colecovision tvgame fan made system?

[doubledown]

You still gotta look at the hardware as the major obstacle. Could you simply send an existing ColecoVision PCB to a board engineer/manufacturer/assembler, and say "how much for 100 of these with moden surface mount components", or do you start with a programmed FPGA or CPLD and other standard ICs. If you start with the program board who is going to do the programming.

As far as controllers, something new would be great, but again where do you start. For either the console or controller case, you would never be able to get something custom made unless you're going to sell over 1000 units. Your best bet is to find a standard case that will work and hopefully a manufacturer who can CNC mod them to you specs on a smaller scale. I in fact just talked to my rep from the company I got my Mini ColecoVision case from about this very same thing and they offer customizing for as low as 25-50 pieces. Now bear in mind this is customizing their cases, not a completely new case design, but at least it's some information to work with. He isn't able to get me a price on customizing costs untill they had drawings of exactly what would be done, so I have no idea what kind of price point it would be, but you gotta start by asking these kinds of questions.

[PkK]

It seems obvious to me that this would be a mail-order-only product, so all we would really need is a proper official web site from where people could order.

 

Also, FPGAs are nice and all, but AFAIK they're more for development purposes (do correct me if I'm wrong). You can still find Z80 chips today that can run at 3.58 MHz (opcode told me this himself earlier this year)

They're 2.5€ per CPU at digikey, minimum order 240 pieces.

 

Philipp

[Ikrananka]

Have you guys seen the One Chip MSX? A different picture and more info can be found here and here.

 

Looks like it's an FPGA based system and is beautifully compact and looks nicely laid out. Looks like 5,000 units was their target first batch sales point within Japan. Unfortunately it's not yet available outside Japan and may never be

 

I suspect that something along these lines for a new compact CV system would be highly appropriate - making it economic though is another matter.

[doubledown]

I've seen that before and they did an amazing job with it. Unfortunately not really a cost savings even with those 5000 units though. I thought I remember that they were selling that for something like $250-$300.

[Gregory DG]

Wow, I've been looking for a ColecoVision "Flashback" type deal for ages... This would be very nice to have!

[retroillucid]

Not exactly the same (it doesn't use cart)

But it look very promising!

 

http://technabob.com/blog/2007/05/27/ben-h...for-the-masses/

 

What do you think about it?

[Pixelboy]

Not exactly the same (it doesn't use cart)

But it look very promising!

 

http://technabob.com/blog/2007/05/27/ben-h...for-the-masses/

 

What do you think about it?

Nice little gadget, although I have to question what kind of emulation software it uses under the hood, and how the CV keypad is supported. After investigating a little, I found that Gameport (the company) doesn't even exist online anymore, and all news related to the subject go back to last May, so it looks like a dead project...

[Ikrananka]

Not exactly the same (it doesn't use cart)

But it look very promising!

 

http://technabob.com/blog/2007/05/27/ben-h...for-the-masses/

 

What do you think about it?

Nice little gadget, although I have to question what kind of emulation software it uses under the hood, and how the CV keypad is supported. After investigating a little, I found that Gameport (the company) doesn't even exist online anymore, and all news related to the subject go back to last May, so it looks like a dead project...

I suspect that the market in this area is very tight and has already been well catered for with the likes of the GP32 and GP2X (as well as CV emulators on the more mainstream portable devices such as the PSP etc.). Although the GP32 and GP2X are now discontinued, two future open source handheld machines are planned for release, i.e. the Wiz and the Pandora.

 

If these handhelds had the following then they could potentially make a new CV dedicated console a moot point:

 

1. Near perfect and fully featured CV hardware emulation software..

2. Support for high quality (s-video minimum) output to TV.

3. Support for all external CV controllers including the Super Action Controllers and the Driving Controller.

 

I have a GP32 and the CV emulation (via fcolem) is okay but there are major gaps in the emulators functionality. Nevertheless, great to use on the bus on the way to/from work.

 

The GP2X looked promising with output to TV and add-ons to allow external controllers to be used - not sure if any CV controllers could be used though - not something I've checked out.

[Greg2600]

I would love to see a "new" Colecovision console. I have several games myself, but my unit it dead. I'd also love to see a Coleco Flashback, although it does seem like the retro/TV/PPlay games have kind of come and went as a fad. Someone wondered about the Flashback, well Curt Vendel said I think over 850,000 Flashback 2.0 units were sold. Granted Atari 2600 has a much larger following/interest than CV.

[newcoleco]

I would love to see a "new" Colecovision console. I have several games myself, but my unit it dead. I'd also love to see a Coleco Flashback, although it does seem like the retro/TV/PPlay games have kind of come and went as a fad. Someone wondered about the Flashback, well Curt Vendel said I think over 850,000 Flashback 2.0 units were sold. Granted Atari 2600 has a much larger following/interest than CV.

I hope this project will go far enough in discussion and development to be a reality. I suppose we can sell up to 4000 units if do it right and create a phenomena around it.

 

We can expect a good success if the console can play the original CV games, but it will certainly help if the console came with at least one new game.

 

Funny note : I never saw one, but there is a CV clone system named Splice. Today, I was looking at the upcoming movies and I saw a movie for 2009 named Splice where 2 scientists are making a chimera by mixing human and animal DNA.

[RickO2]

I would love to have a system so I can keep my actual Colecovision in great shape. I'm not into emulation and I don't even understand how to load all of that stuff and run it properly. Especially when it comes to those hand held devices. I just want to slide in the cart and play away. It would be slightly disappointing if it couldn't play all of the games. Hopefully the steering wheel for Turbo would work on it. Even if it didn't I would still buy one.

[Greg2600]

Splice Vision: http://ultimateconsoledatabase.com/others/splicevision.htm

 

Similar in a sense to the one of a kind CV that doubledown created this year, though no where near as nice as his.

[ajcrm125]

Sorry to bring an ollllld topic back from the dead.. anything ever came of this?