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Coleco Chameleon .... hardware speculations?


phoenixdownita

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* Mike seems to have some facts jumbled up a bit at the beginning of the project. For the record, Sean (whom I had met a couple times before) contacted me directly in early November 2014 to see if I was interested in speaking to Mike about a retro-style hardware game device. I've done that kind of development work commercially for years now, so I agreed to at least explore the possibility and agreed to let Sean give Mike my contact information. Mike and I then spoke directly by phone on Nov. 17th, 2014. Sean was already working with Mike well in advance of my involvement and my understanding during the call with Mike was that he and Sean were actually friends and had known each other for quite some time.

 

Thanks for the reply- that independently confirms that Sean was involved in the project, so Mike didn't just find his name on Google as some people suspected, but it's strange that Mike has such a different recollection about how Sean got involved: your account is basically the opposite of his.

 

* The project was not what I as a hardware designer would consider 'defined'. [...] Over the next couple months there wasn't a lot of progress on nailing down specifications (I don't know if there *ever* was an official requirements document/engineering spec generated)-- even basics like what type of video modes and outputs the device was supposed to have were still up in the air at the end of February. However, there *was* talking up the system in public when it didn't even exist on paper yet-- I took that as an excellent sign that it was time to officially part company at the end of February and "pursue other opportunities".

 

From our perspective on the outside, given how often features were added/changed it didn't look like there was ever a specification nailed down, other than the obvious carts and jag case.

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Was there ever this much politics in the 1st days of videogame development? No. Games were better too.

Sadly, there probably were.

 

 

From our perspective on the outside, given how often features were added/changed it didn't look like there was ever a specification nailed down, other than the obvious carts and jag case.

The problem from the beginning: I have a case; that's 50% of a video game console right there! Time to call Konami.

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i am one of the board members for Portland Retro Gaming Expo. PRGE is staying out of this as an organization. This is about my personal dealing with Sean Robinson. I have edited out the victims names. Here is a list that I presented to Sean before a meeting a group of us had with him:

 

 

 

Video game store WEBSITE

Took money from V for website and didn't finish the work. Recently took $500 more to get back their domain name. About $2000 total over several years.

Quote from an email regarding Sean's banning from PRGE:

"Sean just agreed if he was able to be a vendor he would pay V with a minimum percentage of 20% paid out on Sunday. Obviously the more I make, the more I can pay out."

 

AGREED TO PAY THIS BACK AFTER PRGE, HAS NOT PAID

 

TOBY WICKWIRE WEBSITE

Took $150 trade merchandise from Toby for website that was never finished, missed deadline from written contract, many excuses over several months.

NO REFUND RECEIVED

 

COMMODORE FLYER CASE

Commodore Flyer case project. Took pre-order money for project that was never finished. Refunded some money. Possibly the money from T. http://www.lemon64.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=40254&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=375&sid=d46cc64946e8aedc613feaae5cc4a066

I believe Sean took money for a product that was never produced. He refunded to the people who complained the loudest but I have no doubt some people are still owed money. I didn't re-read the whole thread but if I remember correctly it sounded like he scammed the person to get a Commodore Flyer in the first place. Sent buyer(s) fake delivery confirmation numbers and an empty package. More info from K below.

 

T NWC

Took $2000 from T in March (the same time he was refunding money on Lemon64) for a 1990 Nintendo World Championship cartridge he was brokering for someone else. Offered an authentic Flintstones 2 NES cartridge as collateral and then asked C to make him a reproduction Flintstones 2 NES cartridge. Provided fake tracking numbers.

PAID BACK

 

ATARIAGE DEAL

Owes $400 to some guy on AtariAge. http://atariage.com/forums/topic/150453-seanhq/page-4Sent him a fake delivery confirmation number. Toby has been in contact with nonner242 and has more details. More info below.

 

STILL OWES MONEY AND A COMMODORE SX64

 

J

Took $600 from J for an unfinished project 2 years ago.

PAID BACK

 

 

NEW PROBLEMS SINCE BANNING

 

 

R

Tried to pass off repro NES carts as original

 

S

V game - Seems like S was taking orders and money for the game and is stuck in the middle when Sean didn't deliver the game. He claims to have put "$$$ and his name" behind this and traded him games. Was supposed to be completed for PRGE 2013. Not completed as of 1/26/14. Sean used the fact that he "made" Jack and the Beanstalk for Atari 2600 to make this deal with S. http://atariage.com/forums/topic/194573-jack-and-the-beanstalk/ I don't know what exactly Sean had to do with this game but he did not program it. Delay on V game because Sean was copying another persons work. AS OF 1/31/14 SEAN OWES S $150.

 

J

Questioned Js non-profit status in a threatening way via email when he let Sean know that he is not welcome at J show.

 

L

friends/customers owed money

 

 

MICROSOFT GARAGE SALE

took $500 from someone, paid him back $100 at a show (not sure which) and claimed merchandise he was selling belonged to someone else. T and T know the details.

 

B

purchased non-working products at J 2012 and has not been resolved after several attempt by B to get his money back

 

J

owed money for a botched X-box repair

 

J

Bought a lot of non-working but complete Commodore computers from Sean off Craigslist. They were missing most of the valuable chips even though Sean assured him most were complete.

 

 

Response from K:

 

 

This is from "K" on the Lemon 64 forum. He gave me permission to share this story about his experience with Sean. I think that it is an example of a pattern of behavior that we have seen with other situations.

 

 

I believe the cases never existed and Sean is simply a scammer.

I found out far too late that many people in the CBM scene in Australia have also been ripped off by him over a long period of time with other non related sales.

 

It took much effort to get the money back.

 

He constantly made demands for information week after week, month after month, year after year.

I provided this constantly.

Eventually I researched his contact details and home address and published it on Lemon 64.

He finally refunded my money in exchange for removing the post containing his contact details.

 

The last straw was when he actually posted a box full of rubbish in the mail with the address deliberately miss labeled in the hopes it would get lost and then he could claim it wasn't his fault.

 

However the mail system was good here and they delivered it to me eventually.

 

I opened it and this is what was inside.

 

http://shazam.zapto.org/igal/scammers-1/sean/

 

 

I had a bad feeling about it at the time and I now wish I had of videoed the opening of it.

 

However weeks later he admitted via some screwed up story that it was a box of items his brother posted by mistake. (Most likely yet another lie).

 

This whole experience was very disturbing for me.

 

I wanted to experience the full retro fun of playing with a new modern item but in the old school style case. Almost as if CBM still existed and I had bought a new product from them.

 

For this reason I waited over a year before trying the flyer for the first time as I wanted to do it right. Seeing it in it's case for the very first experience.

 

After this I gave up on CBM for many months and concentrated on other platforms from my collection.

 

Only recently was I convinced to return to CBM and finally tried the Flyer and set up a c128, 1571, & MPS-802 printer with the flyer.

 

Sean is a terrible person and after talking with him on the phone many times I really question if he is even a sane person. I found his stories and lies could vary as often as two to three times in the same sentence.

 

Dealing with this person to get your refund is going to be a big problem I am afraid.

 

The best thing you could do is start a class action against him for the outstanding money plus expenses.

Have a court order served on him and make him pay back those he has scammed for so long now.

 

I wish you the best of luck with this and if I can be of any further assistance, just ask.

 

Regards,

K

 

 

Here's my correspondence from n from AtariAge. I asked if Sean still owed him money:

 

 

 

Lol...sure does.

Money and a commodore sx.

my cry fell on deaf ears when it happened.

Kinda made me not want to do business with anyone since then.

and what pisses me off more is that the only thing I got from him was non functional..my c128. And that was not cheap either.

No what pisses me off more than that is going to his site for c64 user meetings and seeing all the money he spend for then and stuff and seeing my c64sx sitting on a table. Much hate for him..almost drove up there to meet him..lol

didnt know he screwd others too.

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I appreciate the honesty from Mike Kennedy -

....

I do not know how much of the story to believe but I do know that honesty and Mike Kennedy cannot be in the same sentence.

So maybe admission of stupidity is more apt imho. That and a lot of greed. (In his words "The toyfairshow must go on" ..... lol, and on it went, look what it gave him).

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I can't wait until someone turns this thing into a documentary. Hell, turn it into a reality show! There's more drama here than Real Housewives, Big Brother, and the Kardashians combined. He said, she said, rumours, accusations, speculations, podcasts, blog posts, forum topics, detective work, investigations, Facebook posts, YouTube videos, feuds, beefs, more rumours, more speculations, money lost, money gained, oh my! It's the never-was project that will now seemingly never-die, kept alive through healthy circular discussions for all time.

 

I would turn it into the feature film with the main character being the Jaguar shell itself... it would be sort of like that film The Red Violin.

Follow its storyline from its time as the the Atari Jaguar, becoming a dental camera, Retro VGS, Coleco Chameleon, Albert's AtariAge store.... and who knows where it goes next.

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Was there ever this much politics in the 1st days of videogame development? No. Games were better too.

 

I think with the advent of instant communication and easy content-creation, situations like this blow up much bigger than they did "back in the day" so to speak. People love bullshit drama for some reason, hence why hundreds of needless replies are being added to this thread after the project has been legally declared dead, buried, and the widow has re-married. Instead of people just saying "alright, that was a shit-show but it's over now so let's talk about something else" it just turns into a huge circle-jerk where the same points are re-iterated ad nauseam.

 

People running the project made bad decisions and lied, other people outside the project helped spread those lies (perhaps consciously perhaps not), and ultimately it was all unveiled as a sham. Like the stinking corpse of an unwanted pet, let's bury it and move on. I fail to see how continuing this thread discussing the same points over and over will actually produce any kind of positive result in the community.

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I think with the advent of instant communication and easy content-creation, situations like this blow up much bigger than they did "back in the day" so to speak. People love bullshit drama for some reason, hence why hundreds of needless replies are being added to this thread after the project has been legally declared dead, buried, and the widow has re-married. Instead of people just saying "alright, that was a shit-show but it's over now so let's talk about something else" it just turns into a huge circle-jerk where the same points are re-iterated ad nauseam.

 

People running the project made bad decisions and lied, other people outside the project helped spread those lies (perhaps consciously perhaps not), and ultimately it was all unveiled as a sham. Like the stinking corpse of an unwanted pet, let's bury it and move on. I fail to see how continuing this thread discussing the same points over and over will actually produce any kind of positive result in the community.

.... then take your own advice and stop posting on this thread and move on.

 

Let the gloating to us :-D

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Like the stinking corpse of an unwanted pet, let's bury it and move on. I fail to see how continuing this thread discussing the same points over and over will actually produce any kind of positive result in the community.

 

In less than 24 hours we've had Mike finally come out of hiding and a close associate he named just appeared about an hour ago. Calm your tits, there's still a lot of info coming out. Maybe Lee might even show up to give his side of the story?

 

Almost every post you've made in this thread has been a request for people to move on. Gee, why don't you lead by example? We'll see you at the exit.

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.... then take your own advice and stop posting on this thread and move on.

 

Let the gloating to us :-D

 

 

 

In less than 24 hours we've had Mike finally come out of hiding and a close associate he named just appeared about an hour ago. Calm your tits, there's still a lot of info coming out. Maybe Lee might even show up to give his side of the story?

 

Almost every post you've made in this thread has been a request for people to move on. Gee, why don't you lead by example? We'll see you at the exit.

 

I'm fully allowed to express my opinion in the same way many, many others have in this thread. Just because your delicate feelings are injured by that does not make it my problem, nor does it require me to follow your demands. It's a forum based on freedom of speech, and seeing as you both are so eager to exercise your right to it you have no business denying someone else that exact right.

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I'm fully allowed to express my opinion in the same way many, many others have in this thread. Just because your delicate feelings are injured by that does not make it my problem, nor does it require me to follow your demands. It's a forum based on freedom of speech, and seeing as you both are so eager to exercise your right to it you have no business denying someone else that exact right.

 

Said the guy who wants the thread locked.

 

So freedom of speech to you = people have to stop talking about stuff when I don't want them to talk about it anymore.

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None of this bullshit story adds up.

What are the chances that Mike just went and dug up a boogeyman from the past, and paraded him around as the ultimate evil? Its not like this scam artist from 15 years ago is going to come back and defend his honor. Mike didn't think to google him prior to his dealings, but in the last month had that epiphany? My money is on Mike spending the last month googling old group posts to find someone to throw under his bus, who no one would bother to track down and check with. Sean Robinson is the perfect boogeyman. Many of the old timers have dealings with him, and can empathize. Too bad Sean Robinson disappeared years ago, and is now just a fictional character in Mike's absurd story.

 

Also, why did the facebook pictures showing the false prototype get deleted ~10 minutes after the DVR capture card was revealed on AtariAge? If Mike was a victim of the scam, he was quite responsive in helping cover it up. Also, during the Toy Fair incident, there was plenty of Facebook assurances that the prototype wasn't an SNES mini. Additionally, photos were being deleted as users here exposed various parts of this fraud.

 

Mike is trying to protect his name, by throwing a fake character under the bus. Anyone who believes him, well, I've got a bridge to sell, I'm trying raise 3 million on Kickstarter Indiegogo. I hope we can at least get one more Nostalgia SH-IT video out of this. Maybe he can claim Bernie Madoff was actually his engineer.

I would agree with this . Some guy wants thousands and thousands of dollars and you have no idea who he is or where he lives and promises you the world so you pay him thousands more than once . Never checking him out and just paying him . :ponder: Sorry but you knew exactly what was going on , you would have to . It just took you this long to think up a story .

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Said the guy who wants the thread locked.

 

So freedom of speech to you = people have to stop talking about stuff when I don't want them to talk about it anymore.

 

Never said I wanted the thread locked.

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Or he just heard about all the scamming this guy has allegedly done in the Commodore community and decided it would be any easy way to deflect blame and guilt for his own attempts to perpetrate a massive fraud. Personally, I don't believe a word Mike says and I hope nobody ever gives him a penny for any project in the future as he is proven that at best he is incompetent and at worst, a world class scam artist.

 

I had the exact same thought. The perfect patsy.

 

No because if they had opened the fake SNES proto and I would have seen it or been notified; hell was going to break loose then, when Piko official statement would have been "CC proto is FAKE".

 

I'm still pissed at all this, Mike says he is the only one that lost money; and that is not correct. I spent this year's expo/travel/convention funds on that trip to NY as well as 2 weeks of work handling the backlash etc.

 

And we weren't even considered to buy the Molds when I told them we wanted to buy them. So I see it like we were the most damaged third party monetarily.

 

he really screwed you guys.

 

 

Thanks for the reply- that independently confirms that Sean was involved in the project, so Mike didn't just find his name on Google as some people suspected, but it's strange that Mike has such a different recollection about how Sean got involved: your account is basically the opposite of his.

 

 

Yes, in 2014....

Edited by Greg2600
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Hello Everyone,

 

I hate to light ...

 

...In the end, I am the only one that has lost anything, money, potential opportunity and my reputation in this hobby.

  • Mike

 

 

You don't need a wall of text to tell everyone you're a fucking scumbag and a liar. It's pretty much understood.

 

This hobby is a goddamn joke.

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Never said I wanted the thread locked.

 

[15 minutes earlier]

 

I fail to see how continuing this thread discussing the same points over and over will actually produce any kind of positive result in the community.

 

It's okay, TPA5. We've all got a little bit of Mike Kennedy in us. Rewriting the past is fun.

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I would turn it into the feature film with the main character being the Jaguar shell itself... it would be sort of like that film The Red Violin.

Follow its storyline from its time as the the Atari Jaguar, becoming a dental camera, Retro VGS, Coleco Chameleon, Albert's AtariAge store.... and who knows where it goes next.

 

I'd watch that! Brilliant!

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[15 minutes earlier]

 

 

It's okay, TPA5. We've all got a little bit of Mike Kennedy in us. Rewriting the past is fun.

 

Uh, nothing in that sentence calls for locking the thread. Again, not sure where you are managing to conjure that from or why you're trying to put words in my mouth. But hey, bold-facing and underlining the text in my quote is slick. When you quote this post and try to make it sound like I love the Chameleon or something, maybe you can even try highlighting in colour! How exciting would that be?

 

EDIT:

Still, we're all gamers here so really I shouldn't be putting so much effort into arguing. You have your viewpoint, I have mine and that's okay. I don't want to sling mud or insult you, or turn this into a big argument. I really don't like arguing. I just want people to focus on the more positive aspects of the video game industry, that's all. So, sorry if I'm sounding like a dick, I really am not trying to be.

Edited by TPA5
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