The Official "Super Expansion Module" Thread

[Pixelboy]

If I remember correctly there where only 3 phrases.

 

"chicken, fight like a robot"

"intruder alert, intruder alert"

"stop the humanoid, stop the intruder"

Actually, it's more complicated than that. Look (and more importantly listen) to the few Berzerk arcade clips available on YouTube, and you will see that phrases are actually concatenations of single words:

 

(Destroy)(the)(humanoid)

(Attack)(the)(intruder)

(Destroy)(it)

(Attack)(the)(humanoid)

etc.

 

Also, speech samples are played at different speeds, from slow for low voices to fast for higher-pitched voices. Reproducing all that exactly on ColecoVision with the OKI chip probably wouldn't be as trivial as you may think... Although Eduardo may correct me on that.

 

Another cool application for this would be conversions of Intellivoice games. At the top of my list would be Bomb Squad, although if it was up to me, I wouldn't just reproduce the voices from the Inty version, I would record my own samples with actual human-like voices, which would improve the general quality of the game:

 

- "Don't you just love your job, copper? Ha! Ha! Ha!"

- "A little to the left... There!"

Edited April 3, 2010 by Pixelboy

[purenergy]

Super Kewl!

 

I vote for Berzerk to be the first game that uses this little beauty! The game itself wouldn't be too hard to program from scratch, and with the proper speech samples, the fans would just eat it up!

 

So anyway, how are you going to add this new chip to the SGM? Will you need to take some existing features out?

 

3 most obvious choices would be Berzerk, Wizard of Wor and Bosconian.

And yep, the OKI is going to the SGM. Always wanted to have them, but couldn't find a source.

And they are good not just for voices, but for all kind of very complex sound effects.

Donkey Kong Arcade should use it for the walking and jumping sound FXs for example.

 

The two more convenient sampling frequencies are 6.4kHz and 8kHz. Both don't require much memory (3.2kB/s and 4kB/s respectively) and the sound FIFO can be loaded just once per interrupt, which is perfect for the CV.

 

Arcade like voice sounds on a Colecovision! Excellent!

 

Berzerk, Wizard of Wor and Bosconian, speaking from a Colecovision! Great choices that everyone would love to hear.

If there were any way of creating better voice sound in the Q*bert game (maybe Q*bert Arcade version?), Yurkie and I would grab the first two available!

 

Thank you for your continued excellent work on the Colecovision.

[the.golden.ax]

I'd like to see Chase HQ on CV.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=onhV55pUejk

 

AX

[Ransom]

Finally...someone will be able to bring Skylar to the Colecovision!

[opcode]

All 3 games I mentioned are worth porting. Wizard of Wor isn't a good demo piece though, as I can barely understand anything it says, actually I can understand very little. But I like the game anyway, I like all 3 games very much.

Bosconian is the most advanced one, with scroll. However it has been ported for the MSX and that port is actually pretty good, smooth scrolling and all, so a better port with voice should be perfectly feasible.

Berzerk has the advantage that it's a simple game, only 12kB including graphics. No sprites are used, it is all background graphics (just like Space Invaders), so a faithful port should do the same. The game uses hardware to shift and mirror the "sprites", but we can compensate by storing all the "sprites" already shifted and mirrored.

[misspent_youth]

"Beware, I Live!"

[ten-four]

Hi Eduardo

For Wizard Of Wor, it would be technically possible to take out all the samples from the original arcade board. ?

 

So you do not need to change the audio, and you get the original unintelligible sound.

[cybercylon]

Exciting news. Berserk is an obvious choice, but maybe a more authentic port of Frenzy could be considered as well... though didn't arcade original simply recycle the ones from Berserk and play them less often?

[Ransom]

I'm surprised no one has mentioned redoing Space Fury. The voice module would add something, and having higher resolution would help the game itself immensely.

[Tempest]

Or maybe Zektor. I love that game.

 

Tempest

[opcode]

The ColecoVision and vector games don't mix well actually. Remember the original Space Fury? That isn't only bad programming.... ColecoVision is tile based, vector graphics work best with linear frame buffers, something our proposed ColecoVision2 should provide.

Talking about ColecoVision2 and vector games... damn, I don't want to derail this thread but... I was talking to the head of Advanced R&D at Coleco back in the days of the ColecoVision, and he was telling me about a next generation video game system they had under development when the crash hit.

He gave me some of the details, the system was almost done according to him. It could display 32 sprites per scanline, and had 4 vector engines that could generate 2k vectors at 30 frames/s. From that I understand that it could generate 60k vectors/s, which is indeed very impressive. The V9990 can display 32 sprites per scanline, but from my calculations it can display "only" 20k vectors/s (of course the v9990 has only one vector engine). You could also play over the phone because vector data was very compact to transmit. They had working "prototypes" (notice the "s"), but he doesn't know what happened to them. They also had some demos, including one that displayed 32 turtles on screen, all in the same scanline.

They also had a very cool next gen computer system, but I am not going to give the details here (though I must mention that the case was designed by Porsch).

Anyway, it wasn't just Atari that had super cool never released stuff in the makings when the crash hit...

[VectorGamer]

I'm surprised no one has mentioned redoing Space Fury. The voice module would add something, and having higher resolution would help the game itself immensely.

 

I thought Space Fury was pretty good considering the original being a vector game.

[Bill Loguidice]

I'm surprised no one has mentioned redoing Space Fury. The voice module would add something, and having higher resolution would help the game itself immensely.

 

I thought Space Fury was pretty good considering the original being a vector game.

 

I agree with you. I had a lot of fun with the game back then and still enjoy it. Sure, it's not a match for the arcade's vector graphics, but rasterizing them certainly didn't hurt the gameplay. The alien "cut" scenes were very cool as well, even if there was no speech. Certainly an update in the same spirit would not be a bad idea, sort of a Super Space Fury, but with no attempt to simulate vector graphics, only upping the quality of the raster graphics (and ratcheting up the quantity and intensity of the alien taunting cut scenes, complete with speech).

[Ransom]

I'm surprised no one has mentioned redoing Space Fury. The voice module would add something, and having higher resolution would help the game itself immensely.

 

I thought Space Fury was pretty good considering the original being a vector game.

 

Oh, the original CV cart's fine for the time. I enjoyed it back then, and still occasionally enjoy it now. But I've always been frustrated with the massive amount of screen space everything takes up, which (in game terms) means the playfield is small. Same with Omega Race, really. There's just not a lot of maneuvering you can do. (Also true of Asteroids on the 2600, BTW). I think if the new module allows for higher resolution, then it would be good to use that opportunity to remake Space Fury with a larger playfield (i.e., smaller sprites). Having a voice would just be icing on the cake.

[opcode]

Ok, I belive I have the schematics for my OKI test board done. With that board I can test a few options for sound output mixing and see which one works best. I can also validate a few things about the OKI.

Once everything has been validated I can then create the final board with the whole SGM on it.

[ten-four]

Any chance you could do all three with like a 1 second pulse between the phrases. And post as an .mp3

 

I would like to use it as a ringtone on my cellphone. When I am talking to classic gamers I would play this for them and try to create excitement and boost sales for you. I think it would be a great to say "Here is what the ColecoVision Memory Module sound is capable of" Then play it for them.

 

Yurkie: Try this Zip below.

 

Opcode: Fantastic, i'm looking forward to see which game the new SGM will be tested with.

berzerk.zip

[+evg2000]

Or a remake of gorf with voice?

[+Yurkie]

Yurkie: Try this Zip below.

 

Thanks

 

How about some of those .wav combined and converted into a .mp3 ?

 

I have this loaded on my Phone as a new Berzerk ringtone.

Berzerk.mp3

[HARMIK]

Talking about ColecoVision2 and vector games... damn, I don't want to derail this thread but... I was talking to the head of Advanced R&D at Coleco back in the days of the ColecoVision, and he was telling me about a next generation video game system they had under development when the crash hit.

He gave me some of the details, the system was almost done according to him. It could display 32 sprites per scanline, and had 4 vector engines that could generate 2k vectors at 30 frames/s. From that I understand that it could generate 60k vectors/s, which is indeed very impressive. The V9990 can display 32 sprites per scanline, but from my calculations it can display "only" 20k vectors/s (of course the v9990 has only one vector engine). You could also play over the phone because vector data was very compact to transmit. They had working "prototypes" (notice the "s"), but he doesn't know what happened to them. They also had some demos, including one that displayed 32 turtles on screen, all in the same scanline.

They also had a very cool next gen computer system, but I am not going to give the details here (though I must mention that the case was designed by Porsch).

Anyway, it wasn't just Atari that had super cool never released stuff in the makings when the crash hit...

 

That is incredibly interesting I would love to know more about it. When I was a kid my best friend and I were looking out for info on the Colecovision 2 in the mags of the time, after reading about Intellivision 111. Maybe not here but if you could put some more info about it on your site or something that would be great.

[Murph74]

They also had a very cool next gen computer system, but I am not going to give the details here (though I must mention that the case was designed by Porsch).

Anyway, it wasn't just Atari that had super cool never released stuff in the makings when the crash hit...

 

That is incredibly interesting I would love to know more about it. When I was a kid my best friend and I were looking out for info on the Colecovision 2 in the mags of the time, after reading about Intellivision 111. Maybe not here but if you could put some more info about it on your site or something that would be great.

 

I'm with Harmik... Write a book, make a youtube vid, open a paysite... just spill the beans! lol

 

The thought of Coleco ever introducing a 'New' system seems totally alien to me. I guess I just fell for the 'expandable' marketing as a pre-teen at the time. It never really occurred to me that they would make a completely different stand alone system!

[opcode]

I am coordinating with Marty to properly interview the guy and get whatever information we can from him. I think Marty can handle that much better than me, he can talk to the guy on the phone if necessary, he has a solid technical background, so he can do the right questions too. And from there we can try to track some of the other key people in his team, maybe they still have docs, pictures, prototypes. But I keep you guys posted, I just don't want to keep bothering the guy with a dozen emails asking questions at random because he can eventually get tired of all of that and simply stop answering. I think a properly conducted interview would be more appropriated.

But anyway, I am as surprised as you guys, and had never heard of any of that (the ColecoVision2 and next gen computer system).

[opcode]

Ok, getting back on topic, I am planning to create a set of simple "devices" to properly test the SGM's parallel port. I mean, it may be easy to check if I can read and write from the ports, but I want to make sure that the ports can be used for practical stuff.

 

So the first device would be the paddle adapter. For that I will use a simple ADC converter and connect an Atari paddle to it. Atari paddles aren't the best paddles one can build, but they are easily available. Anyway, from the parallel port I should be able to command the ADC to sample the paddle then read the resulting 8 bit value (which should indicate the paddle position). Paddle games should be very easy to implement that way.

 

Test #2 sound be creating a cable to hookup two ColecoVisions together thru the parallel port. With the parallel port I can implement full duplex 8-bit communication. With that I want to implement a simple game where two ColecoVisions can exchange information about player position, etc. A simple racing game would be nice. If possible I want to try a 4 ColecoVisions configuration too.

 

Finally test #3 should be a simple computer module. It should implement PS2 keyboard reading, and if possible access to a SD card. I don't think I will have enough time to create the whole system, I just want to make sure that I can do that stuff if I want. Both PS2 keyboard and SD cards are serial devices, so that is why I want to try them.

 

So, yeah, those are the applications I have been thinking of, if I can prove they would work with the parallel port, I would be more than happy with it.

 

Eduardo

[Pixelboy]

Finally test #3 should be a simple computer module. It should implement PS2 keyboard reading, and if possible access to a SD card. I don't think I will have enough time to create the whole system, I just want to make sure that I can do that stuff if I want. Both PS2 keyboard and SD cards are serial devices, so that is why I want to try them.

PS2 keyboard + SD card + 32K of RAM + BASIC cartridge (port of MSX Basic maybe?) = Fun little product.

[opcode]

Finally test #3 should be a simple computer module. It should implement PS2 keyboard reading, and if possible access to a SD card. I don't think I will have enough time to create the whole system, I just want to make sure that I can do that stuff if I want. Both PS2 keyboard and SD cards are serial devices, so that is why I want to try them.

PS2 keyboard + SD card + 32K of RAM + BASIC cartridge (port of MSX Basic maybe?) = Fun little product.

 

You know, I was discussing computer add-ons for old video games in another thread, it is funny that people simply don't care about them anymore nowadays, but back in the day they were a hot topic. I was saying in the other thread that my dream for a while as a kid was to get the Atari 2600 Graduate keyboard (that was before I got the ColecoVision of course, and the ADAM was already dead when I finally did. Of course the ADAM was the only "serious" computer add-on of all the released add-ons, at least it was a might system in the day, even if unsupported).

Anyway, back to the topic, I posted this thread about the Graduate in the 2600 forum and actually very people cared checking it. I don't know if they just avoid my threads over there (I had a few, let's say, heated discussions about some Atari stuff over there in the past, all fair opinion I must say), or if it is just people really don't care about this kind of device anymore. Probably the later (or so I hope).

On the other hand you have this very successful "product", the Batari Basic. But that uses a completely different approach, as you use your PC as the development platform, while the computer add-on thing uses the actual video game. I see the advantages of the PC approach, but on the other hand we lose much of the charm...

 

All of that said, there is the problem with the BASIC dialect to use. From the existing 8-bit implementations I know, the MSX was probably the best, with the advantage it uses almost the same hardware, so all commands to access sound and graphics are already there. I am not an expert on Atari or Commodore dialects, but AFAIK the MSX implementation is miles ahead both. And the MSX version offers an official compiler that runs from ROM in execution time, and makes programs execute as much as 20 times faster (it is called MSX Basic-kun, "kun" is the informal version of "san" in Japanese, usually used between young people).

Now, I have seen some very cool and fairly sophisticated games using MSX Basic-kun, but no matter what it still requires that the programmer not just understand BASIC, but also requires a deep understanding of game mechanics, how a game works. And that isn't a trivial matter. So the reason why most people stay away from this kind of stuff isn't because they cannot understand the BASIC syntax (or C or Pascal or whatever), but because they cannot understand game logic. They don't know how to keep things in sync, how to animate sprites and the background, how to store data so that you can have 100 screens with just 32K, this kind of stuff. So my opinion is that a completely new language is necessary, one that offers you a semi engine for everything instead of requiring you to create everything from scratch. I remember the Famicom BASIC was a little like that, but still not good enough.

 

The idea is to have a very flexible game engine integrated to the BASIC compiler, and then offer macro commands so that the programmer can fill in the blanks. Macros to create title screens, complete with the menus and sub menus, macros to store graphic data and generate different screens from it, macros for music, macros for building the game screen, defining where the score area should be placed, which data should be displayed, if the screen should scroll, which parts, direction and speed. Macros to connect the joystick to a specific sprite, to animate sprites.

 

Now that would be cool. Something to think about...

[+Yurkie]

Finally test #3 should be a simple computer module. It should implement PS2 keyboard reading, and if possible access to a SD card. I don't think I will have enough time to create the whole system, I just want to make sure that I can do that stuff if I want. Both PS2 keyboard and SD cards are serial devices, so that is why I want to try them.

PS2 keyboard + SD card + 32K of RAM + BASIC cartridge (port of MSX Basic maybe?) = Fun little product.

 

You know, I was discussing computer add-ons for old video games in another thread, it is funny that people simply don't care about them anymore nowadays, but back in the day they were a hot topic. I was saying in the other thread that my dream for a while as a kid was to get the Atari 2600 Graduate keyboard (that was before I got the ColecoVision of course, and the ADAM was already dead when I finally did. Of course the ADAM was the only "serious" computer add-on of all the released add-ons, at least it was a might system in the day, even if unsupported).

Anyway, back to the topic, I posted this thread about the Graduate in the 2600 forum and actually very people cared checking it. I don't know if they just avoid my threads over there (I had a few, let's say, heated discussions about some Atari stuff over there in the past, all fair opinion I must say), or if it is just people really don't care about this kind of device anymore. Probably the later (or so I hope).

On the other hand you have this very successful "product", the Batari Basic. But that uses a completely different approach, as you use your PC as the development platform, while the computer add-on thing uses the actual video game. I see the advantages of the PC approach, but on the other hand we lose much of the charm...

 

All of that said, there is the problem with the BASIC dialect to use. From the existing 8-bit implementations I know, the MSX was probably the best, with the advantage it uses almost the same hardware, so all commands to access sound and graphics are already there. I am not an expert on Atari or Commodore dialects, but AFAIK the MSX implementation is miles ahead both. And the MSX version offers an official compiler that runs from ROM in execution time, and makes programs execute as much as 20 times faster (it is called MSX Basic-kun, "kun" is the informal version of "san" in Japanese, usually used between young people).

Now, I have seen some very cool and fairly sophisticated games using MSX Basic-kun, but no matter what it still requires that the programmer not just understand BASIC, but also requires a deep understanding of game mechanics, how a game works. And that isn't a trivial matter. So the reason why most people stay away from this kind of stuff isn't because they cannot understand the BASIC syntax (or C or Pascal or whatever), but because they cannot understand game logic. They don't know how to keep things in sync, how to animate sprites and the background, how to store data so that you can have 100 screens with just 32K, this kind of stuff. So my opinion is that a completely new language is necessary, one that offers you a semi engine for everything instead of requiring you to create everything from scratch. I remember the Famicom BASIC was a little like that, but still not good enough.

 

The idea is to have a very flexible game engine integrated to the BASIC compiler, and then offer macro commands so that the programmer can fill in the blanks. Macros to create title screens, complete with the menus and sub menus, macros to store graphic data and generate different screens from it, macros for music, macros for building the game screen, defining where the score area should be placed, which data should be displayed, if the screen should scroll, which parts, direction and speed. Macros to connect the joystick to a specific sprite, to animate sprites.

 

Now that would be cool. Something to think about...

 

That sounds very cool. Kind of a "ColecoVision programming for Dummies"

 

In an earlier post when you where talking about peripherals you mentioned linking ColecoVisions together for multi-player games. My question. Would you consider making, or is it possible to create an internet device and interface so that players could play against each other? I know this would be rather involved but just curious.