Nabuko78

Uhm I apparently told this story 15 years ago. Silly me.

Pac Kong.jfif My mistake, I didn't bought Crackpots, I bought "Boom Bang" in exchange for Pac Kong. The images I'm putting are not mine, I'm using them as reference. And as kid I was expecting to see a Transformer robot game, but then I noticed the obvious contradiction between the image in the label and the obvious concatenation of the names Pac and Kong. Never knew until 15 years later. I lost most of my cartridges due to giving them to a cousin and never seeing them again, except for the whole Atari 7800 collection I have.

Quoting myself: "So my question is: Is this a Zeller's game that didn't made it, a rare variant, a common bootleg cart from Hong Kong or what?" I completely forgot Taiwan, it was Taiwan, not Hong Kong, but yeah, whatever came from either country was good to sell in thrift stores and the local market flea. I have seen also Taiwan Cooper cartridges, I owned very few of them in comparison to all the other original games my dad bought over a span of 8 years (1980-1988) until I got my NES right after I won my Atari 7800 on a contest. I had a heavy sixer, got broken many times. Then we got the Atari 2600jr, more original games, then by '86/'87 the Taiwan Cooper cartridges came up, just bought few of them to see what games they were. I bought a Pac Kong cart that never worked then I changed it for Crackpots. Then the Atari 7800 was introduced in Mexico, and a local store made a contest with first prize an Atari 7800, second prize Atari 2600jr. with 1 cart, and third prize an Atari 7800 cartridge. I won first prize by playing Ms. Pacman for 60 seconds, highest score. That's how high scores means something in real life lol. And from there I started to buy my own Atari 7800 games and even 2600 games, and so on did the same with the Nintendo consoles I had. I never knew what was the Pac Kong game due to a faulty cartridge, until the age of internet when I found here at the AA forums that Pac Kong was another game imitating Donkey Kong.

Of course, the cartridge I found is not in mint conditions, the box is damaged, it's not CIB but it's complete. I don't care much about the box, honestly. I need to fix my Atari (RF out is broken), and I need a Pokey chip game to test Audio. I have seen 8 Bit Guy's video when he modded his Atari 7800 and how important is to do the composite mod correctly. That's why.

The title says it all. If you find Ballblazer for the Atari 7800 at a moderate cost, is it worth to buy?

Mystery solved I think. Thanks!

Oh wow, that's funny! I remember seeing the Zeller's thread years ago, and I granted as valid that my cartridge was part of the Zeller's collection, yet I started to search more about this variant and couldn't find it. Even there's an entry for Frogger sold by Zellers but with the original artwork by Parker Brothers. Not this hand drawn version. And I was thinking in replacing the label to a custom made based on Parker Brothers original. I think it's bad idea. I'm thinking in buying an original instead.

I always had this kinda strange (or not) Frogger Atari 2600 cartridge with a drawing of two frogs on a pond. The game is effectively Frogger, I have been playing it on my Atari 7800, and the label style match up with other Zeller cartridges from Canada. But I got this cartridge from an unknown source, but I recognize it as one of those carts that were sold very cheap along with other bootleg carts. So my question is: Is this a Zeller's game that didn't made it, a rare variant, a common bootleg cart from Hong Kong or what?

I liked most the orange variant, in my particular opinion because combines the adventure territory art with the original orange colored box of adventure we all know. Did you submitted your label for the AtariAge / Monkey Labs label contest as well for this mockup?

Hello again "Atari VCS 2600 PAL to NTSC Conversions" enthusiasts. I see you found a Treasure Island NTSC conversion, a really nice, decent and playable conversion (at last) that once I was looking for. Here's where I started my quest. And then, I don't know how, after my frustration I was on my way to "hack" such title into a rom what it seemed to be a conversion, but it was more like a disaster. The file is in this very post. Where did that 2nd one come from? Was it in the forums somewhere? Yes, it was somewhere in the forums, with another name. The conversion attempt was a failure, as you can see in this thread. It was glitchy, with a lot of flickering, but at least became "NTSC-esque" according to Stella 2.2. I was responsable of the conversion. After that, ROM PM me, asking for my name, and I told him Juan Arceo is my real name. 4 years later, a week ago, I realized my name was written along with the rom I hacked and it was inside of a .ZIP file, a collection of roms named "Hacks_and_Homebrews_V1.2b_sorted" I found here. Also you can see there other hacks I made, inside the folder "hacks" such as the "Double Dragon Improved", my very first hack where I changed colors and character sprites. Anyway, it's nice to see that Thomas Jentzsch made a great work by converting "Kampf um die Schatzinsel" or "Treasure Island" into NTSC format that is playable now, unlike my crashy, crappy, newbie attempt. Thank you very much.

Thanks for sharing your Atari 5200 emulator with us!! Congrats for your work, Brian! I was on my way to ask you how to assign user defined color palettes, but then I read the FAQ, followed by the manual for this new version and could know how to make it. Other question is: how come my palette named Nabuko52 ended inside the kat5200 v0.6.2? I noticed that palette was, somehow, among the others, on a list refered "somewhere" except on my personal files. Anyway, I like the updated GUI, the emulation, the misc palette options (That finally allows the .pal format), and everything else. Thank you so much!

It is actually an original Atari VCS controller, not sure if its CX-10 or CX-40, but it's a legit model for the mexican market. I'm pretty sure it is original. I'm damn pretty sure. The circuit board is exactly the same I had in my controllers - once - , as much as I remember... when they got broken after 1 year of use, then my dad brought me a 2600 Jr. from US.

YAY! Thanks everyone! I didn`t realized that were in this very site.

Anyone in this forum has schematics to make paddle controllers for the Atari 2600, or any other useful schematics for most common Atari controllers?

DANG! >_< I used to have a large bottle of Isopropylic Alcohol at home! Now I can't find it! Thanks for the tip, too.

It's very simple: substitute the pin #7 (which is not used in a regular pro-line joystick but used in paddles and lightgun) by cutting the +5V circuit line before the first solder joint, solder a wire between the pause switch line and pin#7 and restore the port back to its place CAREFULLY. I don`t guarrantee you that this works at the first time you try it. But I'll be posting here pictures of my modified Atari 7800. It may take many hours just to remove the port, as long as necessary to make it functional. This is my second gamepad I made but not in this way. The first one was a SNES/SFC-like pad for NES/Famicom using my original pro-line cable and the circuit was printed in a phenolic board (with only one copper side) using a chemical product, ferric chloride (FeCl3) spilled in the board with the circuit drawn with pen marker or other methods that implies ink. That's a traditional method for people that studies electronic engineering (not my case, of course) I'm just a hobbyist.

Finally I made it! It´s my new atari 7800 compatible gamepad, done by myself and has no Atari original parts on it. And has a new feature: a Pause Button! (or a pair of buttons). The making of this gamepad took me like 8 years of planning, because I interrupted all repairing on my console since this stopped working, along with other unnecessary fixing. To do this i had to remove the player 1 controller port and see what was laying down there, in order to link the pause wire to pin #7 (+5V) so I removed part of +5V circuit line without affecting the rest of the circuit, but then I lost the original 9-pin port and for my bad luck it was unavailable on every electronic store I visited. That's why I stop fixing it. Then, two weeks ago I was in a new attempt to fix my mistakes in no time, and found the proper pieces: the 9-pin port, a new AC adapter port, a new soldering equipment, lots of wires, epoxy, a new LED and a AC Power Adapter stolen from other device. It took me a whole week to make my Atari runs again with success, and its LED turns in blue! And then I was in the need for a new game controller. After making a test controller with buttons mounted on a plastic plate, soldered to a cable I took from an older mouse, which for my surprise it had the 9 cords I needed, I tested the pause button and it worked, and failed the two fire buttons, 'down' and 'left'. And I said : "What a mess! I need a real gamepad to make it work properly. Where I'm going to find one? And cheap!" So I went to a flea market at downtown and found one easily, among with other gamepads for Playstation, Xbox, Famicom clones and SNES. All cheap and probably faulty. And I got one which is a Famicom pad with Playstation form (You know, "Polystation", #1 console in Hong Kong and Taiwan). Cute and cheap, that's all I needed. The other pads looked plain ugly and lame. This one is kinda lame too, but not for my needs. So here are the pictures of the gamepad: The next pics are from the circuit board I made with an acrylic plate and copper tape stripes soldered to the wire directly. The shape of the circuit its almost the same of the circuit inside the gamepad case, probably I would never make it fit to the case without a Dremel to make the holes. The gamepad actually works. The response in buttons misses sometimes, but mostly time is good. I already played Ms. Pac-Man and Xevious, obtaining great results. So what do you think about my gamepad?

*Applause* Certainly, people who disagree about a topic shouldn't be quoted.

Atari 7800 is my favorite console, along with the 2600 due the compatibility. My love for this system is so infinite that right now I'm fixing it, after 8 years I thought it was broken. In fact I believe that the other 8-Bit consoles are my favorites as well, and by 8-Bit I mean Nintendo Entertainment System and Sega Master System. Did I tell you everyone I won it in a contest?

Stephen, I have a suggestion: Why not to make the P1 and P2 Difficulty Switches and the Color/Black & White Switch toggle by pressing only one key (In this case F3 for Color/BW, F4 for P1 Difficulty A/B, F5 for Difficulty A/B) so the other keys remains for other functions (F6 for Pause, F7 for Reset Console)

By the way, have you ever though in adding a Pause button in your gamepad or joystick? Cause that's what I'm going to do with my 7800.

No, never. But I made a gamepad for my 7800 that worked really great long ago. I just bought a cheap famicom-SNES-like gamepad, removed the entire circuit with wire and mounted my old Pro-Line Joystick wire with a home made circuitboard, by printing a copper sided board with a dark,smelly liquid *aagh it really stinks!* but it was worthwhile, it fitted in the gamepad although the copper stripes began to torn from the board, somehow. I enjoyed it!

What happened? I think the problem is nobody actually tests MESS, and those that do just complain instead of reporting bugs to bugzilla... I have no idea about 7800, 5200 and ColecoVision. I *think* the 7800/5200 issues have been fixed. What is wrong with 2600 driver? It's "lame"? Okay, I'll report that bug to Wilbert: Wilbert: 2600 driver is "lame". LOL I sure hope we get some better testers out of the AtariAge community when 0.117 is released.... Hehe, don't let these complainers discourage you. Any work done on MESS is a great thing IMO and yes things break sometimes and fall through the cracks. As I always say, if it ain't breaking, that means no one is working on it. I do find it strange that people make comments like that when programmers are working on this *for free* in their spare time. Hard to be critical of that. There *are* good MESS testers out there. I added a lot of fixes/updates to the Odyssey 2 driver and some nice guy regressed a ton of programs and let me know what was now working and what still needed work, with lots of detail too. Thanks for the work on the 2600 stuff. ~telengard Well actually I'm not bitchin' around for what MESS has or hasn't. I recognize that MESS is an excellent emulator, I wish I don't have to download, test, and adopt or reject many emulators for specific systems. Right now I'm staying with MESS 0.114 because it has all the systems I need: Astrocade, Channel F, Colecovision, and maybe Sega Master System. For the Atari systems I prefer other emulators like Stella (2600) Kat5200 (5200) and ProSystem (7800) which has my unique color palette ^_^ also MESS has it since 0.111. If you all guys say that 2600 emulation in MESS is getting better and better, I believe you. Still, I'm not a good tester for the latest version. I don't consider myself as one.

Is possible to modify/hack an emulator in order to remap specific hotkeys that cannot be changed by the user? For example to change QUIT (Alt+F4, Ctrl+Q, or Ctrl+X) into ESC, or RESET functions (soft, hard, full), and in some cases, functions that are only available on GUI Menu.