Shawn Posted January 22, 2016 Share Posted January 22, 2016 The Toy Fair is closed to the public but photography and media coverage is allowed as far as I know. There's enough bloggers who are going to be visiting the Coleco booth to have us covered, a few of them even plan to do interviews. I can't wait to read the raving reviews. The pics and videos should be out of this world too! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Raticon Posted January 22, 2016 Share Posted January 22, 2016 For whatever reason, the FaceBook page isn't sorting their updates by date. You've missed two updates, on Dec. 30th and Jan 15th, that show that they're still focusing on the most critically important factor for their future success ... getting the "Coleco Chameleon" logo on to the Jagwire case mold. Oh yeah, i apparently did. That was very bad of me, seeing as Mike claims to have booked a meeting with a Toys r' Us representative at the fair too. That video of them stamping their logo onto dem jagwire shells is featured somewhere else too as i have already seen that, put that logo-stamping stuff together with the announcements about the power-button, lightpipe, the colors of the case and earlier on that 2 minute long video where they were talking about the power adapter. Focus isn't on whats inside the shells or what it supposed to be on the carts you stick in the shells, that for sure. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flojomojo Posted January 22, 2016 Share Posted January 22, 2016 I just had a thought about the shells. For the sake of argument, lets say the specs are awesome, somehow this all works out, and they are flying off the shelves. Is the machinery for the Jaguar shells enough to produce say 100,000 units in a reasonable time?I doubt that will become a real-world problem. Speaking of the magic number 100,000, wasn't that the number of read/write cycles on the old Jaguar cartridges' save slots? While finite, that was never an issue to my knowledge, either. It's also the number of Atari Jaguars sold by the end of 1994 before the price drops, according to Wikipedia. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jaybird3rd Posted January 22, 2016 Share Posted January 22, 2016 [P]ut that logo-stamping stuff together with the announcements about the power-button, lightpipe, the colors of the case and earlier on that 2 minute long video where they were talking about the power adapter. "We've got case plastics. We've got the power supply. We've even got a snazzy logo. Hey, that's half the battle right there! (okay, most of that is a reuse of someone else's designs, but still ...)" Seriously, I can't wait to see how those serious industry representatives at the show respond to Mike's verbal diarrhea, and his tendency to exaggerate and to start promising the world when he gets carried away during interviews. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Schizophretard Posted January 22, 2016 Share Posted January 22, 2016 I doubt that will become a real-world problem. Me too but I'm genuinely curious. What I'm basically asking is if all the Jaguars were created out of this machinery because it can produce them quickly or did it require many versions of the same machinery? Or to put it another way, does Mike own the equivalent of a Jaguar shell factory or just one machine in it? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flojomojo Posted January 22, 2016 Share Posted January 22, 2016 It sounds like it gives them a head start, when provided to a fabrication company. They claim it "saved them almost $500,000 in startup costs." http://www.retrovgs.com/media.html 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
elmer Posted January 22, 2016 Share Posted January 22, 2016 "We've got case plastics. We've got the power supply. We've even got a snazzy logo. Hey, that's half the battle right there! (okay, most of that is a reuse of someone else's designs, but still ...)" So is slotting in an existing ARM SoC board (like a BeagleBone) on to their Jagwire-sized motherboard (if they go that route) ... and also so is taking a chip-manufacturer's ARM SoC reference design and just adding a cartridge port to it and then building the whole thing onto a new board (if they go that route). I'm still curious about how they plan to differentiate this from just being a "Coleco Ouya" with a cartridge port. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PlaysWithWolves Posted January 22, 2016 Share Posted January 22, 2016 I was under the impression (possibly mistaken) that Mike is a salesman at a place that does some injection molding. The molds themselves are supposed to be high-quality, and should still have a lot of life in them. As for speed (cases per minute), I'm not sure. Here's the very short video of one of his translucent case halves being popped out: 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flojomojo Posted January 22, 2016 Share Posted January 22, 2016 Mike's day job is sales at a place called Creform Corporation. From his LinkedIn profile: Today’s manufacturers are challenged to increase productivity while lowering manufacturing costs. Properly employed, the dynamics of continuous improvement and lean manufacturing can result in a 10% increase per year in productivity by eliminating non-value added waste. I am trained to assist our customers to implement continuous improvement and lean programs as well as the five-S ideology and elimination of non-value added waste using the Creform System. The Creform pipe-and-joint system is used by nearly all companies practicing lean manufacturing. Our system allows for quick, flexible and customizable in-house assembly of ergonomic workstations & assembly cells, FIFO flowracks, carts, racks, information stations and more. It is all reusable and recyclable material and when used correctly will increase your manufacturing and assembly efficiencies while also saving you valuable floor space - A ONE-TWO PUNCH!While working at Creform, I have had the privilege to work closely with top executives from the majority of the largest manufacturing companies in California, Arizona and Nevada. Any manufacturing/assembly company, big or small, can benefit from the Creform system, but it is most widely used in the automobile manufacturing industry, aerospace industry, electronics and medical device industry and in distribution.If you are located in the Southwest United States and looking for some lean manufacturing expertise and complementing products, please get in touch with me to set up a meeting at your facility. I don't understand the field well enough to say whether that's super-relevant to this project, but I suspect he's up to managing the manufacturing aspects. As others have pointed out, that's but one piece of a very complex system. He definitely has the "sales guy" vibe as well, for better or for worse. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jaybird3rd Posted January 22, 2016 Share Posted January 22, 2016 So is slotting in an existing ARM SoC board (like a BeagleBone) on to their Jagwire-sized motherboard (if they go that route) ... and also so is taking a chip-manufacturer's ARM SoC reference design and just adding a cartridge port to it and then building the whole thing onto a new board (if they go that route). I'm still curious about how they plan to differentiate this from just being a "Coleco Ouya" with a cartridge port. Exactly. This is one of the first thoughts that I had when they announced they would begin work on a new prototype so soon after their IndieGoGo flameout last year. Based on John Carlsen's demo video, they had *nothing* substantial to show after all the supposed development work they put into their first attempt; he basically had an off-the-shelf board running some sample GUI code, partially buried underneath the top half of a Jaguar shell (I'll never know how such meager progress supposedly ended up costing him months of effort and drained his savings or whatever). So they subsequently started over and promised to have a completely new prototype ready for Toy Fair, all in the space of a few months. That's not enough time to do anything except piece something together out of off-the-shelf components. Now, we all know that there are lots of open-source project boards out there, and that they can do wonderful things at a remarkably low cost. The problem is, anybody else could do the exact same things with the exact same boards, so why should anyone buy the RVGS Coleco Chameleon? Where's the competitive advantage? They need something more to differentiate themselves. An FPGA could have done that, but dropping a BeagleBone into a Jaguar case with a faux cartridge slot, running the same "retro style" games that you can already buy for other platforms for $10, does not. It just puts them into the same realm as the Raspberry Pi or a Retron 5 or a Steam Box or even low-end Android tablets, all of which are cheaper and more versatile. 7 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andromeda Stardust Posted January 22, 2016 Share Posted January 22, 2016 A Raspberry Pi with carts. Remember folks, today's state-of-the-art ARM SOC will become the "Raspberry Pi" of tomorrow. Better build it with a beefy CPU if he's going the ARM route. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jaybird3rd Posted January 22, 2016 Share Posted January 22, 2016 I just hope we can get it in "Translucent Piss Yellow"! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GzvIS63h-7s Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flojomojo Posted January 22, 2016 Share Posted January 22, 2016 I just hope we can get it in "Translucent Piss Yellow"! A ONE-TWO PUNCH! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StopDrop&Retro Posted January 25, 2016 Share Posted January 25, 2016 (edited) This is a fantastic article that shows how a virtual retro console is succeeding where Mike's project failed. It's well worth a read. The Modest Fantasy of the PICO-8 My favorite snippets from the article: White salvaged his favorite bits from the past, set specific parameters that felt sensible and fun, and built an infrastructure around his platform that would engender experimentation, sharing and play. Kennedy tried to salvage an idealized past, set no limits on his dream, and asked a community to foot the bill. So why not take the next step and build a PICO-8 console? “Although it was fun to think about what a real PICO-8 might look like,” White writes in the first PICO-8 zine, “I never felt it would benefit from having an official physical form. Choosing specs was more about encouraging a certain design culture and development experience rather than being realistic or plausible.” I'm definitely going to keep an eye on the PICO-8 community! This "console" has: 128x128 resolution 16 colors 4 channels for music 2 virtual controllers with a d pad and 2 buttons each 32k "cartridges" Edited January 25, 2016 by StopDrop&Retro 8 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+5-11under Posted January 25, 2016 Share Posted January 25, 2016 Two worthy quotes! (that second game picture looks like fun) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flojomojo Posted January 25, 2016 Share Posted January 25, 2016 That is really neat. Note that if you buy into Voxatron (his other fantasy console) for $20, you get PICO-8 for free. I'm going to sleep on this and likely grab both in the morning with a clear head. This is definitely the way to enjoy retro-style constraints in 2016 without relying on annoying physical hardware like ROM cartridges and Atari Jaguar cases. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andromeda Stardust Posted January 25, 2016 Share Posted January 25, 2016 Yay Pico!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Schizophretard Posted January 25, 2016 Share Posted January 25, 2016 Interesting... Now that we have a fantasy retro console we should treat it like we would any retro console: PicoLove emulator vs. the real fantasy thing? Go! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Raticon Posted January 25, 2016 Share Posted January 25, 2016 That second game, the racing game with vector-esque graphics looks awesome and would rock as a quick and easy online racer imo. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flojomojo Posted January 25, 2016 Share Posted January 25, 2016 Interesting... Now that we have a fantasy retro console we should treat it like we would any retro console: PicoLove emulator vs. the real fantasy thing? Go! Illogical....illogical! <head explodes> 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
toiletunes Posted January 25, 2016 Share Posted January 25, 2016 Illogical....illogical! <head explodes> We're ten pages into a RVGS thread, what took you so long? 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PikoInteractive Posted January 25, 2016 Share Posted January 25, 2016 StopDrop&Retro I'll be at PAX south on Friday only. The Molds should survive 1,000,000+ shells as they are metal, Metal molds are made to last; aluminum molds are the ones that die/break in the 100,000s range. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andromeda Stardust Posted January 25, 2016 Share Posted January 25, 2016 StopDrop&Retro I'll be at PAX south on Friday only. The Molds should survive 1,000,000+ shells as they are metal, Metal molds are made to last; aluminum molds are the ones that die/break in the 100,000s range. Aluminum is also metal last I checked. Sure you didn't mean stainless steel? How long would a mold made from space shuttle grade titanium alloy last? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flojomojo Posted January 25, 2016 Share Posted January 25, 2016 Aluminum is also metal last I checked. Sure you didn't mean stainless steel? How long would a mold made from space shuttle grade titanium alloy last? Aluminum is cheap and light. According to this chart, zinc is good for a million presses, vs 100k for others including aluminum. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Die_casting 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cybercylon Posted January 25, 2016 Share Posted January 25, 2016 I'd like to see a titanium alloy shell. Surprised this wasn't an option the first time around. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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