The AY-3-8500 is a chip playing several Pong variants on a domestic television receiver, released by General Instrument in 1976 and became available to any manufacturer. The circuit is intended to be battery powered and a minimum number of external components are required to complete the system.

Games

Six selectable games for one or two players are included:

Game	Number of players
tennis	2
soccer	2
squash	2
practice	1
rifle game 1	1
rifle game 2	2

In addition, a seventh undocumented game can be played when none of the previous six is selected: Handicap, a soccer variant where the player on the right has a third paddle. On very few systems this game is implemented.

Usage

The AY-3-8500 is packaged in a 28 lead dual in line housing. The connection of the pins is as follows:

Nr.	Name	Purpose
1	NC	Not connected
2	Vss	Ground
3		Sound output
4	Vcc	Positive supply voltage which must be between 6 and 7 V
5		Ball angles
6		Ball output
7		Ball speed
8		Manual serve
9		Right player output
10		Left player output
11		Right bat input
12		Left bat input
13		Bat size
14	NC	Not connected
15	NC	Not connected
16		Sync output
17		Clock input
18		Rifle game 1
19		Rifle game 2
20		Tennis
21		Soccer
22		Squash
23		Practice
24		Score and field output
25		Reset input
26		Shot input
27		Hit input
28	NC	Not connected

Consoles

Consoles based on AY-3-8500 are:

• Coleco Telstar
• Magnavox Odyssey (300, 2000 and 3000)
• Radio Shack TV ScoreBoard

Deratives

An equivalent to the AY-3-8500 is the TMS1965NLA manufactured by Texas Instruments.