--- title: Colecovision categories: - Consoles params: name: Colecovision company: /companies/coleco company_name: Coleco tabs: - photos - adverts - hardware - software - emulators - links - videos photos: - title: COLECOVISION subtitle: '' text: '' image: null - title: COLECOVISION subtitle: '' text: '' image: null - title: FRONT subtitle: '' text: '' image: null - title: REAR subtitle: '' text: Left is the video/audio output connector, and right is the power in connector. image: null - title: LEFT SIDE subtitle: '' text: The controllers are stored in their housing... image: null - title: RIGHT SIDE subtitle: '' text: The button at the fore ground is the reset button. image: null - title: EXPANSION CONNECTOR subtitle: '' text: This expansion connector was used by different expansions like the ADAM computer or the VCS 2600 adapter. image: null - title: TOP subtitle: '' text: We can clearly see the controllers housing on the left. Bottom rigth are the on/off switch, cartridge slot and reset button. image: null - title: CONTROLLER subtitle: '' text: The Colecovision controller is composed of a "mushroom" joystick, 12-button keypad and fire buttons on each side (they both have the same function). image: null adverts: - title: FRENCH ADVERT (1984) subtitle: '' text: '"I clicked"...' image: null - title: FRENCH ADVERT (1984) subtitle: '' text: '' image: null - title: FRENCH ADVERT (1984) subtitle: '' text: '' image: null - title: FRENCH ADVERT (1984) subtitle: '' text: This is an advert from the ILLEL store image: null hardware: - title: AMIGA POWER-STICK subtitle: '' text: '' image: null - title: SPECTRAVIDEO JOYSTICK subtitle: '' text: '' image: null - title: WICO JOYSTICK subtitle: '' text: '' image: null - title: UNKNOWN BRAND subtitle: '' text: This is not a new controller. You just attach a small red joystick on top of the original coleco one... and there you go! image: null - title: ATARI VCS 2600 ADAPTER subtitle: '' text: This in fact more than a simple adapter. This module incorporates all the hardware of the Atari 2600 systems, thus enabling the Colecovision to play Atari VCS cartridges! You can even use Atari joysticks. image: null - title: FRONT subtitle: '' text: We can spot here the two Atari-standard controller connectors. image: null - title: REAR subtitle: '' text: This is the connector used to connect the module to the Colecovision system. image: null - title: CLOSE-UP subtitle: '' text: 'There are exactly the same buttons found on the original Atari VCS system: Display color/black&white, Left & Right player difficulty, Reset, Select.' image: null - title: CONNECTED subtitle: '' text: '' image: null - title: DRIVING CONTROLLER subtitle: '' text: '' image: null - title: TRACK-BALL subtitle: '' text: '' image: null - title: THE ULTIMATE CONTROLLER ? subtitle: '' text: 'For some people this is the ultimate controller: a nice joystick, a 12-button keypad, a knob and 4 buttons. The whole thing designed perfectly. If you haven''t tried them already, you have to!' image: null - title: TOP subtitle: '' text: '' image: null - title: SIDE VIEW subtitle: '' text: '' image: null - title: REAR subtitle: '' text: '' image: null screenshots: - title: SCREENSHOT subtitle: '' text: '' image: null - title: SCREENSHOT subtitle: '' text: '' image: null - title: SCREENSHOT subtitle: '' text: '' image: null - title: SCREENSHOT subtitle: '' text: '' image: null - title: SCREENSHOT subtitle: '' text: '' image: null - title: SCREENSHOT subtitle: '' text: '' image: null - title: SCREENSHOT subtitle: '' text: '' image: null - title: SCREENSHOT subtitle: '' text: '' image: null - title: SCREENSHOT subtitle: '' text: '' image: null - title: SCREENSHOT subtitle: '' text: '' image: null - title: SCREENSHOT subtitle: '' text: '' image: null - title: SCREENSHOT subtitle: '' text: '' image: null - title: SCREENSHOT subtitle: '' text: '' image: null - title: SCREENSHOT subtitle: '' text: '' image: null - title: SCREENSHOT subtitle: '' text: '' image: null - title: SCEENSHOT subtitle: '' text: '' image: null - title: SCREENSHOT subtitle: '' text: '' image: null - title: SCREENSHOT subtitle: '' text: '' image: null - title: SCREENSHOT subtitle: '' text: '' image: null - title: SCREENSHOT subtitle: '' text: '' image: null - title: SCREENSHOT subtitle: '' text: '' image: null - title: SCREENSHOT subtitle: '' text: '' image: null - title: SCREENSHOT subtitle: '' text: '' image: null - title: BOX ART subtitle: '' text: '' image: null - title: SCREENSHOT subtitle: '' text: '' image: null - title: SCREENSHOT subtitle: '' text: '' image: null - title: SCREENSHOT subtitle: '' text: '' image: null - title: SCREENSHOT subtitle: '' text: '' image: null - title: SCREENSHOT subtitle: '' text: '' image: null - title: BOX ART subtitle: '' text: '' image: null - title: SCREENSHOT subtitle: '' text: '' image: null - title: SCREENSHOT subtitle: '' text: '' image: null - title: FRENCH ADVERT (1984) subtitle: '' text: '' image: null - title: TITLE subtitle: Screenshot text: '' image: null - title: FIGHTING subtitle: Screenshot text: '' image: null - title: FRENCH ADVERT (1984) subtitle: '' text: '' image: null - title: BOX ART subtitle: '' text: '' image: null - title: SCREENSHOT subtitle: '' text: '' image: null - title: SCREENSHOT subtitle: '' text: '' image: null - title: BOX ART subtitle: '' text: '' image: null - title: SCREENSHOT subtitle: '' text: '' image: null - title: SCREENSHOT subtitle: '' text: '' image: null - title: SCREENSHOT subtitle: '' text: '' image: null - title: SCREENSHOT subtitle: '' text: '' image: null - title: BOX ART subtitle: '' text: '' image: null - title: FRENCH ADVERT (1984) subtitle: '' text: '' image: null - title: SCREENSHOT subtitle: '' text: '' image: null - title: SCREENSHOT subtitle: '' text: '' image: null - title: SCREENSHOT subtitle: '' text: '' image: null - title: SCREENSHOT subtitle: '' text: '' image: null emulators: - title: ADAMEm url: http://www.komkon.org/~dekogel/adamem.html platform: MS DOS text: A great Colecovision emulator for DOS. Also comes with a Coleco ADAM emulator. - title: blueMSX url: HTTP://WWW.BLUEMSX.COM platform: Windows text: Excellent free MSX emulator that can reproduce MSX, MSX2, MSX2+, and Turbo-R. The emulator also supports the SVI318/328, and ColecoVision systems ! - title: Virtual Colecovision url: http://www.classicgaming.com/vcoleco/ platform: Windows text: Nice emulator. There is even a Java emulator on the website! - title: COLEM url: http://fms.komkon.org/ColEm/ platform: Multiplatform text: Multi-plateform emulator (Unix, Windows, MacOS, MSDOS, OS/2) - title: MESS url: http://www.mess.org platform: Multiplatform text: The famous MESS emulator emulates the Colecovision links: - title: COLECO.COM url: http://www.colecovision.com/ text: Seems to be the official Coleco website... woth something related to the Colecovision soon to happen - title: coleco.free.fr url: http://coleco.free.fr/ text: French website dedicated to the Colecovision - title: Colecovision FAQ url: http://www.classicgaming.com/colecofaq/ text: All you need to know is in here - title: eColeco url: http://coleco.freeservers.com/ text: Ecommerce Site For Classic Coleco and Other Products and Services - title: Norman G. Sippel's Colecovision homepage url: http://my.ohio.voyager.net/~ngsippel/cv.html text: A lof of info here! - title: Rogue's Website url: http://perso.wanadoo.fr/rogue/colecovision.htm text: Excellent french site dedicated to the Colecovision and Adam products - title: Wikipedia - Colecovision entry url: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colecovision text: Nice information videos: - title: Colecovision 1983 TV commercial url: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=unpuywHanBc text: 'Length: 30s' comments: - author: Neonridr (Canada) date: Wednesday 25th May 2011 text: The Colecovision was my first console too. My favorite game was Venture. Want to talk about advanced graphics, you were a head that went in and out of various rooms collecting treasures. If you stayed too long in the room, a giant green head came after you. Was the most basic of games, but was incredibly fun. - author: Thomsonicus (Poland) date: Wednesday 15th November 2006 text: |- I don't know if anyone noticed, but in one of episodes of an animated comedy series "Family Guy" a maid, whose service Mr. Griffin had won, at one point finds a Colecovision system in Mr. Griffins bellybutton! His comment was: "Hey! A Collecovision! This is going to be a fun afernoon after all!"\ :-D - author: Chocolate Thunda (united states) date: Wednesday 10th March 2004 text: I have one of these consoles and they are neat. Why did they stop making them? - author: Alex (Munich/Germany) date: Sunday 1st June 2003 text: Yes ! This was also my first console. And i loved it so much ! My favorit game was "The Heist" ! Genius !! - author: Jeremy Pavleck (Madison, WI USA) date: Saturday 28th December 2002 text: Wow, this was my first console. I was 7 at the time. I still remember, to this day, playing Donkey Kong and Tarzan and all the other great games out for it. I even had the Atari game adapter. Wow, this takes me back! oc_id: 755 source: url: https://web.archive.org/web/20230328052322/http://www.old-computers.com/museum/computer.asp?c=755 date: '2023-03-28' --- After the success of their Telstar pong systems in the late 70's, Coleco decided to re-enter the videogame market, inspired by the success of cartridge based systems like the [Atari VCS](/museum/atari-vcs-2600/) and [Mattel Intellivision](/museum/mattel-electronics-intellivision/). As the Colecovision was released later than these competitors, it was possible for the Coleco engineers to put more hardware in the box while keeping the cost acceptable. The Colecovision is thus powered by a Z80A cpu running at 3.58 MHz. It has 8 KB RAM, 16 KB VRAM, three-channel sound and a powerful video display unit (Texas Instruments TMS9928A) offering 16 colors, 32 sprites and a 256x192 resolution. The result is that when the system was finaly released in summer 1982, it was immediately considered the most technologicaly advanced home console. The games simply had arcade-quality graphics! But even with this technological superiority, Coleco had to face the competition of Atari big arcade hits licenses and Intellivision realistic sports simulations. Coleco did not have enough money to compete with Atari for big licenses, so they secured licenses for small games with strong followings like Mr DO, Lady Bug, Cosmic Avenger and Venture. And Coleco's good relations with Sega resulted in a Zaxxon cartridge that sported excellent 3D effects. But the best was to come: one february 1, 1982 Coleco and Nintendo signed an agreement which gave six-months exclusive license for Donkey-Kong! Their excellent version was thus exlusively sold as a pack-in with Colecovision as an incentive to purchase the system, and it worked! The Colecovision was an instant success. Coleco marketed different add-ons for their console. The Expansion Module #1 is an Atari VCS adapter wich enables the Colecovision to play Atari cartridges! Coleco sold 150,000 Atari adapters in just two months... Atari sued Coleco for $850 million, but lost the case. The Expansion Module #2 is a complete driving controller with steering wheel, acceleration pedal and gear shift. It was shipped with Sega's classic racing game Turbo. The Expansion Module #3 is the [ADAM computer](/museum/coleco-adam/). A rollet controller was also sold to play games like Slither. The Super Action joysticks, a massive and complete controller, was used to play sports games like Super Action Baseball and Rocky Super Action Boxing. Colecovision was a great success, selling over six millions units in just three years. Unfortunately, the ColecoVision suffered the same fate as the rest in the great video game shake-out of 1984. Coleco's unsuccessful bug-ridden [ADAM](/museum/coleco-adam/) computer only complicated the problem, and Coleco stopped production of the ColecoVision in 1984.