CBS Colecovision Cartridges on American console question

[Noah98]

I won an ebay auction for a Colecovision and some games. Some of the games have the CBS label (I assume they are the PAL versions). My question is will they display properly on an American system hooked up using RF to an old American CRT? The games are Smurf's Rescue and Zaxxon. Thanks!

[retroillucid]

Yes, it will work

[+nanochess]

In fact the chip inside the CBS games contains exactly the same code as North-America releases.

 

So any game from America will work in Europe consoles and vice-versa.

 

The interesting bit is that music sounds slower in Europe (and also games plays slower!) because of the 50hz refresh rate (instead of 60hz as in North-America)

 

Some homebrew releases take this in account so the game is "adapted" in the fly to play/sound the same in Europe and North-America, and I'll cite here my own games : Zombie Near, Princess Quest and the upcoming Mecha-8.

[Pixelboy]

In fact the chip inside the CBS games contains exactly the same code as North-America releases.

 

So any game from America will work in Europe consoles and vice-versa.

 

The interesting bit is that music sounds slower in Europe (and also games plays slower!) because of the 50hz refresh rate (instead of 60hz as in North-America)

 

Some homebrew releases take this in account so the game is "adapted" in the fly to play/sound the same in Europe and North-America, and I'll cite here my own games : Zombie Near, Princess Quest and the upcoming Mecha-8.

 

Right. There's a way that programmers can detect a NTSC (60 Hz) or PAL (50 Hz) output within the hardware, but the old games from the 80s didn't bother to check for this and adapt the software for the target region, so games just play slower in Europe. But as nanochess stated above, some homebrew CV programmers actually go through the trouble.

[fiddlepaddle]

Right. There's a way that programmers can detect a NTSC (60 Hz) or PAL (50 Hz) output within the hardware, but the old games from the 80s didn't bother to check for this and adapt the software for the target region, so games just play slower in Europe. But as nanochess stated above, some homebrew CV programmers actually go through the trouble.

 

So, this means all you European folks have been playing slowed-up kiddie games all these years and don't have the training to play in the big leagues like us manly NTSCers.

[NIAD]

So, this means all you European folks have been playing slowed-up kiddie games all these years and don't have the training to play in the big leagues like us manly NTSCers.

Oh boy!

 

I guess a new High Score competition will be in order now after those fighting words... Old World vs. New World style!