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Greetings! I have an important announcement to make to the AtariAge community, and I'll cut right to the chase: AtariAge has agreed to be acquired by Atari, and I have come on as a full-time employee at Atari. This won't be a surprise to some of you, given the speculation I've seen over the past month. The first thing I'd like to say is that this is not a decision I made lightly! If you asked me 20 years ago if I would have considered working for Atari (much less selling AtariAge to Atari), I would have said no. But fast forward to the present, and this is the first version of Atari I've seen since the 1980s that is taking many positive steps to restore the magic that we all associated with the original company, the Atari that left so many of us with enduring memories of experiencing the Atari 2600 for the first time, learning how to program on an Atari 800, or pumping quarters into the amazing arcade games produced by Atari in the heyday of arcades. Atari is now taking its retro-related IP seriously and is creating a wide array of hardware and software based on that IP, while also creating new, original content. It is very exciting to see Atari release the 2600+, a new 2600 you can feed actual cartridges, and without giving anything specific away, this is just the beginning of what we're going to see from Atari going forward. Atari, for the first time in years, is targeting and embracing enthusiasts like ourselves, while also making products that appeal to those who grew up with Atari and have a fond nostalgia of the brand, but aren't steeped in retro gaming as we are. I am very excited to be working for Atari, and with Atari's resources I will be able to make significant improvements to AtariAge over time. This also opens up many new opportunities for homebrew developers, where original games created by the amazingly talented community at AtariAge will have a much broader audience. My role at Atari will be multifaceted, but my primary tasks, especially early on, will be to operate AtariAge as I have been doing for the past two decades. This includes managing the forums and the AtariAge Store. Longer term, I will have more time to significantly update the games database, something I've wanted to do for some time, but simply have not had the bandwidth for. And I will be moving the store early in the new year to a new ecommerce platform, something I’ve wanted to accomplish for a while now. Since AtariAge’s modest beginnings in April, 2001, AtariAge has grown significantly. The early version of the site only contained the games database and forum, with the store coming later with a handful of titles. Fast forward to 2023, and I've published hundreds of games for a variety of consoles, and that shows no signs of slowing down. There is an incredible community of talented developers, consisting of programmers, pixel artists, musicians, sound engineers, artists and designers all weaving their magic to create amazing games with stunning packaging. It is remarkable the talent that is involved in creating these new games, as well as new hardware, and I am honored that so many have allowed me to publish their games in physical form in the AtariAge Store over the years. And the store has allowed AtariAge to exist without placing advertising on the site, and we intend to maintain that ad-free policy going forward. While I have greatly enjoyed running AtariAge and the amazing community that has evolved throughout this journey over the past two decades, it's taken an increasingly large amount of my time to manage. I had come to a point where I needed to make some sort of change, and I began scheming on ideas that would help reduce the amount of time it takes me to build and ship games. And I really have not been happy that the games database has languished over the years, as that was always an enjoyable area of the site for me to work on. Early last year, Atari approached me about the possibility of working more closely together. Talks were slow at first, but they accelerated at the beginning of this year, and after months of going back and forth, we finally worked out a deal that benefits both parties. What does this mean? Short-term, nothing is going to change. I will continue running the entire AtariAge website, including the forums and the store. Nothing is going to be neutered in the forums, and Atari will not have access to personal conversations, private forums and clubs, and so forth. No content is going to be removed from the forum, and those posting content will be liable for anything they post (which was already the case). I will also be running the store, building games, shipping games, and publishing new games for the store. In fact, I am currently working on releasing over 20 new games on a variety of platforms for the upcoming Portland Retro Gaming Expo. Over time, and with Atari’s help, I will be able to more efficiently produce and ship these games, without sacrificing quality (which is very important to me). This will free up more of my time to make improvements to other areas of AtariAge, as well as embark on new and exciting projects. Working with Atari was one of several possible solutions to bring some sanity back to my life. Other possibilities included shutting the site down and walking away, taking the store down and leaving the forum and games database, or some combination of the above. Or I could have just sold the site to some entity, whether it be Atari or another company or individual, without further involvement from me. However, it was very important to me to find a solution that allowed me to keep the forums and store running with my involvement. Working with Atari was the best way to do so while working towards the goal of reducing the hours I am working every week, while opening up new and interesting ways for Atari and AtariAge to work together that weren’t available previously. AtariAge will still have a large, 45' x 30' booth at the Portland Retro Gaming Expo this year, which is 50% larger than any booth we've had in the past. And I expect this to continue each year going forward, with the possibility of attending additional events during the year rather than just PRGE each year. One fun thing we're going to do this year with this extra space is have several Atari 2600+ consoles on display, complete with a large assortment of games to play on them, including homebrew games. As I mentioned above, this does open up some new avenues for homebrew authors. For instance, Atari is interested in bringing more content to their VCS platform, and a few homebrew authors have already been working with Atari to sell their games on the VCS (such as with Amoeba Jump and Tower of Rubble). And such arrangements don’t affect the AtariAge Store. I still plan on offering digital downloads in the store once I get the store moved to new software, which will be a primary focus of mine once I get through several other major tasks (such as surviving this year's PRGE). There's also the possibility of original homebrew games being released in physical form under the Atari label if they do well in the AtariAge Store. With the new 2600+ console, Atari is certainly interested in compelling, original content to augment that platform, and of course the XP line will continue along as well. And I anticipate many other interesting possibilities over time as well. I feel this will greatly benefit the homebrew community, homebrew authors, and everyone who loves seeing new games for the Atari 2600 and other classic systems. I want to thank all the homebrew developers who have allowed me to publish their games in the AtariAge Store over the years. You are a very important reason why AtariAge still exists and has thrived, and why AtariAge remains a free and ad-free website. It’s very rewarding to help authors realize their games in physical form with beautiful packaging, and your creations have helped keep the Atari 2600 and many other classic consoles and computers fresh in our minds. I look forward to working with all of you to further expand the library of amazing games for our favorite classic consoles and computers. I also want to express my extreme gratitude to the moderators who have helped maintain some semblance of sanity over the forums all this time, especially the global moderators who have purview over the entire forum. I greatly appreciate the time you have put into the forum, as it's impossible for me to see everything that is posted. Without you, the AtariAge forums would likely not still exist! Here’s to another 20 years of discussing a wide variety of retrogaming topics on AtariAge! Thank you for reading and take care, ..Al

<at the next quarterly Atari meeting> "...to capitalize on consumer and investor interest in Artificial Intelligence, we have purchased the AI that runs AtariAge. This acquisition will herald in a new age of customer relations for our product." <TrogdarRobusto raises hand> "ummm.. don't you mean 'AL', short for 'Albert'.. not AI?" <corporate finance guy looks at screen> "Sonofa.. what font is this?"

Not a FAQ but here's a quick summary (not necessarily in chronological order) to help people catch up... Congrats Al! I hate Atari, I'm out of here Can we still talk about Intellivision? This good for Al and us Corporate greed will takeover, I'm out of here Can we still talk about Colecovision? Yay! Good news Corporate bastards will wreck everything, I'm out of here Can we still talk about the TI-99? Congrats Al Terrible day, just as I predicted. I'm out of here Can we still talk about Vectrex? What tacos do you like?

There seem to be about a half dozen threads like this, each in a different section of the forum. Albert already explained himself in the big thread, where there are almost 500 responses last I looked. Of all of them — and for some perverse reason, I’ve read them all — this is the most “downer” of all of them, and seems to represent about 10% of the people talking. Why worry about the loss of community before it happens? Wouldn’t you rather contribute to making the site what you want it to be, leading by example? The people are the same, so what difference does corporate sponsorship make?

Shucks. I was sure that was going to win you back! I came in about halfway through the VCS era. It took a while to change Atari's posture in social media from block and ban to discuss and engage. We have a much thicker skin now. Anyone who made personal attacks against individuals was typically banned, but that is a universal practice not specific to Atari. If we need to unblock accounts feed them to me and I will make it happen. The communications around the VCS were ... not to my taste. I think it is a cool retro device that does some neat things. I have one in my living room I use exclusively for streaming tv and movies from all the various things I subscribe to. The one stop shopping via Google Chrome is awesome, for me anyway. I have one in my office I use for gaming, but it gets less use. A really dedicated community has formed around the VCS, and we are doing our best to feed content into the store. I do think it should be a good platform for homebrew games to be sold and showcased, same with indie games. And if we can extend the ecosystem around it to add more utility even better, which is our goal. The curse of the VCS was timing. It came to market when manufacturing and parts costs kept rising, really the entire supply chain was a nightmare. It is certainly open to criticism. I have my issues with it -- and if we were going to do a VCS mark 2 it would be different (my wish list includes easier access to memory and SSD slots, fan-less performance that we were promised with the Ryzen but was not realistic, better processor). Really, Atari has a history of creating hardware that tries hard to do something novel, and not all of them hit the mark. But they all make a good faith effort, and even odd ducks like the Jaguar still have a passionate fan and developer base (Jagfest 2023 anyone?). I am over-responding to your initial post, but ... I do that. My point is that there is nothing wrong with asking tough questions. We are getting all sorts of criticism in this thread about how we implemented the 2600+ ... bring it on. All valid discussion. Sometimes a product is exactly what it was meant to be and also doesn't check the boxes of certain user groups. That may be the case here. This is meant for mass market / retro enthusiasts. The 2600+ is super easy to use, pretty damn affordable, has a solid build quality, and kicks out a crisp, clean HDMI image. You can compare it to a Hyperkin all day long from a functional stand point if you want, but once you get one in your hands you can see that they are very different beasts. Will we listen to criticism and recommendations and adapt to better meet the needs of the developer community? I bet we will. We can't win you back in a day, it is going to take a while. I think it is worth the time and the effort.

Some screens: Slayer on left, JagDoom on right: All with that sweet Doom music playing Vapourware? Hardly.

Been doing label art here since the 2000s and wondering after Atari comes in can I still do label art works like before?

Holy cow! It's the day after the announcement of your acquisition and you're already driving him to do more work. Greedy corporate bastards!

This is a lot, I'll give it a shot and hopefully I don't sound defensive or flippant because I appreciate your passion for Atari and what you want it to be (what we all want it to be). -- we are making games again, which the community wants and we want. Game development is a big part of what made the Atari brand what it is, and in order to sustain the brand and keep it relevant for another 50 years we need to return to our roots in gaming. So no argument there. We released around 20 games in the last 30 months. Some of them are smaller Recharged games, which I think are really solid and also were a perfect place for us to start (smaller games we knew we could do well). Now the games are getting bigger. Lunar Lander: Beyond, Haunted House and Days of Doom are really interesting, really good games. Mr Run and Jump (just released) is rocking an 81 in opencritic and metacritic. We are working with Jeff Minter again (Akka Arrh released in February and a new title coming next year). And they all go through QA, and the reviews tend to be good to very good. And we play them, a lot, I promise you. Maybe your software QA comment relates to the VCS? -- I can't litigate the VCS launch after the fact. There were a lot of issues with the OS rollouts. It was a small team, they did their best. So much energy went into dealing the supply chain nightmare during that period and I know it robbed time from software development. You can bang on about that all you want, we can't change the past. And while that project preceded the current management team, we learned a lot from it, I can assure you. -- We haven't abandoned the VCS, the community that formed around that platform is super passionate and always hungry for more content. If you want to advocate for specific compatibility, I'd do it in the VCS Discord. Not everything we are asked to do make sense for us, but every suggestion made in good faith is considered. The product is what it is. It can only be stretched so far into other use cases. There are a lot of people who wanted the VCS to be the next Switch or PS5, that was not the goal, nor was it a realistic goal. Doesn't mean it cannot find its niche and live on like so many other Atari platforms do. -- I appreciate that the hard core community wants some new Jaguar hardware. Maybe (not my role in Atari). But hardware projects take time and money and you don't take them on lightly. There is no quick win in hardware development. Our attitude is anything worth doing is worth doing well, so we are going to take a thoughtful approach to these projects and not just fire them out. To your point, do you want a mini-Jaguar or do you want a Jaguar Flashback? I bet I know the answer. We have a roadmap of projects that are going to be done in an order the team thinks makes the most sense, and probably is tied to the relative commercial prospects of each. -- You aren't going to like everything we do. Some of the things we do you would have done differently. We are going to make the decisions we make, and see how it plays out. Right now, the Atari 2600+ is looking like a hit based on preorder volume. Does it have everything you want it to? No. Will we modify it in the future? Maybe. Will we make something else that does have the functionality you want? Maybe. We will discuss it with you and the rest of the community. And that represents positive change I hope. -- Our licensing team is very, very focused on quality. You referenced some strong partners like Retrocade. The new Atari 50 Arcade1Up is solid, we had it at PAX, and it is selling really well. Lego. Cariuma. Quality is the north star here, so keep an eye on this space because things have changed. -- We are in dialogue with the community, you can expect that only to increase. We know it is important. -- We do respect this community. Without this community the brand probably would not have made it through the dark periods in such good shape. So, we owe a debt to the fan and developer community. --

Another small update, a screenshot wouldn't have worked for this. We now have animated wall textures back in too 🙂

Oh you want more?

Yes, and he doesn't need anyone's permission to sell them. ..Al

Did I not warn of what would happen via the tagging?

For clarity: the 'our' above should read 'my', as @BIGHMW is the only person who actually refers to the console by that name. He did get ownership of the pet name for the 7800 correct, however.

Apparently some fans of other consoles see my 7800 "101 sprites demo", and conclude that a large number of sprites is only possible when the background is black/solid. It's the same old shared-bus cycle-stealing rhetoric from people that haven't coded anything for the 7800. They look at a single 7800 wiki page, stay at a Holiday Inn Express, and all of a sudden they're 7800 gurus who "know" it's impossible that the console has any useful strengths. As a response I put together this Sixty-Nine Eighty-Six Sprite tech demo, which has 86 animated sprites, a detailed background, rmt music playing, and a scroller. Enjoy! Play it live in your browser thanks to JS7800! (if it doesn't play music, hit the reset button - some browsers mute sound until you interact) Or download it to play in your favourite emulator or flashcart... EightySix.a78 [rom update 1 - changed one of the sprite palettes] [rom update 2 - fixed the spelling of Gollum. Whoops!] [rom update 3 - updated from 69 to 86 sprites] [rom update 4 - minor typo]

Right after they call Nintendo back and say "you know what? Actually we DO want to distribute your Famicom in North America!"

Congratulations Albert! I woke up today after sleeping in late because I tend to be up all night on the computer but I first heard of this from seeing this article headline 😲 https://www.gamesindustry.biz/atari-acquires-atariage Atari acquires AtariAge Publisher picks up retro community, brings site founder Albert Yarusso on board as internal historian not knowing if it was just some article either flat out lying for clicks or making assumptions, either way obviously I had to head run on over here only to find these new threads and the site a buzz with all the news so here we are. I know many speculated that something like this might be in the works but seeing it in print as well as obviously the threads here confirming everything still seems almost surreal. Personally, I am excited to see where this takes the site and I am happy for you as I have no doubt this decision was made with much consideration and thought. So if you see this as an opportunity to evolve and move the site forward, well then, I will be here for the ride wherever it takes us, it's like an adventure but most of all, I think whatever current form Atari is today this is definitely one of their smarter moves imho and I am glad that they see the value of bringing you and Atariage into the fold! Change is constant, everyone will have their own ideas on what this means but I have faith in your decisions.

I've never really wrote any code for the Atari 400/800 computers, so this is my first look into the hardware and software by using Pharaoh's Curse as a learning example. 6502 I knew via the C64, etc, but I knew almost nothing about the graphics and sound capabilities. Documented source code for Pharaoh's Curse for the Atari 400/800 computers. Requires the CA65 assembler to compile. I am using a Macintosh, but it should work on other operating systems as well or with trivial changes. I also wrote some Python scripts to extract the artwork, etc. If you like to have a look into the earlier development of games, this seems to be fun. https://github.com/sarnau/PharaohsCurse Interesting "cheat": press Control-Shift-9 to immediately "win" the game… It shows the end of game animations. I also attach all 16 levels as an image. That was generated by one of my scripts.

It's great that Albert is still running AtariAge. Until that changes, I can find more important things to worry about... 🙂

Culture is important. It is very much a topic of discussion within Atari. Al is on the team now, such a great and critical link. We speak with homebrew developers more, like Dennis and Mike. We can go further and will. Atari historians like Marty and Tim (and Al). Matt on prototypes. We just launched the Atari Club. It feels like we are getting the band back together ... but it will take time and I know you can't pre-judge the outcome. Culture is also not static, so it will shift very slowly over time as we fold younger audiences into the brand. And hold us to it. Let us know when we are sounding tone deaf or off culture. We can handle the constructive criticism. Off topic perhaps, but perhaps not ... no one inside Atari refers to this company as Atari SA ... that feels like a purposeful dig. Not saying that is how you are using it. But to me it is like when people refer to Atari as Infogrames or "the company that used to be Atari" or "French Atari." These alternatives names that are meant to say "you aren't the real Atari and you never will be." If Atari ceased to exist in 1979 when Nolan left the company then why are where are we all here? Just call us Atari.

Thank you so much! I do have to say whenever this is brought up, that if it weren't for @Kurt_Woloch doing the entire pinball movement and physics, this probably would not have been completed. He is incredibly smart! Bob P.s... I had finally acquired the actual arcade cabinet not long after the game was completed. It needed a lot of work, but I got it up and running 😀

With the Jaguar it wasn’t just abandoned, it was made public domain when Hasbro released all rights to the Jaguar in 1999, as explicitly stated in the press release below some 24-years ago. It seems as current Atari is reclaiming the cat’s logo trademark, which is why clarification is definitely needed.

While I appreciate the discussion of comparing the 2600+ to the Retron 77 and other devices, that's beyond the scope of this thread. Feel free to start a new discussion if this isn't already being discussed somewhere on AtariAge. Thank you, ..Al

Why would we stop it? Hell, we’ll probably be asking Al for your contact information about future projects.

Thank you for being so open and available. Looking forward to what you'll be doing in the future.

Here's the maze, and the ghost/fruit points, with artifacting adjustments.

I saw the news on an article last night and immediately felt sick to my stomach. I could feel nearly 10 years of my life and times spent on here slipping away in an instant. I can tell you, having spent some time around corporate America, that this is not good news for us, the enthusiasts. The bottom line is money, and getting more of it from people. Mainly mainstream consumers, but also from us, the hobbyists. The winners here are #1--Atari, #2 and to a much lesser extent, Albert. I assume they made him an offer he couldn't refuse. For us, the enthusiast. It's a loss. Already there are less homebrews available, the roms are gone, the Harmony cart is gone from the store. It's a corporate site, not an enthusiasts site. Companies are not so into free. SUCH. A. BUMMER. It's like when a company goes public and tries to drum up excitement among the employees about it....then a few months later the layoffs start inevitably happening because the shareholder is now number one. Our layoff equivalent here are the freedoms and fun and creativity and sharing that took place on this site. I don't blame Albert one bit; money is real, you can use it to take care of yourself and your family, for a better life, etc. I might well have done the same thing. For the community and this forum, I think its a huge and unfortunate blow. Will give it a few months before final judgement, but as mentioned above, indicators are trending in the wrong direction.

Hey guys... you flood Al with endless questions: lets get him back to work! He still has to ship tons of packages, among others mine! 😋

Atari has an office in Paris and an Office in New York, but most of our team is based in the US and remote. The CEO is Wade Rosen. I encourage you to read some of his interviews from the last year, they will give you a sense of who he is and what is important to him. I can also say that Nolan Bushnell is an advisor to Atari and we speak with him regularly. We feel a spiritual bridge between what he founded and what we are doing our best to revitalize.

I'm a bit dubious of the 'goodness factor' of the news myself. Call me a pessimist, but I have worked at several places that were taken over by a larger corporations, and although it's all rainbows and unicorns in the beginning - stuff changed, and it wasn't good in the end. But I can be bought just like anyone else, so if the new Atari would reinstate manufacture of the Pokey chip that was earlier suggested, and sell it for $10 or less you've got yourself a follower BTW, @Albert I love what you created and maintained for all these years. Truly great stuff 👍

I can't think of anyone better than Al as a historian and consultant for new projects. After all, his name starts with "Yar"!

As a member of the Stella team, I am less than thrilled by this news. Atari is using Stella to power the 2600+, and they certainly ain't paying for it, and they aren't exactly upfront about what emulator is powering their product either. Now, I am not saying this because I want to complain, I licensed my code as GPL when I contributed it to Stella, they have every right to do so, but the point is that this is a company. They have a business plan, their goal is earning money, they won't give away anything for free if it can be monetarized and if they need resources they will try to get them as cheaply as possible. That's how companies have to work as part of our economic system, and I am fine with it. However, I absolutely don't like it when people try to whitewash this as idealism. Up to now I have been thinking about a community driven place that was about preservation, enthusiasm and passion. If I invest time I do it for myself and for the community. Now AtariAge is owned by Atari, and while I am happy for Al for this opportunity, the mere fact changes the game. Now, if I invest time I am at least partially giving it a company without getting anything back in compensation. While I wish this place all the best, I am almost sure that, sooner or later, the need for return-of-invest will seep through and change it.

Do long time AA members get a cut of the check Al got from Atari for helping grow this site?

Tim is actually helping us source artists now for new key art. We usually do two illustrations per game, so we have an alternate for special physical versions. Atari created key art, we need to return to that standard from the golden era. That is a big focus, and important to me personally. We may not always nail it, but we are trying.

So I've had 24 hours to ruminate on this (and I do live in the Midwest, so we have a lot of rumination to go around, you can throw a rock in any direction and hit a cow) and a lot of lively feedback on my YouTube video (thanks for that whether you're on the forums or not) so I'm going to add a few more cents. 1.) It appears @TrogdarRobusto is a good dude. I don't know his official title with the current version of Atari, but if he's a representative of that Atari, it gives me continued good faith in the decision @Albert made for the future of AtariAge. 2.) Speaking of "the current version of Atari" there is much hay to be mowed here. Now I've been open about this subject so it's no secret - you can watch my Atari VCS unboxing and I say it there - this Atari is not the Atari we grew up with. I don't need to lay out the whole timeline of sales, acquisitions, mergers, reverse mergers, bankruptcy, asset liquidations, restructuring and new acquisitions. This site has a wealth of knowledge about that and so does the internet at large. I think for my own sanity my dividing line is when Atari stopped making consoles with the Jaguar. That's "classic Atari" for me even if they were already very different from the company of the 1970's and early 80's by then. Others will have their own definition. I think this ultimately proves the definition of what "Atari" is to you is malleable. No two people will 100% agree. 3.) As someone who started collecting Atari after the Jaguar ceased production, met both of the Als at CGExpo in Vegas, and became a forum poster from the very earliest days of the website, I could easily be skeptical of the current Atari buying AtariAge. But I think that's where I refer back to #2 - what is Atari to you? To me it's classic consoles, computers, and games. I'm not saying this Atari is our 1265 Borregas Avenue Atari, but here's what I like about this Atari -- they are respecting the legacy of those classic consoles, computers, and games. It's not perfect. It can't be, because of #2, but I see a good faith effort in things like the Atari 50th Anniversary on Switch, Xbox, PS5. The games play well. The interviews and behind the scenes footage are well preserved and fascinating to watch. The timeline lays it out for people who weren't there. It's hard to look at it and go "man this Atari is taking a dump on everything we love." They're not. 4.) You can love or hate the current Atari's products, but even as someone who collects all things Atari, my rose colored glasses aren't so tinted that I think "everything Atari did in the 70's, 80's, or 90's was good." Man they made some colossal blunders, some very questionable decisions, and some incredibly poor choices. Even when they made better products than the competition they didn't go about marketing or supporting them the right way, dooming them to failure from launch. Whatever the current Atari is, let's judge them for what they do now, because they deserve to succeed or fail on their own merits. Call them Atari 2.0 if you like, I think it fits. They're not the old Atari, but they acknowledge their predecessors, and even if their respect for history is out of financial interest it's better than having no respect for history at all. 5.) There are obvious downsides to a corporate overlord. I'm not predicting doom and gloom, but I can certainly understand all the concerns raised here and elsewhere. I can tell you this much though -- if AtariAge were to be crushed by the new regime, the community here wouldn't disappear, they'd just form AtariAge 2.0 somewhere else. That's why I'm not going to be pessimistic. We will thrive regardless. I'm happy for @Albert though and I think he made this decision very carefully and very thoughtfully. He didn't rush it. That to me is the best indicator things will go well for everyone. Look at the possibilities this opens up -- digital rom sales, homebrew games licensed for wider distribution, and new products or consoles we can't even currently imagine. I'm excited to see how it plays out.

By the way, serious props to Al who is also answering questions non-stop in the AtariAge Facebook group. We need to let him get a little work done, he is still prepping for PRGE.

We have a signed contract with BBG for Boulder Dash. Same with Lode Runner and Tozai Games. ..Al

Yes, absolutely, nothing about that is going to change. Remember, Atari did create a lot of software for third-party consoles and video game platforms back in the 80s! And they are doing that now with modern platforms. And even if that weren't the case, Atari has no desire to prune the forum in any way, and neither do I, of course. This is just one of the issues we discussed at great length before anything was agreed to and signed. ..Al

Some E7 from the starting door.... Because it should be a SPECTRE!!!

This is something that the current incarnation of Atari really needs to stop doing: reusing the names and model numbers of past systems. Not only are these not the same as (or even really related to) the machines that originally carried these designations, it makes trying to dig up relevant info regarding the original ones that much more difficult. "VCS 800" was particularly egregious; it managed to screw up searches for not only the original VCS, but also the 800 and 800XL computers.

I just saw this news. I'm of two minds about it. The first is a congratulations to Albert on what I'm sure was a pretty difficult decision. I don't know how old Albert is, but I know that financial security is something that we all need as we approach retirement age. Running a site like this sustainably can't be easy. Having a payday while still being able to do the thing that you love as a full time paid job is the best of both worlds. So I don't begrudge him the decision and I hope this grants him the financial and job security that he needs for the future years. My second take is not optimistic. I've been a member here for about 16 years. Not a subscriber nor terribly active, but I've used AtariAge as a resource for many years. AtariAge is an amazing resource. I don't think it can be overstated how important Atariage has been to the preservation and continuation of the legacy of the various Atari platforms. I seriously doubt the Homebrew community would have developed so robustly if it weren't for this website and Al's stewardship of it. The amount of knowledge contained in the forums here is immense and Incredibly valuable. I've been around long enough to have seen what has happened to numerous other fan forums and websites that were acquired by corporations. I can't think of a single one that ended well. The problem here is that the current iteration of Atari might be trying to be consumer friendly, but that isn't long-term guaranteed. I think it was mentioned earlier in the thread that attitudes at Atari have changed since the new CEO took charge. That's great for now, but what happens if you get a new CEO who wants to take the company a different direction? Will AtariAge go the direction that NintendoAge did? This website is not in the hands of a die hard fan any longer. It's now at the mercy of a mercurial corporation that at the end of the day only cares about the bottom line. The future of AtariAge now depends on whether there are people in charge at Atari who think it's worth the money to maintain. If they get a new person in charge who decides it needs to be monetized or changed or shut down to save money, we could see all of this poofing away Into the Ether. A resource that has been incredibly valuable in maintaining the legacy of the Atari platforms will be gone forever. We saw this happen to NintendoAge and other sites. I'm trying to be optimistic but I've been around long enough to have seen how these things generally play out. I would love a written commitment from Atari that they will make an effort to archive this website and its forums so that if at any point they choose to ditch it and pull it down, the information contained within will not be lost to posterity. Again, congratulations to Albert. This must have been a difficult decision and I really truly hope this works out for the best for all involved.

That's still going to happen, unless you mean something different than offering digital versions of homebrew games. ..Al

/signed For me Discord is an absolutely confusing mess.

I am optimistic that the 2600+ dumper will be better. Not perfect, because that's close to impossible, but definitely covering more bankswitching schemes. But I am waiting for a statement e.g. from @TrogdarRobusto how capable the USB port is. E.g. can it be used via OTG to attach an SD card reader (definitely required some homebrews)? And how about e.g. TrakBalls? Will they be supported via the 2600+ ports and/or USB?

And some Level 8...

Will all new AtariAge orders ship with a complementary speakerhat?

For those that are leaving the forums, but come back anyway, here's a pic for you. :3

These are two long time AtariAge memebers whose voices I respect, and they bring up a good question. This was a good corporate answer from the current Atari. I say current because we've seen Atari take many forms and owners over the past decades since the Jack Tramiel days, and like many would be amazed if the current version of Atari lasts any notable time. So I'll ask along with Thomas and Sauron: is there an exit clause in this agreement for Atariage should the current Atari, or a later Atari turn out to be a less favorable partner/owner? This is also a valid question.

Atari's logo's red, AtariAge's is blue, This became quite a thread, but I'm happy for you @Albert