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Probably easier to explain that stack of disk drives than my growing pile of 300 baud modems.

Not a good idea, the users here would drive Atari to produce exotic, niche, enthusiast hardware that would sell a few hundred units max and bankrupt the company

There is no change to the release date of November 17th. All launch day stock has been manufactured and is on route to distribution centers in US, Europe and Australia right now. There is additional stock being manufactured for the US market currently which is landing in early December in time for holidays. The launch day machines hardware design and software version was locked many months ago. We are now taking the feedback posted here and elsewhere, continuing our internal testing and having discussion with the likely result being a future software update to improve the experience.

I'm testing some original carts today and came across some curiosities in the collection...Atari loaner carts exactly 40 years old

I already own one but not boxed like this. Was not super cheap but I still could not resist.

Next ABBUC magazine is on the way to you, so here can you find the intro. pouet.net demozoo.org Hope you like this little intro and my handmade convert of the new ABBUC logo. And please, please take some time and create some small thing for our next issue - we want to have it packed full just with things all the ABBUC members created.

And it would make us part owners in this forum and we get to tell Al how to run it!

Y'know, it's funny, but I've recently been thinking of picking up a nominal amount of PONGF stock. This has nothing to do with any illusions of it becoming my retirement portfolio or being the launchpad for a lucrative career move into day trading, but rather because it would give me a tiny sliver of skin in the game. This way, the next time someone spouts off about having an opinion regarding an Atari product without actually owning it, I can start my reply to them with, "Speaking as a shareholder in Atari, SA..." The view from the high horse will be amazing.

It's a 4K game, it should work fine. I will test it at some point, I plan on testing all AtariAge homebrew games, I just don't have a ton of time to do so right now. ..Al

That describes the average Atari collector...

Which brokerage did you use, if you can say? None of my trading platforms will let me buy it, even though I checked the “I am an idiot and I know I’m going to lose my money” box.

I am not going to lie, I personally LOVE the 2600+ is smaller, I know, I know many would have loved an exact replica but I appreciate not only having the classic styling and look in a new product while being somewhat smaller and more compact as I have several versions of the originals already so it will be easy for the 2600+ to stand out from those.

I'd think that Atari stock is like the proverbial dead cat. The only time it's ever going to show much upward movement is in response to a big drop. Still, don't just take my word for it, they're a publicly traded company and produce regular financial reports, the latest of which you can read here: https://atari-investisseurs.fr/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/Atari-2023-Consolidated-and-Annual-Financial-Statements-F.pdf To cut to the chase, they made a net loss €9.5 million in FY23. That's something of an improvement from €25 million the previous year, although that's mostly down to writedowns for the overvalued projects of the Chesnais era. Their revenue also declined from €14.9 million to €10.1 over the same period, so the company overall is shrinking, not growing. Drilling down a bit deeper, the games business is growing, but only slowly. It's up from €5.7 million to €7.2 million. Licensing is roughly static, but the Web 3 (i.e. crypto) business and the VCS are basically dead. So, much though some of us might like to believe that they're a rejuvenated brand that's on the verge of blitzscaling their way back into competition with the Big Three, the reality is rather more sobering than that. On the plus side, they have made some pretty good games of late, so I'll wholeheartedly support buying those.

So I remember about 12-18 months ago seeing a few posts about Atari users who have 4,5 or even more floppy drives. At that stage I had 2 x 1050 drives and felt it was more than I'd ever need. I remember thinking "Why would anyone want to collect that many drives?" Well, here I am all those months later with 8 x 5.25" floppy drives. All 100% working and a few with mods such as MegaSpeedy, Happy upgrade, track displays, etc. I just fixed a 1050 drive with a Happy Enhancement today to add to the list. Yes, I'm one of those people now. With 8 drives the question begs to be ask - will I stop collecting. Answer - Hell no. It's just too damn addictive!!!! 03FA644E-730C-4AAD-B089-7FDFB2DCD733.heic

The hotel deal is already dead, and along with it their association with the company that created the Atari token. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/atari-announces-planned-creation-token-160500017.html This resulted in a €11 million write down. So much for the idea that any of this crap was free money for Atari. Like it or not, the Atari token will live on for the lifetime of the Etherium blockchain. Once you create something like that it's got a life of its own, beyond the reach of even trademark law, so that's yet more tarnish on the brand that's not going to come off. The VCS project also resulted in substantial writedowns. While I'd think that it's worthwhile to keep supporting it at the level it currently is for the sake of goodwill with the fans, it'll never be a profitable venture and any substantial investment in it now would just be throwing good money after bad. While I'm not particularly enamored with the 2600+, at least that looks like it'll be a launch-and-leave affair that doesn't leave them on the hook for much in the way of long-term support. On the whole, I'd think that Atari can respect their legacy far better by publishing indie games that respect their past, compilations of classics and remasters of selected titles. They're doing quite well at that so far, so I hope they stick at it. Getting back into AAA games or genuinely competitive console hardware is just pie in the sky stuff. Give them a chance to learn how to walk before expecting them to fly.

Pac-Man and its relatives are a great example of how convoluted IP ownership can become. Just on the arcade side: Pac-Man: Namco, licensed to Bally / Midway Super Pac-Man: Namco, licensed to Bally / Midway Pac & Pal: Namco, no distribution outside of Japan Pac-Man and Chomp-Chomp: Namco, almost licensed to Bally / Midway, but they decided against it in the end Pac-Land: Namco, licensed to Bally / Midway Ms. Pac-Man: created by GCC, licensed to Bally / Midway Pac-Man Plus: created by Bally / Midway Baby Pac-Man: created by Bally / Midway Professor Pac-Man: created by Bally-Midway Jr. Pac-Man: created by GCC, licensed to Bally / Midway Pac-Mania: created by Namco, licensed to Atari With all of the parties involved, lawsuits, bankruptcies, mergers & acquisitions, subsequent changes of ownership over the years, etc., it's a small miracle that any of the rights to it other than the original game were at all able to be determined. The fiasco surrounding Ms. Pac-Man's ownership a few years ago was a really good example of this.

https://www.a8preservation.com/#/software/release/4661 recorded with an Technics TR-RS737 -> AMD Starship/Matisse HD Audio Controller (Onboard) -> Audacity 2.4.2 (cut and amplified) -> a8cas-convert 1.3.1 For some reason the A side cas file has a odd data length header which causes a boot error on the emulator. If the cas is converted back to wav and than played as a audio into a real tape deck connected to an 800XL the game starts fine. B side works. Protector.cas Protector.flac ProtectorB.cas ProtectorB.flac

You started a negative thread in a public forum, it didn't go as you expected it to, and now you want it shut down? Couple questions: 1) How did you expect it to go, especially with your retaliations contributions? 2) A forum is defined as a place, meeting, or medium where ideas and views on a particular issue can be exchanged. It is not designated as a place where one person posts an idea and ends any discussion that does not go their way. You appear to want to insult or mute any user who disagrees with your opinion. What legitimate reason do you have to request it to be shut down? I've flagged a few threads to be watched or shut down because users have broken rules on the topics of religion or politics as they are forbidden. Here I just see people posting anything slightly contrary to your regimented opinion disagreeing with you and you being upset about it and getting nasty in your replies. In the just over 2 weeks that you've been here, you've been involved in a disproportionately large number of heated discussions. Seems that you transfer a lot of anger and frustration from your life towards the users of this forum. Posts a question asking for opinions Gets mad when people posts opinions

🙂 i know...but i needed to show You 🙂 i am so proud 🙂

Hahaha. Jon got one off Garfield.

If I were still a global mod here, I'd tell everyone to chill and to stay civil. However, I'm not, so I'll just say that bringing some Led Zeppelin into this discussion is a good idea. And speaking of which, there's an awesome guy on YouTube who has a channel focused on Led Zeppelin, and he's done several series going over different parts of the band's past, including the post-Led Zeppelin eras of the 80s and 90s. If you're as into Led Zeppelin as I am, I'd highly recommend checking it out: https://www.youtube.com/@JCM-LedZeppelin-Stories Anyways, carry on.

You're probably right on all counts. I didn't buy the stock because I think it's a good investment. Although as low as the price is, and as small as my risk is, I can justify it as a lark and a gamble. I have no illusion of Atari becoming a "Big Three" contender alongside Nintendo, Microsoft, and Sony. That's ridiculous. Nintendo is very established, and the other two have deep, deep pockets in diverse businesses outside of the gaming industry. Best case, I think that if they manage their legacy well, they can revitalize their core properties, and bring back a style of games of the sort that the early Atari was famous for, perhaps with some modern design concessions and "quality of life" improvements. In my opinion, focusing on the software (games) and not trying to develop a hardware platform is the best way forward for them.

I am finally caught up on every Towers II Enhanced order I can ship. Only about 5 orders left which are held for other games awaiting release/restock. That's roughly 200 orders shipped. Whew! To celebrate, here are a few trivia bits for you: There is exactly one ROM difference between the Signature Edition and the Standard Edition. Signature Edition owners: have you spotted it yet? There are two Easter eggs in the game. Have you found either one yet? You'll know them when you see them. There is a new cheat code for the game, but we'll announce that later.

Tough competition every time! Favorites: Thunderground and Pressure Cooker Surprising: Rabbit Transit and Beefsteak Tomatoes Worst: Lost Luggage and Killer Satellites Side note: The Homebrews are SUPERB. (Im kinduva a @SpiceWare fanboy, so a bit biased)

The Aliexpress converter arrived today. So far, its sole purpose has been to provide images of its internals. Chances are good that that will be the sum total of its lifetime achievements, but I may trace out the pads on the CON1 connector and see if anything interesting comes of it. If anyone knows someone who is willing to open up the Apollo / Atlas converter, please point them towards these pictures. A Coke says that the internals are the same.

OK! We are Set! The 1st Picks Rabbit Transit - ZilchSr Stay Frosty 2 - McCallister Lady Bug - Kermit Stampede - JacobZu7Zu7 The 2nd Picks Beefsteak Tomatoes - ZilchSr Lady Bug - McCallister Official Frogger - Kermit Ms Pac-Man - JacobZu7Zu7 The 3rd Picks Gyruss - ZilchSr Amoeba Jump - McCallister Pressure Cooker - Kermit Pressure Cooker - JacobZu7Zu7 The 4th Picks Official Frogger - ZilchSr Elevators Amiss - McCallister Tapper - Kermit Joust - JacobZu7Zu7 Good Luck to ALL!!!

I just tested another batch of homebrew games: Everything in the above bin worked except for the F4SC/F6SC (32K/16K + SARA RAM) games, although Anguna may be fine. The F4SC games I've tested: Aardvark Cave In Seaweed Assault (not pictured above) And F6SC: Dragon's Descent Anguna The above games, except for Anguna, have a similar failure mode -- they will boot fine, but Cave-In, Dragon's Descent, and Seaweed Assault have lots of random blocks in the playfield. I'm assuming this is due to the SARA RAM not working properly. Aardvark boots fine, but once you start the game, it crashes when you finally get to the main gameplay screen (it crashes before the screen is actually drawn). Anguna seems to boot up and play fine, but I'd need to spend more time with it to be sure it's 100% good. Given these games all appear to have been dumped correctly by the 2600+ (or they wouldn't likely have booted at al), it seems this should be relatively easy to fix. As for the other games, thus far all the 4K, 8K, 16K, and 32K homebrew games I've thrown at it seem to run fine. Zippy the Porcupine, the only EF 64K game I've tried so far (and not pictured above), also does not run. I would think this one should be fixable as well. That's all for now! ..Al

Here's the summary for Week 38, running from September 18 - 24. We logged 2642 minutes of eligible play, playing 38 games on a total of 14 systems. Top 10: 1. Might and Magic (Commodore 64) - 590 min. (#3) 2. LadyBug (Atari 2600) - 300 min. 3. Solar Fox (Atari 2600) - 237 min. (#4) 4. Pokemon Silver (Game Boy Color) - 151 min. 5. Sharp Shot (Intellivision) - 148 min. 6. Blocks (Atari 2600) - 124 min. 7. Fantastic Adventures of Dizzy [Aladdin Deck Enhancer version] (NES/Famicom) - 96 min. 8. Dragon Ball Z: Ultimate Battle 22 (PlayStation) - 95 min. 8. Towers II Enhanced Version (Atari Jaguar) - 95 min. 10. Kaboom! (Atari 2600) - 91 min. (#8) Pre-NES top 10: 1. Might and Magic (Commodore 64) - 590 min. (PN#1) 2. LadyBug (Atari 2600) - 300 min. (PN#6) 3. Solar Fox (Atari 2600) - 237 min. (PN#2) 4. Sharp Shot (Intellivision) - 148 min. 5. Blocks (Atari 2600) - 124 min. 6. Kaboom! (Atari 2600) - 91 min. (PN#3) 7. AD&D: Cloudy Mountain (Intellivision) - 45 min. (PN#4) 8. Intruders (Atari 2600) - 25 min. 9. Frog Bog (Intellivision) - 21 min. 10. James Bond 007 (Atari 2600) - 20 min. 10. Star Castle Arcade (Atari 2600) - 20 min. 10. Trick Shot (Atari 2600) - 20 min. 10. Zarkstars IV: Nebula (Atari 2600) - 20 min. Top 10 systems: 1. Atari 2600 (9 games) - 857 min. (#3) 2. Commodore 64 (1 game) - 590 min. (#5) 3. NES/Famicom (5 games) - 281 min. (#1) 4. Game Boy Color (4 games) - 251 min. (#2) 5. Intellivision (5 games) - 231 min. (#7) 6. PlayStation (1 game) - 95 min. (#6) 6. Atari Jaguar (1 game) - 95 min. 8. N64 (2 games) - 70 min. 9. Game Gear (3 games) - 40 min. 9. Dreamcast (2 games) - 40 min. Might and Magic enters the 1000 Minute Club as member #540 with a total of 1380 minutes, of which 3/7 were awarded this week. That is enough to individually be the most played game, ahead of the two Atari 2600 games LadyBug and Solar Fox. Another seven 2600 games brings it to the system win.

Before I delve into creating Intellivision games I want to make sure the packaging is acceptable. This is how far I've gotten with my Atari 2600 releases. Of course, the insert will have to be adjusted for holding the cart. Does this packaging look decent for an Intellivision release? Any constructive feedback is greatly appreciated

This is my display for the upcoming T/A show.

Some time ago I made a Thunder Force 3 tribute music player on the TI. I finally say down and ported the assembly code to C so I could compile it for the Coleco. I made a few small concessions in order to get it done quickly as possible, but it's running fine. It's just a music player, but I hope you enjoy it if you didn't already see it. The music was converted using my VGMComp2 toolchain from the original Genesis/Megadrive tunes: https://harmlesslion.com/software/vgmcomp2/ Graphics were converted mostly using my Convert9918A image converter: https://harmlesslion.com/software/convert9918/ Code was built using SDCC and my libti99Coleco port: https://harmlesslion.com/software/libti99coleco/ And the repository for this project is here: https://harmlesslion.com/software/tf3/ I have a big update to libti99 to bring the TI and Coleco versions together, which will add a lot of functions to the Coleco side, but it's not quite ready yet. I haven't tested this on hardware yet, though it should be fine. It's 512k but I left the first two pages alone so it'll work on the Phoenix. It's a bit wasteful, as I just left the TI page system alone (but pages doubled from 8k to 16k in size), but these days it shouldn't matter much. TF3_Coleco.zip

Stick a fork in it, this thread is done. Just a helpful word of advice, if you don't want people 'throwing punches' at you maybe don't coming out swinging.

The whole Ms. Pac-Man licensing fiasco really bums me out. I'd sure like to have it to play on my Switch (for example) versus using a ROM or playing on the XBox.

Starting with all of your posts at the end of the first page and the beginning of the 2nd page of this thread. People make jokes because this is a fun site, you in response flung the feces. I did, twice, and you're not. You threw a bunch of punches here and in other threads, then complained about being the forum punching bag. I did no such thing. I said that you are involved in a disproportionately large number of heated discussions, as the other users on the other side of your rants of misdirected hatred aren't usually involved in tiffs with other users, whereas you are involved in such tiffs on a nearly daily basis. You've even admitted in other threads that you're misdirecting rage from work towards users here. General tip, if you think everyone's out to get you, then you need a nap. If you find yourself hating everyone else, then you need a snack. You, I think, need both as well as a time out. Closing this thread would only legitimize your tantrum. Just relax, take a step back, and when you come back please try to have some fun.

OMG you could have spent that on another copy of Atari 50 for a friend. Or for yourself. Let me guess: did you also buy an Atari VCS 2021 and trick it out with 32GB of RAM? I know, I know ... it's your money. And I wish you well. There was at least one quarter when Atari SA made more money from copyright and trademark lawsuits than from selling games. That's facepalm stuff. Current iteration of Atari has been making interesting acquisitions like Berzerk/Frenzy, M Network Games (the Mattel games remade for Atari systems), and a whole bunch of old Accolade games including Bubsy. They tickle my gamer bone (picture it) but I don't see a strategy there. They also acquired NightDive, which DOES seem strategic, or at least self-serving. Same with the AtariAge acquisition. Not sure how much punch there is in terms of financial value, but it definitely shores up the brand and gives them a little more credibility. I doubt any individual Atari Recharged title has hit 100K, that's a lot of cheddar. But they also haven't been bundled or put on a desperation discount. I wonder if they can track whether the same people buy their stuff?

That's flat-out speculation, not investment. He's basically sitting on the shares hoping that they'll increase in value so that he can cash out as opposed to having a long-term investment strategy for them. It reminds me of the people with a house full of crap, and all the crap will be worth something someday.

Soon he'll need to add a new section to his signature "Note: My pseudo-technical posts about what's possible on the SNES should not be scrutinized to point out these things aren't actually possible on the SNES."

A game about Vikings with "The Immigrant Song" as the theme would rock. As far as music during gameplay, it depends on the game. Some games are better for it (Rome: Total War comes to mind, T2K, etc.), while others can be extremely distracting. Thankfully, most modern games give you the option to adjust the volume of the different audio elements or disable them entirely. EDIT: Just to add, I agree about Xevious' music, although I know that's sacreligious to some. But I don't care, annoying is annoying.

This was part of our master plan all along: We start with a small forum, make a few boutique releases here and there, then convince Al to publish our games, and eventually take over the entire site and change the name to IntellivisionAge. Today, AtariAge ... Tomorrow, the world!!!! BWAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! dZ.

Night Knight - a game submitted to the ABBUC Software Contest - gameplay:

Here I am up late designing new products. What about a new Atari game with a financial theme that is distributed as a gold color physical cart with a genuine share of Atari SA stock? Maybe something like lemonade but instead of selling lemonade you sell video games. News: There is a retro gaming expo today. How many E.T. plus cartridges would you like to make? How many posters? And so on. If you enter your name as Albert, it unlocks god powers and everything sells out every time.

Just when I think I've seen all the neurotic ways a Kirk_Jonston/iNCEPTIONAL post could be edited... including up to 20+ edits, PS & PPS addendums, and outright deletion of the entire post, he shows me something new. I didn't even know you could edit a post to scrub its entire contents here! What an innovator. Edit: Oh, text colored the same as the background. Is that the Mode 0 he's been talking about all this time??

Yeah. I paid the $50. I figure I'm likely throwing the money away anyway, what's $50. Some will take that same money, buy a 2600+ and some controllers. I got 1000 shares of PONGF.

Well good news tonight, I've scoured these threads on the repair issues of the Corcomp, and tonight after viewing @Helocast's Rev A PCB for the Corcomp FDC and @Ksarul's schematic and some photos I'd posted here of the second Corcomp I'd bought, took some photos of and added them here, found that on this particlar the 2nd, FDC, I'd forgotten a couple of bodge wires that Corcomp had added due to missing traces and I had a bad connection on the U12 Pal socket, pulled bottom trace. And a little solder reflow on a few pins on the Controller chip itself. I now have a working Corcomp DSDD controller. Just read some files on my HxD and loaded a file in XB. This project has been on the back burner due to work, but I've been off a month due to a rotator cup issue on my shoulder, so I'm trying to play catch up. @justacruzr2 did you ever get yours fixed? Did you pull old sockets and replace with new? Take photos of them front and back and replace any missing bodge wires? Now I've got to see about burning another U12 PAL/GAL for the other, and see what happens, may take a bit. Have a good night, I go to sleep happy tonight!!

He's more Marty McFly than John Wayne though

Congrats to @ZilchSr for the win and for dominating the standings all season. Favorites Ms. Pac-Man - Second only to Millipede on my all-time list of favorites. I had actually picked this as a bonus game at the start of the season and was asked to come up with an alternate because @fakecortex also picked it. Lady Bug - This game is really well put together and fun to play. The highest levels are quite difficult, but do not seem impossible to complete. Surprises All the StarMaster games. I had high expectations and was underwhelmed. Since I'm limited to two choices, I'll call out Official Frogger and Suicide Mission. Clearly, the graphics and sound of Official Frogger are superior to the Parker Brothers version, but the failure to include a snake on one of the logs doesn't make the game as challenging or accurate as it should be. For me, game play elements carry more weight than graphics and sound. Suicide Mission is a flickery mess and a pretty unimpressive knock-off of Asteroids. I may need to give this game another chance by trying some of the other the game variations. Having the thrust constantly turned on was especially annoying. Worst Lost Luggage - After getting the initial chuckle out of the "unmentionables" appearing on the screen the first time suitcases opened, the game quickly became boring and frustratingly difficult. Elevators Amiss - This was the game that most frequently had me wanting to throw my joystick at the TV. Fortunately, I maintained my composure and no hardware or TVs were damaged.

Well, I'd settle for a well written book on programming the SNES in assembly language. (Not super-tech talk stuff. Just down to earth examples with explanations how it works.) I have the Learn Multi-Platform assembly programming with Chibu Akumas Vol 2 but it just scratches the surface. You can make a "hello world" program, put a smiley face on the screen and move it around with the pad. It's just enough to get your feet wet but some of the code just looks wrong. It will run on an emulator but not real hardware. (I have the tools for it). Took me about 2 months to figure out what was missing. I mostly stumbled thru things until they worked with a lot of trial and error. Mostly error! But once you got it you could move on to the next problem. I can say that SPC700/SMP audio system was a total fricking pain to figure out and is definitely not user friendly. Took a long time just to get a tiny "beep" from my laptop. Eventually I figured out how to play BRR sound samples and made a VERY basic music player. Took a looping break after that as it took about 3 months just to figure out the audio system. A nice book like the Hugg books for programming Atari 2600 and NES would be very welcome at this point. The Colecovision one someone else wrote was ok but didn't cover Z80 stuff as much.

I have produced a patch Altirra OS version that provides the PIO patch utilized by the UNO & A8Pico carts for the loading of ATR images. After @electrotrains's recommendation to put this out for testing before it replaces the OS provided in the firmware by default. The default soft-OS can be overridden by placing the attached 16K file (UNO_OS.ROM) into the root of the UNO's SD-Card or the A8-PICOCART share and so a firmware update is not necessary. Due to the nature of a soft-OS, titles on the XL/XE needing 64K (using the memory under the OS) won't work and there will be certain titles that might inadvertently enable the stock-OS, losing the sector-read redirect and so likely to crash. UNO_OS.ROM

Hey Marty McFly actually played his guitar.

I have a bit of a soft spot for the 2600 jr. It was the first Atari 2600 I've owned and, despite prefering the woodgrain of the heavy-sixer, still think that the late 80s aesthetic of the junior has its charm. I've even got a spare board that I'm considering putting a UAV in.