Why is Colecovision and Astrocade hardware so unreliable?

[Keatah]

It's that damned power switch, dirty and "static-ee" power on/off. Extraordinary stresses on TTL chips when you switch it! And the intermittent power plug connector, same deal.

 

Years ago I modded some Astrocade and Colecovision consoles for some friends. Very simple modifications. A few small ceramic capacitors to smooth out the noise spikes caused by the switch and power-plug makes the console as reliable as a VCS. It does this by absorbing the inductive spikes and back-EMF caused by a bouncing power switch and intermittent power connector.

 

If you dis-assemble the power switch on a VCS and Colecovision, you'll see a world of difference in how the things are put together, and how the metallic contacts move smoothly at a constant velocity and they don't bind up in the VCS' switch. The Colecovision switch gets sticky and the contacts make and break several times before the switch fully engages.

 

And look at the VCS' power plug, it has a self-tensioning and self-cleaning phono-plug. The Colecovision has sliding rods in sheaths. No spring tension either. Once the sheath contact is stretched it stays stretched. Just as unreliable as cheap china-made IDE power connectors.

 

All this unstable power puts TTL in indeterminate states and it has to fight its way to a logic high or low. Eventually the system craps out.

 

Capacitors smooth out all this noise. And the systems I modded back in the 80's are just perfect.

Edited January 28, 2014 by Keatah

[+5-11under]

ColecoVision: I think the problem is the match (or lack thereof) between the switch and the video memory that needs three voltages. Swap the video memory, for instance, and I don't think you have to worry about the switch.

[+Gemintronic]

The excuse I heard was poor cooling/ventilation on the Astrocades. Mine doesn't see much use so I couldn't tell.

[Greg2600]

Because they weren't manufactured with parts/designs as durable as the Intellivision or Atari or Commodore systems. CV was made as cheap as possible by a toy company. I had some Coleco toys, they were crappy, unlike the higher quality Mattel toys. Astrocade was just a bad design they never fixed.

[gamecat80]

ColecoVision & Astrocade = two of my favorites consoles that tend to be more "delicate" than most systems.

 

Yeah, from what I've read most ColecoVision issues are either from the power switch or power supply.

 

For the Astrocade, I've read that the early models made in the late 70s (Bally Home Library) had the worst overheating issues. Later Astrovision-made models were supposedly better. There are those who know FAR more than I do about them on here. But I think it is common knowledge to make sure you have proper ventilation for ANY Astrocade model due to it's design.

I own a later, Astrovision-made Bally Computer System made in the early 80s. It's been working fine, but I was curious (due to what I have read about them), so I opened it up to clean it and found that the little copper foil strips are starting to peel off. So I replaced them with new ones. I keep the Astrocade on a small rack on the floor when I play it. The little rack keeps the Astrocade unit up over an inch off the floor for good ventilation.

[Keatah]

Astrocade engineering action points:

 

1- Thermal

2- Mainboard RF resonances

3- Power stability