Seller arcadecollecting has a ton of neat stuff in their eBay store, some I’ve featured before and some may have been there for awhile.
Highlights include a ton of Coleco internal sample/test cartridges. These came from a batch of 25 internal sample and test games obtained from a former employee of Coleco in Hartford, CT. Most of them are the same as retail, but a few have minor differences. The ones with little or no differences are super cheap, all $29.99. Available are Spectron, QBert, Gorf, Popeye, Space Panic, Carnival, Omega Race and Congo Bongo ($10.00 more).
For an higher budget, you have some other Coleco stuff.
Ladybug
Since the EPROMs were socketed, I dumped them and disassembled them with a Z80 debugger. I found that there are significant differences between this version and the released/dumped versions. Many of the memory locations (jumps and calls) are different. In briefly comparing the differences, the first major thing I found different between this early version and the release is that code to spin the trap doors is different and the code to change the direction of your bug is different. I didn’t spend any more time looking at what the other differences do, but there are a bunch. No previously discovered version of this game is like that. That means this is an undiscovered early version of the game which has never been dumped before. It will be up to the buyer whether or not to “release” the dump.
Ken Uston Blackjack-Poker
In comparing the differences, the first major thing I found between this early version and the release is that in the released version, in Blackjack, if you have 21, the dealer behaves as if you hit the “stand” button automatically. In this early version, if you have 21, the dealer still waits for you to press stand or hit. No previously discovered version of this game does that.
Cabbage Patch #1
While a pre-release version of this game has been previously discovered, it is quite a bit different than this one. I was shocked to see that there are huge differences between this and the normal cart version of the game. Take a look at Scene 0. There are flowers on top of the wall! I explored further and found that the scenes are in a completely different order and the graphics in the scenes are far, far different than any cart version of the game I had ever seen, including the pre-release!
Cabbage Patch #2
Right off the bat I saw that it differed from the released version of Cabbage Patch Kids in that the initial option screen says press 1 for 1 player or 5 for 2 players. This is clearly an early version of the game since there are no difficulty options as there are in the released version. This option screen matches the one known discovered and dumped pre-release version of the game. Since the EPROMs are socketed, I dumped them to compare to the known dumped version and I found that it is *not* identical to the previously discovered and dumped version. I disassembled the game with a Z80 debugger to see what the differences were and found there are several areas that differ significantly from the previously dumped version, including the code to jump onto a swinging rope (code that is NOP’d out in the dumped version that’s here in mine) and the code to display the title screen, so this is a previously undiscovered, undumped version.
Unreleased Video Hustler
This screen does not match either of the two known discovered pre-release and dumped cart versions of the game. Since the EPROM is socketed, I dumped it and found that it is significantly different than the dumped version. The dumped version has a difficulty select screen and a completely different title screen than this one (see the screen shot above). The title screen does match a pre-release Adam DDP tape version of the game that someone else I know got from an estate sale of a former Coleco employee, but that one hasn’t been dumped and I watched some video of that version and the demo mode is slightly different on this one. As far as I can tell, this is a previously undiscovered version of this unreleased game.
Also:
Star Fox Super Weekend NON WORKING CART – Four hours to go, and around $50.00. Possibly worth a gamble, or a cheap option to have a filler in your collection.
