Contact Baseball Cartridge?

[else]

Hi.  I purchased this a few years ago off eBay.  I realize it's highly likely a fake, and I didn't pay a whole lot for it.  I just thought it was a curious oddity so I bought it.  The game itself is Donkey Kong.  I know Contact Baseball was apparently a working title for Super Action Baseball -- it's mentioned in an old issue of Video Games Player magazine.  But yet it's such an obscure title for someone to make a fake of.

 

Anyhow, I was wondering if anyone here knows the backstory on it -- who made it when / why / etc?  Was is made during the era of enlightenment (AtariAge) or the dark ages (usenet rgvc era)?  I know way way back there were people that used to create fakes and place them in thrift stores for others to find, so maybe this was one of them?

 

Thanks.

Edited January 23 by else

[else]

I guess my only nagging doubt about it being a fake is the obscurity of the whole thing.  Why create a fake for a game no one has ever heard of?  Like I consider myself a pretty knowledgeable Coleco guy, having owned one since it came out, but even I had never heard of Contact Baseball before....

[ColecoFan1981]

Wow!

 

The label suggests the Donkey Kong legal info was retained on this. Is the DK ROM here the original 24K or the revised 16K?

 

Also: There was another working title for Super Action Baseball. According to the 1982 ColecoVision catalog packaged with the system, it was called Head to Head Baseball.

 

~Ben

Edited January 24 by ColecoFan1981

[Captain Cozmos]

I always thought Donkey Kong would be more into football considering his size.

[Supergun]

Coleco was well known for making mock ups for almost everything they made for the ColecoVision. And multiple mock ups at that; both hardware and software.

 

So this could very well likely have been something they put together for a display or a show or the press.

 

But yes, it would be far more believable (as it would fit better timing wise) if the Donkey Kong board inside has 3 EPROMs and is the earlier 24kb version rather then the later trimmed down 16kb.

[else]

Thanks everyone.  I have a few 'real' Coleco mockups in my collection as well -- see the two on the left.  I bought these a loooong time ago (and for a lot more money, I might add!).  I know the Destructor one is more common, but I just think the alternate logo on the French version of the label is cool.

 

Welp, I guess I'll return to using my Super Action Controllers to stamp the prices on cans of soup (per the article 🤣)....

[Supergun]

Excellent!

At last a big mystery has finally been solved (for me!) as I always wondered who ended up with those 2 early label cartridges. (Rocky and Head to Head Football)

I always regretted not having bought them when I saw them and figured I would never see them again.

 

I still have the pics from way back then saved someplace and I was going to look for them so I could post them here. I always wondered what games were actually on them.

[coleconut]

Yes, not really a mockup, the Destructor one is just the French Canadian label that Coleco Canada put in each game they sold to comply with our language laws - cant label stuff in English only. I like to collect them.  Sometimes they varied more than just the text eg. the cool "blue snake" version of Venture.

 

 

Edited February 13 by coleconut
add pic

[OurVision]

To comply with Canadian censorship laws, I've seen French color variations as well as purely black and white French labels. I've always wondered how many variants were made. I always assumed Venture was blue and orange because it was somehow cheaper to print (for a label that most would never use) but who knows?

[else]

I wonder if the blue Venture is a case of either (1) the printer running out of yellow, or (2) the wrong color being loaded into the printer.  Depends on how many color printer it was.  In other words, I wonder if it's a mistake rather than being intentional.  Either way, still neat....

[ColecoFan1981]

On 1/23/2024 at 7:15 AM, else said:

Hi.  I purchased this a few years ago off eBay.  I realize it's highly likely a fake, and I didn't pay a whole lot for it.  I just thought it was a curious oddity so I bought it.  The game itself is Donkey Kong.  I know Contact Baseball was apparently a working title for Super Action Baseball -- it's mentioned in an old issue of Video Games Player magazine.  But yet it's such an obscure title for someone to make a fake of.

 

Anyhow, I was wondering if anyone here knows the backstory on it -- who made it when / why / etc?  Was is made during the era of enlightenment (AtariAge) or the dark ages (usenet rgvc era)?  I know way way back there were people that used to create fakes and place them in thrift stores for others to find, so maybe this was one of them?

 

Thanks.

When you insert your Contact Baseball cart into your CV, when you play a one-player game, does it look like this (four digit timer)? If so, it also means that doing the "black hole" glitch would cause Mario to disappear from the screen for 12 seconds before reappearing on the same girder DK himself is.

 

~Ben

[rwest]

On 8/24/2024 at 9:10 AM, ColecoFan1981 said:

When you insert your Contact Baseball cart into your CV, when you play a one-player game, does it look like this (four digit timer)? If so, it also means that doing the "black hole" glitch would cause Mario to disappear from the screen for 12 seconds before reappearing on the same girder DK himself is.

 

~Ben

Cool trick, I never knew about it. Thanks.

 

i have several DK carts (like probably all of us!) some with 4 digit and some with 5 digit counters. It took me quite a few tries to get it to work and on the 4 digit version, it worked like the video, but it also worked on the 5 digit version, except it sent jumpman right to the rivet stage at the bottom.

[ColecoFan1981]

27 minutes ago, rwest said:

Cool trick, I never knew about it. Thanks.

 

i have several DK carts (like probably all of us!) some with 4 digit and some with 5 digit counters. It took me quite a few tries to get it to work and on the 4 digit version, it worked like the video, but it also worked on the 5 digit version, except it sent jumpman right to the rivet stage at the bottom.

Yes, all of that is correct.

 

The original 24K ROM has the four-digit timer, and the revised 16K ROM has the five-digit timer.

 

When performing this same trick on the 16K ROM re-release, Mario goes straight to the next board (remaining time added to score) as if he went up the ladder to where Pauline is.

 

~Ben

Edited August 28 by ColecoFan1981