newcoleco

Once upon a time, more than a decade ago, a collection of sounds and music of various ColecoVision released games was put together with the best sound chip simulator of the time I've coded in Java, better than any emulator back then. https://wayback.archive.org/web/20090831111436/http://www.geocities.com:80/newcoleco/soundbank/os7_en.html Here's an archive of that web page with files. Download: soundbank.zip Unzip everything in a single folder, unzip the soundbanks, but do not unzip the .gz files. Then execute either the CVBANK.JAR or the CVBANK.EXE file. Enjoy!

Undertale - Muffet Song - Spider Dance STORY I really like this music and wanted to create a ColecoVision version of it. So I took a day listening to the original music and multiple covers including the great acapella version by Smooth McGroove. I took a day to decide the way I wanted my version to sound like and coded the first 30 seconds, added the valid cartridge header and very simple needed routines to work properly. DOWNLOAD Muffet Spider Dance Demo (30 seconds loop) SRC+ROM: cvmuffetdemo.zip

My project folder available here: http://atariage.com/forums/topic/279315-music-colecovision-ducktales-1987/ Have fun!

DUCKTALES 1987 THEME SONG (All-in-one archive) : DUKETALES1987.zip This archive contains the Ducktales theme song I've composed a few days ago. This archive is also updated to contain both PAL and NTSC versions, technically making it sounds just fine regardless if you are using the NTSC or PAL ColecoVision game system. WARNING! The music may play at the wrong speed if you are using a modded ColecoVision or an emulator. For example, setting 50Hz on BlueMSX but still using the NTSC ColecoVision BIOS results into a slower theme song. If you are curious, unzip everything in a single folder, modify one of the ASM source files, and double-click the "compile.bat" file to generate a new ROM file (if the modification is valid). Anyway, enjoy the new ROM file with all the files to make it. PS.: I know, I've called the project DUKETALES on my computer... why? I don't know, I just did it that way.

If it helps, the source code of this music will be (if not already) in the Programming section.

Done in a day, less than 4K, enjoy! Download ROM : ducktales.zip

True, I haven't specifically said "public domain". And I'm actually happy that people do enjoy my games. Does it excuse misleading others by using terms like rare and prototype? I'm not convinced that anything can be done for these eBay auctions of cartridges never officially released... other than point out when it's wrong, misleading... to me, it's a question of ethics, not a legal question... or I'm just being too passive and naive about the whole situation.

Because, as far as I know, it is not a violation of copyrights to make your own copies of a game released in the public domain for personal use. What is not right is calling it an official release or a prototype which is misleading and may constitute a fraud.

Unless you run this game NIM or download the file from a compilation of CV games or simply Google it, you will never know the game was programmed by Daniel Bienvenu just by looking at the cartridge shown in this eBay auction. This observation discards any argument like " I'm just a reseller " to claim some kind of innocence, ignorance... it doesn't justify using words like RARE and PROTOTYPE which are clearly meant to exploit others. My opinion, seeing these auctions, I suggest adding this guy's username in a blacklist.

NIM is one of my first CV projects, very simple mini-game. You can look it up, the ROM file is surely available everywhere. I've never made or tell anyone (as far as I know) to make cartridges of NIM. So yeah... not a prototype, just a simple game I've coded way before the ColecoVision scene even started to be organized with forums and stuff. At least my name is mentioned to make things easy to look up online and see what is this game.

Sounds reasonable to me.

It's surely a good advice. Sad that many do fall for "rare prototypes" claims, someone should do a PSA, perhaps in a video format, tell his story and show pictures... but I do wonder who has the time and capability to do that.

Not only my work is affected by this, but I sure released more ROM files than others that can be used like that; no need for bank switching complex PCBs, I'm surprised to not see yet cartridges of the hacks I've made to play Slither and Destructor with the joystick and the mention rare prototypes. Anyway, in the case of this seller and the link to eBay you provided, I do recognize many of the hacks and codes I've made approximately 20 years... all this time passed already, I'm a dinosaur. In the none hacks section, I see Nim (a very basic mathematical game) and Happy Halloween (my first version of Jeepers Creepers that I wasn't fully happy about and waited years to come back on the project and fix to my liking). I've seen worse, in the hundreds, and nothing much could be done except like now inform people of the fraudulent activity. I'm glad you guys had the good instinct to talk about it. I'm unhappy about all the trouble my stuff seems to cause, but what can I do? The big drama featuring some of my games on the Facebook fan page still haunt me today, and none of us could have predicted this mess. I've not heard the name Sean Kelley for a long time, you guys know if he is ok? I've tried to send him an email but it seems my contact info is obsolete. You may be right about the origin of the PCB. As I remember, the PCBs Sean made for me and some others were green, thick and the indentation not quite right, forcing to cut a little bit of plastic inside to fit in. Recycling PCBs isn't hard to do, just replace the ROM chip with new data and voilà! I know John Dondzila was recycling PCBs like the one inside the Purple Dinosaur Massacre I've got from him, in an Activision cartridge and the PCB inside modified by adding a wire. * Warning * I am not accusing John Dondzila of any illegal activity, I just mention this as a fun fact.

I love a happy ending. It's not the first time we have seen something like this on eBay. And this one reason why many homebrewers prefer to not release their stuff as public domain, or release only a demo. You know me, I'm a rare exception because I do release my stuff including music, games, source codes, documents, tools, and more. I'm sorry but I can't control anything once it's released, and I naively think it's a good thing, not thinking that one day it's gonna be used to exploit others. I don't know how many people got exploited by stuff I've released in the public domain, and maybe, just maybe, this seller simply owned these carts he got from someone else, who knows. Anyway, sorry again and I hope to hear better news next time regarding my stuff. 8-)

Mister Edward Bulman was a computer scientist who worked at Laval University, in Quebec city. Before my time, he was part of the effort to implement de computer system for the scientific library using a system of punch cards, that he invented, in a time computers were the size of a room with blinking light bulbs. When I was a student, I didn't know Mister Bulman yet, but I sure noticed all the punch cards in every book in the science library. Then my friends told me about Mister Bulman because they had his course with topics like how information is encoded, different data structures, and how even it's transmitted with the different layers and protocols involved. Because he talked every year about his punch cards system, every student taking his course knew the story and somehow became part of students discussions. I never had his course, but I sure heard about him, so it became a character for me, and that triggered my imagination. So, I started to put his name in various things I was doing back then including a ROM hack of Jumpman Junior for the ColecoVision game system: replacing JUMPMAN by JBULMAN, put my name in the copyrights to clearly show it's a fake, and changed slightly the graphics but none of the levels.

https://web.archive.org/web/19980215135205/http://wwwbacc.ift.ulaval.ca:80/~bienvend/colem.html Seeing these screenshots put me back in time. It's just slightly different graphics, the game is exactly the same and the ROM dump of Jumpman Junior made during that time and made available I believe through an FTP access from the same server as the website ColEm by Marat was hosted. I can give you the context of why BULMAN if you insist, I've told ColecoGamer already. And no, I've not done any cartridges with any of my hacks. I've never prohibited anyone to do it; I can't legally force anyone not to do it anyway. I share my stuff freely for you guys to enjoy, I'm sorry some people decide to abuse and get money from you by saying "rare prototype".

My Satefy Dance... at least what I've done so far with it.

I've found a disturbingly funny text-to-speech and C64 version of the Safety Dance. So the SID version might be under an unusual name or simply composed and never shared by this guy.

A friend gave me a list of more than a dozen songs, just a sample here with years, some fit my criteria of 1982-83 : 1982 - Billy Idol - White Wedding 1982 - Eddy Grant - Electric Avenue 1982 - Michael Jackson - Beat It 1982 - Michael Jackson - Billie Jean 1982 - The Clash - Should I Stay or Should I Go 1983 - Irene Cara - What A Feeling 1983 - The Fixx - One Thing Leads To Another 1983 - Motley Crue - Looks That Kill 1983 - Men at Work - It's a mistake 1984 - Madonna - Borderline 1984 - Madonna - Like a Virgin 1984 - The Cars - Magic 1984 - Eddy Grant - Romancing the Stone 1984 - Ray Parker Jr - Ghostbusters 1985 - Madonna - Material Girl 1985 - Simple Minds - Don't You (Forget About Me) 1987 - Motley Crue - Girls Girls Girls

How about not caring about the letters during the game? Just go with the numbers for the score and tiny icons for lives and grenades. You can upload the characters set when it's time to show the cut-scenes and the high-score screen.

The way I've selected Africa by Toto was by searching the Greatest Hits of 1982. The number of views on Youtube for the song Africa released in September 1982 is very high, but the song isn't present in the Greatest Hits of 1982, but in the one in 1983, which surprised me. Anyway, the list of Greatest Hits included the obvious "Survivor - Eye of the Tiger", but also a whole bunch of songs that could have been interesting to Coleco-fy. I'm curious what could be your picks of 1982 Hits. I've set a poll but couldn't include all songs in it. Since I don't think I can compose any song with the ColecoVision sound chip, I'm asking you to pick several of your favorites in the poll.

I get messages asking how do I compose music for the ColecoVision. I hope this will answer your questions. SCREENSHOTS The only softwares I'm using to compose music for years now. VIDEO The music playing on BlueMSX at 50Hz clock And that's it. I'm not using any music tool nor a midi keyboard which I would like to use; I use my imagination and start coding with time and dedication, trials and errors. STORY TIME Late April 2018 With the positive comments received about my CV Commando music-box, and not yet decided about a game project to do, I wanted to compose another CV song during the last week of April. After watching multiple videos of beloved 80s music, and some videos about a SNES ROM hack called GrandPooBear World filled with music, I've finally selected Africa by Toto. I was a bit afraid to not be able to make it sounds good after hearing the Commodore 64 version I've found that I didn't like much, but the song repeats enough and uses an interesting rhythm variation that I love composing with a drum beat (usually when we *clap* our hands) at every 3/4 per bar (measure), like in Commando and many other songs I've composed so far. April 28, 2018 I went babysitting to help a friend who desperately needed someone for an hour or two. On my way back home, I've stopped at a coffee shop to compose my vision of the ColecoVision version of this music. After many hours calculating and tweaking what each sound channel should do to get a pretty good version of the chorus part, and probably looking like a weirdo moving my hands in the air to the music nobody was hearing, I've decided to stop there, send an email, and let my ears relax. My calculations surprised me to see that power of 2s cycles per note were ideal for the PAL version and so I've decided to go with it. FILE: toto-20180428.zip April 29, 2018 Encouraged by what I've started, I've composed the music intro (riff part) which added the xylophone instrument and a reverb voice effect. But hearing both parts back to back felt a bit off. After some tweaking by reducing the duration of the drum sounds to give more time for the bass notes, both parts sounded finally great together (uniformity of the rhythm). Then I got a call; my friend needed my help again. Back home, I've composed a verse by using the same trick as in Time Pilot by playing the same note on 2 channels but slightly different to get almost the same effect as singing on multiple tracks. (save) FILE: toto-20180429.zip April 30, 2018 After dinner, I've started to compose pretty much everything else which added the flute (recorder) instrument, with the help of some music sheets. I've also tweaked the high pitched notes in the chorus part to not be that loud compared to the rest of the song. I had to stop before completing the solo part; my eyes were redder than ever, it was time to sleep. As a surprise and email test, I've sent this file to some Coleco homebrewers and fans; got a bunch of emails bouncing back but some reached destination. FILE: toto-20180430.zip May 1st, 2018 At lunchtime, I took a moment to complete the solo. Finally! Time to share it online! I've created this post on AtariAge and sent a message on Twitter about it. (save) FILE: toto-20180501.zip Not bad, isn't it? I've even muted one of the 3 tones channels to use its frequency to play bass notes on the noise channel. And keep in mind the sound chip has fewer possibilities than many other sound chips of the time, no triangle wave, no PCM sample, nothing. Simulated instruments: drum *clap*, maraca, bass, keyboard, guitar, flutes, xylophone, voice, chorus. Share and Comment :-)

You know, after reading all our messages here, I've noticed that we, the ColecoVision homebrewers, with great talent, we tried already, one way or another, to do a ColecoVision version of Commando, and yet there's no game. For me, it was composing the music based on the Rob Hubbard version that I love. And, I've completed the music-box with the high-score music, even a level intro music, and more sound effects. The complete set of sounds I've made is richer than the original C64 version and it made me dream of seeing the game done... but I've not tried anything visual yet. (Copied from Programming section) CV Commando 4 music + 7 sound effects: commando-musicbox-2018-revK.zip

hi everyone! I'm glad you decided to start a debate about a ColecoVision version of Commando. It's nice to see fans reacting to project ideas. I will try to be brief. I dislike not seeing the enemies when their sprites vanish because there are too many on screen. So, for a long time, I couldn't imagine a good compromise seeing the arcade footage and how many moving things are there at the same time. I envisaged the graphics to simulate a second color for the player's sprite using characters, make all bullets characters (more than one character to still get some flexibility where the bullets can be), a 4 pixels scrolling (screen) and movement (player), and that's about it. This idea doesn't solve the vanishing enemies problem during a flood of enemies (like at the end of a level) but resolve some vanishing problems by avoiding using sprites for bullets. Seeing that even the Commodore 64 version got an upgrade, why not give it a try and make our ColecoVision version? If you want my music and sounds inspired by Rob Hubbard's chiptune style, check this link: https://atariage.com/forums/topic/276060-what-is-this-music-i-am-working-on/ Let's at least dream about it, maybe one day it will be a reality! Regards, NewColeco

Dear ColecoVision friends, I'm happy the music and sounds I've composed made you dream and very enthusiast. By my own fault of sharing freely what I do, I've caused a hype. That hype is now amplified and I don't know what to do about it. These f18a graphics look too good to be true, but I trust your word. All I imagined so far to be possible CV graphics for this game is no way near what is shared here. I've never said I would make this a game project but I was tempted to do a prototype. I'm having anxiety by fear to disappoint due to the expectation; why I've done this to myself? I see only one solution for my sanity and it's to do whatever I want but in secret, most probably a different game. To everyone: Use my sound files if you want, just think of me when you do. To Gerry: It's not your fault, and thanks for sharing. You have a good idea about how to code it. I wish you good luck. Best regards, NewColeco I encourage you to give it a try