Resurrecting The Past: ColecoVision (aka Best...Christmas Present...Ever)

It is Christmastime 2011. I'm preparing to watch my Little Monsters excitedly rip open their presents that they will find under the tree. It's not unusual for me to think about the past and what life was like when I was a kid. I'd imagine that most people (at least those that celebrate Christmas) have a lot of fond memories of the Christmases of their youth. I know I certainly do. I used to love Christmas, not to mention the inexorable build up to it during the month after Thanksgiving. It all culminated with Christmas morning and seeing all those wonderful wrapped presents under the tree. With all the gifts Santa (and/or my parents) gave me for Christmas it seems like it would be tough to pick an all-time favorite. But in this case it's actually pretty simple. One Christmas present stands out above all others in my memory (at least as far as gifts that I remember anyway). That gift was opened up in 1982. Its name was ColecoVision.

Image borrowed from the site The Computer Closet

While the graphics featured on the Atari 2600 video game system seem crude and archaic today, there's no denying they were a huge step forward from what had been available in home video game systems that could be connected to televisions up to that point. Before the Atari 2600 the only real option was some variation on the simple game of Video Pong. A lot of the early Atari games weren't much better than Pong, but at least they were in color and the system had arcade-like joystick controllers.

The Sears Video Arcade (taken from the 1980 Sears Wish Book),
a clone of the Atari 2600

The Atari 2600 was the undisputed king of the hill for a couple of years before the competition really heated up. I never owned one, but played a lot of the games at the homes of friends who did have it. It was a lot of fun, but I never really felt a burning need to own one for myself.

Video Games were so hot at the time they even made the cover of 
Time Magazine in January 1982

Intellivision upped the ante a bit with its slightly improved graphics, but in 1982 a new generation of consoles arrived that blew everything else in home video gaming out of the water. Those new systems were the Atari 5200 and ColecoVision. It was around this time that I was really getting into playing video games. In addition to using my friends' Atari 2600s I was also frequenting some of the video arcades that seemed to be sprouting up everywhere (there was even one in my tiny hometown for a little while). When I saw the near-arcade-level quality of the new systems I suddenly felt that I just had to have one. Deciding between the two was a surprisingly difficult choice. Since there was no internet to refer to, my research was limited to a few sources: the video game magazines that could be found at newsstands near me, the TV commercials for the Atari 5200 and ColecoVision, and opinions of fellow kids who either owned one of the systems or had played them.

December 1982 issue of the magazine Electronic Games

After much deliberation I finally came to the conclusion that ColecoVision was the video game system for me. I'm not sure what the deciding factor was. It may have been that ColecoVision had the expansion port that allowed you to add onto it. The most important module that came out was the Atari 2600 adapter. With this you could play all of the games that had been made for the 2600--and there were a LOT of games made for it. Another incentive was that Coleco put out its Adam Computer unit, which would also attach to the Colecovision console to turn it into a full-fledged home computer (a new and exciting idea back then). That way I could say that the system offered more than just video games (even if I was really just interested in the games for the most part rather than any potential educational value).

Now I had a system of choice. The only problem left was how I was going to go about getting one of my own. These things weren't exactly cheap. I did have a paper route at the time, but my meager earnings wouldn't have allowed me to purchase a game cartridge for the Colecovision--never mind the console itself. That left my parents as my last hope of getting in on all the gaming goodness. It was fall when I was doing all this deliberation and Christmas was approaching. Not unlike Ralphie in "A Christmas Story" pining for his much desired BB gun, I began lobbying hard for a ColecoVision. I wasn't content with simply telling my parents that I wanted one for Christmas; I also touted all the values and benefits of having a ColecoVision. I knew it was a rather extravagant request for a gift, but it really was pretty much the only thing I wanted that year. Eventually I felt that I had worn my parents down, but didn't know for sure until Christmas morning when... A large present under the tree was unwrapped and discovered to be...a ColecoVision! It was actually a "family" gift and not something just for me. I was more than fine with that. Being the youngest in my family I knew that I'd get more than my fair share of time in front of the TV playing great video games!

Flash forward to 2011. The ColecoVision was utilized and enjoyed a lot during its first year in our house. It was used a little less over the next couple of years until it finally became so idle that it was put away and forgotten about. Home video game systems continued to improve by constantly refining graphics, sound and playability. But while those improvements made ColecoVision obsolete, it was never replaced in my heart with a newer, flashier system. Instead I simply drifted away from video games. While I'd still drop a few quarters into the big games at arcades I didn't really play any home-based games for quite a while. The Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) came out while I was in the Army. I never really became aware of how much of an improvement it offered over the ColecoVison generation of game systems until I played Super Mario Brothers at a friend's house a couple years later. I came close to getting addicted to the game, but somehow managed to avoid getting sucked back into the video game world. Even with all the great stuff available now, I have never owned a video game system since ColecoVision.

A year or so ago I started feeling nostalgic for that great old ColecoVision experience. It was difficult to determine if our old console was still around at my parents' house. I started looking for one on eBay, but they seemed to be pretty expensive and I didn't want to spend a lot of money for a thirty-year-old unit that I might not end up using a lot. While visiting my mother a few months ago I did a little searching and was very excited to dig up the old Colecovision! It wasn't in a box and had become very dusty and a little grimy over the years. Here's what it looked like when I found it:

The label had even fallen off the Donkey Kong cartridge

I brought the unit home with me, along with a few things that went along with it. I had no idea if it still worked--or whether I'd be able to fix it if it didn't. It seemed to be complete at least. I put a bit of work into cleaning the old gal up and it ended up looking pretty good once again.

When I plugged in the gigantic (and heavy) power supply unit and turned the console on I knew that it was getting power, but still didn't know whether it would actually work or not.

Because it has an old-style RCA plug I figured there would need to be some kind of modification done to get it to work with a modern TV. But I was surprised to find that all I had to do was pick up a little Coax to RCA adapter at Radio Shack.

A few bucks later I put the adapter on, attached the wire to the TV, plugged the unit in and... didn't know how to get the TV to the right setting to pick up the console's signal. Because all the channels are now digital signals I had to figure out how to tune the TV into the non-digital (Standard) version of channel 3. When this was done the screen was filled with the familiar snowy screen that was so common back in the old days, but which you never see anymore. That was a good sign though. Then I turned the console back on and saw the old ColecoVision title screen!

It was strange to think that this machine had been sitting around for so many years (probably a couple of decades at least) and hadn't put that image up on a TV screen for such a long time. A lot has changed in the video game world, in my life and in the world in general since the last time something was played on this old unit.

When I found the ColecoVision console I also found a few game cartridges too--including the one that originally came bundled with it, Donkey Kong.

Donkey Kong, cleaned up and with the label glued back on

Naturally, Donkey Kong was also the first game I had to try out once it was confirmed that the system still seemed to work. It was like going back in time when the first notes of the Donkey Kong song started up. Despite all the years that had passed since I had last played it, it all seemed to come back pretty quickly. Of course the graphics don't seem anywhere near as groundbreaking as they did in 1983, but it was still pretty great to see. While looking into buying a used Colecovision earlier I had checked out some videos of a few of the games on YouTube. After looking at Donkey Kong on Intellivision and the Atari 2600 there I was reminded of just how much of an improvement Colecovision was over those systems.

I also tried out Zaxxon, which was another favorite of mine way back when our ColecoVision was new. I still remember seeing the commercials for that one when it came out which showed how closely it mimicked the arcade version. In all I found a total of seven ColecoVision game cartridges: the Donkey Kong one that came with the system, Mr. Do, Zaxxon, Space Panic, Smurf, Looping and Mouse Trap. One of the keypad overlays for Mouse Trap was still on one of the game controllers when I found the console and the games. The other overlay, as well as all the boxes and instruction booklets for the games are all missing. Of course the games themselves are the most important thing anyway.

The only expansion we ever got for our ColecoVision was the "Expansion Module #1", the adapter that let you play games made for the Atari 2600. This was a great one to have, as it opened up our choices to hundreds of additional titles (even though we had to accept the 2600's graphics along with the games). We never got the steering wheel controller, the track ball controller, the Super Action Controller Set or the Adam computer module. I believe those were the only other ones ever produced. In another area in my parents' house I was able to find the old Expansion Module. It was in a similar state to the ColecoVision unit--dusty and dirty, but in good physical shape. I cleaned this one up too, but haven't tested it out yet. It seems like it should be fine.

Here's the Expansion Module #1 connected to the ColecoVision console

I do have some Atari 2600 games around that I can try out in it whenever I get around to testing it. In the meantime I still have to check out the rest of the Colecovision games to see if I can remember any of them like I remembered Donkey Kong and Zaxxon.

It's been a fun and nostalgic experience to rediscover an old friend from my youth like ColecoVision and bring it back to life after such a long time. The fact that it is now Christmas 2011 and I know that I first opened this very same unit exactly twenty-nine years ago makes it all the more special. So much has changed, but the games remain the same...

GAME OVER