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My Atari Blog, the Adventures of a New User/Collector


Bloodcat

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This is something I have actually been working on for a bit. Originally I was gonna do a "Let's Play the 80s" using emulators and doing old C64 games.

 

Then I started watching Steve Benway videos and had the urge to maybe get this computer I never had and cover it as I won't be covering something I had much knowledge of or fondness for so it can be covered far better without the tint of nostalgia and the sheer fun of something new to me.

 

My initial Youtube videos were.. not liked very much so I deleted them and started over, ending up with these current installments:

 

Part 1: http://wargamedork.blogspot.com/2011/11/lets-play-party-like-its-1987-lets.html

Part 2: http://wargamedork.blogspot.com/2011/11/lets-play-party-like-its-1987-lets_19.html

Part 3: http://wargamedork.blogspot.com/2011/11/lets-play-party-like-its-1987-lets_30.html

Part 4: http://wargamedork.blogspot.com/2011/12/lets-play-party-like-its-1987-lets.html

 

I'm just linking to it to save on Cut and Paste.

 

I thought it might be something folks here might enjoy seeing. A new user learning about the system and its games, and sharing that knowledge with the Internet.

(Though so far I have mostly had one hardcore Amiga loving UKer insist I should be covering the ST, not caring I am a US user and want to use US systems. I wouldn't mind a 1040 STFM but the price for a good NTSC one is even higher than a Vectrex which I REALLY REALLY WANT EVEN THOUGH THEY COST SO MUCH. Common in the UK is not common in the US. Plus real users use disks.)

 

Hopefully folks enjoy reading it!

 

And if I was really wrong on things or you can provide help for the various issues that will come up (like my already posted issue with Combat Leader) feel free to chime in!

 

I mostly want to stick to playing on original hardware with original legit games but I will use Altirra from time to time, mainly as the place where my original hour of video got slagged to the point I deleted it all insisted on really high quality. (So Steve Benway, whose videos that got me into the Atari 8 bits would have been flamed to hell for DARING to be a camera at a screen.) So I have had to change my plans and manner of doing all of this.

 

(Run a capture card 15-20 feet? Yeah that's not happening either. Screenshots, FRAPS footage out of Altirra, and the odd camera shot from the Commodore monitor is how its got to be for now. Buy fancy lighting and cables and capture devices or get a copy of H.E.R.O.? I'll choose the latter!)

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  • 2 weeks later...

Well, here is the next installment which is also part of a multipart comic strip I am doing for another site's Secret Santa thing. The first part is mostly comic book shenanigans and silliness I doubt anyone here cares about so this is just the Atari bit. WITH A VERY HANDY SUPER AWESOME MEGA STICKY TIP EVERY ATARI 8 BIT USER SHOULD KNOW.

Oh yeah click pictures for larger if you need to.

Part 2 of my comic!

 

This one is 95% informative as opposed to comic book silly toy fun. Its more a part of the Let's Experience Atari bit than it is Toyniverse. If you wanted to see toys behaving badly wait till part 3.

 

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Edited by Bloodcat
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I thought it might be something folks here might enjoy seeing. A new user learning about the system and its games, and sharing that knowledge with the Internet.

(Though so far I have mostly had one hardcore Amiga loving UKer insist I should be covering the ST, not caring I am a US user and want to use US systems. I wouldn't mind a 1040 STFM but the price for a good NTSC one is even higher than a Vectrex which I REALLY REALLY WANT EVEN THOUGH THEY COST SO MUCH. Common in the UK is not common in the US. Plus real users use disks.)

 

Those "comics" are pretty cool :-)

 

ST's are really expensive for some reason.... then peripherals are much more expensive for a complete machine as well. Not sure why really.

 

As for the Vectrex, of all the game systems I ever had as a kid, I miss the Vectrex the most. There's never been anything else like it. Vector games look NOTHING like a real vector screen when played in emulators. Mine eventually died around 1993/1994 and I wasn't sharp enough to repair it back then. Screen issues with these are NOT uncommon. With a cable and adapter board w/ some hacking, the Vectrex screen can be used to play MAME vector arcade games as well from your PC.

 

I see Vectrex machines occasionally for around $100 USD or so.

 

Something that might be interesting on an A8 is a PBI board that outputs to a Vector screen. Probably quite doable. A lot of vector games used 6502's. Having a low-rez raster screen and a high-rez vector screen could make for some interesting game projects. A dual-screen Star Raiders clone using the raster screen for gauges/radar/etc and the vector screen for the through-the-cockpit-glass view would be neat.

Edited by kogden
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Thanks for the comments! I'm using the default font in Comic Life Deluxe. There is a decent PC port of it but its Mac only. And for some reason Windows 7 REALLY likes to make screenshots of games look like they were smeared in Vaseline. I sometimes use other fonts in the humor comics which I didn't link here since toys behaving badly isn't really Atari centric. Though if an installment is like the most recent one it will get posted.

 

(Some of the folks from the secret santa site really enjoy the funny ones so I may modify my Atari project to have some of the toys playing the games and making snarky comments as opposed to it being me. Making fun of how ugly Bounty Bob's sprite is seems mean from me. From a Megatron figure who is acting like a tiny plastic Tourette's murderbot? COMEDY GOLD. Or at least bronze.)

 

Any of you with modern OSX Leopard and later Macs should probably get Comic Life in one of its forms. Its SUCH a great little program. I still keep my aging 2005 Power PC Mac around just to run it.

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  • 1 year later...

Well it has been a while but I guess I should share my finds and other events I have done since the above.

 

One of my little adventures was as such:

 

Yes its a little bonus update posty thing. Which will have a sequel possibly. Or I will just add it to this post next week.

 

The sad state of computer game collecting is this: most stores don't stock retro computer stuff, especially not pre Windows era in the US/Canada. All the retro shops or garage sales or flea markets have tons and tons of console goodies but computer stuff is virtually nonexistent.

 

Thus its off to the great rat race that is online auction sites, the king of course being Ebay. (Yes I know about Amazon sellers and whatnot but sometimes they are worse than any bidding war.)

 

As someone who has used the Bay since the days of 2nd edition Warhammer 40,000 I have some experience with it, both as a buyer and seller. It has become mostly a buyer's market, albeit one sellers can make a quick buck or do a little legit price fixing. Or make a quicker buck by undercutting current going rates with a good Buy It Now price.

 

But buyers have basically destroyed the whole auction concept by and large. See many people use bidding services for things without a BIN and will put in microbids during the last minutes of an auction destroying the bonus money a bidding war might cause and almost making it pointless to bid on anything before then.

 

The only day of an auction that matters is the last unless again, it has a BIN and nobody bid on the lower price to make a deal. I have done this and in a few small cases made the seller extra scratch as some other knucklehead with more money than sense (something almost every collecting hobby has TONS of) bids well beyond that price.

 

But here is the background to this fun mini project:

 

I have a number of items on search. Some of which usually go for much more than my cheap and semi logical (for a collector anyways. I am only mildly idiotic to the "Full Dipstick" of most collectors.) self is willing to pay.

 

One of them came up from a seller who put up a whole gaggle of tasty Atari 8 bit and C64 games. Inexpensive shipping per item (always a huge thing! Remember: SHIPPING SHOULD BE TAKEN INTO ACCOUNT WITH ANY ORDER OF ANYTHING.), which of course if I win multiples will get me quite the savings. I bid on that item, and many of the others, mostly going super lowball bids over the starting price due to my desire for the items (come on. Its just... STUFF. I don't need it. Its just for funsies!) and you know, being pretty broke.

 

We shall soon see what of these I win, for how much, and what the final bids in the final moments were:

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Join me next week as we investigate this. Wish me luck on around 50 total dollars including shipping of luck. But not more than that otherwise I can't punch my credit card bill in the face as fast!

 

(And here was the follow up:)

 

I am writing this here and there over the time as I have access to a proper typing computer (because try typing on a Kindle Fire screen. To say nothing of an iPod Touch 2nd gen..) and results come up.

 

5:55 AM 1 Feb: With 1 day and 13 hours left my bid on "Raid on Iran", the only hobby game on this little list got outbid. My max bid: 12.50.

 

(Final Winning Bid: 33.00. No way in hell would I pay this much for a mini game. I like mini games such as this and it would be funny to make late 70s jokes or jokes at Iran in general (protip: Read or watchPerseopolis: The Story of a Childhood. Its a great first hand account of someone who grew up in Iran during all this.) since they seem to be constantly lead by douchebags but no. Not 33 dollars. NOPE.)

 

4 PM 1 Feb: Broadsides. Outbid by 50 cents about 5 hours before auction end. My max bid: 10 bucks. I love SSI but I know little about the game itself other than its you know, by SSI and is an Age of Sail game. Money is tight and I was just giving it a shot. I wanted it, but not super bad. Oh well.

 

9 PM 1 Feb: Caverns of Mars. Outbid by 50 cents with 3 minutes left in the auction. My max bid: 10 bucks. Another game I have heard decent things about but was mostly just bidding because it was there. I don't feel bad again. Its pretty common, though a sealed copy which I think is cartridge version would have been swell.

 

4 PM 1 Feb: Atlantis. Outbid by 50 cents in the last 30 seconds of the auction. My max bid: 8.50. I love Imagic. Next to Activision, they are the best early 80s game publisher. And they had the best boxes and cartridges EVER. Sadly many versions of Atlantis don't run on the XL/XE series of computers (I have the 130XE) so I didn't go big. Plus Atlantis isn't my favorite Imagic game. (Cosmic Ark or Riddle of the Sphinx are my top loves.) I shrug.

 

430 PM 2 Feb: Lords of Conquest. Outbid by 50 cents 7 hours before auction end. My max bid: 8.50. I have kind of wanted this game since I first saw it on a Commodore 64 in 1989 in my Vo Tech High School Electronics shop on one of the last days of the year. Its sort of like Risk but better I think. Also its an Electronic Arts game and 80s EA owned before they became evil. What Activision and Imagic were to early 80s cartridge systems EA was to computer disk games. I will survive. Next time Gadget.

 

6 PM 2 Feb: Galaxian. Outbid by 50 cents in the last 2 minutes of the auction. My max bid: 5.50. It was another "Well it's there" bid. Galaga is MUCH better than Galaxian but if I could get the boxed cart cheap why not go for that heat? Also I have a couple retro collections with arcade Galaxian too. I care not.

 

 

9 AM 3 Feb: Popeye. Outbid by 50 cents 12 hours before auction end. My max bid: 7.50. If Activision and Imagic are my early 80s cartridge Alpha and Beta, Parker Brothers is whatever the third place is in fancy talk. And I kind of have wanted Popeye for years. But not NEED IT NOOOOWS level of want. Darnit.

 

9 AM 3 Feb: Q-Bert. Outbid by 50 cents 13 hours before auction end. My max bid: 5.50. Another Parker Brothers game. But really I should more want the Playstation Network version since it is you know, the arcade version. Another one I was just giving a shot. I also loved their version of it on the 2600 back in the day. Like the Germans, Parker Brothers makes good stuff.

 

9 AM 3 Feb: Qix. Outbid by 50 cents 13 hours before auction end. My max bid: 6.00. It was there. I have the Taito collections with proper arcade version. Also I am not a big Qix guy. I've probably played more of the Gals' Panic nudie version of this game by Kaneko on ACTUAL ARCADE CABINETS IN PUBLIC than I have Qix in any form. We had a lot of arcade games on the Naval Bases I was stationed in during the early 90s.. Next to Galaxian this is the game I care the least about losing on.

 

 

650 PM 3 Feb: Moon Patrol. Outbid by 50 cents 3 and a half hours before auction end. My max bid: 7.50. This is a game I quite wanted but.. money be tight and its pretty common so I lowballed as I am wont to do. Bugger. :(

 

What have we seen with the losses? Other people bidding low who might have wanted them more than me. Not a single item was bid on (besides me anyhow!) more than 48 hours before auction end, most in the last 12 hours. Outside of two of the auctions no more than two people bid on them. Myself and someone else.

 

The modern Ebay situation is one where people generally avoid bidding wars. Not a ton of bid sniping. A couple items I probably would have gone 1-7.50 more on had I more money but most of these were not my primary bids anyhow. Just things I bid on since they were along with the things the seller had I really wanted.

 

Now to FRAWRESS VICTOLY:

 

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Outside of Flight Simulator 2 which my bid of 3.50 won, all of these I got for the seller's starting price.

 

Realm of Impossibility and Racing Destruction Set were the reasons I bid on ANY of this and I got both for 5 and 4 dollars respectively, when sellers normally have them up for 30+ individually, and I have lost auctions for each in the 20 dollar range. And again, they are EA titles from their golden age. A nfity action puzzler I have always wanted to try, and a fun racing/construction set I played a bit on a friend's C64 as a kid.

 

Ms Pac Man I got for 6 dollars. While I already have multiple arcade versions of the game and the remix Genesis cartridge, I REALLY like the Pac Man port on the A8 bit, moreso than the actual arcade game. So.. why not try for the superior game?

 

Going back to Flight Simulator 2. Yes there is a super common cartridge version. But this is the disk version with the giant manuals and docs and all. Even if I grab a cart loose later on I can now play it properly. Or keep trying for Solo Flight which is my preferred flight sim where I cannot shoot down whoever it was Americans had to irrationally hate and fear in the 80s.

 

I got Dig Dug for 8. I would MUCH rather play the "Arranged" remake of it on one of the Namco arcade collections but I do like me some Taizo Hori monster popping fun. Will be nice just to see how they made it work on a 70s tech micro.

 

Chicken for 6. Its a lovely transparent red cartridge. And the game is named Chicken. I can grab it strongly and say I am choking my Chicken. For a dollar over the price of a Starbucks' latte I can make endless masturbation jokes. Plus its a pretty cartridge. And I just popped over to "Atarimania" to look at the game. Its a joystick OR paddle game. With a good score. I look forward to LPing it and making wank jokes all the while.

 

Superman for 2. Apparently its GOD AWFUL. Like nearly Superman N64 bad. But 2 bucks? I spend more than that most weeks on candy from vending machines.

 

Summer Games for 2. Yes I have cart versions. But if EA is to computers what Activision is to early consoles then Epyx is Imagic. And Epyx has bomb ass boxes to their games.

 

Super Huey for 6. I played this a bit as a kid but not a lot. I owned Gunship which is still the best helicopter combat sim. But I love helicopter sims where I get to blow up helpless commies from the sky.

 

I did WELL. For 2.50 more than a recently released Nintendo 3DS game I want (the newest Fire Emblem) I got 10 new games to play, all boxed and complete. Not too shabby. And I still have another bid or two with this seller active and might wait to see what wins and doesn't and get more awesome stuff.

 

See friends, there is a trick to Ebay:

 

BE CHEAP, BE PATIENT, KNOW OTHER PEOPLE HAVE MORE MONEY AND LESS SENSE THAN YOU DO.

 

You don't need any of this. Its just stuff for fun. Bills and important stuff comes first. Know the value of your local currency. Be willing to wait. I have gotten things sometimes for HALF their normal going price just by being patient and willing to lose.

 

My "White Box" edition of 1974 Dungeons & Dragons? Under 50 bucks. Normally it runs 100 or more. You can get deals if you are patient and accept the snipers or gougers who put things up for idiotic prices.

 

With this knowledge you too can have The Touch, Prism Power Might, Whatever the Hell Those Pastel Ponies Have, The Care Bear Stare, The Wu Tang Secret.

 

Now let's attack aggressively in.. not spending aggressively and laughing at idiots who pay more than we do for goofy crap we really don't need.

 

And if you are a seller thank the modern Ebay buyer for ruining your profit margins.

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Forgive the above for being cut and past from my blog (

http://wargamedork.blogspot.com), but it saves me time and effort.

 

Now let us see what I have gotten for games since I started this project eh? Forgive some of these pictures for having other games in them.

I am a general retrogames collector and unlike the A8 bits I am now trying to get games and accessories I really want BEFORE I buy the

machine. You will see a few examples of that as I talk about each picture.

 

 

I am calling this update a basic "what have I done and where am I going?" post. I will show off my entire collection as it currently stands, talk a little bit about my experiences, and what I will do next.

 

First off, my mostly alphabetized and organized games:

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When I started my Summer 2012 game organization and photo thing (some of which has appeared on my blog, others still just as photos on Facebook) I tried to organize alphabetically and by type. At this time these were my cartridge titles. Centipede, Gateway to Apshai (one of the first action RPGs!), Miner 2049er, Pac Man (a good game. How the computers could get this amazing title and the Atari 2600 got such an awful port is beyond me. OH WAIT CORPORATE STUPIDITY.), the best version of River Raid, a good version of Up n Down (but C64 is better. Prettier sprites and not the flicker.) for the loose cartridges. For the boxed we have the action strategy classic Archon, the ok Gauntlet clone Dark Chambers which is MUCH prettier on the Atari 7800, an interesting turn based wargame in Eastern Front, a "Frig it, its cheap and I am getting other things from the seller" deal flight sim in Jumbo Jet Pilot, and the unfairly maligned Return of the Jedi Death Star Battle, a game I loved as a kid on the 2600. I still think it is a fun bit of blasting.

 

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And my loose disks. Ghostbusters which is solid but not a patch on the C64 version (itself outshone by the Sega Master System), Operation Whirlwind which is another wargame, Pole Position which is a great port of a classic arcade game (and honestly more playable than most emulated collections of it today!), Rescue at Rigel which is another Apshai Engine RPG, 3 freeware titles thanks to a fine Texan from Atari Age sending me disk versions. (Crownland which is technically amazing but is almost unplayable if you aren't on a PAL machine due to sprite flicker, His Dark Majesty which is a buggy but great wargame, and Yoomp! which is an absolutely BRILLIANT game.) The Temple of Apshai Trilogy which is a vastly improved remake of the first 3 Apshai games (at least to 1986 standards), and the Microprose WW2 Submarine simulator Silent Service.

 

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Combat Leader is one of the earliest Real Time Strategy titles, F-15 Strike Eagle was the first major Flight Simulator release from Microprose, Gemstone Warrior is an Action RPG that is buggy as sin, Jupiter Mission is a weird but innovative series of minigames (programmed in Basic because Avalon Hill were slackers) set up into a grand adventure over a buttload of disks, Ogre is an amazing rendition of the tabletop classic, Pinball Construction Set is the real founder of the Construction Set and video Pinball subgenres, and Pitstop II on the Commodore 64 is an amazing arcade racing game. Sadly my SEALED COPY had somehow been stored in a way that rubbed and ruined the disk. Poopy.

 

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Panzer Jagd is another wargame as is VC. (I think we can guess the topic of each.) Star Raiders is the amazing for its time first person space flight simulator. Wargame Construction Set does what it says on the tin. (It is just less pretty than the ST version, but still way more flexible than WCS 2 and 3 would be on DOS/Win 9x era PCs.) And then the at the time 3 Cassette titles of which I got Fort Apocalypse to load ONCE because tape loading is pure hell. I covered Fort Apocalypse as a pair of Youtube videos you might want to watch on my channel:

http://www.youtube.c...er/CaptainRufus . Zaxxon I never got to load at all. Temple of Apshai is the original A8 bit version of this founding member of the electronic RPG family. And it was the apparently rare single tape side loader. And my annoying 1010 drive ate it. RAAAGE.

 

Join me in the next post for the post organization pictures and commentary.

Edited by Bloodcat
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Now for the games I got after this organization. Now that my collection is getting to the point it no longer fits at all in the small plastic storage tub with lid. (Even though the disk holder for the loose games sits on top.)

 

Again, forgive the non Atari 8 bit game pictures in the shots. I try to save picture space and count this way. Plus as I tend to get games piecemeal here and there I would have even longer gaps between pictures taken.

 

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First off is Crush, Crumble, and Chomp! Its a semi real time strategy game using the Apshai engine (again!) where you play as a giant monster getting to stomp around cities.

 

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Great American Cross Country Road Race is an ok for its time racing game. Mail Order Monsters I haven't gotten to try out yet but its a mixture of Archon, Pokemon, and the previous Crush, Crumble, and Chomp. Telengard is another AVALON HILL ONLY PROGRAMS IN BASIC game, this time an RPG which is one of the earliest in the genre, another Roguelike styled game based on many of the early mainframe and PLATO type network RPGs folks in our Defense, Science, and University industries might have putzed around with on lunchbreaks. (We would all never play videogames during work time, especially not with taxpayer dollars. Nope.)

 

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We see some Tandy Color Computer games that I have before owning the system (I learned my lesson from this Atari mayhem!) and then into the A8 yet again! I haven't even loaded any of these up so I don't even know if they work. I have too many projects both fun and essential, not to mention some days and times I just don't have the heart to do anything. Depression is a BASTARD. :( Eidolon is one of the first FPS titles as we might know them today, Jumpman is a classic puzzle platformer that was hugely popular in the early 80s, Curse of Ra is an Apshai Engine expansion that seems to have a pirated copy of actual Temple of Apshai meaning my ownership of the eaten tape copy now has some use due to the manual and stuff, and Battle of Chickamauga is another wargame.

 

And of course those games from my February Ebay shenanigans:

 

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Auto Duel whose character disk sadly isn't working right (it is an action RPG based on Car Wars and was one of the first Commodore 64 games I wanted but never got.), Chicken which is a fun little Paddle type game in a lovely translucent red cartridge, Dig Dug the classic arcade game, Flight Simulator II which is the legendary simulator whose installments kept coming up as far as last year's Microsoft Flight, International Karate which is another damn tape game I can't get to bloody load (think a Karate Champ sort of fighting game), Ms Pac Man which continues the Atari computers getting good Pac Man ports, Summer Games which is that old classic sports series that isn't the wagglefest of Track n Field, and Super Huey which is a combat helicopter simulator that isn't half as good as Gunship which was what I got the Christmas I got my Commodore 64 instead of Auto Duel.

 

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Lastly we have Racing Destruction Set which is the classic arcade racer/construction set that much like Pinball Construction Set would get later sequels from Electronic Arts in the Genesis/SNES days, Realm of Impossibility which is a neat action strategy adventure game, and Superman which is confusing and stupid.

Follow Up/Ruminations Upon the Project So Far:

 

 

 

Well, for one thing I need more time/mental energy to not only try out the games to make sure they all work (so far only Autoduel and Pitstop II don't work and Autoduel may be my fault. Power strip stuff when it was saving my character. I just need a new Player disk!) but to properly learn and ENJOY the games. Right now most of these titles I haven't played for more than 20-30 minutes each outside a few of them.

 

But that is an issue with my game and media collections as a whole. I buy more than I make use of, which is probably one of the reasons I am so cheap with how much I am willing to pay. And then add in storage space, self loathing for buying such silliness, and time to utilize it and its a big give and take situation.

 

Sure I could just go to one of the great sites full of Atari games and documentation and use like the excellent http://www.virtualdub.org/altirra.html emulator, but I prefer to be legal and legit as possible.

 

Even though some games I want like Bounty Bob Strikes Back, Wolfenstein 1 & 2, H.E.R.O., Ultima Series, and SSI RPG/Wargames all tend to go for more than I am willing to pay. (Activision's Pastfinder is another case. A case where I have basically decided I probably won't ever own it even though it looks cool.)

 

For me, 10-25 dollars is around my sweet spot for boxed and complete games. I am very happy to go under that (obviously) if possible but some of the above even loose go for twice that!

 

I am trying to be a bit smarter and all.

 

Heck, I am also collecting for the Tandy Color Computer 3, and Texas Instruments TI 99/4a and I won't buy either machine till I get the games I want for a good price. Same with the MSX 2 computer. (In the CoCo3 and TI 99 case I pretty much have the most wanted games for both already.)

 

I of course have various other retro collecting sublines I do too. Like Batman games. Hobby Games Gone Electronic. Alien franchise games. Ultima.

 

And yes I should probably get http://www.lotharek....duct.php?pid=23 to use for when even the floppy drive decides to die or the magnetic disks fart out. As is my cassette games almost never load period and I am always unsure if its the drive, the tapes, or BOTH.

 

But it is all part of the fun and challenge. Its not just about playing the games. Its not just about amassing a good collection. It isn't just about the history. It is all of it plus the DO IT YOURSELF aspect of maintenance and the authenticity of playing on real hardware.

 

It is a serious love/hate relationship.

Edited by Bloodcat
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  • 6 months later...
My project still lives. I just sometimes forget to post my new results here.


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I am eventually gonna do an entire series on individual Atari 8 bit games plus Ultima titles in general. But this is just a recent thing that happened I wanted to cover and talk about. Plus maybe get some help with my disk issues.


I do crosspost this project to my blog (http://wargamedork.blogspot.com) and as part of a megathread on Something Awful covering older computers for gaming: http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3577352&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=1


So forgive me if it seems like I am spreading it around but I like doing this stuff and sharing it with as many folks as I can. And talking about it too.
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Thanks. I try to update it when I have enough interesting(ish) content to post.

 

My original project style was gonna be simple and quick videos but the place I tested it out at was.. less than charitable to them so I mostly stick to comic or photo and text styles of updates.

 

Plus I do hobby games and general retro computing in the same basic format so it bounces around what I am working on at any given time.

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  • 2 weeks later...
This forum has the Atari computers stuff in its own home thread so this post here which in other lands is part of the Retro Computers thread is still more appropriate to post here instead:


It is time for yet another effort post from me.


Retro Computing: Why Bother? Special: Origin Hates My Atari.


As we saw in an earlier post (scroll up or to the previous page probably) Ultima 2 did not like my Atari 130 XE computer.


Well I got a loose set of Ultima 3 disks for the Atari (yet again with Commodore 64 on the other side) for a mere five dollars. Since I already still have the manuals for Ultima 3 it is practically giving me a complete game for nothing.


I dutifully use Atari DOS 2.5 to format a blank disk and make a copy of the write protected character disk (whose 30 years old label started ripping off as I did the repeated swapping).


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Much like Ultima 2 I need to hold down the OPTION key to load as it was a game designed around the original 400/800 series. It loads to title screen.


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We even get the little animated demo with some nice music. The graphics look the same as Ultima 2. Same weird Composite palette. Apparently the newer type of graphics chip in the XL and XE series did not do things the way the x00s did. Some games even have an option to account for this.


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I make the Wu Tang Clan . 4 Male Humans. 2 Fighters. A Cleric and a Wizard. (ODB as the Fighter. Masta Killa as the other Fighter. RZA as the Cleric. If I didn't want both ZAs in, I may have made Inspecta Deck the Cleric. Cuz he be judging you.)


I form the party and JOURNEY ONWARD. The screen starts showing the big frame bars Ultima 3 has and then.. BLACK SCREEN. No sound no nothing.


So now I am 1 for 4 in Origin Systems Atari 8 bit games actually being PLAYABLE. Autoduel had a character disk issue which may have been my fault. (Due to saving it and then a power bit happened because I was putzing around with the power strip.) But Ultima 2 and 3 have WRITE PROTECTED PLAYER DISKS.


I made copies of them.


Is it the games not liking the XE hardware? Is it the disks are just old? Is it because the drive is old? Did it not like the DOS 2.5 disk copying? Is it because the 810 disk drives of the time U2-3 were out held like 80K a side compared to the 1050's 120ish?


It is currently a mystery.


Should I investigate further?


I mean I can use this patch and play the NES port of Ultima 3 with a superior level of play balance: http://www.jeffludwig.com/ultima3/download.php


I have completed the C64 port back in the day (I have no Commodore 64 so no idea if those sides work fine.) and I have completed the OSX 10.4 remake port:


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(I have an Ultima text font I self added to the game. I also got the developer to put in the NES tileset! This isn't that set of tiles. This is the game's default.)


I decide to download the newest version of THE Atari 8 bit computer emulator:


, getting the newest test edition from Atari Age's forums thread on said emulator.




While they don't have scans of the Ultima 3 cards they DO have the ones for Ultima 2.


And.. I may have created the player disk incorrectly. So I follow the instructions on the card and I am hoping for the best, swapping disks back and forth since I only have one drive.


I do.. AND IT WORKS!!


You see the reference card I do not have told you the illogical and stupid way to make your play disk for Ultima 2. You put the original play disk in your drive and turn it on. It will boot into a program with dialogues to make your player disk, swapping in and out off of one drive. (I do not have a second drive so no idea if it would access it. Doubtful.)


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I was able to move about the continents and timegates with ease. And I finally made it to Dickie B himself. Did a lot of unarmed and unarmored fighting so the extra gold was nice to up my HPs.


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The town works too! And I got some food from Mc Donalls. Didn't go to the Drive Thru window on the side though.


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I wander around the nearby towns and villages looking for a weapon or armor shop so I don't have to be as like Inquisitor Brady and purge a heretic with my bare hands. Also I note LB's doofy humor at work. And note how Wizardry never came to the Ataris. Jerks. Hell, they didn't even reach the C64 till like 88!


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FINALLY A TOWN WITH KILLY STUFF I CAN BUY. Since it is Axecrash the Dwarf Thief he gets an axe!


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Sadly Squats cannot join the Adeptus Astartes so I cannot get Power Armor. Also I only had 223 GP so I could only afford Chain Mail.


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And as I keep running low on food it is good I have this gear and HPs. We gonna chop some heads off for fun and profit. So I can afford more food. And sometimes afford to improve my stats.


Sadly Ultima 3 does not work the same way. I mean I COULD try this version as well


but.. its NOT ON THE ATARI.


While I couldn't find an Atari scan of its' reference card I did find a C64 scan. And it said to make a play disk you needed to hit C at the title or something like that.


Ok. Fine. No menu option or anything like that. I will still give it a shot.


Text title comes on. Not doing anything. That screen with the dragon and the adventurers? I keep pressing C and:


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With more swapping than a thing that editors of Penthouse Letters write about I now have a disk. Will it work? Can I have Ultima 3 on my Atari 8 bit in all its' composite glory?


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If not, I know who to blame. The same man behind the Ultima 2 port. Chuckles. :doom:


Is it not enough that your in game alter ego annoys us? Do you have to do stupid user unfriendly things that require reading a manual and reference card?


Or is it Dick British's fault? I mean he IS a goofy ubernerd and a computer geek with bad enough taste to love Apple 2s. Maybe he thought it made sense to his programmer's mind?


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FRAWRESS VICTOLY!!!

The Wu Tang Clan will never reveal the secrets of the Thirty Six Chambers but maybe they will learn the secrets of Ambrosia and the Four Cards of Exodus.


But hell, maybe we should see what these two games look like on a (emulated) 800?


Well I did a check using Altirra. Colors still seemed like the ones above. But here are a few emulator shots of Ultima 3 with some of the options in the emulator on:


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This is basically what a sharp NTSC palette looks like without things like scanlines and such. Pretty uggo.


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You will see a lot of game screenshots online looking like this. Its emulators running in PAL mode with a couple things set here and there. If you don't mind it looking like a low res 68000 Macintosh game without the benefits of point and click it IS very sharp.


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With some tweaking of the artifacting colors and such I get a much more pleasant color scheme. Kind of like messing around with a Super Game Boy on a SNES.

I am using a different one of the Antic or GIA visualization options as well here but you get the gist of it compared to the above.


Note how in general though for games using artifacting for graphics the emulators are actually kind of.. BAD. Our modern displays just cannot do them properly and usually look worse for it. This is the real life reason why many older PC CGA games look so bad. They were really designed for composite screens and not the RGB-SVGA monitors of the sharpness.


I have seen some (bad) screenshots of the above games looking closer to the last picture online. Perhaps they were the x00 series Ataris? Or a poorly setup composite monitor? PAL or SECAM palettes photographed? Different color settings on their monitors? Different branded monitors or cabling used?


For now this remains a bit of a mystery. But I can rock out to Ultima 2 and 3 on the Atari 8 bit.


I would like to at least get the disks for all four Ultimas released on this platform but Ultima fans tend to be less frugal with money. (Whereas I spend a lot of money but on a bunch of things as opposed to a few expensive bits.)


I would note that this is not a proper part of the Ultima retrospective series I plan on doing but it should give folks the idea of what kind of silly interface nonsense older software had and some basic visuals of composite trickery in emulators.


(To be fair lots of Apple II systems even into the early 90s had monochrome monitors. They really weren't missing out too much on that platform..)

Edited by Bloodcat
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I burst out loud laughing when I read this because it is still valid with current Atari programmers.

 

I swear some of the things 80s computer games did were just designed to be subversive forms of copy protection that anyone responsible enough to read the manuals because WHO WOULDNT READ THEM AMIRITE?

 

Things like paragraphs in the books to read as opposed to putting the text in game. Things you have to do to play the game that no rational person would think of doing or trying especially when the game doesn't even make mention of it anywhere in the game itself.

 

It makes entirely too much sense.

 

Sure sure the EXCUSE is that they are trying to save on memory and disk space.

 

But when later games on the same platforms with the same specs managed it?

 

Yeah.

 

(Course then you play a Sierra adventure game or see how modern CRPGers whine about everything being easy because ITS NOT A PROPER EXPERIENCE IF YOU DONT HAVE TO TAKE YOUR EYES OFF THE SCREEN EVERY KEY PRESS TO DRAW YOUR OWN MAP and it could indeed be that programmers have... odd brain structures. Which also explains why I can't code and even SQL fills me with dread.)

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  • 4 months later...

My project still lives. I even have new loot:

 

I have been remiss in my retro computing posting as of late. I have new acquisitions to talk about soon though.
Every now and then I go hunting for Atari 8 bit computer titles. Sometimes I find them in retro stores, normally just find a seller with a lot of loot and I bid low and hope for the best.
(Normally this means I lose 1/2-4/5ths of my bids but I am only mostly silly.)
So what have I gotten over the last few months?
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And now that I have a set of paddles? I can kick some good ass in Kaboom!
(Yes a couple of these games might have shown up in an earlier post but I never even got around to PLAYING THEM. Today I played about half of these for some amount or the other and took some screenshots.)
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Thanks for the kind words! And I have some more updates. A little talk about a few of my pickups with screenshots from a real Commodore 1084 monitor!

Retro Computing: Why Bother? Atari 8 Bit Update 1
It has been a while since I last did some Atari 8 bit computer fun hasn't it?
Well, in between seeing horrible things on www.somethingawful.com and working I have finally gotten around to getting a few more goodies over the last few months.
(And losing a lot of bids because I both lowball things as a cheapskate with a sense of self loathing and an understanding I have too much stuff already and really need to lower my purchasing even if I am paying off bills well ahead of schedule like a boss. Oh yeah, and last 10 second snipers. Lots of sniping.)
Over the next few weeks as I have time and desire I am gonna show my recent pickups and even take a few pictures describing them and my thoughts.
Just for fun, you know? PLAY THE GAMES.
Don't hoard. Don't get them graded. They are meant to be played and enjoyed.
(Even if I still haven't taken Mail Order Monsters out of its wrapper. It just feels bad. I mean I will but I dunno.)
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Most of my haul from the last few months. Necromancer is sealed so when I open it I am destroying yet more collectible collectibleness I got cheaper than loose copies go for anyhow. Adventure Creator is a game creation tool I had back on my C64 so I kind of wanted it again. I had played Jungle Hunt on my friend's C64 as a kid that was also then a cartridge. Mountain King I somehow had as a kid on the Atari 2600 but had no idea what I was doing. (Glad to have it with manual as it is.. complicated.) Kaboom! is something I am very happy to have as I have finally gotten my own set of Paddle controllers and now have it to play with them! K-Razy Shoot-Out is a nifty Berzerk clone. Field of Fire is both another SSI game which makes it a want, and its a Squad level strategy wargame which is kind of my jam.
The most I paid for any of these was 15 bucks for Necromancer. It, Adventure Creator, Mountain King w Manual, and Kaboom! were from one seller. I bid on more stuff, some of which he relisted and I got sniped on most of it, though I WILL have two more loose but with manual cartridges to go with these titles.
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First I plug in my untested paddles. For those not in the know, Atari paddle controllers were 2 controllers to a single DB9 socket. Which is why the old 2600 had some of the first 4 player games on a programmable game console. (And the Atari 8 bit computers originally came with 4 DB9 ports. I am unaware of any 8 player games sadly. Not that in this day and age I could get people to even try games on a computer from the late 70s.)
Yes it is sitting on top of my NES Advantage joystick. Both could use a good cleaning. Its amazing the kind of mung a 12+ megapixel camera can pick up!
Also the paddles still work after however long they were owned by whomever then ending up in a Connecticut retro games store. They do need a little refurbishing to deal with the "jitters" paddles sometimes get as the years go on.
LET US KABOOM!
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The game in motion which is the only way to get a shot as it has no pause function. In Kaboom you have to stop the Mad Bomber above from having his old timey bombs hit the ground. In between waves you get to rest until you press the fire button. Every 1000 points you get another bucket down at the bottom.
To make your life harder, when you miss a bomb, the bottom most bucket is removed first. When you lose a bucket it slows back to the previous wave's speed. However you get points per bomb based on the wave. Yet you cannot store extra buckets at all.
There are a lot of things neat about this version over the 2600 original. For one you see a simple city backdrop up top. The bombs themselves have slight differences with the lit wick being on the left or right.
Plus as you catch bombs a simple version of The 1812 Overture's famous bit that happens around the 13:50 mark on the full arrangement happens, with it sounding more "correct" if you catch the bombs via your paddle controlled buckets in the right order.
It is not exactly a MAJOR change from the 2600 version but.. its nice.
I have never owned the 2600 one but on emulation packages but I can say controlling Kaboom with a paddle is so much better and playable than touchscreen, gyro, analog stick, or any other way. The symbol by the score up at the top shows me using a paddle with wide buckets. You can also have thin with paddle, and the same two options with joysticks.
There are alternating two player modes, and a nice versus mode where one player controls the Mad Bomber and the other the buckets and you duel it out, switching sides if you miss.
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The biggest high score I recall getting is around 2500 or so which is "Badge Score" with a joystick, but 3000 is paddle. These scores here are my normal so far. On other formats even with a mouse I can't get even HALF of this.
The Epyx 500XJ is plugged back in and it's time for some CRAY-ZEE MONEY!
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Actually no. Its K-Razy Shoot-Out. It is a Berzerk clone. Unlike that game this one has your enemies teleport in, sometimes right on top of your head. You can also hold the fire button and aim in any direction. One odd bit I have noticed is that you and the monster robots only are allowed a single bullet on screen at a time. Also you have a timer bar that counts down with the obvious timer bonuses.
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It is a fun little game. Here are some robots roaming about the randomly generated maze while my latest death has a nice little animation of my man dying at the bottom.
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It is fun but I need some more practice time with it. If you like Berzerk it is well worth trying though.
Now it is time to go on a hunt.
A Jungle Hunt.
(As opposed to a hunt for my life. I have none regardless of my attempts otherwise. I do not game to escape life, but to have something to do that is enjoyable. And affordable.)
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Based on the arcade game, in Jungle Hunt you have 4 stages with a countdown timer. In the first one you have to take your WHITE MAN'S BURDEN guy and jump from vine to vine with the one you are about to jump to mostly obscured till you jump. It is a mixture of timing both when the vine will be towards you enough to catch it. You have some leeway though if you jump too late you will end up lower and lower on the vine if not miss it outright.
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Part two has you swimming a river, with nasty bubbles bringing you to the surface out of control in the middle, plus alligators and a nasty air bar if you spend too much time underwater. You have a VERY short ranged knife that can stab said crocs. Unlike the arcade version it seems pretty easy to hit them in this port.
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The third part has you jumping and ducking boulders as they roll and bounce down the mountain.
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Most obstacles you conquer give you points which they turn into. Here we see a big boulder coming our way. Do we wait till it lands and push up and fire for a big jump forwards? Stand still and duck and let it fly over us? Run under it? You have control.
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And in a final stage these fine (old) cannibals are preparing the blonde chick for a tasty stew. You have to time jumps over both the offensive stereotypes while evading their movement, then jump up to catch the girl. I need more practice at that part.
And finally, Mountain King!
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This is a game you NEED the manual for otherwise it wont make a bit of sense. You have a man on a mountain. Pressing fire works his flashlight. Diagonally up makes you jump in that direction.
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Collect 1000 points of gems to earn the special fire. Look for a tiny blinking light and you can find it. Use your flashlight (which when using doesn't allow you to collect gems) to find it. Press down to grab it. The chest on the far platform on the light either makes bats or gives you 260 points. Bats will steal your next goody. To help you, there is a tune that plays louder or quieter to let you know if you are getting closer. (In the Hall of the Mountain King.) On higher difficulties you have limited time to find the item. Jumping is VERY difficult in this game which can make things tricky.
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Then you have to bring the flame down here, also avoiding the Spider that can web then kill you if you fail to escape (also like the bats will steal your two items based on difficulty level), then press down in the correct spot to raise the ladder. Climb up, align yourself properly with the crown, push up, then pull down with the crown on your head.
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Now run and jump back up the mountain to the SACRED FLAAAME. I in my limited time have yet to do this part. Bats keep stealing my crown. The only real nicety is that the stages are wraparound. It is kind of hard and like I said, jumping is awkward at best! But it is pretty fun. I can totally understand why kid me with no manual couldn't make sense of the Atari 2600 version at all.
So there we have it! The first three of my new pickups played and talked about.
So far I have enjoyed and spent the most time with Kaboom! but I do want to spend more time playing all of them. I haven't gotten Adventure Creator to work yet, so I need to check it out and also see if it simply is not compatible with the XL/XE series of computers or if it requires the disk drive to be active merely to play even though that is just used to save games.
So next time perhaps I shall be able to show that title. And defile a sealed Necromancer. And hope Field of Fire has working disks.
(Bonus Forums version content not on my blog! What games did I lose out on from this seller? Super Cobra, Super Breakout, Submarine Commander, Frogger, Buck Rogers Planet of Zoom, River Rescue, Donkey Kong, K-Razy Antiks, and Popeye. To be fair most of them I lowball bid. But I probably shouldn't as most were at least cart and manual. Oh well. Common sense and fiscal responsibility were beaten out by snipers.)
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  • 3 weeks later...
For 75 dollars and a 30 minutes drive I got a nice Craigslist find:


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WHAT'S IN THE BOX MAN? WHAAAT'S INN THEEEE BOOOOOOXXX?


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A lot of mostly pirated disks and a bajillion Ultima 4 player disks made. A couple original programs but not much.

Gobs of disks and 3 disk cases would cost around 75 total shipped from ebay so a good deal alone.


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Dunno if they work but a 1050 Atari floppy drive, a Trash 80 modem bit, some cables, PSUs, and a 410 tape drive.

I need time to test em out.


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And under here? A 48k uncased RAM expanded Atari 800 in very good condition! Reinforced with a layer of steel!


And yet another layer.... OF STEEL


People in #retrochat were hearing me talk about this glorious 1979 designed beast Tuesday evening. I figured out the

issue as to why it wasn't powering up when it did at first. You have to keep the cartridge port cover LOCKED.


Atari's engineers made it so your dumb ass couldn't rip a cartridge out from one of its TWO PORTS with the power on

which would possibly damage your 999 US 1979 dollar home computer. That looks like a late 60s typewriter. And has

really good feeling keys. (Though the space bar is a bit uneven and the Start key sometimes needs a bit of a repeat press. This thing has seen some STUFF man. Its been in the trenches. It's been loved.)


It does make it kinda nice that I can undo the lid and shut it off if I just want to swap cartridges. Glorious top loading cartridges instead of the annoying 130xe's rear port that is finicky.


Its only real drawback is its large, heavy, and the RF cable is hardwired in even if you use a composite cable like I am. Still get some of those lines on screen even with the monitor so I putzed around a bit with it using the Svideo out I have and on the 32" HDTV in 4:3 mode. Lines aren't as extreme as say the 130xe was. There ARE fixes for it, but it involves opening it up. And the 800 is a giant sexy beast designed to not let you enjoy this: http://www.pcworld.com/article/181421/inside_atari_800.html


4 joystick ports too!


By and large this will probably become my main Atari 8 bitter and the 130 will be relegated to a storage tub since my game collection has long since outgrown my smaller blue tub.


The command keys are easier to reach and color coded unlike the 130's and it honestly runs more games. Like Gorf.


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This is not a smart way to play computer games. But it IS funny. Also Gorf is in the composite artifacted monitor mode thingie that is less crisp and has some bleed but no lines or anything.


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LET US GORF. Not as good as the Colecovision Gorf, but pretty damned good! Also better than the 5200 version unless you like playing a classical SHMUP Invader game with analog controls with actual analog analoginess.


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Dual cart ports! BIG AND METAL! The bits of black fuzz are from the dead glue sticky foam that the lid's top metal RF shield had keeping it up. It has failed.

That is how much fricking mineral action is in this sumbitch. Metal RF shielding all over the place.


Once we reached Reagan's era the Ataris got cheaper, lighter, and way less metal. ITS ALL RONNIE'S FAULT.


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48K of RAM and the system's ROM all open to the elements. See the open air and all the venting is all one really needed to keep stuff cool back then.

Originally the RAM AND ROM were in little sealed packs. But they overheated. Thus later versions came open to be cooler.


SAM_3841.JPG

I am not good at Q Bert.

Edited by Bloodcat
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  • 1 month later...
Some Atari Books and Other Retro Goodness


Every now and then I get new Atari 8 bit goodies and sometimes other goodies. Let's show them, and have STORYTIME!


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For around 20 bucks shipped I got these lovely retro games for PCs. Mostly Windows 9x era or a DOS title in Thunderscape's case. Heavy Geargoes into my Hobby Games Gone Electronic niche, and Quake Mission Pack 1 goes into my Id Games niche. While I need a TON of HGGE, for Id I am getting closer and closer to having them all. 4 more Mission Packs for Quake 1-3, Quake 4, Quake Wars, Rage, Heretic, and Hexen 2 and I should be pretty much complete unless I want every Raven Software game made with Id engines. (Though the Wolfenstein games fit this. Wouldn't mind Blake Stone either. Luckily I already have Shadowcaster which is also an Origin joint.)


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Suprisingly enough Heavy Gear generally seems to RUN in Windows 7!! I have Compatibility Mode on Windows 95 and it goes. The in case manual is little more than key commands and installation instructions though. And because I have a Glide Wrapper to handle 3DFX Voodoo 3D, I can run it in that mode. Sadly the out of game menus are all graphically glitchy and nigh unviewable in some cases even when I switch to 16 bit color or try 256 color modes. (I have Administrator to Run settings on but for Windows 7 you basically HAVE TO. And some programs run best in the C: drive directory as a folder whilst others would be happiest in Program Files or Program Files (X86). If your programs run oddly try putting it in one of these other locations!)


Also being a Win 95 era game the glory of WASD controls isn't there so you have to go through a VERY tedious remapping system in game. Also there doesn't seem to be any other resolution modes but 640 by 480. Oh well. It can go chill on the Win 98 SE rig. It doesn't care that I have a mouse wheel or two extra mouse buttons either which for this game would be VERY useful. Might as well go back to the older rig for this one!


But it works so I am a happy *Camper* and it will do. I would prefer having the full manual but it was super cheap and I already have the cluebook.


The Quake Mission Pack on the other hand works fine. It installed nicely in Dosbox for Dos Quaking, and with a little bit of Shortcut modifiying:

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(As seen at:


I'm in the start of the second third of the game right now and overall I like this mission pack over the original Quake solo campaign. It is a bit more challenging without being ridiculous, and adds in new monsters like this Gremlin dude who will nick your stuff or do things to dudes you already killed like this elite Knight. Also a pair of energy weapons which are pretty fun and an alternate Grenade Launcher that shoots sticky bombs that explode after like 20 seconds or so unless an enemy gets close then BOOM. Lots of fun level designs in this pack. Sadly this trimester took away all my stuff as Quake is wont to do so I have to regain it all.


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And even using a new item which summons a random monster to fight for me doesn't help against the big guys. The summoned dog died quickly then I joined the poor murderpooch.


I haven't installed Thunderscape yet but its a party RPG SSI tried to get going as a franchise after they lost the D&D license. It.. did not exactly light the world on fire. The game looks cool though. I could have gotten it off of GOG.com for about a third of the six whole US Dollars I paid for it, but I am a big boy who can manage to use Dosbox or an actual DOS rig. And I like having real manuals and disks because I am stupid.


But now on to STORYTIME! :neckbeard:

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Meet the two most helpful members of the DINORINES! They are Blades and Heatwave. They each cost 4 dollars which is less than a proper Iced Latte. I couldn't say no to them joining my collection of Dinorines!


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I got this faded but reasonably priced Compute!'s First Book of Atari Graphics for like MSRP shipped. It is an old book but I do wish to learn how to program sometime and having another nicely priced book for my Atari 8 bit collection is always welcome. (When I can afford it.)


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The book is about 250 pages long and has helpful charts like this one showing the various graphics modes available to the Atari 8 bit line and what they do and how much RAM it eats.


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Some practice and educational programs to type in to learn as you read which is a great way to make words in a book stick into your brain meats. I generally read and forget a lot unless things reinforce it or refresh my memory. If I don't, it falls out of my memories, much like poor Heatwave's head in this picture.


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It also has an in depth section on the GTIA chip which is like the main graphics chip most of the Atari 8 bit line had outside of the earliest releases of the 400/800 machines. Read some of the text in these pages if you would like and learn how the Atari owns the Apple IIs and even gives the mighty Commodore 64 a run for it's money! (The original chip, the CTIA has a few less graphics modes and only 128 color choices.)


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Heatwave is excited that we can see if my Atari 800 is a later revision with the GTIA chip. So much so that his dino nose is hiding a GOTO statement.


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Some of the many wonderful Compute! books you could buy back in the early 80s. On this list I would like the First Book of Robots and Computers, Mapping the Atari, and Machine Language for Beginners.


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Blades and Heatwave are happy to show my hardcopy Atari books and reference guides! They are so happy they go to talk to the rest of the Dinorines about it so we can all learn Atari programming together and maybe make a list of books to pick up and to keep our eyes opened for!


(As opposed to just getting PDFs from Atarimania. Again I am stupid and like owning physical copies.)


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Sadly the bigger Dinorines just don't care. Slug and Scorn are more interested in spending money on marijuana, hard liquor, and hookers.


(They are also awaiting their other teammates who aren't out in stores yet. They are however sober enough to have read spoilers for the movie they barely feature in and know that would be an even worse waste of money than buying old computer games and books. Or toy robots who turn into dinosaurs.


As to the other books I kind of am on the hunt for?



Atari 130XE Machine Language for the Absolute Beginner


Atari for the Beginning Beginner


Compute!'s Atari Collection - Volume 1 and Volume 2


Compute!'s Second Book of Atari Graphics


Compute!'s First Book of Atari Games


How to Program Your Atari in 6502 Machine Language


Mapping the Atari - Revised Edition


The Second Book of Machine Language


Writing Strategy Games on Your Atari




Now these aren't all the books I would like plus of course I would love to have original manuals for all my games and devices but time, money, space, and availability are all major considerations.


But.. take the time with your old hardware and LEARN IT. Don't just play games or continually tinker with the hardware because you have some odd idealized idea of how it should operate.


Get to know your machine. Don't hoard stuff for it. Expand and ENJOY IT as much as possible. Plus books are awesome and everyone should read more real books.

Edited by Bloodcat
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  • 1 month later...

Because I am kind of lazy now, I will probably just link to my blog posts whenever I have new worthwhile (ish) Atari 8 bit content.

Why reformat my work I say?

 

But I have a new little post to share today, a book review!

 

http://wargamedork.blogspot.com/2014/09/review-corner-retro-computing-why.html

 

Yes indeedy! I have covered an introductory Atari guidebook I got in a nice super cheap lot off ebay. I bought it for a different book but this one was handy and pocket sized, so I burned through it on breaks at work over the holiday weekend.

So check out how new computer people might have learned how to use their machines back in Reagan's first term!

 

Quite a change from modern newbie books with their full color and modern techniques I would say! (Except nowadays your modern gadgets try to avoid giving you any manual PERIOD almost requiring everyone to buy them. Or read through shoddy PDF files. Same with games on said doohickeys. Which is also suck.)

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