ColecoVision (thing)

A cool game console from the fabulous 80s.

The ColecoVision had weird, flat controllers with a small knob at the top for the joystick, a button on either side, and a numeric keypad. The controller connector was the same as the Atari 2600 and Commodore 64. The ColecoVision console box had space for these controllers, but you had to really cram them in to get the coiled-cords to fit nicely.

Some games for the ColecoVision:

• Donkey Kong...at the time the only console version that had the Elevator Level
• Donkey Kong Junior
• Zaxxon
• Venture
• Gorf
• Time Pilot
• War Games...patterned after the movie...actually made use of the numeric keypad on the game controllers for more than just choosing the difficulty or number of players
• Turbo...came with an accessory steering wheel controller
• Pitstop by Epyx...could also use the steering wheel
• Q*Bert
• Star Wars...copy of the vector-graphics arcade game
• Popeye
• The Heist

Add-on hardware:

• An Atari 2600 emulator box that plugged into a slot on the front of the console. Atari cartridges were then plugged into the emulator box.
• A steering wheel controller. This consisted of a ~6 inch wheel mounted to a sloped box. On the right hand side of the box was a hole where you stored the foot pedal. When you used it, you removed the foot pedal and plugged it into the contoller box. Then you took one of the game controllers out of the main console and placed it in the hole to act as sort of a gear shift. The controller box took 4 C batteries.