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History of video games/Platforms/Halcyon

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The Halcyon uses Laserdisks an early optical medium which can be seen on the left. A DVD for comparison can be seen on the right.

History[edit | edit source]

Do you believe in magic? You will.
—Halcyon advertising slogan, RDI marketing flyer[1]

RDI was a small company based out of Carlsbad, California.[2] The company was headed by Rick Dyer, and had prior experience in the industry, most notably producing Don Bluth's milestone laserdisk arcade game Dragon's Lair.[3][4]

The Halcyon was set to release in 1985 with the voice controlled console costing either $2,500,[5] or $2,100[6] and the non-voice enabled console costing $1,800.[6] Though the produced consoles were never sold at retail, up to ten Halcyon consoles exist from kits sent to investors.[5][7] RDI projected their own first year sales to be 25,000 units sold,[8] though it is impossible to say if this would have actually occurred had the console actually launched.

Technology[edit | edit source]

The Halcyon used an 8-bit Z80B CPU clocked at 6 megahertz and had 64 kilobytes of RAM.[9]

The Halcyon could interpret 200 words.[2]

Released games[edit | edit source]

External Resources[edit | edit source]

Wikipedia has related information at Halcyon (console)

References[edit | edit source]

 Parts of this page are based on materials from:
 Wikipedia: the free encyclopedia.
  1. ↑ Allison, Fraser; Carter, Marcus; Gibbs, Martin (March 2020). "Word Play: A History of Voice Interaction in Digital Games". Games and Culture. 15 (2): 91–113. doi:10.1177/1555412017746305. {{cite journal}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help)
  2. ↑ "10 Crazy Things You Never Knew About Dragon's Lair". TheGamer. 2020-04-20. https://www.thegamer.com/crazy-things-never-knew-dragons-lair/. 
  3. ↑ "RDI Video Systems". Wikipedia. 2021-04-08. Retrieved 28 May 2021.
  4. ↑ a b Rochefort, Simone de (1 March 2018). "More than a machine: The history of Halcyon" (in en). Polygon. https://www.polygon.com/videos/2018/3/1/17063348/halcyon-rare-console-history. Retrieved 28 October 2020. 
  5. ↑ a b "After the prototype PlayStation: six more obscure games consoles" (in en). the Guardian. 7 July 2015. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/jul/07/prototype-nintendo-playstation-obscure-games-consoles-snes-cd. 
  6. ↑ "MGs Game Take: The True Holy Grails of Video Game Hardware - "The Majors" - Beyond the Mind's Eye - Thoughts & Insights from Marriott_Guy". www.rfgeneration.com. Retrieved 28 October 2020.
  7. ↑ Television Digest, with Consumer Electronics. Television Digest, Incorporated. Retrieved 3 December 2020.
  8. ↑ "Home Page". Video Game Console Library. Retrieved 28 October 2020.
  9. ↑ a b "Halcyon (console)". Wikipedia. 6 March 2021. Retrieved 28 April 2021.
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