History- A small company called Coleco, known mostly for their leather kits and above ground swimming pools, decided to diversify their business and acquired a toy company. After a few years making plastic toys, they attempted to enter the burgeoning electronic TV games business. They found a partner in General Instrument, an electronics manufacturer who had designed a chip capable of playing PONG style games.

Coleco designed a video game console around the General Instrument chip. This new system was designated the Telstar, and was scheduled to be released in late 1976, just before the Christmas season. Unfortunately, when it came time to get their product certified by the FCC, it was discovered that the Telstar caused too much radio interference with other electronic devices. The FCC told Coleco that unless they fixed the problem within a week, they would have to restart the entire certification process from the beginning, which would take months and cause them to miss the important Christmas shopping season.

For help, Coleco contacted the young industry's most legendary figure, Ralph Baer. Baer had been the architect of the Odyssey, the very first video game console. Baer helped fix the Telstar's design, eliminating the interference problem, before the FCC's deadline. The Telstar was certified and hit the market on schedule. This was beginning of a long relationship between Coleco and Ralph Baer. Baer even assigned a small team at his company, Sanders Associates, to help design future Telstar consoles.

The Coleco Telstar had a very successful first year. The new console was only half the price of Atari's PONG, which helped it gain marketshare quickly. Secondly, General Instrument, who had been contracted to provide PONG clone chips to many companies, had underestimated demand and only manufactured enough chips to supply their first customer, which happened to be Coleco. This meant that there was hardly any competition for the TV video game market in 1976.

Fresh off their first year success, Coleco developed and released nearly a dozen new Telstar systems in 1977. These new consoles featured a greater variety of games than most of their competitors. The Telstar line also included some of the more memorable consoles of gaming's first generation. These included the Tank inspired Combat system and the unique triangular Arcade, which had three different sets of controls for three different games. Thanks to the Telstar line, Coleco gained fame as one of the original "big three" video game companies, along with Atari and Magnavox.

1977 saw the release of Atari's VCS, which would become the most popular game console of the era. It also marked the end of the dedicated PONG style console. Coleco only released two Telstar consoles in 1978 before it discontinued the line in order to develop their own cartridge based console, the Colecovision.

Console Variations-

Coleco Telstar- Released in 1976. The first Telstar model. It had very simple console design, with two controller knobs on either side of the machine. The original Telstar played three different games, each with three different difficulty settings.

Coleco Telstar Classic- Released in 1976. Gameplay is exactly the same as the original Telstar. The only difference is the design of the console itself, which had a better looking wood case.

Coleco Telstar Alpha- released in 1977. This version added a fourth PONG game and had a slightly redesigned case.

Coleco Telstar Ranger- Released in 1977. This system played 4 different PONG games and 2 light gun games. It came with two detachable knob controllers for PONG, and a revolver shaped light gun.

Coleco Telstar Colormatic- Released in 1977. This console was the same as the Telstar Alpha, but it featured color grahics and replaced the alphas fixed controllers with detached wired controllers.

Coleco Telstar Regent- Released in 1977. Same as the Alpha, but features detached wire controllers. (Basically a black and white version of the Colormatic.)

Coleco Telstar Sportsman- Released in 1977. Same as the Regent, but included a light gun and two extra shooting games.

Coleco Telstar Combat- Released in 1977. This system was much different from earlier Telstar models. Instead of the basic ball-and-paddle game that all PONG systems played, Combat featured a much different game. Combat played a version of Atari's Tank arcade game.

Combat featured 4 different game modes and the console itself had four large joysticks, which were much different than anything else home gamers had ever seen.

Colecto Telstar Marksman- Released in 1977. This was a light gun version of the Telstar. The Marksman traded the small revolver style gun of the Ranger and Sportsman for a much larger gun. The Marksman gun came with an attachable scope and shoulder stock.

Coleco Telstar Galaxy- Released in 1977. One of the more deluxe Telstar models. The Galaxy supported up to 4 players and featured color graphics.

Coleco Telstar Arcade- Released in 1977. This is the most advanced of the Telstar models and perhaps the most interesting of any first generation console. The Telstar Arcade was a triangular shaped console, with each side containing a different set of controls. The first side contained standard PONG controller knobs. Attached to the second side was a revolver style light gun, as well as a special built in holster for the gun. The third side had a small steering wheel and gearshift for racing games. The unique design of the console and the variety of accessories made the Arcade easily stand out from the dozens of similar systems of the era.

The Telstar Arcade was one of the very first consoles of any kind to use programmable ROM cartridges to play different games. Instead of a limited number of pre-programmed games, 4 different game cartridges were available for the system. Each game cart had either 3 or 4 available games on it.

Coleco Telstar Colortron- Released in 1978. This was a smaller PONG console, which had 4 different game modes. It had color graphics and improved internal sound capabilities.

Coleco Telstar Gemini- Released in 1978. This was one of the few Telstar models that did not focus on PONG games. Instead, the Gemini played both light gun games, and a primitive version of video pinball. The Gemini had two buttons on either side of the console which controlled the flippers in the pinball game.

Collector's Guide- The Telstar consoles aren't as popular as their Atari counterparts, but are still highly collectible. Telstars consistently find their way onto Ebay, where they can usually be found for very reasonable prices. The most popular of the Telstar line is easily the Arcade. Expect to pay a high premium for this console, especially if it is boxed.

Much like any video game from the PONG era, the Telstar is very difficult to find in the wild. Classic gaming conventions like CGE are your best bet for finding Telstars and other obscure 70's era games.

Gallery-

Telstar ad from 1976.

Original Telstar ad.

Colortron ad from 1980.