+atari2600land Posted May 6, 2017 Share Posted May 6, 2017 As I wait for my Colecovision to come back, one thing has been intriguing me: Colecovision homebrews. But then I was reading and saw this thing about a SGM, which I don't have. So can I even play the homebrews without a SGM or do I need one? There should be homebrews made for people who don't have a SGM. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kamshaft Posted May 6, 2017 Share Posted May 6, 2017 Some need it and some don't Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
artrag Posted May 6, 2017 Share Posted May 6, 2017 All msx ports need sgm to work Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hannacek Posted May 6, 2017 Share Posted May 6, 2017 (edited) The SGM was supposed to be released by Coleco back in the day, but it was cancelled when the ColecoVision was discontinued (or maybe it was cancelled for other reasons). One of the home brew companies paid the current license holder of the Coleco brand for the rights to call it an official Coleco product. I'm not sure how close it actually is to what Coleco would have made back in the day, but the goal was to make what the SGM would have been. A game is going to say it requires the SGM. If the games doesn't say anything about the SGM, they it doesn't require it. Edited May 6, 2017 by Hannacek Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jblenkle Posted May 6, 2017 Share Posted May 6, 2017 Fourth run of SGMs is coming up soon...keep watch and order one then you'll be set! As I wait for my Colecovision to come back, one thing has been intriguing me: Colecovision homebrews. But then I was reading and saw this thing about a SGM, which I don't have. So can I even play the homebrews without a SGM or do I need one? There should be homebrews made for people who don't have a SGM. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PkK Posted May 7, 2017 Share Posted May 7, 2017 Most homebrew games don't need the SGM. None of my games needs it. Philipp Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
youki Posted May 7, 2017 Share Posted May 7, 2017 (edited) Most ( if not all ) Colecovision 's Exclusive Homebrew works without SGM. Other are mostly MSX roms hacked to run on Colecovision , these one need SGM. None of my games requires the SGM. Ghost'n Zombies Smurf Challenge The way of Exploding Foot GameSter 81 the video game Battle of Hoth Knight'n More The following ones at the ones where i just helped to do the graphism but coded by Bfg. Puzzli Pang / Buster Bros Bomb Jack Look on website like www.gooddealgames.com , Teampixelboy or Collectorvision when the game need the SGM there is a special logo on the box. Few game like Mecha 8 and Mecha 9 works also without SGM but if the SGM is present the sound will be enhanced. Edited May 7, 2017 by youki 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LutzfromOz Posted July 21, 2017 Share Posted July 21, 2017 late to the discussion, but I read somewhere when sgm was proposed in the colecos lifespan that a super version of Turbo was planned, I would love to know if this is planned for the current sgm available atm Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TPR Posted July 21, 2017 Share Posted July 21, 2017 Here is the current list of games that have been made for the SGM: Opcode Games Bosconian Donkey Kong Arcade (In Dvelopment) Gradius Lady Bug Arcade (In Dvelopment) Pac-Man Collection Arcade (In Dvelopment) Penguin Adventure Space Invaders Collection Arcade (In Dvelopment) Tank Battalion Warp & Warp Team Pixelboy Arcomage (In Development) Buck Rogers Super Game Caos Begins Caverns of Titan Children of the Night (In Development) Cold Blood Danger Tower Deep Dungeon Adventure Dragon's Lair Gauntlet (In Development) Ghostbusters (In Development) Heroes Arena J.E.T.P.A.C. King & Balloon (In Development) King's Valley Knight Lore Knightmare Majikzao Mappy Mecha-8 Mecha-9 Operation Wolf QBIQS (In Development) Rally-X Secret of the Moai (In Development) Shmup! Shouganai Space Shuttle: A Journey Into Space (In Development) Spelunker Stray Cat Subroc Super Game Super Pac-Man The Goonies The Stone of Wisdom Thexder Traffic Jam TwinBee Txupinazo! Uridium (In Development) Wizard of Wor (In Development) Zaxxon Super Game Zombie Incident (In Development) CollectorVision Comic Bakery Galaga Hole In One Jumpland Kung Fu Master Rollerball SASA Star Soldier Zanac Personally I think that's an incredible collection of titles, many of which are still available if you directly contact the publisher, or if they are not available right now will probably have another run made at some point in the near future. I would not wait on ordering an SGM though as today is the final day of pre-orders. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+nanochess Posted July 21, 2017 Share Posted July 21, 2017 As Youki pointed out correctly. All of my games work without SGM, but some like Mecha-8 and Mecha-9 will put out enhanced sound if the SGM is present. Edit: except some ports I've made for the budget games line of Team Pixelboy. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kiwi Posted July 22, 2017 Share Posted July 22, 2017 I did remember that Comic Bakery can be played without SGM. Like Mecha 8 and 9, it'll play the SGM sound chip instead of the Colecovision's sound chip if SGM is present. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mr_me Posted July 24, 2017 Share Posted July 24, 2017 (edited) The SGM was supposed to be released by Coleco back in the day, but it was cancelled when the ColecoVision was discontinued (or maybe it was cancelled for other reasons). One of the home brew companies paid the current license holder of the Coleco brand for the rights to call it an official Coleco product. I'm not sure how close it actually is to what Coleco would have made back in the day, but the goal was to make what the SGM would have been. A game is going to say it requires the SGM. If the games doesn't say anything about the SGM, they it doesn't require it. The SGM that Coleco created in 1983 was essentially a tape drive to support large capacity games upto 128KB [super games]. The largest ROM cartridges at the time were only around 16K or 24K so parts of games sometimes had to be cut out to fit. This was not a problem with tape and a version of Donkey Kong was made on tape with all screens and features. Games on tape had to be loaded to RAM for execution so the SGM included RAM said to be 30KB (Coleco Vision had less than 1KB useable RAM). Coleco cancelled the SGM in 1983 likely because the Exatron tape drives were unreliable. The Adam computer expansion technically did what the SGM promised, and more, although in a much bulkier package and using a different tape drive technology. Games made for the SGM were sold as Adam digital data packs (tape). Today, ROM cartridge technology allows for relatively large storage capacity as well as permanently storing user data so it can do what the old tape drives did. [Cartridges can also include RAM.] The new SGM made by Opcode does add RAM but also adds a different sound processor that was popular with other video games in the 1980s, helping with compatibility. Edited July 24, 2017 by mr_me 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zonie Posted July 26, 2017 Share Posted July 26, 2017 Didn't know that about the Adam having different tape drives than the SGM. We always thought they were the same. Also thought in the age of the floppy disk (5.25) why a tape? High speed tape drive in a cassette type housing seemed like a disaster waiting to happen, which apparently did... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mr_me Posted July 26, 2017 Share Posted July 26, 2017 How much did floppy disk drives cost in 1983? I thought they were very expensive. Trying to use a new tape drive tech rather than something proven was risky. The old coleco SGM was never released. The Adam expansion module that plugs into the coleco vision is the same thing as the standalone Adam computer and has the same tape drive. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bill Loguidice Posted July 26, 2017 Share Posted July 26, 2017 Didn't know that about the Adam having different tape drives than the SGM. We always thought they were the same. Also thought in the age of the floppy disk (5.25) why a tape? High speed tape drive in a cassette type housing seemed like a disaster waiting to happen, which apparently did... Yeah, as mr_me stated, since the goal with the Adam was to have a 100% complete system for the time (sans a TV), it would have been impractical to have a disk drive, making it closer to a $1000 system than a $500 system. While I agree it would have solved a lot of the Adam's problems, the Super Games would also likely have to have been scaled back a bit since the Adam's disk format was lower capacity than the tape format. Frankly, despite the noise of the spinning mechanism, if the tapes were more reliable and less prone to failure, it wouldn't have necessarily been a bad setup. In retrospect though, even though it's unlikely anyone would have been able to release a low end system sales competitive with the C-64 by that time, it might have served the Adam's market longevity better to have been released as a modular system without the insanely large printer bundled in. It was obviously a good printer for the time (despite the lack of true graphical capabilities), but obviously having that be the centerpiece of the system (power supply and all) was clumsy design at best. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flojomojo Posted July 26, 2017 Share Posted July 26, 2017 Reminder: in 1983 bucks... $500 would be like $1,230 today $1,000 would be like $2,460 today That's too much for a toy computer in any era. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bill Loguidice Posted July 26, 2017 Share Posted July 26, 2017 Reminder: in 1983 bucks... $500 would be like $1,230 today $1,000 would be like $2,460 today That's too much for a toy computer in any era. Disregarding our knowledge of the known early bugs and failure rates, if Coleco was able to keep the Adam at its intended price, it would have been a fair deal. Unfortunately, the price actually went up after launch, and that, combined with the aforementioned issues pretty much sealed its fate. Again, in retrospect it's clear that it almost certainly wouldn't have stood a chance to hinder the C-64's dominance in the low end even with a better overall execution, but it certainly might have lasted longer, potentially keeping the ColecoVision afloat with it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zonie Posted July 26, 2017 Share Posted July 26, 2017 (edited) Well, the 1541 for the C64 was "only" $259 (at least at Target) so even though it cost more than the computer (when the 64's were selling for ~$179, it was a luxury, but relatively cheap compaerd to an Apple or IBM equivalent. I would think that the Adam would have done better if: 1. The printer was optional, and the machine could use any Centronics type printer (which the C64 and Atari computers could NOT do without an adapter) 2. The power supply was NOT in the printer3. A single disk drive was used instead of TWO tape drives... (It had two, did it not? or was the second one an empty space for an optional one)Hindsight? No. It was what we all were saying back in 1983. That would have kept it at $500. Edited July 26, 2017 by Zonie Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flojomojo Posted July 26, 2017 Share Posted July 26, 2017 Sounds like the Kinect dilemma ... if you bundle it in, the whole thing costs more, but you can guarantee that every user has the same set of hardware, and design your software around it. Seems like Adam and Xbone arrived in the same place eventually. UNBUNDLE OR DIE just like what I've been telling the cable company Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bill Loguidice Posted July 26, 2017 Share Posted July 26, 2017 Well, the 1541 for the C64 was "only" $259 (at least at Target) so even though it cost more than the computer (when the 64's were selling for ~$179, it was a luxury, but relatively cheap compaerd to an Apple or IBM equivalent. I would think that the Adam would have done better if: 1. The printer was optional, and the machine could use any Centronics type printer (which the C64 and Atari computers could NOT do without an adapter) 2. The power supply was NOT in the printer 3. A single disk drive was used instead of TWO tape drives... (It had two, did it not? or was the second one an empty space for an optional one) Hindsight? No. It was what we all were saying back in 1983. That would have kept it at $500. The Adam came with one tape drive and an empty bay for a second. Again, though, Coleco ultimately couldn't hit their $500 target with a single tape drive. They certainly couldn't have hit it by replacing that single tape drive with a single disk drive. Commodore really was the only company who could so tightly and accurately constrain costs because they owned most of the supply chain for their key components. It's also important to keep in mind that while tape-based systems were on the decline and on their way out in North America upon the Adam's release, they were still a big market in other worldwide territories - particularly Europe - for several more years to come. So it was not entirely misguided of Coleco to try that approach, particularly with a high speed model. The main failing was the unreliability of it all. Certainly when Coleco did release their disk drive, it was competitive in most ways, being quite speedy, etc. The only minor letdown was its average storage capacity per disk, but that really wasn't a big deal at the time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NIAD Posted July 26, 2017 Share Posted July 26, 2017 Didn't know that about the Adam having different tape drives than the SGM. We always thought they were the same. Also thought in the age of the floppy disk (5.25) why a tape? High speed tape drive in a cassette type housing seemed like a disaster waiting to happen, which apparently did... The original Tape Drive for the ADAM was to be the Entrepo Drive that was also being used in the SGM design. So in essence, the ADAM was not the end of the SGM seeing as Coleco was developing all these hardware items at about the same time... with the SGM getting a head start. Coleco's plan was to release the SGM as planned for the gaming market and then follow that up with the ADAM (Stand-Alone and Exp. Mod. versions), but all the difficulties they had with the Entrepo Drive made them ultimately nix the SGM and concentrate on a new Tape Drive solution for the ADAM. Software wise, programmers probably would have included a test routine to see what hardware was being used and if the ADAM Computer was required, the program would error out. If the software was compatible with the SGM and ADAM, it would go on it's merry was and load. While I agree it would have solved a lot of the Adam's problems, the Super Games would also likely have to have been scaled back a bit since the Adam's disk format was lower capacity than the tape format. Yes, there is a difference in storage size between the Digital Data Packs (256K) compared to the 5 1/4 F.D.D. (160K), but ALL of the Super Games and other entertainment software developed and released for the ADAM by Coleco was under 160K in size and even much smaller. The reason you can't copy a game like Buck Rogers - Super Game from DDP to Disk is the way the programmers positioned the program on specific ranges of blocks on the DDP with large unused ranges of blocks in order to make seek and load times faster. Then block load routines are used instead of file loading. Walters Software painstakingly disassembled all the Super Games and rewrote the load routines to squeeze everything down to fit on a 160K disk. As far as Coleco going with a Single-Sided F.D.D., this was another cost saving measure for them, not for the buyer. They could have used Double-Sided mechanics and used either a 320K or industry standard 360K format, but choose poorly again. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
atarilovesyou Posted July 27, 2017 Share Posted July 27, 2017 Fourth run of SGMs is coming up soon...keep watch and order one then you'll be set! You mean they actually shipped and completed the 2nd and 3rd runs for this? So much so that there's a 4th run? I think Mulder said it best: "I WANT TO BELIEVE" Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NIAD Posted July 27, 2017 Share Posted July 27, 2017 You mean they actually shipped and completed the 2nd and 3rd runs for this? So much so that there's a 4th run? I think Mulder said it best: "I WANT TO BELIEVE" Just BELIEVE... it really happened!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
atarilovesyou Posted July 28, 2017 Share Posted July 28, 2017 Just BELIEVE... it really happened!!! Honestly though...the entire first three runs shipped to everybody who ordered one? If that's the case, and only if that's the case...I may have to take a look at this fourth run. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CrazyBoss Posted July 28, 2017 Share Posted July 28, 2017 Comic Bakery dont need SGM to run, but will use the AY sound if present. If no SGM it play sound using the CV build in Sound Processor SuperPacman will run on ADAM without SGM or Colecovision with SGM (Or if there is a Memory Card for ColecoVision make the game think its an adam?) Telebunny is a MSX conversion, but will still run without SGM Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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