Coleco Chameleon .... hardware speculations?

[PikoInteractive]

Was out for a couple of hours.

 

I'm not implying too much just that the timeline of events makes the whole story very surreal and weird, not that it does not correspond to your recollection of events,

 

Back to "the timeline of weird":

At the fair you already unmasked their protocard as an SD2SNES when Mike told you he believed it was instead orig work. Yet a simple explanation of the fact that only the back of the SNES was used satisfied your doubts .... I believe that you didn't want to dig deeper .... I DO NOT BELIEVE that you had no suspicions of your own .... it just wasn't convenient to dig any deeper and I UNDERSTAND THAT TOO. You tried, but they would not budge.

 

After the fair Mr Lee admitted to you on the phone that it was their first console work ever (and it kind of explain the SD2SNES too), I assume you likely knew because all of the fanfare here on AA that making an FPGA core for the SNES is still quite an undertaking (hence there's none in the open market) but then again it didn't officially struck any chord that the first attempt of Mr Lee at an FPGA based console and at that the SNES core was such a resounding success and yet you were so surprised the special mapper menu worked so well ... I do believe you were not sure and because of the pressure they put you under you decided for a DON'T ASK DON'T TELL, nothing wrong with it mind you.

 

 

I AM NOT ACCUSING YOU, I'm just trying to figure out from your recollection of your conversations with Mr Lee, what kind of thought process was going on that let the situation go unchecked all the way to the CaptureCard. Not wrt Piko, but wrt the RVGS guys. What were they thinking?

 

It's been said many times over that maybe Mike was a simpleton and got taken advantage of, I believe the same could be said of you and CollectorVision.

I believe that when they used the line "YOU'RE JUST WORKING FROM HOME" or something to that effect, you really felt belittled so much so that you let them run over you and feed you whatever story they saw fit, for whatever reason.

 

 

NOW FOR THE UNPLEASANT JAB:

PM sent, you don't need to answer to it at all.

 

 

Well as I mentioned on the podcast, this guy made sure I believed they were a large tech company. So if a random guy on the web can make an FPGA snes core in 8 months; a large tech company with lawyers, showers, insurance, and experience in aerospace, military and government work would be able to do it quicker.

 

Also (as I mentioned before, I suddenly remember details), he mentioned a couple of times that this SNES core had been worked on since it was the VGS and the whole Indiegogo (which we know is a lie) as well he mentioned a couple of times that it was work in progress, not all the games work (which we know this is a lie too, there is no SNES core)

 

Also, please don't think that because we were licensing games for this monstrosity, and I was willing to give out as much information as possible on AA, I was here 24/7 reading everything. I scrolled through most pages looking for posts that directly involved Piko. I had orders to finish, pcbs to solder, games to assemble, and customers to attend; and even just doing that (just reading piko posts, and answering to lees calls), I lost a ton of time the last 2 weeks; I'm still delayed in a lot stuff.

 

Meh honestly, Mike could have been behind of it all or he could have been taken advantage; there is a 100% chance of both of those things happened.

 

And to answer your PM publicly; I don't think we are in trouble or were in trouble for adding Collectorvision's Sydney Hunter to the Menu. As when I agreed, VGS sent a rom, which I tested and quickly pointed out several flaws. (Rom size was bigger than actual data, and it was PAL optimized so the game ran 17% faster and they would have had a bad time showcasing the game on the KS video cause obstacles and enemies where hard to beat). Then I was told that the rom could be updated and wait for it, then to leave the old rom, to finally getting a rom that was NTSC optimized meaning Collectorvision must have updated the rom and sent it to them, and them to us; so I think Collectorvision acknowledged sending the rom.

 

I didn't felt belittled, I chuckled at the guy. I own my own company, at the time I always thought he had to answer to someone (that's why I chuckled). Then, it turns out that he was just a guy, no lawyers no showers, no golden eye rooms, pitiful.

 

 

Dude... his podcast reveal said it all. Let's be brothers now.

 

He is just fishing for his "Aha!" moment, but those hardly come by when you tell the truth.

Edited March 6, 2016 by PikoInteractive

[RupanIII]

Yes, the Cart is a very high quality engineered board with FLASH memory on it. It treats the memory better than the environment of a MicroSD card does. It's got air, it won't get super hot and can operate at full speed better.

 

So, the Cart lets you take games with you to friends houses with the same machine. The cart knows it's own password and you can use a password or NFC token stored on a cell phone/tablet maybe even an NFC chip item to unlock the cart on your friend's system to play.

 

Again, it's for Indie games and Retro games via emulation.

The cart is to make it kid friendly and durable. You can buy a new cart if you fill that one, a bigger one etc.

You can get all of the updates and downloads for any game on your cart, and still goto your friends house with a physical copy and share experiences there with them.

 

The Cart is much like an updatable version of the cart that the Genesis ATGames supplies. The games are on a removable media.

In fact, now, there could be different bundles Coleco puts out. Basic, Coleco Classics included, Best of Indies 2016 edition, etc.

FLASH ram can be reliable enough, it's the tiny traces and tiny format and no room to dissipate heat that make them fail more and more.

Nope, a USB stick is too flimsy and not kid friendly. Tiny DS sized/Standard SD Cards are just easy to lose.

Again, don't judge it for your adult self. Are you a parent? Have a favorite Niece/Nephew?
Now, guess what... Coleco COULD sell cartridges.. i guess. I guess. BUT... this machine is an Android box by Coleco with lots of functionality.

Heck, maybe they can even sell movies on it... again.. it's an android box.

 

But it flies against the primary reasons why cartridge gaming is so great. Buy it, sell it, trade it, a cart works in any system anywhere in the world. No updates, no phone home. Cramming DRM into a cart or locking it to one device after it's been played is just asinine. Sorry if I'm not following you.

 

Unless the "cart" is like a proprietary memory card to store downloaded games on. In that case, just use something generic like USB or SD and encrypt either the files or the file system so it won't work on other console.

Edited March 6, 2016 by RupanIII

[kevtris]

 

 

Funny that he didn't know that, as he claims extensive experience with game consoles in the first half of the 1990s. In the Retrogamingroundup interview he talked about this time:

Immediately after the PlayStation was released in Japan, I was sent one to take apart. It took me roughly six months to map out the system hardware, disassemble its ROM, and build interfaces that would allow us to develop our games cheaply.

...

In making those interfaces, I had learned a lot about the PlayStation, perhaps even more than anyone outside of Sony. So, when in 2010 Sony wanted to build a low-cost PlayStation to develop foreign markets, I got a call, and a really great project. I created a PlayStation that could be built into its own controller with a bunch of games, be plugged into a TV, and run on batteries (to keep the cost down). I made sure that the hardware supported 100% of the games for the original PlayStation, including those that could use multi taps and the link cable. I built the prototypes out of gray PlayStation analog controllers I bought on eBay (possibly from some of your readers), and they worked great.

...

The project got so popular within Sony that the different offices wanted to sell it in all of the BRIC nations (Brazil, Russia, India, and China). Unfortunately, it got more popular than a low-margin device should. Sony’s top executives determined that the risk was too great that it might be imported to compete with other products in its primary markets, so Sony killed the project.

 

So in 2010 Sony wanted to build a Playstation 1 'mini' for emerging markets, which doesn't make much sense to begin with. Sony decided that the designer for this should be the guy teaching C++ Community college classes in Austin who had just spent 5 years making railway equipment, because of his experience reverse engineering the Playstation 15 years earlier!? If Iguana/Acclaim was developing Playstation games, why would John have to reverse engineer them anyway, why not use a Sony DevKit?

.

 

 

Interesting, because Mike said at about 2:20 in the Sega Nerds interview that "according to my new guys" John designed a 6-layer board to "hide the traces in the board".

 

All very interesting points and I didn't know a couple of those. I agree a lot of his credentials don't seem to fully jibe and that part always bothered me. I never actually did see a single concrete example of his work in all the time I talked to them. I would expect at least a single link to *something* tangible instead of what amounts to unverifiable gum-flapping. When I was talking to them I kept sending links rapid fire to my projects and videos and stuff to show off what I have done and can do and kinda expected to see similar from John.

 

As for a 6 layer board, that reasoning is hilarious. There's many reasons why this is not why you'd use a 6 layer board. When I reverse engineer a PCB, the first operation is to break out the multimeter and trace it that way- I seldom visually trace the PCB. It's much much faster and less error prone to "Beep" it out using the meter. After doing it a bunch of times you soon can detect patterns that make it a lot easier than you'd first expect.

[raz]

Yes, the Cart is a very high quality engineered board with FLASH memory on it. It treats the memory better than the environment of a MicroSD card does. It's got air, it won't get super hot and can operate at full speed better.

 

So, the Cart lets you take games with you to friends houses with the same machine. The cart knows it's own password and you can use a password or NFC token stored on a cell phone/tablet maybe even an NFC chip item to unlock the cart on your friend's system to play.

 

Again, it's for Indie games and Retro games via emulation.

 

The cart is to make it kid friendly and durable. You can buy a new cart if you fill that one, a bigger one etc.

You can get all of the updates and downloads for any game on your cart, and still goto your friends house with a physical copy and share experiences there with them.

 

The Cart is much like an updatable version of the cart that the Genesis ATGames supplies. The games are on a removable media.

In fact, now, there could be different bundles Coleco puts out. Basic, Coleco Classics included, Best of Indies 2016 edition, etc.

FLASH ram can be reliable enough, it's the tiny traces and tiny format and no room to dissipate heat that make them fail more and more.

Nope, a USB stick is too flimsy and not kid friendly. Tiny DS sized/Standard SD Cards are just easy to lose.

Again, don't judge it for your adult self. Are you a parent? Have a favorite Niece/Nephew?

Now, guess what... Coleco COULD sell cartridges.. i guess. I guess. BUT... this machine is an Android box by Coleco with lots of functionality.

Heck, maybe they can even sell movies on it... again.. it's an android box.

 

 

 

would it be like the Nintendo Power Cartridge service (only available in Japan) on the Super Famicom?

[Andromeda Stardust]

Yes, the Cart is a very high quality engineered board with FLASH memory on it. It treats the memory better than the environment of a MicroSD card does. It's got air, it won't get super hot and can operate at full speed better.

 

So, the Cart lets you take games with you to friends houses with the same machine. The cart knows it's own password and you can use a password or NFC token stored on a cell phone/tablet maybe even an NFC chip item to unlock the cart on your friend's system to play.

 

Again, it's for Indie games and Retro games via emulation.

 

The cart is to make it kid friendly and durable. You can buy a new cart if you fill that one, a bigger one etc.

You can get all of the updates and downloads for any game on your cart, and still goto your friends house with a physical copy and share experiences there with them.

 

The Cart is much like an updatable version of the cart that the Genesis ATGames supplies. The games are on a removable media.

In fact, now, there could be different bundles Coleco puts out. Basic, Coleco Classics included, Best of Indies 2016 edition, etc.

FLASH ram can be reliable enough, it's the tiny traces and tiny format and no room to dissipate heat that make them fail more and more.

Nope, a USB stick is too flimsy and not kid friendly. Tiny DS sized/Standard SD Cards are just easy to lose.

Again, don't judge it for your adult self. Are you a parent? Have a favorite Niece/Nephew?

Now, guess what... Coleco COULD sell cartridges.. i guess. I guess. BUT... this machine is an Android box by Coleco with lots of functionality.

Heck, maybe they can even sell movies on it... again.. it's an android box.

 

 

 

Interesting concept. So the AtGame Genesis stores the games on a multicart? Will this play in a standard Genesis?

[sh3-rg]

What are you trying to say?

 

Stop reading between the lines man; I already stated that I've been more than transparent with AA, and I am not in the mood for accusations. It is funny that now that I have disclosed everything that happened and I know; accusations to me are going to start flying in.

 

Don't disappoint me AA, don't do it.

 

I think there's a little misunderstanding here, maybe lost in translation issues with English being your second language, Eli. 2 or 3 times you've maybe over-reacted a little or misunderstood some pretty innocent posts - again, entirely understandable, but just putting that out there because there's nobody in this thread pointing fingers or throwing mud at yourself or Piko as a whole. We're all on the same side here - wanting to get to the truth.

 

I get that you're angry regarding this whole adventure, keep that squarely directed to Mike and Lee who straight-up lied to your face and attempted to play you off against another developer (re: pack-in debacle).

 

Nobody is saying you are at all complicit in any of Mike/Lee's shadiness, we all agree that you being here and offering what you could, when you could, was more than any of us could have hoped for. The more people that speak out, the more others who are involved will be willing to come forward themselves, hence why the RETRO empire is crumbling as the cries to abandon ship are hollered.

 

Reading between the lines is pretty much essential to those of us who are simply bystanders in this whole situation but who wish to form a fuller picture. We might make connections where there are none, or miss things entirely, but those of us who are interested in seeing this thing through just want to get to the truth and sometimes reading between the lines is all we got - we're then looking to people such as yourself, CV and the RGR guys to steer us through the minefield. Even those on the inside have only their own experiences to go off - they only saw a larger puzzle assembled into a context that suited Mike. The more you guys talk, the clearer the picture becomes. If nobody works to piece it all together, we might never know what actually went down because it's highly doubtful Mike will come out with a complete and honest account of what happened

 

I think pheonixdownita was right to highlight the point regarding Lee's mixed messaging, in no way was it pointing a finger in your direction, in fact it displayed more how Lee appears to be some kind of shyster.

 

The thing is that since there is no new controversy out there. People have to direct their anger to somebody else.

No mate, that's not what's happening here, not at all, and in turn you've redirected a little of your own anger towards one of the good guys wishing to map out this entire clusterfuck. The worst thing to do right now is turn on each other as we are just beginning to see this fuller picture - that'd play right into Mike's hands as it's shit up the thread and take the heat and attention off him and onto these rowdy AA haters, only out for blood

 

What you did and what you said is all good with everyone here, believe that.

 

HA HA! this is a good parody https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=70KPASW-Wak

 

 

I don't know what made me click, everything about the title pic told me DON'T DO IT. But it wasn't just yet another half-informed rant from Game Nerd Number 64, it was actually a fun little video that they'd put some effort into

 

And that pink pony game...

 

ooooh.

 

Then, it turns out that he was just a guy, no lawyers no showers, no golden eye rooms, pitiful.

 

Ahh, I just remembered doing this a few years back:

 

 

Edited March 6, 2016 by sh3-rg

[RupanIII]

Well, I just looked at it appears they integrated the games into the machines recently. It used to be a Mega Drive style Japanese shell cart with Sonic and a few other things on the front cover.

I have seen them in person but wasn't interested in grabbing a unit. It probably would play, the system also plays regular Genesis carts, but can't dock with a 32x or Sega CD.

Interesting concept. So the AtGame Genesis stores the games on a multicart? Will this play in a standard Genesis?

I'd say that's a fair comparison. Except the cart is uploaded via the home system over the network.

No need for Kiosks somewhere. In Japan, Nintendo did do much the same thing. Their system wasn't recoverable from theft though, nor could it be deactivated.

 

would it be like the Nintendo Power Cartridge service (only available in Japan) on the Super Famicom?

[enoofu]

I don't think the FPGA SNES core seem that off, as 1-3 groups have made progress on SNES cores, the red flag on it was being almost having 100% comparability in such a short time was though.

 

Also selling it $135 on Kickstarter which takes 10% off the Top, and having a $150 normal price point seem off when it basically would be a FGPA Arcade with controller and a game probably raised more questions

Edited March 6, 2016 by enoofu

[Thomas Jentzsch]

No reason to get up off your rocker to fiddle with the toggle switches...

We are doing that to keep you healthy.

[Radfoo]

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

Yes, my interest in the RVGS/Chameleon was always for the FPGA to accurately play my old games not new ones (though always thought Tiny Knight looked fun). So I guess my interest was a niche bit off a niche none existant product. Zimba3000 makes a lot more sense, though looks like it will be a while until we see such a thing for sale.

[RupanIII]

Yeah, for me, you build that box, goto IREM,Taito, Data East , Konami, Capcom, SEGA, and get their commitment to supply ARCADE rom's officially for this and maybe even the schematics of their old arcade hardware for The Company to create HDL's to run the games on the FPGA system.

Then they sell me multi carts with several arcade classics from each vendor and split money with those companies which still hold those rights.

Also, I could buy new Indie games written for several platforms on this platform instead. If they don't make it for Genesis, i still play it on here.

But, this is dead.

Yes, my interest in the RVGS/Chameleon was always for the FPGA to accurately play my old games not new ones (though always thought Tiny Knight looked fun). So I guess my interest was a niche bit off a niche none existant product. Zimba3000 makes a lot more sense, though looks like it will be a while until we see such a thing for sale.

[random_dave]

If Iguana/Acclaim was developing Playstation games, why would John have to reverse engineer them anyway, why not use a Sony DevKit?

 

Sony would want a couple of thousand dollars per devkit that they supplied, and would retain ownership of them, so they could recall them whenever they wanted

So, instead you get one or two for the initial core developers, and meanwhile figure out how to modify a retail console to allow serial interfaces for reading text output and loading code, and then each each developer can be given a unit for the retail cost and an order to a common electronics supplier.

 

I don't think it's something that happens very much anymore, but I know that, at least in QA departments, Acclaim would use the consumer available chinese replacement backs for GBAs that provided composite out so that they could use them on screens to save peoples eyes/sanity and probably as a way of capturing screenshots and video for manuals and marketing (Nintendo seem to like making standard handheld devkits have no video out so that you can buy the more expensive version from them with video out (DS-Nitro capture used two gamecube AV ports, 3DS CTR capture used DVI out and could also output the framebuffer to a connected pc)

[RupanIII]

Hey guys and gals, I have a question for ya.

I spent many years at Gamestop/Software Etc. From the exit from bankruptcy to 2003.

So, i really remember how those customers are.

 

I was re thinking the whole idea of this machine and was wondering if this made some sense.

 

So, how about a Coleco TV box, an ARM Android box for sure. BUT...

it has a well engineered, maybe over engineered, FLASH Cartridge built for maximal durability.

The cart can be authenticated to the home machine the first time it is plugged in, and it can be authorized by password or NFC on a friend's machine.

If the cart is lost, whooosh, Mom/Dad disables the cart, buys a new cart, and simply runs a restore from the Coleco TV servers.

It can also have access to the Play store i guess.

Give it some decent hardware... 4K capable HDMI for streaming 4K, a quad 64bit or 8 core big little chip, and most importantly Apple A6X class graphics (Power VR whatever).

3-4GB ram makes it last well for a few years. And, ofcourse NFC.

Not sure about the controllers, something much like the XBO/360 PC variants.

The machine has the NFC chip in it.

 

I see Amazon builds close to this for not so much money, but they are huge ofcourse.

 

Does anyone have thoughts, for kids use, on the idea of that Flash custom cart. It's durable, it has lots of room to breathe so fast access doesn't heat it up so bad etc... it travels safely, and its large enough to stay on the kids mind, unlike how some DS games go missing.

 

Anybody?

EDIT: NFC could be used on a smartphone or tablet remotely to authenticate the cart on the friend's system, that was how NFC would do it.

So, I've still got Compact Flash chips which are working fine in my older DSLR 10 years later. No corrupted files. So, usually, flash with larger better heat dissipated designs fail slower.

 

This is where I say take it to a whole Cartridge design with like 64-256GB of FLASH in there with a real good PCB and Caps etc that will help keep the cells healthy for a long time.

 

Now, they could also do special Hardened Edition carts once a game has been out a while... the downloads are out. it's all done... maybe they create a special ROM cart edition of that game... but, still, that would suck some as you'd have to sell special edition carts when people already own a game.

SO, I just want to use the durability factor of carts and apply it to FLASH memory chips and let kids freely take their games to friends houses and play, but, still provide authorization check for the publishers, but make it quite minimal, as well as use the network to provide recovery of lost digital merchandise to parents/people who have invested in this. If parents disable the old cart, next time it connects to the network, it blanks. They can do a simple recovery to a new cart and the kid is back in service.

Edited March 6, 2016 by RupanIII

[roland p]

About that Lee/Mike thing, someone who has emails of both could check the originating ip address

 

HA HA! this is a good parody

HAHA that gave me a good laugh. 'Pink Horsey', these games can be played today!

And that name... the RELIX system...

Edited March 6, 2016 by roland p

[TwiliteZoner]

Someone with more talent than me should do some kind of Weird Al reworking of this song to fit the Chameleon fiasco...

 

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=BwjTUoiXgrE

 

I think Culture Club's Karma Chameleon might be more appropriate. It has Karma and Chameleon in the title. I could not bring myself to embed the video,,,

[dommie]

"What purpose the PCI card served".

 

Interesting about the, "should they agree to an inspection" line..

 

..Al

 

I'm still about 8 pages behind, but to me it was obvious by Coleco's statement that they already know the answer - the intent of the PCI card was to deceive. They get an engineer to spell that out for them they open the door to being able to sue MK/Retro VGS Inc.

[Raticon]

 

I'm still about 8 pages behind, but to me it was obvious by Coleco's statement that they already know the answer - the intent of the PCI card was to deceive. They get an engineer to spell that out for them they open the door to being able to sue MK/Retro VGS Inc.

I dont think they will sue RVGS over this, just rip apart the contract and sever ties.

 

That is if they denounce the prototypes as fakes of course. There is still a possibility of Coleco holding their back in some way since they were very ardent in defending everything about RVGS very vocally up until just a week ago.

[sh3-rg]

 

I'm still about 8 pages behind, but to me it was obvious by Coleco's statement that they already know the answer - the intent of the PCI card was to deceive. They get an engineer to spell that out for them they open the door to being able to sue MK/Retro VGS Inc.

 

Not so much sue, just walk away reliveley unscarthed and dodge the bullet.

[AE35]

 

 

Atari 400, painted to use in The Happy Console Gamer movie some years back (fun movie, be sure to check it out)

 

Fun movie, yes! Beats the AVGN movie (which I hated)

[Schizophretard]

I'll tell you all this, I ain't sitting on the fucking floor or 9 inches from my TV for anything. Though I ponder to anyone with hardware insight, is this a logical "easier to reset on the system" (ala 2600) or pause on the system (SMS) rather than a controller? Or were designers in the 80s that dumb?

 

Well besides the beautiful people behind the NES.

 

I remember it making perfect sense back then. It is hard to explain. It is kind of like how it is hard to relate to Asians dinning on the floor while sitting on pillows. It was part of our culture then. The console being close to the joysticks was kind of like how mice aren't far way from keyboards. Just as both of those together are how you use a computer, back then the console and joystick as a whole were the controller. It wasn't always on the floor but sometimes on the coffee table or just someplace close instead of stationary like a VCR. Even when the NES came out with a pause button on the controller it didn't change the habit of it right away.

 

This:

 

 

Changed to things like this:

 

 

Notice the kid on the box playing with the zapper on the floor? That is because they weren't designed to just sit on the TV but to pull the whole game organizer off of it to bring it near you. Besides, even with the pause button on the NES controller it still has on the console what today we would think belongs on the controller. We don't go up to consoles anymore to reset a game. Or to put it another way, the "beautiful people behind the NES" likely weren't putting the pause button on it mostly to keep the NES far from reach(maybe partially) but mostly because pausing is something you need to do more quickly than resetting and resetting isn't something you want to do on accident.

 

Check out these kids on the floor with an NES on the coffee table:

 

 

It looks like the beautiful people at Nintendo were just as "dumb" as everyone else.

[jaybird3rd]

Here's my vision of an ideal setup for classic consoles: two seats, each one large enough for two people (for four-player games), with the console placed on a small table between them. There would be a built-in shelf under the table for extra controllers and some sort of cartridge organizer, and in the floor, an AC outlet and an A/V box with the cables running through a conduit under the floor to the TV. No cable mess, no extension cords stretched across the room, no getting up to reach the console switches or change the games. With a longer table, you could even have two consoles set up back-to-back, with the power and A/V cables run through a hole in the middle.

[PlaysWithWolves]

May I suggest starting a different thread instead of giving Kennedy more ideas for his next retro console?

[enoofu]

Do admit a lot of us love Japanese gaming culture, just sad that they are hoarding so many good arcade machines and games over the years

 

 

[Reaperman]

 

Ahh, I just remembered doing this a few years back:

 

 

I think you need to update it for 2016 with a mirror and soapdish.

[AE35]

 

So, I take it that nobody has heard from Mike Kennedy since the KS launch date?

 

What do you guys *think*? Will he return with some sort of statement, or remain under

the radar for ever?

 

Reading recent posts and listening to the Piko/UKmike/Scott podcast, it seems that people

are opening up for idea that he is innocent and Hardware Guy did it all. Sounds crazy to me,

but it could give him the room for a return.