March 11, 2009by Chris

The ColecoVision arrived in 1982 and crushed the competition with arcade-quality graphics, monumental processing power, and the ability to play Atari 2600 games.

It ran strong for a couple years with approximately 125 gaming cartridges produced by a variety of publishers (Coleco, Activision, Atari, Imagic, many more).

ColecoVision operated at 3.58MHz and used the Texas Instruments Video Processor TMS9928 - which would later reappear as modified versions in the Sega Master System, Game Gear, and the Genesis. It supported resolutions upwards of 256x192 in 16 colors and could handle 32 sprites, used the Texas Instruments SN76489A audio processor with four voices, had 16KB, and the cartridges could handle upwards of 32KB. A 400 pound gorilla compared to Atari 2600 and Intellivision, at the time.

Coleco really hit the ground running with this machine, being Atari 2600 compatible - enabling it with the largest software library available at launch. Atari was suitable angered over this situation and took Coleco to court, however, Atari lost because the 2600 could be created out of standard components - none of which were copyrighted by Atari. Whah-waa.

When the ColecoVision came out, it had mind-blowing graphics. The bundled Donkey Kong cartridge produced graphics of near-arcade quality. Arcade ports such as Sega's Zaxxon & Turbo, Atari's Dig-Dug, and many others further propelled the console as the most powerful - and the one to get.

Then the video game industry died in 1984 and Coleco tried valiantly to extend the product life cycle with the ill-fated and questionably engineered 'Coleco Adam' and then it was all downhill from there.

For a while, the ColecoVision ruled the home video game market and looked down, way down, on the competition. ColecoVision will always be remembered as a truly fantastic device that was loads of fun to play.

The Emulators
Two great ColecoVision emulators are available for Windows, OS X, and Linux (plus many other platforms).

ColEm 2.5 and Virtual ColecoVision for Windows are your best bets. ColEm was recently updated with the most recent build released as of 2008. It played all of the games Max-Em tested with it and comes complete with the device BIOS.

Virtual ColecoVision played about 80% of the games tested at this site. Both emulators are available for download here..

There are versions of ColEm for OS X and Linux and, at the moment, this is the best ColecoVision emulator available today.

Downloading ROMs is still illegal, of course, and procuring them is an act of piracy, however, so much time has passed since Coleco was for sale, there is simple little if no money to be made on selling the console or the ROMs, so nobody really cares; ColecoVision ROMs are found at www.romnation.net/colecovision.

Max-Em 3.9