Wickeycolumbus Posted March 25, 2009 Share Posted March 25, 2009 I cant wait! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fort Apocalypse Posted March 25, 2009 Share Posted March 25, 2009 http://www.retrothing.com/2009/03/atari-fl...k-portable.html Sweet! That is totally awesome! Will look forward to more videos!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gulag picture radio Posted March 25, 2009 Share Posted March 25, 2009 Glad you guys liked it. We have TONS of great articles on Retro Thing about Atari & classic electronics as well as lots of other fun stuff (including a couple more videos). Please check it out and let me know what you think. we work really hard to produce so much original content, and it would be great to know if you're enjoying it too. We've got a Twitter feed too for those of you who like those sorts of things. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+SpiceWare Posted March 26, 2009 Share Posted March 26, 2009 Glad you guys liked it. We have TONS of great articles on Retro Thing about Atari & classic electronics as well as lots of other fun stuff (including a couple more videos). Please check it out and let me know what you think. we work really hard to produce so much original content, and it would be great to know if you're enjoying it too. We've got a Twitter feed too for those of you who like those sorts of things. Yep, lots of neat stuff at your site - I've been reading it ever since you dropped me a note last March about Medieval Mayhem Of your recent articles, I'm looking forward to the new Thomas Dolby CD, the new Red Dwarf episodes and the new DEVO album. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gregory DG Posted March 26, 2009 Share Posted March 26, 2009 Man I want one! Does it have the difficulty switches too? I don't see them anywhere... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Feralstorm Posted March 26, 2009 Share Posted March 26, 2009 WOO! I'll be all over that thingy when(ever) it's available for sale!. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gulag picture radio Posted March 26, 2009 Share Posted March 26, 2009 Yep, lots of neat stuff at your site - I've been reading it ever since you dropped me a note last March about Medieval Mayhem Yipe! Sorry, man... sometimes these things slip through my fingers. As you saw, we cover a lot of ground, and people get grouchy if we spend too much time in any one area. That said, I'll definitely do something about MM. We've written about the homebrew scene before, but I'd like to give special attention to a few of these recent titles. I still think it's brilliant. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Retro Rogue Posted March 26, 2009 Share Posted March 26, 2009 Just noticed this post. Does anybody know the phone number of those Famiclone knockoff makers in Asia? They can probably make a FB2 faster than Atari could pronounce "Flashback". Sure, it wouldn't be legal, but at this point, who cares? Considering we own the FB2 chip and internals, and not Atari, we would care. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+SpiceWare Posted March 26, 2009 Share Posted March 26, 2009 Yipe! Sorry, man... sometimes these things slip through my fingers.No problem, know how that goes - when you get to it, you get to it. I still think it's brilliant. Thanks Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mos6507 Posted March 26, 2009 Share Posted March 26, 2009 Question is, would it be the "perfected" chip that can play everything including Supercharger titles? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wickeycolumbus Posted March 26, 2009 Share Posted March 26, 2009 Question is, would it be the "perfected" chip that can play everything including Supercharger titles? I was wondering this too. Does it support all the known bank switching techniques? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brojamfootball Posted March 26, 2009 Share Posted March 26, 2009 Question is, would it be the "perfected" chip that can play everything including Supercharger titles? I wondered the same thing. If it's just the partially compatible FB2 chip I'm out--and I'm betting that's what it'll be. Many of my favorite games don't run on it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fort Apocalypse Posted March 27, 2009 Share Posted March 27, 2009 I still think it's brilliant. Thanks I agree. That game rocks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fort Apocalypse Posted March 27, 2009 Share Posted March 27, 2009 (edited) Question is, would it be the "perfected" chip that can play everything including Supercharger titles? I wondered the same thing. If it's just the partially compatible FB2 chip I'm out--and I'm betting that's what it'll be. Many of my favorite games don't run on it. I might not have the money to drop on it at the current pricepoint, but once the price drops, if it runs at least 100 decent Atari games (although not necessarily loaded all at once), then it will be the only item on my Christmas list. And I think that the homebrew scene will really light up if that happens. The only concern I have with it is the menuing system. I loved the FB2, but my kids had a awful time with it (but part of it also is that the idea of reset button and select button are foreign. I think it should be dirt simple and have a single list of games listed by either the filename (without extension) or pulled from a metadata file, and would be great to have it show screenshots of each game next to the list. It would be sweet if the game names were red and they did the chalice color effect when you had the game selected and just had to press the button to choose a game. Also maybe pressing the joystick right or left would page it down or up. And finally pressing select would be the same as pressing the joystick down (holding it down would continue to move down) and reset button would also start the game. LE can totally have that idea if they like it. Edited March 27, 2009 by Fort Apocalypse Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fort Apocalypse Posted March 27, 2009 Share Posted March 27, 2009 (edited) Question is, would it be the "perfected" chip that can play everything including Supercharger titles? I wondered the same thing. If it's just the partially compatible FB2 chip I'm out--and I'm betting that's what it'll be. Many of my favorite games don't run on it. I might not have the money to drop on it at the current pricepoint, but once the price drops, if it runs at least 100 decent Atari games (although not necessarily loaded all at once), then it will be the only item on my Christmas list. And I think that the homebrew scene will really light up if that happens. The only concern I have with it is the menuing system. I loved the FB2, but my kids had a awful time with it (but part of it also is that the idea of reset button and select button are foreign. I think it should be dirt simple and have a single list of games listed by either the filename (without extension) or pulled from a metadata file, and would be great to have it show screenshots of each game next to the list. It would be sweet if the game names were red and they did the chalice color effect when you had the game selected and just had to press the button to choose a game. Also maybe pressing the joystick right or left would page it down or up. And finally pressing select would be the same as pressing the joystick down (holding it down would continue to move down) and reset button would also start the game. LE can totally have that idea if they like it. By awful time, I mean they had an awful time with the menu. I always have to do that part for them. And by red text, I mean red text on black background. Edited March 27, 2009 by Fort Apocalypse Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fort Apocalypse Posted March 27, 2009 Share Posted March 27, 2009 (edited) Ok, I've got it, and I think this would be the best, simplest, and most fitting menuing system for the 2600. NO menuing system. The system could get a redesign and have a single button to the left of select that would select the game. This would reset the FB2 and load the next game. While this seems like it would be a pain to scroll through all of the games, it would be extremely simple for kids and adults to use, and would get them focused on using the buttons on the unit to do things. LE can have that idea for free also. I'm not against getting mailed a free FB2 portable though or for them to include Fort Apocalypse in the FB3! Edited March 27, 2009 by Fort Apocalypse Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Math You Posted March 28, 2009 Share Posted March 28, 2009 It might be worth asking Atari for their written consent before anything is made. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ZylonBane Posted March 28, 2009 Share Posted March 28, 2009 Awesome! Any idea how big the HD will be? How many games can it hold? Why on earth do you think there'd be a hard drive in this thing? You can already store pretty much the entire Atari 2600 library on a cheap SD card. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jbanes Posted March 28, 2009 Share Posted March 28, 2009 (edited) You could store a large chunk of it on a floppy disk. Why on earth do you think there'd be a hard drive in this thing? You can already store pretty much the entire Atari 2600 library on a cheap SD card. Fixed that for you. Looking at the AtariAge rarity guide, it appears to catalog ~1000 titles. A 1GB card could give each of those 1000 titles over a megabyte of space each. There's more than enough space for everything ever produced for the venerable 2600. You could probably even fit the entire library in something as snug as a 32MB card. Edited March 28, 2009 by jbanes Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Retro Rogue Posted March 28, 2009 Share Posted March 28, 2009 It might be worth asking Atari for their written consent before anything is made. None needed, the internals are ours. And any patents technology wise expired a long time ago. We're not using the Atari name or logo, and we'd be licensing some games from them and Activision anyways. What we need right now is an investor(s). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wickeycolumbus Posted March 28, 2009 Share Posted March 28, 2009 IIRC, there is 2MB of flash for game storage. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fort Apocalypse Posted March 28, 2009 Share Posted March 28, 2009 Why on earth do you think there'd be a hard drive in this thing? You can already store pretty much the entire Atari 2600 library on a cheap SD card. Fixed that for you. I wonder how much space every rom and ever revision of every hack and homebrew ever invented for the 2600 would take up. Actually it might. However, I wonder whether the FB portable will be able to have that many games available at once in the portable? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wickeycolumbus Posted March 28, 2009 Share Posted March 28, 2009 Why on earth do you think there'd be a hard drive in this thing? You can already store pretty much the entire Atari 2600 library on a cheap SD card. Fixed that for you. I wonder how much space every rom and ever revision of every hack and homebrew ever invented for the 2600 would take up. Actually it might. However, I wonder whether the FB portable will be able to have that many games available at once in the portable? A lot more space, but most of those revisions don't exist anymore. I must have made over a thousand revisions of Vong, but only about 78 still exist. Code is often tested when only a few lines have been changed, and after that revision is tested, it is overwritten. I only kept the major revisions. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
S1500 Posted March 28, 2009 Share Posted March 28, 2009 Why on earth do you think there'd be a hard drive in this thing? You can already store pretty much the entire Atari 2600 library on a cheap SD card. Fixed that for you. I wonder how much space every rom and ever revision of every hack and homebrew ever invented for the 2600 would take up. Actually it might. However, I wonder whether the FB portable will be able to have that many games available at once in the portable? For a given system with all the games bundled, I wouldn't want every revision or silly gfx hack. One copy of the game would do. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gulag picture radio Posted March 29, 2009 Share Posted March 29, 2009 I believe that on a 32 meg card, you can have the entire Atari collection (including PAL and most variants) a couple times over. I think that when I filed my Cuttle Cart it worked out to something like 8 megs. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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