Studio II is a pong based home console released in January of 1977 by RCA and discontinued in the February of 1998 due to low sales at Christmas of 1977. The console wasn't popular because it was technically behind from its competitors. The superior Fairchild Channel F had been already released in 1976 and Atari 2600, also superior, was dominating the market. RCA estimated about 53000-64000 units to be sold between February 15, 1977 and January 31, 1978. The games are in black and white colors only also. The console came with 5 built-in games: Addition (like a calculator), Bowling, Doodle (drawing game), Freeway and Patterns (artistic game).
Studio II has sound also but only capable of simple beep sounds with simple variations in tone and length. It doesn't have controllers but ten key buttons in each side and a clear button in the middle. The console can be plugged in the TV using a VHF switcher that comes with the box. This switcher also used to plug the power. The cartridges input can be found in the top of the console. There are 11 ROM cartridges for Studio II. Each cartridge has a few instructions written in the back about the game play. The existed cartridges are the following:
18V400|TV Arcade I: Space War
18V401|TV Arcade II: Fun with Numbers
18V402|TV Arcade III: Tennis/Squash
18V403|TV Arcade IV: Baseball
18V404|TV Arcade Series: Speedway/Tag
18V405|TV Arcade Series: Gunfighter/Moonship Battle
18V500|TV School House I
18V501|TV School House II: Math Fun
18V600|TV Casino I: Blackjack
18V601|TV Casino Series: TV Bingo (this cartridge is extremely rare with only 3 copies to be known as of 01/07/2018)
18V700|TV Mystic Series: Biorhythm
An interesting fact about Studio II is that two of the game cartridges, School House I and Speedway/Tag were developed by Joyce Weisbecker, daughter of RCA engineer Joseph Weisbecker, making her probably the first female gaming developer!
