ColecoVision "core" for MegaSD

[+Yurkie]

I was reading this thread over in the ColecoVision forum.

 

 

 

Being a huge fan of the 2600, ColecoVision and Genesis I would absolutely love if one of the gifted programmers would make a ColecoVision "core" for the MegaSD. A 2600 "core" would be awesome too, but ColecoVision would be my top pick of the 2.

 

Could someone verify if the MegaSD is powerful enough hardware to run 2600 or ColecoVision or both?

 

It would make the MegaSD into a ColecoVision expansion module for our beloved Sega Genesis.....super awesome IMO.

[Atariboy]

Hopefully if such a thing were to happen, it would have button remapping options that ideally could be made game specific, saved, and automatically reloaded each time that particular file was loaded up.

 

Too many good Colecovision games ended up unplayable with the Mega Sg's Colecovision core despite the Sega Genesis gamepad having plenty of buttons for most games. Trying to utilize the various button combinations to work the keypad buttons in an arcade game like Mouse Trap for instance is an exercise in frustration. If we could just map Mouse Trap's four keypad buttons to four of the six action buttons on a Genesis six button controller, it would be fully playable.

 

Since I assume there's a physical barrier to directly supporting such controllers on the Mega Sg despite sharing the same style of controller port (Which presumably would also apply to original Sega Genesis hardware), I wish someone would just make a controller adapter for Colecovision or Colecovision Flashback controllers to be used on the Analogue Mega Sg (and potentially down the road on real Sega Genesis hardware if your hopes came to fruition).

Edited February 5, 2020 by Atariboy

[derFunkenstein]

IIRC the reason there's a ColecoVision core at all in the Mega Sg is that it's basically identical to the SG-1000, and the Genesis can't run SG-1000 ROMs because, while the VDP can run Master System modes, it can't handle the SG-1000 modes. 

 

The reason the Mega SD works is that the Genesis handles all the video out. But if it can't do SG-1000 modes, there's no reason to believe it could do whatever the CV needs. 

[Steven Pendleton]

Yeah, don't expect this to ever happen. In fact, expect it to never happen. Genesis/Mega Drive can't even run F16 Fighting Falcon, which means ColecoVision won't happen at all because of the thing with needing the Mark III stuff to run F16 Fighting Falcon... or ColecoVision, in theory. And as has already been noted, have fun with the controller. ColecoVision is basically unplayable on the Mega Sg and I gave up after maybe 20 seconds. You'd need an adaptor to get a ColecoVision controller to work, even on the Mega Sg, because the pin layout is different, even if they both use the DE-9.

Edited February 17, 2020 by Steven Pendleton

[Swami]

3 minutes ago, Steven Pendleton said:

Yeah, don't expect this to ever happen. In fact, expect it to never happen. Genesis/Mega Drive can't even run F16 Fighting Falcon, which means ColecoVision won't happen at all because of the thing with needing the Mark III stuff to run F16 Fighting Falcon... or ColecoVision, in theory. And as has already been noted, have fun with the controller. ColecoVision is basically unplayable on the Mega Sg and I gave up after maybe 20 seconds. You'd need an adaptor to get a ColecoVision controller to work, even on the Mega Sg.

A lot of people like playing the actual colecovision with modified NES, SNES or NTT data controllers. Why would an SNES not work on the MEGA SG? Is there a problem with picking levels and starting without the keypad? Can you not add a keyboard to the Mega SG? Usually the biggest problem with things like this and retropies is the lack of instructions for mapping of these add-on cores/emulators.

[Steven Pendleton]

25 minutes ago, Swami said:

A lot of people like playing the actual colecovision with modified NES, SNES or NTT data controllers. Why would an SNES not work on the MEGA SG? Is there a problem with picking levels and starting without the keypad? Can you not add a keyboard to the Mega SG? Usually the biggest problem with things like this and retropies is the lack of instructions for mapping of these add-on cores/emulators.

It would absolutely work in theory since 8Bit doo doo makes a Bluetooth adaptor for the Bluetooth version of the M30, but there is no customizable button mapping anywhere on the system for anything. You have to hold a button and then hit the d-pad to register the number pad. Super annoying, so I gave up.

 

From the manual:

 

Although the Mega Sg uses 9-pin controller ports, ColecoVision controllers use a slightly
different pin-assignment and are not supported. The Passthrough Mode option is removed for
this Core as a result.

The ColecoVision uses a hand controller consisting of an eight-way joystick, two fire buttons
and a 12-key “telephone-style” keypad. The joystick is mapped to the D-pad of a Genesis
controller as follows :
A = Left Side Fire
B = Right Side Fire
In order to support the keypad buttons, directional and button combinations are used with a
Six Button Genesis controller. Here are the combinations :
Y + Up = 0
Y + Right = 1
Y + Down = 2
Y + Left = 3
Z + Up = 4
Z + Right = 5
Z + Down = 6
Z + Left = 7
Y + Z + Up = 8
Y + Z + Down = 9
X = #
C = *
Start = 1 (duplicated for starting an easier game in games with a difficulty selection option)
Mode = 3 (duplicated for starting a harder game in games with a difficulty selection option)

Edited February 17, 2020 by Steven Pendleton

[Atariboy]

Plenty of Colecovision games are playable on the Mega Sg, including many of the best games. Only the games that rely on the keypad during gameplay are games I'd consider as unplayable.