Sector Alpha

Sector Alpha
Developer: Spectravideo Publisher: Spectravideo Platform: ColecoVision Released in US: 1983 This game has unused code. This game has hidden development-related text.

Sector Alpha is a rather rare ColecoVision title that had all of its cartridges shipped with a defect that prevented 10% of the game data from being accessed, which in turn resulted in all ROM dumps being corrupt until the issue was finally discovered in mid-2014. Not only did the game finally get a proper dump as a result, it was also discovered that a simple hack of the cart's PCB will allow the game to function as intended on real hardware.

(Source: AtariAge)

Sadly, this wasn't the only time a ColecoVision game was mass-shipped with a cartridge defect.

To do: Cover the uncalled 2KB of data on a Bugs page. Detailed here.

Unused Code

The code that makes the player character move and shoot in the demo is located in the uncalled data. As a result, the player character will do nothing while the demo plays (if it doesn't automatically end after starting).

Build Date

Present at 0x24:

25-08-83

(Source: Original TCRF research)