colecomuseum.com - Dedicated to COLECO collectibles

ColecoVision - Pure Home Arcade Feeling

The ColecoVision is Coleco Industries second generation 8-bit home video game console and was released August 1982. The ColecoVision offered arcade-quality graphics and gaming style, the ability to play Atari 2600 video games, and the means to expand the system's basic hardware. Released with a catalog of twelve launch titles, with an additional ten game modules announced for 1982.

Sales quickly passed one million in early 1983, before the video game crash of 1983. The ColecoVision was discontinued in the spring of 1984. In 1986, Bit Corporation produced a ColecoVision clone called the Dina, which was sold in the United States by Telegames as the Telegames Personal Arcade. The ColecoVision was distributed by CBS Electronics outside of the United States, and was branded the CBS ColecoVision.

All first-party cartridges and most third-party software titles feature a twelve-second pause before presenting the game select screen. This delay results from an intentional loop in the console's BIOS to enable on-screen display of the ColecoVision brand.

From its introduction, Coleco had touted a hardware add-on called the Expansion Module #1 which made the ColecoVision compatible with the industry-leading Atari 2600. Functionally, this gave the ColecoVision the largest software library of any console of its day. The expansion module prompted legal action from Atari, but Atari was unable to stop sales of the module because the 2600 could be reproduced with standard parts. Coleco was also able to design and market the Gemini game system which was an exact clone of the 2600, but with combined joystick/paddle controllers.