The Coleco Telstar Arcade, commonly abbreviated as Telstar Arcade, is a first-generation

home video game console A home video game console is a video game console that is designed to be connected to a display device, such as a television, and an external power source as to play video games. Home consoles are generally less powerful and customizable than ...

that was released in 1977 in Japan, North America and Europe by

Coleco Coleco Industries, Inc. was an American company founded in 1932 by Maurice Greenberg as The Connecticut Leather Company. It was a successful toy company in the 1980s, mass-producing versions of Cabbage Patch Kids dolls and its video game conso ...

. It is the most advanced video game console in the

Coleco Telstar series The Coleco Telstar brand is a series of dedicated first-generation home video game consoles produced, released and marketed by Coleco from 1976 to 1978. Starting with Coleco Telstar ''Pong'' clone based video game console on General Instrumen ...

, based on the MOS Technology MPS-7600-00x chips series. Each chip is a microcontroller capable of storing 512 words of ROM.

Construction and concept

The Coleco Telstar Arcade is formed like a

triangle A triangle is a polygon with three edges and three vertices. It is one of the basic shapes in geometry. A triangle with vertices ''A'', ''B'', and ''C'' is denoted \triangle ABC. In Euclidean geometry, any three points, when non- colline ...

. On every side are other game-specific controls. There is a side with a steering wheel and a lever, a side with a lightgun, and a side with two

paddles A paddle is a handheld tool with an elongated handle and a flat, widened distal end (i.e. the ''blade''), used as a lever to apply force onto the bladed end. It most commonly describes a completely handheld tool used to propel a human-powered w ...

. Depending on the game played, the player may use another side.

Games

The games came on silver-colored cartridges, each containing a MOS Technology MPS-7600-00X chip. There were a total of 4 cartridges released for the system by Coleco. Every cartridge has a triangular shape which connects on the top of the console. All games: * Cartridge 1: ''Road Race'' (1 player), ''Tennis'' (''

Pong ''Pong'' is a table tennis–themed twitch arcade sports video game, featuring simple two-dimensional graphics, manufactured by Atari and originally released in 1972. It was one of the earliest arcade video games; it was created by Allan Al ...

'' clone; 2-4 players) and ''Quickdraw'' (chip MPS 7600–002; 1-2 players) * Cartridge 2: ''Hockey'' (2-4 players), ''Tennis'' (2-4 players), ''Handball'' (1-2 players) and ''Target'' (chip MPS 7600–001; 1 player) * Cartridge 3: ''Bonus Pinball'' (1-2 players), ''Shooting Gallery'' (1 player), ''Shoot the Bear'' (1 player) and ''Deluxe Pinball'' (chip MPS 7600–004; 1-2 players) * Cartridge 4: ''Naval Battle'' (1 player), ''Blast Away'' (1 player) and ''Speedball'' (chip MPS 7600–003; 1 player)

References

Coleco consoles 1970s toys 1977 in video gaming Products introduced in 1977 Pong variations 1977 video games Video games developed in the United States Light guns First-generation video game consoles {{videogame-hardware-stub