After the release of the Telstar (the first "dedicated-chip" pong system) in 1976 which was a big success, Coleco conceived a whole range of pongs for release at Christmas 1977.
This unit was essentially the same as the Telstar Alpha, with a designed woodgrain finish. However it has the distinction of being the first Coleco unit with detached controllers and color graphics (box says "different color for each game"). The controllers are nice and small with long cords. They are connected to the unit through standard RCA plugs.
This unit allows 4 games (Tennis, Hockey, Handball and Jai-Alai). There's a 3 positions switch that controls difficulty (beginner : slow ball, big paddles / advanced : fast ball, big paddles / expert : fast ball, small paddles). If this is common to the first Telstars, this is quite different from most of the other pong systems which offer individual settings.
Please consider donating your old computer / videogame system to Old-Computers.com or one of our partners from anywhere in the world (Europe, America, Asia, etc.).
You can find a opng rarity list (http://www.pong-story.com/mypongs.htm) which you might find useful. However, don't expect big prices... Pongs generally sell cheap...
Wednesday 17th December 2003
Olivier (France)
I FOUND A TELSTAR COLORMATIC IS THERE ANY VALUE IN IT