ColecoVision Flashback Upgrade Service

[Diwran]

I am interested in purchasing an upgrade of my Coleco Flashback to "Ulttimate"...desperate

[Byte Knight]

1 hour ago, Diwran said:

I am interested in purchasing an upgrade of my Coleco Flashback to "Ulttimate"...desperate

PM sent.

[OrangeKryptonite]

On 11/21/2015 at 4:07 PM, Byte Knight said:

Hey guys,

 

Here's another great way to play your ColecoVision games on a modern TV. I'm now offering an upgrade for the ColecoVision Flashback, similar to my upgrade service for the Intellivision Flashback. The upgrade is set up for original ColecoVision controllers, but you can also use the CV Flashback, Atari 2600, and Intellivision controllers.

 

 

The system includes:

• The Ultimate CVFB decal upgrade (thanks to pboland!).
• Raspberry Pi 3 computer + beefier power supply.
• Ultimate PC Interface.
• USB extension cable.

What you get:

• Beautiful HDMI output.
• Wifi connectivity.
• USB keyboard input (keyboard not included!).
• Nanochess's awesome CoolCV emulator.
• Most of the 60 games you've already purchased + the ability to add more games.
• EmulationStation front-end.

 

 

 

Cost:

• $159 including shipping from me. (It would cost you over $130 to do this project yourself.) You pay to ship your Flashback (unit only) to me.

PM me here or email me at holcozerozerofour@umn.edu (change words to numbers) if you'd like to order. Make sure you read the manual below first!

 

Early Version of Manual:

Ultimate ColecoVision Flashback Setup.pdf 154.92 kB · 1,246 downloads

 

Latest Version of Manual:

Ultimate ColecoVision Flashback Setup.pdf 136.34 kB · 1,400 downloads

I am interested in purchasing one of these if you are still making them. Please private message me if you are.

Thank you!

 

[blair]

I am also interested so please message me when you can as well.

[scamper]

How is everyone? Did I miss out? Not sure if this thread is still active....??

[NIAD]

On 2/11/2022 at 10:04 PM, scamper said:

How is everyone? Did I miss out? Not sure if this thread is still active....??

Send Byte Knight a PM seeing as he might not check this thread on a regular basis.

[scamper]

Thanks, I did that about a week back as well as an e-mail but haven't heard anything yet. 

[blair]

The last time he answered was in june so I've been trying to figure out how to do my own coleco pi.

[MMarcoux66]

21 hours ago, blair said:

The last time he answered was in june so I've been trying to figure out how to do my own coleco pi.

I hope that he is okay.

 

That being said, I believe that there is an image posted for a ColecoPi. You could use that to get started. The joystick boards that ByteKnight are using are pretty cool but they are a variation of one that was made for the Intellevision controllers if I am not mistaken. If you look for a USB to Intellivision controlller, you should be able to find the original.

[blair]

I hope he's ok too. Maybe he just got tired of upgrading coleco flashbacks. I have the instructions that he had posted originally and I have a flashback that I was willing to let him gut for me. I have a lot of roms,( a lot that require the sgm so I haven't figured out how to make them work on a pi yet), I think I know how to program the pi to use the on/off and reset switches. I would prefer to be able to make it recognize the original controllers like he was doing but I don't know how to do that yet.

[OriginalJohn]

4 hours ago, blair said:

I hope he's ok too. Maybe he just got tired of upgrading coleco flashbacks. I have the instructions that he had posted originally and I have a flashback that I was willing to let him gut for me. I have a lot of roms,( a lot that require the sgm so I haven't figured out how to make them work on a pi yet), I think I know how to program the pi to use the on/off and reset switches. I would prefer to be able to make it recognize the original controllers like he was doing but I don't know how to do that yet.

He used http://www.intellivision.us/intvgames/interface/interface.php, $59 (has two interfaces

When I did my own Flashback pi setup, I used these http://2600-daptor.com/ (D9). 2 for $65 (uses 2 usb ports on the pi)

 

Here is what I learned:

After retropie loads you hold down a key and a controller is recognized.   I mapped ABXY to the 2, 4, 6, 8 keys and also used # and *. You can skip an individual controller mapping by (if my vague memory is correct) holding down one of the buttons.  Coolcv does SGM, check this post: https://atariage.com/forums/topic/240800-coolcv-emulator-for-mac-os-x-linux-windows-and-raspberry/?do=findComment&comment=3283663

 

 

But, you're in for a lot of configuration because while the controller mapping works correctly while you're in retropie, you have to do manual configuration for coolcv by changing the config file in it's directory.  So it's best to hook up a keyboard, launch cool cv and then (press F7 I think) and it will put it into a mode which will display the button 'code' when a joystick button is pressed.  Write these down and then edit the COOLCV_MAPPING.TXT file. I don't know a whole lot about linux (linux and I have a hate-hate relationship), so I just used WinSCP to FTP into the pi and edit files that way.  It's also the way that I log in and add games (and edit the gamelist in retropie).   This all happens wirelessly when the PI is setup to connect to my network (you also have to setup an admin login on the pi and set the password (which for me is blank).

 

I was able to solder a wire from the reset button to one of the GPIO pins of the pi.  It requires installing extra software on the pi so that it recognizes the button press on the pin and translates it to a keyboard character.  Then I edited the keyboard mapping so that when that button is pressed it the button mapping in cool cv recognizes it and exits the game.  I'm not exactly sure which guide I used but you can get an idea here: https://raspberrypihq.com/use-a-push-button-with-raspberry-pi-gpio/ 

 

I know this might seem super vague and I can tell you I did quite a lot of work in the config of this thing to get it to where I wanted it to be.

 

 

[OriginalJohn]

You know, this is how much I remember things.   I checked my drive and at the time I did my flashback conversion, I started to write a guide of sorts and was going to include a base .iso image so people could flash and do this themselves.  It may not be easy to route things inside the box depending on the length of cables you use.  But here is my 'half baked' guide of what I was trying to accomplish.  As an aside,  I'm not sure of what the rules are for posting .iso images for something like this on AtariAge, so I will not do it at this time.  If I get the go-ahead, I will need some time to test it and make sure it's base and it works with my setup.

 

This guide is specific to the setup I have on my .iso image (and needs a lot more editing/formatting).  Your setup might be different, but it might give you clues as to what you might need to do next.  Other than that, I think the most valuable part is how to add games/do controller setup.  I know I forgot how, but had the foresight to write it down (I thank myself).

 

Flashback instructions revised.pdf

 

 

 

 

 

[blair]

Wow, thanks a lot Original John. That's a lot of useful info. The only thing left is to figure out how to run every rom on the pi.

[OriginalJohn]

1 hour ago, blair said:

Wow, thanks a lot Original John. That's a lot of useful info. The only thing left is to figure out how to run every rom on the pi.

You're most welcome.  If I can save someone hours upon hours of configuration time, then that makes me happy.   If you mean 'every rom' meaning every Coleco rom then you don't have to worry about the compatibility. This will run every game except Phoenix Exclusives like Dead Tomb.  If you mean every rom known to man, then I think you'll have your work cut out for you  

 

One thing to note is that my version is different than the OP shows.  His appears to have the reset wire soldered somewhere else than the GPIO pins on the PI which leads me to believe that when you hit the reset button, it causes a total PI reboot... which if it's true, it's a rather harsh way to exit from a game.  PI reboots are slow.  Mine only acts as a button and exits from the game (like pressing ESC) and goes back immediately to the menu.

 

In any case I wish you the best of luck, if you have any questions just pm me and I'd be happy to help.

[blair]

I bought the 2 rom packages from collectorvision before I knew they were basically designed to work with the super game module and the phoenix. A lot of them work in coolcv but a lot don't. Some work with blue msx or fbneo and some don't. So I've just been trying to figure out whether a pi4 or pi3 works with the most and then I set this idea aside while I worked on other projects. Either way, you've helped a ton today so thanks a lot.

[OriginalJohn]

3 hours ago, blair said:

I bought the 2 rom packages from collectorvision before I knew they were basically designed to work with the super game module and the phoenix. A lot of them work in coolcv but a lot don't. Some work with blue msx or fbneo and some don't. So I've just been trying to figure out whether a pi4 or pi3 works with the most and then I set this idea aside while I worked on other projects. Either way, you've helped a ton today so thanks a lot.

I'll have to take a look as I also have the roms from 'the vault' from last years club and they are all in there - and they work.  I'll take a look and see if I did anything unique to make this happen.  My suspicion is that it's fixable by command line options.

[OriginalJohn]

It appears that I don't have anything special going on - this is what I have in /opt/retropie/configs/emulators.cfg:

 

default = "coolcv"
coolcv = "/opt/retropie/emulators/coolcv/coolcv_pi %ROM%"

 

I also have the coleco bios (coleco.rom) in the /home/pi/RetroPie/BIOS folder.

[blair]

Long story short...before I knew what a pi was, I bought a system off ebay that now I know is a pi3 and I thought the default for coleco was cool cv. Since I've been learning about pi's I've mostly been using pi4's which don't use cool cv at all. When the collectorvision roms didn't all work on my pi4, I put them on the old pi3 that I had bought. They didn't all work there either. Then I bought a multicart from atarimax for the actual colecovision and again, they don't all work so I set the project aside until this thread started up again. So today I hooked up my pi3 and saw that the default was actually blue msx. So after trying to update the system to add cool cv, after rebooting now my pi 3 doesn't recognize any controller that I plug into it.

[blair]

Here's an update. After screwing around for a couple of hours, I was able to add cool cv and every game I've tried so far has worked but... I can't return to the main menu like I normally would. The only thing that has worked was to actually turn the pi off. So I guess I need to learn how to map certain games.

[OriginalJohn]

18 hours ago, blair said:

Here's an update. After screwing around for a couple of hours, I was able to add cool cv and every game I've tried so far has worked but... I can't return to the main menu like I normally would. The only thing that has worked was to actually turn the pi off. So I guess I need to learn how to map certain games.

That was an issue that I faced too.   How do you normally exit to the menu?   That (key)combination added to the mappings file should do the trick as coolcv is independent of the main settings.

[blair]

I use "select" and "start". I use a logitech f310 right now. Usually if that doesn't work, I can just press escape or even F4 on the keyboard. But now that doesn't work and pressing f4 on the keyboard gets a blue "PAL" that switches to an "NTSC" on the top of the screen. I don't know how to fix this yet and this has so far happened on "abby Des morts", "arkanoid", "car fighter" and "castle excellent". 

[cdaters]

On 2/17/2022 at 12:47 PM, blair said:

Long story short...before I knew what a pi was, I bought a system off ebay that now I know is a pi3 and I thought the default for coleco was cool cv. Since I've been learning about pi's I've mostly been using pi4's which don't use cool cv at all. When the collectorvision roms didn't all work on my pi4, I put them on the old pi3 that I had bought. They didn't all work there either. Then I bought a multicart from atarimax for the actual colecovision and again, they don't all work so I set the project aside until this thread started up again. So today I hooked up my pi3 and saw that the default was actually blue msx. So after trying to update the system to add cool cv, after rebooting now my pi 3 doesn't recognize any controller that I plug into it.

Nanochess has recently updated CoolCV to work on a Pi4. You only need to go to his initial post for his emulator and download it...

[blair]

Thanks cdaters.

[OriginalJohn]

I am not sure if it's appropriate to post a link to my .zip file on Mega, so I wont.  But, I do have available an image of my SD card for a pi 3b+ using 2600 'dapters.  The image contains no roms, but does contain a backup file of my gamelist, box images and descriptions.  All that needs to be done is to move the description into the gamelist.xml and add your own roms into the correct folder.   If this post violates any rules that I'm not aware of, I apologize and request to please delete this post. 

 

Otherwise, PM me for details.

 

To recap, this configuration will:

• Briefly boot with a picture of the flashback box on the screen.
• Has only a colecovision gamelist.
• Recognize and exit from a game back to the menu if the reset button is wired to the correct gpio pin (per the pdf).
• Pre-configured to use stock flashback colecovision controllers through 2600 'dapters.
• Take all the guesswork out of your flashback/pi conversion.

Things you have to do that are not included in the guide:

• Configure the pi to use your own network.
• Determine how to mount each component inside the flashback.

What I did which is not in the guide:

• Removed and threw away the plastic cover on the 2600 'dapters.
• Desoldered the joystick connector from off of the 2600 'dapters and soldered extension wires between the connector and the 'dapters.  This allowed me to mount the connectors in the proper place and determine a different place to mount them.

 

[blair]

Thanks again in a huge way OriginalJohn, I ordered the 2600dapters yesterday. I've been working on my version for the past week and I've almost gone through all of the roms and 99% are working. The only real issue I have which has to be something simple that I don't get yet, is that so far about 25 of the collectorvision games will boot and play but I cannot escape or return to the main menu without turning off the pi itself.

 

I'm just in the process of unzipping the file you sent so I'll probably have to wait until tomorrow night to look at that but I'm anticipating coleco greatness.