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else

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Posts posted by else

  1. Posted

    But if you study the CV expansion port carefully, you will notice that it does have more lines than both the Adam or the Super Game Module used or would have used in fact.

     

    I really wouldn't read too much in to this. I design hardware for a living and lots of times we will design in extra stuff like this "just in case", with no immediate intended use in mind. Perhaps Coleco just had some extra space on the connector and thought "what the heck", we'll throw these here signals on it...

  11. Posted

    I seem to recall this bug as well. I think the game lets you save three games, so the best thing to do is choose a different on each time. That way if the save doesn't work, you don't lose everything -- you can just start with one of the other saved games.

  13. Posted

    Perhaps the secret to MS-DOS's success is that it's killer app wasn't a game, but VisiCalc.

     

    Well, if that were true Apple should be #1 today since VisiCalc first appeared on the Apple II. I believe the Apple II had it at least a couple of years before it appeared on the PC....

     

    I think it has more to do with the fact that MS-DOS ran on IBM hardware. And the famous mentality back then was that "nobody ever got fired for buying IBM".

  20. Posted

    The (now) 5200 version has all four screens, much sharper graphics, intermissions, and no flicker. When you smash a barrel, it "issolves" like in the arcade, on the CV it just...disappears. The flame monsters look like flame monsters on the 5200/800 version, where on the CV they look like the same ones on the 2600 version for goodness sake.

     

    You too are apparently unaware that a Coleco prototype of Donkey Kong has been found that fixes all of the issues you point out (well, maybe not the flicker). So all these issues were not a limitation of the Colecovision itself.

     

    Coleco cut corners with the released version of Donkey Kong, either to (a) go with a smaller ROM to save money, (b) meet a rushed deadline, or © lazy programming.

     

    Same goes for Smurf. I'm sure it could have been a scrolling game rather than a screen-based game. It wasn't, either due to rushed or lazy programming, in my opinion.

  21. Posted

    The (now) 5200 version has all four screens, much sharper graphics, intermissions, and no flicker. When you smash a barrel, it "issolves" like in the arcade, on the CV it just...disappears. The flame monsters look like flame monsters on the 5200/800 version, where on the CV they look like the same ones on the 2600 version for goodness sake.

     

    You too are apparently unaware that a Coleco prototype of Donkey Kong has been found that fixes all of the issues you point out (well, maybe not the flicker). So all these issues were not a limitation of the Colecovision itself.

     

    Coleco cut corners with the released version of Donkey Kong, either to (a) go with a smaller ROM to save money, (b) meet a rushed deadline, or © lazy programming.

     

    Same goes for Smurf. I'm sure it could have been a scrolling game rather than a screen-based game. It wasn't, either due to rushed or lazy programming, in my opinion.

  22. Posted

    Good question, and something I've been wrestling over lately myself. I've got a bunch of rare-ish type stuff, but I now have two very small kids so I really don't have much time to play games any more. I'm thinking about dumping things such as my Intellivision collection and just keep my Atari and Coleco collections, etc. I've already unloaded most of my Apple II collection.

     

    Of course, economic theory would tell you you should be indifferent (if you don't let your emotions cloud your judgement), since the price you paid for it reflected the optimal efficient market value already. In other words, it is a wash. Well, that's what the theory says -- of course, markets aren't always efficient....

     

    You also have to consider that with something physical you run the risk of it getting damaged while in your possession (your water heater breaks and your basement floods, for example). If you took the money and put it in a mutual fund such as the Vanguard 500, you should be pretty immune to losing your money (the average market return over the last 60 years is around 12%).

     

    Anyhow, to steal the George Carlin line -- "these are the things I think about when I'm home alone and the TV is broke" :)

  25. Posted

    Do joysticks three and four work on this thing? I assume they must and the extra hardware must determine to whether to send paddle or joystick inputs to the TIA and RIOT chips. But the Atari would need a second TIA and RIOT chip to handle extra joysticks unless the signals were multiplexed with joysticks one and two.

     

    I always assumed that paddles three and four work (just like on a regular 2600), while joysticks three and four do not (they are unwired).

     

    Also, I'm not sure what extra hardware you are refering to. There is a switch on the top that selects joysticks or paddles. I think this is the only extra hardware there is.

     

    You seem to be saying that the 2800 is some sort of "super 2600". It has always been my understanding that it is merely an 2600 in a new case with a slight reconfiguration of the joystick/paddle wiring using a switch.

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