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I do not mean like Digital Eclips or NightDive, but dead ones like Infogrames was until today. I know they have GT Interactive and Accolade. I think they might also have Ocean. Anything else? I am curious what other brands could get a revival and what those could be used for.

What are those things above the dogs? Fleas?

I grew up with both, still have both, and still love both. For some, it may be a no-brainer that the NES is the answer because it had better graphics, more elaborate games, etc. But personal preferences can transcend that type of shallow comparison. There are a lot of side-scrolling action/platforming type games on NES, a trend which I've always assumed was kicked off by the massive success of the original Super Mario Bros. You have tons of stuff like the Mega Man games, the Ninja Gaiden games, the cute mascot type games, the games based on movie licenses, etc. These all vary somewhat in their themes and play mechanics but at their heart they're all games where the primary goal is to progress forward and "beat the game" as opposed to focus on achieving a high score. Honestly, I find a lot of these types of games to be kind of tedious to play nowadays. On the one hand, with so much stuff available to play and so little time, I'm not likely to want to focus in on one title for an extended period to try to "beat" the game. On the other hand, if I don't do that, then what's really the point of playing the game other than to have a quick and mindless burst? In contrast, the quick and dirty arcade style games on the 2600 lend themselves much better (arguably) to short and sporadic gaming sessions. I only need a few minutes to see what kind of score I can get on a game like Kaboom or Turmoil. If the game is fun, I'll be motivated to try again and see if I can do better. The point is, the "goal" of the game is easier to fit into the time available to play it. I'm not saying this makes the 2600 better, only that when trying to determine which console I'm more likely to want to switch on, there are factors in the equation (at least for me) besides graphics and the hardware's horsepower.

This is my setup for using cursor keys and space bar for fire

I always felt limited by the 2600 and wanted to move onto something bigger. But by the time the NES became popular, I was into ST and 16-bit gaming-- RPGs, sim games and so on. Then my friends start getting NESes, and suddenly we're back to 8-bit graphics, and 8-bit music- I thought I was past that! Worse games like SMB were too bright and colorful, and the music too bouncy and happy, I was a moody teenager and couldn't deal with that shit! I kind of liked Castlevania because it was a darker game, but almost everything was a side-scrolling platformer, and I wanted more variety. So I never could get into the NES, I'll have to go with the 2600.

How many carts do you want to swap for the update? The firmware is by several magnitudes larger than the largest cart the dumper can handle.

Sounds like with all things these days there's some QC issues, and if you get a good set of paddles they're great and work like the originals, but you might get a set that has issues. But it sounds like if you get a good set, they should give the same resolution as the originals if used with an original Atari or through an emulator or Retron77.

That will definitely do it Glad you caught the culprit!

Skynet is starting, next will be walking terminators...

I feel stupid! I missed a broken pin on my GTIA! Pin repaired and I have color on all outputs! Thanks all!

Lol. So was I at first until I found jenergy's gui for jzIntv in the AtariAge forums. He's a great guy, incredibly patient, and his software makes running the jzIntv emulator easy. Anyway, glad you found his program and that it's working for you.

I'm not sure I trust the dumper do to that. Also I imagine it's pretty slow in terms of data transfer speed. what if pins don't connect well, or it fails to load, etc. It's fine the way it is. I understand the less tech savvy having some trepidation, but, if you want to be able to play the latest games and have the best performance it's something you'll have to do.

That looks awesome! Nice job with it!!

I've done this with malwarebytes many times..

This would make sense if the AtariVox had HSC compatilbility, but it only supports SaveKey. No preinitialisation should be necessary - at least, it wasn't on either of mine. @Phylax: One thing not mentioned earlier was the interference between the 7800's case and the Avox' case. This causes it to not sit completely flush against the joystick port, and at a downward angle, potentially causing contact issues with the pins. There are a couple of things to try to see if maybe it's going out of alignment: Use a joystick extension cable (6' or less recommended) to place it away from the 7800 Place the 7800 on a book or similar, and let the Avox rest at a downward angle without touching the surface the book is on Remove the Avox' case (its two halves are held together with tabs that can be pressed in with a small flathead screwdriver) and see if that helps when it's plugged directly in Are you completely powering down the system when switching between 2600 and 7800 games, and is the Avox plugged in when this happens? Just as a general rule, it's better to have the Avox plugged in at powerup rather than after, and it may need a second or two between power cycles in order to come back up correctly.

Very, very happy and worth the wait for me. Thanks @Simius! Here's a supportive video I made on the install and comparisons with the Medusa which I still like

Yea the IC’s were all swapped out / no change / going to try to detect the solder condition of perhaps a blob beneath the socket - starting with the 74LS244 sockets.

I know he has an active firewall that will block ips that are putting in wrong account information they clear after some time

After following the amazing VBXE Popeye port by @woj, I was inspired to try to port the actual arcade disassembly of my favorite game growing up: Missile Command. Missile Command came out in the arcades in 1980 just before my brother and I received our first Atari 400 computer while we were in high school. Most days after school, we would walk home to stop by the local arcade. Missile Command is a difficult game, but two 30-something players were by far better than everybody else. While most people were struggling to get 100,000 points, Larry and Bob would play doubles and regularly score between 300-500,000 points. One day, Larry had an amazing game going and had everybody in the arcade watching. He was nursing a single city until he reached 810,000 and all of a sudden he had seemingly unlimited cities. None of us had heard of this bug before then, but eventually it became known that if you reached 810,000 you could effectively play forever. While Robert was becoming great at Galaxian and John concentrated on Battle Zone, I practiced Missile Command every day and soon I also achieved 810,000. I could do this regularly, and once I played long enough to score 6,000,000 points and then walked away while it was still playing. Of course, Missile Command was one of the first Atari cartridges that my brother and I bought with our paper route earnings. The original developers did a good job, but definitely the graphics were lacking. Paul (@plee) did an amazing job modifying the original code in Missile Command+ to add three bases, a title screen, a demo attract mode, and "THE END". I used his disassembly for help with the trackball code. When the Missile Command arcade source code appeared on the internet a few years ago, I looked into seeing if I could get it running on the Atari 8bit. The fact that the resolution was 256x231 in 8 colors was one stumbling block. The other was that the code used some PDP-10 assembler with a lot of Macros, so I didn't even bother trying to get started. I looked at it again after seeing the Popeye port done in VBXE. I knew that at least I could get the graphics running in VBXE. Then I stumbled on Andy McFadden's amazing disassembly and detailed description of how the actual arcade hardware worked at this site: https://6502disassembly.com/va-missile-command/ The assembly language that was used was very similar to the MADS assembler that I use in the perfect WUDSN development environment from @JAC!, so I first got the code to compile binary perfect to the arcade ROMs. From there, I took a quick crash course in VBXE programming. I found a great introduction by @Yaron Nir here: Of course, none of this would be possible without @phaeron's amazing Altirra emulator and debugging environment. I don't even have a VBXE, but Altirra provided a perfect test environment. Finally, special shout out to VBXE's developers Tomasz Piórek and Candle`o`Sin and distributor Lotharek. I probably am using only 10% of the capabilities of this amazing daughterboard. I hope that Missile Command Arcade will inspire more developers to program for the VBXE. I can only imagine telling 16-year-old me playing Missile Command at the arcade and then going home to play it on my Atari 400 that one day I would be porting the actual arcade source code to run on an Atari 8bit computer - I wouldn't have believed it. I'm glad that it all worked out!

Missile Command Arcade is another new game utilizing VBXE! Missile Command Arcade uses disassembled code from the arcade version of Missile Command. Combined with VBXE, this allows for a (near) arcade perfect experience on your Atari 8bit computer. Since the internal timing for the arcade version of Missile Command is 60Hz, this runs best for NTSC systems, as it will run slower on PAL, including sound effects and trackball response. I do not have a VBXE for my Atari 800XL, so I have only tested this with Altirra. If somebody with a VBXE, NTSC Atari, and trackball would like to help with testing, please DM me. You can change default settings in the menu screen using the Select button (F3 in Altirra) to choose which option to change and use the Option button (F4 in Altirra) to choose which option you would like to use. Note that if you choose trackball, you will need to use a trackball or else movements will be unpredictable. You can use the fire button (on a joystick or trackball) to fire from the base closest to the cursor. You can also use keyboard keys Z X C for firing from the 3 bases individually. In order to run with Altirra, you will have to configure a few things: 1) Go to System->Configure System. Set your system to NTSC by going to Computer->System->Video Standard. Next, go to Peripherals->Devices. Then click Add and scroll down to "Internal Devices" and select VideoBoard XE (VBXE) then OK. Keep the default settings (Core version FX 1.26 and Base Address of $D600-$D6FF) and click OK (Missile Command Arcade also works at $D700). Then click OK one more time to exit the setup for devices. 2) Missile Command has a resolution of 256x231 and Altirra normally cuts off the display at 224 lines (or so), so you will have to extend the display to see the bottom scrolling text and the "LOW" and "OUT" messages for the bases. Click View->Overscan Mode and set it to Extended (or Full with Blanking if the bottom scrolling line is cut off). 3) You have the option of using a trackball, so you will optionally need to also configure a trackball in Altirra. Under Input->Input Mappings, click Add. Then rename the default name for the mapping (it should default to something like Input Map XX) to Trackball. Then double click on the Trackball mapping that you just added and you will get a pop up for Edit Input Map. Click Add Controller. Under the Controller pulldown, choose Trak-Ball (CX80) - it's the last choice. Leave the defaults for Port 1 and click OK. You will then be at the Edit Input Map popup. Double click on Axis 1. For Source, select "Mouse Move Horiz". For Mode, change to Relative. Next move the Speed slider to 10 and leave Acceleration at 0. Click OK. Next double click on Axis 2. Change the source to "Mouse Move Vert" and the Mode to Relative and once again change the Speed slider to 10. Click OK. Now change the Button 1 assignment to a key for the trackball fire button. Double click on Button 1. For source click "Key: Left Ctrl" (or whatever key you want). Click OK twice. Now unselect any input devices that may have already been selected and check the box next to your next Trackball Input mapping. Then click close. Attached are .XEX, .ROM, and 16K .CAR versions of the game. Enjoy! Eric Anschuetz, Robert Anschuetz, John Weisgerber Missile Command Arcade.car Missile Command Arcade.rom Missile Command Arcade.xex

The Infogrames name carries less weight than even the Atari name these days, but reviving it is a smart move: it opens up a lot of flexibility in terms of how titles can be released. This may be a way for Atari to get out of the 'all nostalgia, all the time' pit they've been firmly rooted in. And there is something appealing to me about Captain Blood redone for modern audiences and hardware. It was the only Infogrames game I ever really got into, and had the feeling of being crossed with Elite and Star Raiders.

I checked via my nextcloud app freaking out that I'd have to fix whatever happened to the folder structure.

And here I am using the command line like a sucker. 🙄 Works great, thanks!

I think the 2600 Bowling is great too. I play it all the time. It's funny, I never noticed the odd sideways perspective until you all just mentioned it. It's sideways, top down, but the player is displayed "normally". Technically if you were to look at it, the player would be laying down on the floor on his left side while rolling the ball. 😀

I enjoy Marauder. I prefer it Berserk