I'm 51 years old and I live in Brazil. This has always been the video game of my dreams! One day I will have one. But I had the Atari 2600 and the Intellivision.
Woo Hoo my absolute favorite console of the "RF" generation. So many great Arcade games and the first console I really felt like I had an arcade in my home honestly.
Yeah I would definitely say one of the best second gen consoles there was. Graphics, gameplay, the quality of the games everything was great about the Colecovision. I always wanted one when I was a kid but we ended up getting three Ataris after the first two died due to ESD death. My parents were Die Hard Atari fans.
@@RetrogamerGenX I hated Ataris but because everyone had one, it was easy to experience them without owning any. The thing is those games were far too simple (can't expect much with 128bytes of ram and 2k cartridges), and since i grew up with the Intellivision which had far better games there were not 5min duration. I only liked Adventure and Enduro from the 2600, most of the other games would bore me too quickly, like i said, 5min entertainment. Oh and everyone broke those flimsy stick controls that are just 5 digital buttons. Paddles were fun tho and i admit the Stella chip was great in the color department sound was meh except for Pitfall II and its custom chip, which btw had a perfect port for the Colecovision which can playback the tune on its own.
I had a 5200 which I loved but boy was I jealous of colecovision donkey Kong. The controllers were awful. But it also has a steering wheel and that 2600 adapter was a killer add on. Really a great system and the company seemed understand gaming better than Atari at the time.
Right I had the 2600 and was jealous of both the 5200 and colecovision. Lol.. Yeah the coleco was an awesome machine for its time.. Should have really been a 3rd gen console instead of 2nd gen to compete with the nes and sms.. It way out performed the 2nd gen consoles it was competing with imho.
I still have my ColecoVision and still play it too sometimes. Gotta take it back to the old school from time to time. I remember being a kid playing CV and when I first saw the NES I thought it was so advanced and I told my friends "How crazy would it be when we get older we'll be playing video games like real life and the movies" they laughed and said "That will never happen" makes me wonder how video games will be in another 40 years. Hopefully I live that long to witness that.
This was my first video game experience - my father bought the Coleco System and we had smurfs, zaxon, Donkey Kong & dk jr, and carnival, ladybug, and a few others - I remember going over to a friends house and playing his Atari and thinking it was broken because the flicker and graphics were complete garbage. - The Coleco was a very nice machine !!! - Cool video bro
And that's awesome that you had a Colecovision back in the day. We had the Atari 2600 but my sister's boyfriend's family had a colecovision, and man the difference was like day and night. Much better graphics on the ColecoVision, and gameplay was almost arcade like. Too bad they couldn't secure the licenses for the more popular games, but Atari had the major licensing sewed up so other companies couldn't compete. Coleco found a way around this by making ports of the less popular arcade games. And it worked for them, up until the video game crash. Thanks for dropping a comment and sharing and watching.
I remember playing Donkey Kong to death when I first got mine back in the day. ColecoVision was one of the best consoles of its time and sadly underrated when the NES came out and dominated.
Yeah I remember going over to my sister's boyfriend's house when I was a kid and just being Amazed by the graphics in the games on the ColecoVision compared to the Atari 2600 I had. Nintendo was actually worried about ColecoVision being a competitor towards the NES I don't know if you've watched my look at the Nintendo Entertainment System Video but in that I tell that story.
I never had a Colecovision. I had the Atari 2600, then got a C64, an Intellivision, Amiga, Atari 7800, Atari 5200, then Windows 98. I completely skipped over the NES and Playstation eras. I did find a Colecovision in the trash a few years ago, but it didn't work properly. It's been so long since I plugged it in, that I don't remember what was wrong with it. I think the display was kind of messed up. It had the Atari expansion module with it, and that DID work fine. At some point, I hope to dig it out and see if I can fix it. Well, first figure out what's wrong with it, THEN fix it...
Hey great content - Subbed. I would love to see in debth video on tempest (arcade) and a break down on colors per level and more deep lore. Also the 5200 ad you showed on a previous video mentioned 5200 battlezone. I would love to hear more about that one too. TY
Thanks for Subbing and watching. I will probably do more on arcades come summertime, when I can get around to some local ones. So I'll keep Tempest in mind. Battlezone on the 5200 only exists in prototype. It was never released commercially. Fun game though. I have it on my Atarimax flash cart. It's available, you can download the rom and play it on an emulator.. Really it got canceled because it didn't make it's Nov 1983 deadline, due to ongoing glitches, and by that time the video game crash had came. That all but killed it.
Always loved it. Had so many great games from many different developers. River Raid, Looping, Zaxxon and Donkey Kong were some of my favorites on the system. I bugged out as a kid at how much better DK was on the Coleco than Atari2600. "Sorry Atari"
I LOVE the old school look and feel of your videos, this is exactly what youtube used to be before everything became overproduced high-end TV like stuff. Even though I know this stuff I still had a wonderful time watching your video, no fancy overproduction no nothing, just a regular guy showing some retro games and systems.
That's funny because I was on You Tube from 2008-2013, and did these retro gaming vids then too. So a few months ago I started collecting again, and got the bug to do You Tube again. Glad you enjoyed it. I try to keep things "retro" , I'm not into the glitz and glamor that most channels do now days. Plus I'm not sponsored, so my channel is really low budget. If I ever get monetized, that money will go directly to the channel to fund more systems and things like camera, mics, etc... It might not garner me a million subs, but the subs I do have, I know are into my content, and into these retro systems. Thanks again for watching!!!
At Finland we used to rent Colecovision home from video store. It was absolutely amazing when see it first time at TV store after Atari 2600. Donkey Kong, Smurf etc. Coleco was expensive it cost 1590mk when Atari 2600 was 995mk. Didn’t know anyone who actually own TV games. We went to Commodore route Vic20, C64 and Amiga and copy swap most games with friends at school. At older age have had maybe 3x RF Colecovisions that sold away after got France SECAM RGB Scart models. These days mostly use Collectorvision Phoenix that has HDMI. Great days and so many games that we know absolutely nothing here at 80’s.
It was a great looking console with great looking graphics but suffered from poor frame rates and flimsy build quality. I remember moving the console around and it creaked like a balsawood pirate ship. I still loved it.
My brother and I played in arcades a lot as kids. Then we played a lot of Colecovision at home. We then had most of our favorite arcade games at home, but there was still one we wanted... Looping. We actually wrote to Coleco requesting to put this game out... and they did! Thank you Coleco!
Nice. Welcome to the club. The Colecovision is an awesome console, it should provide you with years of retro gaming fun. Word of advice, get a flash cart so you can play some of the amazing homebrews made for it.
Great video! Colecovision was technically a very impressive system. I remember a friend had one, and we played it a few times. Not the best controller, but good enough. You are right RF is tough to get to come through. I have a place in my basement that I can get a really good RF picture, it only took me three years to find it!!
Thanks bro. I really think the Coleco would have been a competitor to Nintendo. More so then Sega. If they would of not gone ape shit crazy with the success of the first quarter sales of the Colecovision and launched the Adam. But who would of guessed the crash was coming 'round the corner. Like I said in the video, just bad timing. Image if they would have launched it in 1979.... What could have been?? But yeah, RF is crap in my house. The only RF systems I can get an OK signal with are the Atari 5200, Jaguar, and XEGS. But they are barely playable.
I have the Coleco. I had it modded for composite which I run through an HD converter. I also have the Adam peripheral with printer. Still works S intended although I had the tape drive refurbished
Very nice documentary on the classic ColecoVision, thanks! I agree, had it arrived in 1979, it could've turned the tide of consoles and its future potentially. I still remember being in KMart as a tiny kid and seeing Donkey Kong on the demo TV, and was in awe. Thankfully my Dad got us the console and it was one of the best ever.
I guess I was fortunate cause I got a Coleco Adam in 1986 & mine was perfect Zero problems.Loved the Game Packs like Zaxxon! Dummy here sold my Coleco Adam in 1991 for 50.00!!!! I am depressed admiting it.
Cool that you had one with no issues. Don't feel bad, in 1994 I sold all my NES stuff, games(200+), the console, the power glove, the power pad, the advantage controllers all for $200 at a pawn shop for a down payment on a car. Still regretting it to this day, seeing I only had that car for 3 years and I could still have my original NES stuff. Instead I had to buy it all back years later for 10 times the price I sold it for. Argh..
It took me three tries to get a colecovision with good RF output. My current CV connects to my 5 modern TVs with varying degrees of quality, 2 are dead perfect, 2 very minor artifact, 1 just playable but at 75% quality of my best 2 TVs. I say all that to point out that the TV is part of that good/acceptable RF output equation. Currently on the fence to add the expansion module #1 (Atari 2600 module) even though i have a perfectly working 2600 jr already. I have the CV because the games are so fun but am i going to cross to be a "collector"? IDK. you know there is a potentiometer inside the CV on the RF output that can be adjusted for better picture. I have not done this myself but when i was trying to find a CV with good RF output one of the sellers told me this was the trick to good RF.
Hey, thanks for watching and commenting. Also, thanks for giving me the tip about the potentiometer inside. Later when I get home I'll open up the Colecovision and give it a shot.👍👍
I had the Intellivision. My Neighbor GAVE it to me along with around 4 or 5 games, it was about a year or so after he had gotten a N.E.S. He gave it to me because he felt sorry for me cuz I didnt have a video game console at all...He even gave me a 12 inch B & W TV to play the games on cuz I didnt have a TV in my room at that time either. I'm thinking it was late 86 early 87...Im not real sure. The games I remember playing on it were SNAFU ...Asteroids...Quest...and Space invaders...I dont remember the other games...I think the cartridge just didnt work. I wish I had kept that thing....If I had known then.....what I know now.....Thanks for all the cool content..I appreciate it very much.
I had the same problem trying to activate a Atatri 2600 to a modern TV, you have to get a VCR! Attach the system to a VCR and the VCR to the TV, it works!! I learned that from youtube, it does work!! Make sure your channels are in synch with each other, VCRs have channel select too.
Thanks for the tip but I have already tried that. I'm not using the RF switch box I'm using rf to rca adapter, and a shielded wire. Still have a bad signal. It's just that we have an airport transponder, a cell phone antenna, my Wi-Fi routers in my room, and I just found out there's a ham radio operator less than a block away from me. With all that in the area it's just impossible to get a good RF signal. So I'll have to do AV mods to all my RF systems eventually. Maybe if my systems were in the basement and not on the second floor of the house I might have a better signal. But our basement's unfinished and it's basically our storage. But once again thanks for the tip any advice is definitely helpful.
I assume you tried these 2 suggestions. But if you haven't, give these 2 a try to improve RF signals within the house 1 get a shielded rf cable, like an outdoor antenna TV Rf cable. The inly part that must be shielded is the direct path. 2. Plug it into a VCR if you want to capture it on your equipment if you have a Composite Video capture card, or you currently can deal with Composite sone other way. I have a wifi and a cellular receiver in my bedroom, and a local in house UHF transmitter to play classic linear media (vhs beta) on a modern TV. I don't know how close is too close to a cellular tower where these fixes don't work, but if you haven't tried them, try these. Btw our old house was by high tension electric wires for power distribution, and that worked. I assume you tried those 2 suggestions. But if not, try them.
Thanks for the advice. But the issue got fixed I bought a new TV and all my RF issues went away so I'm assuming the new TV either has a better tuner or it's shielded better. I did try a shielded wire first and it helped a little bit but the picture was still really too fuzzy but after the new TV and the shielded wire it's clear as a bell. Even the battery operated dedicated pong consoles look clear.
@@RetrogamerGenX But not TOO new of a TV. If you have a late 90s- early 00s TV that would be perfect. But if younget into any flat panel tvs, you'll have 2 issues. One if them you're not having because the RF systems work, but if your TV does NOT have an NTSC tuner (modern digital ones are called ATSC tuners) it will not work. Even the ones with combo NTSC/ATSC tuners you may have to manually turn on 4x3 mode. The second issue is light gun games and Segascope 3d games. The light gun technology depends on the timing of a crawling dot of tv hitting the barrel of your light gun. And Segascope 3d assumes you have submicrosecond timing of a CRT TV. Everything else will delay and distort the 3d image. BTW if you're not using a VCR to convert RF into Composite, what method would you use to capture RF? An RF to VGA device like an MTVBox? (Not to be confused with the cable channel that used to be Music Television). I did a video and found that going from RF to VCR composite and then composite through a retro tank 2X Pro m to go to HDMI, and then going back to VGA to hook up to my CRT VGA is "frame perfect" versus an MTV box which is a frame behind a direct CRT display. I had a direct RF CRT and a VGA-ified Capture shot commondo style on the same shot and showed dare to compare. It's on my youtube archive.
@Brian Ciesicki Well.... Trust me, I weighed the pros and cons. Yep I bought a 40" flat panel. Not new ,used, and it's older. No problems, even Atari Pong works with it. I do have my old Magnavox console TV still. But I have no room in the den for it. It's currently stored in the garage. The light gun thing is a draw back, but I really don't play very many light gun games anyway. But there is at least one game I know of that has a LCD light gun hack/trickery to get it to work. Hint, it's on the NES... One of the many project's that I'm thinking of posting one day. 😀 Oh yeah, a VCR to get composite to my capture device. I've never captured an RF system on my vids yet. Just the Vader 2600 because it has an AV mod.
@@RetrogamerGenX sounds cool. Those 2005-2011 TVs have combo NTSC/ATSC TVs. But save those VHS and Beta decks for RF to Composite converters. Even if the tape deck is broken, you need it for the NTSC tuner and converter to Composite if your tv dies out.
did not have the adam addon system but i did get the atari game conversion unit for the front expansion port. also later my power supply failed and by then the company stopped selling replacement ones, i even tried a few electronic stores like radio shack but they could not help me either, this was back in 1984 so sadly it never worked again...
We started off with the Sears version of the 2600. Then gave that to my cousins when I bought my 5200 (saved and worked for that). But it was a “4 port” model (with the power going thru that fancy auto switching tv rf box) and the 2600 adapter didn’t work without getting that version serviced. So my dad got a CV and their 2600 adapter !! Okay I think he knew someone who owed a favor and the crash was happening so … yeah …. I most recall playing Looping and Venture and Mousetrap and Ladybug. Those were … shall we say … 2nd tier arcade games .. never saw them in the arcade in their prime. Definitely saw Looping in the local arcade after having had it on CB for a while. Wow that was faster and harder! Think I saw Venture once (not around home) and same comment applies. Also after it had faded I saw either LB or MT but forget which and didn’t see the other. Think MT because of memories of the colored buttons that changed the maze and the dog button. The Wico Command Control joystick was a must for both CV and 5200. I had both so I know both controllers had issues. Just that the 5200 takes the heat. But both beat the Intellivision controller for sure! My friend had INTV. Funny how that came out late 1979 and the CV sat on the shelf for a few more years and if that means that the graphics and sound chips were the same in 1979 and 1982 then IF the CV had come out alongside the INTV then it would have been game over for Mattel. Right? If only I’d known that Jumpman Jr and miner 2049er were on CV. Never saw those on the store shelves for CV. Had miner2049er for 5200 and idve liked to try with CV joystick. Christmas 1984 got an 800XL home computer and Jumpman Jr. I was interested in Adam but I guess my family rightly decided by that point to avoid it. What a great idea that was poorly executed. I bought a complete “blue box” Adam (ie no CV required.. has its own cartridge port and A/V out) last year. I want to set it up but man o man where can I put that thing AND the requisite printer? 🤣 I need to make room around here. And eventually I will. Long live Coleco!
Colecovision almost always had the most faithful conversions of arcade games back in the day, often times even surpassing the home computer versions such as the Commodore 64. Funny, it uses the same video chip as the Texas Instruments TI99/4a but looked WAY better. If Coleco had not sunk so much money and technical effort into the Adam they may have been able to survive the crash because their games were largely well made (unlike the VCS which had a large amount of made-in-a-week low quality clunkers).
Hey I was going to suggest to try to hook up the colecovision with a rca to F connector adapter and no switcher - the things you listed as sources of interference shouldn't interfere with channels 3 or 4. However, there are still some stations on ch 3 or 4, unlikely but its possible. Its also possible that the unit is just interfering with itself. Assuming you are using one of those old colecovision TV GAME switches, especially if it goes to 300 ohm twin lead things, that might let enough noise leak in - so maybe try with a straight cable with adapters from rca to F connector. And try ch 3 or 4 to see if it changes.
Thanks for the advice. I was already using RCA to RF adapter not the switch box and a shielded RCA cable and still was having issues. But I purchased the new TV. If you watch my newer videos I have a 40 inch flat screen and all the RF issues went away. Perfect picture now. So I'm thinking it was just the other TV but I did try another TV in the house and I had problems with that so maybe the new one just has a better tuner or a shielded better. Who knows, I'm just glad it works now. Thanks for watching and for the advice.
@@RetrogamerGenX ah yes! you know the need for a good NTSC analog tuner in a modern tv is so minimal I bet they just use the cheapest parts and don't care if there is some interference - especially in the VHF band. Its probably just part of the ATSC tuner that can do the analog mode.
The Coleco's z80 processer was 8-bit, with a 16-bit address bus width. The Atari had the MOS 6507 processor which was a cost reduced MOS 6502. So it ran as 8-bit too, but only had a 13-bit address bus width. The 2600 could only address 8k of ram because of this. While the regular 6502 and z80 could address 64k of ram. The NES had a another variant of the 6502 reverse engineered by Nintendo, the Ricoh 2A03/2A07. But it was pretty much a 6502, 8-bit, 16-bit address too. Hope that helps...
Intellivision, Colecovision, and Fargo's! We bought out ColecoVision ADAM at Kay Bee Toys and Hobbies in the Citadel Mall just before Christmas 1983 (on deep sale at $300). Good memories. I remember back when the arcade was in the back of Fargo's, at one point on the first floor, but also on the second floor. I remember playing vector Star Wars and Frogger (and a myriad of other games.) Still want to see what's in that office on the second floor. Fargo's arcade is a pale shadow of what it was, but at least they haven't turned it into a ticket factory and still have some decent older games (when they work.). Can't be all bad, I always play a couple rounds of Off Road there when I visit. Thanks for the videos.
That's funny I'm from the Springs area too at least that's where I grew up and yep that's where we bought our Ataris at was the KB toy store in the Citadel Mall. Too funny. And with Fargos yeah I remember the arcade in the back downstairs and they had a whole bunch of games Pac-Man, track and field, Star Wars sit-down cab, the pole position sit down cab, Galaga, Tempest... oh man those were the good old days. Yeah it's sad to see the arcade in the shape it is now but hopefully once they start recouping from covid maybe it'll get better.
@@RetrogamerGenX I haven't been back in a while, is Fargo's still doing the number mirrors to let you know when your order is ready? Future content suggestion: Boardwalk USA arcade(s): Card-access video games at least a decade before Dave & Buster's...
Dad got us the system and the steering wheel add-on for Chrstmas the year it came out. I still have the system and the handful of games we accumulated. Totally underrated vintage system. It blew away everything else at the time. Bad timing indeed.
I remember getting one for Christmas in the early 80s. My favorite games were Burgertime, Qbert, Donkey Kong, Donkey Kong Jr., Ladybug, Popeye, Venture, Zaxxon, and Turbo. Got the 2600 expansion and thought I was on top of the world..lol
Didn't that law suit where someone "dove" into a Coleco pool and became paralyzed and they Sued for an outrageous amount of $$ and won, and that was also many nails in Coleco's coffin?
Radio interference was the only real way to get speech in games back when.. I remember back in the day asking parents for coleco or even a 5200, my parents argued that we already had an Atari.. it wasn’t until module two came out .. same thing with Adam.. we already had a ti with the 500 page basic programming books , Adam might have been a bullet dodged 😂
Sorry bud, just now catching up on comments. Somehow yours got skipped over. But I always try to reply back. Yeah I think you would have been better off with the ti at that point. The item was actually a halfway decent computer. Just the reliability and manufacturing issues really killed it. Once again another console to computer idea that just didn't pay off like the 5200 and the xegs from Atari.
It was certainly ahead of it's time. Ironically, the two companies that made most of the game packs for the Colecovision system, would soon square off in their own console war.
You didn't talk about the nag screen, that was an unique Colecovision thing which emulators thankfully skip. For "brand exposure/marketing reasons" when you turn it on, you are forced to wait looking at a Colecovision title/nag screen a fixed amount it time, which was like a minute or so. Very few games could skip that, it was sort of company policy. This console was quite good, heavy inspiration from the Intellivision (From competing toy maker Mattel), but clearly better. I had heavy exposure to it because in the 80ies there were places that let you rent them for 10mins or more in my country in arcade like setups. It is largely unused but the keypads also let you insert slides like the Intellivision did, and unlike the intellivision, the side buttons were soft and easy to use. The control itself isn't special but gets the job done. Though some hate the Intellivision disc controller, i absolutely loved it, it is very soft and responsive (at least the one from the Intellivision II), only its side buttons were a blister nightmare. It may have been over engineered, rather than the usual 4 directions it has 16 hardware directions but it gave you absolute precision in some games like Sea Battle which could only be surpassed by analogic control only seen in computers back in the day. Colecovision had many good games you didn't show like Tarzan, Smurfs, Jumpman Jr, Zaxxon, Antarctic Adventure. Some games were tied to a peripheral like Turbo needing the wheel and Centinpede the trackball, so those where not seen much (and the particular peripherals would often broke leaving you unable to play the game). This was much more better than the Atari 5200.
Great system for it's time. It had the most faithful arcade ports compared to other systems at the time. I thought Coleco's version of "Carnival" was actually better than the arcade.
Sounds so hilarious today, ''wow, 15 different screens''! ROFL! If you could take an Xbox Series X back in time, with a 4K monitor and show them a game...people would drop dead from heart attacks lol! I owned every system ever released from NES forward! Coleco made my jaw hit the floor when I got it and saw my first game playing on our TV. Remember thinking, ''no way they can make such realistic graphics''! Had super controller, roller controller and every game released. Brings back memories.
If I'm not mistaken, I think ColecoVision actually folded before The Crash. The way I understand it; the higher-ups at Coleco convinced themselves that video games were just another passing fad! And they abandoned CV, in order to sink their energy & resources into "the next big thing", the Cabbage Patch Kids.
My first "Flashback" was the ColecoVision Flashback. I was introduced to the venerable MSX-inspired arcade at home thanks to the MEKA Emulator. I absolutely get a kick out of playing Pepper II and Bump'n'Jump.
Love my ColecoVision. Only downside is that after an hour of playing, the palm of my left hand ached like hell between the thumb and the knuckles of the fingers. Not a very ergonomic controller. =( The ones I've got in my collection are: B.C.'s Quest For Tires Burger Time Campaign 84 Congo Bongo Cosmic Avenger Destructor Donkey Kong Donkey Kong Junior Frenzy Gorf Jumpman Jr. Ken Uston Blackjack/Poker Lady Bug Looping Miner 2049er Moust Trap Slither Space Fury Spy Hunter Star Trek: Strategic Operations Simulator Star Wars: The Arcade Game Tarzan The Heist Turbo Venture WarGames Zaxxon I really need to start hitting the local Game X Change stores and look for Frogger, Front Line and Time Pilot. I really wanted to grab those, but never ran across them in stores when they were new.
I was way too young to appreciate ColecoVision. But after playing it at my grandma's house later on (way after NES), I personally thought it had a lot of potential. Too bad the crash happened. I think it's the best pre-NES console. I do hate the controller. But I got used to it.
I had a standalone Adam.. it was great for the most part. Having the power supply as part of a printer and the sure force that printer had to shake the table it was one were the worst parts.
It had a God damn adapter that let it play its competitors games and it was legal. Thats insane today. Imagine in MS released an external drive that let's you play switch games on Xbox, wow
I used to own one back in 1984 HOWEVER unlike consoles these days by 1989 I had the controllers for this system stopped working so for this system mine didn't last for 5 years but back then I never did own a NES/Atari 2600 at all.
it's not too far off a vanilla famicom/nes. i would've liked to have seen what it could do with increased rom space and cart enhancement chips nintendo benefited from.
Coleco vision had also included a computer printer during the entire 1980s, now that's intense. Coleco was another strongest adversary even to Atari 7800! 🖥 👩💻 🖲 💻 🖱 👨💻 🖨
The bad thing about the printer was that it contained the power-supply for the system. It meant you didn't need an additional power supply for the computer module, but it also meant the system was useless without the printer - which had a very high failure rate at release.
Damn, I was hoping you also had the Atari adapter as well so we could at least see the circuit board and perhaps learn a little about how the adapter interface worked. I actually had the adapter back in the day, and for all intents and purposes it worked exactly like an actual Atari. The Coleco controllers sucked though in my opinion.
I have solution for your bad rf., Happened ot me with my atari junior. But perfect fix for me, u ought to try. Get a nice quality SHIELDED subwoofer cable. basic rca connector . Use the RCA to RF adapterr piece to screw into the TV. It costed me about $20 for a 10 foot shioelded. Cleared i t up and Atari is not super clear.b Totally suoper clear, amazing.
Hey brother thanks for the advise. I've had a shielded "RCA" type cable for it (this video is old) and run it through my VCR for composite video out to my capture card. It did help, but it still is having issues. Turns out it is caused by "dirty" power. When I connect it to my Meanwell bench PSU with +5v. -5v, and +12 v DC it looks clear as can be. A new power supply and a re-cap should fix the issue. That will be coming up in a repair video in the future. Thanks again for commenting and watching. 👍👍
Hey again. I had same issue with my Sega Genesis, dirty power from crap third party multi power supply. The kind where it was 10$ and had snes and genesis ports on it, the Genesis, even with composite, had a big band of distortion that would move down slowly rotating, looked like crap. I saourced a real quality genesis adapter recommended by retrorgb here on TH-cam, and was shocked how perfect th epicture wass. Alot of people will try thi old hardware an djust think, ey it is 9old, rf sucks, I guess this is the best it can be. @@RetrogamerGenX
My neighbor has the CV. It was, for it's time, THE ultimate arcade experience and made me a "Vidiot!" I think I had the C64 at the time, but the games weren't the same. When another neighbor got the NES I felt it was lackluster compared to the CV. Then this weirdo got a Master System and now I have tattoos of Opa Opa and Alex Kidd. SHAME! THANKS COLECO!
Dude... RF?... ever heard of component and composite video mods? - it's not like (Guardians of the Galaxy level) Rocket science, you know 😆 The number of screens capable of handling analogue RF signals is rapidly dwindling, anyway. - So, you'll have to admit... it kinda makes sense to make these modifications.
I'm 51 years old and I live in Brazil. This has always been the video game of my dreams! One day I will have one. But I had the Atari 2600 and the Intellivision.
Well, I hope one day you find one and your dreams come true. Colecovisions are great systems. Thanks for watching and commenting brother!!👍👍
Woo Hoo my absolute favorite console of the "RF" generation. So many great Arcade games and the first console I really felt like I had an arcade in my home honestly.
Yeah I would definitely say one of the best second gen consoles there was. Graphics, gameplay, the quality of the games everything was great about the Colecovision. I always wanted one when I was a kid but we ended up getting three Ataris after the first two died due to ESD death. My parents were Die Hard Atari fans.
@@RetrogamerGenX I hated Ataris but because everyone had one, it was easy to experience them without owning any. The thing is those games were far too simple (can't expect much with 128bytes of ram and 2k cartridges), and since i grew up with the Intellivision which had far better games there were not 5min duration. I only liked Adventure and Enduro from the 2600, most of the other games would bore me too quickly, like i said, 5min entertainment. Oh and everyone broke those flimsy stick controls that are just 5 digital buttons. Paddles were fun tho and i admit the Stella chip was great in the color department sound was meh except for Pitfall II and its custom chip, which btw had a perfect port for the Colecovision which can playback the tune on its own.
Great library. Great console. Lousy unusable controller.
It wasn't timing that killed colecovision it was the Adam computer. That did it. .
That and Atari suing them
This was the most advanced thing I saw as a kid. Zaxxon was something else!
I had a 5200 which I loved but boy was I jealous of colecovision donkey Kong. The controllers were awful. But it also has a steering wheel and that 2600 adapter was a killer add on.
Really a great system and the company seemed understand gaming better than Atari at the time.
Right I had the 2600 and was jealous of both the 5200 and colecovision. Lol.. Yeah the coleco was an awesome machine for its time.. Should have really been a 3rd gen console instead of 2nd gen to compete with the nes and sms.. It way out performed the 2nd gen consoles it was competing with imho.
Colecovision was the first console that gave you that feeling you where playing an arcade game.
I still have my ColecoVision and still play it too sometimes. Gotta take it back to the old school from time to time. I remember being a kid playing CV and when I first saw the NES I thought it was so advanced and I told my friends "How crazy would it be when we get older we'll be playing video games like real life and the movies" they laughed and said "That will never happen" makes me wonder how video games will be in another 40 years. Hopefully I live that long to witness that.
Had Coleco and the ADAM Computer system as well.
Cool. I wish I did back in the 80's. That would have been awesome.
Great review! Wanted to see the history of the Coleco handheld sports games, and tabletop arcade also.
Thanks... I'll be doing a video on tabletops in the future. Stay tuned....
This was my first video game experience - my father bought the Coleco System and we had smurfs, zaxon, Donkey Kong & dk jr, and carnival, ladybug, and a few others - I remember going over to a friends house and playing his Atari and thinking it was broken because the flicker and graphics were complete garbage. - The Coleco was a very nice machine !!! - Cool video bro
And that's awesome that you had a Colecovision back in the day. We had the Atari 2600 but my sister's boyfriend's family had a colecovision, and man the difference was like day and night. Much better graphics on the ColecoVision, and gameplay was almost arcade like. Too bad they couldn't secure the licenses for the more popular games, but Atari had the major licensing sewed up so other companies couldn't compete. Coleco found a way around this by making ports of the less popular arcade games. And it worked for them, up until the video game crash. Thanks for dropping a comment and sharing and watching.
I remember playing Donkey Kong to death when I first got mine back in the day. ColecoVision was one of the best consoles of its time and sadly underrated when the NES came out and dominated.
Yeah I remember going over to my sister's boyfriend's house when I was a kid and just being Amazed by the graphics in the games on the ColecoVision compared to the Atari 2600 I had. Nintendo was actually worried about ColecoVision being a competitor towards the NES I don't know if you've watched my look at the Nintendo Entertainment System Video but in that I tell that story.
@@RetrogamerGenX I have not, but will check it out, thanks!
Excellent video.
Glad you liked it!👍👍
I never had a Colecovision. I had the Atari 2600, then got a C64, an Intellivision, Amiga, Atari 7800, Atari 5200, then Windows 98. I completely skipped over the NES and Playstation eras.
I did find a Colecovision in the trash a few years ago, but it didn't work properly. It's been so long since I plugged it in, that I don't remember what was wrong with it. I think the display was kind of messed up. It had the Atari expansion module with it, and that DID work fine. At some point, I hope to dig it out and see if I can fix it. Well, first figure out what's wrong with it, THEN fix it...
Hey great content - Subbed. I would love to see in debth video on tempest (arcade) and a break down on colors per level and more deep lore. Also the 5200 ad you showed on a previous video mentioned 5200 battlezone. I would love to hear more about that one too. TY
Thanks for Subbing and watching. I will probably do more on arcades come summertime, when I can get around to some local ones. So I'll keep Tempest in mind.
Battlezone on the 5200 only exists in prototype. It was never released commercially. Fun game though. I have it on my Atarimax flash cart. It's available, you can download the rom and play it on an emulator.. Really it got canceled because it didn't make it's Nov 1983 deadline, due to ongoing glitches, and by that time the video game crash had came. That all but killed it.
Always loved it. Had so many great games from many different developers. River Raid, Looping, Zaxxon and Donkey Kong were some of my favorites on the system. I bugged out as a kid at how much better DK was on the Coleco than Atari2600.
"Sorry Atari"
I LOVE the old school look and feel of your videos, this is exactly what youtube used to be before everything became overproduced high-end TV like stuff.
Even though I know this stuff I still had a wonderful time watching your video, no fancy overproduction no nothing, just a regular guy showing some retro games and systems.
That's funny because I was on You Tube from 2008-2013, and did these retro gaming vids then too. So a few months ago I started collecting again, and got the bug to do You Tube again. Glad you enjoyed it. I try to keep things "retro" , I'm not into the glitz and glamor that most channels do now days. Plus I'm not sponsored, so my channel is really low budget. If I ever get monetized, that money will go directly to the channel to fund more systems and things like camera, mics, etc... It might not garner me a million subs, but the subs I do have, I know are into my content, and into these retro systems. Thanks again for watching!!!
At Finland we used to rent Colecovision home from video store. It was absolutely amazing when see it first time at TV store after Atari 2600. Donkey Kong, Smurf etc.
Coleco was expensive it cost 1590mk when Atari 2600 was 995mk. Didn’t know anyone who actually own TV games. We went to Commodore route Vic20, C64 and Amiga and copy swap most games with friends at school. At older age have had maybe 3x RF Colecovisions that sold away after got France SECAM RGB Scart models. These days mostly use Collectorvision Phoenix that has HDMI. Great days and so many games that we know absolutely nothing here at 80’s.
It was a great looking console with great looking graphics but suffered from poor frame rates and flimsy build quality. I remember moving the console around and it creaked like a balsawood pirate ship. I still loved it.
Lol.. Yep they are creaky...Thanks for watching and commenting.
Colecovision is still my favourite console that i bought.
You put together a great video. I shared it in a few Facebook groups
I had one of those, the sports action controllers, the trackball, the turbo module and the ColecoVision Adom expansion unit.
My brother and I played in arcades a lot as kids. Then we played a lot of Colecovision at home. We then had most of our favorite arcade games at home, but there was still one we wanted... Looping. We actually wrote to Coleco requesting to put this game out... and they did! Thank you Coleco!
epic video
Finally bit the proverbial bullet and bought a working Colecovision. No more stuck just playing the AT Games Flashback
Nice. Welcome to the club. The Colecovision is an awesome console, it should provide you with years of retro gaming fun. Word of advice, get a flash cart so you can play some of the amazing homebrews made for it.
This brought back so many good memories. Thanks.
Great video! Colecovision was technically a very impressive system. I remember a friend had one, and we played it a few times. Not the best controller, but good enough. You are right RF is tough to get to come through. I have a place in my basement that I can get a really good RF picture, it only took me three years to find it!!
Thanks bro. I really think the Coleco would have been a competitor to Nintendo. More so then Sega. If they would of not gone ape shit crazy with the success of the first quarter sales of the Colecovision and launched the Adam. But who would of guessed the crash was coming 'round the corner. Like I said in the video, just bad timing. Image if they would have launched it in 1979.... What could have been?? But yeah, RF is crap in my house. The only RF systems I can get an OK signal with are the Atari 5200, Jaguar, and XEGS. But they are barely playable.
I have the Coleco. I had it modded for composite which I run through an HD converter. I also have the Adam peripheral with printer. Still works S intended although I had the tape drive refurbished
I still have one, with all the expansion modules (beside ADAM) and the super action controllers which I have but are broken...
Thanks for the video! Colecovision is awesome! :D
Glad you enjoyed!
You have an interesting collection of videos! Good work! :)
Thanks my friend it's a labor of love that's for sure.
@@RetrogamerGenX You're welcome! Keep having fun!
Very nice documentary on the classic ColecoVision, thanks! I agree, had it arrived in 1979, it could've turned the tide of consoles and its future potentially. I still remember being in KMart as a tiny kid and seeing Donkey Kong on the demo TV, and was in awe. Thankfully my Dad got us the console and it was one of the best ever.
I guess I was fortunate cause I got a Coleco Adam in 1986 & mine was perfect Zero problems.Loved the Game Packs like Zaxxon!
Dummy here sold my Coleco Adam in 1991 for 50.00!!!!
I am depressed admiting it.
Cool that you had one with no issues. Don't feel bad, in 1994 I sold all my NES stuff, games(200+), the console, the power glove, the power pad, the advantage controllers all for $200 at a pawn shop for a down payment on a car. Still regretting it to this day, seeing I only had that car for 3 years and I could still have my original NES stuff. Instead I had to buy it all back years later for 10 times the price I sold it for. Argh..
simply amazing
Thanks bro... More episodes every Saturday.
It took me three tries to get a colecovision with good RF output. My current CV connects to my 5 modern TVs with varying degrees of quality, 2 are dead perfect, 2 very minor artifact, 1 just playable but at 75% quality of my best 2 TVs. I say all that to point out that the TV is part of that good/acceptable RF output equation.
Currently on the fence to add the expansion module #1 (Atari 2600 module) even though i have a perfectly working 2600 jr already. I have the CV because the games are so fun but am i going to cross to be a "collector"? IDK.
you know there is a potentiometer inside the CV on the RF output that can be adjusted for better picture. I have not done this myself but when i was trying to find a CV with good RF output one of the sellers told me this was the trick to good RF.
Hey, thanks for watching and commenting. Also, thanks for giving me the tip about the potentiometer inside. Later when I get home I'll open up the Colecovision and give it a shot.👍👍
I had the Intellivision. My Neighbor GAVE it to me along with around 4 or 5 games, it was about a year or so after he had gotten a N.E.S. He gave it to me because he felt sorry for me cuz I didnt have a video game console at all...He even gave me a 12 inch B & W TV to play the games on cuz I didnt have a TV in my room at that time either. I'm thinking it was late 86 early 87...Im not real sure. The games I remember playing on it were SNAFU ...Asteroids...Quest...and Space invaders...I dont remember the other games...I think the cartridge just didnt work. I wish I had kept that thing....If I had known then.....what I know now.....Thanks for all the cool content..I appreciate it very much.
I had the same problem trying to activate a Atatri 2600 to a modern TV, you have to get a VCR! Attach the system to a VCR and the VCR to the TV, it works!! I learned that from youtube, it does work!! Make sure your channels are in synch with each other, VCRs have channel select too.
Thanks for the tip but I have already tried that. I'm not using the RF switch box I'm using rf to rca adapter, and a shielded wire. Still have a bad signal. It's just that we have an airport transponder, a cell phone antenna, my Wi-Fi routers in my room, and I just found out there's a ham radio operator less than a block away from me. With all that in the area it's just impossible to get a good RF signal. So I'll have to do AV mods to all my RF systems eventually. Maybe if my systems were in the basement and not on the second floor of the house I might have a better signal. But our basement's unfinished and it's basically our storage. But once again thanks for the tip any advice is definitely helpful.
I assume you tried these 2 suggestions. But if you haven't, give these 2 a try to improve RF signals within the house
1 get a shielded rf cable, like an outdoor antenna TV Rf cable. The inly part that must be shielded is the direct path.
2. Plug it into a VCR if you want to capture it on your equipment if you have a Composite Video capture card, or you currently can deal with Composite sone other way.
I have a wifi and a cellular receiver in my bedroom, and a local in house UHF transmitter to play classic linear media (vhs beta) on a modern TV.
I don't know how close is too close to a cellular tower where these fixes don't work, but if you haven't tried them, try these.
Btw our old house was by high tension electric wires for power distribution, and that worked.
I assume you tried those 2 suggestions. But if not, try them.
Thanks for the advice. But the issue got fixed I bought a new TV and all my RF issues went away so I'm assuming the new TV either has a better tuner or it's shielded better. I did try a shielded wire first and it helped a little bit but the picture was still really too fuzzy but after the new TV and the shielded wire it's clear as a bell. Even the battery operated dedicated pong consoles look clear.
@@RetrogamerGenX But not TOO new of a TV. If you have a late 90s- early 00s TV that would be perfect. But if younget into any flat panel tvs, you'll have 2 issues.
One if them you're not having because the RF systems work, but if your TV does NOT have an NTSC tuner (modern digital ones are called ATSC tuners) it will not work. Even the ones with combo NTSC/ATSC tuners you may have to manually turn on 4x3 mode.
The second issue is light gun games and Segascope 3d games. The light gun technology depends on the timing of a crawling dot of tv hitting the barrel of your light gun. And Segascope 3d assumes you have submicrosecond timing of a CRT TV. Everything else will delay and distort the 3d image.
BTW if you're not using a VCR to convert RF into Composite, what method would you use to capture RF? An RF to VGA device like an MTVBox? (Not to be confused with the cable channel that used to be Music Television). I did a video and found that going from RF to VCR composite and then composite through a retro tank 2X Pro m to go to HDMI, and then going back to VGA to hook up to my CRT VGA is "frame perfect" versus an MTV box which is a frame behind a direct CRT display. I had a direct RF CRT and a VGA-ified Capture shot commondo style on the same shot and showed dare to compare. It's on my youtube archive.
@Brian Ciesicki Well.... Trust me, I weighed the pros and cons. Yep I bought a 40" flat panel. Not new ,used, and it's older. No problems, even Atari Pong works with it. I do have my old Magnavox console TV still. But I have no room in the den for it. It's currently stored in the garage. The light gun thing is a draw back, but I really don't play very many light gun games anyway. But there is at least one game I know of that has a LCD light gun hack/trickery to get it to work. Hint, it's on the NES... One of the many project's that I'm thinking of posting one day. 😀 Oh yeah, a VCR to get composite to my capture device. I've never captured an RF system on my vids yet. Just the Vader 2600 because it has an AV mod.
@@RetrogamerGenX sounds cool. Those 2005-2011 TVs have combo NTSC/ATSC TVs. But save those VHS and Beta decks for RF to Composite converters. Even if the tape deck is broken, you need it for the NTSC tuner and converter to Composite if your tv dies out.
did not have the adam addon system but i did get the atari game conversion unit for the front expansion port. also later my power supply failed and by then the company stopped selling replacement ones, i even tried a few electronic stores like radio shack but they could not help me either, this was back in 1984 so sadly it never worked again...
Wait a tic … How exactly can RF signals degrade with interfering radio waves ? It’s wired directly into the inputs of the television …
My first video game console so it will forever have so many nostalgic memories for me.
Colecovision and MSX are so similar that you can convert games from one to the other by remapping the memory and hardware in the game code.
Same with Sega SG-1000
We started off with the Sears version of the 2600. Then gave that to my cousins when I bought my 5200 (saved and worked for that). But it was a “4 port” model (with the power going thru that fancy auto switching tv rf box) and the 2600 adapter didn’t work without getting that version serviced. So my dad got a CV and their 2600 adapter !! Okay I think he knew someone who owed a favor and the crash was happening so … yeah ….
I most recall playing Looping and Venture and Mousetrap and Ladybug. Those were … shall we say … 2nd tier arcade games .. never saw them in the arcade in their prime. Definitely saw Looping in the local arcade after having had it on CB for a while. Wow that was faster and harder! Think I saw Venture once (not around home) and same comment applies. Also after it had faded I saw either LB or MT but forget which and didn’t see the other. Think MT because of memories of the colored buttons that changed the maze and the dog button.
The Wico Command Control joystick was a must for both CV and 5200. I had both so I know both controllers had issues. Just that the 5200 takes the heat. But both beat the Intellivision controller for sure! My friend had INTV. Funny how that came out late 1979 and the CV sat on the shelf for a few more years and if that means that the graphics and sound chips were the same in 1979 and 1982 then IF the CV had come out alongside the INTV then it would have been game over for Mattel. Right?
If only I’d known that Jumpman Jr and miner 2049er were on CV. Never saw those on the store shelves for CV. Had miner2049er for 5200 and idve liked to try with CV joystick. Christmas 1984 got an 800XL home computer and Jumpman Jr. I was interested in Adam but I guess my family rightly decided by that point to avoid it. What a great idea that was poorly executed. I bought a complete “blue box” Adam (ie no CV required.. has its own cartridge port and A/V out) last year. I want to set it up but man o man where can I put that thing AND the requisite printer? 🤣 I need to make room around here. And eventually I will.
Long live Coleco!
Colecovision almost always had the most faithful conversions of arcade games back in the day, often times even surpassing the home computer versions such as the Commodore 64. Funny, it uses the same video chip as the Texas Instruments TI99/4a but looked WAY better. If Coleco had not sunk so much money and technical effort into the Adam they may have been able to survive the crash because their games were largely well made (unlike the VCS which had a large amount of made-in-a-week low quality clunkers).
Hey I was going to suggest to try to hook up the colecovision with a rca to F connector adapter and no switcher - the things you listed as sources of interference shouldn't interfere with channels 3 or 4. However, there are still some stations on ch 3 or 4, unlikely but its possible. Its also possible that the unit is just interfering with itself. Assuming you are using one of those old colecovision TV GAME switches, especially if it goes to 300 ohm twin lead things, that might let enough noise leak in - so maybe try with a straight cable with adapters from rca to F connector. And try ch 3 or 4 to see if it changes.
Thanks for the advice. I was already using RCA to RF adapter not the switch box and a shielded RCA cable and still was having issues. But I purchased the new TV. If you watch my newer videos I have a 40 inch flat screen and all the RF issues went away. Perfect picture now. So I'm thinking it was just the other TV but I did try another TV in the house and I had problems with that so maybe the new one just has a better tuner or a shielded better. Who knows, I'm just glad it works now. Thanks for watching and for the advice.
@@RetrogamerGenX ah yes! you know the need for a good NTSC analog tuner in a modern tv is so minimal I bet they just use the cheapest parts and don't care if there is some interference - especially in the VHF band. Its probably just part of the ATSC tuner that can do the analog mode.
Bought one while working at Toy Chest in Alton Illinois
Coleco looked way better than my old Atari. I wonder was it a 8 bit like nes?
The Coleco's z80 processer was 8-bit, with a 16-bit address bus width. The Atari had the MOS 6507 processor which was a cost reduced MOS 6502. So it ran as 8-bit too, but only had a 13-bit address bus width. The 2600 could only address 8k of ram because of this. While the regular 6502 and z80 could address 64k of ram. The NES had a another variant of the 6502 reverse engineered by Nintendo, the Ricoh 2A03/2A07. But it was pretty much a 6502, 8-bit, 16-bit address too. Hope that helps...
Intellivision, Colecovision, and Fargo's!
We bought out ColecoVision ADAM at Kay Bee Toys and Hobbies in the Citadel Mall just before Christmas 1983 (on deep sale at $300). Good memories.
I remember back when the arcade was in the back of Fargo's, at one point on the first floor, but also on the second floor. I remember playing vector Star Wars and Frogger (and a myriad of other games.) Still want to see what's in that office on the second floor.
Fargo's arcade is a pale shadow of what it was, but at least they haven't turned it into a ticket factory and still have some decent older games (when they work.). Can't be all bad, I always play a couple rounds of Off Road there when I visit.
Thanks for the videos.
That's funny I'm from the Springs area too at least that's where I grew up and yep that's where we bought our Ataris at was the KB toy store in the Citadel Mall. Too funny. And with Fargos yeah I remember the arcade in the back downstairs and they had a whole bunch of games Pac-Man, track and field, Star Wars sit-down cab, the pole position sit down cab, Galaga, Tempest... oh man those were the good old days. Yeah it's sad to see the arcade in the shape it is now but hopefully once they start recouping from covid maybe it'll get better.
@@RetrogamerGenX I haven't been back in a while, is Fargo's still doing the number mirrors to let you know when your order is ready?
Future content suggestion: Boardwalk USA arcade(s): Card-access video games at least a decade before Dave & Buster's...
Dad got us the system and the steering wheel add-on for Chrstmas the year it came out. I still have the system and the handful of games we accumulated. Totally underrated vintage system. It blew away everything else at the time. Bad timing indeed.
Have great memories with Colecovision. My personal favorites were Zaxxon, Pepper 2 and Ladybug. You should check out the Coleco Phoenix game system.
I feel like if it wasn’t for the game crash, Coleco would have had a bright future of all consoles in existence at that time.
nothing mentioned about the power brick having a tendency to fail, though
Notification Squad! :)
Thanks again for clicking the bell, subbing, watching, and your support!!
It has gremlins inside that create the graphics
Lol. If I see Stripe coming out of my Colecivision, I will grab my 5000 lumens flashlight and light his ass up. Lmfao
Funny thing is colecovision version did not have the pie factory board but the the home brew for the Atari 5200 does and has better quality and sound
The system I wanted as a kid but never got. I had a 1st gen Atari 2600 , so my parents said that was enough lol.
I remember getting one for Christmas in the early 80s. My favorite games were Burgertime, Qbert, Donkey Kong, Donkey Kong Jr., Ladybug, Popeye, Venture, Zaxxon, and Turbo. Got the 2600 expansion and thought I was on top of the world..lol
My older cousin had a coleco vision. I played it a few times. I has a NES at the time. I found the coleco controller very awkward.
If I had to go back to the 80's I would want a Coleco system. Hindsight is always 20/20. That stuff is obsolete now but back then.
My first video game console. It was 5 back then. The machine is long gone but I still have the donkey Kong cartridge.
Didn't that law suit where someone "dove" into a Coleco pool and became paralyzed and they Sued for an outrageous amount of $$ and won, and that was also many nails in Coleco's coffin?
You gotta find the Smurf game where If you went backwards a screen on the final smurfette screen her dress would go up
Lol.. I'll have to try it..
Great video. Thanks a lot. Was my first console. Could you give me the name of the emulator please? Thanks in advance.
Thanks for watching. The Coleco emulator I used in this video was ColEm ver. 5.6. Just google it and you will find it. Hope that helps.
@@RetrogamerGenX thanks a lot!
@@RetrogamerGenX do you know where can I find the ROM of games? I found the emulator on Google play but is empty. Thanks in advance.
Radio interference was the only real way to get speech in games back when..
I remember back in the day asking parents for coleco or even a 5200, my parents argued that we already had an Atari.. it wasn’t until module two came out .. same thing with Adam.. we already had a ti with the 500 page basic programming books , Adam might have been a bullet dodged 😂
Sorry bud, just now catching up on comments. Somehow yours got skipped over. But I always try to reply back. Yeah I think you would have been better off with the ti at that point. The item was actually a halfway decent computer. Just the reliability and manufacturing issues really killed it. Once again another console to computer idea that just didn't pay off like the 5200 and the xegs from Atari.
It would of been a very different landscape if the Video Game crash never happened.
Yep, very different. 👍
It was certainly ahead of it's time. Ironically, the two companies that made most of the game packs for the Colecovision system, would soon square off in their own console war.
There is a RGB mod for the colecovision and in combination with the ossc it looks great.
I had this. Donkey Kong was the best.
You didn't talk about the nag screen, that was an unique Colecovision thing which emulators thankfully skip. For "brand exposure/marketing reasons" when you turn it on, you are forced to wait looking at a Colecovision title/nag screen a fixed amount it time, which was like a minute or so. Very few games could skip that, it was sort of company policy. This console was quite good, heavy inspiration from the Intellivision (From competing toy maker Mattel), but clearly better. I had heavy exposure to it because in the 80ies there were places that let you rent them for 10mins or more in my country in arcade like setups. It is largely unused but the keypads also let you insert slides like the Intellivision did, and unlike the intellivision, the side buttons were soft and easy to use. The control itself isn't special but gets the job done. Though some hate the Intellivision disc controller, i absolutely loved it, it is very soft and responsive (at least the one from the Intellivision II), only its side buttons were a blister nightmare. It may have been over engineered, rather than the usual 4 directions it has 16 hardware directions but it gave you absolute precision in some games like Sea Battle which could only be surpassed by analogic control only seen in computers back in the day. Colecovision had many good games you didn't show like Tarzan, Smurfs, Jumpman Jr, Zaxxon, Antarctic Adventure. Some games were tied to a peripheral like Turbo needing the wheel and Centinpede the trackball, so those where not seen much (and the particular peripherals would often broke leaving you unable to play the game). This was much more better than the Atari 5200.
Great system for it's time. It had the most faithful arcade ports compared to other systems at the time. I thought Coleco's version of "Carnival" was actually better than the arcade.
Sounds so hilarious today, ''wow, 15 different screens''! ROFL! If you could take an Xbox Series X back in time, with a 4K monitor and show them a game...people would drop dead from heart attacks lol! I owned every system ever released from NES forward! Coleco made my jaw hit the floor when I got it and saw my first game playing on our TV. Remember thinking, ''no way they can make such realistic graphics''! Had super controller, roller controller and every game released. Brings back memories.
If I'm not mistaken, I think ColecoVision actually folded before The Crash. The way I understand it; the higher-ups at Coleco convinced themselves that video games were just another passing fad! And they abandoned CV, in order to sink their energy & resources into "the next big thing", the Cabbage Patch Kids.
My first "Flashback" was the ColecoVision Flashback. I was introduced to the venerable MSX-inspired arcade at home thanks to the MEKA Emulator.
I absolutely get a kick out of playing Pepper II and Bump'n'Jump.
i still play my coleco 🥺
have the trackball & i think it has some killer arcade ports
also have the y-adapter so i can use sega genesis controllers 😈
slither alone is worth the price of admission imo
Love my ColecoVision. Only downside is that after an hour of playing, the palm of my left hand ached like hell between the thumb and the knuckles of the fingers. Not a very ergonomic controller. =(
The ones I've got in my collection are:
B.C.'s Quest For Tires
Burger Time
Campaign 84
Congo Bongo
Cosmic Avenger
Destructor
Donkey Kong
Donkey Kong Junior
Frenzy
Gorf
Jumpman Jr.
Ken Uston Blackjack/Poker
Lady Bug
Looping
Miner 2049er
Moust Trap
Slither
Space Fury
Spy Hunter
Star Trek: Strategic Operations Simulator
Star Wars: The Arcade Game
Tarzan
The Heist
Turbo
Venture
WarGames
Zaxxon
I really need to start hitting the local Game X Change stores and look for Frogger, Front Line and Time Pilot. I really wanted to grab those, but never ran across them in stores when they were new.
I was way too young to appreciate ColecoVision. But after playing it at my grandma's house later on (way after NES), I personally thought it had a lot of potential. Too bad the crash happened. I think it's the best pre-NES console.
I do hate the controller. But I got used to it.
I also remember when Coleco used to create the Rambo action figures as well.
Great video! But next time bump up the volume on the VO.
Those joy sticks in the old days dam, no wonder there was a crash.
They should have kept the part where in donkey Kong Mario gets Pauline at the top of the ladder and Kong gets her back.
I had a standalone Adam.. it was great for the most part. Having the power supply as part of a printer and the sure force that printer had to shake the table it was one were the worst parts.
It had a God damn adapter that let it play its competitors games and it was legal. Thats insane today. Imagine in MS released an external drive that let's you play switch games on Xbox, wow
I liked Wargames and Super RBI Baseball. I never got to play the football game though.
I used to own one back in 1984 HOWEVER unlike consoles these days by 1989 I had the controllers for this system stopped working so for this system mine didn't last for 5 years but back then I never did own a NES/Atari 2600 at all.
Good video! You need to move though! :)
it's not too far off a vanilla famicom/nes. i would've liked to have seen what it could do with increased rom space and cart enhancement chips nintendo benefited from.
One of my earliest memories is playing Popeye on this console
put the RF modulator in a faraday cage. a metal cube, or screen cube, or even inside a microwave oven, not turned on of course!
Coleco vision had also included a computer printer during the entire 1980s, now that's intense. Coleco was another strongest adversary even to Atari 7800! 🖥 👩💻 🖲 💻 🖱 👨💻 🖨
The bad thing about the printer was that it contained the power-supply for the system. It meant you didn't need an additional power supply for the computer module, but it also meant the system was useless without the printer - which had a very high failure rate at release.
Damn, I was hoping you also had the Atari adapter as well so we could at least see the circuit board and perhaps learn a little about how the adapter interface worked.
I actually had the adapter back in the day, and for all intents and purposes it worked exactly like an actual Atari. The Coleco controllers sucked though in my opinion.
9:15 Are you sure about that? I'm pretty sure it's 32 columns, not 24.
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I have solution for your bad rf., Happened ot me with my atari junior. But perfect fix for me, u ought to try. Get a nice quality SHIELDED subwoofer cable. basic rca connector . Use the RCA to RF adapterr piece to screw into the TV. It costed me about $20 for a 10 foot shioelded. Cleared i t up and Atari is not super clear.b Totally suoper clear, amazing.
Hey brother thanks for the advise. I've had a shielded "RCA" type cable for it (this video is old) and run it through my VCR for composite video out to my capture card. It did help, but it still is having issues. Turns out it is caused by "dirty" power. When I connect it to my Meanwell bench PSU with +5v. -5v, and +12 v DC it looks clear as can be. A new power supply and a re-cap should fix the issue. That will be coming up in a repair video in the future. Thanks again for commenting and watching. 👍👍
Hey again. I had same issue with my Sega Genesis, dirty power from crap third party multi power supply. The kind where it was 10$ and had snes and genesis ports on it, the Genesis, even with composite, had a big band of distortion that would move down slowly rotating, looked like crap. I saourced a real quality genesis adapter recommended by retrorgb here on TH-cam, and was shocked how perfect th epicture wass. Alot of people will try thi old hardware an djust think, ey it is 9old, rf sucks, I guess this is the best it can be. @@RetrogamerGenX
My neighbor has the CV. It was, for it's time, THE ultimate arcade experience and made me a "Vidiot!" I think I had the C64 at the time, but the games weren't the same. When another neighbor got the NES I felt it was lackluster compared to the CV. Then this weirdo got a Master System and now I have tattoos of Opa Opa and Alex Kidd. SHAME! THANKS COLECO!
You didn’t even make one burger! Somewhere Bob is upset and eating pills 🍔💊🤤
Beeee Seventeeeeeeeen Bombeeeeeerrrrrrrrrr ... yea had the speach addon lol
B-17 Bomber was an Intellivision title, friend.
You need to remix the background audio to a much lower level and gain your voice a tad.
Dude... RF?... ever heard of component and composite video mods? - it's not like (Guardians of the Galaxy level) Rocket science, you know 😆
The number of screens capable of handling analogue RF signals is rapidly dwindling, anyway.
- So, you'll have to admit... it kinda makes sense to make these modifications.
Zaxxon
it easy to do a av mod or RGB mod , and play play play
I love the coleco but the console itself is junk. Iv had 4 systems and all went within 3 months.
That's a shame. I've never had an issue with my Coleco. Knock on wood...
Background music is louder than your narration.
Then the NES was released in 1983 and kicked Coleco's ass!
it was released in Japan in 83. I'm pretty sure it came to North America in 1986, but yes, once we got it, it was pure domination.