waynel

Yes, I know that. "Picture at Last" is a joke, like the other items in the list.

There's a scene in the Steve Martin movie The Jerk where he catches the guys using Mrs. Nussbaum's credit card by looking it up in one of those phonebook-looking things. I remember them. They were the super-thin phone book paper, but the size of note paper. A new book of stolen credit cards came out every week or two.

It's a very hard question to answer. Primarily because you'd be hard-pressed to find anyone who had both computers. Home computers were exotic and expensive. A computer, disk drive, monitor, and printer was almost a month's salary for the average household in 1982. That's why very few people had computer monitors, and used the television sets they already had, instead. Also remember that aside from BASIC and machine code, you had to buy compilers to develop proper software. A good Pascal compiler might run you $500-1,000. If you could buy a Commodore 64, disk drive, printer, software, and monitor; and a TI-99/4A, printer, monitor, interface, software, and disk drive, you'd probably just buy a new car, instead. It's not like today when if you don't have money, you just finance a big purchase like that. Not many people had credit cards back then, compared with now. If you didn't have the cash, you used a charge card, layaway, or your bank's Christmas club. Also, unlike today, a printer and good paper and ribbons were essential. It's how you backed up your code and data.

As an old TV guy, I'll leave this bit of industrial humor here. Most people on the internet know the first one, but I never see the other two: NTSC: Never The Same Color PAL: Picture At Last SECAM: System Essentially Contrary to the American Method

Is it really correct to call the original one "vaporware?" Protecto was in the business of liquidating other people's overstock and unwanted inventory, not creating products of its own. So, surely, it must have existed.

Here's a place that uses vintage letter presses to do its current work: https://hobanpress.com/ I've had them do a few jobs for me, and they come out like nothing you've seen in decades. Pictures of the shop:https://hobanpress.com/about-us

I know I'm two years late to this discussion, but I want to thank you for posting your information here. It's a real shame that so much Model 100 information is locked up in Facebook and other platforms where it is inaccessible to those of us who cannot (for various reasons), or choose not to (for many other reasons), patronize these mega platforms. Sure, this web forum may disappear one day, as well. Even Club 100 is rife with dead ends. So it's important for useful information like this to be shared in as many places as possible to make it durable for the future.

Some people speculate that it's a method of money laundering. There are easier ways (selling commercial kitchen equipment comes to mind), but perhaps there is value in diversifying.

If you need Commodore hardware, there's a guy on fleaBay named Chuck who I recommend. He takes the gear apart and fixes it up like new before selling. I've never met him, but I'm a satisfied customer. https://www.ebay.com/sch/cmherndon79/m.html?_trkparms=folent%3Acmherndon79|folenttp%3A1&_trksid=p3542580.m47492.l71970

What is the picture of a slack-jawed Captain Obvious for?

Shhh. Nobody tell him about NFTs. Or baseball cards. Or the Mona Lisa.

It's Wikipedia. You're better off asking six people at a bus stop and going with the majority.

Last weekend while I was napping, my wife "helpfully" went through all of my Atari 2600 carts and put all the duplicates into a box and sealed them for shipping so I could get rid of them on fleaBay. (I shall return the favor with her Nancy Drew books soon.) Rather then action then off to some hoarder, I'd rather they went to someone who will actually use and appreciate them. All I know is there's 27 of them. Some are in rough condition, and some are perfect. She didn't write down titles, but u I expect there at least a few Pac-Mans and a couple of Combats and such. Probably nothing rare or unusual since I'm mostly interested in the very early games and Sears. The carts are free to a good home. You just pay shipping. If you're interested, PM me your ZIP Code and I'll let you know how much shipping is. I can take a check, or Apple Cash, if you're an iPhone person.

One of the early games used a single keyboard controller. Brain games, I think. While they're all electrically compatible, the overlays are not interchangeable between keyboard controller, keypad controller (Star Raiders), and the kids controller.

The big flaw with the manual's clock program is that it clears the screen first. If you re-write it so that the clear command comes just before updating the text, it doesn't clicker so much.

A couple of years ago I did the whole Stella-on-a-Retron thing. It was fine. Now I'd like to go back to the stock firmware, and have no idea what became of the original memory card. Is there a place where I can download it to flash a new card?

Thanks for the information, @groundtrooper. It's sad how once great companies decline and disappear.

I recently replaced my battered Moon Patrol cart with a new one in almost perfect condition. I noticed some differences. The old one has the shiny silver label. The new one has a matte gray label. The old one has the circuit board protection door. The new one has the circuit board exposed. Ordinarily I would ignore these differences as just tweaks in the manufacturing process. I know some of my early carts were made in Bonn, Germany and I believe the later ones were made in Asia. The reason I'm posting, though, is that the silver cart has a copyright date of 1983, while the gray version has a 1987 date on it. It seems strange to update the copyright if it was just a tweak in packaging. I couldn't find anything on Google about it (not surprising these days), so I wonder if anyone around here has any thoughts on it.

Haunted House. It took me a while before I could play that in the dark. Now I know that a blacked out room is the best way to play that game.

Thank you for the overscan option. I look forward to its release. My TV does have a "Just scan" option, and it works great with my AppleTV. But since the N77 outputs 720, not 1080 and the TV (Samsung 4095DX) is a 1080 panel, the Just scan option is not available when using my N77. Without a way to reduce the overscan, Stella is pretty much unusable (can't even see the score in most games). On another topic — is there a preferred location to put the ROMs so that they show up right when the system boots? Or is there a way to set the default directory where Stella looks for the ROMs? I didn't see anything in the options, and having to navigate a directory tree with a joystick makes my family less interested in using the machine.

Thanks. I didn't see it because I'm in mobile and it's hidden in the grid menu. But then there, clicking the store link only gives me options to buy AtariAge subscriptions. No carts to be seen.

I'm going to buy a new (to me) Atari 2600 to capture an it if my long-lost youth. Can anyone recommend a reliable source? I'm not going anywhere near fleaBay. I've been burned there too many times. I found a place named DK Something I forget that looks good. Mostly because it offers a 120 day warranty. I'm OK paying extra for something I know won't die in a week. Any other sources I should look at? And also, is there an online store that sells homebrew carts? I mean actual carts, not downloadable ROMs.