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Why I got back into collecting ColecoVision...


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Today was most certainly a "Frenzy" kind of day as the two packages I picked up from my UPS Box were both Frenzy! But for different systems...

12030653_10156124894900370_1549730994_n.jpg

I won't get into the Vectrex game because that's for a different forum, but that is my "other system" that I'm into, although not quite as much as I am into the CV, but I pick up games for that system from time to time... Anyway...

 

12016447_10156124894845370_1618277597_n.jpg

I had been looking for a CIB Frenzy for a while and they seemed to be going for a lot of eBay. I've seen auctions over $100, most of them around $80. There are a few around $50 but the boxes don't look to be in great shape. This one I ended up getting for about $60 and was worried I'd be overpaying for a game that wasn't sealed, but I was VERY happy with the box...

 

12026464_10156124894680370_1777633478_n.jpg

It's in VERY good condition with only some very minor nicks or scratches along the edges. The color on the box is also very good. No yellowing.

 

12030658_10156124894470370_408428849_n.jpg

The cart and instruction manual also looked perfect to me! Not sure why Frenzy was going for so much more as the game seemed pretty common when it came out and I've seen a ton of loose carts listed. Anyway. I'm happy with my purchase and it's one more to add to the boxed collection!

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Frenzy is just one of those CIBs that has held it's value over the years unlike other games that have had big spikes and then dropped back down to a hard to believe low price. You did very well for yourself with that $60 price tag.

 

You are right about loose Frenzy carts being pretty common and cheap to come by.

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I've always wondered why they decided not to include the side art of the cabinet for the box. I mean, I get that the side art wasn't really that much to begin with, but the only other box that I don't think there is side art on is Space Fury and I don't believe that cabinet ever had any. So is Frenzy the only Coleco US box with the arcade cabinet on it that didn't include the side art?

frenzy.pngSF2.jpg

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I got my CIB of Frenzy over a year ago and the first thing I did was stick it on my Frenzy cabinate that I have had for over 20 years and the other things I noticed missing were Alan's signature and the instruction card in the bezel. They must have used a very early prototype or mockup cabinate image provided by Stern

[click to enlarge]

post-38229-0-32683500-1443139445_thumb.jpg

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I got my CIB of Frenzy over a year ago and the first thing I did was stick it on my Frenzy cabinate that I have had for over 20 years and the other things I noticed missing were Alan's signature and the instruction card in the bezel. They must have used a very early prototype or mockup cabinate image provided by Stern

[click to enlarge]

attachicon.gifimage.jpg

 

Yeah, this is what I thought as well.

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Today was most certainly a "Frenzy" kind of day as the two packages I picked up from my UPS Box were both Frenzy! But for different systems...

attachicon.gif12030653_10156124894900370_1549730994_n.jpg

I won't get into the Vectrex game because that's for a different forum, but that is my "other system" that I'm into, although not quite as much as I am into the CV, but I pick up games for that system from time to time... Anyway...

 

attachicon.gif12016447_10156124894845370_1618277597_n.jpg

I had been looking for a CIB Frenzy for a while and they seemed to be going for a lot of eBay. I've seen auctions over $100, most of them around $80. There are a few around $50 but the boxes don't look to be in great shape. This one I ended up getting for about $60 and was worried I'd be overpaying for a game that wasn't sealed, but I was VERY happy with the box...

 

attachicon.gif12026464_10156124894680370_1777633478_n.jpg

It's in VERY good condition with only some very minor nicks or scratches along the edges. The color on the box is also very good. No yellowing.

 

attachicon.gif12030658_10156124894470370_408428849_n.jpg

The cart and instruction manual also looked perfect to me! Not sure why Frenzy was going for so much more as the game seemed pretty common when it came out and I've seen a ton of loose carts listed. Anyway. I'm happy with my purchase and it's one more to add to the boxed collection!

man I wish half my boxes looked that good...

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So I now only have *ONE* game remaining to have a complete collection of all the officially released Colecovision titles:

 

Robin Hood/Sir Lancelot Double Ender

 

Anyone have one they want to sell to me? Pretty please! =)

I think I have this actually.Not sure if it has the box but if I have it you can have it.

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I think I have this actually.Not sure if it has the box but if I have it you can have it.

Dude, if you have one you'd want to sell to me, even if it's loose, that's fine and that would be awesome!! I'm more trying to complete my loose collection anyway and this is the last piece to that puzzle!

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So today I managed to get something I've been wanting since I got back into this whole ColecoVision thing and heard about it's existence... A ColecoVision with an F18A upgrade!

First of all, this totally blew my mind and exceeded ALL of my expectations! I feel like this upgrade really brings the system forward at least 10 years maybe more in terms of what the output looks like. Playing through games that I was used to seeing pretty bad sprite flicker and washed out color just looked clean, bright, crisp, colorful, and the sprite flicker was gone! I'm one of those people who don't really want too much of an upgrade on a ColecoVision because I still want the system to feel retro and be the system I played when I was 12, but it would be nice to at least have it look better on current TV technology, and that's exactly what the F18A does!

None of this text can describe something that is purely visual, so let me start over again, but with pictures and video instead....

First of all, here's the system I bought...
IMG_5945.JPG

IMG_5948.JPG
It's a bi-lingual Canadian version, which I really like because I did not have one of these systems before, and my wife, who speaks French, could also appreciate that! The pause switch installed is also a nice little bonus!

But here is the real star of the show:
IMG_5946.JPG
The F18A outputs a VGA signal (which could also be converted to HDMI which I plan on buying a converted/scaler) and it looks just fantastic! The audio jack also outputs sound (Duh!) I have the system hooked up to my Vizio HD TV in my office. It's just a little 22", nothing special, and it's going right from the VGA output to the VGA input, and WOW!

IMG_5947.JPG
Oh, and this system also included an internal power supply, which is another nice bonus! Some great mods on this!

Onto how it performs! Let's fire up something like Bagman....

Without the F18A, if the guards were on the same scanline as the player character, you would see part of their face disappear:
bagman.jpg
(and keep in mind that these images are also taken from a CV system that has an A/V composite mod on it as well!)

but not with the F18A on board!
bagmanf18a.jpg

There are times in the game where riding in the ore carts would make things disappear, like the actual ore cart itself!
bagman2.jpg
Again, not with the F18A! All the sprites stay in tact!
bagman_f18a.jpg

Let's take a look at Pac-Man Collection shall we?
mspac.jpg
There seems to be a ghost and Ms. Pac missing! Where could they be? In the tunnel? Nope! They had flickered off and are no longer on screen!

But with the F18A:
mspac_f18a.jpg
No matter how close all the ghosts got to you, none of them flickered away!

Same thing with Burgertime:
burgertime.jpg

You can see bits of pieces of the spites start to tear away:


But none of that happens with the F18A installed:
burgertime_f18a.jpg

f18_thumbdc.jpg

But I think what shows off this even better is a video! This was shot just with a camera pointing at my TV to give you the best idea of what it actually looks like. No "capture card" or anything...




I'm just so impressed by how this looks! The F18A boards are currently out of stock, but Matthew has told me they should be back in soon! Here's the link: http://codehackcreate.com/store#!/F18A-V1-6-Video-Board/p/14022176/category=0

I know to many of you reading this it's very "old news" but to someone like me who is seeing this for the first time, it makes me VERY excited! Hopefully there will be some people who can appreciate this review and might also be new to the ColecoVision scene or at least this may sway them to try to get the upgrade.

I am just still so impressed that all of this hard work on both the software and hardware side of the homebrew community is still so active. This is a system that should have been dead in the water 30 years ago, and I feel like it's still going strong and getting better and better! Huge thanks to chart45 for selling me his system and from what I understand some thanks goes also to 5-11 under who did the mod on this!

Thanks for reading!
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The F18A outputs a VGA signal (which could also be converted to HDMI which I plan on buying a converted/scaler) and it looks just fantastic! The audio jack also outputs sound (Duh!) I have the system hooked up to my Vizio HD TV in my office. It's just a little 22", nothing special, and it's going right from the VGA output to the VGA input, and WOW!

 

I have one of these for my Dreamcast. VGA to HDMI. It works like a charm, and it wasn't too pricey.

 

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00IUJJHAW?keywords=rei%20xd-600&qid=1443745377&ref_=sr_1_fkmr0_1&sr=8-1-fkmr0

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I have one of these for my Dreamcast. VGA to HDMI. It works like a charm, and it wasn't too pricey.

 

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00IUJJHAW?keywords=rei%20xd-600&qid=1443745377&ref_=sr_1_fkmr0_1&sr=8-1-fkmr0

I ended up ordering this one (before I saw your post): http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00EP9NAZE?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o02_s00

 

But if that one doesn't work out I'll try yours. They both look pretty similar and like you said, not very pricey.

 

Again, I'm just so impressed with how the ColecoVision games look with the F18A. How well do they look with a standard RGB mod? I would have to assume that also gets you some of the color and crispness back?

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I'm running a standard A/V Yurkievision on a CRT. Sorry in advance for potato quality of picture:

 

IMG_1300_zpsm8qqx6qw.jpg

 

The PS3 is what I use for 3D movies

 

The Gamecube has an SD card reader soft mod, so it plays SNES, NES, Genesis, Sega Mega Drive, and SG-1000 games, that's a standard video to the flatscreen. I could run RGB on the Gamecube, but the cable is proprietary and around $190 on eBay.

 

The clear one is a Dreamcast that has a VGA switch box hooked up to it. It's hooked up to both the CRT (for light gun games) and the flatscreen. Just press a switch on the box and it's on either TV. No VGA input on the TV though, so it has to go through the VGA/HDMI converter.

 

The Yurkievision goes to the CRT. Which allows my wife to watch soap operas about vampires, and lets me play the colecovision at the same time.

 

The F18A is really tempting though.

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Today was a BIG day! And a lot of thanks goes to Pixelboy... so THANK YOU!

 

First of all, I got in all the new releases, hooray! All four of these are games I'm really looking forward to playing, so expect some reviews coming soon! I also ordered new, fresh copies of all the SGM titles and I think with these and the new titles I now have every game available for the SGM to date! But the biggest news is that Luc agreed to sell to me a collection of "Telegames Reproductions" that he did (the boxes are repros, the carts are the actual ones) which will nearly complete my collection of released ColecoVision games. The ONLY game I don't have a copy of in either loose or CIB format is the XONOX Double-Ender of Sir Lancelot/Robin Hood. I'm soooo close!

 

Anyway, onto a few photos, because these items are AWESOME!

 

First off...the new hotness!

boxxle_box.jpg

I just have to say that I'm so impressed with how these "homebrew" games look. In fact, I hate that they are considered "homebrew." In my years of working on actual commercial games, these products look just as good, if not better than MANY commercial games out there! The box, the full-color manual, the cart, the overlay, it all just says "high quality" to me and that's just really important! Well done Team Pixelboy!

 

boxxle1.jpg
and the game looks GREAT on my new F18A ColecoVision system! Boxxle is one of those games I played a lot on my original GameBoy way back when and I'm happy to see this game being coded for the ColecoVision!

 

boxxle2.jpg

Hey look! I finished the first level! I'll have a full report soon!

 

new_games.jpg

Here's the rest of the new games... Spelunker I used to play a lot on the C-64 when I was a kid, and looking forward to this version; Being a huge Konami fan I'm happy to see Knightmare being offered; and Stone of Wisdom nicely fills that RPG gap which there aren't many of on this system! I know some people aren't as thrilled with some of the "ports" from other systems, but to me, I don't own an MSX, for example, never have, so these all "new to me" games, and I'm thrilled to be playing them!

 

SGM_games.jpg

Here is the first 8 of the SGM games that Pixelboy produced last year (I think?) and I'm glad to see he's done a second run of them!

 

SGM_games2.jpg

Can't leave out Twin Bee! Love this game!

 

zaxxon_box.jpg

Love that Zaxxon comes in the clear plastic casing. Again, such high quality work here.

 

zaxxon.jpg

Zaxxon looks amazing via the F18A RGB mod!

 

goonies.jpg

And so does Goonies! I swear this looks more like the visual quality of an NES. it's just awesome! (Goonies is one of my favorite Famicom games and I love this version, too!)

 

frontline1.jpgfrontline2.jpg

Another new release was the "Front Line Standard Controller Edition" which came in it's own cute little mini-sized case and cartridge. As someone who played the CRAP out of this game when I was a kid, but never was the biggest fan of the Super Action Controller (I think I liked it more then than I do now, it's just seems sort of big and bulky compared to today's controllers), this is a very welcome addition!

 

And now onto a great addition to the collection:

telegames.jpg

telegames2.jpg

These are reproduction boxes that Pixelboy created using actual production carts inside and they all look AMAZING! I'm thrilled that Luc allowed me to purchase these from his own personal collection and they look awesome! So much better than those terrible clam-shell plastic "80s video store" boxes some of them originally came in!

 

Once again, HUGE thank you to Team Pixelboy for all the new, old, and re-releases! I have my work cut out for me in the next few weeks posting new reviews and playing lots of games!

 

Thanks for reading!

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And now onto a great addition to the collection:

 

attachicon.giftelegames.jpg

 

attachicon.giftelegames2.jpg

 

These are reproduction boxes that Pixelboy created using actual production carts and they all look AMAZING! I'm thrilled that Luc allowed me to purchase these from his own personal collection and they look awesome! So much better than those terrible clam-shell plastic "80s video store" boxes some of them originally came in!

For the record, I sold those Telegames titles with custom boxes to Robb because he bought them all together and accepted my condition that if he was ever to part with them in the future, he would sell them as a single bundle. This is a one-of-a-kind collection, and I feel they should always be kept together.

 

And now that I no longer have this little custom box collection, I have one more incentive to produce my collections of ColecoVision trading cards: I want those custom boxes in trading card form! :D

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And now that I no longer have this little custom box collection, I have one more incentive to produce my collections of ColecoVision trading cards: I want those custom boxes in trading card form! :D

Yes please! I'm happy to help incentivize this project a little further! :)

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So as a follow-up to my F18A review above, I got in the RGB > HDMI converter and I have some interesting results. Let me at least show you in pictures...

 

First of all, this was the HDMI converter I picked up, and I think it does a pretty good job: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00EP9NAZE?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o02_s00

81Blmil5-xL._SL1500_.jpg

It's very simple - VGA & audio input on one side, HDMI output on the other with a switch to toggle between 720p/1080p.

 

So let's compare...

 

The left hand side photos are the HDMI pics that are from the F18A using the converted box, and the right hand side are the RGB pics from the F18A directly into the TV. You'll really need to click on them to do a good comparison:

 

Pac-Man Collection:

pac_hdmi.jpg pac_vga.jpg

 

Goonies:

goonies_hdmi.jpg goonies_vga.jpg

 

Moon Patrol:

moon_hdmi.jpg moon_vga.jpg

 

The obvious difference is that the HDMI version is stretched and fatter. Now, I admit that I'm not a technical person, so I don't quite understand why this is the case, but questions I have for some of you (and I do hope you'll answer)...

 

- Do you prefer the more "fatter" version of the screen or the one that seems to look like the aspect ratio may be more correct?

 

- Those of you who have either an F18A installed or an RGB mod, do you convert to HDMI or hook up through a VGA cable? And why did you choose to go the route you did?

 

- Why does the HDMI version look fatter? Is there a technical reason for why it's doing this?

 

- Those of you who do NOT have either an F18A or an RGB mod, is this something you would consider? And why haven't you done it already? (This one is more for my own curiosity!)

 

And one more comparison. Here's Moon Patrol output by a ColecoVision with an A/V mod. It looks good, but next to the HDMI & RGB versions, it just doesn't even stack up:

 

AV on the left, HDMI in the middle, RGB on the right:

moon_av.jpg moon_hdmi.jpg moon_vga.jpg

 

Thanks for reading and please answer!

Also, I'm not sure why on my screen the color seems to be richer at the top than at the bottom. Could just be an old and cheap HDTV that I'm using which I plan on replacing towards the end of the year.

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Could you describe the signal flow for each path? I'm not clear what sources you're using (Juice's RGB? F18A?), and the signal path (conversions?) for each one before reaching the TV (which input?).

Oh, man. You're almost getting too technical for my layman knowledge! I will try:

 

F18A Screens shots = F18A output via VGA cable directly into the RGB input in my HDTV

HDMI Screen Shots = F18A output via VGA cable into Sabrent converter box to HDMI into my HDTV

A/V Screen Shot = Standard ColecoVision AV Mod (I think this one was done by Bradd1978) into the AV jacks of my HDTV

Is that what you were looking for?

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If I understand this the vga pictures on the right are 4:3 640/480 and the pictures on the left are stretched for 16:9....

 

- Why does the HDMI version look fatter? Is there a technical reason for why it's doing this?

aspect ratio mentioned above

 

your examples of Moon Patrol show to an extend the differences in what the can be displayed in the various formats with RGB being the most vibrant

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