Peter G

I guess I better get busy then.

This is a weird question, but.... If I send in a custom ROM and label art to the Atari Age store for a custom Atari 2600 cart, what is their turnaround time? I just found out that a convention has a guest coming in about a month and a week, and I would love to make a custom cart to get autographed, but there is the question of time.

Sorry, I forgot about that, it just slipped my mind.

Suppose I start working on a game, and to give it some more pizzazz, I use the SuperRam kernel for more playfield graphics or the DPC+ kernel to get more sprites. As long as I don't try bankswitching or anything like that, just make a game that is self contained within 4K, can this game simply be burned to a chip and soldered onto an existing 4K board, or will it require a Harmony/Melody board in order to work correctly? Just wondering what I can get away with. Oh, and as long as I'm on the subject, would I be able to convert any of them to .WAV files to try out on my Supercharger?

Well, that's disappointing. I guess I'll have to decide if I want to go through this (it does look a bit intimidating) or just get a new Wiz. Part of me wants to try (it worked for only three days! That's like having a bit of a Big Mac but not the whole thing!), and let's face it, I can't mess it up worse than it is. But....

I got a Wiz a few years ago. I played it for approximately three days. For some reason, when I start the system, I get the Wiz logo screen, but it never does anything else. I have no idea what I did, I have no idea what is happening. I still have it, and I still wonder about it. The only theory I heard for what happened was I may have hit a button during startup that had it looking for an update. Apparently, this nukes the OS unless you have the update ready, and now it won't even work even if you have the update. No idea if this is true or not. Does anyone have any idea what may have happened or how to fix it?

Uh...I didn't spell that wrong...uh...it's line noise...from NSA wiretaps...yeah....

Oh, I agree. I tend to use the UGCes myself. I don't usually bother with keeping the boxes unless there is something really special about them (homebrews, really rare games, my CIB Fathom). But I didn't have the best luck finding those, and the UGC became my stock in trade. Besides. There's something about a boxed game you made yourself that has an extra element of coolness.

I'm very open to it. And if you have a homebrew and want a few boxes made, maybe we can work something out there, as well.

For those of you asking about a boxed FAILboat game, I do have a few extras with boxes. I just can't ship them out for a little bit, as the game gets officially released at the CGE in Las Vegas next weekend, and I don't want to step on any toes (the guy who runs Good Deal Games and I go back, we both worked for Video Game Trader). I don't know what would be too much -- I don't want to go Scrooge McDuck with this, but I'm thinking $30 (which would include shipping and handling -- please note, I don't do padded envelopes, I ship in an actual box to minimize the risk of damage, so shipping costs are a smidge more). I am also open to trades. For example, I'm a sucker for mermaids. If you have, say, a CIB The Little Mermaid for NES or GB, I think we can work something out. I will also swap my homebrew for your homebrew, if you are so inclined. PM me, and let's haggle.

Well, I'm back. I feel real good about myself, knowhutImean? So, without further ado.... Final testing on box construction is complete for my final entry in the definitive guide. It occurred to me that there was one construction method that I hadn't tested and considered. The idea was to print the parts of the box on full sheet labels and proceed with all the other steps. The benefits were obvious -- no getting the paper wet and potentially smearing the ink, no waiting for the adhesive to dry, hopefully less flaking along the box bends, lots of up sides. Down sides include an increased cost as the label sheets cost more, but I wanted to be thorough. I actually found another potential problem, at least if you are using laser printing like I am. First, the pics. Here's the box parts I made -- I didn't bother gluing them together. The major flaking you see is the result of the printer, so don't let that discourage you, but you will see other problems well enough. I want to call your attention to the white diagonal line on both box halves. That is actually the result of the break on the label backing to make peeling the sticker off easier. I don't know if it will show up like that on an ink jet, but on a laser, it's there plain as day as soon as it comes out of the hopper. And since it goes right where images or fancy colors usually go, there's no way you're going to hid this with a Sharpie. I wanted to go with other colors because anyone can touch up black, but what about others where color matching isn't so easier. As you can see, flaking is dramatically less, but still present. Thankfully, my biggest concern, that the pizza cutter would actually slice all the way through instead of just scoring as needed was unfounded, the box held up well, although I didn't exactly use a lot of pressure. The harder you press, the better the fold, but also the higher the risk of cutting through and having to start over. It's one of those risk/reward things, like eating all the ghosts with one power pellet in Pac-Man. The paper does feel like a box, or at least acceptably close, although it obviously doesn't have the heft of the card stock glued to poster board construct. So, there you have it. If you can escape that diagonal fold, this is a perfectly acceptable and much faster solution to making boxes, you can easily make four or five with a couple of hours and two cups of coffee. If not, or even if it's not your preference, I personally prefer the card stock/poster board combo. Takes longer, but the mistakes are much more controllable and forgivable. And now that that's over with, I think I'll look forward to next weekend, as I'm kicking around ideas for a game called The Fail Army. I saw it in memes long before the YouTube channel, so my conscience is clear.

Yes, sort of. It's a homebrew party game I made while dinking around with bB, based on an old Linux game of mine. The idea of it is that you are steering this boat, and you rack up points just being there. But there's a rouge boat that might collide with you, and currents trying to push you around. If you touch the upper or lower edges, your score freezes. Touch the other boat, and you lose points. The reason it's a party game is because the differences in final scores is so small, that if you and a bunch of fellow heads try to compete, you're going to get smack talk like crazy and almost no way of knowing who the winner is until it is all over. Fire button starts, no console switches used, joystick steers your boat. I thought I saw an "attachment" button, but I can't find it now, so I'll just link to the AA forum post with the .bin if you want to try it. http://atariage.com/forums/topic/224287-all-aboard-the-failboat/ P.S. I've found the game becomes hilarious if you have "Can't Let You Go" by the Blues Brothers playing in the background.

Thank you quite kindly. 43 years old, and I can still channel the punk vibe.

Come on, have some confidence in yourself! Besides, you could sell them as "one of a kind" and "hard to find," and some dope on eBay will buy it from you.

My apologies, I forgot the pics. So, this picture has two boxes. The one on the left is the final product, the right is one of the prototype boxes. That one, I folded the edges by pressing it against a part of my kitchen counter that isn't rounded and didn't really bother marking up the edges. The pizza cutter makes it much straighter. I should note my "final" on the left is not exactly a final, as I used the pizza cutter along the back of the box parts. One of my failed creations, I tried it along the front. Much much straighter and clean folds, but it completely exposes the white board underneath. And I'm thinking of, this weekend, trying to print the "front" on full sheet stickers, putting them on poster board, and trimming them from there to see what the results are. I mean, the box material will be thinner, but it might be easier to fold without crinkles along the bends. I'll report my findings this coming Saturday or Sunday. Still, it's an option. That said, the results. Once again, the more or less final is on the left (magic marker to hide some of the white from flaking off) and the right is the prototype. Here's the basic set-up on the poster board pre-assembly. And a better view of the prototype box. What do you think, sirs?