toddtmw

I love my retro pie it's a walk down memory lane. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

California games. The surfing game is better than any other version in fact, I bought a lynx off eBay and bought this game. It's the only one I bought.

Okay, this is weird. Today, I was thinking about the Odyssey that I had when I was a kid. I was thinking of coming here and asking people about it and I did a quick search and found this thread. We had the Odyssey 400. + Why did you (or your parents) buy the Odyssey? I think we got it for Christmas one year. Maybe we got it because we bought a Magnavox TV? I'll let you know if my family remembers any more details. + How did you hear about Odyssey? It showed up at my house. + Where did you buy it? I asked, I'll let you know if I get an answer + How old were you at the time? It came out when I was 9, so it would have been after that. + What games did you play? Which were the most interesting? Which weren't? We only had the one with 3 or 4 built-in pong-type games. I played them all as much as I could. + How long did you play Odyssey? Days, months, years? I played it a lot until we got a 2600, then it got shoved under the TV stand. We found it years later when we moved. I think we sold it at a Garage sale. + Who in your family played? My sister doesn't remember it at all. So, I think it was mostly just me and my Dad. I did get a reply form my Mom and she said we passed it around a lot at first, but I was the one that kept playing it the longest. It was the main reason we eventually got a 2600. (Which I do not recall my sister ever playing) + Where did you play (living room, basement, friends' house, etc.)? Family room. + Did you play videogames after Odyssey? If so, which ones? Oh yeah. I had 40+ 2600 games, and I spent a ton of money in the arcade. I got a paper route so I could buy more games and play more arcade games. I got an Atari 800 and an Atari 130XE and an Atari 1040 ST mostly to play games. I was saving to buy a Jaguar, but then Atari collapsed... (I had an Atari Lynx in there somewhere too.) + What seemed novel or interesting about the Odyssey? Did it remind you of other media or did it seem completely new? I was fascinated by it. To be able to control something on the screen. I had Hotwheels cars with the spinning "car wash" like box that made them keep going over and over, I got Sizzler (rechargable hot wheels) and I had slot and slotless race cars and later remote control cars. I loved being able to control things. + Did you own other accessories or games beyond the basic set? The one we had, there wasn't anything that I was aware of to add. + How did Odyssey compare to other games you played (e.g., sports, board games, electronic handheld games, etc.)? I had a lot of toys growing up. Most of them, I have vague memories of. This is the most vivid memory I have from my childhood. When I tried to look this game up and I saw the squared out version of the original, I was like, that wasn't it. But, when I saw the white box with rounded corners and the three knobs on each side, I was like, "That's it!" + Was anything about Odyssey difficult to learn or understand? No. It was awesome the first time I played with it!

Fiar point, but from where I am sitting, you make it sound like you are upset with the poster (me) rather than the author of the article. Like I said, the information you are sharing is informative, but the attiude is off-putting. I would just like to see people try to be a littl emore civil to each other. We're all here because we share a common interest. Some of us have more information than others, I would love to see people share information without putting others down. Thank you for the insight you have shared regarding this topic. -Todd

I'm not the author. I thought it was intersting and I shared it. Your comments are interesting and informative without the negative jabs. Why do you feel you have to be so negative? It's not just you. I see it all over this forum.

Crazy Climber. There was a donut shop near my house when I had a paper route. (It was actually on my paper route.) The people in the second half of my route got their paper a lot later than the people in the first half. One weekend, I played that thing so much I got blisters on my hands. It was just so different than other arcade games and hard to emulate because you need two sticks. The closest I have come is using an Xarcade tank stick, but the sticks are too far apart.

I love my tankstick. I set it on top of one of those X keyboard stands and put a 50" LCD panel on a wheeled mount and it's just like being i the arcade.

I don't understand the negativity that I see on this board.

I started with the 800. A friend had the 400. When he was buying a replacement keyboard and a third-party memory upgrade, I was saving for a floppy drive. I hated programming at his house typing on that membrane keyboard.

This is awesome! Thank you so much for posting this.

Wow. That is amazing! I can't believe you did that on an 8-bit Atari!

Galactic Chase is Glaxian in everything but name...

On a semi-related note, what is everyone using to connect paddle controllers to USB? (I have one of these, but the QA on Amazon says it doesn't work with them.)

I lucked out! I found a seller who was selling them for $54.99 and only $7 shipping! It sounds like a lot, except I've bought 2 that looked okay in the pictures but do not work very well. One, the button is intermittent. I opened it and the leaf springs are hitting. I think it might be a wiring short. I'll have to google around to see if I can find replacement wiring harnesses. Or maybe I can take the two that I have and cobble together one that works well.

So, I'm pretty sure the later list manager we used was Synfile. What was the popular app that it replaced? (I cannot recall the name.) We had a mailing list that we created and used it to print mailing labels. Then, when Synfile came out, we were somehow able to convert the data we were using to that app. I just cannot recall the name of the original app and it is driving me crazy! Anyone? Thanks.

Except in the Atari world, there were third-party disk drives that came out where you could turn write-protect on or off. If you put the disk in one of those drives, it would format the original disk.

So, I've played a lot of games and seen lots of game lists. What about non-games? When I had my Atari back in the day, I used paper clip to do school papers, I used some sort of list manager or database to do a mailing list for a neighbor. Later I changed it to something else, but I cannot remember what they were. Print shop to print signs, cards and banners. I wrote something in Atari BASIC that I used to print case inserts for my home-made music cassettes. Is anyone using any non-game apps these days? What were your most useful applications and utilities? Todd

Seconded!

This is some amazing stuff. I don't know how you do it, but THANKS! -Todd

I wish I had kept my Wico's. I had 2 the standard bat and then one that had 3 or 4 different handles. Played the crap out of them!

I bought an original Atari Basic Reference Manual. It was only $1 plus $5.95 shipping and handling and this thing looked brand new. Very little yellowing and no torn binder holes. I was shocked at the condition it was in. I also bought a Wico joystick. It was not in the best of shape. I may have to bite the bullet and buy one of the "new" ones out there. In fact, I'm just going to go do it! -Todd

So, what exactly is this? Is this emulating an Atari and then allows modern Connectivity of legacy components? Is there a real 6502-class CPU I here somewhere? I read your web page, but there are a lot of abbreviations there is did not recognize. What did you have built? I see a main board that looks beautiful. But as the pictures progress, there appear to be several daughter-cards being added in later pictures. Are those boards part of what you built? Or are those components we are supposed to buy elsewhere or already have? Thanks.

Well, we knew this would happen just like every other old technology, but this one is extremely sad. http://venturebeat.com/2017/03/03/what-the-death-of-the-crt-display-technology-means-for-classic-arcade-machines/

Changing the TOS version did it! Thanks!

Hello all. Installed Hatari in my Mac. I have hundreds of Automation and Pompey Pirates disk images. When I run them, the intro screen loads, but it lists cames with numbers next to them and hitting those numbers does not work. I can go into Gem and create a folder and type the name of the folder. But the keyobard does not seem to work during the loud midi-music menu screens. I can boot into TOS and then insert the disk and some games will play, but some of the games are not executable. I can only assume that the loader reads the file and executes it for those games. Has anyone else encountered this and come up with a workaround? Thanks!