ColecoVision Game Console

Coleco's 1982 games console, and the machine everything else in this catalogue attaches to. It launched in New York and Boston late in July 1982, spread through the autumn and reached the whole of North America by October.

What is inside

• A Zilog Z80 at 3.58 MHz, 1K of system RAM and 16K of video RAM.
• A Texas Instruments TMS9928A video display processor: 16 colours at 256 by 192.
• A TI SN76489A sound generator.

Why it mattered

• Its arcade conversions were closer to the originals than anything else at home, which is what the hardware above bought.
• The expansion port on the front was the whole strategy: Module #1 played Atari 2600 cartridges, #2 was the driving controller, and #3 became the ADAM.

The video game crash of 1983 and the ADAM's failure ended it; Coleco left the games business for good.