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View topic - I never realized how close the ColecoVision and Master System were.

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  • Joined: 19 Jun 2005
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I never realized how close the ColecoVision and Master System were.
Post Posted: Thu May 16, 2024 5:13 am
So yeah, the ColecoVision? The game system that curb-stomped the Atari 5200 and would have been the dominant game console of that era had it not been for the crash? Apparently Sega reverse engineered the hardware and created the nearly identical SG-1000, which was the foundation for the Sega Master System.

The NES was released just one year after the ColecoVision (and exactly the same year as Sega' knock-off), and the Master System was released in 1986, effectively making it one generation ahead of Ni****do's hugely successful game system. Ni****do studied the hardware of the ColecoVision (and by extension, the SG-1000), and fixed many of its issues with its own machine.

Here's the thing, though. Although the Master System has a lot of advantages over the NES, it's also backward compatible with the SG-1000... and can be coaxed into playing ColecoVision games as well. Who knew? I sure as hell didn't, although the Dina 2-in-1 (aka Telegames Personal Arcade) is compatible with both. That probably should have been my first clue that the two systems shared a lineage.
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Post Posted: Thu May 16, 2024 7:51 am
Not sure how exactly Ni****do could've copied a console released the same day, but the CV and SG1000 seemed to use a fairly common combination of off-the-shelf chips. Remember that the MSX1 was released the same year as both.
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Post Posted: Thu May 16, 2024 9:32 am
It's not so much they reverse engineered it as it was that Sega was an American company trying to repackage an American mostly off the shelf computer system to appeal to a Japanese audience.

Read more about the history of Sega and you'll see it was all started by the us military industry
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Post Posted: Thu May 16, 2024 5:22 pm
Yeah that’s not right. I think you’re being too liberal with your wording there.

The consoles may share the same CPU, VDP, and PSG, but the memory-mapping, IO-mapping, and software are completely different. Getting the SMS to play ColecoVision games is not trivial.

A lot of consoles and computers in the day used the same Z80, PSG and VDP as mentioned above. I haven’t seen anyone say that Sega and the Big N “reverse engineered” the ColecoVision. Perhaps quote your sources?

Maybe another way of looking at it, is that even the ColecoVision couldn’t stop the video game crash of the 80’s.
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Post Posted: Thu May 16, 2024 8:43 pm
Modern retcon says that SG-1000 was a Colecovision clone based on failed attempts to have Sega market it in Japan. I think the evidence for this is pretty weak. The reality is that SG-1000 is sort of the same as Colecovision and MSX because they were all based on the off the shelf Z80 + TMS9918a + a cheap PSG. Most home systems of the day barely had a graphics chip at all, so using something standard seemed like a good idea until things changed such that the graphics chip became the key differentiator between systems as video games became a bigger market.
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Post Posted: Fri May 17, 2024 8:33 am
Looks like modern retcon has its head so far up its ass it believes its own [del]

The ColecoVision was designed in 1979 and shelved until 1981 before being launched in 1982.

Sega’s first Z80-based arcade board was the VIC-Dual which was launched in 1977 by Gremlim before Gremlim was acquired by Sega in 1978. In 1979, Head On, on the VIC-Dual board, was one of the highest grossing arcade games in Japan and the USA.

A couple of years and arcade boards later, Sega produced the System 1 (1982) and System 2 arcade boards which are widely regarded as the lineage of the SG-1000 and the later Master System.

So if anyone was following anyone, it would have been Coleco following Sega.

The Z80 CPU, TMS9918 VDP and SN76489 PSG were launched in 1976 and 1979 respectively and were used in a lot of arcade boards, home gaming consoles and home computers in the day, individually and together. It's an impressive list.
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Post Posted: Fri May 17, 2024 6:08 pm
"I haven’t seen anyone say that Sega and the Big N “reverse engineered” the ColecoVision. Perhaps quote your sources?"

Quote my sources...? I'm sorry, I thought this was a casual conversation on the internet, not a master's thesis for college. Would you like me to list my references in APA or MLA format?

Anyway. This quote was from Opcode, one of the leading developers for the ColecoVision after it was abandoned by its manufacturer.

Quote
Oh, and by the way, still related to the CV, Sega was ready to launch an official ColecoVision for the Japanese market when they decided to scrap the deal with Coleco and pursue their own design, which turned out to be a clone.


I've known this man for years, have tremendous respect for his work, and tend to trust his judgement. He certainly doesn't have his head up his [deleted].

I realize it must be stressful living in a country where everything from wild dogs to flightless birds to golf ball sized octopi wants to kill you, but kindly refrain from taking that frustration out on me.
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Post Posted: Fri May 17, 2024 10:38 pm
That’s below the standard of manners we expect here.

Sega Retro cites https://retrocdn.net/images/2/28/CashBox_US_1982-04-03.pdf and I’ve attached the excerpt below.

Quote
Sega, Coleco Announce Distribution Pact

LOS ANGELES - David Rosen, chairman and chief executive officer of Sega Enterprises, Inc., and Arnold C. Greenberg, president and chief executive officer of Coleco announced that an agreement has been reached for Sega's Japanese subsidiary, Sega Enterprises, Ltd. to become the exclusive distributor in Japan for the ColecoVision video game system and game cartridges beginning in 1983.

Sega and Coleco had reached an earlier agreement for Coleco to license certain of Sega's most popular coin-operated video games to develop home video game cartridges for the ColecoVision system and also for the Atari Video Computer System and Mattel Intellivision.

"Sega's strong technological knowledge and 25 year history of creativity in arcade game design, together with Coleco’s demonstrated merchandising skills and distribution capability should enable both companies to maximize the exciting opportunities in the home video game area," Rosen said. Greenberg noted that "Sega's strong and well respected position in the Japanese marketplace should facilitate a successful introduction for the ColecoVision system in Japan in 1983."


I think speculation about that falling through and Sega deciding to clone the system - incompatibly - are still in the realm of speculation. There’s some talk of testing of the SG-1000 in 1981 which would presumably be before the Colecovision was known to them.
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Post Posted: Fri May 17, 2024 11:41 pm
He was the one talking about heads shoved up orifices. Is that polite discourse?

Fine, I'll let it go. My Australian remark was a low blow anyway. I just wasn't expecting a fairly benign observation about the relationship between the ColecoVision and SG-1000 to be met with so much indignation.
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Post Posted: Sat May 18, 2024 5:30 am
ArugulaZ, sorry, my response was general and not specifically directed at you. Please consider this a public apology.

As I said, the ColecoVision and SG-1000 are not clones. The memory-maps, IO-mapping, and software models are different between the two consoles. The timelines also don’t agree as pointed out above. And Sega already had its own IP in-house.

I’m aware of the distribution pact. IMHO, based on Sega’s history, I think Sega were looking to expand into the home console market by acquiring a company like Coleco, but saw the market saturation and declining sales, so the distribution agreement was a good way to test the waters, make some revenue, and be in a prime position to acquire Coleco if things went well. Of course, we all know what happened in1983 with the market crash.

I also didn’t take offense at your Australian remark. All good there.

Now if you pardon me, I need to go and feed my kangaroo so I can make it to the pub tonight.
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