I have an old Philips Videopac C52 video game console of the Philips Odyssey 2 family like the G-7000 with 128-byte RAM:
While checking its boards to compare with the schematics I got for the G-7000 I found that the PAL encoder (The C52 that I have is made in France) does not use a monolitic integrated circuit but it uses instead a transistor-based circuit that integrates both the PAL encoder and the RF modulator:
In the G-7000 schematics the PAL decoder is annotated IC679 but the IC type is not indicated:
I found on the internet a photo of the IC679 but could not read its type and maybe it is intentionally erased:
What gets me to think that the video encoder might have been a critical component is that even in the G-7000 there is an option to either use the IC or extend the board to use an external circuit for the encoder:
My question is:
Was the PAL/NTSC video encoder IC a critical component (cost-wise, availability...) in early video game consoles like RAM for early microcomputers? What was the IC679?