newcoleco, on Mon Feb 7, 2011 10:33 AM, said:
And I accept the anger in advance... I recognize each person's point of view as also my own. The abrupt leave and come back without any word except "buy my eBay stuff" is kinda rude.
And I kind of agree, though it was never my intention to sound opportunist or anything. But I realize it may sound like that and again apologize for my rudeness.
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Also, in order to be on topic, we should talk about the original subject of this thread. So, to make things right, I welcome back Eduardo and ask him how far he is to a release of the 2 Coleco hardware projects that need that money.
Excellent question. So lets see:
- SGM/Expansion module: the hardware was revised and is mostly complete now. However I still need to finish the new bankswitch cartridge that is required for most arcade ports (the one with save memory). There is also the case, what I am still saving money for. The project and tool (mold) are all very expensive. Also I am depending on Donkey Kong being completed until I can release anything.
- CV2: here I have some good news (at least it is promising). When I was about to move to the US in 2006 I made a deal with a guy in Brazil called Ademir Carchano. He is a pretty known individual in the MSX community, with literally decades of contributions, including many professional ones during the 80s. Curiously Ademir also worked on a ColecoVision project in the 80s, he commercially released a device that could allow user to download games from tape. That was a pretty big deal in the 80s, at least in Brazil where most video game stuff was pirated.
So anyway, in 2006 we had this deal, he was going to work on the much more ambitious version of the module I had back then (that is well documented in some old thread here). Unfortunately the deal felt through that same year when Ademir faced serious financial problems and was forced to move away from all his hobby stuff, including all his MSX products (back then he was selling a brand new super MSX2+ system with 1MB of RAM, double speed CPU, 50% more video RAM, among others).
Well, it seems his personal finances improved and he decided to come back a few weeks ago. However he was basically out of cash to restart his MSX projects and there was when I saw the opportunity for a new deal. So he is now back aboard and we have just started discussing plans. We want to lay down a complete spec of the machine before starting anything, but I suppose that once we agree on the specs, and have everything in place (and if we can agree upon monetary compensations), we should get a prototype soon. Ademir is far, far more experienced than me, he does those things for a living, and he has tons of experience with ColecoVision-like architectures, so it should be easy for him.
We are keeping the specs pretty down the Earth, still there are improvements like the faster CPU, better video and extra sound. It is still going to be a cartridge based machine, same cartridge format, same controllers. We also agreed on not including any mass storage device like SD cards, that is a design decision that I guess will please some and upset others, but polls and stuff always proved inconclusive, so I decide to use my personal preferences to decide the matter. And of course the new machine will be fully compatible with the CV1, as well as the SGM. At least as compatible as the new video chip allows, which based on my MSX experience is like 99%.
Of course having a prototype is a thing, manufacturing the thing is another, the mold for one is going to cost a small fortune, but I prefer to think of that later. A pain a time...
And I cannot resist mentioning some progress I have done on two arcade ports for the SGM, Pengo and Moon Patrol, though I will refrain of showing anything until they are fully playable… Pengo is a good deal done, perhaps 30%, while Moon Patrol is more of a tech demo right now (part of the attract mode code showing the moon buggy on a smooth scrolling moon surface, complete with animated wheels).
Eduardo
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