So..... you want to build your own videogame console?

Well, you've come to the right place! Armed with no more than your soldering iron and - possibly a credit card - you can build a console yourself like I did.

In times of Raspberry Pis, Mame and FPGA emulation, what's the point of bringing a 40 year old platform back to life? Well, because you can! And firing up that beast will bring you a sense of achievement and satisfaction. Buying a used console will also let you experience a blocky Donkey Kong port, but you won't get the "I built this from scratch" feeling. Plus you get to brag about it at your favorite dive bar and it guarantees endless topics talking to that silent girl with glasses at the end of the bar. At least the conversation will seem endless to her. Either way, it will be a night to remember.

But which console to pick for this task? There were many notable consoles around 1980, but most of them used hard to get custom ICs - except for one: the ColecoVision.

With better graphics than the competition of its time, the ColecoVision, or short Coleco or just CV, might have dominated the videogame market. It could even be turned into a fully featured CP/M personal computer, if its mass storage solution hadn't been plagued with problems, and oh yeah: there was the great videogame crash. The CV was almost MSX compatible, featuring the same processor and video chip, and a similar sound chip. But it wasn't meant to be, and the parent company could not sell enough cabbage patch dolls to cover their losses and went bankrupt in 1987.

Why the ColecoVision

Selecting the ColecoVision has one big advantage: it was built using only standard components at the time. And guess what: except for two ICs, all of these parts are still being manufactured today (2021), and those two exceptions (the video and sound ICs) are still available from eBay as NOS for a few bucks.

Before we start this journey, I would like to thank those numerous individuals who have spent countless hours documenting schematics, programming games or generally keeping the console in their collective (pun intended) hearts. Possibly even that girl with glasses.

Before I forget: credit where credit is due - this project wouldn't have been possible without Leako's DIY ColecoVision project, many thanks to him for his prior work and efforts!