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What is everyone's first Atari memory? I'm primarily thinking of the 2600. Mine was Christmas 1980.... All the presents, Santa's and Mom and Dad's, had been opened and my brother and I were playing with our latest Star Wars figures. My brother had Lando Calrissian in his hand (who would some years later be cut in half by a lawn mower in an "accident" when my brother learned to cut the grass). My Dad said "What is that under the TV? (We had a Zenith 25" console TV). My brother tossed Lando aside and we pulled from under the TV a glorious Atari 2600 light sixer. We received 3 games to go with the pack in Combat. Circus Atari, Defender and Missile Command. My brother's favorite was Defender and mine was Missile Command. We played the whole day, fighting on who's turn it was to play. I remember it was bitter cold outside and we were in our pajamas all day. It was toasty warm inside and as the sun went down the only light in the house was from the Christmas tree that had been on all day. My Mom was on the sofa next to us napping. My Dad, having to go to work mid day on Christmas, calling on our Harvest Gold rotary phone to check on us. Telling us we had to share and to follow "10 minutes for you and 10 minutes for your brother" system. Also telling us "Let your mom sleep and keep the noise down." That memory is so vivid in my mind to this day. Just hearing the name Atari brings back such happy memories and I wanted to share.

A.R.T.I. has gone "Gold" I think the saying is (AKA the ROM will be winging its way to Al shortly for cartridgisation) I managed to squeeze in a few extra little surprises including a timer for those folks that are that way inclined (for speed running). Probably have a bit more to say in the next few days

So now that I got my 800XL to work with the SRAM module and learning a bit about O2/BO2 intricacies I can move on the actual thing I was up to, let's do it here. The challenge presented itself a couple of posts up, when @flashjazzcat suggested it would be possible to fit a DIN13 connector for VBXE on the side of the DVI one in an 800XL, but that would require disturbing the factory video signal traces. One side of me accepted this and I was slowly getting my drill ready, the other side said "hell no!". Some research later - Sophia also outputs RGB signal and does so through the DVI connector, so why not hook up the VBXE RGB lines through there and make an appropriate DVI to SCART cable? Simple enough, but what about keeping the Sophia HDMI signals at the same time, and also still allowing Sophia to output RGB instead of VBXE when needed (for whatever reason)? So, ideally to be able to switch the RGB ouput between Sophia and VBXE with a jumper or a small slider switch, or even in software from U1MB plugin menu...? That all called for designing a small board with an analog switch IC that would plug-in in between the Sophia's DVI board and Sophia and take VBXE signals on the side. The biggest challenge was to fit all this so that it would stay within the DVI board frame. One evening of designing the circuit, one evening for the board, couple of weeks of wait for getting the board, and here it is: This is a first quick solder up just to see if it works, it will be the only one for now though, I found out yesterday I am short on 1K resistors, not sure how I missed that 😕. First tests show that it works, but I still have to wire up the VBXE to this. I also did implement an extension to Jon's U1MB plugin to control the output, with this there is a problem though, this setting in software cannot be fully "persistent". The U1MB firmware pulls the outputs low during boot and BIOS entry, so during that time it always has to be Sophia VBXE RGB output, it can only become the selected one once it gets to the actual OS boot, or forced by a change from the menu while in the BIOS menu: (The only thing is I am very afraid to hook up the wire to U1MB knowing from @mytek how easy it is to fry it 😕, even though I checked with him what should be safe). Finally, I also designed a twin board for my 130XE that does a similar thing, but there it is to allow Sophia to output it's RGB signal through DIN13 alternative to VBXE. This has to wait until I get my 1K resistors though. Oh, and I am soldering all this on a budget homemade hot-plate which make a whole lot of a difference: More to come once the wiring is finished and more tests made.

That's a key difference of philosophy between Japanese and Western video game design: In the West, we tend to want the player to identify with the main character. Hence a focus on first person games, and generic characters (that you can often edit). in Japan, they tend to want the player to get attached to the main character. That's why they prefer the third person view, and work a lot on character design. "Chara designer" has always been an important job in Japan, while there's no equivalent in the West, really. That explains the difference between CRPGs and JRPGs, between a game like Splinter Cell and MGS, or between early games like early Atari arcade games that didn't have characters, versus Pac-Man and Donkey Kong.

Early 2018, 47 years old. I'd never seen or played an Atari 2600 before that. When I was young, all my friends had either a Commodore 64, MSX, ZX Spectrum or Philips Videopac G7000 (=Magnavox Odyssey2); apparently Atari wasn't very popular in the Netherlands. I got intrigued by the Atari 2600 after reading the book "Racing the Beam", which was recommended by Michał Taszycki (the guy from the C64 video tutorial website 64bites.com) during an episode where he covered 6502 instruction cycle counting. After that I bought my first Atari 2600 and fell in love right away.

Are you sure you don't mistake ideas for concepts? Someone who has a well thought out concept with rules and coarse design probably is treated with respect by game developers, but plain ideas without much depth tend to be a dime a dozen.

You are welcome - keep playing and keep having fun. It's why we're all here.

Ok just got it in and am super happy with the quality. No more noise when other consoles are powered up and the ones connected via a long coax extension are clean too! I have one of the 3 outputs go to a VCR which from there has composite out to the 1702 below. love it!

Here is my review of the product. Thanks to ThirdGenGamer for the help.

Well last night and today I discovered that there may be at least a couple of floppy controller chip possibilities for the Corcomp FDC, that use the WD2793 chip. I have tried a Wd2797 chip and was able catalog a disk with it, and the same for a TMS2793NL chip also. That is as far as I've tested so far, but I thought it was cool that I could do that.

1977, 10 years old. Summer Day Camp. Sears Telegames with Target Fun.

Here's a PAL color conversion, and XEX's for both. I changed the dice color to off-white/gray. The other color I had been using wasn't to my liking on real hardware. [Edit] Forgot to change purple property color for PAL. Replaced screenshot and binary. NTSC PAL monop.xex monop PAL.xex

It had to do with my breadboad setup After looking at the "garbage" a bit closer it became obvious that the garbage came from a bad dataline connection (Bit 5). It is running with no glitch now ...

Absolutely sweet, everything works as expected, U1MB is still alive, cables found their route and nice connectors. I knew this can be done and it is not too difficult, but I never suspected it would take off on the first attempt The only rose torn is that U1MB keeps the M1 pin down during its "thing" as I described above, so in particular the BIOS menu will always use the VBXE output initially, no matter what the setting. I actually did try to be more aggressive in setting the pin state manually during the plugin init phases, yet, there are still times when this is out of the plug-in programmer control, and I know that because I checked with Altirra that the corresponding register gets 0 written to it outside of the plugin code. On the video, Sophia output is considerably darker, and it also has the VGATE option on, you can see the picture being clipped on the sides. Also, if you look carefully at the picture you will notice that I took the csync signal out of the composite output pin for the VBXE connection, while Spectre has a separate pin for this (just next to it). I measured the voltage on this pin and it seems (I just used the simple voltometer) Spectre provides TTL level sync signal (it perhaps is exactly like it should be and up to corresponding specs), which is not entirely OK with RetroTINK that I have, or at least its documentation warns about this. So to be on the safe side I took the composite one instead. Interestingly, the csync signal of Sophia2 seems to much lower level, but that was also checked with just the voltometer. (Why I switch between the two csync signals, while the one from Sophia would be probably sufficient for both devices, that I actually do not know, I thought it would be a good idea, just in case they are meaningfully different).

It is already there: we call it cell phone.

You need to change the number of open files from the default 3 to 2. With 3, the PDT overlaps the bottom 40 bytes of the file buffer area. The following code should do the trick: VDPWD EQU >8C00 ; VDP Write Data address * * Set maximum number of open files to 2 * LI R0,>1802 ; PAB address * "PAB" for FILES subroutine is namelength = 1..name = >16 LI R1,>0116 ; namelength & subroutine "name" (number) BLWP @VSBW ; write the byte to the PAB SWPB R1 ; sub# to MSB MOVB R1,@VDPWD ; write subroutine "name" to next byte of PAB LI R1,>0200 ; max number of open files to MSB MOVB R1,@>834C ; copy number of files to FAC+2 * R0 still pointing to PAB VRAM address MOV R0,@>8356 ; copy namelength address to where DSR expects it BLWP @DSRLNK ; do the subroutine DATA >0A ...lee

Showing my age here but my first console wasn't an Atari, it was a Binatone Pong TV Game. That got some serious use by me and my older brother. The noise it made used to drive my dad mad so he got us a black and white portable television to get us off the front room TV. The Atari VCS (as it was known then) came next. For the longest time the only games we had were Space Invaders, Combat, Golf and Street Racer. We played the crap out of them, even Golf and Street Racer...

This is close to definitive. There are 2 variants with the above board: Tutor Pro - has the Tutor Pro executive ROM called WBEXEC Partial Tutor Pro (not sure if these have a name) - has all the hardware but only has the original Mattel EXEC ROM. Since the WBEXEC = Original_EXEC + Half_WBEXEC, you can hack a Tutor Pro game to run on a Partial Tutor Pro by appending 1/2 of the WBEXEC data (the half that isn't a copy of the original EXEC) onto the Tutor Pro game's ROM. To see demo of this working (though not how to do it), check out the following video: To see if you have a Tutor Pro or a Partial Tutor Pro, there are several alternative options: Run the Diagnostic test cart or ROM (easiest if you have it) Open up the case and look at the ROM chip in the upper right whose logo is an "M" inside a circle. It is says "WBEXEC" in the middle, you have a full Tutor Pro. If it doesn't, its a Partial Tutor Pro Run a Tutor Pro game ROM on it. Here are 2 available for download: Lastly, if you only have a Partial Tutor Pro but still want to try out the Games+Half_WBEXEC, you can download the above 2 games from the link below but with the modification. Running the below versions of the games does not differentiate a Tutor Pro from a Partial Tutor Pro.

Damn, the art on all these new game boxes is simply awesome! Another insta-buy!

"Not happy"? Those bastards are just scalping since there is limited availability atm.

The baby-blue in MAME is at least visually incorrect. It may be what the schematic is telling them, but on actual Gorf hardware the blue is significantly darker. While working on Gorf Arcade for Champ Games, we researched original arcade hardware (one of the members here owns an original cabinet and provided video), we referenced other videos of real hardware where we could find them, and perhaps most notably Gorf is featured several times in the 1982 movie Joysticks (skip way ahead to 1:15:28) which was filmed off of a real cabinet back-in-the-day. (It's an admittedly low-budget film - but it all centers around video games, and they took some effort to film them properly.) I've recently seen two different Gorf arcade machines in person, and the blue is much closer to what we used in the Champ version than what MAME shows. A *very* long time ago, MAME had the blue correct, likely because someone was comparing it to an actual machine. But it was later changed to be more "accurate" from an emulation standpoint, but that accuracy doesn't match how the real machines are set up. So somewhere, they're missing something.

sometime in 78. Dad went to Sunnyvale quite often and found a electronic place that dumpster dived all over the city. He brought back couple sacs of PCBs , cables , controllers etc. We had to put stuff together and fix some things . Rf modulator smashed with hammer , innerds of joystick incorrectly assembled, etc. Unit sat on floor with switch board loose. we had no case for it. Almost all carts were loose as well. very few had labels. Did have several jsticks, 4 paddles and indy controllers. We had a magnavox a few years earlier and coming from that and the progression of pong sets , in just a few short years..... this thing was like magic.

Makes wearing a Texas A&M hat a little more fun too

I'm glad you said that because that's almost exactly my story. I read Racing the Beam (in 2017 I think) and thought it was a very interesting sounding piece of hardware. Never seen or thought about the 2600 before that.

We've printed a poster for Harpy's Curse that will be included with the game! This 10" x 14" poster features @BitJag's artwork on one side and a map of the first world on the back side. I just received the posters today, and here's a photo! That's all for now! ..Al

My first experience was in 1979 at a military BX. I was six years old, and no stranger to arcade video games...I'd played Super Bug, Space Invaders, and numerous Pong clones at pizza parlors etc, but this was the first time I'd seen video games played on a home TV set. What a magical experience. The display had just been turned on with the Combat cartridge, and before long every kid in the store was crowded around it. I wanted to stay and watch while my folks looked elsewhere in the huge store, so they told me "OK, stay right here and don't run off." I did as I was told.

My first Atari system was the Sears Tele-Games Video Arcade, That I bought in 1980 in Panama City, Fl while stationed at Tyndall AFB. In September of that year I transferred to George AFB, in Vistorville, Ca. Eventually bought and Apple II+ and gave the Sears Video Arcade to my fiance's parents, which of course I now regret doing. Fast forward to a couple month ago and I got another Sear Video Arcade off of eBay. It needed some work, so I took it to -^Crossbow^- to add s-video/composite video output. Finally had the chance to go pick it up this last weekend and am loving the video output. Bought a new power supply from Console 5, since there was a little interference visible on the screen from the current power supply. So I've come full circle after 43 years.

Had the local news on in the background this morning(KDKA, CBS Pittsburgh regional affiliate) and the morning weather forecast randomly segued into a 20-second Atari reference. They had the weather forecast on an Adventure-themed background for a bit. Things have been unseasonably warm the past day or two in Western PA, and because of the temperature going back to the 80s they 'went back to the '80s' with the Atari screen. Do other stations do this?

Thanks for the information I checked the standalone game files I have. All 4 cartridges (10in1, 4in1, Berzerk, MRaJ) had all NTSC game files. Berzerk Enhanced did also got PAL50 and PAL60 files. I'm probably going to start a manufacture run of more carts soon and will ask for a few of these two formats to be made. If anyone here on Atari Age wants to swap out a NTSC Berzerk Enhanced for either of these 2 PAL formats I can sort. Excellent suggestion on the Cart Label with the P on the end of the CX number. Only thing is print runs for boxes and stickers is usually 1000 units and clearly I wont need that many. So we might just have to deal with the white on black P sticker!

Sign me up! 😁

As a recent transplant to the PNW, I will be attending PRGE for the very first time next week and I'm really looking forward to it! If anyone has any recommendations for things not to miss, I'm all ears.

HELLO OHIO!!! Commodore Amiga: Arcade Pool - 35 minutes Qwak - 75 minutes Arcade: Three new personal bests! BurgerTime - 127 minutes Hellfire - 149 minutes Moon Patrol - 56 minutes Atari Lynx: Raid on TriCity: Second Wave - 115 minutes Viking Child - 35 minutes Sega Genesis: Fire Shark - 65 minutes NES: Kirby’s Adventure - 10 minutes

I can guarantee you that Kevtris always retro-engineers the hardware he recreates in FPGA, he NEVER ports software emulators. Lynx emulators are currently quite bad according to him, so his core should be way better than what's available right now.

Playing Donkey Kong on the 2600 my mom had brought home. I was 5 years old, so it was either in 1987 or 1988. I didn´t even know consoles existed before that, so it was a lot of fun.

Garfield, Jon, and Odie going Bowling.

That's the whole point. That kind of thread is like asking "would you like to be rich?" 🤷‍♂️ Why would we be against the idea of a Lynx+? But that won't make it happen anyway. Even though, in the case of the Lynx, it will indeed exist via the Analogue Pocket.

Even though I suggested it, I kinda regret it now. You see I was second or third in his original list but now that he has reorganized it, I'm suddenly dead last. Damn alphabet working against me. And lol, just noticed @Mittens0407 signature. Well played sir.

It's Mode 2 and I suspect pre-rendered movement for the BG at least since the game only really has to show movement in one direction in a pretty small window. Despite not being an authority on the matter, I was, as Tanooki and Biff suspected, able to figure that out on my own in about 3 minutes with Mesen despite never having used it before. Too bad he can't see these posts, I know he likes it when others do the work for him.

Mascots are still important to Nintendo. It is one of the reasons why they are the most profitable of the three main console makers. They don´t just help in terms of selling games, but also in selling merchandise and stuff. But yes, with an aging gaming population, they are becoming less and less important.

Thanks for the feedback, very observant and the details i needed to help improve gameplay. The 7800 logo i can definitely add the same theme and even have it crack once bottoming out with a shake of the screen. All of this can be done with minimal resources as the colours within pallet are there but just not used at the time. The baby dino egg hatching is something i completely forgot about and would add more challenge to the game. Along with the three point motion of the mother dinosaur. Timing of the egg being laid i can work on and will probably refine that area once adding the baby dino routine and mother dino's additional animation. Thanks for the feedback, very much appreciated and valuable to help improve the gameplay 👍 Thankyou the help would be great as i really struggle beyond very simple spritework. Usually results in hampering the development as i just have little confidence in making decent sprites. I will shoot through a PM within the next few days thankyou again 👍 Thanks mate, i will take TIX up on the offer for one reaching out and two having the passion for LCD type games (feel that will be the perfect recipe). Thankyou for the offer it's very much appreciated

Here is my review of the Gamestation Pro. Thanks to ThirdGenGamer for the help.

First memory, space invaders.

Quasar!!! Our first VCR was a top loading Quasar! ❤️

AtariAge Secret Santa 2023 is live! Come check it out in Events!! 🎅

Okay, I've added levels, difficulties, and basic sound effects (very temporary). I also trimmed down a bunch of code and so despite adding all that in, there are still $100 bytes left of free space for music, TBD. Set both difficulty switches to B for normal mode; set both to A for the hardest mode. The goal is to reach the highest level possible. You level up after clearing a certain threshold of blocks. (One of the difficulty switches currently lowers this threshold, and I will probably change this behaviour. One of the difficulty switches makes the game faster.) Attached are two slightly different versions. One is the normal version and one uses flicker to smooth out the blocks. I imagine that flicker will only look good on certain screens -- let me know if anyone has any good or bad experiences with the flicker enabled. Edit: Updated the grace timer period mechanic a bit, should be a little more intuitive now. vcspon.CV vcspon-flicker.CV

Sitting on my mom's lap, playing frogger and centipede, her cigarette smoke hanging in the air.

Demo machine set up in an electrical goods shop among the TVs. It had Combat. My brother, 2 cousins and I played it until we were chucked out of the shop. I just had to have one. Was a year or so before that happened but it was worth the wait.

Looks interesting, i guess that ones not already been scanned. I picked up these 2 recently. The 990 systems handbook is online but not the Microprocessors/Microcomputers / System Design one. It's hardback and over 1.5" thick though so going to need a book scanner before i can scan that one in. Jim

Odynexus will make its physical debut at the Portland Retro Gaming Expo next weekend! Here's a preview of the beautiful packaging created by @BitJag (William Thorup): If you're not able to attend the show, Odynexus will be available in the AtariAge Store in November. ..Al

My first Atari memory is playing Sir Lancelot on my cousin's 2600. I remember that i sucked at the game and my cousin kept yelling at me that i should try harder. 😄 That must have been around 1985, about a year before i got my own 2600 Junior.