Chronogamer

Based on http://www.pong-story.com/coleco_arcade.htm and http://www.pong-story.com/gi.htm I'd say it's closer to a programmable system than something like the Magnavox Odyssey where the carts were just wires activating capabilities which already existed in the console. The trick with the Telestar Arcade is the cartridge contained both the ROM and the processor.

 

Unfortunately, I can't find a cartridge pinout nor a description of the console internals, so it's a little tough to determine how complex the cartridge could get. But I'd guess that the 36 pads on the cartridge PCB are I/O ports, not address/data busses, and connected directly to the various controllers along with resistor DACs for generating video and sound. The fact all four cartridges used the same microcontroller is coincidental and more a reflection of what was cheaply available at the time. I'm sure with something like the Parallax Propeller you could create almost any B&W game playable with the built-in controllers.

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention the Odyssey as not really being a cartridge system, thanks for bringing that up, too. EDIT: by which I mean, the Odyssey it isn't "programmable."

 

Thanks Eric Ball, I didn't realize it was a rom and processor thing going on in the Telstar Arcade carts. I guess I need to give this system a status that differentiates it from dedicated consoles. It sounds like that the carts were more dedicated as a console than the controller base was! I guess the processor and the rom comunicated information to the base and the base generated the image? Which would make the base little more than a receiver/broadcast platform with funky controls, wouldn't it?

Which would make the base little more than a receiver/broadcast platform with funky controls, wouldn't it?

 

If I were designing such a thing, not using a microprocessor, I'd probably include some video timing circuitry in the base along with things like a score generator. Stuff like that will likely be common to many games, and so there's no need to repeat it. Still, I would guess that the cart would probably have the ability to throw just about anything up on the display and wouldn't be surprised if it could do color (if a 3.579Mhz signal could pass through from the cart to the video, it would likely work).

Interesting discussion above. ^^ I had to check some pictures of the Telstar Arcade again as I had forgotten it used cartridges, let alone that they had a processor inside them.

 

Oh, and all links are broken again.

On 1/21/2013 at 9:24 PM, Nelio said:

Oh, and all links are broken again.

 

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