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 Instrument's AY-3-8500 chip in 1976, there were 14 consoles released in the Coleco Telstar series. About one million units of the first model called Coleco Telstar were sold.
Coleco sold over 1 million units at the price of $50 in 1976. Coleco was unaffected by a chip shortage that year as their early orders meant it was entirely supplied. The large product lineup and the impending fading out of the Pong machines led Coleco to face near-bankruptcy in 1980.
Model comparison
References
Works cited
- Wolf, Mark, ed. (2012). Before the Crash: Early Video Game History. Wayne State University Press. ISBN 9780814337226.
External links
- The ColecoVision, with 1982 TV commercial
- Pong-Story: All Coleco Telstar systems, with photos
- Telstar and other systems
- The Dot Eaters entry on the history of Telstar and Coleco
- The COLECO Story by Ralph H. Baer Archived 21 December 2019 at the Wayback Machine
- Feature titled "THE MOST BIZARRE CONSOLE FLOPS IN GAMING HISTORY" by ADAM JAMES at SVG.com
