326 replies to this topic

[moycon]

I would be interested in purchasing at least one of these.

[EvilDragon17]

when will they be ready?  What's the price in the US. I need 5 I guess.  I'm going through the mismatched coleco visions I had boxed up to see what still works today, and someone pointed me to this thread!   I have 7 CVs and maybe 2 working power supplies, lol.

 

 I don't have any leadtimes yet... once we've fixed the last issue, I guess it'll be about 1 - 2 months until I can ship them.

[cybercylon]

I'd like one of these as well once the issue has been sorted out.

 

I saw this at dragonbox.de and signed to be emailed when they are available. Is that the primary means of getting one?

[DadsGlasses]

Really looking forward to these being available.

[ColecoGamer]

I’m really looking forward to getting one of these. Have you determined how much they will cost? The final price will determine how many I will buy when pre-orders open.

[atarilovesyou]

I'm in for one, although all my power supplies are currently working...you never can be too safe.

[SpotAnime]

I'm in for one, although all my power supplies are currently working...you never can be too safe.

Same. Once these are available for purchase, I'll be in the market for two.

Did EvilDragon say where we would be able to order these from?

[cybercylon]

dragonbox.de. I don't have a direct link, but there is a place to put in your email address to be notified. That store is in Germany. No idea if someone will be selling it elsewhere.

 

I guess the last update was at the end of January. Considering it may take a bit to fix the issue and 1-2 months to make, it hasn't been long since the update.

[EvilDragon17]

Sorry for the lack of updates - I'm quite stuffed with work, so I can't work on everything as fast as I'd love to..

 

We're currently improving the adaptor!

 

The current version has two issues:

 

1. It needs a very good USB AC Adaptor and cable. Cheap ones (that deliver less than 5V) will cause graphic issues. We've added another power converter that makes sure that anything between 2,7V and 12V will be converted into a stable 5V (this way, you can also be sure a cheap USB Adaptor cannot damage your Colecovision!)

 

2. The current 12V converter adds a 1,1MHz frequency signal onto the 5V and 12V traces. As the Colecovision has absolutely no filters, this will lead to a barely visible distortion on the video output. We'll add some capacitors to filter this, so the picture will be perfect.

 

I'll keep you updated  

[Yurkie]

Your new product looks absolutely awesome EvilDragon17. Thanks for coming up with such a great product. I'm interested in a couple myself.

[Lil Alien]

Looking forward to this, I am so stoked to order!

 

Good luck with the remaining challenges!

[fokakis79]

Count me in on this! This is awesome!

[Trebor]

Looking forward to the final product...In for (at least) one.

[Noah98]

Ill buy one for sure!

[BuckoA51]

The current 12V converter adds a 1,1MHz frequency signal onto the 5V and 12V traces. As the Colecovision has absolutely no filters, this will lead to a barely visible distortion on the video output. We'll add some capacitors to filter this, so the picture will be perfect.

 

 

This is definitely a problem with a lot of these after market power supplies. Back when we were kids we hooked our consoles up to RF and composite (if you were lucky) TVs but now people are attaching these things through high quality upscalers to super big TVs and of course this shows up imperfections that we would never have noticed in the past. It doesn't seem to help that old school power supplies often were linear while most modern power supplies are switched. Switched PSUs are more efficient but often noisier but this doesn't matter on modern digital equipment as it's not so susceptible. 

 

I hope you can get this right, we're rolling out Coleco RGB mods for PAL and NTSC consoles soon and if there's any picture noise something like an OSSC is bound to show it up. Fingers crossed for you

[Spector]

I've had all sorts of hassle in the last couple weeks with colecovision power supplies, so if I could buy a new one it would be great. I'm interested as well.

[ColecoJoe]

Worst case scenario ... use an arcade power supply:

 

[EvilDragon17]

Sorry for the late reply, but I got good news indeed!

 

We improved the design adding a proper 5V voltage stabilisator and now all USB power supplies (even cheap ones) work properly.

This also protects the Colecovision from broken USB power supplies (as it limits the input power to 5V).

 

New prototypes have been built end of last week.

I've got 10 of them (only PCBs yet, we'll get the cases for them soon), and I'll send one out to the original tester and a few reviewers.

 

If there is anyone here who has multiple Colecovision and / or accessories, please contact me via PM. I'd like to send out another prototype for testing as well

[DadsGlasses]

I cant wait to get my hands on one of these. Ive got multiple ColecoVision consoles and accessories waiting for these!

Sorry for the late reply, but I got good news indeed!
 
We improved the design adding a proper 5V voltage stabilisator and now all USB power supplies (even cheap ones) work properly.
This also protects the Colecovision from broken USB power supplies (as it limits the input power to 5V).
 
New prototypes have been built end of last week.
I've got 10 of them (only PCBs yet, we'll get the cases for them soon), and I'll send one out to the original tester and a few reviewers.
 
If there is anyone here who has multiple Colecovision and / or accessories, please contact me via PM. I'd like to send out another prototype for testing as well

[cybercylon]

Thank you for the update. Really looking forward to this.

[wongojack]

I'm planning on ordering one of these as well - looking forward to general availability

[Lord Helmet]

Yep. Count me in for one as well.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[EvilDragon17]

Almost done, the PCBs are already in the hands of some from the community here and so far work fine

I'll finish up the case and then it's time for mass production

[bobstoned]

Fantastic news Michael,

 

I don't know how you make the time for this, your job, the Pyra and your shop!

 

I'd definitely like to purchase 2 of these, both of my original Colecovision PSUs are suffering. (usual video display issues)

 

I still use the original iControlPad gamepad, which I modified to use with a HTC desire (I believe I posted a photo of it to the forum many years ago)

 

I have been silently following the Pyra project for some time as well. I heartily recommend anyone who's not familiar with the Pyra handheld computer, to go check out the news updates in the Pyra forum. It shows a fascinating history of what it takes for a group of enthusiasts to undertake the immense challenge of creating a cutting edge hardware product without the backing of a major company. It's also a prime example of what open communication is all about and they are not shy about reporting any bad news as well. Be honest, keep people regularly informed and most people are very tolerant of setbacks and delays.

Edited by bobstoned, Sun May 20, 2018 8:35 AM.

[bobstoned]

I'm obviously quite late to the party with this one, but I only randomly found out about this device, whilst coming across, again late, to the sh*tstorm that  blew up between the Coleco/Colecovision trademark trolls and the Colecovision retro community, namely OpCode games, CollectorVision, the Facebook fan site and others.

 

That thread, here on AtariAge, is some addictive sauce, I can tell you. I just read through most of it over the last week, can't believe what I've been reading, those Coleco trolls just alienated literally everyone in the home brew community and the largest Colecovision fan site on the web. And not long after that Coleco Chameleon debacle....

 

The most disturbing fact I came across, is that they seemed to have claimed ownership of the trademarks by citing Ben Heck's one-off Colecovision portable as evidence of commercial use of the trademark. Apparently they contacted Ben and seemed to have duped him into believing they already held the trademark and he even gave them the vector file to his custom logo used on the device. What's tragic about this is that once these people get hold of these rights, legal recourse to right the wrong is heavily weighted against the little man and companies with more financial resources (namely lawyers).

I've been appalled at how OpCode games have been treated, Eduardo's Super Game Module and the ported games are a legendary feat for someone doing this in their spare time for little to no financial reward. I don't blame him for refusing to pay them anything. Everyone has just being removing the Colecovision logo off their boxes and web sites.... good on you, don't feed the troll.

 

Ben Heck himself actually commented in the thread about the deception here: 
http://atariage.com/...ites/?p=3778557

Edited by bobstoned, Sun May 20, 2018 1:11 PM.