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Coleco Chameleon .... hardware speculations?


phoenixdownita

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http://www.giantbomb.com/podcasts/the-giant-beastcast-episode-41/1600-1524/

 

relevant talk begins around 1:40:08

 

The fellows of Giant Bomb East and CNET continue their hot Chameleon coverage. "This is the gift that keeps on giving."

 

Haha, I like that they carried over their prototype analogy (originally in reference to the SNES2-in-a-Jag) from last time.

 

This:

 

post-39941-0-85607100-1457107063_thumb.jpg

 

... is not a prototype for this:

 

post-39941-0-35489900-1457107151_thumb.jpg

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I will not be doing any further modifications to the current version of the forum software, as a major new version has been released and I will be moving AtariAge to it this spring. I expect chaos and all around panic once I do this.

 

..Al

Oh, WTF, I've don't know how the hell I've missed that "Likes" link on my profile page, we definitely don't need it on the main forum page then, thanks guys! I totally agree on the "No-Unneccesary-Chaos" thing, especially the self induced kind...

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Oh you think it's crazy now, just wait till the 7 day deadlines up!

I just have a gut feeling they are going to say, "we have confirmed it to be real" for some reason. Even though we all know its impossible if they inspect the 2 prototypes that were shown. But from their statement, those are what they are supposed to be looking at to confirm.

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I was trying to imagine what Mike Kennedy could possibly say at this point, and this is what I came up with:

 

FakeMikeKennedy says:

 

So here's the deal with these hardware guys: They love building things into old cases. They're just crazy about it - it's like an obsession. For example, people have built modern gaming PCs that fit in an NES case. There is even a game console that fits in an NES cartridge. Someone built a Raspberry PI emulator system inside an old GameBoy case for Pete's sake…

So, this guy Lee built an FPGA core for the SNES, and, just for fun, he designed it onto a board that fit in an SNES junior case. It had all the same pin-outs, proprietary connectors, etc. He would put it side by side next to a regular SNES junior, and challenge his friends to guess which one was the real deal. Then he would pop open the cases and show them that one unit was running his own board, and his friends would be impressed.

But, Lee didn't really have so many friends, so few people knew about his system.

He contacted us shortly after the Coleco Chameleon was announced, and asked if we were interested. We told him that we were interested, and asked him if he could mount his PC board in the Jaguar shell. He said that his regular job was really busy at this point, but he did send us the prototype in the SNES case. We mounted it in the Jag shell with a couple rolls of electrical tape. Unfortunately this meant we couldn't pop the top and show people the FPGA inside (if only we had thought to snap a picture of the board before we surrounded it with all that tape…) But we told people over and over that the game code was running on a FPGA (if we had a dollar for every time we said "FPGA" at the Toy Fair, then we wouldn't even need a Kickstarter campaign…)

We thought that the "Jag bar guy" would make the video for the Kickstarter, but he bailed at the last minute so we had to delay the Kickstarter…

In the meantime, Lee is continuing his FPGA core development using a commercial FPGA development board. That board is kind of square so it doesn't fit in the Jag case.

We were going to offer some clear case units as a special reward for early supporters, so we wanted to shoot some pictures to show what the clear case would look like, so we put an old pci board in the case to shoot the pictures. In the photos we used the same mockup cartridge that we had at Toy Fair - the one that said "Prototype 1" on it, We posted these pictures on Facebook to show everyone how cool the clear case looked, and people shot it down as some kind of "faked prototype" We never said that this was the prototype!!! We just wanted to give people an idea of what it would look like,,,

Disclaimer: This article is 100% the product of my own imagination. I don't know any of the parties involved. I don't even get invited to parties. Read at your own risk...

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I just have a gut feeling they are going to say, "we have confirmed it to be real" for some reason. Even though we all know its impossible if they inspect the 2 prototypes that were shown. But from their statement, those are what they are supposed to be looking at to confirm.

 

This is an interesting situation to be speculative on, because Coleco sounds like they want to be nothing but respectful and polite -- but, boy, I'll be honest, I'll be surprised if they can whip up something in time. We'll see! :P

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Which is when exactly?

I read the 7 days thing but it's vague about when it is supposed to end. Is it this coming Tuesday? Or is it 7 business days randomly picked?

If anyone knows please chime in.

 

 

 

Steven Wright

"Not in a row."

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How good are those automatic transcripts? If it's really borked, let me know, I might be able to do it myself later.

 

It looks like this:

 

0:00 I'm not I'm not shy about my feelings towards that whole thing in my hand so

0:07 that in general so well then if you don't mind I will go ahead and just

0:12 jumped right in

0:14 share for anyone who kind of stumbled on this Kaliko chameleon thing and they're

0:21 digging back then I guess there's a history here what is going on I say I'm

0:27 talking to someone who kinda had an inside track way back when can you just

0:33 come to introduce like what your role in the story is yes you like for a while I

0:40 think it's like since 2009 or early 2010 somewhere around there and I've worked

0:46 with my 34 years became gavel row countless things that say helped him you

0:54 know kind redefine link how he wanted to be a part of the retro community and you

1:02 know before Mike met me I don't think like written content was a primary focus

You can read about the "Kaliko Chameleon" and the "Jagwire." :D

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http://www.giantbomb.com/podcasts/the-giant-beastcast-episode-41/1600-1524/

 

relevant talk begins around 1:40:08

 

The fellows of Giant Bomb East and CNET continue their hot Chameleon coverage. "This is the gift that keeps on giving."

That was great, they had a real good laugh about everything, and right now there's no more appropriate response.

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Sorry, Albert. I'll try to remember my own advice: stop feeding the trolls.

 

On a more interesting note: Nintendo Legend has just posted an interview with Steve Tom Sawyer, a former Mike Kennedy associate. I've only just started listening, but so far it sounds very interesting.

 

Fascinating. While I won't go into details, as a former writer for RETRO, Sawyer's comments echo my own (albeit limited) experience/exposure about how that magazine was run. On one level it's a shame that all of this "dirty laundry" is being made public, but I suppose on another level if there wasn't dirty laundry in the first place than all this stuff wouldn't be proliferating like it is.

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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.

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I haven't watched this yet, but it's hot off the press:

 

It all goes askew about nine minutes in. Mike didn't make "a mistake." He made a series of mistakes that turned into lies. OF course everyone makes mistakes. It's how you deal with them that measures what kind of man or woman you are.

 

I'm 12 minutes in and now, the Chameleon situation is not a big deal because ISIS is killing people all over the world. Also, no one lost money. Again, ask the RGR guys about that.

 

15 minutes in; Pat's the bad guy because he didn't reach out to Mike for "the facts." Not that Mike had the facts, but Pat should have reached out to him (?). Also, Pat's a hypocrite because he worked for RETRO magazine (a fact he disclosed on the first podcast he did about the Retro VGS. Keep in mind John did not disclose his involvement with the RVGS).

 

18 minutes; Pat's doing this for views and there's two sides to every story.

 

21 minutes; he's upset that people take away what one guy says on the internet as gospel. He hosts a show where people go to him for his opinions about games; I'm at a loss to see how people treating Pat's (sourced) opinions is any different than him telling us how great the Retro VGS was going to be.

 

This was a pretty interesting video; as he says up front, he wasn't going to change anyone's opinion. He starts off fairly contrite. He's clearly very upset about his integrity being besmirched; but vacillates WILDLY between being upset with Mike, and then saying that we should look at both sides and understand that maybe Mike had good reasons for what he did. He talks about how he doesn't want to dredge up the past or get into internet drama, but goes after Pat. He says he's sorry for calling people at these forums names and for leading CollectorVision down a path with Kennedy (he was upset that suddenly some contract terms were changed on the eve of the Kickstarter)... but then he is upset that he has to apologize at all. He's angry people want him to talk about this in his comments and Twitter and Facebook, but is also angry that no one asked him what he thought about all of this (?). Pretty puzzling, all considered.

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