At the end of 1979, Mattel Electronics (a division of Mattel Toys) released a video game system known as Intellivision along with 12 video game cartridges, poised as a competitor to the then king of the hill Atari 2600.

Mattel Electronics called their new product "Intelligent Television", stemming largely from their marketing plans to release a compatible computer keyboard for their video games console. Mattel's marketing was anything *but* intelligent and almost destroyed the company by 1984. In one sense the system was very successful, with over 3 million units sold and 125 games released before the system was discontinued by INTV Corp. in 1990.