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The Official "Super Expansion Module" Thread


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I just finished the Super Game Cartridge equations, and should start simulation soon. After that I need to finish the Super Game Cartridge PCB. Hope to have that done by the end of the month.

 

Super Game Cartridge? Is that the new name of the MegaCart 2, or did I miss a memo? :)

 

I am also working on a few 3rd party games, most of them related to the SGM.

 

Me happy. :)

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I just finished the Super Game Cartridge equations, and should start simulation soon. After that I need to finish the Super Game Cartridge PCB. Hope to have that done by the end of the month.

 

Super Game Cartridge? Is that the new name of the MegaCart 2, or did I miss a memo? :)

 

Yes, that is the new name.

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A new milestone, 120 pre-orders. Production will start as soon as we reach 150 pre-orders, which I hope will happen soon after we start advertising.

 

Hmm... Assuming that all these SGM pre-orders will imply a purchase of Donkey Kong Arcade, I wonder how many will want to purchase more SGM games.

 

I'm planning to produce 100 copies of King's Valley, Thexder, Spelunker and Stone of Wisdom. Will it be enough for 150 SGM owners? I expect Stone of Wisdom will sell rather well (who wouldn't want to buy a nice and fun Zelda clone?) but the others may not be quite as popular, so perhaps 100 copies of each will be enough.

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I'm planning to produce 100 copies of King's Valley, Thexder, Spelunker and Stone of Wisdom. Will it be enough for 150 SGM owners? I expect Stone of Wisdom will sell rather well (who wouldn't want to buy a nice and fun Zelda clone?) but the others may not be quite as popular, so perhaps 100 copies of each will be enough.

 

Let's see, I would certainly buy a large part from you Luc, also from J-F and Eduardo. :-D

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I'm planning to produce 100 copies of King's Valley, Thexder, Spelunker and Stone of Wisdom. Will it be enough for 150 SGM owners? I expect Stone of Wisdom will sell rather well (who wouldn't want to buy a nice and fun Zelda clone?) but the others may not be quite as popular, so perhaps 100 copies of each will be enough.

 

My only request would be to space out the releases a bit... give us without unlimited funds an equal chance to buy the games. I just can't drop $500 on games if everything released at once!

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I'm planning to produce 100 copies of King's Valley, Thexder, Spelunker and Stone of Wisdom. Will it be enough for 150 SGM owners? I expect Stone of Wisdom will sell rather well (who wouldn't want to buy a nice and fun Zelda clone?) but the others may not be quite as popular, so perhaps 100 copies of each will be enough.

 

My only request would be to space out the releases a bit... give us without unlimited funds an equal chance to buy the games. I just can't drop $500 on games if everything released at once!

 

As I explained in my last Team Pixelboy News Bulletin, Stone of Wisdom and Spelunker will be released next spring. The only SGM games I will release this year will be King's Valley and Thexder. :)

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As I explained in my last Team Pixelboy News Bulletin, Stone of Wisdom and Spelunker will be released next spring. The only SGM games I will release this year will be King's Valley and Thexder. :)

 

sorry...

 

Eduardo has a lot of work left to do on the Super Game Module, Donkey Kong Arcade and other projects, and so he isn't sure he will be able to have all his ports ready for Team Pixelboy by the end of October. Therefore, where the games dependent on the Super Game Module are concerned, we agreed to segment the releases into two waves: King's Valley and Thexder will be released in 2012, and Spelunker and The Stone of Wisdom will be released in spring 2013. I will still get the boxes for all those games printed in the fall of 2012, so I will be able to release the last two games (in 2013) as soon as the software is completed.

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I'm planning to produce 100 copies of King's Valley, Thexder, Spelunker and Stone of Wisdom. Will it be enough for 150 SGM owners? I expect Stone of Wisdom will sell rather well (who wouldn't want to buy a nice and fun Zelda clone?) but the others may not be quite as popular, so perhaps 100 copies of each will be enough.

 

My only request would be to space out the releases a bit... give us without unlimited funds an equal chance to buy the games. I just can't drop $500 on games if everything released at once!

 

As I explained in my last Team Pixelboy News Bulletin, Stone of Wisdom and Spelunker will be released next spring. The only SGM games I will release this year will be King's Valley and Thexder. :)

 

Thanks for doing that special this past winter where you could reserve games for purchase at a later date. I think there were roughly a dozen new ColecoVision releases in December (between Pixelboy & CollectorVision) and had it not been for you doing that I would have been out in the cold on some of those releases.

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Now finally working on the SGM box. Jess has some text already in place, I am discussing possible box sizes with Dale. Thanks to chuys450, we have a complete EM#1 that we can use as a template. We have a couple of options for the box inserts, but probably we will go with fabricated foam. That should give the product a more professional and authentic look.

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Now finally working on the SGM box. Jess has some text already in place, I am discussing possible box sizes with Dale. Thanks to chuys450, we have a complete EM#1 that we can use as a template. We have a couple of options for the box inserts, but probably we will go with fabricated foam. That should give the product a more professional and authentic look.

 

Thanks for the update, can't wait to see pics. :)

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Ok, so I got a quote for the fabricated foam, it should cost around $3.50/pack. A bit more than I was expecting, but still ok. It should look great though, better than some cheaper options, like using an off-the-shelf white box with soft foam.

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What forms of payment will be accepted for the SGM? I'm assuming PayPal...but if that's the case I need to start a gradual funneling of funds into my account so my wife doesn't notice <grin>....

 

Dale completed work on the SGM game catalog today. More than 30 hours of work were necessary to put everything together...

Next is the SGM box... We are getting there.

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From the schematics it seems the Atari driving controller would work if we use an adapter. However the question is if it would be fast and precise enough. Not true, just checked....

 

Arkanoid requires very fast movement, and since we are basically detecting holes in a wheel or rotatory switches, we need those to be fairly dense, or have a large wheel that spin fast with mininum controller rotation:

http://www.arcadiaba...em.aspx?id=2204

 

5V is required for the optical sensor used for detecting the spinner movement. Otherwise we would need rotatory switches, which aren't as smooth as the real Arkanoid controller or a paddle.

 

BTW, the 2600 also doesn't have a 5V pin. Instead they used a pot for the paddle, and the decoding is done by the TIA chip.

 

Exciting developments...I was looking forward to Arkanoid, but without a paddle controller, it's not worth pursuing. Lots of other great games to be had, though!...kinda as if the crash never happened.

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  • 3 weeks later...

One of my subscribers gave me an excellent idea about making a video to promote the 30 year anniversary of the ColecoVision in August. Maybe I could showcase the upcoming Super Game Module with some photos of the module itself or something like that. And with permission maybe some footage of games in development, just a few seconds or so like they did 30 years ago.

 

Let me know your thoughts. I am willing to help out in any way I can.

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I was wondering if a port of Dragon's Lair for the Adam would be possible using the Super Game Module? I'm dieing to play this game on my ColecoVision! :-D :thumbsup: Just look at that game play!!!!!!! :lust: :lust: :lust:

 

It's a personal dream of mine to bring Dragon's Lair to the CV in cartridge format, and I'm always on the lookout for opportunities to get it done. I would pay a lot of money to see it become reality. :)

 

Anyway, yes, the SGM would make it quite possible to play a cartridge conversion of the DDP Adam game (with the use of a MegaCart, of course) on a regular ColecoVision console. However, the real obstacle is the effort involved in doing the conversion. The game is 160K in size, which is 5 times the size of a regular 32K ROM. And the original DDP version probably uses several Adam BIOS features not present in the CV BIOS.

 

So whoever would tackle this challenge would need to know both the Adam and the ColecoVision inside and out, in order to make sense of the code disassembly. And he would also need to study and understand how the MegaCart works. All the technical pieces are there (there's even a debugger in AdamEm, I've been told) but it's really the tremendous effort involved that makes it unlikely to ever happen.

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One of my subscribers gave me an excellent idea about making a video to promote the 30 year anniversary of the ColecoVision in August. Maybe I could showcase the upcoming Super Game Module with some photos of the module itself or something like that. And with permission maybe some footage of games in development, just a few seconds or so like they did 30 years ago.

 

Let me know your thoughts. I am willing to help out in any way I can.

 

That would be wonderful and really appreciated. Please let me know if you need any assistance.

 

BTW, some news about the SGM status soon. I am definitively behind schedule, but things are coming along.

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