coleco_vision roms

ColecoVision

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The ColecoVision was Coleco Industries' second generation home video game console, released in August 1982. The ColecoVision offered arcade-quality graphics and gaming style, the ability to play other home consoles' video games (notably the Atari 2600), and the means to expand the system's hardware. The ColecoVision was released with an initial catalog of 12 titles, with 10 additional titles on the way for 1982. All told, approximately 170 titles were released in the form of plug-in cartridges between 1982 and 1985.

Games

Coleco's software approach was to go after licensed arcade games that Atari had missed and to make cartridges for the 2600 and Intellivision in addition to its own system. Realizing that Atari had firm support from Namco (creators of Pac-Man and many other hits), Coleco involved itself with companies like Sega, Konami, and Universal. The ColecoVision had enough power to produce near-arcade-quality ports, which boosted its popularity. Industry magazines like Electronic Games were unanimous in their enthusiasm over Coleco's machine.

Some of the more popular games included Donkey Kong (the pack-in), Donkey Kong Junior, Carnival, Lady Bug, Mouse Trap, Smurfs: Rescue in Gargamel's Castle, and Zaxxon. The ColecoVision didn't offer many revolutionary new games, since most of its popular titles were arcade ports. Still, it offered a few notable original titles like War Room, Illusions, and Fortune Builder, an early milestone in the style of SimCity. Most cartridges did not have an end-game to beat, but instead would loop around to the beginning, such as Cosmic Avenger.

Bios

All Coleco cartridges and most third-party titles had a twelve second delay before the game select screen showed up. A common, but incorrect, anecdote suggested that this delay was the result of a function in the ColecoVision that emulated the programming language PASCAL. The real reason behind the twelve second delay is a loop in the ColecoVision BIOS, so the delay was purely intentional. Some companies like Parker Brothers, Activision, and Micro Fun avoided the delay by simply bypassing the loop in the BIOS.

Technical specifications

CPU: Zilog Z80A @ 3.58 MHz
Video processor: Texas Instruments TMS9928A
256x192 resolution
32 sprites
16 colors
Sound: Texas Instruments SN76489A
3 tone generators
1 noise generator
VRAM: 16KB
RAM: 1KB
Storage: Cartridge: 8/16/24/32KB

Some well known Atari ColecoVision emulators today are:

KOLEKO
Virtual ColecoVision

Top Roms

BC's Quest for Tires
Ken Uston Blackjack-Poker
Defender
Q*bert
Carnival
Popeye
Rocky Super Action Boxing
Antarctic Adventure
Donkey Kong
Montezuma's Revenge

How to Play

Please check our Getting started page for more information.

External links