Colecovision adapter?

[SoundGammon]

Wouldn't it been cool if Atari made a Colecovision adapter for the 5200 back in '82? Since the Colecovision used "off the shelf" parts, I don't think it would have been difficult. Also, how hard would it be today to build one into a 2600 adapter?

[+Psionic]

That'd be quite a feat considering that the Atari 5200 is 6502-based and the ColecoVision is Z80-based. It wouldn't have made any sense...they would have had to build an 'adapter' that was essentially a ColecoVision simply using the 5200 as a pass-through.

[Ransom]

That'd be quite a feat considering that the Atari 5200 is 6502-based and the ColecoVision is Z80-based. It wouldn't have made any sense...they would have had to build an 'adapter' that was essentially a ColecoVision simply using the 5200 as a pass-through.

 

Unlike all the other adapters?

[Divya16]

That'd be quite a feat considering that the Atari 5200 is 6502-based and the ColecoVision is Z80-based. It wouldn't have made any sense...they would have had to build an 'adapter' that was essentially a ColecoVision simply using the 5200 as a pass-through.

 

Unlike all the other adapters?

 

I would think even Atari 2600 adapter has the processor in there so it would be doable for Colecovision as well.

[+Psionic]

That'd be quite a feat considering that the Atari 5200 is 6502-based and the ColecoVision is Z80-based. It wouldn't have made any sense...they would have had to build an 'adapter' that was essentially a ColecoVision simply using the 5200 as a pass-through.

 

Unlike all the other adapters?

Yeah, but it's one thing to make an adapter to play games for an 'inferior' system like the 2600 (so new owners of a 5200 or CV could keep their VCS games but sell the console upon upgrading). It's quite another matter to make an 'adapter' for the 5200 to play CV games (a console which it's not only on equal footing with, but which it does not share a similar CPU with).

 

You are somewhat correct though that all of these adapters sold back then basically replicated the original system, and were essentially pointless gimmicks.

[Ransom]

That'd be quite a feat considering that the Atari 5200 is 6502-based and the ColecoVision is Z80-based. It wouldn't have made any sense...they would have had to build an 'adapter' that was essentially a ColecoVision simply using the 5200 as a pass-through.

 

Unlike all the other adapters?

Yeah, but it's one thing to make an adapter to play games for an 'inferior' system like the 2600 (so new owners of a 5200 or CV could keep their VCS games but sell the console upon upgrading). It's quite another matter to make an 'adapter' for the 5200 to play CV games (a console which it's not only on equal footing with, but which it does not share a similar CPU with).

 

You are somewhat correct though that all of these adapters sold back then basically replicated the original system, and were essentially pointless gimmicks.

 

Well, to be fair they did minimize the number of power cords & TV hookups, and the amount of console storage space you needed. Plus it was a great thing to be able to tell your parents, "If you buy $New_Awesome_System and the $Old_System Adapter for me, I'll still be able to play the hundreds of dollars of games I own, plus all the new games for the new system!" That was especially important if your family only had one TV, and the system had to be hooked up to it. It was unlikely you'd be allowed to have more than one system hooked up to it.

 

At least, that was my experience. What was yours?

[kool kitty89]

Yes, but what would be the benefit? They'd cut in on Coleco's hardware market, just as a CV clone would, but remember that software is where the real money was and such a module would benefit coleco more than Atari, unless Atari started producing ColecoVision games...

The VCS was a different case to some extent: Coleco had a number of titles for the system already and the hardware was cheaper to make on top of that. (probably the greatest cost was the reverse engineering and production of the custom TIA clone)

Since the CV used off the shelf components from 3rd parties, it would be more expensive, and unlike the MOS designed components of the VCS (RIOT and the 6507), they weren't easily licensed with alternate vendors at the time, so the VDP and PSG chips had to come from TI, not to mention the additional RAM involved. (16 kB DRAM for the VDP and 8 kB of SRAM -albeit mirrored across a 1 kB address)

Edited March 29, 2010 by kool kitty89

[+Psionic]

At least, that was my experience. What was yours?

Well, we went straight from the VCS to the NES, so there were no adapters to consider. The only ones I ever owned were the Game Boy adapters for the SNES and GameCube many years later.

[SoundGammon]

That'd be quite a feat considering that the Atari 5200 is 6502-based and the ColecoVision is Z80-based. It wouldn't have made any sense...they would have had to build an 'adapter' that was essentially a ColecoVision simply using the 5200 as a pass-through.

...that's EXACTLY how the 2600 adapter worked. It was a 2600 that put the video & audio through the 5200!

[Ransom]

Well, we went straight from the VCS to the NES, so there were no adapters to consider. The only ones I ever owned were the Game Boy adapters for the SNES and GameCube many years later.

 

I'd forgotten about those! I never had them, but they seemed like a neat idea at the time.

[kool kitty89]

Well, we went straight from the VCS to the NES, so there were no adapters to consider. The only ones I ever owned were the Game Boy adapters for the SNES and GameCube many years later.

 

I'd forgotten about those! I never had them, but they seemed like a neat idea at the time.

 

There have been lots of adapters for various platforms, the Power Base converter for the MD/Genesis for instance (albeit it's mostly passthrough as Sega reserved a block of the VDP for SMS support and included the Z80 and a SMS mode enable line on the cartridge slot). There was an uncommon NES/Famicom adapter for the SNES too, produced by a few different 3rd parties.

 

There are adapters to play SMS games on the Game Gear, and a rather uncommon adapter for the SMS for GG games that ran in SMS mode. (any games using the GG specific modes won't work)

 

There are also unlicensed adapters for the GBA for NES/Famicom games.

 

 

Again, it really doesn't make sense for Atari to do such though, what's in it for them? It would be benefiting Coleco by having more compatible hardware units out there to play their games on, not the exact same case as with the VCS on the CV; of course the CV would also have been a lot more expensive than the VCS. (more components, more costly non-licensed components, larger board, etc)

 

 

I really wonder how Mattel and Coleco got away with their VCS clone hardware without Atari initiating prohibitive legal actions. TIA was patented, wasn't it? (most definitely NOT and off the shelf part)

[Ransom]

I really wonder how Mattel and Coleco got away with their VCS clone hardware without Atari initiating prohibitive legal actions. TIA was patented, wasn't it? (most definitely NOT and off the shelf part)

 

Coleco, at least, was sued. But they'd used all off-the-shelf components instead of the proprietary chips in the 2600, and so a judge found for the defendant (Coleco).

[Lynxpro]

Yes, but what would be the benefit? They'd cut in on Coleco's hardware market, just as a CV clone would, but remember that software is where the real money was and such a module would benefit coleco more than Atari, unless Atari started producing ColecoVision games...

The VCS was a different case to some extent: Coleco had a number of titles for the system already and the hardware was cheaper to make on top of that. (probably the greatest cost was the reverse engineering and production of the custom TIA clone)

Since the CV used off the shelf components from 3rd parties, it would be more expensive, and unlike the MOS designed components of the VCS (RIOT and the 6507), they weren't easily licensed with alternate vendors at the time, so the VDP and PSG chips had to come from TI, not to mention the additional RAM involved. (16 kB DRAM for the VDP and 8 kB of SRAM -albeit mirrored across a 1 kB address)

 

 

I'm going to get flamed for this probably but if I recall from "Game Over", its actually the exact opposite effect. The ColecoVision 2600 adapter didn't increase 2600 cart sales but it was a selling point for people to move to the ColecoVision [from the 2600] instead of moving to the Atari 5200 or it encouraged people new to consoles to buy the ColecoVision because if they really needed to play 2600 games they'd buy an adapter.

 

An Atari marketed "ColecoVision" adapter would've been a selling point to get people to buy a 5200 because then they could play 5200 games, ColecoVision games [with the adapter], and 2600 games [with the adapter]. However, I doubt Warner would've allowed Atari to market such a thing because Warner had more to lose from a damaging massive lawsuit than Coleco did.

[Lynxpro]

I really wonder how Mattel and Coleco got away with their VCS clone hardware without Atari initiating prohibitive legal actions. TIA was patented, wasn't it? (most definitely NOT and off the shelf part)

 

Coleco, at least, was sued. But they'd used all off-the-shelf components instead of the proprietary chips in the 2600, and so a judge found for the defendant (Coleco).

 

 

 

Atari probably could've/should've sued Coleco and Mattel for patent infringement at the very least.

 

Neither of these companies could pull the same stunts today with the DMCA in place.

[kool kitty89]

Coleco, at least, was sued. But they'd used all off-the-shelf components instead of the proprietary chips in the 2600, and so a judge found for the defendant (Coleco).

 

Supposedly TIA was reverse engineered and produced by a chip vendor for Coleco, the same one GCC ended up using for the 7800 incidentally. (based on an interview from the GCC guys several years ago, they ended up using the same clone TIA for the 7800, or at least some early/preproduction models)

 

Unless the TIA clone was composed of discrete components mimicking TIA, I don't see how Coleco would have gotten out of that. And I'd think even a TTL/discrete component clone of TIA would be patent infringing.

 

I'm going to get flamed for this probably but if I recall from "Game Over", its actually the exact opposite effect. The ColecoVision 2600 adapter didn't increase 2600 cart sales but it was a selling point for people to move to the ColecoVision [from the 2600] instead of moving to the Atari 5200 or it encouraged people new to consoles to buy the ColecoVision because if they really needed to play 2600 games they'd buy an adapter.

The 2600 was a different case though, it was an old system, and those the compatibility would attract, but not stimulate game sales would be current 2600 owners.

Since the CV was new, the case is quite different as any going for a 5200+CV adapter would effectively be the same as those who had both a CV and 5200, buying new games for both: there wasn't a large established group of CV owners and lots of games already, ready for a new system...

 

And those who didn't own 2600s already, WOULD end up getting 2600 carts if they got an adapter for the CV, new buyers (or used games, of course). That would be the case where it did add to VCS cart sales.

 

Still others who didn't have any of the current systems yet, might opt for the budget option and go for the VCS anyway, or get a cheaper, used VCS and games instead.

 

An Atari marketed "ColecoVision" adapter would've been a selling point to get people to buy a 5200 because then they could play 5200 games, ColecoVision games [with the adapter], and 2600 games [with the adapter]. However, I doubt Warner would've allowed Atari to market such a thing because Warner had more to lose from a damaging massive lawsuit than Coleco did.

Yes, but unlike the VCS, the CV was entirely off the shelf parts, so a law suit would be very hard to stick, it'd be the BIOS only, and that's code, not hardware. I believe it came up in another thread that copyrighting code was not possible at the time, so that wouldn't be an issue either.

 

The CV is a lot like an IBM PC in that way, the BIOS was all that was needed to reverse engineer. hardware was completely off=the shelf. (MSX would be another example of such)

 

Had the Adam been successful, that would likely have become problematic for Coleco too.

[wizardspade80]

That'd be quite a feat considering that the Atari 5200 is 6502-based and the ColecoVision is Z80-based. It wouldn't have made any sense...they would have had to build an 'adapter' that was essentially a ColecoVision simply using the 5200 as a pass-through.

 

Unlike all the other adapters?

Yeah, but it's one thing to make an adapter to play games for an 'inferior' system like the 2600 (so new owners of a 5200 or CV could keep their VCS games but sell the console upon upgrading). It's quite another matter to make an 'adapter' for the 5200 to play CV games (a console which it's not only on equal footing with, but which it does not share a similar CPU with).

 

You are somewhat correct though that all of these adapters sold back then basically replicated the original system, and were essentially pointless gimmicks.

 

Well, to be fair they did minimize the number of power cords & TV hookups, and the amount of console storage space you needed. Plus it was a great thing to be able to tell your parents, "If you buy $New_Awesome_System and the $Old_System Adapter for me, I'll still be able to play the hundreds of dollars of games I own, plus all the new games for the new system!" That was especially important if your family only had one TV, and the system had to be hooked up to it. It was unlikely you'd be allowed to have more than one system hooked up to it.

 

At least, that was my experience. What was yours?

 

Hey does anybody know what was up with those COleco game that looked like Atari games?? I would often get mixed up at the identical titles and similar catridge bases.

[atariksi]

That'd be quite a feat considering that the Atari 5200 is 6502-based and the ColecoVision is Z80-based. It wouldn't have made any sense...they would have had to build an 'adapter' that was essentially a ColecoVision simply using the 5200 as a pass-through.

 

Unlike all the other adapters?

Yeah, but it's one thing to make an adapter to play games for an 'inferior' system like the 2600 (so new owners of a 5200 or CV could keep their VCS games but sell the console upon upgrading). It's quite another matter to make an 'adapter' for the 5200 to play CV games (a console which it's not only on equal footing with, but which it does not share a similar CPU with).

 

You are somewhat correct though that all of these adapters sold back then basically replicated the original system, and were essentially pointless gimmicks.

 

Well, to be fair they did minimize the number of power cords & TV hookups, and the amount of console storage space you needed. Plus it was a great thing to be able to tell your parents, "If you buy $New_Awesome_System and the $Old_System Adapter for me, I'll still be able to play the hundreds of dollars of games I own, plus all the new games for the new system!" That was especially important if your family only had one TV, and the system had to be hooked up to it. It was unlikely you'd be allowed to have more than one system hooked up to it.

 

At least, that was my experience. What was yours?

 

Hey does anybody know what was up with those COleco game that looked like Atari games?? I would often get mixed up at the identical titles and similar catridge bases.

 

There are Atari games for Coleco and Coleco games for Atari so it's both ways. I guess Coleco wanted Atari 2600 owners to force fit their cartridges into their system and break the system so they would buy a Coleco system as the ATari 2600 seems to keep going and going and going.

[SoundGammon]

...well probably the reason was why they didn't make one was the fact they would have had to supply DIGITAL controllers with a keypad to play them. It would have added to the expense.

[atariksi]

...well probably the reason was why they didn't make one was the fact they would have had to supply DIGITAL controllers with a keypad to play them. It would have added to the expense.

 

Atari 2600 adapter also required digital controllers and some like Star Raiders also use the keypad. And there's no reason to supply the digital controllers-- they can obtain them from Coleco systems and must have been sold separately like Atari 2600 joysticks/touchpads.

[kool kitty89]

...well probably the reason was why they didn't make one was the fact they would have had to supply DIGITAL controllers with a keypad to play them. It would have added to the expense.

 

Digital controllers are cheaper than analog controllers by a good amount (simple contacts/switches rather than a potentiometer assembly). Modern controllers, of course, have onboard logic and all digital interfaces anyway.

 

That said, I think the CV controllers might have included onboard logic, otherwise it'd be impossible to get 2 independent button lines, 4 directional lines, and 12 key inputs to work though a maximum of 8 data lines plus gnd. (less if they had any used for other purposes like analog lines and +5V, as the Atari ones were --though analog inputs could be used as fake digital ones, like old PC gamepads and the VCS touchpad)

 

I'm not sure what the CV actually used, but if it used custom logic to multiplex input lines (like the Sega Genesis did), that would be tougher to clone. If it was a simple analog solution with 5V pulled through varying resistance valuse to supplant some of the digital inputs, that should be simple to clone.

I haven't seen any pinout information or doccumentation on the CV controllers online though. I'm not sure the CV has built-in ADC hardware either, and lacking that would mean software polling of analog inputs, which would pretty much elliminate that possibility for the standard controllers.

 

 

Do CV controllers work as VCS joysticks too? (8 directions and 1 button) If that's the case, it almost certianly means the multiplexed inputs (with onboard logic) was used.

[Greg2600]

The 5200 adapter would have been bigger than the Colecovision itself.

[kool kitty89]

The 5200 adapter would have been bigger than the Colecovision itself.

 

LOL... That's not the point of the topic though, and there's no way Coleco could have skated legal action against a 5200/A8 hardware clone, WAY too much custom hardware in that. (I'd still like to know how they managed to win the court case on the VCS clones)

 

But realistically, the 5200 hardware could have been far more compact, the board looks to have a fair amount of open space on top of the over-sized case with tons of air space. (and storage tray)

 

I mean, look at the XEGS, it's a bit newer, but the hardware used isn't that much changed (I don't remember if CGIA was used or not), but there's definitely more RAM and added chips (MMU and FREDDIE) and such.

 

I think the 5200's case might be significantly larger than the A400 (except height), maybe the 800 and 1200XL too -it'd be interesting to see side-by side photos and dimensional measurements.

[Ransom]

The 5200 is bigger than anything ever made. It's even bigger than that skyscraper in Dubai. It's so big that light cannot escape its gravity well!

 

Okay, maybe it's not that big. But it's definitely way bigger than was needed. Take off the controller storage area, and drop the top down to maybe an inch above the board, and it'd be about the size of the 1200XL (just off the top of my head; I'd have to dig out the 1200XL from its box in the basement to be sure).

[kool kitty89]

The 5200 is bigger than anything ever made. It's even bigger than that skyscraper in Dubai. It's so big that light cannot escape its gravity well!

 

Okay, maybe it's not that big. But it's definitely way bigger than was needed. Take off the controller storage area, and drop the top down to maybe an inch above the board, and it'd be about the size of the 1200XL (just off the top of my head; I'd have to dig out the 1200XL from its box in the basement to be sure).

 

Is the 1200XL bigger than the 400 or 800? (in width/depth, not height)

[atariksi]

The 5200 adapter would have been bigger than the Colecovision itself.

 

Well, similar argument-- Atari 2600 is also big by itself but in adapter form, it's pretty small. So I would think they could squeeze in the Colecovision electronics into same footprint as A2600 adapter.

 

But what's the use, I would rather have A5200 h/w targetted games and use A2600 adapter for backward compatibility.