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"Extremely Rare" Prototypes on EBAY!


Bartsfam

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Hey, you experts out there! (You know who you are...) I was wondering if these are legit, and if so how can you tell they just aren't the insides of some cartridge?

 

 

eBay Auction -- Item Number: 2608009862611?ff3=2&pub=5574883395&toolid=10001&campid=5336500554&customid=&item=260800986261&mpt=[CACHEBUSTER]

 

Hahaha.... those aren't prototypes... Prototypes use EPROMs, those are ROMs, and no manuacturer is going to order ROMs to prototype something...

Fake. :thumbsdown:

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I am curious about these. I think it possible that the boxes and labels where already printed and employees could have slapped labels and partial labels on them.

I wasn't completely sold when I first say this auction and then when I enlarged the picture and saw better that some had cart labels adhered to the PROMS/ROMS, I immediately thought scam. If it isn't an outright scam than it is more likely that these are in-house demos of the completed games than work-in-progress prototypes.

 

Unfortunately when it comes to things like this, the only way to know with a 100% certainty is too take the leap of faith and if there are no noticeable differences when played, then it has to be dumped and compared to a dump from a released cart... and that could be expensive venture.

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I am curious about these. I think it possible that the boxes and labels where already printed and employees could have slapped labels and partial labels on them.

I wasn't completely sold when I first say this auction and then when I enlarged the picture and saw better that some had cart labels adhered to the PROMS/ROMS, I immediately thought scam. If it isn't an outright scam than it is more likely that these are in-house demos of the completed games than work-in-progress prototypes.

 

Unfortunately when it comes to things like this, the only way to know with a 100% certainty is too take the leap of faith and if there are no noticeable differences when played, then it has to be dumped and compared to a dump from a released cart... and that could be expensive venture.

 

Where do the 3 IC boards come from? Those wouldn't even fit in a Coleco cart housing. What would be the point and or profit in faking that many. You would have a bunch of time and money in making them, unless it was going to get into more than $300 or $400 I don't see it as worthwhile.

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Where do the 3 IC boards come from? Those wouldn't even fit in a Coleco cart housing.

 

Yes, they do. Most 24kB games are like that, DK and Zaxxon included.

 

What would be the point and or profit in faking that many. You would have a bunch of time and money in making them, unless it was going to get into more than $300 or $400 I don't see it as worthwhile.

 

He didn't need to create them, he just opened a few cartridges, took the boards out, stuck some labels with fake dates and voila. Even if he really was a Coleco employee, those PCBs are nothing more than regular production PCBs, you can get those by simply opening some loose cartridges. I have dozens of such boards here.

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Where do the 3 IC boards come from? Those wouldn't even fit in a Coleco cart housing.

 

Yes, they do. Most 24kB games are like that, DK and Zaxxon included.

 

What would be the point and or profit in faking that many. You would have a bunch of time and money in making them, unless it was going to get into more than $300 or $400 I don't see it as worthwhile.

 

He didn't need to create them, he just opened a few cartridges, took the boards out, stuck some labels with fake dates and voila. Even if he really was a Coleco employee, those PCBs are nothing more than regular production PCBs, you can get those by simply opening some loose cartridges. I have dozens of such boards here.

 

I popped open a few CV games with trashed labels and never saw a 3 IC board. Thanks for the info.

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I wrote to the seller to see if he had any history on these, or what his position was in Coleco. This was his reponse.....

 

Hi..I have saved these for years along with my adam.I was not a programer nor was I in any dept. of the adam.I did work for coleco late 70's early 80's.These work in the same way the games do.But as you can see in the photos most of them are marked masters.They are indeed from the coleco bldg.and I feel they are what they are marked...master versions..Highly athentic.....hope thats a help

 

Richard..

- rscguitarsplus

 

So he calls them "master versions", whatever that means. Is that the proper term for what they used to make copies with for mass production of the game? Or, maybe they just handed them out to employees after they were released as samples of a finished product?

Edited by Bartsfam
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I had also noticed this auction before as well and after seeing the pic, I immediately dismissed it.

 

But look, while I agree that those are production boards in the picture, for the record they

do not all have roms. Four of them do indeed contain eproms. Now granted, that does not mean

anything for certain per say (I reference a thread on the digital press forums regarding some

colecovision subroc cartridges which house boards that contain eproms)

...I have one of them here that I used for a project in fact...

 

But the truth is "masters" or not, alot of colecovision carts have been found in the wild that

look like that and it is very doubtful that they are not the same as the released versions.

 

Most likely a waste of time & money.

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I had also noticed this auction before as well and after seeing the pic, I immediately dismissed it.

 

But look, while I agree that those are production boards in the picture, for the record they

do not all have roms. Four of them do indeed contain eproms. Now granted, that does not mean

anything for certain per say (I reference a thread on the digital press forums regarding some

colecovision subroc cartridges which house boards that contain eproms)

...I have one of them here that I used for a project in fact...

 

But the truth is "masters" or not, alot of colecovision carts have been found in the wild that

look like that and it is very doubtful that they are not the same as the released versions.

 

Most likely a waste of time & money.

 

I actually have a half dozen different CV game boards that used EPROMs, including Zaxxon and Donkey Kong. No big deal either.

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