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No one can accuse them of not putting the effort in!

I finished all the 1994 issues of the magazines I'm reading. Instead of giving my thoughts on each mag, I'll list the winners and losers of '94 (all in my opinion of course): Winners: EGM 1994 was probably peak EGM. Massive issues, a wonderful layout, and combined with EGM2 you were sometimes getting nearly 800 pages a month of content (with a lot of ads, but still...). I still love flicking through this mag, even if there's actually not much worth reading besides the reviews, gossip, and the "good/bad/ugly" sidebars. GameFan This is the year the mag catapulted from what was basically a self-published fanzine of unbelievably high quality, to a legit competitor to EGM with national distribution. It's a great looking mag that looked better with each issue, and the passion for games was infectious. Their reviews, however, were pretty ridiculous, with some real garbage getting 80-90%+ reviews across the board. PC Gamer A new mag launched late in '94, this was actually my beloved PC Entertainment under a different name. It's still got the much of the same staff, the same focus on well-written previews and reviews, but a major upgrade in the layout! I recall this magazine getting very ridiculous later on (Coconut Monkey???), but in '94 it was a serious mag written for adults by editors who really knew their stuff. It blows the overrated Computer Gaming World out of the water. Losers: Electronic Games This was the follow-up to VideoGames & Computer Entertainment, and it suffers from the same faults as that mag. Most if not all of the editors are completely incapable of telling a good game apart from a bad one, regardless of having years of experience writing about games. Reviews of platformers, for example, seem to come down to how cute or funny they found the animations to be. A disaster like Ultima VIII (even in its original, frustrating incarnation) gets a sterling review. The wretched Way of the Warrior gets a higher review than the miracle port of Mortal Kombat II (SNES). It just goes on and on. The editors are also completely in love with "interactive" Hollywood games, and spend page after page going on and on about how cool it will be when all games become choose your own adventures movies. In fact, once the magazine folded in 1995, the follow-up was Fusion, a magazine devoted to this kind of garbage. Computer Gaming World This mag is highly praised, but I've been very disappointed with it. The reviews are 2-3 pages long, but only because 1/4th to 1/3rd of each review is just a plot summary... and then everything but that last paragraph is often a summary of the screen or the instruction manual. You get the actual review in the final paragraph. The exception is Charles Ardai, who instead spends all three pages complaining about how the plot and characters are not as good as in movies, or going into spoiler-level detail nitpicking puzzles. This guy completely savaged Under a Killing Moon (the PC Gamer critic loved it, for the record) because he seemed offended that that the story was not 100% serious, somewhat cruelly criticizing lead designer Chris Jones' portrayal as Tex Murphy (completely beloved by fans of the series and everyone other than Ardai). This guy doesn't review games as games, but as Hollywood scripts, so every single one of his reviews is completely worthless.

Interesting times here at Atari ... lots of fun announcements these days

It totally does ... sort of weird and wonderful, in a bizarre way

The Gravis Ultrasound needs the patches installed on your harddrive to play music (usually under C:\ULTRASND) and that works great if the game supports Gravis directly. If not, the Gravis disks shipped with an emulator to emulate an Ad-Lib device. Also this is for the non-pnp version of the Gravis cards, there's a chance things changed for the pnp versions.

I changed out the LS244 chips and got the same results as before. I will check the other chips to determine if one of these is causing the fault.

@newtmonkey I agree with a lot of what you've said above, and you definitely get what you pay for. No doubt the higher-end sticks are way better in every way. That said, we have to keep in mind what OP said above. He's just looking to casually play around on rare occasions and is looking for something better than what he has that is still "good enough". In that respect, I think he should be able to find something for under $100. I've had my 8Bitdo arcade stick for a year now and I think it's great. I wanted something to play six-button games like the Street Fighter series and I've had no problems with it at all. Assuming he buys a stick from somewhere where it's easily returnable without any kind of nonsense restocking fee, I don't see why he couldn't roll the dice and try an under $100 stick to see if it meets his casual gaming needs. If not, he can either try something higher-end, or just stick (pun intended) with what he's got.

It's a cringy song for sure but it's a very catchy and cozy one as well, I personally like it, it fits the late 90s early 2000s gaming culture zeitgeist like a glove.

You did Port 1 ?, if you did port 0, that's the mouse, I just set arrow keys to be joy 1 and StarRaiders works fine

2024 Link found in Archive.org GameBase_Atari_2600_v1.0 : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

They chose to revive Infogrames first probably because Infogrames was far more important than either GT or Accolade , in any case I'm sure that with the way that things are going we could definitely see those two publishing brands make a comeback as well in the future.

I do like the symbolism of Infogrames buying the near corpse of Atari in 2001, and now Atari reviving the dessicated carcass of Infogrames in 2024.

In a lot of the games I used to play in DOS, there were usually two drivers that needed to be loaded... one for the Adlib/MIDI/OPL music, and another for SFX. So I'd imagine that it's just a programming issue, more than it has anything to do with the cards. My guess... Atari (then) probably tried to rush it out at the time, and didn't put a whole lot of effort into little things like that.

ECS games were made to use a keyboard. My hacks update the games and allow most inputs to be done on the Original controller. If you do not have the original controller, you can still use the keyboard as originally designed. I do not know the best mappings for an xbox controller.

I posted this in the other thread, but I will do the same here. I wonder why Atari chose to revive Infogrames over GT Interactive or Accolade. I know Infogrames is more well known in Europe than over here, so that could be it. Have they said where Infogrames will be headquartered?

It's nice to have a smart person around the house. That's really neat to see that explained so clearly. Your work gives me the impression that this should be a very good PRNG. My burning question: When we dumb it all down to a >300 byte screen position or a random direction vector, is there a way to know that the BASIC or XB PRNGs would provide a material benefit versus a simpler solution? (You helped me with a simple analysis tool a few years back, but I am a humble business weanie so the amount of rigour involved was slightly less. One might say it was completely devoid of rigour.)

Tried PlusCart 1325. It also says "Firmware download failed".

I ordered your ecs pack. I"m playing in jzintv emulator. is there a kbd config file that will make good use of the game with an xbox controller or keyboard? I don't have an intv controller.

i really wanted to stress that i have zero clues about hardware, and that you are right in that i was just guessing. i did not take any offence at all! i am happy that i could help to slightly improve your brilliant table. thanks a lot, its really helpful!

Ok, Just tried with Spectrum's "security suite" (provided by f_secure), and it didn't like something about cartpack.dll. My Windows defender, however, isn't letting out a peep. Interestingly, I'm using JAWS, which is probably the most famous commercial screen reader (for the blind/visually impaired). This so-called "security suite" says something relating to JAWS is also harmful. Now, JAWS is routinely used/downloaded by many thousands of computer users who have a need for it. I am VERY certain they have crossed all the T'sand dotted all the I's as far as application signing are concerned, and, they are still getting a false possitive from F_Secure. However, if JAWS were harmful to computer users, there'd be an uproar in the AT community. So, I don't trust absolutely everything coming from my virus scanner. Now, off to Freedom Scientific to see about the false possitive with one of their programs. Cheers!

Here's some prices from the 1983 Sears Christmas Catalog http://www.wishbookweb.com/FB/1983_Sears_Wishbook/files/assets/common/page-substrates/page0599.jpg And some discounted games since this was the first year of the Crash http://www.wishbookweb.com/FB/1983_Sears_Wishbook/files/assets/common/page-substrates/page0600.jpg http://www.wishbookweb.com/FB/1983_Sears_Wishbook/files/assets/common/page-substrates/page0601.jpg

Good to know. You would like the 2600 version. It's very basic of course but still fun. There are 6 game modes. I've always just played the default mode. It's nice when consoles have their own bowling games. Some are better than others. When I play bowling games, usually it's for the single player only. As for golf, I'm not as good at it compared to bowling. But I still enjoy it. I don't play many golf games. Speaking of golf though, there is Ninja Golf. How about Ninja Bowling? Lol.

Wonder why they chose Infogrames over GT Interactive or Accolade.

No, the LED should be off Use the hole that is labeled 5V, show photo

I knew someone would post this ...