Colecovision Ultimate SD Cartridge

[amptor]

Colecovision Ultimate SD Cartridge
Flash cart for Colecovision with SD/SDHC

I was browsing the web one day and came across this flash cart. Previously, Atarimax made a 128in1 flash cart for Colecovision but now they offer it with SD and SDHC card support. Yes that means you can plug in >4GB SD cards and use them to load ROMs of your choice. This is complete with a simple on-screen GUI for the Colecovision console set.

For those of you not in the know, the Colecovision was one of the greatest ill fated consoles in history. It was released in the early 1980s and was capable of graphics superior to the popular Atari 2600 system of its day and likewise was capable of arcade quality graphics of its time.

The creator of this card, Steven Tucker, gave me the following information about his products:

"The Coleco and 5200 versions of the cartridge both support MMC, SD, and SDHC cards up to 4GB. You can load the card with any device that can format it with the FAT or FAT32 filesystem, which should be anything from a recent cell phone on up.

The only SD cards not supports are the latest greated SDXC cards over 4GB.

My original motivation for the USB version was to make it easier to test a game program I was coding, as Colecovision emulators at the time were pretty bad. I ended up spending all my time writing the menu software and firmware and never did finish my game projects, but still had a lot of fun writing software for a system I have very fond memories of.

The Colecovision is actually my first experience with Z80 programming, though people who used MSX computers probably would consider the Colecovision very familiar territory."

I recommend this cartridge to anyone nostalgic about the Colecovision console as it is a very nice piece of kit. The only draw back, like most modern backup solutions for classic consoles, is the price. This one weighs in at $129.95 plus shipping.

Source: Atarimax Web Site Direct Product Link

 

[DjoeN]

don't forget that the ColecoVision had an extra add-on hardware piece to play Atari2600 Games

​

I still play once and awhile on the ColecoVision, just for fun

and with the converter i can still play also Atari 2600, without the need to use my old "Woody Atari 2600"
This SD Cartridge looks like a good deal if you love All Colecovision games, but i bought the original games i like to play on my colecovision, so no need to put anything on it i never play.
On the other hands, it's good to preserve the original cartridges in a dark dry room forever

 

[twiztidsinz]

Secure Digital (SD) has a capacity range of 1 MB to 2GB (4 GB but limited by standard).
SD High Capacity (SDHC) has a range of 4 GB to 32 GB (2TB but limited by standard).
SD eXtended Capacity (SDXC) has a range of 32 GB to 2 TB.


There is no mention of capacity listed on the site, but there is also no mention of SDHC or SDXC as either text or images, so my guess is it suppors SD cards only which will essentially be limited to 2GB.

 

[amptor]

nah man, in my quote above he clarified this. The only SD cart it does not support is SDXC. It does support SDHC.

I asked him this because I wanted to make sure that gbatemp users knew that if they walk into their local electronics store and pick up whatever SD card off the shelf that it would work.

However, as far as I recall anyway, this flash cart kit does come with a 32 megabyte SD card which should be more than sufficient for a complete set of commercial and homebrew uncompressed ROMs. A SDHC card would be complete and total overkill for this device, but they are cheap so I can understand why someone would use one for this purpose. I think 1GB should run you a 5 spot these days.

Secure Digital (SD) has a capacity range of 1 MB to 2GB (4 GB but limited by standard).
SD High Capacity (SDHC) has a range of 4 GB to 32 GB (2TB but limited by standard).
SD eXtended Capacity (SDXC) has a range of 32 GB to 2 TB.


There is no mention of capacity listed on the site, but there is also no mention of SDHC or SDXC as either text or images, so my guess is it suppors SD cards only which will essentially be limited to 2GB.

 

[tbgtbg]

Yay, you can have every Colecovision game ever made on your card 10 times over and still have room left.

 

[kaputnik]

nah man, in my quote above he clarified this. The only SD cart it does not support is SDXC. It does support SDHC.

I asked him this because I wanted to make sure that gbatemp users knew that if they walk into their local electronics store and pick up whatever SD card off the shelf that it would work.

However, as far as I recall anyway, this flash cart kit does come with a 32 megabyte SD card which should be more than sufficient for a complete set of commercial and homebrew uncompressed ROMs. A SDHC card would be complete and total overkill for this device, but they are cheap so I can understand why someone would use one for this purpose. I think 1GB should run you a 5 spot these days.

Haha, went in here just to point that out, but seems you were in advance of me. However, I guess that a SDHC controller isn't a lot more expensive than a standard SD one nowadays, and even if it is, the cost is still peanuts compared to the total price of the flashkit. If you're prepared to buy a flashkit in the $130 range, it might just be worth those extra few dollars to get a more future safe device.