Coleco Chameleon .... hardware speculations?

[Coleco Chameleon .... hardware speculations?]

I've seen my name related to CoolCV to be integrated in the Coleco Chamaleon and I can confirm I was contacted by Mike about it.

 

I even sent a draft contract for the source code. He forgot about our following Skype call, I sent a couple of email reminders but I didn't receive further contact from him.

 

Incoming!

 

Everyone please shuffle to the right to make more room under the bus!

[Coleco Chameleon .... hardware speculations?]

If you make a habit of murdering people they refer to you as a serial killer.

 

 

What do they call you when you repeatedly murder the careers of hardware engineers?

 

(egads, to think this is probably only the tip of the body count)

[Coleco Chameleon .... hardware speculations?]

And this is why I won't be answering any more questions. Just for the record.

 

A shame, really. So you didn't get the rah-rahing Greek chorus you wanted here and now you are leaving. Maybe you should just retire to your Facebook echo chamber and smell your own farts for a decade or two.

 

A parting thought for Mike:

 

Namedropping Clay Cowgill into this discussion was a really low move on your part.

 

His involvement in your sorry saga had absolutely no bearing on it's ultimate failure, and IMO only served to give yet another name for people to focus on and swing the spotlight away from you. Like Kevtris, you wanted CC to work for free and maybe glean a few smart-sounding buzzwords from him that you could throw at the next unlucky hardware guy who happened to cross your path. Now Clay's name will pop up in Google searches associated with this Sean/Lee character. Unlike you when you hired Sean, most real busineses do background checks on prospective employees including casual Google searches for obvious red flags.

 

Think about that the next time you come here wanting sympathy and understanding while wearing your "I'm the only one who suffered a loss" t-shirt.

[Coleco Chameleon .... hardware speculations?]

There's a quote attributed to someone from Factory Records (I'm really embarrassed I can't remember who) around the end of Joy Division/start of New Order era that basically states "if you have the choice to live the truth or live the legend... take the legend". it's not entirely applicable here but I think of it because I'd rather have the legend of Mr. Lee than finding out the boring ol' truth. We have plenty of insane nonsense from this ordeal to give us chuckles for a lifetime.

 

 

Sounds like a quote from Tony Wilson, Factory Records' founder. Or Martin Hannett.

 

As for who this mysterious 'Lee' is --

 

We've just unmasked Janus as one of Mike's cronies who was trolling or hyping here and there's the ugly possibility that it was happening at Mike's behest or instruction. Would not at all be surprised to find Janus or another sheep in the Retro fold posing as a 'hardware engineer' at some mysterious Google-esque entity. That sounds like just the sort of shit someone who thought they could pass off a video capture card as a console would come up with. This is probably the most mundane of the pack of lies told.

[Coleco Chameleon .... hardware speculations?]

Heh heh heh. You

 

 

Heh heh heh. What's funny to me is that we are closer to the pre-cartridge predictions for computing nowadays. Apart from the fashion, this is pretty much how I spent my day today:

 

 

Looks like they predicted smack talking while playing online games too.

[Coleco Chameleon .... hardware speculations?]

Given what happened, I don't think Mike will show his face ANYWHERE for a good six months if not longer...not at cons, not at gaming events, not on podcasts, not on YouTube, nothing. He's just going to lay low and wait for the worst of the damage to clear. What he does after that? Only time will tell. I'm a forgiving person by nature and I believe in second chances, but Mr. Kennedy has HAD his second chance already. Is anyone really going to give him a third?

 

My prediction is he will GTFO of Dodge as far as video games are concerned. If he has any other interests or hobbies I wouldn't be at all shocked if he bulldozed his way into one of those as a money making venture.

 

With video games he made the classic mistake of taking something he liked and had a decent working knowledge and turned it into his job. Quickest way to turn something you like into something you loathe is to make your income depend on it. Not to say that someone CAN'T do this and be happy and successful but the odds are really stacked against you.

[Coleco Chameleon .... hardware speculations?]

Not quite; that was more exaggeration by the RVGS spin machine. John Carlsen was a "Game Tester" at Mediagenic/Activision (where Steve worked at the time) for 8 months in 1990-91, he seemed to imply in the interview that Steve didn't remember him.

 

Why do I get the feeling that most of the credientials of the 'team' are just fluffed up peacock tails. Game testing is the about the lowest of the low jobs in the industry. The guy who gets the morning coffee and shines the exec's shoes with his tongue is higher up on the totem pole.

 

Just remember, seven years later this guy thought he could be calling the shots at Apple...

[Coleco Chameleon .... hardware speculations?]

No, 50 year old want to put that new console sealed into a closet and open it at their 100th birthday. That's the plan!

 

I never really understood just what the big deal was about the console and cartridges still working in 50 years. Do people really expect display technology to be compatible? Do you expect the same kinds of financial value placed on old consoles that we do now? Would your grand- or greatgrandkids even care about this stuff?

 

A lot can change in 50 years. You can fit the entire history of the console market in that.

 

Ikea used to make a computer desk called the 'Jerker' (and I'm sure the designer was having a bit of a larf when he named it). The second version of the desk is the Best Damn Desk Ever. Solid, useful, can be configured multiple ways for a multitude of uses unrelated to computers. Practically indestructible too. People into making music still rave about the desk to this day becuase it could easily bear the weight of heavy keyboards and mixing consles. There was a shrine website to this desk at one point.

 

And then Ikea discontinued it.

 

Why? Because it was too good. People only had to buy it once and they never returned to buy another one. Sure, add on accessories sold but the markup was just not the same as the desk. Ikea replaced the desk with a similar looking but nowhere near as sturdy desk. In fact, the replacement (Gallant, ISTR the name was) would fall apart within a year or two -- and that's exactly what Ikea was hoping... there was a 50% chance you might come back in and buy a replacement versus a 5% chance you might come back if your Jerker broke.

 

The problem for the Chameleon (or any new retro console) is market saturation. Once the OCD completists, cartridge hoarders and speculators buy your system where do you go from there?

 

Maybe Piko or Collectorvision can give us a rough idea how much of a market there is for retro catridges. If someone is making a full time living by producing retro catridges I have yet to hear it -- almost without exception these people have day jobs in addition to their side business. I haven't even mentioned things like the Flashbacks eating into your pie. If these things (and all things retro) are selling like gangbusters you'd think you'd see more big fish in the industry throwing their hats into the ring in a big way.

 

Pixelated 2D graphics are not a trend. They are a fad. Fads come and go and get revived approximately once per generation, give or take. Flared jeans, high-top sneakers, capri pants, clogs. These things keep coming and going like clockwork. The fashion world (at least the marketing end of it) will keep shoving these down our throats till the end of time.

 

Mike made the #1 classic marketing mistake: He assumed his needs were universal. "I want a new retro system with cartridges" became "Everyone's going to want this" quite quickly.

[Coleco Chameleon .... hardware speculations?]

Yeah, for me, you build that box, goto IREM,Taito, Data East , Konami, Capcom, SEGA, and get their commitment to supply ARCADE rom's officially for this and maybe even the schematics of their old arcade hardware for The Company to create HDL's to run the games on the FPGA system.

Then they sell me multi carts with several arcade classics from each vendor and split money with those companies which still hold those rights.

Also, I could buy new Indie games written for several platforms on this platform instead. If they don't make it for Genesis, i still play it on here.

But, this is dead.

 

I'd LOVE to see new games written for older arcade hardware, eg Williams 6809 and running on an FPGA system that was modular so you could hook it up to the display and UI of your choice -- be it a modern HTDV, an older composite/RF TV, or an arcade monitor in a coin-op cabinet with arcade controls. Official support from companies like IREM and Taito would be icing on the cake.

 

That's just me though. I wouldn't mistake my wanting this as everyone else wanting this.

[Coleco Chameleon .... hardware speculations?]

 

The thing is that since there is no new controversy out there. People have to direct their anger to somebody else.

 

If there's something to be angry about it's your microphone, Eli -- manufacturer totally threw you under the bus there.

 

In all seriousness, thank you for providing another perspective to this whole mess. Fills in a lot of blanks and gives clarity to other events we've heard about.

 

IMO, the good folks here at AA should be striving to present as complete and clear a picture of the inner workings of Mike's companies as they can without being biased or heavy handed. The next person who stumbles onto a summary of this mess should be able to form their own opinion of events. If they choose to deal with Mike or his affiliated ventures in the future then hopefully they will do some minimal research and inform themselves.

[Coleco Chameleon .... hardware speculations?]

"What purpose the PCI card served".

 

Interesting about the, "should they agree to an inspection" line..

 

..Al

 

I'd be very cautious about what's being broadcasted on the 'Coleco' end of things. With all we've experienced in this saga is manipulating both sides of a social media conversation to give the appearance of legitimacy completely out of the question now?

 

I know that sounds paranoid but the players involved have continually sunk lower than even my most pessimistic expectations.

[Coleco Chameleon .... hardware speculations?]

I'm pretty naive to the world of business, but what's with all the separate "companies," anyway? Is it just to avoid personal financial or legal responsibility if things fail? Tax shelter or other technical gimmicks? It all seems needlessly complex to me, and possibly overly concerned with seeming grownup, professional, or serious. They got the big picture so incredibly wrong, so I wonder how deep the sickness goes.

 

 

I'd say a little of column A and a little of column B.

 

All I know is Mike has probably made some out-of-work forensic accountants very happy.

[Coleco Chameleon .... hardware speculations?]

I believe where John Carlsen is comin g from about the pay is he was on the team, under agreement he would be paid a certain amount of money for his work done. Unless his 'agreement' with Mike had a 'leave and lose it' clause Mike would still be in debt to John Carlsen for work performed aldeady- whether used or not.

 

At least that is my take on it.

 

With all the Hollywood accounting, stockholder shell-gaming and other assorted financial shennanigans that have come to light recently I doubt Carlsen would have seen a dime, even if the RVGS or CC was a success. Mike seems very flexible in both the scope and breadth of his promises -- gentlemen's agreements seem to be the order of the day and it's practically financial and legal suicide to make these sorts of vague or off the cuff promises.

 

However, what I think Carlsen is alluding to in the interview is that if the CC became a success he (and possibly others) would extract their payment from Mike in court -- hence Carlsen's mention of patents. John took his toys and left and has been waiting for Mike to take the bait and use (or claim to be using) something he developed without permission.

 

To mix metaphors here, that damn bus was never going to navigate through all the burnt bridges much less move at all because of the quantity of people thrown under it. The Chameleon was painted into a corner and screwed no matter if it became a success or not

[Coleco Chameleon .... hardware speculations?]

Are you talking about a kickstarter for someone to write a book about this mess? What would the prototype be? A blank composition notebook in a War and Peace dust jacket?

I laughed so hard at that (it's been a shitty week IRL) I'm holding you personally responsible for my next drycleaning bill.

 

Bravo, sir.

[Coleco Chameleon .... hardware speculations?]

Mike Kennedy apparently has a way of connecting with these people on a raw emotional level which inspires incredible loyalty. I think that's why all the logical arguments in threads like this one haven't penetrated these people: you can't argue someone out of a position that they didn't argue themselves into.

More to the point, you can't fight their illogic with logic -- even using logic backed up with facts. There's a cognitive disconnect happening there that skirts around or conveniently ignores inconvenient information, kind of like a zipper missing a tooth but it always manages to navigate through and zip up the jacket just fine.

[Coleco Chameleon .... hardware speculations?]

Pardon my ignorance, but have they disclosed who is "investigating" this mess? I mean, I wouldn't trust their team to find a "clean" guy to investigate what the system is.

 

Not only that, but I have to ask... why do they need seven days? I mean, it took this forum far less than that to determine it was a DVR card. All the "investigator" would have to do is open the shell, look at the picture of the card, notice the hot glued usb cords, led light powered by a hidden battery pack, and jaguar cart resting (unconnected) on the board, and go... "Yep. Fake".

 

Legal grace period so as not to make the side asking seem unreasonable in their demends. It also gives them time to seek out an expert. It took the forum here only a few days but remember that was many people working in parallel who were fixated on those pictures. We also had a combination of hard work and a little luck that there was a current ebay auction with those cards. We might still have been looking.

 

Worth remembering that hardware engineer's job is really ony to prove what it isn't.

 

We had a vested interest in proving not ony that but also what it was -- an incentive that made us even more determined.

 

The real problem here is going to be finding a local hardware engineer who hasn't been involved with RVGS, Mike, or Coleco -- I'd advise Coleco to not look under the nearest bus

Kevtris might seem like a good choice on paper but legally might be considered to have a conflict of interest due to his past dealings with them, however pripheral they may be.

[Coleco Chameleon .... hardware speculations?]

Except that it's obviously lame and not a prototype, and if an engineer looks at it, they're going to laugh at them.

 

Coleco is not just going to have any random idiot look at Mike's board.

 

Mark my word. In a week, Coleco will dump the deal and attribute it to an unsatisfactory demonstration from the Retro VGS team.

 

Here's hoping Coleco sticks Mike with the bill for the engineer's time.

 

Halleujah, it's likely to be the only time a hardware engineer involved with Mike actually gets paid!

[Coleco Chameleon .... hardware speculations?]

From the Colecovision FB page bout a half hour ago:

__________

Chameleon Product: We are thankful to have a large group of passionate engineers and retro game enthusiasts who follow Coleco and other product lines. It has come to our attention that the community has certain concerns over the prototypes involving the Retro VGS model. The team at Retro remains confident that their product is developed to the extent as describe; HOWEVER, in order to confirm or debase these concerns, Coleco has demanded to inspect the prototype units within a seven day time frame. At which time, independent engineers will review their findings and determine if those units are up to our standards. We will report some or all of those findings to the community so as long as they do not interfere with proprietary information. We remain hopeful that the community's concerns are merely speculations, but if there is merit to the concerns, then we have no choice but to abandon the project rather than release a sub-par product. During this time, we ask that the community allow us time to complete these inspections. Time extensions will only be granted if requested by the independent engineer. Time extensions and results will be posted here.

Wow. Shit just got real. Mike better have his homework done and not cribbed from elsewhere.

 

Guess River west Brands does care if their hard-purchased IP is dragged through the mud. Who knew?

[Coleco Chameleon .... hardware speculations?]

This is a small and connected community and if the organizational chart of people connected to this fiasco (by actual involvement) could be drawn it would be more vast than most of the observers here can imagine, but that network is in place and many of those people are talking and sharing. Many of us did not know about the promo video guy until his excellent video was recently posted, and he has likely never heard of many of us that were involved, but now we know one more guy that saw the same thing. And that pattern keeps repeating itself.

 

You've highlighted a very important aspect of this whole affair that wasn't immediately apparent until we all took two steps backwards.

 

No one except Mike had access to the full picture (and thus the full scope) of the project. There were people involved who weren't even aware of each other and in some cases they were duplicating the efforts of others all because one guy had to have total control and knowledge -- ironic, because it's likely Mike was afraid of being squeezed out by knowledgeable people who might have realized he's not actually contributing anything. Pre-emptive elimination of internal competition. So everyone's participation is limited and if anyone starts to make too much noise they'd get left out of a few Skype conferance calls and get soft-fired from the project without knowing it. Or they got frustrated and left. Mike couldn't control Kevin -- couldn't get him to cough up something for free and was introducing some engineering and fiscal reality into what were basically fantasy football discussions. Kev would have eventually been squeezed out in favour of John once Mike realized that they would inevitably begin to compare notes or have different ideas about what was feasable. Far easier for Mike to say that Kev is a troublemaker and is no longer allowed in the sandbox and that's why we aren't including him in the meeting today. The first inkling we got of this was Woita's surprise that Kev wasn't working with them and hadn't been for months. Whoops! Forgot to send the memo that the key hardware guy is no longer with us. Oh well, don't worry, hardware guys are a dime-a-dozen we'll just drive by the hardware engineer store (aka some tech discussion forum) and hire another.

 

When one guy is trying to wear all the hats (in some cases, badly -- as you're just parroting technical terms with no idea what you talking about) no one can work effectively. I'm sure Mike sees it as how Nolan ran Atari in the early days. Just as we associate Atari's early success with Nolan I'm sure Mike wanted to be remembered as some sort of tech guru. Likely convinced himself that just saying smart sounding things and keeping people in the dark or badmouthing them to their peers was enough to keep him on top.

[Coleco Chameleon .... hardware speculations?]

Gamester81 was like a huckster selling Dr. Mike's Magic Oil and using every tactic in the book to put down detractors. "Toxic." "Haters." "It's frustrating because I see the behind-the-scenes and they don't (paraphrased)". Suggesting that detractors may be doing it for money. All of these were in the podcast I posted earlier. Now we're saying that it's okay because we found out Dr. Mike's formula was just Kool-Aid?

 

Probably a wee bit of projection there on Gamester81's part -- suggesting the AA "haters" were in it for the money (from whom?) was his own cry for help that he was just a paid stooge for Mikey.

 

I'm pretty sure he's aware which side of his bread the butter is on. When that slice of toast is resting butter-side-down on Mike's kitchen floor Gamster81's ethical organ suddenly perks up and it's mea culpa all around.

[Coleco Chameleon .... hardware speculations?]

I still can't figure out why he waited until the afternoon of his Kickstarter reveal date to postpone the project. Maybe just for dramatic effect? To show- we've been working very very hard up to this second, and if you don't believe us, here's proof with pics of the proto. But it still makes no sense, why keep up the suspense of the morning, there had to be something else going on that we're not seeing.

 

I suspect he was cobbling together the 'glass bottom boat' version of the Chameleon and taking some pictures at the last minute, likely as Mrs. Kennedy was walking out the door for good.

[Coleco Chameleon .... hardware speculations?]

he didnt even need to show those pics of a network card in a jag shell. all he would have had to do is say 'sorry folks, the kickstarter's delayed' and taken whatever kind of backlash there would have been. it would have been much less damage control. at this point, its as if he wants to do everything completely wrong.

 

Ahh but Mike had something to prove. His e-peen was on the line when people were talking trash about the SNEZ-jag. He could have coasted under the radar for the rest of this year after the KS postponement with no one the wiser. He broke cover and got caught in the same way like every stupid criminal does -- he needed to stretch his ego.

 

All that energy and effort put into these fake prototypes -- so many man hours of other people's time wasted. I bet you if he had just sat down with a hardware guy (who got paid upfront!) and hashed out what he wanted and let people do their jobs we'd not only have a working console by now we'd probably be buzzing about the specs for the RetroVGS 2.

 

There isn't a palm big enough for me to bury my face in.

[Coleco Chameleon .... hardware speculations?]

So, what does Mike think removing the pictures at this point in time accomplishes? Meme-worthy stuff like this tends to live forever on the internet because someone, somewhere will always be bringing it up. Zeitgeist, and all that stuff. Some of it may even leak out of the basement on a slow news day and <gasp> the non-gaming press takes notice.

[Coleco Chameleon .... hardware speculations?]

224 users!

 

Maybe AA should go to an ad revenue model and book Mike to perform three nights a week.

 

Even Penn and Teller don't get these types of captive audiences in Vegas.

[Coleco Chameleon .... hardware speculations?]

Mike, if you're reading this (and I bet you are) please STAY THE F**K AWAY from the videogame community. Crawl back to your day job as a Sandwich Artist and never bother us with your bullshit again.

 

To Steve Woita, Steve Rosenbaum, Ben Herman, Phil Adam and Paul Wylie:

 

Time for one or all of you to step forward and come clean. Either take responsibility for this shitpile or throw Mike under the bus (it's getting really crowded under there with all those hardware guys).