Coleco Chameleon .... hardware speculations?

[StopDrop&Retro]

Yeah, keep those cursed molds away from the Zimba.

 

Kevtris should do something neat and original with the shell anyways. Like make it a wicker basket or something.

[bretthorror]

Just put a translucent frying pan lid on the Zimba. It'll look great.

[+Random Terrain]

"Yeah, we have a hardware guy, his name is..." (looks around, sees Coleco logo) hmm... Coleco, co-LEE-co

 

"Lee! That's his name, yeah..."

 

Don't watch if you haven't seen the movie The Usual Suspects:

 

youtube.com/watch?v=-_6560AW1zQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_6560AW1zQ

[Pipercub]

So that brings up the point I raised many pages back that nobody was able to or nobody chose to answer - was gamester81 a stockholder of whichever part of the RETRO/GG/whatever empire that originally purchased the case tooling? That post suggests it might be the case, but I don't know that guy posting from (a Coleco) Adam. MK was of course, Pipercub was - but who else was a part of that group that stood to receive dividends if/when the RVGS became a thing (before the new company was created and they got sidelined)? If I knew how to I'd search some US business listing site and see if there's some mention of all interested parties. If he wasn't, and the relationship between him and MK/RETRO was purely friendship-based and he was simply helping him out by doing the RVGS infomercial interview, then it was only really the Collectorvision game sales that would have seen anything come back to him, and that's hardly a big deal or some big secret, everyone knew who he was and that his games were destined for the platform (with little to no further effort beyond making SNES games, given the proposed capabilities of the system).

 

Just seems odd that the guy says gamester81 owned the tooling.

 

That whole gamester/pat thing, I've not looked too closely, but I'd hope it fizzles out and the guys can shake and make friends 'cause it's not a good look for either side and dividing the fans is all kinds of unnecessary urgh...

I never saw John's name in any of the filings I have, his name was never mentioned as a stock holder, and I have no reason to believe he has ever held GG/Retro stock. The molds were purchased before the 2nd company even existed, and I have never seen anything to substantiate they were sold or transferred to any entity other than the three MK companies, I do not think John owns them. Just providing facts here and not making any kind of statement about the Gamester81 debate.

[ninja_gaiden2015]

The RetroVGS / Chameleon story from CollectorVision point of view

 

..... the end, we (CollectorVision) were fools enough to have believed in this project, so yes, we have been stupid on this :/

The obvious was actually too obvious for us to not believe in the project

The most thing we are guilty for, is maybe not having followed their project more closely, as we were (still) busy working on our Wii U game

 

We've certainly learned for all this....

 

Peace, out

 

J-F

 

Ouch, sounds like Mike K has pretty much used all friendship relationships and burnt people in his quest to chase his dream and to earn a dollar.

 

Sorry to hear that things didn't go well for you guys. I'm at least happy that this thing didn't get funded, as I imagine that Mike may well have burnt more business relationships, friendships and consumers in the process.

 

I'm looking forward to some of the Collectorvision titles coming out. John (gamester81) posted on his instagram that the sydney hunter game would be out on TG16/PC Engine! That is pretty exciting stuff and I would love the opportunity to buy a new PC Engine title.

[Keatah]

Yeah, keep those cursed molds away from the Zimba.

 

Kevtris should do something neat and original with the shell anyways. Like make it a wicker basket or something.

Or sell us just the finished boards. I've got 2 case styles that are similar to the 5200 and would fit right in with Syd Meade decor.

[enoofu]

Jag Mold doesn't look feasible for most modern game console's designs anyway

 

Probably too big to be useful for retro since it would add a lot to shipping, reason why a lot of retro consoles now are System on Chip and no bigger then a PCI board.

 

High end market Zimba would be targeting wouldn't care much for the Jag shape anyway, and rather have a shape that is appealing and fits the motherboard well, with proper airflow, and a solid clean design inside.

[some_canuck]

getting a little OT, but I would rather see the Z3k in a non-descript beige "prototype enclosure", or bare board, than see it in a jag case.

[godslabrat]

getting a little OT, but I would rather see the Z3k in a non-descript beige "prototype enclosure", or bare board, than see it in a jag case.

In addition, the Jag only has one cart slot. Modern retro hardware tends to be multi-system.

[jaybird3rd]

Wouldn't it be a wonderful bit of poetic justice if the Z3K ended up in the Jaguar shell, after someone else finally pries those molds out of Mike's hands?

[kevtris]

When you view both these prior posted interviews together you can get a decent idea on how it was supposedly to be designed by John Carlsrn

 

John Carlsen

http://retrogamingroundup.com/blog/?p=1233

Kevtris

http://nintendolegend.com/2015/09/interview-kevin-kevtris-horton-on-the-retro-vgs/

 

John Carlsen apparently wanted to make a system on a chip without FGPA, probably having the entire system being in the controller or a very small case. He planed this approach at the start which also created friction with Kevtris, since he planned to dump FGPA later on in the system development

 

 

When I was brought into discussions, the FPGA was already designed in. The design seemed fairly far along at the time and it seemed like they knew what they wanted. It was only after a few calls that I realized they kept changing the design in major ways and hadn't actually produced anything concrete to that point. I never knew about John not wanting to use the FPGA until it was designed out and I stopped getting emails/calls. He didn't seem too enthused about the amount of RAM I wanted for Neo Geo. He kept trying to reduce it down to a single DDR3 chip 'cause it was a lot faster, blah blah. I told him that it wouldn't work because I needed the random access bandwidth, and not just sheer bandwidth. i.e. the Neo Geo hardware does a lot of random accesses (which DDR/SDRAM is very poor at) vs. bursts of data in a row (which DDR/SDRAM is very good at). Even though DRAM's gotten a lot faster, this is only really true for burst reads/writes, and random reads/writes are still as slow as ever.

 

I did have a few go-rounds with John about the hardware though, and every single time it was always a case of "not invented here" which is fine, but I rapidly was getting tired of no one listening to my concerns and getting the brush off. John knew best about how to make videogame hardware, even though he didn't know that most game systems of the era output 240p60. He was concentrating on outputting 480i30 to all ports simultaneously and I had to break the bad news that people would be expecting a lot more than 480i30 coming out of the HDMI port. It had to be at least 720p or better. I guess I am not a storied magic engineer that changed the way MP3 players operate so my thoughts aren't worth as much. I have only designed over a dozen videogame designs on an FPGA.

 

It was pretty funny how Mike kept trying to suck me into the project and make me work for free though, at one point I asked who was going to design the PCB for this thing since it had to be a 6 layer job for the amount of hardware they wanted, and Mike blurted out "can you do it for us?" There was nooooooooooooooooo way I was going to get into this mess so I politely declined. I did try to tell them that to design it to fit into the Jag case they should design the hardware "core" on as small of a PCB as possible using 6 layers, then make a second, cheaper 2 layer board for all the jacks on the front so that the amount of "expensive" PCB would be 1/3rd to 1/4th required to fill the case with the balance taken up by cheapo commodity 2 layer stuff.

 

Was thinking back again about the lols about John wanting to patent this thing (and how after that interview he still seems to think it's patentable) and how many design ideas I gave him/them over the calls about how I was doing things on the Z3K. Wouldn't it have been a hoot if he/they had patented a bunch of crap that I told them about my design only to have me cite prior art at a later date, torpedoing those patents? I still am very curious about what aspects he thinks are patentable on the project and keep coming up empty. The simple act of showing off hardware would not jeopardize those patentable ideas IMO; the only one I remember is him thinking he could patent the idea of a cartridge that held the FPGA configuration and the game code at once. Since this is more of a programming thing and stuff that goes on inside chips, it'd be pretty difficult to deduce this from looking at some good close up pictures of hardware. I assume the other "patentable ideas" would be similar.

[jaybird3rd]

I did try to tell them that to design it to fit into the Jag case they should design the hardware "core" on as small of a PCB as possible using 6 layers, then make a second, cheaper 2 layer board for all the jacks on the front so that the amount of "expensive" PCB would be 1/3rd to 1/4th required to fill the case with the balance taken up by cheapo commodity 2 layer stuff.

I'm amazed that it didn't occur to John Carlsen to do this. He mentioned the expense of designing a multi-layer board that would fill the Jaguar shell, and when I read that, I remembered that the Flashbacks and other low-cost dedicated consoles already do exactly what you described. Most of the space inside these systems is empty, except for one small board containing all the logic, and an even smaller two-layer (or even one-layer) board holding either the controller ports or the power/audio/video connectors, depending on the design. Why the need to fill up the entire Jaguar shell with a single (mostly empty) PCB?

[kevtris]

I'm pretty naive to the world of business, but what's with all the separate "companies," anyway? Is it just to avoid personal financial or legal responsibility if things fail? Tax shelter or other technical gimmicks? It all seems needlessly complex to me, and possibly overly concerned with seeming grownup, professional, or serious. They got the big picture so incredibly wrong, so I wonder how deep the sickness goes.

 

Does anyone have a clue about the amounts of money involved with this thing? Just ballpark/orders of magnitude would be interesting to know.

 

For the part I was involved with, as far as I know zero dollars were expended by Mike- it all just seemed to be a case of mental masturbation IMO. Throwing around specs like a drunken sailor on payday. John and Steve were footing most of the bill, paid for in time. I don't know how much work Steve actually did to be honest; I think he was kind of in a holding pattern until hardware was done so he could do software. John seemed to have done the bulk of the real work with regards to making it closer to reality, though with the constant changes demanded by Mike, I assume he threw out big chunks of work when it no longer fit the current dialogue of what the RVGS was supposed to be.

 

There may have been some money changing hands behind the scenes for youtube videos or whatever but as far as the system itself goes I can't see where dollar one was spent on actually getting it produced/prototyped. Guessing most of the money was spent doing 3D renders and making the "fizzle reel". Maybe there just wasn't any money left after the marketing wanking to actually do anything? I dunno. Would be nice to have been a fly on the wall.

[Eltigro]

Cartridges with buttons and controls. They should make games with such things..

I don't know... people complain that the pause button for the Master System is on the console and not the controller...

[SoulBlazer]

A few good things have come out of this mess at least -- AtariAge has gotten a TON of publicity cause of all those interviews and sites and YouTube videos that mention it, a lot of new people have joined here, and a lot of new subscribers. I myself went ahead with it cause I can only imagine the traffic that Al's server must be seeing right about now.

 

And I agree, in a few years, this will make a fascinating book or documentary.

[+Random Terrain]

A few good things have come out of this mess at least -- AtariAge has gotten a TON of publicity cause of all those interviews and sites and YouTube videos that mention it, a lot of new people have joined here, and a lot of new subscribers. I myself went ahead with it cause I can only imagine the traffic that Al's server must be seeing right about now.

 

And I agree, in a few years, this will make a fascinating book or documentary.

 

And don't forget that every person who posted in this thread will become a famous millionaire.

[enoofu]

Its funny that people on this thread are probably more interested on the hardware of the projects being taken by kevtris, and NG Dev

[phoenixdownita]

I don't know... people complain that the pause button for the Master System is on the console and not the controller...

Especially when some games put the menu/map on the pause button ... at that point yeah you feel like it would have been nice on the ctrl.

Pretty sure they designed this thing with the image of a kid playing on a table with the console right in front of a 13" TV so it wasn't so much of an issue:

 

 

 

Scary stuff back in the day. The ad campaigns were cringe-worthy and yet empires were made.

 

Remember when. .... nope I'd rather not.

[Serguei2]

 

And don't forget that every person who posted in this thread will become a famous millionaire.

 

Hoooooooooooooo!

 

I'm gonna be rich !!!

[AtarinDave]

 

Me if I were in the 1980s.

[+Random Terrain]

Its funny that people on this thread are probably more interested on the hardware of the projects being taken by kevtris, and NG Dev

 

I rarely buy anything that isn't food, supplements, or used/marked down video games, but whenever kevtris makes his console, I'll try to be one of the first people in line. That's a must-have item.

[jaybird3rd]

Pretty sure they designed this thing with the image of the kid playing on a table with the console right in front of a 13" TV so it wasn't so much of an issue

The thing that not a lot of people remember about old video game console setups is that, in the 1970s and early 1980s, the consoles were intended to be placed near where the player was sitting, not next to the TV. That's why they had super-long RF and power cables (that could be hidden under a rug or snaked around furniture, for example), but relatively short controller cables. If you stop and think about it, it makes perfect sense: having the console close to you makes it easier to swap out cartridges. Why put the console next to the TV? You'd only have to get mile-long controller extension cables, not to mention having to get up every time you want to change the game. Yet, that's the way that most collectors nowadays seem to set them up.

 

Anyway, having the Pause button on the console, as the SMS or Atari 7800 did, isn't so bad in that "classic" configuration, since the console would always be right next to you.

[MagnaRyuu]

good e

 

The thing that not a lot of people remember about old console setups is that, in the 1970s and early 1980s, video game consoles were designed to be placed near where the player was sitting, not next to the TV. That's why they had super-long RF and power cables (that could be hidden under a rug, for example), but relatively short controller cables. If you stop and think about it, it makes perfect sense: you'd want the console close to you because that makes it easier to swap out cartridges. Having the Pause button on the SMS or 7800 console wouldn't be an issue in that configuration, since the console would be right there.

example being the Famicom system those cords were super short

[ninja_gaiden2015]

 

......

 

Was thinking back again about the lols about John wanting to patent this thing (and how after that interview he still seems to think it's patentable) and how many design ideas I gave him/them over the calls about how I was doing things on the Z3K. Wouldn't it have been a hoot if he/they had patented a bunch of crap that I told them about my design only to have me cite prior art at a later date, torpedoing those patents? I still am very curious about what aspects he thinks are patentable on the project and keep coming up empty. The simple act of showing off hardware would not jeopardize those patentable ideas IMO; the only one I remember is him thinking he could patent the idea of a cartridge that held the FPGA configuration and the game code at once. Since this is more of a programming thing and stuff that goes on inside chips, it'd be pretty difficult to deduce this from looking at some good close up pictures of hardware. I assume the other "patentable ideas" would be similar.

 

Thanks for your insight Kevtris.

p.s I was looking up old unlicensed console games as I find that stuff interesting and stumbled upon your logo:

 

 

http://bootleggames.wikia.com/wiki/JY_Company

 

"JY Company is a company that published many pirate games, most notably many of Hummer Team's games. They appear to have been active from 1989 to late 2003."

[TwiliteZoner]

The thing that not a lot of people remember about old console setups is that, in the 1970s and early 1980s, video game consoles were designed to be placed near where the player was sitting, not next to the TV. That's why they had super-long RF and power cables (that could be hidden under a rug or snaked around furniture, for example), but relatively short controller cables. If you stop and think about it, it makes perfect sense: you'd want the console close to you because that makes it easier to swap out cartridges. Why put the console next to the TV? You'd only have to get mile-long controller extension cables, not to mention getting up every time you want to change a cartridge.

 

Anyway, putting the Pause button on the console, like the SMS or Atari 7800, isn't so bad in that "classic" configuration, since the console would be right there.

 

Good points. Space Shuttle on the 2600 comes to mind.