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Coleco Colecovision (2400)
In 1982 Coleco decided to jump into the home video game market with their own programmable system, the Colecovision. They did not have the funding to program their own games so they approached big arcade names like Sega, Nintendo, Konami, and Universal to start converting their popular arcade games to the home market. One of the first companies to jump on board was Nintendo and with this they licensed Donkey Kong to be the pack in cartridge for the Colecovision at it's debut. At it's debut the Colecovision retailed for $199.99 USD. Coleco also got the rights to produce the Donkey Kong game for their soon to be popular Table Top Arcades. Coleco would have to take full responsiblity if any problems should occur. In exchange, Coleco payed Nintendo an undetermined amount of money and royalties: $1.40 for each cartridge made and $1.00 per Tabletop Arcade unit. Six months after the Colecovision had released, Coleco started to make the Donkey Kong game for competitors such as the Atari 2600 and the Mattel Intellivision. Universal had threatened Coleco for likeness of character since they owned the rights to King Kong, unless Coleco payed royalties to Universal for every Donkey Kong product sold. Later, it was found that Universal did not have the rights and the royalties were refunded.
The Colecovision boasted smoother animation than the Atari 2600 and the Intellivision. The General Instruments Chip it contained could actually handle video images. Besides this, the Colecovision also had three channel sound, a 32 color palette with 16 onsceen at once, and 32 onscreen sprites. It also contained a 8 bit 3.58 MHz Z-80A CPU with 8K system RAM, 16K video RAM with a 256x192 resolution.
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Back of the Colecovision: 1. Channel 3/4 Switch |
Besides the Coleco Expansion Module 1: the VCS convertor, two others were released. The second expansion module was the Driving controller for $54.95 USD, which plugged into controller port one, not the expansion port. The second controller port could with a controller to function as a gear shift. The third was the ADAM Kit for $399.99 USD. The full version of the ADAM that did not rely on the colecovision retailed for $599.99. The ADAM kit, like the stand alone, featured a tape recorder deck.
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The controller that was packed in with the system. Featured a control disk and a removable 12 button membrane keypad that accepted overlays for certain games. |
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A similar controller as above, except with a joystick in place of the control knob. |
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Super Action Controller. Easy to use for some games, not for others. Was packaged with Super Action Baseball. |
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The Colecovision Roller Controller. There are space on each side of the controller to put the original Colecovision controllers in. Came with the pack in cartridge Slither. |
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The connections that are hardwired to the Roller Controller: on the left is the plugs that go into the controller slots on the Colecovision console. On the left is the power plug that goes between the console and the power supply for the console. |
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The Coleco Expansion Module 1: the Atari adapter allowed customers to play their Atari 2600 cartridges on the Colecovision. After being sued by Atari, Coleco continued to make the module, except then began to pay royalties to Atari. This paved the way for other companies to make clones of the Atari 2600. 1982, $59.95USD. Part No.2405 |
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Close up of the Expansion Module #2. Color/B&W, Difficulty: Left/Right, ? Reset. |
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The Colecovision Expansion module #2 the Driving controller. It came bundled with Turbo |
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The Colecovision Expansion module #3 the ADAM computer. Stock Coleco images |
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Power tip of Colecovision. (#74942 table top, #55416 Wall Mount) Input 120 AC 60Hz .25A
55416 wall mount |
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Sample label and cartridge design from Spectravideo cartridge |
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