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Coleco Telstar CC Image – Wikipedia – Maddmaxstar

Developer: Coleco

Release Date: 1976

Origin: U.S.A.

Initial Price: $50

CPU: GI AY-3-8500

Built-In Games: 3

When most gamers think of Coleco I am pretty sure that the majority will think of the ColecoVision. The more powerful rival to the Atari 2600 (which had a tremendous port of Donkey Kong by the way). Anyway, it may surprise you to know that before this happened Coleco actually released 14 home consoles in the late 1970s. Now these of course were really, I guess you could say 'Pong Clones', but each one did have a few little differences here and there. Here we are going to look at the various Coleco Telstar home consoles that were released.

Telstar (1976)

This first Coleco Telstar console boasted three Pong games. Tennis, Handball and Hockey, which were the games you could play using the console's built in paddle controllers.

Telstar Classic (1976)

The Coleco Telstar Classic was exactly the same console as the original Telstar, but with one difference. The actual console had a wooden finish to it.

Telstar Deluxe: Video World Of Sports (1977)

This console was virtually the same as the two released before it, but it was given a new cool name and the colour of the console was changed. The Telstar Deluxe was made for the Canadian market.

Telstar Ranger (1977)

Now this was something different. While the other three were all pretty much the same, the Coleco Telstar Ranger console really did kick things up a notch. It still included the other three pong games, but a fourth was added called Jai Alai (a weird game which sounds like it's from the Thai language, where you throw and catch a ball against a wall) That was not the main selling point however.

The Telstar Ranger also included, separate from the console, paddle controllers, but the real big deal was the inclusion of a light gun. This added two more games to the console with skeet shooting and target shooting. The look of the console also changed as it now had a black and white casing.

Telstar Alpha (1977)

This one is a real classic and it sold in huge quantities. The main reason for this was because it was so cheap. This was a kind of budget model. It did have the four different pong variations like the Telstar Ranger had, but did away with the light gun and the detachable paddle controllers.

Telstar Colormatic (1977)

This was a more upmarket version of the Telstar Alpha. The Coleco Telstar Colormatic had detachable paddle controllers and now you could play the four pong variations in glorious colour.

Telstar Regent (1977)

Not much to say here as it's exactly the same as the Coleco Telstar Colormatic, but it no longer played in colour and the casing was a different colour as well.

Telstar Combat (1977)

This bad boy here is no pong clone console. Nope, this one lets you play tank games and it has a really cool controller that has two large joysticks for each player to control their tank. The console has four different variations of the tank game. The casing is really cool as it is green and has a nice military look to it.

Telstar Sportsman (1978)

This one was just like the Telstar Regent console, but it added the light gun and the two light gun games for skeet and target shooting. In addition to this there were also a few more switches on the console itself to change the settings of the games.

Telstar Colortron (1978)

This console may seem really basic, but it does have some cool features. It only has the four pong variations and the paddles are built in. However the way you select the games is done with a push button rather than a switch. Many people had issues with these old consoles where the switch would get really hard to move or in some cases would actually break. The overall console was really small and compact. Also, all the pong variations were in colour. As well as this the Telstar Colortron could make sounds.

Telstar Marksman (1978)

Now this is a cool addition to the Coleco Telstar family. The Telstar Marksman came with a light gun, but this one was different from the one that came with the Telstar Sportsman. This gun had a really cool stock and barrel that you could attach and take off. Along with this it also had a sight so that you could aim better.

It did however still just have the same games that we had seen before with the four pong games and of course the two shooting games. But the addition of this new cool gun was a big selling point for the console. Not to mention that all the games were also in colour.

Telstar Galaxy (1978)

This is quite a special addition to the Coleco Telstar family. Can you say that there was four player gaming in 1978? The answer is “yes” - that’s right, the Telstar Galaxy offered four player gaming. In addition to the two paddle controllers built into the system there were another two detachable paddle controllers.

Telstar Gemini (1978)

This Coleco Telstar console does not offer any of the four pong games. Instead, what we have here is something very special indeed. It plays shooting games like we had never seen before, but what really makes the Telstar Gemini special is that it also plays pinball games.

The pinball game was actually incredibly complex for its day. It featured a great scoring system and the pinball controls were built onto the sides of the console as if it were a real pinball table. There was even a big red button on the top of the console that launched the ball, but how hard it launches the ball depends on how hard you push the button.

Telstar Arcade (1977)

This is one of the most interesting and famous systems that Coleco made. It looks like no other Coleco Telstar console. It is a triangular console with each side having a different arcade set on it. One side has a steering wheel for racing games, another has regular pong controls, and the last one had a light gun, it also had a cool storage bay for you to put your light gun in.

If that is not cool enough the Telstar Arcade was one of the first systems that used interchangeable cartridges. There were only four cartridges released with one coming with the console itself. One very interesting note is that the second cartridge had a tennis game that with the addition of two extra controllers could be played in four-player mode.