COLECOVISION
Telegames Personal Arcade (DINA 2-in-1)
COLECOVISION
Telegames Personal Arcade (DINA 2-in-1)
SPECS:
Processor speed: 3.58 Mghtz
Color capacity: 12
Sound: 3 channels
Memory: 8 kb RAM/ 16 kb VRAM
Resolution: 256 x 192
Software type: Cartridge
What can I say? The person, who has never had the opportunity to play the Colecovision, has not reached nirvana yet. Colecovision by far is one my favorite video gaming systems. Yes, it’s a primitive system, but the game play is superb. I still remember the day that our Colecovision game system was delivered to our house on Christmas Day. It seemed so advanced at the time. I must have played a million games of Donkey Kong, which was the game that came with the unit. I still enjoy playing this system and will continue to play my Colecovision system in the future.
Colecovision started out in the home console business with the Pong variants like many other companies in the 1970’s. They did fairly well, but the market was extremely saturated with PONG variants. When the consumers lost interest in Pong type games, Colecovision concentrated on the hand held gaming market. They eventually did fairly well with some of the sports hand held games. With a previous history of being in the dedicated console business, Colecovison felt that it was worth their time to reenter the home videogame business in 1982.
Colecovision had a great business plan. They realized that the arcade classics would eventually do well if you could import the arcade games and emulate them on the home consoles. Their flagship cartridge Donkey Kong was an immediate hit with the gamers (and it introduced us to Mario). Although it lacked a level that was in the actual arcade version, the overall graphics and sound was similar to the game room. The quality of graphics was immensely better than its counterpart, the Atari 2600. If there is any doubt, compare the Atari’s version of Donkey Kong with the Colecovision Donkey Kong. The graphics are superior down the line in almost all of the games and this equated into unit sales. Colecovision sold extremely well and was an immediate success.
The cartridges were extremely varied and excellent translations of many arcade games were introduced to the home console. Anyone who frequented the arcade game rooms understood the benefit of playing at home. An excellent translation of Time Pilot, Venture, Q*Bert, Pepper II, MR. DO, Frogger, Donkey Kong Jr., Centipede, Burgertime are a few of the notable cartridges for this system which was ported from the arcade. Very little was lost in the translations except the part of losing a quarter into the machine, which occurred in the arcade version.
Colecovision is well supported with many genres of games. It supported the obligatory sports games with the usage of a Super Action controller, which added to the realism to the game. Arcade games, educational games, and children’s game and even home brew games are found for this system. In total there are approximately 180 games titles available and is growing due to home brew releases.
The console of the Colecovision is fairly huge to say the least. The electrical power supply is even bigger and more cumbersome. When I first saw the power adapter for the system, I almost fainted! It looked like it had the capacity to produce its own power when you considered the size of the unit. The game system is fairly durable, but there are some problems that a collector should know about. Most of the problems deal with dust and corrosion of the system. Some basic cleaning can usually correct a lot of the problems. Occasionally the On/Off power switch can become defective. It is possible to correct this problem, but it requires a fairly complicated disassembly of the main unit. By far the most common problem encountered by the Colecovision is the power adapter. This is a fairly common defect and is easy to correct. The first thing I ask a person if their system is not working is “Did you try the system with a known working power adaptor”? Simply replacing the power supply can correct many problems. Lastly the controller board can also become corrupt and cause the controllers to be non-functional. This can be aggravating and totally corrupt the system. As you can imagine, it is a huge problem if this occurs.
The controllers were very advanced for its time and are very durable. They have a multidirectional joy knob, with a twelve-button keyboard. Many games came with a keypad overlay. You can still find many reproductions of the keypad overlays on the Internet if you look around. The Super Controller is my favorite. It was light years ahead of its time. It had the joystick and the keypad, as well as 4 additional finger buttons and a roller ball. This was a sweet controller and in my opinion is probably is one of the best-designed and functional controllers that was ever produced for a game system. They are still easily found and are necessary to have to play most of the sports games.
ACCESSORIES:
- Expansion Module 1: Atari 2600 Converter
- Expansion Module 2: Driving Controller
- Expansion Module 3: ADAM
- Roller ball Controller
- Super Sketch tablet
- Adamlink Modem (300 baud)
- Wico Command Control joystick
- Super Action Controllers
- ADAM controllers (white)
- Dust cover
- Power supply
Telegames Personal arcade (DINA 2 in 1)
This is a system, which was released by Telegames Personal Arcade to play Colecovision games. It helps alleviate some of the intrinsic problems of the Colecovision system. It’s a much smaller console and seems more durable as far as the power supply is concerned. The controller wire is not coiled, but rather is straight, when compared to the Colecovision controller’s wire. The DINA 2 in 1 is compatible with Colecovision cartridges and the Sega SG-1000 mark II cartridges. The controllers lack the numeric keypads like the Colecovision game controllers. To correct for this problem, the keyboard is mounted onto the console of the 2 in 1 DINA system. It’s cumbersome to use at times and it lacks the Super Action controller capability, which limits its game play with the sports genre. It has recently been discontinued and is no longer being produced anymore. Something to be aware of is that the system plays on channel 13. This is important to know since most games play on channel 2 or 3. I managed to pick up a few systems, which were thought to be broken, but was in fact completely functional but that the owner didn’t bother to tune into channel 13. The DINA 2 in 1 is getting fairly rare, and if you get a chance to purchase one in the future, it usually is worth it and is highly recommended.
Limited Editions: NONE
