StarshipUK

I am really happy this has been released. I just wish it was released about 10 years back before I started buying all the original game carts. When I listed my original unboxed SCV Pole Position II cart on EBay as auction for less than they normally go for, it did not sell. Perhaps 250EUR for a mint sealed copy is the current going rate, but certainly no interest for the individual rare game cart at the moment in the UK. I also think Y2 Monster Land is equal in terms of rarity and price, as Pole Position II for this system. Y2 Monster Land is the only thing I am/was missing from a complete original Japanese cart (mostly unboxed, but some have boxes) collection, and I also found some of the French Carts which have identical ROMS but different labels. I am going to be listing them all for sale soon to UK buyers, along with the system.

Was there a V1.3 for this ever released, or any up to date equivalent with new released included?

I do not know who you are and don't believe I have ever met you, but I have never duped anyone, manipulated anyone, bullied anyone or abused anyone, created fake accounts or spoken untrue of anything about anyone behind their backs. I provided an awful lot of time and equipment from my collection to events, nearly all at my own cost or not reflecting the wear and tear costs or amount of time and effort I had put in to make it break even and never let anyone down except once when it was impossible not to as I was incapacitated and hospitalised, for what was a tiny event and compensated them financially for several hundred pounds out of my own pocket as a result. I met some nice people, some people who turned out to be not so nice and a few who unexpectedly stabbed me in the back, where I do not and have never seeked conflict or drama. Working with just one person who others do not like, can stop them from working with you or give them a incorrect opinion of you. While I know I am different in the way I think to other people about things, slightly paranoid at times (sometimes with good reason after I found out others I trusted had spoken badly about me), used to strive to be a perfectionist, seeing fault in things to try and seek future improvement including things I did myself, I sometimes come across differently in writing to what I actually mean and do in person, and its easy to be misunderstood. Its a shame there are some others who will dislike you just because there is someone else who dislikes them, and especially if it is someone you have helped in the past and done no wrong against. While he is one of the reasons that drove me away from the events (with him being involved in so many), there was others including an events organisers who accused me of being a pervert who should not be allowed near women, and hitting a low point mentally myself where I resorted back to self harming, which some people did not believe, but was fortunate enough I had some real friends outside the community who helped me through. I apologise to you and anyone else if there is anything I have said to have offended you, but I am not a nasty person. I am not saying this to try to get back into the events community either as it was my past and not my present or future, but there are a few people I lost friendships with that I would liked to have kept.

Considering you were not even at the event in question, attended a singular gaming event and was certainly not in the same loop as everyone else, you come across like you know a lot about what happened. There is a handful of people I have had direct disagreements with in the past for valid reason, just like there are many people who have had disagreements with others and do not see eye to eye where everyone thinks they are right. There are also a few people like yourself who I have never had any problems with, never had any real dealings with, and have probably believed what other people have said, who has never contacted me directly to find out if it was, but would probably go around telling others without knowing the real facts and story, like you have done here.

I expect there are many people who have not had a problem with him, but there are others who have. I am not the only person to mention him, as there as been several mentions on the facebook threads too, including one of Chris Wilkins posts.

He first contacted me when I was looking for help to run a small one off retro gaming event, he asked if he could bring his Jaguar collection and write a review for his Atari Magazine/Fanzine. I was immediately warned by people to be cautious of him as a bit of a BS'ter, and informed he had previously claimed that a Spectrum game was written by him and later found out to be a lie as it was written by someone else, and had some other issues on the forums. I gave the benefit of the doubt. I had to buy a copy of the magazine to read the article he wrote. It was very poorly written with bad grammar and did not read well, but what annoyed me was it was factually incorrect and several things he had written were wrong. When I bought this up with him he told me he did not proofread his own articles. Later on there was another event I was involved in where he made a move on me and I refused his advances, as I am straight. After this not only did he turn others in the community against me, but he also contacted my girlfriend at the time on facebook and told her a load of lies about me, which for me was a step too far. I told a few people in person, but do not seek conflict so decided to block him everywhere and walk away. I was asked to be involved with another small event after this. When I found out he had involvement with the event, I warned them and pulled out, and then decided to leave the events scene altogether and spend more time concentrating on work and other interests. I do not think the whole of the retro gaming event community at the time was toxic, but certainly many people have mental health problems, and easily mislead and persuaded by the likes of him and is evil mate Jason Butwell. When I found out he had started writing for Retro Gamer magazine, I was surprised and I immediately cancelled my subscription.

The list of 1292 families is at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1292_Advanced_Programmable_Video_Systemin Compatibility family which relates to cart slot used. The VC-4000 was mainly just released in Germany. Some may dispute it was released in other parts of Europe (perhaps as a German import) but I have only ever seen them selling from germany on EBay, with most German sellers only shipping to Germany which makes it more difficult to aquire a decend condition working unit and the usual over-priced sellers seilling worldwide that I want to avoid. The 1292 Advanced Programmable Video System was the most popular cart type. At least it was in the UK with the common systems being Radofin, Prinztronic and Acetronic. This would probably be the best type to make. Actually just noticed some idiot has changed that table and added Database Videomaster (Voltmace) to the 1292 Advanced Programmable Video System which is wrong. The Databse was a machine in its own family and a different sized cart and pin layout.

The Bally Astrocade already has devices out for it. The Tomy Tutor\Pyuuta is probably the best bet as it had both a Japanese and USA release ands sold in both computer and console form and is probably the most owned niche console. All games have now been dumped for it. I heard rumours someone was making a flash cart for this, was asked not to say anything at the time, but it was so long back I am guessing that is now abandonware. The Epoch/Yeno Super Cassette Vision multicart would also be welcome. A very underated system with some good games on it, approx 30 carts and a couple of quite rare (and expensive) ones. This was more popular in Japan, but also saw a small release in France. However a few carts took AA batteries and had the ability to save games, so I am not sure if those would work and one cart was a basic programmer with some games on it. A Casio PV-1000 multicart would also be welcome, but has less games released. I am still unsure if Casio PV-2000 dumped games would also work on a PV-1000 (or with slight modification), but if so that would also increase the library. The other Casio Cart system - The Casio Loopy - Lets forget this as all but one of the games are easy to come by and all were in Japanese only making them hard to use for non japanese. I found no real evidence a multicart for the APF MP-1000 ever existed after searching on the yahoo group, but I do not own one of these so have no interest in it at the moment. Perhaps one was made as a homebrew project, but no public release? I'd say avoid the Thomson MO-5/MO-6/TO-7 machines for a cart device. The majority of TO-7 and MO-5 games were released on Tape. The device I have seen for the MO-5 was only made as homebrew with no public release and only a handful of games were converted to SD format to work with it. You also had to write or load a small basic program to access the device. While better than nothing it did not look ideal at all. Not much was released for the MO-6 at all but still a facinating system as it was also released in Italy. The best machine is the TO-8 with games released on disk, meaning you can replace the floppy drive with a Gotek to get access to games without messing about with floppies, so no need for anything for that. The other French system which had a handful of games released on cart was the Exelvision EXL 100. The best resource for the French systems is http://dcmoto.free.fr/programmes/_html/index.htmland under Support for MEMO5 and MEMO7 to see cart based images. There is also a lot of games on the French systems which are surpisingly in the French Language requiring knowing written French to be able to play. The VG-5000 does not have any device, but was tape based games only. Other systems which do not have a device but were tape based only include The Matra Alice, Camputers Lynx, EACA Colour Genie, Hector HR (and variants), Sanyo PHC 25, Sharp MZ700 and VTech Laser 200 and 300. While the Oric has had a disk based SD device released for it, with the majority of games being on tape, never being released of converted to disk and no easy way of converting the games to disk it is almost a useless device so I would also add that to the list of tape based machines with no device. The other issue with some of these machines is that the games loaded in parts using the pause feature of the REM(ote) input on the tape decks to pause the tape and restart it to load the next part. Quite a few games on the French systems did this where they would load a instructions page before continuing to load the main game. Another computer which only had a few cart games released was the pre-MSX Spectravideo SV-318 and SV-328, with the majority of games released on tape, and has no cart based system at all. The big one which might be impossible for a cart of this type and need something more custom like a everdrive is the Funtech Super A'Can with games being rarer than the system its one I have had difficulty in finding games at any price. And of course the Atari Jaguar which would need a similarly complex cart, and the Atari 7800 which seems to have become abandonware yet again after the carts creator has gone AWOL. Whatever you decide, it would be most welcome.

That many minus one, remembering the crazy posts about that idiot who bastardised his cart cutting pins, rather than selling it to someone else who really wanted one. What a twat.

I think its great news some new games are being made for the system. To be honest I would not worry about people ripping off the cartridges. The 1292 systems are only really sought by die hard retro collectors and have little commercial value. Any carts made would have to be on a hobby basis and I doubt many people would pay premium prices for new games for the system. The only multicart made for the system is by Rolo for the VC4000 German system, and only works with games without extra RAM. You may want to contact him if you want to test a game on a real system, so he can burn to a ROM and test. http://atariage.com/forums/topic/242786-multi-cartridge-for-dragoncoco-2-available/?p=3635662 While I now have the multicart, I do not own the system. I own a modded VC-6000 which has the more common 1292 port. Voltmace did also make a Database Cart to 1292 cartridge convertor, and while I own one they are hard to come by and I have only ever seen two for sale. With all the different console families having different sized cartridge ports and no one willing to make convertors, the market will be limited at this time, most likely to people in Germany, unless on a hobby basis someone decides to make a small batch of dedicated carts.

I am sure you have seen it, but there is a page at http://amigan.1emu.net/igg/which lists all variations between the 1292 systems and some instructions. From memory Crazy Crab is a sprite hack of Spider's Web (which was also known as Monster-Man) and the Hobby Module cart was a programmer so the cart probably was a bit different.

And also the Multi-cartridge for Dragon/CoCo 2 has had a few add on extensions made to enable the cartridge to work with other systems including: Odyssey 2 Extension Vectrex Extension INTERTON ELECTRONICS VC4000 Video Computer Extension (A German 1292 Advanced Programmable Video System) http://atariage.com/forums/topic/242786-multi-cartridge-for-dragoncoco-2-available/

Also Foreverdrive for the NES: Diamonds are forever, and now your NES library is too with the ForeverDrive. This ultra-limited edition version of the EverDrive-N8 is the ultimate in decadence for your collection. Give new meaning to the term “flash cart” with this 18-karat gold plated aluminum, 4-carat diamond-encrusted piece of gaming opulence. Only 5 of them will ever be made. We guarantee you won’t have buyer’s remorse after purchasing this amazing item!* http://www.stoneagegamer.com/foreverdrive.html

Its been a while since a new cart was posted here (I guess there are not many systems left now!), so here is a new one: Mega Games Cartridge for the Acorn Electron (AKA Elk) http://stardot.org.uk/forums/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=8246

Oi mate there is a queue here and you are in it behind me, so please stop trying to jump. I would pay someone the $129 asking price for one. No lowball offers from me. As long as it works on a system without Pokey (only two official games need that), that's fine with me. As for saying "Fred said he would be away for awhile dealing with stuff", I hope that is the case as he has disappeared for long periods before without word, but the last post here: http://atariage.com/forums/topic/230751-sd-cartridge-for-7800/?p=3651196just says he had a bad year in 2016, 2017 would be better, saying the issue needs a firmware update and he needs to find time to write code and asking the minions here for feedback to the issue. Nothing about disappearing again or when he would resume work on this project, and I think that's what's pissing off people the most. Just a quick one paragraph post from him to confirm he is busy and unable to work on this project (or to confirm it has finally been abandoned) would I think put many peoples minds as ease, rather than just vanishing without word.