Breadboarding a Colecovision?

[7800fan]

http://hackaday.com/2016/03/07/breadboard-colecovision

 

This guy got balls. More complex than 2600, more wire to do, more chips to connect. And it works.

 

Since all the parts except for BIOS are standard off the shelf part (BIOS on EPROM or PROM but you need to burn it yourself), it is possible to build a 100% new CV system.

 

Think it'd be possible to get SGM and Adam expansion breadboarded as well and eventually build a custom all-in-one Super-Adam system?

[KAZ]

When all of our colecovisions start to fail for whatever reason (possibly around the same time), we're going to need a solution!

 

That is a superb project.

[Pixelboy]

Isn't the ColecoVision's original sound chip hard to acquire? Getting a prototype board to work is a great achievement, but not all those "off-the-shelf" parts are readily available today, so mass-marketing a new board (even in low numbers) would probably require a few "alternate solutions" to use modern parts. There's also the issue of using a generic power supply instead of the original ColecoVision wall-wart...

[7800fan]

If the Chinese can sell a cheap 500w power supply that has 5v, 12v, 3.3v, and -5v for under $5 a pop, surely something can work a cheaply for CV's odd power.

 

AFAIK -5v can be left completely out when you do the RAM mod. I've checked controllers and roller balls, they all worked fine without -5v so that leaves only the SAC and Adam expansion if they needed -5 or not.

 

Sound chip and video chip may be hard to find. :/ but they weren't weird propriety like 2600 TIA. Coleco still hasn't offered ECG part number for TIA to prove their 2600 expansion and Gemini can be done 100% off the shelf parts.

[omf]

Isn't the ColecoVision's original sound chip hard to acquire? Getting a prototype board to work is a great achievement, but not all those "off-the-shelf" parts are readily available today, so mass-marketing a new board (even in low numbers) would probably require a few "alternate solutions" to use modern parts. There's also the issue of using a generic power supply instead of the original ColecoVision wall-wart...

i think the only parts i had slight difficulty acquiring was the vdp and the two ram chips which were quite expensive, never the less all the chips on the board are on ebay