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I have to say I am rather disappointed with the lack of any one including Bally Astrocade consoles in a lot of these poll posts.

I for one was down with the Astrocade as the best Computer based console... since it was the heart of a computer injust about every way.

I saw this over at AA and I wanted to share it.  Looks like Coleco is on a rampage attacking fan site and homebrew developers.  As a result, Opcode Games has had to make some changes.  Here is what Opcode posted:

I come here today, after 15 years of (I hope) good services for the ColecoVision community, to make a difficult announcement. Due to constant harassment from the current ColecoVision trademark holder, I have decide to no longer use the ColecoVision mark in any of my future games and hardware. All our stuff now will be identified as Super Game Module compatible only, since that is a mark I have the rights for. Our FB page has been taken down for the time being until I can make the necessary changes reflecting our new philosophy. Same for our website.

Now that I have taken that out of way, I would like to ask you to please stay tuned, and get ready for a shitload of bombastic revelations and surprises that will rival the best (or worst) that the Chameleon had to offer...
Make sure you have some stock of your favorite snack ready, as this is going to be a long ride folks...

Chapter 1: Oh, the drama!
http://atariage.com/forums/topic/265725-the-ugly-face-of-colecovision-behind-the-scenes-and-trademark/?p=3764787

Chapter 2: The classic ColecoVision logo trademark
http://atariage.com/forums/topic/265725-the-ugly-face-of-colecovision-behind-the-scenes-and-trademark/?p=3764853

There's also this thread:  Coleco strong-arming homebrew publishers and fan sites

This is a sad state of affairs.

The large majority of most anything on Atari Age is a shitstorm of drama. Then again... what can you expect from a site owner that holds the likes of Jagware and Reboot in high regard?

Yada Yada  Im still here.

Wow....I just saw this( almost 2 years latter) and no one was able to answer you? That is due to the fact that your pots( the knobs electronics part that you turn) needs some cleaning. Go get yourself a can of electronic circuit cleaner. spray this in the pots( with the machine unplugged of course) and turn the pots back and forth a few dozen times. This should clean you up.

I've had no problems so it fine for me.

Think is mate, I can not see this being cheap. Maybe as much as £200 and that is a killer. Getting all that at the £100 killer price point seems pretty much impossible. We shall see I guess.


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These types of retrograde computers should not ever cost more than $100(US). The silicon required
to emulate these classics is minimal. Truth be told, you can buy a Raspberry Pi 3 at $35(US)
and can emulate the Speccy almost perfectly. This also has a tried and true ARM 1GHZ QUAD Core
processor and can emulate just about anything classic. It MIGHT, and I emphasize MIGHT be able
to even pull off emulating a Jaguar( not holding my breath on that one though.)

These types of kick start projects are a get rich quick scam in my mind. Get yourself a Pi 3
and design a nice case your self for it. It would be a much cheaper and more sensible product
well worth the money, not to mention be able to do a ton of other systems out of the box by simply
downloading the emulators needed. It can use any number of keyboards, mice and USB as well as blue
tooth controllers.

Does look good..

Let me ask this question.. Is it needed?

Well if playing speccy games is all you want from this machine then no. However, if you want specy games that are on the level of Halo, this could be helpful.  

Apparently this new unit uses a 3.5 MHZ Z80 and claims to be faster but the original Speccy's also used those clock rates as well, so I guess the claim that this one is faster is either due to the hardware being updated to be more efficient( which may cause issues with timing on some games)or that this 1GHZ accelerator is why they claim it to be faster. Since the details are almost non-existent it is hard to say. As cool as an extra 1GHZ more or cycles per frame would be, I doubt it would have any effect on any existing games

LOL! 1ghz accelerator on a 3.5 MHz Z-80 machine! WITH HALF A TERBYTE NO LESS!!!! LOL!
 :21:

I definitely like the new look though!  

Unrolling your loops is a good trick on the Jaguar if you are running code out in main on the GPU(only as the DSP is useless out in main RAM). Fit all you can in the loop when you can and unroll the loop when ever possible. This is how you see those really crazy Atari 8 bit 3D demos going on out there. You save a lot of cycles avoiding jumps...especially on the Jaguar running out in the main RAM on the GPU...only.

All the arguments and fall outs maybe?

Those you have with any homebrew scene.....it was the fans over willingness to accept any garbage just for the sake of saying they have more games. Quality did not matter...only quantity did and it spelt their doom. We were prepared to give serious high quality...the fans decided to choose quantity over quality.....they got neither. When the fans of a system decide to support trouble makers who have no business telling the many more years experienced how to do things, you tend to see us such experienced developers move on. Why waste our time when the fans get stupid? The majority of Jag fans have shown to be pretty stupid. 3DSSS came up with many breakthroughs in getting more out of the system, yet, fans decided that DownFall and Flappy bird were good enough....seriously?

The Jaguar is pretty dead...nothing original...nothing but underpowered hacks from under talented coders. Very sad where the homebrew scene has gone...what very little of it is left.

I'd like a Vic, but recent eBay ones have been a bit pricey.

The case - it was reused for the C64 wasn't it as they look very similar?

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It was definitely the same mold but the color was different.

My First computer was a Trash-80 CoCo....I was rather disappointed in it. Went out and got a VIC-20...it was there I learned how to code in assembler language. I used that machine for years. Had a modem and downloaded everything that was not nailed down. Then I divorced it for an Atari 8 bit, and that, was my true love for about 8 years......but I do have fond memories of the old VIC-20. The I went on to an Atari ST, then the PC.

This console was better left in the 'land of never heard of.'