jaybird3rd

Another cleaning certainly couldn't hurt, but it could be that this particular cartridge is simply too damaged or corroded. I've had a few of those, too. (This reminds me that I've been intending to design some new replacement Activision 5200 cartridge boards to correct these issues. I need to get to work on that, because I'd like to have them for some of my own cartridges.)

Unfortunately, the Activision 5200 cartridges have a few problems that I've seen many times. The card edge contacts seem to corrode worse than most cartridges of the same age, and the cartridge board is just a bit too short, so it doesn't sit deeply enough in the cartridge port. You really have to scrub those boards clean to get a good, reliable connection, and they'll probably require regular cleaning thereafter; with only the very tips of the contacts making a physical connection with the pins in the cartridge port, it doesn't take much dirt to prevent good contact.

So have I! I kept a few of my best ones intact, but most of my Activision labels looked as if they'd been rubbed down with motor oil, so pboland's labels were very much a change for the better.

From my understanding of what Crane said in the ZPH interview, his definition of homebrew versus commercial games is more about the developers' motivation than it is about their level of professional experience or the quality of the games. A professional developer can make a homebrew game, or try to, if they're doing it primarily for fun. A novice developer can make a commercial game, or try to, if they're doing it primarily as a commercial venture. There is a bit of fun and a bit of commercialism in everyone's motivations, however, and in many cases the categories tend to collapse one into the other, so I think it's mostly pointless trying to argue about whether a given game should be considered "homebrew" or not; in the end, it doesn't make that much of a difference.

Yes! Hopefully this initial rush of orders is an encouraging sign of support for them. So far it's mostly the dedicated collectors, and I know we're in the minority, but it's certainly a strong start. I'm sure it will generate some press, which can only help to spread the word about homebrew games in general.

It almost seems as if they put a cap in the database on the number of VIP Editions, so that when that number was exceeded, we just got a generic database update error. (This is just a guess, of course.) Ah well ... it is what it is. I'm just glad I was able to get a Collector Edition, and I'm sure the process will be smoother next time, after the portal has been open and working for some time.

Very nice! Shells, boards, and labels too. This is the first I've seen of the shell, and it definitely looks just like an Activision-style shell. I'll be curious to see how it fits in the 7800.

That would explain it. I don't quite know how they sold out so fast, given the glitchy launch, but I guess there were enough people for whom it worked. A more descriptive error message would have been nice.

Don't worry, I'll re-quote your post after the initial rush of orders is over so it doesn't get lost. (I'm quoting it now so I can more easily find it again later.)

Me too, it seems:

I scored a Collector's Edition! #000223. I tried the VIP Collector's Edition first, but I got the error I mentioned earlier and couldn't get past it, so I had to skip it.

Okay, I got in after launching the browser in Incognito mode, but when I attempt to purchase, I get this: *** SERVER ERROR*** FAIL_UPDATE!

Is anyone else having trouble opening the purchase page? The countdown has elapsed, but the "On Sale Now!" button just redirects back to the countdown page. (I'm using Chrome and Edge; the timer appears to be broken in Firefox.)

Thank you! I appreciate the correction. I was just thinking back through the ROM cartridges I had seen, all of which used plastic prongs of various types. (I haven't taken apart any Krokodile Carts or Superchargers.)

If they're planning multiple releases, and if their research indicates that they can expect to sell thousands of copies per game, I can easily see them wanting to go with a large initial order, along the lines you suggest. Tooling a new injection mold is not cheap, as I'm sure you know, so it makes sense that they'd want to spread that cost over as many games as possible. It also makes sense to me that they'd want to create their own boards and shells: it may seem like a duplication of effort to do so when other boards and shells have already been made, but by making their own, they're locking in their costs and keeping their inventory under their control as much as possible. As @fdr4prez points out above, they also seem to be rethinking the way that cartridges are designed. After surveying the field, they may simply have decided that the existing designs didn't suit their needs. In particular, I really like those cartridge door key prongs built right in to the PCB. Unless I'm mistaken, this is the first time that has been done in an Atari 2600 cartridge—(EDIT: not quite; see below!)—and it is a novel solution to the problem of finding a replacement for the (complex and costly) spring-loaded interlocking dust doors that Atari originally used. As everyone here knows, Atari later switched to a cheaper two-piece shell design that had the key prongs molded directly into the top half of the shell; the tradeoff was those cavities under the face labels that everyone hates so much, as well as brittle key prongs that were too easily broken. It's a lot harder to break a PCB, which is one reason this approach is such a good idea. Another is that shells made for these boards could be used with the 7800 as well, if they wanted to; all they would need is a revised version of the board.

Seconded again! I don't participate in social media at all, so I'm especially grateful for the community that we have here on AtariAge. I think the depth of expertise and the range of experience that our members have brought together has made AtariAge into a unique and valuable resource; it's like the best elements of local user group meetings from back in the day, only in an online forum. I've found it enormously helpful for my own projects, and like most of us, I'm always looking for opportunities to give back where I can.

Seconded. Now it's my turn to annoy some people ... I think this attitudinal shift in the community is related to the generational shift that Glenn mentions. We've seen an influx of younger people who are new to classic gaming, and also people who had a 2600 when they were kids and are now returning to classic gaming after a long absence out of a sense of nostalgia. They have brought a much different mindset into the community from the prevailing one that I remember from ~25 years ago, when homebrew games for "dead" systems like the 2600 was a much smaller hobby. Back then, you had to be pretty deep into "the scene" to even know that there was such a thing as homebrew games in the first place. You were perfectly happy to drop a check or money order in the mail, wait patiently for four to six weeks, and get a humble 4K game in a plastic baggie—complete with a recycled cartridge board and shell, a scissor-cut label and a folded manual printed on a cheap home printer, and artwork drawn by the programmer on graph paper—because you had more of an appreciation of the entire process that went into creating it. Enjoying that process, and that there were fellow hobbyists who shared your interest in it, was an integral part of enjoying homebrew games, because there was an understanding that it was a true labor of love for all involved. Among other things, the shift that has happened since has lead to very different expectations. People now want easy online purchasing and lightning-fast turnaround just like Amazon, they want convenient digital distribution just like Steam, and they want their games for a few bucks each (or even less) just like mobile games. Oh, and they want the games to have the same production value as a commercial release, and to utilize all the latest technical "tricks." If they don't get it, they come to forums like this one and complain, just like they do with multi-million-dollar games that fail to meet their expectations. They may genuinely enjoy classic games, and they may genuinely want to support the homebrew authors, but they don't have the same sense of history or the same technical acumen that the average hobbyist used to have, and so they don't understand the full implications of what they're asking for. Of course, creators and publishers of homebrew games (however one defines the term) have nevertheless risen to the occasion and have found ways to meet many of those expectations. Partly, it was done for their own convenience; printing individual labels and manuals as one-offs is time-consuming and annoying, and buying up and repurposing old cartridges is unpredictable and highly labor-intensive. It's wonderful that we now have resources which make it so much easier for an individual to source professionally-printed labels and manuals, and to have new cartridge boards made, all at relatively reasonable prices. (New plastic shells are still more expensive, of course.) It's also wonderful that options like the AtariAge Store's Custom Cartridge Service now exist for people who can't do all that by themselves, or who simply prefer not to. If someone had taken a homebrew cartridge from AtariAge made in 2021, and showed it to me in 1997, I would have been amazed that such a thing was even possible—and even more amazed that I'd be making cartridges myself someday! But, as much as today's homebrews may have some of the trappings of commercial releases, I think it's a mistake to treat them as such or to bring the same expectations to them, or to the people who make them. I also think it's a mistake to confuse new games that are made for the 2600 as labors of love, and new games that are made for the 2600 as commercial products, and I think there's a bit of that confusion happening, too. The people behind Audacity Games have made it perfectly clear that this is a commercial venture for them, and there's nothing wrong with that. Yes. Unfortunately, this is another modern trait that has crept into the community. Social media has trained people to take what someone says, to read their own meaning into it—whether it's an implication they're imagining or an outright hallucination—and to respond to that, usually loudly and angrily, and not to what was actually said. I wasn't going to comment on anyone's impressions of the ZeroPageHomebrew interview until I'd heard it myself; I'm listening to it now, and so far I have no idea what you people are talking about when you say they came across as "condescending" or whatever, because I am not seeing that at all. They're simply approaching the development of new 2600 games from a much different context and perspective from yours. They specifically called out homebrew authors, and specific tools that they've used; what more do you want from them?

He did the design, and I seem to recall that he programmed the C64 version. Other programmers ported it to other platforms: Dan Kitchen ported it to the 2600, and Glyn Anderson ported it to the Atari 800.

I got it too! Here is the announcement from the e-mail:

Interesting. We've only inferred that the serialization is for copy protection, but if they're giving away a ROM with every purchase, that would indeed seem to defeat the purpose. Perhaps they're only using the serial number for their online leaderboards, to uniquely identify high score submissions.

I'm not familiar with RetroAchievements, but if it can already monitor in-memory score changes, and if it supports MAME, it sounds as if it wouldn't be difficult to implement for the Aquarius as well. Support for Aquarius emulation in MAME has improved considerably in recent releases, and it should be simple to identify the score locations in memory for different Aquarius games. Being able to save and re-load high scores is definitely a cool idea, but it would require patching the original games to support that feature. Coincidentally, my design for the SuperCart II (the successor to the cartridge board used in the Aquaricart) will include an EEPROM for saving small amounts of permanent game data in the cartridge, including high score tables. I had intended to support it in some new Aquarius games that I have planned, but theoretically, it should be possible to patch some of the old games to be able to reload their high scores from the EEPROM. Not all Aquarius games keep track of the player's high score (as a separate value from the current score), but for those that do, it might be a fun project to try.

Many of the programming approaches (or "tricks") that are still used in today's homebrew 2600 games were originally pioneered by the designers at places like Activision and Imagic, but remember, their games weren't primarily about the technical "tricks." The "tricks" were necessary to be able to create the games they wanted to create, but the games themselves—and whether they were fun to play—were what was important. (If that weren't the case, many of us wouldn't still be enjoying these games today.) So to me, whatever "fancy new tech" Audacity Games might bring to the table is a secondary concern. When the 2600 reached the end of its original run, there were still plenty of ideas for potentially fun games, along the same lines as the games that were done at Activision and later at Absolute Entertainment. If the same people can bring more of those ideas to fruition now through Audacity Games, even if they were to pick up exactly where they left off and use only what they knew about 2600 game development at that time—which I'm sure they won't—I'm willing to bet that they'd still be great games. And yes, there should still be plenty of room for everyone still making 2600 games; no need for anyone to "move over." I'm sure that everyone involved in Audacity Games has already surveyed the field, and that they would not have decided to enter it at this particular time if they didn't think the market was big enough for them.