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The ColecoVision was my first real video game console in the early 1980s. My family had the Coleco and almost every peripheral, including the adapter that allows you to play Atari 2600 games, which gave our household the biggest game library on the block. Forget about your blocky graphics on your Atari, because my Coleco has almost-there-but-still-a-way-to-go arcade quality graphics! About ten years ago, my brother found an original ColecoVision on eBay and bought it for me as a Christmas gift. It came with the original box, the controllers, the steering wheel, the HOLY poo poo THAT’S HUGE power adapter, and a collection of games. Since then, I’ve purchased a few more games for it, along with the Atari 2600 adapter, and still plug it in every so often. Coleco didn’t last very long in the video game market, but for its time, the ColecoVision was the closest you could get to arcade quality at home. 
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Feb 17, 2021 04:43
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| # ? Apr 19, 2024 09:00 |
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YOUR vision is OUR vision! COLECOVISION! The ColecoVision was also my first real console. (We did have a Coleco branded game system called the Telstar Marksman before the CV, but it it basically consisted of of a couple of built in pong like games and a light gun for a "hit the moving pong ball" and a skeet shoot game.) I spent many a years playing that thing until we finally got a C-64 in 1986. We didn't have the Roller Controller, but did have the steering wheel, Super Action Controllers, and the Atari expansion module. I remember being jealous of friends who had the 2600 before we got our CV and then when I saw the difference between ColecoVision Donkey Kong and 2600 Donkey Kong my mind was loving blown and I was glad my folks didn't buy a 2600. Gateway to Apshai and Wing War were my 2 favorite games for the system, although I do have fond memories of playing Ken Uston Blackjack with my dad and stealing sips of his Budweiser when when it was his turn to play. Gateway to Apshai was a cool action/dungeon crawl type game with 8 levels of 99 dungeons each for a total of 792 different dungeons to explore. A pretty big game for its time. And it had some neat mechanics for its time like searching for traps and secret doors. Wing War was a game where you controlled a white dragon and flew around shooting fireballs and collecting water, air, and fire crystals to take back to your lair. When you collected 1 of each, it would make a super crystal and it would give you more life and fireball ammo. And then you'd start the process again. Pretty simplistic, but drat I loved that game. I'm pretty sure all my old hardware is somewhere in my mother's attic. It was working 10 years ago when my brother fired it up to show my nephew what games were like in "the old days". Colors looked a little off, but otherwise functioned normally.
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Feb 22, 2021 05:13
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i love the colecovision. never had it growing up, but don't think i would have appreciated it as much back then being a snot-nosed kid that was drawn to the even-more impressive graphics of the NES that came out shortly thereafter. pepper II is a goofy little maze chaser, but about closing up a maze full of zippers -- meaning you could undo your work if you weren't careful about it. like i said, goofy, but that and q*bert qubes would have to be my favorites. shame about the adam, tho.
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Mar 11, 2021 21:44
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Sega's Turbo arcade machine: Often imitated and the Colecovision even got a steering wheel controller for it. Activision's Enduro on the 2600: Blatant rip-off that not only plays better with a joystick; it is also more fun and if you complete it take a polariod and get a patch to stitch onto your clothes.
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Mar 26, 2021 06:10
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I've been meaning to post in this thread for a bit but been busy and distracted.  My system finally bought last Summer thanks to lots of hours at work. These are all my games without manuals.  My games with manuals. See I've been buying games off and on for years now including manuals.  I even have a Super Action Controller sitting here with a Super Cobra I need to fix as the pcb isn't aligned properly in the case. I'm trying not to mangle it too badly but Parker Bros are making it challenging.  My two boxed games. Plus a splitter cable that allows full numpad use without having to endure a CV controller. The pad has 1 and * but that only covers a tiny amount of uses so the splitter is clutch. Not shown is my CV Flashback still with box and a more modern psu for the CV because its not a giant murder brick thing. Right now mine is hooked up to an early 00s RF only 19" crt TV set which looks fairly ok at least until the F18A mk2 comes out. (If we want to expand to both Visions I have a pretty massive Intellivision collection with the awesomely ugly Sears model. That i haven't turned on in over 15 years because emulation and being lazy plus those controllers have terrible action buttons and the 2 Intellivision PC collections pretty much have like 85% of the entire library thats not big name license stuff or homebrew like Christmas Carol which is the best Intellivision game and one of the best homebrews for a pre crash machine.)
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May 10, 2021 10:56
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My collection isn't nearly as good, but I did build my own ColecoVision clone last year. I have about a dozen games, all common stuff like Zaxxon. My favourite CV game is Time Pilot, which I used to be really good at and now suck out loud. I grew up with the CV (my dad bought one new) but when I found some cheap CV games in the junk bin at the flea market, I couldn't find a CV for sale locally for less than $250. I'd been starting to learn electronics by repairing old computers before that, there were schematics online, and the CV doesn't have any "special" chips, so I figured it would be possible to put one together. Here's one of the bodged-up failed prototypes holding onto a cartridge:  It does run games fairly well, but I only had a broken joystick to test with at the time so I haven't actually played it much! I've since gotten an Adam stick from eBay, but now I have no time to play games, and my test bench is an absolute mess that's covered in dead computers  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CGSF47ymja8 By dint of using newer parts, it fixes a handful of problems with the original CV, like:
The only 80s surplus parts on the machine are the SN76489 sound chip and the TMS9918 video chip, both sourced from AliExpress scavenging operations. I've also gotten the roller controller and the steering wheel controller since then, so once I adapt them to work properly with my power-supply situation, I'm planning on testing out those games too. Then I will post a part 3 article to clean up the project and put out an open-source release of the board. It costs about $50 CAD in parts to put one together, which is better than $250 by far (don't ask me how much I spent developing it.) At the risk of being a spammy jerk, here's the two posts I did about it so far: I'm not convinced it's 100% compatible with every weird game, but it was a huge learning experience for me. Seat Safety Switch fucked around with this message at 17:52 on May 10, 2021 |
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May 10, 2021 17:48
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Since the discord said it might actually be a cool idea to make this a *.* Vision thread I shall show my Intellivision collection such as it is. My Intellivision the awesomely ugly Sears variant. I just gave it a quick cleaning but it probably needs a deep deep cleaning.  Most of my games are boxed and in a 3 drawer shelving thing. A couple loose ones are trying to hide but Pac Man and Golf cannot escape my idiot brain memory. Maybe.   My main Inty collecting goal is almost complete. Every Imagic game. Only 2 aren't boxed and only Fathom isn't complete. I thought I had more of the Tron games someplace but im not really worried too much. Long term id like to have all the Activision titles and all the Intellivoice games but its not a must have or anything especially since I have the PC Intellivision collections which cover like 90% of what I might play on an Intellivision and now with controllers that aren't unpleasant to use.  A large amount of my Inty collection was a massive lot so I had doubles. The cruddy doubles stayed here. Now there are a few others obviously I need like Shark Shark, Utopia, Thunder Castle and the previously mentioned Tron titles but overall I have much of what's good plus lots of the dumb sports games which are mostly 2 player only anyhow in these incarnations. And if you just want cheap and fun retro video sports games the Genesis is the Alpha and the Omega more or less. Edit: oddly enough I went on a nerd run today and got a couple of games complete and cheap! Sadly one game (Night Stalker) I didn't notice in my own collection photo but maybe it'll be a nicer copy or whatever. Was only 4 bucks.  Yeah and a few other things too but I don't care enough to crop just for an edit to a post in a very dead thread. Captain Rufus fucked around with this message at 01:39 on May 18, 2021 |
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May 17, 2021 11:01
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| # ? Apr 19, 2024 09:00 |
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When I was in school I had an Apple IIe system (two floppy drives, Okidata printer, etc). My mother wanted me to use the Apple only for school work, so she bought me a Colecovision for games. 😁 I remember playing the baseball game on it. Also, I still played games on the Apple. 😏
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Jun 21, 2021 18:59
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