Leaderboard

Bear with me for a few! Overall it looks fine! About the scoreboard, during @ZeroPage Homebrew's stream (thank you James!) the question was raised about how custom game scores are saved. Throughout development it's been something I've tried to sort out myself, so seeing that rekindled my thoughts on it. Ideally I'd like to display each setting used per score but there's no room for that level of detail. However, I do have just enough room to include (and save) a game rating for the top 3 scores. I think this is worthwhile to include because the customization is a big part of the game. So that's where I'm at and I've got coffee flowing through my veins.

(I posted this on FB a few days ago but I realized not all of us are on there and some of you might appreciate this Inty adjacent content...) While not an Intellivision post, it's time for a mostly Mattel handhelds collection post as I've just built three new IKEA shelving units to house these. What started as me deciding to get the Mattel handhelds I had as a kid has predictably spiraled into ridiculous rabbit hole variation collecting. 😂 Every game on the shelves is unique, variants abound with these things. Sadly I'm aware of at least another 10-15 I'm missing. It never ends kids....

For the ones interested, I have created a thread about how a better cart dumper might work.

For the 2600 side, yes. But Stella doesn't emulate the 7800 and there still no info about what 7800 emulator will be in the console.

Here you are. They came to the party in a bunch of four, so almost entire RM crew showed up at the event. Here's what they said (note: words in brackets are from me). They will keep the (computer) release plan in 2024, now they are creating the (computer) design from scratch. They do not post too much on Twitter - it's company policy, they will post something when they have (any new) piece of information (if they can announce a significant progress in certain area). But we will finish this (project, assured one of them). We'll just do it, he said. Andrzej (Andrew, one of those guys) is working on a search engine (a menu for quickly launching programs); finding and running the software will be pleasant and fast. The bloke in the navy blue shirt is responsible for the PCB (motherboard) schematic, by the end of the month (Aug 2023) they will send the board to the fab, the prototype is to be tested next month. Lawyers are unnecessary for now, as they do not violate the IP's of other people or companies. They know some legal eagles just in case, but they keep them at bay. The platform (RM800XL) is based on FPGA, it will not be an emulator but a hardware representation of an Atari (800XL); the CPU will perform unstable (undocumented) opcodes, they are all to be included. There will be a second Pokey, but not a real one, as there won't be any vintage Atari IC's onboard RM800XL. There will be an HDMI and composite output, therefore it will be possible to hook up two monitors (simultaneously?). For developers, they are working on a built-in debugger with stepping through code. Also their goal is to maintain full hardware compatibility, all peripherials for the Atari 8-bit line of computers should work properly if connected (to the RM800XL). They are going to release a proto for selected people (beta testers): if any software won't perform (as on a real Atari), they will work to improve it (compatibility). Some idea popped up at the party: a contest for graphic artists to design a "splash screen" for booting (a computer in game selector mode), they are to announce (such) a contest in the future (probably on Twitter), and they will reward good works (it is not yet known how, but) not only with fame. Larek said that next year will be (a computer, physical product), although probably you shouldn't expect it in Q1 (wink ;). You can set up (the computer, Larek said) to boot in two ways: either to the browser (modern UI, e.g. a carousel type game selector), or (an option for diehard fans) to the Basic interpreter like a genuine 800XL does. And that was basically all. They encouraged the audience to ask questions, but there were hardly any.

https://www.virtualdub.org/beta/Altirra-4.20-test22.zip https://www.virtualdub.org/beta/Altirra-4.20-test22-src.7z Fixed bug with the standard disk emulator using 810 post-read timings for single density even with the 1050 profiles. This fixes a couple of disks that were very sensitive to read timings and previously only booted with the 1050 full emulator. Slightly improved timing accuracy of the full drive emulators. Added sector-under-head tracing. Fixed a bug where acceleration timing compensation was not working properly for disk burst I/O. This allows some disks to boot with burst I/O enabled that would previously fail timing checks. Fixed a bug in the standard disk emulator where the disk rotational position was being updated for motor-off time.

Hi guys. @ColecoGamer @SlidellMan @Reaperman @retrorussell @M-S @GoldLeader @wolfy62 @Mikebloke @Rick Dangerous @Punisher5.0 @GadgetUK @INTVCruise @Cobra Strike Down @thanatos @japangameonline @Darrin9999 @neogeo1982 @evilevoix @Madwindoman @NeonPeon @MarkoCG77 @joeatari1 @Hwlngmad @Steven Pendleton @OldSchoolRetroGamer @Songbird @electricmastro @masschamber @Tanooki @eightbit @128Kgames @Stage_1_Boss @Serguei2 @Steril707 @SoundGammon @SpicedUp! @Atarian7 @doctorclu @frankodragon @NeoPancho @Franjo @DJ Clae @Atarian7 @aduffy1976 DaemonClaw, a fantasy retro scrolling action title has been mentioned today will be available for the Neo-Geo, Mega Drive/Genesis, and other consoles to be played. Anthony...

I am sure the target audience for the 2600+ is more casual than the hardcore audience here. It has gained a fair amount of discussion on my channel, way more than the average video. Lots of fair points are being raised here on all sides. I for one am looking forward to testing this unit and have reached out to Plaion. If anything, this offers a modern device that can play Atari 2600/7800 carts. At the end of the day, more people are going to be playing Atari and for me that is a good thing.

Came up with a decent board layout for Stratego (as mentioned in a non-related thread). Some measure of color could be added too.

Over 10 years ago, I posted an Assembly Language code module for drawing circles. I used it in Christmas Carol for screen transitions and other effects. I believe it also made its way to some of @catsfolly's games, where he extended the routine to use Colored Squares mode. Fast forward to the present day, and I found myself in need of something similar for one of my projects. Because I was trying to develop my new project entirely in IntyBASIC (as a personal challenge and to force myself to learn the language), I decided to port it. However, rather than just port it from Assembly to IntyBASIC, I decided to go back to the original C source I found on the Internet and re-implement it from scratch. The result is the "Draw Circle" library, a software library for IntyBASIC programs for drawing circles. I added a bunch of new features and options to make it not only easy to use, but more versatile. Among these are: Support for all Intellivision color modes. Supports a number of input parameters that control the drawing behaviour. It can draw with using either a regular background card (from GRAM or GROM) or Colored Squares. It can also draw using data from a screen buffer (in an array variable or ROM data). Automatically clips when drawing outside screen boundaries. Supports limiting the boundaries to a smaller screen region (with automatic clipping). And as if all that wasn't enough, I wrote a user's manual that describes in excrutiating detail what it is, how to use it, and how it works -- and even a demo program that not only allows you to test the drawing routine, but showcases its utility and versatility with some fancy visual effects! I thought the whole circle drawing project was so cool that I decided to share it with everyone. At this point you may be asking yourself, why would I want to draw a circle? Well, just take a look at the videos below for some examples made entirely with the "Draw Circle" library. I intend to use variations of these effects in my own programs, for scene transitions, etc. I invite you all to use the library in your own programs. I can't wait to see what cool stuff you come up with! Here are some screenshots: Title screen: Test menu and parameter entry: "Card" and "Bloxel" circle tests: Visual effects menu: Visual effects "Color Bubbles" and "Ring Burst": Visual effect "Slide Show," slides illustrating mix of Color Stack, Colored Squares, GRAM and GROM pictures: Visual Effect #1: Color Bubbles Fills the screen with colorful bubbles that grow to random sizes. Circle - VFX 1.mp4 Visual Effect #2: Ring Burst Fills the screen with colorful rings that grow to random sizes and consume each other. Circle - VFX 2.mp4 Visual Effect #3: Sonar Pulse Simulates a sonar or radar pulse that appears to "ping" on top of the menu screen. Circle - VFX 3.mp4 Visual Effect #4: Color Transition Simulates a "closing circle" color transition that covers a scene completely. Circle - VFX 4.mp4 Visual Effect #5: Scene Reveal Simulates an "opening circle" transition that reveals one scene on top of another. Circle - VFX 5.mp4 Visual Effect #6: Slide Show By far the most complex of all effects, it simulates a slide show that cycles through various scenes taken from classic games, using a variety of circle transition effects and techniques. Circle - VFX 6.mp4 The above videos were recorded from the emulator. They seem to have dropped some frames, but I can assure you that the demos looks a lot better in person. The full source code for the effects is included with the demo program. Everything is meticulously (some would say, obsessively) commented and should be easy to follow. The vast majority of the complexity is encapsulated by the "DrawCircle" procedure, so making the effects is just a matter of plugging in some parameters in the input variables, and calling the procedure in a loop. Below is the code for the "Color Bubbles" effect, just to show how simple it all is, encapsulated in the "DoVfxColorBubbles" procedure: All code is similarly commented -- even the support routines and functions. If you find any of it useful, by all means, use it in your own programs. I have prepared two distribution packages: one for the IntyBASIC SDK, and the other for just the compiler and assembler. Download the Draw Circle Library: circle-sdk-1.2.2.zip - For use with the latest version of the IntyBASIC SDK (1.2.2). circle-IntyBASIC - 1.4.2.zip - For use without the SDK. circle.rom - ROM file of the demo program. Draw Circle Library - User's Guide.txt - Manual and User's Guide. For those using the IntyBASIC SDK, just drop the "circle" folder contained in the package above, into the "Projects" folder of your SDK installation, then use "intybuild" and "intyrun" to build and run. Many thanks to Alois Zingl, who wrote the algorithm (a variant of Bresenham's Line Algorithm applied to circles) and original C implementation from which my code is made; and who so graciously gave me permission to share it and re-distribute it. You can find information about Herr Zingl's circle drawing algorithm on his web site: http://members.chello.at/easyfilter/bresenham.html If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions, just let me know. Also, if you encounter any problems or bugs, you can post them below. Enjoy! -dZ.

I'm not a big fan of bezels as I've seen done in some cases, I think they are a bit distracting in emulators. I'd prefer just black be used, which I'm hoping is the case here. ..Al

The Retron is currently the best possible way for me to have Atari in the living room without putting a strain on my aging vintage equipment. I don't like messing with adapters, modifying electronic components, or jury-rigging unstable workarounds. I just want to play Atari in the living room like I've wanted to do since I was 8. The various Flashbacks have sucky controllers and don't include licensed games like Pac-Man, which I love and you can hate all you want. The new VCS is an unending source of frustration and disappointment. It never updates itself properly without requiring me to flash the BIOS every gd time, and after all that I'm still no closer to Pac-Man. As a way to play the 2600 library, it is suboptimal by every measure. I wish the Retron had a better paddle solution. I wish it supported driving controllers and keyboard controllers without some stupid-looking gearhead jumble of multiple dongles and cables and adapters. I wish the controllers in general were more robust. But they are better than the Flashback controllers, and I'm happy for what I'm getting and not fixated over what I'm not getting, which I suppose makes me the exception to the rule around here. Emulation isn't the same experience, but it's close enough, and if the options are emulation or no Atari once my 2600s and CRTs inevitably bite the dust, I will take emulation gladly.

Looks like Atari/Plaion is following the discussion. And reacts to it, which would be a good thing.

Wow.. pasofami.. that brings back memories. I got into the emulation scene back in probably summer 1996 or so... it was exciting times! And by that, I just mean playing them. It was like every other day new updates were coming out! It was exciting discovering new games via roms you never know about haha. I hadn't done much coding back then. It wasn't until 1999 that I picked up deving assembly Gameboy and Gameboy color (that was my first "console" I coded for homebrew). Watching PS/Saturn cores and now the new N64 development process over the past two weeks for MisTer kinda gave me the same vibes as those early days tho. I also, for the record, don't believe you have to code to actually understand hardware specs and how to use them. If it comes to effects that heavily rely on the CPU, then sure. But none of the SNES stuff here really involves that. But I do find that as an exception for most people. As in, simply most people don't care to be obsessed enough with old consoles at this deep of a level haha. And a lot of homebrew devs.. usually just want to make a game.. not necessarily 1-up on Rare. And I'm not a badass or anything (plenty of retro devs are my peers). And there ARE people I definitely look up to. I usually don't feel comfortable speaking on stuff unless I feel I have a very solid grasp and/or experience with it. I know his background. I've spent the last year seeing his "growth" by him asking the same question over and over again.. not fully understanding it. I watched him ask information of snes compared to MD from the community, and then immediately weaponizing that information (that he doesn't really understand) on YT comments and Twitter replies - harassing fans and devs... which he is every where anything retro dev related. Rather than taking the time to learn and understand, he wanted these shortcut answers. And got upset with "experts" for not giving him "simple answers". Maybe he's finally out grown that phase, but so weird to see a grown man whine about something like that - and having multiple mental breakdowns over it (got him temp banned). LMAO he kept saying "you get me?". Yeah, I get you alright. So yeah, while I don't think it's a requirement.. but knowing he does not know the smaller required details for pushing stuff like this (which aren't simple effects), his mock ups don't hold much value. Coupled with the fact that he has no problem misrepresenting the snes as more capable that it is.. because it benefits his agenda (and will argue against it when corrected).. is another reason why I'd what to see it running on the real hardware because he literally has no credit to his name. There's nothing wrong with concept exploring. Nothing wrong with wanting to inspire new ways of looking at things too. And there's definitely nothing wrong with using mockups to explore before getting into the real details. I mean it's kinda what devs do when pushing a system. But I not comfortable when people take what we know nowadays, and the tools we have nowadays, the crazy amount of rom we have nowadays, and no schedule like original devs had.. and pretend like this should have been done back in the day and devs are just dumb or whatever for not doing it or realizing it. He's got a bit of that arrogance about him (he's a visionary), besides trying to passing mockup stuff off as legit as if it was running on the real console. It's like bad sandwich of arrogance, ignorance, and irony. I don't get this whole console war thing, in 2023. I understand of a lil bit of fun snarky remarks back and forth between console fans. But this is some sort of mental regression obsession with the console wars of his childhood. I dunno. Maybe this dude had a mental break down back in 2010. Maybe he got into an accident and has brain damage (no, seriously... someone pointed out his publicly posted resume, kinda hints that something happened back in 2010). All I know is, everywhere he goes.. he eventually ends up alienating pretty much every one (who he's requesting help from). I mean, statistically speaking - there's bound to be a few people that feel sympathy for him. I originally did. But after being attacked multiple times on my channel, and in other places - and seeing him melt down over not getting simple answers or just straight not understanding facts... I don't. I probably shouldn't have called him an idiot and moron on here.. but he rather exhibit that behavior instead of an honest discussion to learn, grow, etc. Maybe it'll piss him off enough, that it motivates him to learn asm haha. I know some people will have sympathy for him, and I'm not going to fault anyone for that. Everyone has their level of tolerance. Apparently I found mine.. twice over. SNES dev scene isn't as big as the MD scene, so maybe they have more tolerance for people coming in like this. But if nothing else, dude has fortitude. I've wasted too much energy on this. Forgive the wall of text. I need to get back to dev stuffs. But yeah, I do feel like there's been a pickup in snes dev energy in the past year or so.

The!Cart Studio Update 2023-08-28 Available for Testing While "The!Cart Studio" is written in Java and runs where Java is available, having a native program version simplifies the usage for regular users. When macOS and Windows stopped supporting 32-bit applications some years ago, the existing native wrappers stopped working. I started working on a toolset that enabled me to create all native versions from a single Java source without copying and adapting countless files. I am happy to release the native 64-bit versions of "The!Cart" for Windows, macOS (Intel and ARM), and Linux based on my new toolset today. I've also reworked all English and German text documentation and program texts again for correctness and readability using Grammarly. This includes over 600 adaptations. The new version is available here for you to test.

now i see the problem , i made mistake - when selecting i save current weapon before checking if weapon is available. Problem is fixed. Moving around map works fine for me , directions work as they should. Menu wok correctly - when press esc, only menu is displayed but music still played from the level. Check this updated version !testdisk.atr

Inspired by Atari's compatibility list for the 2600+, I wondered how reliable auto detection for a dumper can become. Stella has some quite good auto detection (within ~3600 property entries, I count less than 30 entries which overwrite the auto detection, mostly Xin1 carts), but it is based on the whole ROM. Stella uses the file size and then looks for certain byte pattern. The dumper only sees 4K initially. So it cannot work like that. Instead it has to trigger hotspots and check the result. The dumper code for the R77 is known. It only detects 4K, F8 (8K) and F6 (16K). For that it triggers four hotspots ($1ff6..$1ff9), calculates the checksum of the dumped 3.5K (it avoids the first and the last 256 bytes) and if it is different, it knows it has detected a hotspot. Each hotspot pair ($fff6/$fff7 and $fff8/f9) clearly defines a bankswitching scheme (F6/F8). The spoiler shows the R77 code with my own comments. This could be extended to F4 (32K) easily. And I suppose it could be done for all kind of unique hotspot addresses. But how slow will this become? Brute force will most likely not work, this has to be done methodical (e.g. a following a decision tree). And how will it detect e.g. Activision's FE? Will it handle Xin1 carts work? How about carts with a menu, where the user selects the game? And Pitfall II and the ARM carts will most likely never work via a simple dumper. What are your thoughts and ideas here?

Just tell us a secret: which program.

*SIGH* It's monday

With the troubles you're having with the French postal service, have you tried turning it off and on again?

Yep, my bad, I was already editing my post while you posted. EDIT: No, I actually was remembering correctly: the official page didn't have any mention of emulation when it first appeared. The FAQ section looked like this (courtesy of the Intenet Archive):😄

What Atari should do is Beg Analogue to make a 2600/7800 FPGA system and license it or make a variant with a big Mount Fuji on it and some new controllers (also branded Atari) and then pay Analogue for a job well done while sending me one on the house as a Thank You!

It is my great pleasure to introduce you my entry for ABBUC Software Contest 2023. Time Wizard is a platformer game where the player can manipulate time. In-game story: Robots from the future are trying to change history to rule the world. The only salvation for humanity is you, the Time Wizard. You must go to the future to the world of robots to prevent the disaster. Your task is to collect all the energy stored in hourglasses so that robots cannot back in time. The mission is difficult but your advantage is the ability to manipulate time. You can stop it, rewind or restore the history. But be careful! Some objects are resistant to time manipulation and you cannot control them. During the game, press the fire button on your joystick to start the manipulation. With the button pressed, move left to rewind history or move right to restore the saved history. You can change the speed of the time shift by moving your joystick left or right. Release the button to restore the normal passage of time. If you die, press the fire button and move left to rewind. Press Start key to restart the level. Press Select key to go to the main menu. Additional description: In the main screen, it is possible to select one of the 15 levels. At the beginning all levels except the first one are locked. You must successfully pass the level to unlock the next one. To do it you must collect all hourglasses and go to the time portal. You have limited time to pass the level but remember that you can rewind time if you need. The time you don't use is your score for the level. The greater the value the better result. Sum from all levels is your total time visible on the main screen. Minimal requirements: Atari 8-bit computer or emulator with at least 128kB RAM. The additional RAM is required to store and restore the history of gameplay. Joystick or other manipulator in port 1 to control the game. Unprotected floppy disk to store the high score and unlocked levels is highly recommended.

I have a little "apron" of belly fat (called the panniculus according to Google) and I developed a small lump under it about a year ago or maybe a year and a half ago. I hoped it would eventually go away by itself. Around August 17, 2023, the lump started getting larger and very hot. As it grew, it got even hotter. It was so hot that it felt like it might burn my Nitrile glove covered hand if I left it on the lump for too long. I cleaned the area and put Neosporin on it a few times every day with a Nitrile glove on my hand. I also started eating a fresh clove of sliced raw garlic once a day beginning on August 20. I would eat a sliced clove of fresh garlic on steak or a hamburger once in a while at the last house I lived at in 2020/2021, but I kind of got out the habit after moving to the house I live in now. I don't know if it was the garlic or the Neosporin or both, but the lump got smaller each day. I thought I was getting better. On Thursday (August 24), the lump started leaking reddish stuff that smelled like a rotten potato, so I went to urgent care to see if they would put me on antibiotics. The person I saw there squeezed out as much as they could from the lump, then said that I needed to go to the hospital and have intravenous antibiotics. He said I'd probably have to stay at the hospital for a couple of days. After the usual long wait in the hospital waiting room and a scan of the general area (the kind where they inject contrast dye), I was put in a room and bag after bag of antibiotics were dripping into me until Sunday morning (August 27). The doctor walked into my room a little before 9 a.m. on Sunday and said that I could go home after the discharge papers were ready. That was good news because he told me on Saturday that I might have to stay until Monday or Tuesday. Later that day a nurse brought the papers and took the PICC line out of my arm. Some hospitals I've been to made discharged patients ride in a wheelchair, but not this hospital. The nurse said I could just walk out, so that's what I did. Now I'm taking an antibiotic pill every 6 hours at home. What did we learn? If you have a weird little lump in an embarrassing area somewhere below your belly button, even if you hate doctors messing around down there, get it checked out before it turns into something that could be deadly. Hospital Tidbits They were surprised at the hospital that I didn't have a fever. The quality of the nurses varied wildly. The nurses working at night were usually better than the ones working in the day. My last nighttime nurse (Saturday night/Sunday morning) was kind of angry that they put the PICC line right in the bend of my arm instead of higher up or lower down. I had to keep my arm perfectly straight or the alarm would go off. Made it hard to sleep. The PICC line in the wrong spot wasn't the only thing that made it hard to sleep. As you'd expect, there were people coming in and out of my room throughout the day and night. There were all kinds of random loud noises that would wake me up. Sometimes it sounded like two giants were playing catch with a dead body and they weren't very good at catching. I was right across from the nurses station and they'd be talking as loud as they could and laughing at the top of their lungs. Sounded like they were having a party day and night. One night it was as quiet as a library and I asked my nurse about it. She said the supervisor was there that night. It was nice to have a quiet nurse station for a while. I heard one of the nurses at the nurses station talking as loud as she could about one of the other patients. They were all giggling and laughing as she talked about how gross a procedure was. The Saturday daytime nurse looked at the IV stand like she was trying to solve a cosmic riddle. She had a look on her face like it was the first time she ever saw one. She was my daytime nurse Saturday and Sunday. The first morning, she shook up the antibiotic bag to get it ready, then she tried to hang it upside down and about a fourth of the bag squirted out all over her and the floor. She eventually figured out that the end with the long tube faces the floor since the patient isn't on the ceiling. She never called anyone to clean up the puddle. She just left it there for someone to possibly slip in. Next time, she ended up squirting some out of another antibiotic bag, but it wasn't as much as the first time. Watching her do anything was like watching a new feckless employee at McDonald's trying to use the register. Problem is, she wasn't new. I don't see how she hasn't been fired by now. Speaking of trying to hang bags upside down, this happened on Friday. They were also giving me saline since I was slightly dehydrated and the big bag was hanging off a green plastic thing to make it lower and the bag eventually fell off. Scared the crap out of me. I pushed the button for the nurse and a baby-talking lispy girl came in who looked like she could have still been in high school or maybe even middle school. She picked up the big saline bag and tried to hang it upside down. It was just too hard of a puzzle for her. One end has a place for hanging and the other end has a long tube coming out of it that runs to the patient. A child could figure it out in seconds, but not her. She was standing there banging the tube end up there, totally mystified. My Friday daytime nurse walked in and took it away from her and hung it up the right way. The hospital pharmacy was a complete joke. I have various important pills that my doctors have me take twice a day, but the hospital gave me something like one pill on Friday, a couple more on Saturday, and a little pile of pills Sunday morning. You're not allowed to take your own pills, but they won't give you the pills you're supposed to take twice a day. I ignored them and worked around the problem to keep myself alive. No wonder so many people die in hospitals. What did we learn? Some nutty-ass low I.Q. people might be working at your local hospital. If you catch a problem early, you may not have to go to the hospital and that means some moron won't have a chance to "accidentally" kill you. I don't consider it an accident when a person is so stupid and incompetent that they clearly shouldn't have a job in health care.

😏

I wish he would retire his Tasteful Nudes Monthly Club. I've tried to unsubscribe so many times over the years and that just seems to increase the number he sends.

Dear Slayer Edition team: We love you and support you and hope you don't take one idiot's comments to heart. We also really really really want to play Doom: Slayer Edition on our Jags. Thank you.

Thinking back to that time, I tend to agree that is was Pac-Man that first took the shine off the Atari for me. It made me start to doubt its capabilities. I think it reinforced in my mind the widening gap between actual arcade games and the 2600. Until then my young mind just imaged the differences were artistic rather than technical. If the home brew Pac-Mans we see today had existed then, I think my confidence in the platform would have lasted much longer. As it was, in the UK, home computing was starting to really take off and it wasn't long before I'd moved onto a Commodore 64 and never looked back for many a year. I entered my Atari dark ages, to borrow a term from the Adult Friends Of Lego community.

Rick, why don’t you just stop, please, just stop. You said you were leaving, nobody berated you or made any nasty comments, you just left silently, and all was well, AA returned to a more normal and peaceful place again. Then you return and within minutes we are back to the same old incoherent garbage, with you basically bringing the forums down. If you have nothing normal to say in public then just say nothing, communicate with all your member friends privately. Coming here and arguing with a well respected friend of many many of us is never going to do you any favours. Again, please, just say no more. Let it go.

Beautiful collection, maybe you also miss the store display.

I don't agree. The average customer will be old farts who played the console bitd, not Gen Z or Gen Alpha .... and already have original hardware and a decent cart collection .... probably svideo or rca modded. They will want this new 2600pus system to be able to play everything (2600, 5200, 7800) to hook them in imo. Original, Homebrews, Mods, Starpath etc. Else why buy it. Just buy old, 'cheap' original hardware with a 'cheap' mod to play on modern lcds. If they want to play Pitfall, they have to have the cart .... which means they likely already have original hardware if they have said cart. Just makes no sense to me.

Thank you, I thought I was the only one to notice it. I guess it's the obligatory gimmick of a new poster here, like ",,," for someone else. 😅 (or the signature of a bot 🤫)

All of which are valid points. However: While I agree with the general idea, the hard core base is also the one most likely to own the original hardware. That makes it difficult to see where the appeal is for that particular group.

Except for the real thing, the R77 provides the maximum compatibility, because you can load any game from the SD card and have the latest emulator installed. The cartridge port (dumper) is more or less a gimmick. Maybe the 2600+ one's is or will become better than the one of the R77, but it will never get as good as a SD cart. It is a marketing gimmick, which also allows Atari to sell physical carts. And the uninformed customer may get a nostalgic feeling when he plugs in one of his old carts.

Not a problem. Some people will say E.T. and a bunch of people will respond how they love it and then some people will say Pac-man and others will say that it's actually a good game if you don't compare it to the arcade Pac-man. Mythicon games come up at times and it's hard to defend them (they all seem the same to me but someone will claim one of them isn't so bad - I forget which one). For me it's Sssnake. I don't know that it's really the absolute worst although it's clearly bad. It's the worst for me because I took hard earned money to the mall back in the day when I didn't have much money and for whatever reason picked this piece of crap to buy (it was on sale but I had a bunch of other games to choose from that were priced similarly). For the past 40 years I've been saying Sssnake sssucks.

I would like to present you my entry for ABBUC Software Contest 2023.

By some miracle, I found both the TI-99/4a Calc on tape and now the Console Writer cartridge. It was almost as if someone was listening...or maybe like Crazy Eddie said, it was indeed Christmas in August! Thanks for all your input!

This really was an excellent interview. @Cousin Vinnie & @Silver Back, thanks for putting it together - and thanks also to @TailChao for the insight into the development process behind the game! All I can say is that that's serious dedication, and it shows.

This week I played: Pokemon Gold Version for Game Boy Color - 509 minutes Progress: I leveled up multiple Pokemon until they evolved, bringing my Pokedex total to 163.

NES Reknum Souls Adventure - 460min Roniu's Tale - 35min Burgertime - 20min Tetris - 20min Atari 2600 Centipede - 30min

There’s never been a better time to own a 7800.

A.R.T.I. supports multi button controllers - Linky (Snes2Atari and Mega7800) Bernie & the Tower of Doom will support them in the next demo. PETSCI RObots supports Snes2Atari All of my current & future project will support SNES (via SNES2Atari) + Megadrive (via Mega7800) controllers, even if its nothing more than convenience of being able to pause from the controller.

Here are my times for this week (August 21st through 27th, 2023) on classic systems: MS-DOS: J-Bird - 49 min. in 3 sessions PC*Bert - 20 min. Q*Bert - 24 min. in 2 sessions All games I've played this week on classic systems are clones of Q*Bert. First I played the official version by Parker Brothers, but this was screwed up somehow, as I probably already wrote last week. In Level 3, however, you get a deal breaker... because some cubetops are displayed in wrong colors! Cubetops that actually get reverted back to being red stay yellow, which would be the destination color. Thus you get into a situation where all cubetops appear in their destination color, but you don't advance to the next round because some cubetops that appear to be yellow actually have been reverted to red. Then we have PC*Bert from 1997 which is pretty close to the arcade original Q*Bert, but it's clearly made for faster systems since even if you run DOSBox on 3000 cycles, there will be slowdowns especially when the creatures are "talking". On the other hand, it will probably not run natively on Windows 10 or 11 64-biut, being a 16-bit software itself. However, I still have to check this. In comparison to that, J-Bird is so much better... non-moving objects do not flicker, they always move consistently, and there are also no slowdowns, helped by the fact that you don't have to throttle down Dosbox on this one... it always runs at the correct speed, no matter how fast your PC is. Overall, this unofficial clone is much more enjoyable than the official one by Parker Brothers.

A small update on this: So far I haven't been able to get in touch with @Shamus so I can't do much on that front. At least I have pushed what I believe are the latest commits for both rmac and rln on the gitlab mirrors. So if anyone wants to build from source, the gitlab repos are the "official" ones for now. (Of course there are also the prebuilt binaries on the official website) That is all for now. [Edit] I have also set up some contigency repos at the website, so you can "git clone http://rmac.is-slick.com/git/rmac" and "git clone http://rmac.is-slick.com/git/rln" respectively.

I don't know how much involvement the Atari company or brand was involved in this, but I absolutely love the Atari/Microcenter all in one arcade stick/trackball/spinner controller with low lag and multiple ways it presents itself to whatever system you're using.

I had to kick my computer because I thought it was skipping Yeah my feeling too. Although it could just be environmental changes caused by the trip from the seller to the buyer. I also found a good article that goes into some detail about the mylar, the LED, and the console keys that might very well apply in this case, and provides some insight into how to fix the problem. EDIT: the LED problem was also mentioned earlier in this thread. https://maniana.net/atari/extending-life-span-of-your-8bit-atari-mylar/

Best to ignore those who are bothersome, advice I should better heed myself. If it seems illogical it probably is. Besides, half of them will switch over and buy it anyway, just like I did.

Not much for me this week Atari 2600: Dragon’s Descent 15 Atari 7800: Galaxian 15 Astro Fighter 10 Tunnels of Hyperion 5 Ikari Warriors 5

Good news: I just got confirmation from Plaion that it is the latest version 6.7.

Caverns of Eris.... (one year of work)