newcoleco

I can't decide for you, but I'm using an eprom burner (with usb cable) available at Batronix web site. My eprom burner (made by Batronix) works great with Windows 98SE, XP and Vista. Batronix offer different models, maybe one of them will be not too expensive and do all you want and more.

I've started a video yesterday with the informations from the net and my personal experience about the Coleco homebrew scene. I have some pictures and dates for almost all the homebrew games released. This video is my personal view of the subject and I'm a human, my goal is to share my own passion and experience on the subject. The video is almost complete. I need to adjust timing and add some speech, then I will post my video on Youtube. Some details may be wrong, but I think the essentialelements are there. I don't mention the release of prototypes like the Atarisoft games because I do not consider them as homebrew developments. The collective memory will help to trace all the developments and, why not, do a timeline. In fact, a timeline should be done before we all forgot the past 10-15 years. It's my opinion. URL : http://www.youtube.com/newcoleco ** ADD ** Just to mention that I saw Ole's ColecoVision blog at www.colecovision.dk and it was a surprise even for me to see in the homebrew section all these names I never heard before. Continue your good work! ** ADD ** There it is, a too short video about my ColecoVision passion

Continue to keep us informed about all the OpCode and your personal projects.

Well, for those who didn't contacted me yet, I can't no longer take new orders, you must contact Dale Wick by using his hotmail email address, that starts exactly with dalemwick, just before the usual stuff for an email hotmail address (I hope no bot understand the message) and use an appropriate mail object, nothing about things a spam filter may not let pass. For those who still don't know who is Dale Wick, he's one of the adam computer owner who makes new software for this computer and lately for the coleco game console as well, including minigames. I suggest you to talk to him directly because he is making the cartridges... and also you will probably contact him again later this year if the rumor about a new coleco game he's making based on a novel is true. (it's just a teaser because I know it's true, but it's better to let him decide when he will release the game)

Dale Wick is the webmaster of the adamcon.org web site. He will tell us how to buy a cartridge as soon as it will be possible. Actually, I will bring 6 cartridges with me, 1 for me, 1 for guy foster, and 4 extra ones.

Yes, Dale is actually the disttributor and seller of these cartridges. I give him all the plastic casings and eprom chips I still had, so I will need a publisher to release my games in the future. I really like these cv minigames, we can call them games if you prefer. And I like the fact they can coexist in a regular 32K cartridge.

June 21, around midnight, the first Minigames cartridges were assembled (well, we tried but we got the wrong screws). June 22, during the presentation I did about the minigames cartridge we did, we played the games with Coleco Adam computer. And after lunch, I uploaded the rom file to make you all play the games too. http://newcoleco.dev-fr.org/ Actually, I will not be able to bring many cartridges with me, so you will have to deal with Dale Wick to buy a cartridge if you want to... Reminder : the cartridges are all signed by the 3 programmers.

After the convention, I assume not all the cartridges will be done, because soldering 40 cartridges takes more time than a night, and I want to be awake during the convention, not asleep. So, no one knows for sure who will sell these cartridges after the convention, but I will bring some with me. For those who asked for these games by using this thread or my email address at newcoleco yahoo fr... If I can send you 2 cartridges at a single address, it will be only if you are two persons who want this game and confirm it's not for resale and it's only a question of saving on shiping cost. For those who already told me they wanted a cartridge of CV minigames (you can edit your message to make it more clear), I will (personnaly) cut 3$ on the shiping cost (not the game).

Well, if you or your friend can make it to the ADAMCon this week-end or to the CCJVQ meeting in July, I will appreciate to receive a cartridge of Mr.Chin in person.

The actual price is fixed to 30$ and all the cartridges are signed by the 3 auhtors : Dale Wick, Guy Foster and myself (Daniel Bienvenu). Approx 40 cartridges will be available after the convention, but they will not be available yet in AtariAge store. Let me explain this... We (the authors) decided to minimize the cost by selling the cartridges directly, cutting the price of shiping the cartridges to AtariAge first. I know, it wasn't the plan, but it was the best plan we can figure it out to make the games signed by all the authors without extra cost. 30$ is the price and includes the 4 games plus a joystick test utiliy in a single cartridge. Hopefully the cartridges will be done soon and you will be able to get one. My wish is that the project will continue to release new cartridges of minigames, but next time I will be spectator rather than participant.

*NEWS* ADAMCon : Coleco Adam Convention US-Canada. The 20th anniversary of Adamcon will be celebrated at Niagara Falls, june 19-22, 2008. All the games are improved. The joystick test utility is great. All the cartridges are signed by the 3 authors to make this first release very special. The final rom version includes Space Hunter, Get Booty, Diamond Dash, Easter Bunny and Joystick test utility. Jump or Die is not in the project anymore, Easter Bunny replace it and I think it's a wise decision. The rom file will be completed during the convention. There is no rom file available yet, so don't ask for one. The first batch of minigames cartridges will be produced during the ADAMcon convention. A second batch of cartridges will be done by AtariAge (if they want to), plus some extra Jeepers Creepers. I still need to do a graphic menu for the minigames before leaving my town to go to the convention.

Like you did at the 2005 Arcadia Festival? Been there, done that. Well, this time, I will try to specifically not talk aobut programming, and that will be tough.

Based on the list, I want first those showed on the colecovision box and in the silver coleco manual... then the original game... then the hockey game. for the rest, I'm not sure I will buy them but I'm sure they will be awesome.

I think I tried all the different ways to publish my coleco games. It's easy to publish a first game, it's more difficult to release many games. The good answer is visiblity. Once you have visibility, you have potential sellings. And more you sell good quality games, more you have a good reputation and more potential sellings in the future. Well, you need at least to tell people about the game project being release soon, it's not necessary to talk about the project during the development phase, and it's not necessary to release a rom file in public domain, but if you decide to release a rom file, you should then prepare 2 versions of your game, one for cartridge and one for emulator. To release widely your games, you need ressources you may not have. two solutions : one is to deal with a publisher, the other is to take time to find the ressources and publish it by yourself. Even if the publisher solution seems the way to go, you will have this feelling that you give your game, that you lose control of your work. And sometimes, you may have a lack of ressources because you release too much cartridges of your previous game. Something difficult is keeping developing games because now they expect more games from you. So, after your 5th game, you may want to play games and relax, but no, they expect a release from you. That pressure is difficult to support, it's a big stress and not easy to deal with. Take care and good luck in your projects.

He do conversions from the SG1000 versions... but always by changing graphics a little bit like what he did for Penguin Land and Lode Runner. It's true that Steve has enough cartridges, pcbs and eproms to release a good batch of Penguin Land or any of his other projects. But he seems to prefer selling to people who contact him personally to keep a control on his production. Also, for some reasons, Steve prefer to keep is ressources for the new releases (Mr.Do WildRide, Wizard Siege (original creation), and two more), but free time is missing to finish the projects. Please note that I can't take any orders for his games, you really have to contact him. I know that Pixelboy contacted him by email last year without any problem. Steve, like some other homebrewers, prefer to release only in cartridge format of his game projects. Another thing you should know about Steve, is that he doesn't want producing widely cartridges of conversions, and the reason is the copyrights laws. Every homebrew games, even if programmed from scratch, because we release them as wellknow commercial games, it's illegal. Atari did apply this law to games published by AtariAge. Because of that fear of being compared as a hacker, Steve prefer to limit the distribution to his closest friends and the collectors who contact him directly. This also explain why he didn't sell widely his games.

Yeah, I like them too. Thanks! I will try to make some more video about graphics. During the Adamcon this summer (mid-june), I will talk about minigames cartridges and about sounds, with the help of my os7 sound bank applet.

Wild Ride was never completely finished, and therefore never released on cartridge. The actual rom file of CV Mr.Do Wildride is fully playable and "complete". I showed this game and some other ones many times during Arcadia and CCJVQ meetings. However, Steve didn't release it in cartridge yet because he want to take time to polish it and add the missing level. Steve is a perfectionist, not only a machine of converting games... he is an artist (drawing and music) and a good programmer. And like many people around here, finding free time to relax and to continue projects is not so easy.

I subscribed to your youtube channel yesturday... i suppose. Converting Mr.Chin to Coleco was also a project someone else wanted to do but had no real time to put much effort on it. Same thing for Sokoban I think.

A too short video about how to make a title screen. Youtube : DailyMotion : http://www.dailymotion.com/newcoleco/video/9099103

you talked about continuing an homebrew game?... you should contact the author before starting, even if the game is not original.

I don't know what is your computer, but if you can run dosbox properly on it, then you can use coleco emulators for dos and try to run the game. Please note that you will have to use an emulator in a command-line environment. And you may have to rename teh rom files to fit into the format 8.3 for : max 8 letters(or numbers) dot R O M (that's 3 letters) to make a 8.3 filename.

It's a bit hard to explain but there is a guy in smspower forum who can explain it much better than myself. The noise channel is set as "periodic noise" that result by doing a peak at every 14 time unit. the period of time for each time unit can be set by the 3rd tone channel. The result is lower notes than the regular tone channels. You can use my java applet to see what is the difference between periodic noise and white noise by playing the OS7 Sound FX : TEST - Sounditem 1. You can also use my applet to discover the concept on how to play lower notes with the noise channel plus the 3rd tone channel by playing the OS7 Sound FX : Super DK - Sounditem 1. The comments dont reveal what the 3rd channel (soundtab3) is playing because it's muted, but the frequencies are used by the noise channel (soundtab4). soundtab3: byte 0c0h,0e4h,0f0h,030h ; rest - length 48 byte 0c0h,0cbh,0f0h,010h ; rest - length 16 byte 0c0h,0c0h,0f0h,020h ; rest - length 32 byte 0c0h,0e4h,0f0h,020h ; rest - length 32 byte 0c0h,0a1h,0f0h,040h ; rest - length 64 byte 0c0h,098h,0f0h,040h ; rest - length 64 byte 0d0h ; end soundtab4: byte 002h,033h,000h,000h,000h ; periodic noise - freq channel 3 - vol 12 - length 256 byte 010h ; end The original Marcel de Kogel's Coleco library uses its own sound engine having the result on no control on which channel the tones are played, so it's not the best engine to do this kind of notes. However, I did a variation of the Marcel's library to use the Coleco sound bios engine instead, to save space in ROM, but add some in RAM because of the difference in ram usage between these 2 sound engines. My Coleco library to do 4K games use the Coleco Bios sound engine, and it's also this version I included in the begginer's kit (all in a single zip ready to use compiler and tools) to still program with Marcel's Coleco library but with the possibility to use the same sound engine and the same sounds from most of the commercial CV games. OS7 Sound FX Bank (Java Applet, Source Code, EXE...) : Page in english : http://www.geocities.com/newcoleco/soundbank/os7_en.html Page in french : http://www.geocities.com/newcoleco/soundbank/os7_fr.html

They want me, I think, because of my implication in the coleco homebrew scene. Did they know I started programming flash games for kids since january? quite impossible. Maybe they heard about the contest around the Atari FlashBack 2 and they are looking for programmers like me to make new original games for their coleco web site. Well, I have no clue. Well, I asked for more details.

RWB : River West Brand. the new owner of the Coleco name since a few years now. Today, I received an email from RWB, and it seems to be a real one. As far as I understand, they want to develop their web site by adding interactive games. And they started the message by telling me they own the name coleco vision. My guess is that they are trying to release new products with the name coleco vision.

I received today some very good comments from Europe about CV Jeepers Creepers. And someone told me that he simply regrets to never heard about my games in cartridges before.