Psionic

Pretty nice. I really want one of those.

I remember that one, very nice. My local Chuck E. Cheese used to have one of those back when it was new. The amusement park I used to work in had one as well. I wonder if they're still there...

Yes, the PC version of TL2 does have Darius Gaiden. Royal Air Mail takes about 5-10 days UK to NY. Cheers.

I just had the identical problem a week or two ago. The box on mine was loose, but it hadn't fallen off the board. I just resoldered it and it worked fine. It's a fairly simple fix, so even if you'd rather buy a new one, give the old one to someone who will fix it, don't trash it.

A complete U.S. SMS collection (115 games) is probably one of the easiest to put together as very few of the games are very expensive and used games tend to be complete due to the plastic cases (unlike the NES). It actually looks like you're missing a few games (unless you just have the loose carts, which I can't see) and some are European/Canadian versions (U.S. versions of some titles are VERY hard to find). Even so, that collection of yours looks very nice. I've got about 75 or 80 out of 115 myself, but I don't plan on going the distance as I'm not really a completist. I haven't bought any in quite a while and, in fact, I'm probably going to unload about 20 of them that I never play.

Soak them in Armor-All

1. Popeye: $5 loose, $10 boxed 2. Space Invaders: $3 loose, $6 boxed 3. Montezuma's Revenge: $15+ loose, $40+ boxed 4. Congo Bongo: $8 loose, $15 boxed 5. Buck Rodgers and the Planet of Zoom: $8 loose, $15 boxed 6. Robotron 2084: $8 loose, $25+ boxed 7. Joust: $2 loose, $6 boxed 8. 5200 Trak-Ball: $25 loose, $35+ boxed

http://www.atariage.com/controller_page.ht...ControllerID=24 They aren't too hard to find, they pop up on eBay fairly frequently.

Always worth a try, but I had to buy my adapter online as neither of my local Radio Shacks had it. Not surprisingly, they had every conceivable adapter you could imagine other than the one I was looking for.

This really belongs in the Marketplace forum.

It's works great, believe me, you'll never use a switch box again. You can use it with any old system that uses a switch box (Atari 2600, Intellivision, ColecoVision, etc.). You get a much better picture that's almost as good as using the composite A/V cables that modern systems have, and unlike a switch box it won't wear out. The only downside is that since it's an adapter and not a switch box, you have to connect the system every time you want to play and disconnect it to watch TV again (unless your TV has multiple coaxial cable inputs). But it's a small price to pay.

I assume you are referring to the TV/Game Switch Box. That said, the RF modulator switch from your NES (grey box) will not fry your system, but it will not work. The old style switch boxes used a manual switch to cut off the cable signal, whereas the box for the NES is automatic. The signal from the Atari 2600 is not strong enough to trigger the auto switch which will cut off the cable signal. Go to Radio Shack and buy a new switch box, or better yet, ditch the lousy switch box altogether and buy one of these... http://www.atariage.com/store/index.php?ma...;products_id=42

Sure, I'll trade you mine for a Donald Duck's Speedboat Proto...

Agreed, Gabriel. I guess I was lucky to buy it new for $20 way back when. I think my cousin bought a copy recently and paid $$ for it.

Well, not me, not yet anyway. But I was aware of this problem when I bought it, so I've been handling my DSL carefully. No problems so far.

Well...I eventually got replacements for those problem cartridges and another console (my original had a dying power supply). The results are as follows: The copy of River Raid I had was in fact DOA. The culprit was a poorly soldered connection in one of the IC chips on the PCB. I guess even Activision wasn't perfect in making games! I still have scrambled graphics on power-up with the following games on my original console: -Centipede -Miner 2049er -River Raid These games do work perfectly on my new console, however. Stupid ColecoVision.

Spy Hunter sells for a lot. I have seen it sell for over $100 boxed before. Yeah right. He relisted it with a $100 reserve. Not even close (I was the high bidder).

Yeah, it seems odd, I don't really know why they did it, I guess they just didn't have enough 5200 boxes and didn't want to make more. Many of the late Activision releases for the 5200 have some strange box and manual variations. As stated, they often used 2600 (or even ColecoVision) boxes for the games. Sometimes they have "For Atari 5200" stickers pasted over that, sometimes not. So it appears this was purposeful and not just a mistake. As far as the manuals, sometimes the 5200 manual is just a photocopy or it is from a different system, and sometimes it is missing!

That was not really an "error" per se, Activision just didn't have the 5200 boxes, so they used 2600 leftovers.

Years back, a FuncoLand employee told me that using alcohol to clean game cartridges will eat away at the circuit board and eventually cause the metal connector pins to peel away from the board. He thus advised me to clean my games only with a special cleaning solution that I could puchase at FuncoLand (the cleaning solution contained isopropyl alcohol!). All I know is, I've been cleaning my cartridges with alcohol for 15 years and I haven't had a problem yet. Use alcohol, but use it sparingly, don't over do it. Nintendo used to tell you to clean cartridges with just water and there were warnings on the back of the cartridges saying not to clean with alcohol, benzene, thinner, etc., but I think that was more because those liquids are flammable than they will damage the game. In my experience, water does not work as well in removing dirt and tarnish from the contacts and takes far longer to dry, which makes it more likely to cause rust/corrosion on the metal contacts.

Um, in a word...YES. Cleaning your game cartridges regularly is the most basic requirement of maintaining a game collection. If you don't clean your games, a new 72-pin won't do a thing and you are only contaminating your system connectors with dirty cartridges. Over 100 games? I have over 500 cartridges and I clean my whole collection at least once every year or two. Games that are used regularly should be cleaned more regularly (probably once every month or two or three). Good luck.

That really sucks. Fortunately, everything is in really good shape after all these years. There's no damage anywhere, just some light corrosion on some of the solder points on the board, but this is to be expected after 25 years. Anyway, as far as the repair is concerned, I decided to do it myself after taking it to a local computer repair (wanted $37.50 to fix it) and a local TV/electronics repair (wanted $22 just to look at it!). I went over to Radio Shack and bought a small soldering iron and a spool of light rosin core solder for $13 and added some solder to the weak joint. Took about 5 minutes and it works like new. Thanks guys. I guess my ColecoVision will be my next project when I figure out how to get the damn thing apart...

I took out my 2600 (light sixer) today and hooked it up for the first time in ages. At first, I couldn't get the system to power up. Eventually it did, but I'd get scrambled graphics and it kept turning off. I realized that power jack on the system itself has a loose connection and by wiggling it around, I could get the system to work or not work. I think this might be the only problem, so I decided to open up the system to see what was up. This is actually the first time I've opened it, and not surprisingly, the insides were full of dust bunnies. I cleaned all that up and found a small piece of paper taped to the guts with a stamp indicating my system's "birth": 20 March 1982 . Anyway, I didn't notice any abnormalities, so I looked at the power plug jack and wiggled it a bit. It seems that the solder points (there are 3) where the box meets the board are weak, which allows a slight wiggle that is nonetheless enough to disrupt power. Is this a simple fix? Should I just add some solder or should I desolder the whole thing and resolder it? I have no electronics knowledge whatsoever, so should I attempt this fix myself or take it to someone else? Any suggestions appreciated.

I read an interview a while back with a guy who works for the game developer/publisher and he addressed both Arkanoid and Chase HQ. He said that Taito refused to license Arkanoid for inclusion on the Legends compilations. He wasn't sure exactly why, but he believed it involved legal issues with other companies like Atari and Nintendo over similar ball and paddle games (Breakout and Alleyway, respectively). Chase HQ will not be included due to licensing issues with various car manufacturers (namely Ferrari and Lamborghini) and the high costs associated with renewing such licenses.