New, cheaper SGM clone.

[christo930]

13 minutes ago, MrPix said:

I'm not ignoring them at all. I'm noting them down, googling, finding out what's involved,

Unless I am mistaken, you sounded like you are ready for a beta test board or at least very close. 

 

Are the list of things like pause button, controller options and SD card game save, are these implemented in your plans yet?  At what stage is your board?    When are you anticipating a release?  From your earlier posts it sound imminent but from your more recent post, it sounds remote, like you're at the beginning stages.

 

 

 

[MrPix]

1 minute ago, TPR said:

Myself included! I have said this before and I’ll say it again, had the crash not happened, I think we would have seen Coleco as well as other 3rd party companies porting those MSX games in the 80s. We already were starting to see examples of it with games like Antarctic Adventure, Monkey Academy, abs and Cabbage Patch Kids. 

I wish Coleco was still around. Who else could design a game console, and then make an add-on to turn it into a CP/M machine as capable as any $4,000 S-100 bus computer of the era? 

1 minute ago, TPR said:

So in a way, the homebewers porting MSX games, many of them receiving upgrades, and putting them into high quality packaging reminiscent of the 80s games is just continuing what Coleco would have done anyway. 

I don't know where the idea that "MSX ports is bad" came from. It's just a resentment of "other" like Commodore vs. Atari, maybe? I do know the MSX platform was huge and much more international, and there was so much high quality content written for the platform... Seeing some of it come over to the CV is really refreshing, and I really respect Eduardo's efforts and time investment there.

1 minute ago, TPR said:

And isn’t that one of the points of home brewing for a retro 80s console? 

I can't speak for others, but to me homebrew is people writing their own new, original content or riffs, and not trying to pixel match some original arcade classic. I don't see what Eduardo is doing as homebrew as I understand the word, but as proper ports of classics. I think people have higher expectations of ports, so the coding has to be to a higher standard. Opcode is one of the few groups capable of doing that.

[opcode]

20 minutes ago, MrPix said:

I've stated my motivation repeatedly, consistently and unwaveringly. There's no revenge to be had. I'm really not interested in you commenting on matters that can only impact you in a positive way. Frankly, you sound insecure and as if you're projecting. That's how it comes across. I'm trying to make new hardware that's different and distinct from yours, and you don't want me to. It's really that simple.

I'm not ignoring them at all. I'm noting them down, googling, finding out what's involved, and wondering just how frosty my reception would be no matter what I tried to do. People can reasonably request what they like. I, as a business owner, will maybe do some of them, or not at all. I decided it was important to make an expansion that was compatible with the majority of existing software. You don't want me to. Why not? You don't control the right to be compatible.

Let it go, dude. I just want to get on with designing things, and this is just a huge waste of everyone's time.  This has reached the point of absurdity and it's just super destructive for everyone involved.

 

Since you can't come up with your own platform, I question who is insecure. 

 

I am all for hardware that is different and distinct from mine. What you are proposing isn't. You are just desperate for some easy consumer base. 

[Loafer]

Although I've never bought an SGM nor any SGM games, I always found it fair in price.  I don't think it's fair to portray its price as outlandish since you get the full complete package with the quality box, the case etc.  It's ok to believe there is a market for a cheaper alternative but that has nothing to do with what Opcode offers: the full package deal that calls back to the CV days of old.

 

Maybe stop portraying what has been done before as a negative will allow more people to see what you are offering as a positive MrPix.  It's nice to see all these extras your solution may offer, but that first post of yours mentions none of these extras and was written as a very clear "Oh yeah?  Well watch this" to Opcode.  So while I don't doubt you may have talent from that RGB thread, any ill will written towards you or your project are based on your words in that first post (and other posts) and nothing based on what Opcode has written in response.  We can read quite clearly the intent and it was not progressive, rather it was reactive in tone, which is never successful at portraying the positives of a message.

 

At any rate, hoping we eventually see that CV drop-in replacement board one day as we sorely need it.  There is no doubt if those features actually make it to the product (like saving states to an SD card) then I think your product could offer something unique.

[Albert]

Just a note, nobody is going to get banned unless they decide they cannot remain civil in this thread.

 

 ..Al

[MrPix]

2 minutes ago, christo930 said:

Unless I am mistaken, you sounded like you are ready for a beta test board or at least very close. 

I've emulated the basic logic for the decoder and registers. I spent some of today going through the decoder with a fine tooth comb, since there's an implied threat that someone might try to detect extra features and disable the game.

2 minutes ago, christo930 said:

Are the list of things like pause button, controller options and SD card game save, are these implemented in your plans yet?  At what stage is your board?    When are you anticipating a release?  From your earlier posts it sound imminent but from your more recent post, it sounds remote, like you're at the beginning stages.

The pause button is done (holds the CPU just doing refresh), the controller ports are a complex matter and will take a couple of weeks to do well. I'll be spending most of next week working out the OSCC timing issues for the Inty RGB board (which I just found out this juice person did something in that area, so it fills me with concern if he ruined things for hardware developers following in his footsteps there too). SD game saving is more an aspirational feature at the moment, because it requires saving the entire memory map, CPU registers and pointers, and then reloading them and putting the next address back in the program counter. This isn't as simple as it sounds

I'm not in a hurry. Opcode is looking at shipping in November, but given the current pandemic situation that might all get messed up by the second wave. I know he has a big investment in boxes and boards and etc. and I'd like to see him get through those first so I don't leaving him holding expensive stock.

If I put my mind to it, I could probably get to release in about 8 to 10 weeks. However, I have no desire to do that as it would be bad business, and I ironically don't want to tie up Opcode's finances in dead stock.

[TPR]

3 minutes ago, Loafer said:

Maybe stop portraying what has been done before as a negative will allow more people to see what you are offering as a positive MrPix. 

[PaulosD]

Although healthy competition breeds creativity I would say that the market is already SGM saturated, especially since the Pheonixs' release. Chances are all the hardcore CV fans probably have more than one way to play their SGM games at this point. From another POV, this is in essence a hobby forum. We may not always get along. But, we should strive to. So, in the spirit of that, I offer this: why not create something that has never been done before. A suggestion and something I would like to see would be an expansion module to play Intellivision games. Wasn't something like this supposed to come out in the 80s? I don't have exact numbers. But, I would imagine it would gain much more traction among the community than another SGM clone. Just some helpful thoughts. Cheers!

[christo930]

7 minutes ago, MrPix said:

've emulated the basic logic for the decoder and registers. I spent some of today going through the decoder with a fine tooth comb, since there's an implied threat that someone might try to detect extra features and disable the game.

I said that it could be done. There was no threat. I am not a developer.

[MrPix]

5 minutes ago, opcode said:

Since you can't come up with your own platform, I question who is insecure. 

I assembled the very first Sam Coupe prototype with Alan Miles and Bruce Gordon, on my desk. I worked at Acorn, developing the ARM CPU in your cellphone and tablet. I co-developed the Thor XVI and the Futura. I have a couple of quite big platforms in the grand scheme of things. You use things I worked on every day.

I don't have anything to feel insecure about

Look, Eduardo. We've both said our piece. You know where I stand, and I know where you stand. You make your thing. I'll make my thing. People can be informed consumers and make their choice. I guarantee 100% compatibility for Opcode games into the future.

You stop posting wild accusations and offering motivations for why I am doing what I'm doing. I'll just get on with quietly doing my stuff. As I make progress I'll post updates occasionally and you can just leave them be as they help you and don't hurt you at all. It's just another expansion your library works on.

 

2 minutes ago, PaulosD said:

Although healthy competition breeds creativity I would say that the market is already SGM saturated, especially since the Phoenix's' release.

If the market is saturated, then the technology should be ubiquitous and cheap, and available immediately.

1 minute ago, christo930 said:

I said that it could be done. There was no threat. I am not a developer.

You didn't make the implied threat, though you did alert me to it.

[opcode]

 

Now, I wonder why with such amazing resume you were offering me services the other day. Certainly not because you like me or care... 

[Rev]

Hey, someone make a wireless intellivision controller. 
 

That is all.

[digress]

i just cut the cord off my intellivision controller with scissors. 

35 minutes ago, Rev said:

Hey, someone make a wireless intellivision controller. 
 

That is all.

 

Edited June 30, 2020 by digress

[SiLic0ne t0aD]

10 minutes ago, digress said:

i just cut the cord off my intellivision controller with scissors. 

 

..a Intellivision II controller I hope. ??

[Rev]

52 minutes ago, digress said:

i just cut the cord off my intellivision controller with scissors. 

 

Well, I never specified it had to work. So, thank you. 
 

 

[MrPix]

Hehe, you guys!

I have been pointed to a Genesis wireless gamepad that has good potential for conversion. I'm just reverse engineering it now. It might just be a case of reprogramming one IC in the receiver dongle. Worst case, a microcontroller for format conversion, but that opens up a LOT of scope.

[Donny Swanny]

I didn’t know this entire world of support existed for Colecovision until a little over a year ago.  

The Colecovision was my first console and I rebought one last summer and have been building up my library as I learn more and more about it... having said that, the scarcity of getting physical homebrew games that had their run is insane!

 

I managed to get a SGM on eBay for $125, and a total of 30+ Team Pixelboy, CollectorVision, Opcode, and other games in the $50-$80 range.  I consider that pretty good, especially when I’ve seen SGMs as high as $799 and homebrews well over $300.  
 

There has got to be more people like me out there that are just learning about all of this or will be in the future.  Personally, I love the SGM and the MSX ports because, like was stated earlier, that’s where the Colecovision was heading before the crash (though I personally blame the Adam).

 

From a nube with nothing but love and respect for everything all of the developers and creators are doing - thank you!  But that does come with a side note that this community as a whole can be very closed and off-putting to people outside of their cliques with a differing point of view... from my experience and witnessing the experiences of others.
 

It’s supposed to be about the shared love and nostalgia over Colecovision, right?  Not a pissing match or platform to flex power or status.

[TPR]

 

8 minutes ago, Donny Swanny said:

I didn’t know this entire world of support existed for Colecovision until a little over a year ago.  

The Colecovision was my first console and I rebought one last summer and have been building up my library as I learn more and more about it... having said that, the scarcity of getting physical homebrew games that had their run is insane!

 

I managed to get a SGM on eBay for $125, and a total of 30+ Team Pixelboy, CollectorVision, Opcode, and other games in the $50-$80 range.  I consider that pretty good, especially when I’ve seen SGMs as high as $799 and homebrews well over $300.  
 

There has got to be more people like me out there that are just learning about all of this or will be in the future.  Personally, I love the SGM and the MSX ports because, like was stated earlier, that’s where the Colecovision was heading before the crash (though I personally blame the Adam).

 

From a nube with nothing but love and respect for everything all of the developers and creators are doing - thank you!  But that does come with a side note that this community as a whole can be very closed and off-putting to people outside of their cliques with a differing point of view... from my experience and witnessing the experiences of others.
 

It’s supposed to be about the shared love and nostalgia over Colecovision, right?  Not a pissing match or platform to flex power or status.

I was in the EXACT same position you were in about 5 years ago. And I went through the same thing.  

 

Personally if there is one thing I think this community could really use is for the homebrewers to reset the clock on some of these out of print games and do a 2nd run of them.  

 

"There has got to be more people like me out there..." is 100% my thoughts exactly.  New ColecoVision fans seem to be joining the community all the time.  Just look at the new subscribers to our ColecoVision Lunatics Facebook group every week!

 

There is such a variety of things this community could use to increase the abilities of the ColecoVision.  We already have many SGM options. I really hope he chooses to focus on something new and different.

[Donny Swanny]

17 minutes ago, TPR said:

 

I was in the EXACT same position you were in about 5 years ago. And I went through the same thing.  

 

Personally if there is one thing I think this community could really use is for the homebrewers to reset the clock on some of these out of print games and do a 2nd run of them.  

 

"There has got to be more people like me out there..." is 100% my thoughts exactly.  New ColecoVision fans seem to be joining the community all the time.  Just look at the new subscribers to our ColecoVision Lunatics Facebook group every week!

 

There is such a variety of things this community could use to increase the abilities of the ColecoVision.  We already have many SGM options. I really hope he chooses to focus on something new and different.

Agreed ?%
 

I’m all but desperate for Mario Bros by CollectorVision, Magical Tree by Opcode, and Mecha-8 by Team Pixelboy.

[Kiwi]

56 minutes ago, TPR said:

There is such a variety of things this community could use to increase the abilities of the ColecoVision.  We already have many SGM options. I really hope he chooses to focus on something new and different.

I was thinking that the graphical capability could be increase via the expansion port like we could have faster vector graphic using a co-processor like the Super FX chip or the ARM chip from the Atari 2600. Astroid, Gravitor, Tempest and Challenger could use vector-to-raster acceleration.  However the downside, TMS9918a graphic is too slow to update the entire VRAM in 1 frame. Or add a graphic chip and have the 9918A and the graphic chip works like MSX2 games.  Another idea I had if, I don't know if the cartridge could be mapped out to have 48KB ROM instead of having 32KB ROM when inserting game into the expansion port, and add additional hardware like RAM or chips to run the game on one cartridge. 

[+retroclouds]

32 minutes ago, Kiwi said:

I was thinking that the graphical capability could be increase via the expansion port like we could have faster vector graphic using a co-processor like the Super FX chip or the ARM chip from the Atari 2600. Astroid, Gravitor, Tempest and Challenger could use vector-to-raster acceleration.  However the downside, TMS9918a graphic is too slow to update the entire VRAM in 1 frame. Or add a graphic chip and have the 9918A and the graphic chip works like MSX2 games.  Another idea I had if, I don't know if the cartridge could be mapped out to have 48KB ROM instead of having 32KB ROM when inserting game into the expansion port, and add additional hardware like RAM or chips to run the game on one cartridge. 

 

As far as graphical capability is concerned, software has to be written.

Why not concentrate on the F18a. It already opens up a ton of possibilities.

 

I have barely seen any coleco games make us of what the F18a has to offer (which is a lot more than just VGA output).

Do know that the F18a has been very hard to get in the last recent years. 

But with the MKII almost finished and the F18a core in the Phoenix, the sky is the limit.

[SegaSnatcher]

I also agree that with more SGM modules in people's hands it could encourage more developers to create games for it.  

[opcode]

2 hours ago, SegaSnatcher said:

I also agree that with more SGM modules in people's hands it could encourage more developers to create games for it.  

As I indicated, I am taking care of that. In addition to the 1200 SGM already out there, plus all the Phoenix, I am doing enough SGM in this run to supply all the pre-orders so far and a surplus for next year. Same for Gradius. The ideia is to have those in stock for anyone to buy. I don’t think we have a problem of supply right now. 

[Pixelboy]

7 hours ago, Donny Swanny said:

From a nube with nothing but love and respect for everything all of the developers and creators are doing - thank you!  But that does come with a side note that this community as a whole can be very closed and off-putting to people outside of their cliques with a differing point of view... from my experience and witnessing the experiences of others.
 

It’s supposed to be about the shared love and nostalgia over Colecovision, right?  Not a pissing match or platform to flex power or status.

I was agreeing with your post until this part above. Some people seem to have a philosophical problem with the concept of "territory" where ColecoVision homebrewing is concerned. Yet this concept has been at the core of CV homebrewing since the appearance of the very first CIB homebrews over a decade ago. But in a way this "philosophical problem" is understandable because there's a certain notion of open tell-and-share in other homebrew communities: Look at how easily Atari 2600 homebrewers share work-in-progress ROMs of their games on the AtariAge forums, there's not a lot of that going on in the ColecoVision community.

 

So yes, there's a concept of "territory" in this community of homebrewers. It follows the first-arrived-plants-his-flag system, and when someone says he has dibs on a game or a piece of hardware, other CV homebrewers are expected to respect this "unwritten declaration" before and after the release of the product, especially if the game is planned to be released with a box and manual.

 

For example, do you know why the famous Coleco vaporware title "Dracula" has never been released on cartridge by a CV homebrewer? One of the main reasons is because a guy named Dale Wick (he goes by the handle "hardhat" on AtariAge) has dibs on Dracula. He did some work on it (I saw his work-in-progress at an AdamCon convention years ago) and then he lost interest afterwards. Yet, to this day, no one else has seriously tackled Dracula. I should mention that this is a bad example, because Dale Wick has been missing in action on AtariAge (and in the general ColecoVision homebrew community) for a few years now, and I don't think he would complain if someone else did his own version of Dracula on ColecoVision. But the point is that he could "legitimately" pop on on these forums and complain if he wanted to, and the rest of the community would take note of his complaint. Also, with Dracula there's only one mockup screenshot and a short text that loosely describes the game on a Coleco promo flyer, and it's rather hard to create a good game from scratch with so little information, so that's another reason why no one else has tackled the project.

 

Anyway, all this to say that the concept of territory is important in this community, and saying that "it shouldn't be this way" is not going to make it go away. Anyone who steps on someone else's territory is going to need boxing gloves, that's all there is to it.

 

 

[doubledown]

Do we want "new" ColecoVision fans though...really!?! ? 

 

Obviously in a perfect world every game or piece of hardware ever made, would always be in stock and available for purchase at retail pricing, but unfortunately that will never happen.  As I'm not a software developer/publisher, I don't have any idea of the production costs to make a game available.  But it's obvious that cartridge shells have to be made, as do manuals, boxes, labels, PCBs and the likes.  The more that are made the less expensive they will be (individually), but then the up-front investment is larger.   Then what do you do when you make 500 copies of a game, and only 50 people buy that game...sit on 450 for a dozen years until new fans pop-up interested in buying them, or mark them down and break-even, or even sell them at a loss in an attempt to recoup some of the money.  At work we deal with a metal fabricator, and if I want him to make 1 of something for me, it's $100...but if I tell him I want 5, then they come down to $20 ea., so still a total of $100, but now I get 5 of them.  I would assume that some of this rings true in this world with custom printed labels, manuals, boxes and the likes.  If CollectorVision, Opcode, Team Pixelboy were to say that any of their games were available at any time, and 1 person orders this 1 game, how much would it cost to make only 1 of these games at a time?  For me with building controllers, I know I can get little price breaks when I order quantities of items, for example saving 6% when I buy 50 enclosures versus just 1 or 2, but then I'm sitting on $2500 worth of enclosures that may or may not get used or sold, not to mention all the room they would take up.  In this instance, the $3 per unit savings, really isn't worth it.  Granted the per unit price discount, regarding quantity ordering, is a lot more noticeable when ordering "custom" items versus simply ordering off-the-shelf items.  Also for me, I like making new hardware designs, versus simply re-making previous ones.  From a business-model standpoint, this is not what you want to do...as you want to spend the R&D time and money once, then simply reproduce the work that has already been done.  But I find this boring, as I like to flex my creative brain muscles apparently.  Then there is always the collectability of something.  If when it was sold, it was limited to X number of examples, which people bought with that in mind, and now it's being reproduced...how should those original buyers feel.  Yes you can always change some aspect of the item to differentiate it from the original run to later runs, but it still cheapens/lessens the original run if others are made later.  With my custom controllers...if I didn't do my own machining, artwork design, and printing, I guarantee that I wouldn't have as many different styles/editions/versions available...as it would simply be way to expensive for all of these crazy one-offs...and what kind of world would that be...I'll tell you, a world I wouldn't want to live in!  ?