41 replies to this topic

[gooner73]

Hi
just wondering about the colecovision, it seems to have huge support in the homebrew scene.
I have never owned one but am going to get one of yurkies refurbished/modded systems later this year(when money picks up a bit!), as having played on emulation it really is a great little vintage system.
I don't recall it having all that much support over here in the uk, Atari pretty much ruled the waves!
Is the reason for the ammount of support simply nostalgic love or is it a good system to produce games on?
with all the super module/controller releases as well as games it seems to be a great system to start a new collection for, although i am a game player and nostalgic fool, not a "Collector".

can people here tell me why the controllers are such a derived peripheral?
and can you swap the controllers with an atari type once you have selected the options and started a game?

look forward to your replies and thoughts

[ACrystal2011]

2600 joystick will work with 1 button games but if u get the ball knob moddified controllers from yurkie they are great

[Pixelboy]

gooner73, on Fri Mar 30, 2012 10:31 AM, said:

Is the reason for the ammount of support simply nostalgic love or is it a good system to produce games on?

Well, the PCBs and required electronic chips and components are readily available, and you can get new cartridge casings if you need some, so on the hardware side, the ColecoVision is a good option for homebrewers. Similarly, it's easy to program games for the CV if you know your way around C language, or better yet, Z80 assembly language.

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can people here tell me why the controllers are such a derived peripheral?

Define "derived".  

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and can you swap the controllers with an atari type once you have selected the options and started a game?

You can, but it's not recommended to swap out controllers while the power is on. You can reduce the lifespan of joystick ports this way, from what I've heard. Besides, for many CV games, you can put a third-party (keypadless) controller in port #1 and a stock CV controller in port #2 and use the keypad on the second joystick whenever you need to.

[5-11under]

Well, I'd say that the Atari 2600 rules the roost, but as far as activity (hardware support, homebrews, programming support, new hardware) versus quantity of consoles in existence, the ColecoVision does very well.

Edited by 5-11under, Fri Mar 30, 2012 11:13 AM.

[gooner73]

Pixelboy, on Fri Mar 30, 2012 10:43 AM, said:

gooner73, on Fri Mar 30, 2012 10:31 AM, said:

Is the reason for the ammount of support simply nostalgic love or is it a good system to produce games on?

Well, the PCBs and required electronic chips and components are readily available, and you can get new cartridge casings if you need some, so on the hardware side, the ColecoVision is a good option for homebrewers. Similarly, it's easy to program games for the CV if you know your way around C language, or better yet, Z80 assembly language.

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can people here tell me why the controllers are such a derived peripheral?

Define "derived".  

sorry meant derised! as in scorned and frowned upon or even hated?

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and can you swap the controllers with an atari type once you have selected the options and started a game?

You can, but it's not recommended to swap out controllers while the power is on. You can reduce the lifespan of joystick ports this way, from what I've heard. Besides, for many CV games, you can put a third-party (keypadless) controller in port #1 and a stock CV controller in port #2 and use the keypad on the second joystick whenever you need to.

Edited by gooner73, Fri Mar 30, 2012 12:05 PM.

[RelliK111]

The Colecovision homebrew committee is so successful mostly because of the people in the committee always pushing to create the best and most amazing games, boxes, controllers, cards, and so much more! Plus for the most part people here release stuff when they say there going to release stuff. Unlike some other committee's that I'm not going to name names cough....... Halo 2600   .............almost 2 years now and still waiting on that next run of games

It really comes down to everyone here is just super passionate about the colecovision!

[ColecoDan]

I guess people say their hands hurt when trying to use the controller and it feels weird.
I think a lot of them from other posts I have seen also seem to hold the controller weird in my opinion which would make you hate it more as well.
By weird I mean I think they try to hold it and play as if they were in the arcade standing with the controller below them and using their palm to move it around.  I never played in the arcades that much and pretty much lost all interest in playing the arcades when I got my colecovision so I did not hold my controller that way.  I always gripped the controller between my thumb and finger to control it.

I know when I was young I didn't love them but I didn't hate them either.  However Yurkie's conversion to put ball knob controller on instead of the stock version instantly increases my indifference to the controller to loving the controller.  It fits well in your hand and seems to be more responsive when trying to go diagonal in games than the stock version seems.

[Pixelboy]

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Define "derived".  

sorry meant derised! as in scorned and frowned upon or even hated?

Oh, well, that's just because the controllers are not very ergonomic (you have to get used to them) and they also tend to break down over time. But they're not too hard to repair, fortunately.

[sqoon]

RelliK111, on Fri Mar 30, 2012 12:12 PM, said:

The Colecovision homebrew committee is so successful mostly because of the people in the committee always pushing to create the best and most amazing games, boxes, controllers, cards, and so much more! Plus for the most part people here release stuff when they say there going to release stuff. Unlike some other committee's that I'm not going to name names cough....... Halo 2600   .............almost 2 years now and still waiting on that next run of games

It really comes down to everyone here is just super passionate about the colecovision!

Then why is DK Arcade so long in the making for CV and it came out last year for INTV?

[Pixelboy]

sqoon, on Fri Mar 30, 2012 1:31 PM, said:

Then why is DK Arcade so long in the making for CV and it came out last year for INTV?

Because the Inty and CV versions are programmed by two completely different guys, with completely different lives and completely different agendas.

[Ransom]

All I know is, the CV has the highest percentage of CIB homebrews.  That's what keeps me coming back.  Lots of systems have great homebrews coming out for them all the time.  I have a limited budget. All things being equal, I'd rather have CIB games.  So that's why most of my homebrew dollars go toward CV games.

[NIAD]

Pixelboy, on Fri Mar 30, 2012 1:35 PM, said:

sqoon, on Fri Mar 30, 2012 1:31 PM, said:

Then why is DK Arcade so long in the making for CV and it came out last year for INTV?

Because the Inty and CV versions are programmed by two completely different guys, with completely different lives and completely different agendas.

How's that old saying go? Oh yeah, "Rome wasn't built in a day".

[ACrystal2011]

sqoon, on Fri Mar 30, 2012 1:31 PM, said:

RelliK111, on Fri Mar 30, 2012 12:12 PM, said:

The Colecovision homebrew committee is so successful mostly because of the people in the committee always pushing to create the best and most amazing games, boxes, controllers, cards, and so much more! Plus for the most part people here release stuff when they say there going to release stuff. Unlike some other committee's that I'm not going to name names cough....... Halo 2600   .............almost 2 years now and still waiting on that next run of games

It really comes down to everyone here is just super passionate about the colecovision!

Then why is DK Arcade so long in the making for CV and it came out last year for INTV?

Also DK Arcade for the CV will use the new SGM which hasnt been released yet so they gotta wait till that gets released before they release the game. Not much point releasing a game if nobody can play it yet.

[gooner73]

Thanks for all the replies, seems that i will definately have to get a real one now!
loved it in emulation, and can't wait to get the real thing!
Might also try out the old intellivision as the donkey kong looks pretty damned good on that too!

[rmaerz]

ColecoVision kicks ass - my favorite console. And these homebrewers have been kicking ass with all these great new titles.

We need more racing games. How about porting something like Grand Champion or Monaco GP?

[gooner73]

It Really seems that coleco missed the opportunity to become world beaters!
The system was way ahead of it's time and should have surely been the console that everyone wanted, why did this not happen??
was it bad marketing and did coleco just drop out of consoles?

[thegamezmaster]

On some games you can use a 7800 stick in port 1 and a CV in port 2 for keypad funtions. If you can solder here's a link to make a 3 button Sega Genesis controller that will work on a CV with both fire buttons, B&C IIRC. Worked for me.

[Pixelboy]

gooner73, on Sat Mar 31, 2012 4:59 AM, said:

It Really seems that coleco missed the opportunity to become world beaters!
The system was way ahead of it's time and should have surely been the console that everyone wanted, why did this not happen??

There are two reasons:

1) Timing. By the time the ColecoVision arrived in 1982, the Atari 2600 was already several years old, and was already the gaming platform of choice in most north-american homes. Many parents didn't see the point of purchasing two incompatible consoles for their kids, so Coleco had an uphill battle to tackle from the start (which was the main reason why the Expansion Module #1 was created). Programmers were really starting to figure out how to push the Atari 2600 to the limit, which led third-parties like Activision, Imagic and Parker Brothers to create wonderful 2600 games, so even with the ColecoVision's more advanced specs, kids didn't automatically flock from the Atari 2600 to the Coleco (although many did, like me!).

2) Corporate size. Comparing Coleco to Atari back in those days was like comparing David to Goliath. Atari specialized in video games and was so big and mighty that they could do whatever the heck they wanted, or so they thought until the Crash of 84 gave them (as well as Coleco and Mattel) a fatal reality check. By comparison, Coleco was a modest albeit successful toy company, with the ColecoVision being just one of their divisions (among Cabbage Patch Kids, Sectaurs and Starcom toys, swimming pools and accessories, electronic games like the famed Coleco tabletops, etc., etc., etc.). So it was really a "David vs Goliath" situation.

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was it bad marketing and did coleco just drop out of consoles?

Coleco dropped out of... existence! They declared bankruptcy in 1985 (I think) and many analysts concur that it was their sad venture into the merry land of family home computers that sank them. As a computer, the ADAM was nice on paper, but it was bulky, had a slew of hardware problems (most of them related to the proprietary "Digital Data Pack" cassettes they used), and Coleco didn't have the in-house manpower to support the ADAM with a steady stream of games and application software.

But even worse, Coleco never deemed it necessary to put in place any kind of distribution model to make software from third-parties visible to the masses, which meant that only those in the obscure "BBS clubs" knew that there was a whole world of ADAM software out there, beyond Recipe Filer and AdamCalc. I had an ADAM as a kid and I never would have even heard of the "BBS clubs" if I hadn't met a friend in my neighborhood who was a member of those clubs. And heck, I was just a kid back then, I had no interest in anything serious beyond BASIC, and so all I ended up doing was dumping CV game cartridges onto DDPs, and letting my "club friend" feed me pirated games that I didn't already have.  

There's been considerable debate that perhaps Coleco would have survived the Crash of 84 if they hadn't spent so much wasted effort on the ADAM and had stuck with the ColecoVision instead.

Edited by Pixelboy, Sat Mar 31, 2012 8:34 AM.

[NIAD]

gooner73, on Sat Mar 31, 2012 4:59 AM, said:

It Really seems that coleco missed the opportunity to become world beaters!
The system was way ahead of it's time and should have surely been the console that everyone wanted, why did this not happen??
was it bad marketing and did coleco just drop out of consoles?

I'm not so sure they missed their opportunity to become world beaters as they sold over 6 million systems from the time the CV was released in Aug. '82 until the big sell off almost three years later. So they were probably leading the pack (Atari, Mattel, Odyssey, Bally, etc,) in system sales during this time period and even overtook most of their competition in total system sales overall except for the Atari 2600 which had been out for many more years. Numerous events brought an end to their rocketing climb in the videogame industry....

  the videogame crash which has been debated for years by the experts all the way down to the average videogame fan
  the unfortunate debacle of releasing the ADAM Computer before it was ready in order to capitalize on the X-Mas '83 season
  the growing home computer market due to computers becoming more affordable
  the biggest in my mind being poor upper management decisions at Coleco

Coleco did very well for themselves with the ColecoVision as can be seen by their stock prices during the best of times, they just didn't maintain it, but that can be said of a lot of other companies back in this time period.

Indeed the CV was and still is a tremendous videogame system (my favorite of all time) and the CV Homebrew Scene is simply TOP NOTCH!

Edited by NIAD, Sat Mar 31, 2012 8:52 AM.

[atarilovesyou]

A question about the CV homebrews...are the majority of the more flashy games (Mario Bros, for instance) actually programmed from scratch?  I always thought they were modified hacks from other computers that ran the same language (the Z80 thing, I'm not up to speed on that kinda thing).

The feeling I get about the CV hacks are that they are more or less ports from game systems or computers...I really do like the packaging though, very legit looking!  CV was my very first system from way back and I always have a soft spot for it, but some of the homebrews are, well...not my cup o' tea. I'm really interested in this new controller, though...and the whole Super Expansion Module project, very cool.

[youki]

My games :

Ghost n' Zombie
Smurf Challenge
The way of exploding foot

Are totally made from scratch.

I know that Bfg's Game too :
Puzzli
Lock'n Chase
Bomb'n Blast
Ozma War
etc..

Daniel's Bienvenu games are also totally from scratch :
- Ghost Blaster
- Jewel Creeper
and many others

I think Mario has been done from scratch too.

then you have Opcode work  , that can be :

- portage from SG 1000
- portage from MSX

Or that one are lot of more interresting portage from Arcade rom !
(ex : Space Invader, Pacman Collection  and the coming soon Donkey Kong Arcade)

[opcode]

My side of things, and please don't take too much offense to this.
Classic gaming is something that usually involves lots of nostagia. And nostagia involves memories. That is why arcade ports sell, no matter the system (Atari, Coleco, Intellivision, etc). That is why Pac-Man Collection and Space Invaders Collection can sell 300 copies.
Other than that it is hit and miss, no matter if it is original or port from some other platform. Sky Jaguar has sold 200 copies, which is impressive for a MSX port. Other MSX ports I made, not so much.

However, and this is the controversial bit, classic gaming cannot be properly "advanced", "continued", or "innovated", as it is past, we are out of context 30 years later. Think of this: suppose you have a rock band. Suppose that your band is really into 50's rock. Suppose you and your band for some reason decide to only make 50's style songs. No matter what you guys do, you will be only mimicing 50's rock. You cannot innovate or advance that, as that has been already done and it is past now, the time for that is gone. Worse, you and your band are now also influenced by 50 years of rock, there is simply no way to wipe all that out of your mind. So anytime you try to innovate, you are going to introduce elements that will sound out of place. And if you try to stick to the "style", then you will be mimicing.

Of course you can do contemporary rock with a 50's influence, but then that isn't 50's rock anymore.

So I am not trying to mean that something is right or wrong, just pointing out that there are different ways to see things. The same reasoning some of you use to point out why you don't like ports, I can use (and do so) to point out why I generally don't like originals. But again, all a matter of personal taste.

Edited by opcode, Thu Apr 5, 2012 6:38 AM.

[Ransom]

That's a pretty strong analogy you came up with.

I suppose in that way of looking at things, I'm among the majority that enjoys tribute bands (arcade ports -- especially when there isn't already a good one widely available for US consoles). I also like the bands that are heavily influenced by my favorite bands of yesteryear (games that are done in the style of the classics).

However, I've always thought of it more as the console or computer as a means of artistic expression.  Choosing to use a classic console or computer as that means is a way of limiting oneself.  And I've found over the years that having constraints like that can result in better artistic expression.  That's a concept I've carried forward since I first encountered the novel "La Disparition", anyway.  It's been a useful tool for me for many years when analyzing others' output in many media as well as when planning my own work.

opcode, on Thu Apr 5, 2012 6:36 AM, said:

My side of things, and please don't take too much offense to this.
Classic gaming is something that usually involves lots of nostagia. And nostagia involves memories. That is why arcade ports sell, no matter the system (Atari, Coleco, Intellivision, etc). That is why Pac-Man Collection and Space Invaders Collection can sell 300 copies.
Other than that it is hit and miss, no matter if it is original or port from some other platform. Sky Jaguar has sold 200 copies, which is impressive for a MSX port. Other MSX ports I made, not so much.

However, and this is the controversial bit, classic gaming cannot be properly "advanced", "continued", or "innovated", as it is past, we are out of context 30 years later. Think of this: suppose you have a rock band. Suppose that your band is really into 50's rock. Suppose you and your band for some reason decide to only make 50's style songs. No matter what you guys do, you will be only mimicing 50's rock. You cannot innovate or advance that, as that has been already done and it is past now, the time for that is gone. Worse, you and your band are now also influenced by 50 years of rock, there is simply no way to wipe all that out of your mind. So anytime you try to innovate, you are going to introduce elements that will sound out of place. And if you try to stick to the "style", then you will be mimicing.

Of course you can do contemporary rock with a 50's influence, but then that isn't 50's rock anymore.

So I am not trying to mean that something is right or wrong, just pointing out that there are different ways to see things. The same reasoning some of you use to point out why you don't like ports, I can use (and do so) to point out why I generally don't like originals. But again, all a matter of personal taste.

[lucifershalo]

Personally, I use a Y cable so I can plug an Atari Joystick and a Colecovision one, together if I need the Keypad

[youki]

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However, I've always thought of it more as the console or computer as a means of artistic expression. Choosing to use a classic console or computer as that means is a way of limiting oneself. And I've found over the years that having constraints like that can result in better artistic expression.

i share the same point of view.

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That's a concept I've carried forward since I first encountered the novel "La Disparition", anyway.

You talk about the roman of Georges Perec ?   It is a very interresting book , It is an incredible we can write a full story with that constraint. However it is a little hard to read i found.