ColecoVision Flashback 9918A emulation - innards are disappointing

[+OLD CS1]

I was thinking about the ColecoVIsion, the 9918A, and the F18A. The Flashback is a rather impressive emulation. I thought to myself, "Self, you think there be a 9918A emulation chip in that there box?"

 

So, myself and I opened it up and were both very disappointed at what is inside the beastie.

 

[Omega-TI]

Yeah.... I can see how that was more than a tad anticlimactic.

[Keatah]

Anything to do with any Flashback is a disappointment. I don't know why people buy these things. Just do emulation or seek out the original console!

Edited February 14, 2015 by Keatah

[+retroclouds]

Where's the 9918A? I can't find it on the picture...

 

Seriously though, I'm considering getting one myself.

There are some homebrew games on there as well, if I'm not mistaking.

 

I like the case and the packaging too.

[Tursi]

Yeah, it's an all in one device, I took a look at it as well (more to see how hard adding carts would be). The emulation is rather poor - audio issues and video issues in some games. I gave mine away.

[Tursi]

One thing I did find interesting - I looked at this one and the Genesis one -- the Colecovision one has the ROM, the blob, and a RAM chip, while the Genesis one has only a ROM and a blob. I wonder what the ColecoVision Flashback does differently that it needs an external RAM... (ColecoVision has 1k CPU RAM and 16k VDP RAM, Genesis has far more.)

[wyerd]

Err... What's the blob for? What's it hiding underneath?

[Gary from OPA]

Err... What's the blob for? What's it hiding underneath?

 

It is low-end ARM cpu and its all software emulation, and alot of times the code is taken from open-source GPL repos on the 'net, and with no credit or thanks given to the emulator authors.

[wyerd]

 

It is low-end ARM cpu and its all software emulation, and alot of times the code is taken from open-source GPL repos on the 'net, and with no credit or thanks given to the emulator authors.

That's just downright dirty tricks. The product should be boycotted.

[PeBo]

It would have been more impressive (IMHO) to have reduced the size of the case instead of trying to make it look 'similar' (kinda) in size and shape to the original console.

 

Looks like it could have been a tiny unit! If it was a little set top box that looked nothing like a Colecovision, one probably wouldn't expect as much. Are the controllers at least decent?

 

From everything I've read, here and elsewhere, about the flaskback machines though, they sound more like something a non-enthusiast would buy an enthusiast as an "Oh he'll freak" Xmas or birthday present (I have a closet full of such unused gadgets).

 

Thanks for providing the xray-vision into one of these...are the 2600 units more of the same?

[+OLD CS1]

Anything to do with any Flashback is a disappointment. I don't know why people buy these things. Just do emulation or seek out the original console!

 

Actually, I found the Atari Flashback 4 and 5 to be rather nice. Sure, emulation is nice and all, but getting away from the PC is a nice vacation, IMSHO. While you could come up with a console, those things are decades old and subject to the problems so entail -- dead or bad caps, cartridge port problems, finding cartridges, etc. etc. With a good all-in-one emulation device you get more of the feel of yonder years. My mom and dad are very involved in my young cousins' lives, and I got an Atari Flashback 4 for them a couple of Christmases ago. Some of my best memories of my dad are of us playing Atari together. He still plays well and the kids love it, so they can now play together the way we did when I was little. Sure, you could do that with a PC, but where is the magic in doing so?

 

 

That's just downright dirty tricks. The product should be boycotted.

 

I have not seen the licensing for the emulators used (the Sega Genesis boxes use FireCore, which is either very crappy or the implementation on the hardware is crappy,) nor have I looked at the website to see if there is a GPL software notice online.

 

Since I have never contributed to an OSS project I cannot speak with authority on the matter, though I remember an article interviewing Linus Torvalds about the number of devices out there (this article particularly spoke of electronic picture frames) some of which give notice about being build on Linux and others which ignore it. He was seemingly not bothered by it and said it was a neat feeling seeing all of these devices that his little project gave birth to.

 

 

It would have been more impressive (IMHO) to have reduced the size of the case instead of trying to make it look 'similar' (kinda) in size and shape to the original console.

 

Looks like it could have been a tiny unit! If it was a little set top box that looked nothing like a Colecovision, one probably wouldn't expect as much. Are the controllers at least decent?

 

From everything I've read, here and elsewhere, about the flaskback machines though, they sound more like something a non-enthusiast would buy an enthusiast as an "Oh he'll freak" Xmas or birthday present (I have a closet full of such unused gadgets).

 

Thanks for providing the xray-vision into one of these...are the 2600 units more of the same?

 

The unit is actually pretty small compared to the Real Thing^TM. The sticks are just as miserable to me as the original

 

People who actually know me know better than to get me shyt like this. I get it for myself if the intellectual curiosity gets to me. In terms of others, though, I try to use the consoles as "gateway drugs." That is, I show them the Flashback console and while they play if they show any interest at all, I tell them, "you should play on the real console!" Usually gets 'em hooked. (Wait, does that make me a retro-technology pusher?!)

 

The Atari units are essentially the same. If I get a chance this weekend I will post pictures of those innards as well. I was thoroughly disgusted with the first sets of Atari Flashback, even if #2 could be hacked to use real cartridges. The emulation was crap. Same goes for the original Atari joystick 10-in-1. As I am not a ColecoVision aficionado I cannot speak to how well this Flashback console emulates the real thing, but I can say for me who only has pieces of a console it is an okay temporary stand-in and, believe it or not, the kids are more enthralled with the console form-factor about it than with ColEm I showed them on my laptop.

[+OLD CS1]

(double post)

[Omega-TI]

 

Sure, emulation is nice and all, but getting away from the PC is a nice vacation, IMSHO. While you could come up with a console, those things are decades old and subject to the problems so entail -- dead or bad caps, cartridge port problems, finding cartridges, etc. etc. With a good all-in-one emulation device you get more of the feel of yonder years.

 

I agree. There is a growing number of people today that are technologically illiterate, and believe it or not, some don't even own a PC, just a smart phone. Some of these low technology types have no clue what the word emulation means.

 

With the 'premium prices', like on eBait, the average person who took the time to search out the items would probably balk at the prices and just move on. Many people do not want to mess with cartridges or devote the amount of space required to store 'a bunch of old crap'. Hard-core retro computer and gamer's are a minority in the overall scheme of things.

 

From a marketing standpoint, these consoles are designed to be 'impulse buys', inexpensive enough to be purchased on the spot. They will feed the targeted demographics nostalgia fix until they get bored with it and move on. With any luck, these little consoles may become a 'gateway drug' to a small percentage of the buyers and bring a few new members to Atari Age.

[Tursi]

 

 

I have not seen the licensing for the emulators used (the Sega Genesis boxes use FireCore, which is either very crappy or the implementation on the hardware is crappy,) nor have I looked at the website to see if there is a GPL software notice online.

 

I actually signed up for the FireCore dev program, and got a development kit. The Firecore is an FPGA based system, but the hardware implementation is weak, especially the FM Synth.

[Keatah]

Actually, I found the Atari Flashback 4 and 5 to be rather nice. Sure, emulation is nice and all, but getting away from the PC is a nice vacation, IMSHO. While you could come up with a console, those things are decades old and subject to the problems so entail -- dead or bad caps, cartridge port problems, finding cartridges, etc. etc. With a good all-in-one emulation device you get more of the feel of yonder years.

 

I wonder if you assembled a NUC-style box, or similar micro/pico atx/itx system in a case, with bliss boxes, and installed a stripper OS. Just enough to run emulation. Make it all simple an non-pc-looking as possible.. I wonder if that wouldn't do the trick for making it appealing.

 

I think getting rid of the traditional desktop/laptop look (so 90's) would be amazing! This one little box becomes your CGS (classic gaming station). You tweak it till the cows come home and now you have a library of thousands of your favorites ready for you and everyone else to enjoy. For added realism you can get a 2x2x2 carboard box and stuff it with cheap controllers purchased on fleabay.

 

To pay homage to the classic consoles, you can decorate your room with high quality posters of the original systems.. Whatever!

 

I think this could work because of the next point mentioned below, the stigma of the PC.

 

 

I agree. There is a growing number of people today that are technologically illiterate, and believe it or not, some don't even own a PC, just a smart phone. Some of these low technology types have no clue what the word emulation means.

 

I tend to think this illiteracy-funk arises from the intimidation brought about by the file system and the keyboard. And the tediousness of the requisite troubleshooting one must do on a near-daily basis with the PC (Windows/Linux) platform. With the PC everything has to be just right, setup exactly, to a T!

 

People do not want to have to know the subtleties and how the hardware, i/o, os, and applications, and storage, and how it all interrelates. And as soon as you push one of those aspects to the limit, the whole system stops working.

 

Which celebrity movie star got caught twerking is far more important than knowing the differences between a DOC and PDF and ZIP. That's really asking a lot.

 

Most people would rather play with their smileyface smartphone or phablet that turns on instantly and communicates with other devices flawlessly, regardless of subtle software versions and configurations.

 

 

 

[+5-11under]

I think you're looking for the Ultimate (Intellivision) Flashback: http://atariage.com/forums/topic/231433-the-ultimate-intellivision-flashback/

[Keatah]

With the 'premium prices', like on eBait, the average person who took the time to search out the items would probably balk at the prices and just move on. Many people do not want to mess with cartridges or devote the amount of space required to store 'a bunch of old crap'. Hard-core retro computer and gamer's are a minority in the overall scheme of things.

+

Sure, emulation is nice and all, but getting away from the PC is a nice vacation, IMSHO. While you could come up with a console, those things are decades old and subject to the problems so entail -- dead or bad caps, cartridge port problems, finding cartridges, etc. etc. With a good all-in-one emulation device you get more of the feel of yonder years. My mom and dad are very involved in my young cousins' lives, and I got an Atari Flashback 4 for them a couple of Christmases ago. Some of my best memories of my dad are of us playing Atari together. He still plays well and the kids love it, so they can now play together the way we did when I was little. Sure, you could do that with a PC, but where is the magic in doing so?

 

As I am not a ColecoVision aficionado I cannot speak to how well this Flashback console emulates the real thing, but I can say for me who only has pieces of a console it is an okay temporary stand-in and, believe it or not, the kids are more enthralled with the console form-factor about it than with ColEm I showed them on my laptop.

 

The technological intimidation and fear caused by the PC and emulation and overall non-family-friendly approach of those things is a natural turn-off for reliving the old times.

 

Yet emulation is an svelte elegant solution because it deals away with the tediousness, reliability, cost, and availability of the old hardware. Not to mention the stigma of building up and hoarding it all.

 

 

The major selling points for emulation, I believe, are:

 

-Cost. Emulators are essentially free. Aside from donations to the authors.

 

-Availability. You can get emulators for many systems from many places. And the host hardware is equally available.

 

-Convenience. One box, 1,000 games. (now you can hide your cartridges/roms in the basement, out of sight, out of mind)

 

-Aestheticlly pleasing and elegant. This one box can be a small side box or set top box. Even a set back box which attaches to the rear of your display device. If you're creative it doesn't need to be a box at all. The possibilities and form factors are limitless. And you don't give off the appearance of a hoarder. And the smell goes away when you dump hundreds of pounds of 30 year old electronics from your home. Less cleaning, less dusting, fewer places for bugs and spiders to hide.

 

-Customization. You can get the source code for most of them and make your own changes, if you're so inclined. You can organize files, ROMS, menus, and configurations (ini files) to perfection.

 

-Customization again! You can build you own emulation box with mini/micro atx/itx boards as your starting point. And it will look very nice too! Non PC'ish. You can print high-quality badges of logos of the classic systems and decorate it. You can even build in a custom switches by wiring things in parallel with the keyboard. Or you can go further and get stuff from Ultimarc like I-PAC, and switches, and buttons, and all that. Don't forget the Bliss Box either.

 

-Reliability. Emulators are the ultimate in reliability. No muss'n'fuss with cables, noisy RF boxes, burned out power supplies, intermittent solder, dodgy disk drives, dirty cartridge connectors and ports, acquiring spare parts, noisy power connectors. And no issues with modern contemporary displays! None of that! Nada! It all goes away when you adopt emulation as your "platform" of choice. And if by chance your modern hardware goes belly-up it is easily replaceable with shit from TigerDirect, Fleabay, Newegg, Amazon, and Wal-Mart in some cases!

 

-Modern displays. Emulators are inherently made to work with modern displays. No VCRs, no scan-line converters, no tweaking of the TV settings till the buttons wear out. No cable matching. No bulk. No hot and heavy CRTs. The heart of emulation is made to work on PC display standards such as VGA, DVI, and HDMI. And some emulators will simulate some characteristics of the old CRTs. Not all, but some. And you don't have to worry about constantly adjusting your display as you switch from system to system. It's all a non-issue!

 

-Speed. And more speed! Some emulators for classic computers can run tens or hundreds of times faster than the original hardware via the "1x, 2x ,5x, unlimited" CPU speed setting. Something the original hardware could never do, not without spending the cost of the entire system (again) for the purchase of an accelerator chip or board. And even then you had compatibility issues with peripherals or some software.

 

-Upgradability. Emulators are always being updated and new features added. In many cases, the emulated console has capabilities above and beyond the original hardware.

 

-Pause & Save. Emulators allow you to pause your game and go do something else. They also allow you to mark progress and reset to a specific level via the Save-State functionality. You can save your game right before you roll the score counter. Or you can save your progress through a lengthy gaming session.

 

-Debugging and creation. Emulators allow you to look inside the original software and see what it's doing. You can modify it. You can write entire new games, and test them immediately through emulation.

 

-Consistency and longevity. Emulation on one machine will work exactly the same on another, aside from the custom settings one may make changes to. An emulated machine has an infinite lifespan. No hardware to break or wear out, no parts to fall out of tolerance. If it works this way today, it will work the same way tomorrow.

 

And there you have it! A million reasons to go with a good emulator setup!

[OldSchoolRetroGamer]

Colecovision Flashback emulation is "ok" at best, with some voices missing, sound glitches and games like the HEIST literally running at about 1/2 speed it was pretty disappointing for a big Colecovision fan like myself but I guess passable and even entertaining to one with vague memories of the original system and games but I admit I am not surprised at all to see the insides hardware is so bare / sparse.

Edited February 14, 2015 by OldSchoolRetroGamer

[+OLD CS1]

Thanks for providing the xray-vision into one of these...are the 2600 units more of the same?

 

Here are some of the others I have. I have not included the Jax Pacific arcade sets (Pac Man, Ms. Pac Man, Space Invaders, Atari Paddle*, Super Pac Man.)

 

First, the Atari stuff. The Flashback 4 is likeable and usable. It has IR joysticks which actually work and play well together, just have to watch putting your fingers over the transmitter, and that the eye is not exactly lined up the way it should be.

 

 

*The paddle controller screws are stuck in a way that I just did not want to deal, so you just get the outer look.

 

 

Now, the original 10-in-1 is actually built rather impressively. Chokes on several of the control lines, foil-lined paper between the motherboard and other components. Several screws holding things in place. Over all, a very rigid and sturdy device. Too bad the emulation is absolute crap.

 

 

Next, the Sega Genesis. Nothing impressive here. The emulation is pretty bad, though in this "desktop" form-factor it is better than the handheld unit (picture not included.) This plays real Genesis cartridges, so as emulated consoles go this one is closer to the real thing. Except that it does not play a couple of my favorites, one of which is Skitchin'. In a lot of games sprites are badly distorted or missing. Sound is bad. I had two other I was going to give away, but I decided it would be best to sell them rather than give them to someone I cared about.

 

 

(I hit the attachment size limit, so one more message...)

[+OLD CS1]

Activision released a joystick with several games built-in. I do not remember which system it emulates, but I recall it not just being a 2600-type unit.

 

 

Lastly, a hand-held Intellivision. I cannot critique this one since I never had the real thing. But I was not going to pass on it since it was on clearance for $5 or $10. Intellectual curiosity got the best of me.

 

[Keatah]

These pictures of joysticks got me all excited and thinking.. Why not build a MAME (and other emulators) "thing" into a controller, too? The necessary computing power is available on boards as small as a USB stick. And that's bona-fide 2GHz performance too.

 

BTW: thanks for the mini-takaparts and teardowns.

Edited February 15, 2015 by Keatah

[Gary from OPA]

But the big question is when/where/whom going to produced a TI-99/4a FlashBack machine!

[+OLD CS1]

But the big question is when/where/whom going to produced a TI-99/4a FlashBack machine!

 

Could such technology be squeezed into these?

 

[Keatah]

Of course. Question becomes would anyone actually do it?

[+mizapf]

These pictures of joysticks got me all excited and thinking.. Why not build a MAME (and other emulators) "thing" into a controller, too? The necessary computing power is available on boards as small as a USB stick.

 

For some MAME drivers, probably. For the MESS TI emulation, definitely not.