Pixelboy

Gosh, talking about Mega Man on a pre-NES retro-centric forum feels really weird, but hey, I love Mega Man, especially the original series on NES. Anyway, I usually start with Bomb Man, since he's a pushover with the standard Mega Buster when you know the correct strategy to use (which is essentially to run towards him continuously to force him to jump around instead of tossing bombs). I never start with Cut Man because I like to use the trick where you can pick up a block outside Cut Man's lair (using the Super Arm), and carry it inside. Not only do you have three blocks to throw at Cut Man instead of two, but if you throw the block you are carrying the instant the fight starts, it will always land directly on Cut Man's noggin', taking away half his energy in a cold second! Pick up and toss one of the other two blocks in the room, and you're done! As for the Wily levels, I know the pattern of the Yellow Devil's flying blobs so well that they only touch me when I'm not careful. I would never use anything else than the Thunder Beam against it though, because the eye usually appears in a spot that's out of reach of most weapons, most notably the Mega Buster. The Mega Man copy is easy to beat with the Fire Storm, as long as you jump up slightly so that the fire wave is aligned with the second row of colored squares. The copy will get hit even if it tries to jump. The Bubble Drones in the third Wily level are easy to beat, if you have a good trigger finger: kill the first slow ones with the Mega Buster, and use the Super Arm to throw blocks at the last four. Real easy if you keep a cool head. For Wily himself, I too use the Fire Storm at first, because the barrier of fire that surrounds Mega Man for a couple of seconds does a lot of damage to Wily's machine when you jump up near it. For the second half of the fight, I use the Rolling Cutter, because I can launch it and then run to the safe spot under Wily's machine, where the whirling spheres can't reach me. Even better, a single Rolling Cutter can score multiple hits if you throw it from the right spot while Wily's Machine is moving from left to right.

Y'know, I'm not even sure there are 99 actual levels in G2A. The game lets you choose a number between 1 and 99 between levels, but I seem to remember going through the same level more than once during a game, with different items and monsters, so either the levels are truly randomly generated in RAM (using the 1-99 number as a randomizer seed), or the 1-99 number is used to randomly select one of several pre-defined mazes encoded into the cart. Finding the answer to this question could be an interesting challenge, which I may actually tackle one of these days...

Yeah, the Hockey game actually feels more like a Game & Watch game than anything else, and there are several sports games like that. Overall, I have to disagree. These kinds of plug-&-play devices would have been interesting in the early 90s, but this is the 21st century. Having actual arcade games like Pac-Man or Galaxian built into a plug-&-play joystick is one thing, but a device with a selection of such cheap games won't keep any kid over six years old interested for more than a few minutes, with the possible exception of the Wall Breaker and Sea Defender games. It's really the kind of toy that you buy and then dump into the bottom junk drawer less than 24 hours later. A seriously lame abuse of the Coleco brand if you ask me...

So having this garbage onscreen is actually the expected and correct behavior? LOL!! I never thought I'd hear that one day!

I received my USB cart today, so I promptly plugged in my CV and tried it with a few ROMs, and it works great! Thanks for making this USB cart a reality, classics! Among the games I tried, there was Matt Patrol, and I only now realize what a technical tour-de-force this game is! It's got everything from smooth scrolling to parallax, practically no flicker, and great music to boot! The control is a little stiff, especially when you want to jump, but I got the hang of it quickly enough. One other thing I learned from using my CV today: It's not a good idea to plug a CV on a flat-screen TV! The picture got mixed up and scrambled every time I turned the CV on, no matter what cartridge I used, and since I bought the flat-screen TV a few months ago, I naturally assumed that my CV was having technical difficulties. Imagine my surprise when the picture was still scrambled after unplugging the CV and plugging in my DVD player! After turning the TV on and off a few times, it finally went back to normal, so all is well that ends well (I hope!). I also tried my CV on an older regular TV, and it works fine, so the moral of the story is: I'm never plugging my CV on my flat-screen TV ever again! I tried it just now, and all I got was a garbled screen. Am I missing something? I just put the "banker.asm.bin" file in slot #1 of the USB cart, since there was no specific instructions attached to the BIN file...

Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't you tell me some time ago that the bankswitching scheme that could theoretically be used with your flash cart was specific to it? In other words, if a homebrew author was to make an actual cartridge out of his bigger-than-32K game, the bankswitching method would have to be adjusted to fit the PCB/EPROM used. If I remember correctly, you told me this when we discussed the special PCB that Eduardo Mello is planning to use for his Pac-Man Collection cartridge.

The only "unreleased" CV games you'll find, aside from some rare unfinished prototypes, are those released by homebrew programmers, such as the recently released Spectar.

There will always be a special place in my heart for the ColecoVision, but in a situation where I would have to choose only one console and stick with it for the rest of my life, I'd have to go with a Super-NES, if only for the high number of great games that can keep me busy for hours, even days and weeks, from action games to RPGs. However, if I could select two consoles, my second choice would be the CV, no question about it.

Ah, very good! Thanks!

Definately Venture. Considering the limitations of the CV hardware, sequels for the other games in the poll would likely end up being redundant versions of the existing games. But there's plenty of simple-yet-cool enhancements that could be included in Venture II, in addition to some new rooms. I have to say that I'm surprised that other CV games didn't make the list. A sequel to Smurf Rescue, with gameplay enhancements, could be nice if done right. Same goes for Alcazar, Destructor, Gateway to Apshai, H.E.R.O., Montezuma's Revenge, Space Fury and Tarzan. The official arcade sequel to Burgertime (Peter Pepper's Ice Cream Factory) would be very cool too.

I haven't received mine yet, which is rather weird... Wasn't it sent my airmail...?

Yeah, I kept thinking that the tapes were going to burst right out! Those poor little masochistic tapes! The thing I remember most about the datassette games (most notably Dragon's Lair) is that the ADAM loaded the next stage while you were playing the currently loaded one. It was the first time I had seen multitasking being performed by a computer and I remember being very impressed.

My vision of Pitfall III would be a game similar to Pitfall II, but with more variety in the map layout, items that can be picked up and carried around (like in Adventure) and the introduction of something new: dinosaurs! You'd have raptors and other dangerous dinos running all over the place, and Harry would need to either stun them, make them fall into traps you set for them, kill them with a single-use weapon, or find a path around them. The dinos would start running after Harry as soon as they spot him, and would even follow him horizontally across rooms as they try to catch him and have him for lunch. Items would range from old exotic artifacts and primitive tools to modern items like a flashlight, a shovel, a jungle saber, etc. Some of these items could be used in specific places to trigger special events and unlock closed passageways. The game could be called "Pitfall III - Adventures on Dino Island", but I prefer the title "Pitfall III - Close Encounters of the Prehistoric Kind".

I've heard that it's possible to have ADAM software run directly off a CV cartridge, which would imply that you can start the ADAM in CV mode, and then have the software access the rest of the ADAM's components. If this is true, then this "specialized software" we're talking about (on the ADAM's side) could possibly be put in the USB cartridge itself. That would certainly be an interesting use of your cartridge. Well yeah, that was kind of implied. Lord Thag's original question was not about bi-directionality of the data. To do that, you'd need a special cable that plugs into one of the expansion ports used for external modules like the ADAM modem. That would be a lot more complicated to implement, although I'm sure someone out there has probably pulled it off in the past.

Transfering data between a modern PC and the ADAM may be possible, but I haven't heard of anyone who has actually done it, since these computers are so alien to one another, especially nowadays. One interesting avenue that could be explored would be to use classic's ColecoVision USB cartridge to perform such data transfers, but you'd need specialized software on the ADAM's side to make this setup reach its full potential, and there may be technical hurdles to overcome which I'm not personally aware of. You could, but it's not recommended, because they're not as reliable as official ADAM datassettes. For one thing, Coleco's datassettes are designed to withstand the high-speed 20 ips (inches per second) read/write and 80 ips rewind speeds. Also, if I remember correctly, ADAM datassettes are pre-formatted for the computer, so if you want to use standard tape cassettes, there's some formatting involved, kinda like formatting a floppy disk. Have you considered buying actual datassettes? There are a few places on the net where you can buy some, like ecoleco.com.

I guess you're right. That reminds me of a question that I've been meaning to ask: Can anyone tell me what kind of input does the spinner record? Is it speed-based (motion detection) or position-based (which means it could be used like an Atari 2600 paddle)?

Oops! Another obvious one I forgot about! And as for bowling, I wouldn't actually mind a bowling game on the CV, but I can't imagine how it could use the Super Action Controllers in any significant way over the standard CV controllers...

Why not curling while you're at it? Seriously, I should have added "Super Action Olympics" to that poll... Oh well.

Four 'Super Action' titles were released on the ColecoVision, namely Baseball, Football, Soccer and Boxing (Rocky). What other sport would you have liked the most to be released as a 'Super Action' game on the CV? I'm running this poll just out of curiosity, nothing more.

That list does not contain Gateway to Apshai. Therefore, it is crap. (just kidding!) Spy Hunter definately needs to be in there, and I happen to think that Grog's Revenge is far better than Quest for Tires. And while I do like Montezuma's Revenge, it surely doesn't deserve the #1 spot. Also, I would definately put 2010 in the list if I could, but I know that not many people have played this unusual (yet awesome) game, so I don't mind if other people go .

Oh definately. In fact, the game engine will take care of sprite flickering in more-than-four-sprites-on-same-scanline situations, so the programmer won't have to deal with it himself (although Eduardo hasn't explained to me yet how he plans to pull this off exactly). The first release may not support all graphic modes. I'm pretty sure it won't support text mode and multi-color mode. It will only support the basic CV controller at first, and support for other types of controllers (steering wheel, Roller Controller) will be added later. Considering that there are still a lot of things Eduardo and I need to discuss and figure out, and that we're both busy people with varying amounts of free time, I'd say January 2007 is a good ballpark figure. Of course, we'd like to get this done ASAP, but our jobs and other mundane responsabilities keep getting in the way. But I spent a ton of money on a CV console, a CV USB cart, and several peripherals (brand new sterring wheel, Roller Controller and Super Action Controller bought from eColeco.com) just so I can contribute as much as I can to this BasicVision project, so I'm commited to getting it done.

So that's what's been keeping you busy. Well, I sure know where you're coming from, because I've been doing overtime every night this week, and it's far from over. I'll probably have to spend the week-end at the office too. It's in periods like this that I really hate my job the most... Looks absolutely fabulous, Eduardo! You really spoil us CV fans! And don't forget the basic game engine. Well, BasicVision will have its limitations, especially the first release of it, but advanced programmers should be able to take advantage of the language in fun ways. This will be even more true when basic support for CV assembly language will be included in the language, but that's a very long term project. If we (me and Eduardo) can just get the work done for that first release of the BasicVision IDE, I'll be very happy.

Excerp from an e-mail Eduardo sent me last week (I'm sure he won't mind): "No, in fact I was busy assembling cartridges. Al has completely sold out my last batch of carts, and the NWCGE guys are now opening a small online store, so I was busy assembling enough carts to fill on orders..." I'm assuming he was referring to Magical Tree.

You can find a list of CV joysticks here: http://www.geocities.com/djslacker1/coleco...ontrollers.html The Wico joystick seems nice, and I've heard that it's compatible with standard CV overlays, but I've never tried it myself. EDIT: There's a Wico joystick, apparently brand new, that just popped up on eBay if you're interested: http://cgi.ebay.com/WICO-COMMAND-CONTROL-J...1QQcmdZViewItem

I could soooo imagine a pirate game featuring Pokemon versus Digimon... And I'm sure a lot of people would actually buy it too!