Colecovision unreleased prototypes

[Tempest]

Valuing prototypes is a tricky thing because I don't think everyone actually agrees on what a 'prototype' is. Do magazine review copies that are 100% identical to the final version but are on EPROM boards count as prototypes? Do employee/personal copies of unreleased games and betas count as prototypes? Do source code files of unreleased games count as prototypes? It's all rather subjective in the end.

 

What you have here is without a doubt some copies of games that an employee made either for their own enjoyment or for research. Some of these appear to be copies of beta or late WIP versions which does make them more valuable and definitely worth archiving (some of our most famous prototypes came to us in this very way). Are they true prototypes? Maybe. It depends on your definition of prototype (as I stated above). IMHO they're in a gray area between authentic prototype and pirated copy.

 

Just my two cents on the subject. Carry on.

 

Tempest

[Tempest]

BTW I think your umbrella graphic difference in DK could just be the result of bit rot. It doesn't look intentional like a completely different graphic would. The timer difference is due to there being two versions of DK (a 16K and 24K version). One has a 5 digit timer and one has a 4 digit timer. Yours is the former.

 

Tempest

[djpubba]

Okay, I found both ROM versions now and neither of them have a title screen like mine. Neither has the "SELECT GAME OPTION" and the text below it.

 

 

Yours does?

 

If so, it's undumped like mine.

Edited March 4, 2010 by djpubba

[djpubba]

Thanks for all the input. I guess I need to dump the DK to be sure then...

 

In the mean time I've been looking at the Ladybug with MESS's debugger and it's quite different than the release. There's only one dumped Ladybug, right? Mine seems to be a completely different compile. All the jp and call offsets are different and so far I've found that the code to handle moving the trap door things from vertical to horizontal is very different in mine. I've only spent about 10 minutes looking so far and there are a bunch of changes so I'm hoping to find some sort of major game play difference I can document with screen shots or video.

Edited March 4, 2010 by djpubba

[djpubba]

I spent some time looking at my Ken Uston's Blackjack/Poker with a Z80 debugger. I found that there are significant differences between this version and the released/dumped versions. Many of the memory locations (jumps and calls) are different. In comparing the differences, the first major thing I found between this early version and the release is that in the released version, in Blackjack, if you have 21, the dealer behaves as if you hit the "stand" button automatically. In this early version, if you have 21, the dealer still waits for you to press stand or hit.

 

As far as I can tell looking at the available dumps, no previously discovered version of this game does that. I think that means this is an undiscovered proto.

 

I didn't spend any time figuring out what the other differences are, but there are many others.

[ed1475]

I think you may have the ADAM compatible version of Defender.

 

Coleco released 2 versions of the game. The 1st version works fine on a CV. When they released the ADAM, they found out that the controls for Defender didn't work right on a stand alone ADAM so they released an ADAM compatible version of the cartridge. I think the only difference between the 2 versions is the programming for the controls.

 

I also have Video Hustler with the same title screen as yours. It's on a DDP(cassette tape) for the ADAM. I got it from an ebay aution. The ebay seller got it from an estate sale of a former Coleco employee.

Edited March 7, 2010 by ed1475

[Tempest]

I think you may have the ADAM compatible version of Defender.

 

Coleco released 2 versions of the game. The 1st version works fine on a CV. When they released the ADAM, they found out that the controls for Defender didn't work right on a stand alone ADAM so they released an ADAM compatible version of the cartridge. I think the only difference between the 2 versions is the programming for the controls.

I never knew there were two versions. Interesting. I wonder which one I have?

 

 

I also have Video Hustler with the same title screen as yours. It's on a DDP(cassette tape) for the ADAM. I got it from an ebay aution. The ebay seller got it from an estate sale of a former Coleco employee.

Is the DDP dump out there? If not you should get it preserved.

 

Tempest

[ed1475]

I uploaded a video to Youtube of my DDP title screens for Video Hustler. The title screens are followed by a short demo followed by the title screens for a rom image of the game on the internet.

 

Video Hustler title screens

Edited March 7, 2010 by ed1475

[djpubba]

My title screen is exactly like that. However, my demo doesn't scratch the cue ball like yours does. I checked to make sure the demo isn't randomized, and it's not, so ours are still different.

 

Thank you for the info about Defender. That makes sense. As far as I can tell, nobody has ever dumped their Adam version of Defender. Are they hard to find?

 

I also took a look at the changes to my Burgertime and they appear related to how the enemies and the chef are displayed... looks like the refresh rate maybe? Not 100% sure. Wondering if this is another patch for Adam. Does the Adam have issues with displaying the enemies and the chef with the normal Colecovision Burgertime? As far as I can tell nobody's dumped an Adam patched Burgertime like this.

[djpubba]

Anyone ever seen a Cabbage Patch Kids that looks like this??

 

 

 

[coleconut]

Anyone ever seen a Cabbage Patch Kids that looks like this??

 

 

Yes that looks like the game commonly known as Cabbage Patch Kids 128K

I have it on ADAM disk, not sure if it can be put on a cart.

Music is a little different from the standard version, as I recall, and when Cabbage falls down the "crying" sound is different.

Not sure where that name came from, I dont think its a full 128K file.

[ed1475]

Thank you for the info about Defender. That makes sense. As far as I can tell, nobody has ever dumped their Adam version of Defender. Are they hard to find?

 

The cartridge is probably "unbelieveably rare." Adam's House copied the rom to tape and disk and sold it that way for awhile but they have sold out.

 

 

I also took a look at the changes to my Burgertime and they appear related to how the enemies and the chef are displayed... looks like the refresh rate maybe? Not 100% sure. Wondering if this is another patch for Adam. Does the Adam have issues with displaying the enemies and the chef with the normal Colecovision Burgertime? As far as I can tell nobody's dumped an Adam patched Burgertime like this.

 

No ADAM issues with Burgertime. Defender and Super Cobra are the only CV games that didn't work right in ADAM. A fix was released for Defender but not for Super Cobra.

 

 

I've got that Cabbage Patch game on ADAM disk too. Here's a video of it somebody put on Youtube. I think it was put on cartridge and sold on ebay for a while.

 

Edited March 10, 2010 by ed1475

[djpubba]

Very interesting. 128k refers to how much RAM it needs, not the size of the game.

 

Mine has a Konami copyright instead of a Coleco and definitely doesn't need 128k.

[djpubba]

BTW I think your umbrella graphic difference in DK could just be the result of bit rot. It doesn't look intentional like a completely different graphic would.

 

I found a 24k ROM "in the wild" that has the same umbrella graphic as mine so it's not bit rot. I've almost got my adapter to dump Coleco carts finished so we'll see for sure then if it's a proto.

[djpubba]

Okay, I finished my Coleco cart dumper and found that Donkey Kong is identical to the released 24k version, so I knocked the price way down on that one. I also dumped the Cabbage Patch one that looks like the 128K Adam version and can confirm that it's very different from the disk versions out there.

 

So now that I'm fairly certain I know what these all are, I've lowered the prices way down on all of them to what I hope is more fair market value for such things.

 

http://rover.ebay.com/rover/1/711-53200-19255-0/1?icep_ff3=10&pub=5574883395&toolid=10001&campid=5336500554&customid=&icep_uq=colecovision&icep_sellerId=arcadecollecting&icep_ex_kw=&icep_sortBy=12&icep_catId=&icep_minPrice=&icep_maxPrice=&ipn=psmain&icep_vectorid=229466&kwid=902099&mtid=824&kw=lg

 

The jury is still out on the two Coleco 2600 carts. So until I can get those dumped, I'm leaving the price high.

[djpubba]

It turned out to be much easier to dump the 2600 carts without desoldering anything than I thought it would be. Both 2600 carts turned out to be identical to the Atari releases so I lowered the prices on them way down too.

 

I might as well document how I was able to dump them without desoldering in case anyone has any true 2600 protos that they'd like to dump without doing any invasive irreversible damage to their valuable carts.

 

First I straightened out the EPROM pins on the back so that I was able to fit a machine pin socket onto them without needing any solder. I used a volt meter's continuity test to make sure I had good contact on all pins.

 

 

Then I disabled the bank switching circuitry by manually pulling pins 11 & 12 on the 7402 low with test clip jumpers.

 

 

Then I just read it as a normal 2764 in my EPROM burner. The dumps both matched the released dumps so I know I got a good dump.

Edited March 11, 2010 by djpubba

[+Psionic]

I think you may have the ADAM compatible version of Defender.

 

Coleco released 2 versions of the game...

You mean Atari? It's hard to believe they would've bothered releasing a fixed version for the ADAM.

 

Defender and Super Cobra are the only CV games that didn't work right in ADAM. A fix was released for Defender but not for Super Cobra.

This is the first time I've heard this about Defender. I know about Super Cobra, as there was a sticker on the box indicating "For ColecoVision ONLY".

[opcode]

It looks like that Cabbage Patch Kids is a combination of both the original CPK (which was called Athletic Land on the MSX) and the MSX version of CPK:

 

The MSX version btw is only 16KB, just like the original Athletic Land, so both games would be combined with no more than 32KB.

[the.golden.ax]

 

Discovered this two days later and came to show you all the link, but Opcode knew what it was first. I was just messing around on youtube when I saw this, and remembered seeing djpubbas post.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=isjCc7CiSfM

 

AX

[djpubba]

[More importantly though...this was long before the days of "officially licensed games" and Coleco most certainly did not approve any of the third party titles for their system. That's how we ended up with so many crappy games (and 'the crash') in the first place.

 

I think this picture says you are wrong.

 

 

"©1983 Sierra On-Line, Inc. Manufactured under license from Coleco Industries Inc.

 

Perhaps not all of them officially licensed, but there's proof that at least some did.