Leaderboard

Hey all, I thought I'd share my latest project results. This year, for my brother's birthday present I put together a PlayCart for him: It's a PlayCable, on a cart! Under the covers PlayCart is a 15 title multi-ROMcart with the PlayCable menu replica I created previously to select games. The titles included are all Mattel games we played as children, including old favourites like Space Battle, BurgerTime, AD&D and Utopia. While designing the PlayCart box art I wondered if the PlayCable styling might work for some of the PlayCable variants that Joe Jacobs, Dennis Clark and the other Jerrold developers created. Let's see... First we have PlayComp, the personal version of PlayCable that Joe and Dennis built. PlayComp was a piece of PDP-11 software, and it was never actually a Technology Associates product. But if it was, it seems appropriate that it would have been distributed on an 8" floppy disk: Of course to use PlayComp you would need a copy of Dennis and Joe's CYBER development system. Originally this was a heavily modified PlayCable Adapter. These are way too rare and expensive to start hacking about, so instead I've tidied up the replica board I built previously and created a box for it: The CYBER cart mimics a modified PlayCable adapter with Dennis and Joe's debugger in firmware, 8K of RAM and a serial interface to talk to a modern PC over USB. Finally, there's PlayTape, the PlayCable variant based on audio tapes that the Jerrold engineers used to share Intellivision games. Again this required a hacked PlayCable adapter, with the library of games recorded on audio cassette: Overall I think it makes a nice little fantasy product collection. If you're interested in PlayCable, you might like to know that I've also posted an update to the technical description that adds information about the equipment used by the cable companies to broadcast the service. You can get the down-low here:

This isn't a fair statement, for the initial release of Boulder Dash, I made the least amount of money of all the parties involved, Thomas, Andrew, and First Star Software, which I clearly stated to Andrew and Thomas in the past. We negotiated a new contract for Boulder Dash with BBG more recently, with a lower price, and I'm still not making much on this newer version of Boulder Dash. Yes, AtariAge has been a business for a while, I needed to setup as a business for various reasons, but one of them was not to extort homebrew authors for as much money as possible. Prices for homebrew games haven't gone up significantly over the years, but my costs certainly have as everything has gotten more expensive. I have put an enormous amount of time into running AtariAge, well over 40 hours a week, and I'd be lucky to be making even minimum wage based on AtariAge profits, much of which go into the monetary costs of hosting and running the site and putting money into new homebrew games. And just because AtariAge is a business doesn't mean that I didn't still consider it a hobby, but I certainly wasn't going to lose money on running the site and the store given the amount of time and energy I put into it. As for credit, I'm not sure what Andrew wants there, homebrew authors are clearly credited for their work, in the store, in the printed materials (always in the manual and nearly always on the box, sometimes on labels), and often when I am promoting games on social media, where I also link to the most relevant thread on AtariAge (usually the development thread started by the author). And ZeroPage Homebrew does a fantastic job of putting a spotlight on developers. I've never tried to take credit for the work that goes into developing these games. Yes, they are published by AtariAge and the AtariAge logo is on the printed materials. I'm also putting all the money up front to have printed materials designed and printed, as well as all the costs for everything that goes into making cartridges, and I don't ask authors to contribute a penny up front for any of that. And control? Again, I'm not sure what he wants here, the authors can have as much input as they want when we're working on the packaging for games. And I cannot prevent people from selling used copies of games on eBay at a much higher price than they were originally sold for on AtariAge, which I know Andrew isn't terribly pleased with. ..Al

Scorch for the Atari 5200 will see its debut at the upcoming Portland Retro Gaming Expo! Here's a preview of the beautiful box art put together by @Atariboy2600 (John Calcano): If you're not able to attend the Portland Retro Gaming Expo, Scorch will be available in the AtariAge Store in November. ..Al

I've been fortunate in that several versions of "Killer Bees" and its derivatives have come my way and this post is a look at that small collection. The original Killer Bees was written by David Rolfe as a demonstration for Mattel to show how little code was required by the EXEC to get some semblance of a game up and running. Subsequently, Killer Bees was used by both APh and Mattel as a tool to introduce new recruits to developing for the Intellivision. Inductees were provided with the Killer Bees source code and asked to enhance it as a means of understanding how to develop games using the framework provided by the EXEC. As a consequence, there were many derivatives of Killer Bees, most of which have been lost. However, it turns out there are still quite a few knocking about. This thread is going to describe each of the variants. Where possible, as well as a short video and description of the variant, I will include a binary that can be played on an emulator and the original source code. It should be noted that it's not possible to use the development tools in JzIntv to rebuild the binaries from the source as the assembly language used by APh is different to (some of the original developers would say better than) that used by modern tools. With that said, let's dive in. KILLER BEES - David Rolfe - 01BeesRolfe.zip This is believed to be the original version of Killer Bees, written by Talkin Horse Inc (aka David Rolfe) in 1978. The "game" comprises a Running Man from Baseball who is stung if he carelessly walks into a static swarm of bees (referred to as a Mine in the source code). When stung, the man changes from blue to tan. After 6 seconds the man becomes unstung and reverts to blue. From the source it seems David intended this to happen after 2 seconds, however, because the EXEC ticks every 20th of a second rather than every 60th, this actually takes three times longer than expected. The only sound in Killer Bees are the key clicks sounds generated by the EXEC as it processes controller inputs. David published the source code to this version on his personal website in 1999. KILLER BEES - Mattel - 02BeesMattel.zip This version of Killer Bees has been retrieved from the Technology Associates PDP-11 disk archive. The other contents of the disk suggest that this version was received from Mattel rather than APh. It's clearly quite an early variant with a file date of April 1979. This version converts the Mine into an animated bees swarm of bees that chase the player. "Ouch!" is written to the screen when the player is stung, and the player's avatar moves faster than David Rolfe's original. KILLER TOMATOES! - 03Tomatoes.zip Based on comments in the code, it appears that David Rolfe's original Killer Bees was tidied up by John Sohl on his return to Mattel having been seconded to work on Astrosmash at APh's offices in the fall of 1980. John reworked Trivia / Killer Bees renaming it "Killer (Trivia II)" in the process. Perhaps this is when it acquired the name Killer Tomatoes!? Killer Tomatoes! is attributed to TRIVIA PRODUCTIONS and appears to be similar to David's original. The Mine has been changed to flash red and yellow, but otherwise the gameplay is the same. However, the comments in the source code have been extended quite a bit with references to Your Friend the EXEC. MAN DIVES! - 04ManDives.zip Attributed to "ONE MUSKETEER", Man Dives! was posted to Atari Age by Steve Roney and seems to be closely related to Killer Tomatoes! The source code is very similar and, other than the black background, the only significant change in game play is to replace the Baseball Running Man with a Football derived Running Man. Whilst the title suggests he is supposed to be diving as he moves, it looks more like he is repeatedly falling and picking himself up to me. SOUNDT / SOUND TESTER #2 - 05SoundTester2.zip Sound Tester or SOUNDT was originally written by Bill Goodrich in 1982. It is a Killer Tomatoes! derivative designed to test sound effects and a pre-cursor to Mr Sound! written by Daniel Bass. This version dates from the end of February and was recovered from the Technology Associates PDP-11 archive. It would seem that SOUNDT allows the definition and testing of two sound effects, which are stored in RAM. The sounds are activated using the bottom action buttons, and it is believed that the sounds can be defined using the controller keypads. Unfortunately this version of the code is incomplete and the missing functions mean that sounds cannot be altered. The binary included here has been built with calls to these functions commented out. No sounds are built into SOUNDT, so a macro in the configuration file will load two simple sound effects into RAM, allowing the program's playback behaviour to be demonstrated. Looking at the actual Killer Bees game within SOUNDT, the mine/bees are not enabled, and so your Baseball Running Man has the freedom of the screen. WAY TO GO, JOE - 06WayToGoJoe.zip Way To Go, Joe (WTGJ) is a derivative of the "Mattel" version of Killer Bees, complete with animated swarm that chases your Running Man. WTGJ was written by Joe Jacobs in August 1981 and this version was found within the Technology Associates PDP-11 archive under the name JOE.ASM. The major enhancement made by WTGJ is the addition of sound effects taken from Math Fun and SNAFU. These play periodically as the bees move, and also pretty insistently whenever the Running Man is stung. In addition, Joe has increased the running speed of your protagonist and cut some of his run animation, giving him a rather stuttery gait. When you run off the screen edge, your avatar now reappears at the centre. Finally, the bees have been changed to be red, rather than the yellow of Killer Bees. DEBUG KILLER TOMATOES! - 07DebugTomatoes.zip Debug Killer Tomatoes! has version 2.0 of Rick Koenig's Intellivision debugger embedded within it. The source code is contained in three files dated between May and June 1983. These files were supplied by Mattel to Technology Associates in June 1983 along with a Magus test harness to help Joe and Dennis to debug Bump N Jump. In addition to the code itself, we also have instructions for the use of the debugger in the file BUG.TXT. This version of the debugger is a precursor to the one found in World Championship Baseball as it does not provide the disassembly of the current instruction and has slightly different controls. In terms of Killer Tomatoes!, in order to play the game it is necessary to "Fast Run" the debugger using the 0 key on the right hand keypad. At this point it becomes clear that in addition to the Mine, which rapidly flashes red and white, there are two black, inverted A characters printed on the screen. The Running Man, who positively sprints round the screen, can also be stung by these. To return to the debugger press the lower right hand action button on the left controller. CRAZY CLONES '81 - 08CrazyClones81.zip This is the original and unfinished version of Crazy Clones released on Intellivision Lives! For obvious reasons this version of the binary is not included. No source code has currently been found for this version, however, using the source for Crazy Clones '83 it has been possible to rebuild a plausible set of files. These illustrate how the '83 version builds on this variant. Interestingly, the final four functions in the code (listed in UNKNOWN.ASM) aren't found in the '83 version of Crazy Clones. They have been reverse engineered from the binary. None of these functions actually seem to be used by the game. This can be demonstrated by crazyClonesMinimal.bin which is built without them. Most of the redundant code seems to have been taken from Melody Blaster, one of the Tron titles and Astrosmash. Presumably this redundant code was removed during the construction Crazy Clones '83 (below), hence why it is missing. In this version of Killer Bees the your Running Man must catch clones. Doing so kills them and scores 10 points. The "Mine" chases you around the screen in a similar manner to the bee swarm and will kill you, ending the game if it touches you. CRAZY CLONES '83 - 09CrazyClones83.zip This is a second and much more complete version of Crazy Clones, which according to the title screen dates from 1983. The source code for it was provided by Steve Roney. It is believed that this version was the work of Keith Robinson, or someone who was working with him. This is evidenced by the Tron Solar Sailer font used on the title screen and a comments in the source code. The source code supplied was incomplete, but the missing functions have been reverse engineered allowing the full game to be rebuilt. Whilst the game is a variant of Killer Bees, a sophisticated title screen and group play mechanic have been added using code from Solar Sailer and Party Line. It is speculated that this variant was being worked on as a potential Party Line title. It is not known why Keith released the simplified 1981 version of Crazy Clones on Intellivision Lives!, rather than this more interesting version. If you've gotten here, thanks. If you want more, I've added a summary of the various versions of Killer Bees to the latest version of the Intellivision Development Description along with some other new information on Roklan development.

Recently I've been talking to @Dutchman2000 about Roklan, and he kindly pointed me to a video of his talk from VCF Mid-West last year that summarises his research. It's well worth a watch: In the video @Dutchman2000 identifies two of Roklan's Intellivision developers for the first time. It seems Paul Crowley wrote Frogger. In some places Frogger is attributed to Peter Kaminski and Tom Soulanille. However, I suspect this probably just confusion with Frog Bog. It is well documented that Peter worked for APh, where he wrote Frog Bog with Tom, and several other unreleased titles. Peter then moved to Activision where he worked on River Raid, rather than Roklan, Coleco or Parker Bros. Next is Frank Johnson, who wrote Donkey Kong, Carnival, Mouse Trap, Zaxxon, Star Wars, Tutankham, Donkey Kong Jnr, Q*bert, Popeye and Super Cobra. I suspect this makes Frank one of the most prolific Inty developers, and means we are only missing the author(s) of Ladybug, Turbo and Venture. This information means some of the similarities and differences we can see in the comparison of the Roklan ROMs now make more sense. Specifically, that the Parker Bros games are similar to the early Coleco titles. It also looks as though Paul Crowley and Frank might have shared some code when writing their games. Finally, it seems that Ladybug, Turbo and Venture could be outliers because they were written by other developers. According to @Dutchman2000, Frank has unfortunately passed away, so we won't get the opportunity to find out what it was like to create so many games in such a short period of time, or how he feels about the infamy that his port of Donkey Kong now has. While we're talking about it, let's just put a bit of context around Frank's work. Firstly, Jennell Jaquays, who was the Director of Game Design at Coleco, is clear that they did not deliberately make poor Atari and Intellivision ports of Coleco titles in her talk at VCF (23:47-26:00): She also explains that Coleco's work on programmable video games didn't start until February 1982 (16:57-17:27). This is corroborated by Ron Borta of Roklan, who seems to have made the initial verbal deal to produce the Intellivision ports at the Juanuary 1982 CES in Las Vegas (24:00-25:30): Let's consider what this might have meant for Frank. His ten Intellivision games were released over 12 months between October 1982 and October 1983. At the very most he would have had 22 months to write 10 games, that's churning out a game every 9 weeks. However, this ignores the time needed between agreeing the deal and game development starting in earnest. In this time Roklan needed to reverse engineer the Intellivision and put together a development kit. It also omits the time required to test, package and distribute the games once they were written. Unless Frank had access to a significant shortcut, I suspect that this meant his games were written in approximately 18 months, reducing the time spent on each game to about 7.5 weeks. Surely the fact that Donkey Kong was the first third party game for the Intellivision, and the subsequent rate of production, had to be a significant factor in its relatively poor quality. As you will see from his video @Dutchman2000 has also found out some interesting information about the development kit used by Roklan. Roklan was unusual in that its developers worked from home, and we've been lucky enough to talk to Fred Allen, the roving tech who was the link between the developers and the office, and who maintained the development gear deployed in the programmers' homes. I've added information about Roklan development and some other bits and pieces to the latest update of the Intelivision development document which can be found here: Thanks once again to @Dutchman2000 for sharing this information, and regardless of your view of Donkey Kong, I hope you will raise a glass of your favourite tipple in memory of Frank Johnson, an influential and unsung hero of the Intellivision community.

Presently, I have 4 different boards to keep in stock for the Atari 400's and 800's. Each computer has slightly different select lines going to the socket and the 48k boards are essentially stripped down 1056k boards. It would be ideal if a single board could be used and just re-configured for any use. So, here it is: To use as a 48k board, only U10, C10, U1, and C1 are needed. In U1, a 20 pin ATF16V8 would be installed and it's programming would dictate as to whether it was for a 400 or 800. The solder jumper would be set to 48 so as to be able to use the ATF16V8. For a 1056 board, all components are required, the solder jumper would be set to 1056, and a ATF20V10 would be installed in U1. Once again, the programming of U1 would dictate as to whether it was for a 400 or 800. I am looking forward to trying this one out. 🙂 Edit to add: R4 and R5 are needed for Atari 400's.

For the record: I do not complain here.

Heck yeah (looking at my Pitfall II cart)!! Early retirement, here I come!!! WooHoo!!! Texting my boss to tell him I quit... Oh... ;-( Great, now I have to call my boss and tell him my phone was hacked and he should ignore anything he got from it... ... again... (hmmm.. wonder how many times I can get away with that one...)

Alien abduction Atari8man_Alien_abduction.xex

South America is where everything Intellivision goes to die... ...and rise again! A couple of weeks ago it seems TV POWWW! made an appearance on Brazilian late night TV show "The Noite com Danilo Gentili". If Google translate is keeping me on the straight and narrow I believe it was part of a special on video games shown on SBT, the channel that used to broadcast TV POWWW! in the 80s: I'm not certain, but I suspect the version of TV POWWW! being played is my recreation for the 2020 IntyBASIC competition: If correct, it's pretty surreal.

Hey all, Following on from Hangman, Battleship is my second recreation of an unreleased Unisonic Champion game: In this case, all we have to go on is a description from the 1978 GI TV Game Circuits catalog: Although this doesn't sound terribly inspiring, the rules that define where ships may be placed makes the game slightly more strategic than some variants. Certainly, it's possible to do better than randomly selecting locations to shoot at. Play testing suggests that the game is quite well balanced, with it being possible to win a little over 50% of the time when played carefully. You'll find the game for both the Unisonic Champion and Intellivision, complete with box art, instructions and overlays in this zip archive: battleship.zip While we're talking about the Unisonic Champion... Be careful what you wish for @nanochess...

Good lord! That's so awesome! And in other news I have adopted Decle as my brother and my birthday is Dec 30th bro.

Hey all. Dealing with some personal/family issues. Hope to return to coding this out one day with some more/new focus.

That's when they call you a Super Duper Corporate Homophobic slur. Not one of them regular, basic, boring ass NORMAL corporate homophobic slurs.

Garfield on Chinese Food. I agree wholeheartedly.

Finished? Ha! It is NEVER finished!

Two things I will never get. 1) why do people find this thread, say Tommy can say what he wants. FREE SPEECH! Then come back after "research" and apologize. AND they get mad that they don't like Pat Contri's, FREE SPEECH! And 2) Why do nerds cry over Diablo so much?

While I was waiting on a few parts to come in for the portable ATARI 7800 hand-held I have been designing and building, I had started to look for a PCB for a cartridge game I was going to make for the system. I really couldn't find any blank PCBs I could purchase for 7800 cartridges with on-board ram (the game I was planning needs additional ram), so I decided to use Jinks PCBs as my base. After disassembling and desoldering one of these old cartridges and seeing how crappy they were made BITD, I thought I would just design my own. I used the C300565 PCB design as a template, and modified it slightly (it has many of the same jumpers) and uses SMD parts for all but the ROM chip (which would be an eprom for development). I have 8K sram on the board, and I can make these for a few dollars each, so seemed like an interesting route to go. So I manufactured 60 of these blank PCBs. I built up one of them tonight, and this is the result.. I have a low-profile zif socket that I can plug into the board for development, and then I can remove it and just insert the eprom directly into the PCB.

<Looks around at the people here> ... and your point? 🙂 🙂 (Sorry...)

Wow!!! That is great insight! It makes a lot of sense that the rushed development time, the learning curve of the platform, and delivery pressures lead to poor quality games. I find it disappointing and unconscionable that marketing and management were more interested in jumping into the video game band-wagon for a quick buck, than in producing a quality product. Still, a tip-o'-the-hat to Frank for taking up he challenge and pulling it off. It is understandable that he did the best with what was given. For what it is worth, I was very excited when I got the new Donkey Kong game for my Intellivision on my birthday back when it was released; and although I was downright disappointed at first and couldn't really understand why it did not look or played like the arcade one, I did played it extensively and enjoyed it immensely. In its own little way, it was still recognizable Donkey Kong -- on my Intellivision, at home -- and that was all that counted. Carnival, Donkey Kong Jr., Popeye, and Q*Bert, we're also well-worn cartridges at the DZ-Jay household in the 1980s. So, thank you Mr. Frank Johnson for your efforts. I know that a lot of people denigrate your version of Donkey Kong, but I will say that it is far from the list of worst games on the Intellivision. In fact, on its own merits, it is not too bad and quite enjoyable -- and it is still friggin' Donkey Kong! dZ.

Whilst researching some other bits and pieces I came across a couple of General Instrument ads for the Gimini product line. The first, from a copy of Electronics dated November 1975, suggests that before it became a range of video game chipsets the Gimini name was used to brand a CP1600 computer: The second ad from a March 1977 copy of Electronics aims to build on the success of the AY-3-8500 Pong-on-a-chip that was launched in 1976: The "screenshots" in this advert are interesting, most are mockups of the AY-3-85xx and AY-3-86xx range of dedicated chips taken from pages 4B-4 through 4B-36 of the 1977 GI catalog, for example the top left image is Tennis from the AY-3-8500 and below it is the same game from the AY-3-8550: Here are the same images from the catalog: There is also a line of mock-ups of 2 and 1 player versions of Blackjack, Draw Poker, Acey Duecey and War from what would become the Unisonic Champion. These were taken from pages 4B-40 through 4B-43 of the 1977 catalog: Although technically plausible, there are small differences between these mockups and the games released on the Champion. At the bottom of the page there are a set of games also attributed to the Gimini Programmable Game Set in the 1977 catalog on pages 4B-44 through 4B-54: These games are Combat Squares, Racing Squares, Shooting Squares (I don't know if anyone else is getting Degenatron vibe), Juggle I, Juggle II, Volleyball, Protection, Hazard, Road Race, Baracade and Submarine. None of these games could be generated by the Unisonic Champion's GIC graphics chip, for a start 6 colours are shown. However, it should be remembered that at this point the Gimini line had not been split into the Mid-Range and Deluxe chipsets (at least not outside GI), so both the Unisonic card games and these more action oriented titles were supposed to be generated by a single chipset based on a rudementary version of the STIC that supported MOBs, but had no GRAM. That leaves us with these four games from the centre of the page: These are not found in the 1977 catalog, or any other we currently have access to (if anyone has the 1976 or 1979 catalogs, get it touch). However, it seems as though these are the only mock-ups we now have of two unreleased chips, the AY-3-8888 and AY-3-8889. These are mentioned on page 39 of the winter 1977 Electronics Tomorrow: ...and pages 217 and 219 of the 1977 Gametronics Proceedings: In both documents the AY-3-8888 and 8889 are identified as next generation dedicated chips similar to the AY-3-8500 series Pong-on-a-Chip, perhaps explaining their position within the advert. The AY-3-8888 was intended to play the Las Vegas style games of Black Jack and Slot Machine, with the A-3-8889 playing Tic-Tac-Toe and LEM, a lunar lander game. These sources of information on unreleased chips do need to be treated with a little care, as Gametronics also identifies the AY-3-8800 / GIC at the heart of the Unisonic Champion and the four games from the mock-ups above as being a dedicated chip, which according to the 1977 catalog it wasn't: Then again, given the numbering, maybe the AY-3-8800, AY-3-8888 and AY-3-8889 were originally going to be dedicated chips, and the AY-3-8800 was later migrated to a microprocessor design. As an aside, the Gamestronics document is an interesting read, it seems David "Papa Intellivision" Chandler was at the conference promoting his game, "Tank Squadron" (p20), and the Mostek / Fairchild F8 processor it was based on (p57-60). Any which way, it definitely seems that 1977 was a fast moving time of opportunity and change.

It is done, rebooted and ready. I'm just really busy having fun traveling. LOL You will see it soon. Also Load Runner is up for PRGE. I like this port. It is faithful to the original and lets you save your own screens to the cart.

20 years later .....

Screw this! I've been doing my best to ignore this thread. Wait what thread am I in?

Thanks so much for the kind words! We're very excited about the opportunity to release our games not only digitally but as physical carts as well. It has certainly been an interesting summer figuring out how to self-publish (lots of moving parts!), and it certainly would not have been possible without @Nathan Strum who is doing most of the work, from researching and finding a great local printer, producing the artwork for Turbo Arcade (and Elevator Agent), as well as converting all of the older manuals, boxes, posters and labels as well. If all goes well, Elevator Agent will be available at PRGE also and added to the Champ Games store in early December. We have also spent the time (many hours, as it turns out) updating the boxes, manuals, labels and posters for most of our older games and will have a limited number of copies of those available as well (at PRGE and after). We are producing a larger batch of Turbo Arcade and Elevator Agent games (250 each), and we plan on producing more if the demand is there. The trick is having enough games to print at once so the cost isn't prohibitive. At some point I'll need to research shipping options as this is also all-new to Champ Games, which I plan on doing once I return from PRGE. I will post more info as it becomes available! Thanks Steve, looking forward to seeing you at PRGE! Bring your work clothes!

bombsquaddemo.mp4 A demo of the tools on the circuit board. The changes should be obvious. The controls were sloppy due to the video recording.

I have decided to take this DSRLNK discussion out of my fbForth thread so that I can get more non-Forth eyes on it. One of the changes I am seriously considering for fbForth 3.0 is revamping the file management system—especially, how DSRLNK works. I will likely replace the MG DSRLNK currently in place. I am looking into an implementation of Paolo Bagnaresi’s version as modified by Bill R. Sullivan (@Bill R Sullivan & @FDOS). I do not want to include Bill’s optional use of CPU RAM PABs and buffers, but I definitely want to use the 5 saved parameters after the first call to DSRLNK so CRU and device/program searches can be minimized with subsequent DSRLNK calls. Whereas Bill suggests a stack for multiple open files, I am thinking of adding those parameters to the head of each PAB. Though others have addressed some or all of my issues, trying to follow the logic of the various DSRLNKs, especially with some (several?) misleading comments, has been unsettling, to say the least. I am also considering using a linked list of PABs, much as TI Basic does—we’ll see. ...lee

Just completed the "Atari 1050 Goes Green" on my project 1050. (See here: https://www.mathyvannisselroy.nl/Atari 1050 goes green.htm) I was pretty shocked to see how cool the thing stayed, even after over an hour's worth of heavy use. I remember back in the day wondering if the damn thing was just going to burst into flames?? 😄The mod itself was pretty easy, I bent the pins back like in the article with a pair of needle-nose plyers. The Traco DC converters cost a bit, but they are worth every penny. I also thought the author had a great idea in attaching the old regulators to the back of the heatsink in case they are ever needed again. It has a bunch of other mods, Happy, full re-cap, new Console 5 fabric reinforced belt. It's on the bay if anyone is interested.

Great news! SWAMI here on ATARI AGE has created a version of CENTIPEDE for the COLECOVISION. It is the classic COLECOVISION game ( by ATARISOFT ) with just the addition of true roller controller support ! It features 2 modes: ROLLERPEDE ( roller controller support with standard graphics ) VECTO-ROLLERPEDE ( roller controller support with vector graphics ) Credits: Brought to you by: SWAMI F.O. SWAMI : RC support and formatting SLY "VECTOMAN" DC : Vector graphics SWAMI did state that "the ROM is available for public release, but it cannot be sold as it is still Cote Gamer's game (and mine) and we don't want other people selling it. " The game belongs to Cote Games and "SWAMI" and anyone selling the game other than Cote Gamers is prohibited. KAMSHAFT here on Atari Age has placed the ROM on the cvaddict.com web site so Colecovision fans can play it and enjoy it ... https://cvaddict.com/profile.php?gameid=450 Again, let it clearly be known that Cote Games and Swami do not want any one selling cartridges of this ROM .BIN file. It is FOR PERSONAL USE ONLY!! thanks and enjoy! Tim

While we're brainstorming, it would be cool if the cartridge could also transform into a robot!

Well, it also has going for it the 7800 compatibility. TBH, I'd take that over the Retron 77's SD card support, which, let's face it, is only good for 2 things: piracy, (which is why Atari was never going to support it,) & updating the firmware, which I think they said can be done via USB on the 2600+ anyways. Plus, it comes with 10 games, which the Retron 77 obviously doesn't. And if you want to get a collection of hundreds of games, just go with the 50th anniversary collection, but you won't get a cartridge port which allows for something the collection doesn't have: playing games that aren't based on Atari-owned IP. I don't know, that's just the way I see it.

I just imagined the 10in1 cart has the original sixer switches. I am sure someone can create a mockup.

You can find almost everything at Atarimania.com too.

Just a quick comment: there were a few iterations of the dsrlnk that made their way through the list server long ago. Some of the participants are still active in this forum. If the conversations were preserved, they may be of some value as well. I do not recall if the final iteration was well documented.

Ha! I joke to my wife that I go into 'sleep mode' when I sit still for more than five minutes.

So what you're saying is the price per kb is astronomical compared with modern games!?!!

An alternative is to post the (copied and renamed) output.png file from your RastaConverter folder:

After the purge, the list if affected games has become quite a lot smaller. From the purged homebrew games, ~50% were Melody enhanced: Galagon Draconian Scramble Wizard of Wor Mappy Super Cobra Arcade Zoo Keeper Lady Bug Arcade RobotWar: 2684 Gorf Arcade QIX rubyQ The End Stratovox

If you're OK with that, great, but I never like substitutes, be it a mouse, touchscreen, or bumpers, for the feel of a paddle (or in this case the twist knob). It's never the same experience to me. With that said, although we'd NEVER see a Fairchild Channel F/VES or Astrocade collection (just to name the two with that specific type of controller), I would certainly love to still see one. Personally, I'd rather have an Odyssey2 collection as I have a bit more fondness for that platform than the F/VES/Astrocade, but that's another one that I seriously doubt we'll ever see (I wonder if Philips still has the rights to the original games somewhere in a dusty closet?).

Hello Everyone, Some people have told us that they would be disappointed not to have these games in their collection. So we've taken the decision to increase the definitive edition to 30 copies to please them. So if you haven't ordered yet, you can now do so. Please note that the game will remain limited to 30 copies. Thank you everyone for your support

Can't wait to meet the band Mac Sabbath in person backstage next week!!!! 💥🐱Other than Ozzy's son Jack appearing on my radio show again I also just got word now that Brady Bunch actor Barry William's (Greg) will appear to talk about his love of Pong LOL Sorry to bump this again,can't wait to air my new show with some of the latest Nintendo Metal while crushin all the squares on the air again heehee.

Message me and we can discuss it. For the minute keep an eye on this thread: It's still very early days on this new mod, and I'd like to get at least a couple more people out there using it before I'm fully confident in it. But results are pretty good so far...

Yeah and there has to be a cell phone involved. Modern people can't take their hand off the phone so, you would have to order and load the games from the phone at least.

Here's the latest update of the Intellivision development tools description: intellivisionDevelopmentBackInTheDay-20230801.pdf The main additions are: A new section 5.5 on the development tools and processes used by Roklan / Coleco / Parker Bros (p43) Additional information on SOUNDT, Bill Goodrich's sound development tool (page 21) A summary of the differences between v2.0 of Rick Koenig's debugger (page 23) and the version embedded in World Championship Baseball A brief piece in Section 4.8.2 on the various versions of Killer Bees and their uses (page 39) Get it while it's hot!

It funny that MTV is irrelevant nowadays and Duran Duran is still around touring with new music.

Here's the summary for Week 37, running from September 11 - 17. We logged 4727 minutes of eligible play, playing 41 games on a total of 11 systems. Top 10: 1. Pokemon Gold (Game Boy Color) - 1255 min. (#3) 2. Dungeons & Doomknights (NES/Famicom) - 750 min. 3. Might and Magic (Commodore 64) - 385 min. (#5) 4. Solar Fox (Atari 2600) - 379 min. (#2) 5. Lufia: Curse of the Sinistrals (SNES) - 315 min. 6. Spy Hunter (NES/Famicom) - 260 min. 7. Ape Escape (PlayStation) - 256 min. (#6) 8. Kaboom! (Atari 2600) - 174 min. 9. AD&D: Cloudy Mountain (Intellivision) - 126 min. 10. Pokemon (NES/Famicom) - 80 min. (#1) 10. Warriors: Legend of the Blue Dragon (SNES) - 80 min. Pre-NES top 10: 1. Might and Magic (Commodore 64) - 385 min. (PN#3) 2. Solar Fox (Atari 2600) - 379 min. (PN#1) 3. Kaboom! (Atari 2600) - 174 min. (PN#6) 4. AD&D: Cloudy Mountain (Intellivision) - 126 min. 5. Pressure Cooker (Atari 2600) - 75 min. 6. LadyBug (Atari 2600) - 35 min. 7. Centipede (Atari 2600) - 30 min. 8. Utopia (Intellivision) - 25 min. 9. Q*Bert (Arcade) - 22 min. 10. Xevious (Arcade) - 15 min. Top 10 systems: 1. NES/Famicom (12 games) - 1326 min. (#2) 2. Game Boy Color (2 games) - 1285 min. (#3) 3. Atari 2600 (6 games) - 695 min. (#1) 4. SNES (6 games) - 545 min. (#10) 5. Commodore 64 (1 game) - 385 min. (#5) 6. PlayStation (1 game) - 256 min. (#4) 7. Intellivision (6 games) - 189 min. 8. Arcade (2 games) - 37 min. (#6) 9. Genesis (3 games) - 7 min. (#8) 10. Sega Master System (1 game) - 1 min. 10. Atari 8-bit (1 game) - 1 min. Pokemon Gold gets the gold medal this week, ahead of the 2022 Zeldavania type game Dungeons & Doomknights (which reminds me of Bedknobs & Broomsticks). Might & Magic in overall #3 and pre-NES #1 is just a few minutes ahead of Solar Fox. The systems list features a battle for the title between NES and Game Boy Color, while at the bottom two systems with only one minute each enter the most played systems. No changes to the 1000, 5000, 10000 Minute Clubs.

Week of 9/11/23 - 9/17/23 Atari 2600 Ladybug - 20 Pressure Cooker - 70 Commodore 64 Might and Magic - 385 NES Super Mario Bros. - 30 Total time = 505 minutes I knew it was a bad idea to get started, but I am now hopelessly addicted to playing Might & Magic. Despite all the time I've put into it my characters are only levels 6-7 and I feel like I've barely scratched the surface of everything there is to do and explore.

Many computers, and some consoles, really weren't, but that doesn't mean there weren't great games that did take advantage of what few pluses there were. Again, I'd never praise the Spectrum's capabilities, but there's no denying that it's home to many good games, including all-time classics.

Snes- Lufia- 2hrs 50min