Okay, solved and this is one I recommend making more clear in the documentation. My issue was that I ALWAYS keep a wireless keyboard connected to my Retropie. It's just a tiny dongle taking one port so why not? It's so much easier for certain tasks.

However, I kept wondering why the test rom for Intellivision was reporting that I was on controller 2 and every other comment pointed to controller one. Then I noticed posts where people said that Daphne and Intellivion (jzintv anyway) assign the first controller they see, which in this case was the keyboard -- and that explained why the keyboard worked. Ugh.

@VictimRLSH That's interesting, but a totally different category of thing.

@SpudsMcToole
Just out of curiosity, which es_systems.cfg do you edit?

I always copy the original to /opt/retropie/configs/all/emulationstation and edit it there where it won't get reverted when running updates. Only thing is it also has to be manually updated/synced if additional systems are added as they won't show on the system list if not listed in the customized es_systems.cfg (I'll normally copy-paste from the original file to the copy once the new system is installed). It just saves some of the headache for the future if you have a custom system order you like and don't want to redo it after updating.

Two things. First...coming from someone who never had Coleco...This thing is so graphically superior to Atari its disgusting. Second...I figured it out by playing around with it. If you have a PS3 controller just copy paste this into the CoolCV Mapping file on the pie. If you dont like something on it just tweak but it works.

' CoolCV mappings for Colecovision controllers to keyboard and joystick
fullscreen no
joystick_1_vert joy0 axis1
joystick_1_horiz joy0 axis0
joystick_2_vert joy1 axis1
joystick_2_horiz joy1 axis0
up_1 key0 joy0_4
right_1 key0 joy0_5
down_1 key0 joy0_6
left_1 key0 joy0_7
left_button_1 key0 joy0_13
right_button_1 joy0_14
button3_1 key0
button4_1 key0
key1_1 key0 joy0_10
key2_1 key0 joy0_11
key3_1 key0 joy0_12
key4_1 key0 joy0_15
key5_1 key0 joy0_1
key6_1 joy0_8
key7_1 joy0_2
key8_1 key56
key9_1 key57
key*_1 key111
key0_1 key48
key#_1 key112
up_2 key119
right_2 key100
down_2 key115
left_2 key97
left_button_2 key9 joy1_0
right_button_2 key113 joy1_1
button3_2 key1073741939
button4_2 key1073741939
key1_2 key114
key2_2 key116
key3_2 key121
key4_2 key102
key5_2 key103
key6_2 key104
key7_2 key118
key8_2 key98
key9_2 key110
key*_2 key106
key0_2 key107
key#_2 key108
key_save key1073741882
key_restore key1073741883
key_exit key0 joy0_9
key_pause key1073741884
key_reset key8
key_rolling_controller key1073741886
key_record_video key1073741887
key_record_audio key1073741890
key_screenshot key1073741891
key_fast_disk key1073741889
key_sync key1073741885
key_codes key1073741888

@mitu Oke thanks for the tip i do this in the evening

@mediamogul Good idea on the directory thing. I may try that. From the sound of it online BlueMSX (which is libretro compatible) plays some of the carts. So maybe I'll try that first, and then switch over to Coolcv for other specific games that wont play.

100% agree that a pretty interface doesn't mean anything if the game runs like poo. It's just I've got so many of other systems running smoothly with overlays and fancy doodad's that the ones that don't drive me crazy in the back of my head. :)

Great idea!! I’m so building of of those one I finish this one!

@dcm91 I really don't know where the gamelist.xml will be placed because I have no idea how this image is set up. These files can go in 2 places, within each system ROM folder or in /home/pi/.emulationstation/gamelists/systemname. Or at least that's where they go in the standard image. They could be absolutely anywhere on a custom image. You'll just have to try it and see.

@mediamogul the flashback ones came in two small ziplock baggies. Then i put my homebrew ones in a small ziplock baggie as well.

OK, I see the coolcv_x86_64 and coolcv_i686 binaries in the latest "all" bundle.
Not sure how I missed this earlier.
In any case, coolcv isn't enabled on retropie x86, so I can't install it from the retropie_setup as it doesn't show up in any of the package lists.

Might be worth adding now? Perhaps try to determine which build would be required (i686,x86_64) at module install time?
Or perhaps just go with i686 for compatibility? (I hardly think it's going to stress the computer's memory :) )

@ProxyCell perhaps they called it coleco for brevity's sake.

Anyways it's unlikely that name will be changed as its been in the core of mess for a very long time and would break things.

I named it coleco in the systems here to maintain parity with mess as advmess also uses that system name. You can still theme it by colecovision in ES even if the system is called coleco in the backend.

Related see all systems here:

http://www.progettoemma.net/mess/sysset.php

@auswear https://github.com/retropie/retropie-setup/wiki/EmulationStation#how-do-i-change-the-order-of-the-systems-in-emulationstation