligence akin to HAL 9000 from 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Rick Dyer was one of the many fans of the interactive fiction game, Adventure, and wanted to develop his own game, Shadoan, which was an expansive fantasy game inspired by The Lord of the Rings. System costs were intended to range from $1,800 to $2,100 (equivalent to $5,388 to $6,286 in 2025), depending on the model.
Although there wasn't a nationwide release, a few consoles were sold at Beverly Stereo and Video for $2,498 and later on clearance for $999. It was sold at Video Scene in San Diego, California for $1,898.
The console is on display at the National Videogame Museum in Frisco, Texas.
Halcyon was based around the Z80 microprocessor, with its 64K memory partitioned out to ROM and RAM. A separate speech recognition computer provided the additional power needed to recognize human speech. Its firmware was proprietary, and its chief communications with the Z80 were indications of what word it had recognized, and what probability of confidence it calculated for the match. Other functions this subsystem provided were non-volatile memory storage, and speech recognition training.
Video content existed on a special computer-controlled CED player provided by RCA. Because of video encoding and stylus positioning constraints inherent in this technology, still frames (where action would be suspended pending player input) had to be encoded as a repeat of 2 or 3 seconds of video. Late in its development, Halcyon had to be re-designed to use Laserdisc players because CED units were put out of production by RCA. The Laserdisc player used by Halcyon was an unbadged unit made by Pioneer Corporation.
Communications with CED players were serial. Communications with Laserdisc players were via infrared LED attached via suction cup.[clarification needed][citation needed]
Speech synthesis was produced using a licensed text-to-speech algorithm included as part of the base Halcyon Operating System, including a special English vocabulary which would correctly pronounce hundreds of proper names. The phonetic output of this algorithm was fed into a Votrax chip.