Development Update: Improving Reliability and Buildability of Homemade ColecoVision Clone
By
classichasclass
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Summary
The article details the development progress of 'Leako,' a homemade ColecoVision clone, focusing on revision 7 improvements aimed at making the system more reliable and buildable by others. Key enhancements include power supply redesign, addressing chip shortages with alternative components, fixing audio issues, improving video output quality, and resolving reliability problems. The author discusses the challenges of component availability, increased costs, and the iterative process of hardware debugging and refinement.
Key quotes
· 5 pulledLeako – my ColecoVision clone – has reached a point where it has to become a thing that is actually buildable by other, more normal, people.
On top of that, we've got chip and part shortages out the wazoo, and a smattering of bugs and reliability issues to knock down.
This revision of the board was mostly to try and improve reliability of the machine.
While heavily testing (playing with) my previous-generation board, a lot of things bugged me.
Will revision number seven be the charm?
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