DiscoDr.Bones

Hi TPR, I believe this is my first post in the Colecovision forum. For a bit of context, I'm very off and on again with Atari Age, and when I am active my focus is generally Atari 7800 and Intellivision. I have always been super interested in Colecovision though, like to the extent that I check out the Adam/Colecovision forum every time I am on AA and I have been following the "ColecoVision Fan" FB page for at least a year. I don't actually have a ColecoVision yet... I intended to get one last year but it didn't work out for various reasons, so now it is among my 2018 gaming goals. So to your questions: 1.) Downloading these games is preemptive for me. When I do get a ColecoVision, I intend to put them on a flash cart and see what I like. 2.) Games that I really like end up being purchased. I want to support current developers of older systems and believe the best way to do that is spending money. I do tend to have preference for the ability to buy ROM's and put them on a flash cart because space is a bit of an issue for me, however I do have quite a few of the 2600 and 7800 homebrews boxed, so once I do get my ColecoVision, who knows which direction I will go with that? 3.) Wait, there is ColecoVision emulation these days? 4.) I am here via the "ColecoVision Fan" FB page. Thank you for releasing these and giving me a good start when I'm finally able to get my system. I hope to be doing actual business with ColecoVision publishers in the not-too-distant future.

Hi All, A strange issue has developed with my Model 2 Sega Genesis. Under most circumstances, the Sega system seems to think that the "up" button on controller 1 is being perpetually pressed. However there is one very specific circumstance where it works correctly. It will work correctly if I have a 3 button controller in the first port and a 6 button controller in the second port. Only in this specific configuration will it work correctly, and these are genuine Sega controllers. If I swap the controllers or have only one controller connected or even no controller connected, perpetual "up." Any ideas? Is there any chance I am damaging anything continuing to play it since it does seem to work in that configuration? --DiscoDr.Bones

Ok, that is good to know. The palette page linked to there is helpful as well. The way I calibrated the TV was with a DVD player connected via S-video using the Digital Video Essentials DVD, this was a decade ago and now the TV is used for games only. Up until this point, I had thought things looked great. I see a "240p test suite" series of programs/calibration utilities that one can use with consoles via flash carts. Perhaps I will do a run through with one or more of those and see if I can improve things. I also now understand that there is a pot that can be adjusted in the 7800 that can change the color characteristics... would that be helpful here? Or is that probably the wrong direction to go at this point?

Hi There, I recently picked up “Frenzy” for the 7800. The game is great and I am especially pleased with the inclusion of “Berzerk” which is one of my favorite 5200 games. While I was playing the Berzerk contained within Frenzy, I noticed I would randomly die without any perceivable reason, but this would only happen in the 1500-3000 –ish point range. On my setup, an unmodded 7800 RF connected to a CRT TV, the dark green shade of the robots in that point range were extremely close to black, and what I soon figured out was happening is that I was being shot vertically or diagonally and I am unable to see the shot fly. I also noticed that the “press fire to start” text was this same barely visible shade of green. A revisit to the 5200 edition (also connected via RF) found robots in this point range a much more visible shade of blueish white. Interestingly, when I downloaded the rom for Frenzy, emulated it via ProSystem in RetroArch and got to the same point range, I found the robots to be almost the exact same (and very visible) shade as the 5200 edition. Changes in Tint, Color, Picture or Brightness on my TV did little to alleviate the problem. I am stumped. What might be causing this and what might I be able to do to fix it? Is it possible there is something wrong with my cart? 7800? What I have done is included a couple of pictures. The first one is the title screen, and here it is pretty easy to see that the green “press fire to start” text is very dark, this was easy to capture. Next I have circled a vertical shot in that point range to emphasize how hard it is to see (even though in this picture the robots seem to show up fine) and then for comparison purposes, I included a similar picture of a red vertical shot, which is very clear. Also for comparison reasons, I included what the colors in same point range look like on the 5200 version of Berzerk. Finally, in case the color profile of my 7800 is actually way off and I don’t not know (I don’t have a good point of comparison) I enclosed a picture of “Bentley Bear's Crystal Quest” which is feel gives a pretty good idea of the way things 7800 look on my setup. Please advise and thanks in advance, --DiscoDr.Bones

I unlocked the Easter Egg again tonight and was paying close enough attention that I figured out what caused it. Not too shabby a score either:

I can’t claim to be any sort of Donkey Kong expert… but here is what I know: I have been playing the NES version regularly for 25+ years and could stay alive for quite a while… when I finally died it was because I would get cocky or careless. However this never translated into good performance at the arcade, where I **might** make it to the elevator stage @L3. This on the other hand is a completely different story. As far as I can tell, Donkey Kong PK plays like (and my performance is roughly equivalent to) the arcade and it looks and sounds excellent. Thanks for the great game tep392 and all who contributed! --DiscoDr.Bones

I picked up T:ME Salvo with the new batch of 7800 games and have not put it down since. It took me a while to get used to the fact that going in any direction commits you fully to that next "block" but within a couple of plays I was really rocking it. I have seen Christmas a couple of times and have no idea what I am doing to trigger it. In addition (and perhaps this is beyond the scope of this specific thread) if I was going to get an AtariVox+ sometime in the not too distant future, is there any way to use it with 2 stick play? Thanks for the great game!

Awesome. My goal here was to make sure that there wasn't an new edition of Jr. Pac-Man upcoming that I was unaware of. I'll put it back in my shopping cart.

Not to derail the thread too much, but is there a difference between the Jr. Pac-Man you have here and the one currently available in the store? It's on my list for the next AtariAge order.

This thread made me realize that a subscription existed. In hindsight, I realize that I had seen "Subscriber" on many avatars, but I assumed that it had to do with amount of posting activity or something like that. I'm more of a lurker than a poster, so it may not seem like I am on here much, but I go through periods where I scour the forums once or twice a day. Easily worth the asking amount per year for the interesting conversations and worthwhile information I get from this site...

Mine arrived in the mail yesterday. I am so pumped... I have played though most of my meager 2600, 7800 and 8-bit collection in the time since. My scores and performance increased substantially and Robotron 2084 was stellar. I'll be back for a different model soon and when the ColecoVision and 5200 variations of these joysticks are released to the general public, you will find me in line for 'em. Highly recommended!

This is a really good deal. I was pleased with all the display and control options and the emulation (especially for the arcade games) seemed pretty spot-on.

Hi There, I pulled out my Intellivision to get to the games below it and the RF cord came out. When I went to put it back in, I found that it took the phono jack with it, as seen in the attached photo. This was very surprising because the picture/sound had been great and so I didn't have any reason to suspect things were in this condition. I would like to request some guidance... is this an easy fix? Am I looking at some soldering or an outright part replacement? If it is soldering, can anyone who has done this fix provide some additional guidance? Thank you for your time, --DiscoDr.Bones

The other two games are Choplifter! and Ms. Pac-Man.

For what it is worth, it's pretty easy to trace how I got here... for Boulder Dash it was because a local guy let me borrow the A8 cart for a couple weeks and I liked it enough that I decided I wanted one for my own and then when I saw the cost of it on Ebay, I decided to look into what other systems it came out for and see how those ports might have compared... the rest is documented here. DK Arcade is a different story... I saw the Video Game Critic's review of it back when he published it and I made note that it looked like something I would want to have. That I was able to play the ROM of the Intelligentvision release in the time between sold me. So then, when I went to pick up Boulder Dash and I saw the price of DK Arcade, I figured what the heck. Glad to have both now. Now that I have looked pretty thoroughly through the history of modern Intellivision releases, I have found three more I am interested in, two of them seem to pretty hard to find now, but at least one of them is at Naber Hood Games, so they will probably be hearing from me again soon. Cheers!

Hey, so after reading this, I decided to purchase a few of the Flashback controllers and wire adapters last week and I have seen no progress on my order since I made it. Has anyone here had any issues with ordering from them? What kind of turnaround time have you experienced? Thanks!

I got to spend about an hour playing it this morning and I feel like I made the right choice. As far as I can tell, the gameplay is spot on and I actually like the colors used in the INTV version over what is on the A8. The packaging was super impressive too. This transaction has made me want to look into the couple of other recent INTV games that have been on my radar. Thanks for the guidance all!

Well, you all sold me. I picked it up and got DK Arcade as well. Looking forward to trying both of them.

Hey, sorry for reviving a long dead thread, but I have been playing enough of the Atari 800 version of "Boulder Dash" that I have decided that the game itself is one that I want to add to my collection. I don't really have a system preference... so how does this version compare to the Atari original? If it is comparable, I would be very interested...

Thanks AlwaysOnPlanetPatrol, that's actually really helpful. I'm not comfortable enough with the soldering iron to do it myself at this point, but I can keep an eye on his E-bay to see when he offers that auction again.

I got a new-in-box that happened to be a red label for $15 shipped a couple of months ago. I would call that extremely "optimistic."