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Lendorien

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About Lendorien

  • Birthday May 6

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  • Gender
    Male
  • Location
    Milwaukee, Wisconsin
  • Currently Playing
    Fallout:NV (PC), Alpha Protocol (PC), Uncharted 2 (PS3)
  • Playing Next
    Rogue Galaxy (PS2), Random 7800XM game

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  1. I completely feel you on this. I've long wanted a copy of the Pac-Man collection but it hasn't been a priority so I've spent my money elsewhere. I completely missed the last chance sale or I would have bought one. Now I'm out of luck.
  2. No I get that. Maintaining a website like this costs money and it costs time and resources. That's reality. I don't have an alternate solution. I'm sure Al thought about this quite extensively before he made his decision. And I wish him the best. I just hope that there are people at Atari who are looking at this and recognizing that they have a goose that is laying golden eggs right now. There's a tendency in Corporate America to kill the goose. In the short-term, I'm sure it will be fine, but it would be nice to have some commitment from Atari that they are going to make a sincere effort to preserve the forums for posterity so that they don't go down the tubes, lost forever, if some number cruncher decides it's too expensive to maintain. I truly do hope that Atari understands the non monitary value of this wonderful and very important asset they've bought and finds a way to institutionalize treating it with the respect it deserves. This is an amazing community and it would be a shame to lose it due to the corporate shenanigans we're all well too familiar with. But as you said. Give them a chance.
  3. While I somewhat agree with you, I think some of the negativity is coming from the fact that we've seen what corporations have done to other robust community fan sites in the past. Nintendoage comes to mind. This website and forum is an amazing repository of information about all sorts of Atari platforms, including things you can't find anywhere else. If it is mismanaged or deleted or shut down, the loss of history and vital Information about Atari and its platforms will have a major impact on the historical preservation of their platforms. That would be a tragedy. We all know that Al means well and has his heart in the right place. But the survivability of this site literally relies on the good will of the leadership of Atari which could change at the drop of a hat if the CEO leaves or is booted for some reason. It's a corporation. It's attitude Now does not guarantee its attitude in a year from now. A change of leadership literally could mean this site gets deep-sixed if some number cruncher decides it's too expensive to maintain or doesn't impact the bottom line positively enough. With Al we had a known quantity and we know he cares and is going to do what he can for the community. But we don't have nor can we practically have that assurance from Atari. This is especially true given their somewhat adversarial past history with some of the community over the past half decade. Maybe things are getting better now but we have no guarantee they'll stay that way. I think many of us are willing to wait and see because that's all we can do. But we've been through this song and dance before and it almost never really goes well. Here's hoping that Atari can break tradition and change our minds.
  4. I just saw this news. I'm of two minds about it. The first is a congratulations to Albert on what I'm sure was a pretty difficult decision. I don't know how old Albert is, but I know that financial security is something that we all need as we approach retirement age. Running a site like this sustainably can't be easy. Having a payday while still being able to do the thing that you love as a full time paid job is the best of both worlds. So I don't begrudge him the decision and I hope this grants him the financial and job security that he needs for the future years. My second take is not optimistic. I've been a member here for about 16 years. Not a subscriber nor terribly active, but I've used AtariAge as a resource for many years. AtariAge is an amazing resource. I don't think it can be overstated how important Atariage has been to the preservation and continuation of the legacy of the various Atari platforms. I seriously doubt the Homebrew community would have developed so robustly if it weren't for this website and Al's stewardship of it. The amount of knowledge contained in the forums here is immense and Incredibly valuable. I've been around long enough to have seen what has happened to numerous other fan forums and websites that were acquired by corporations. I can't think of a single one that ended well. The problem here is that the current iteration of Atari might be trying to be consumer friendly, but that isn't long-term guaranteed. I think it was mentioned earlier in the thread that attitudes at Atari have changed since the new CEO took charge. That's great for now, but what happens if you get a new CEO who wants to take the company a different direction? Will AtariAge go the direction that NintendoAge did? This website is not in the hands of a die hard fan any longer. It's now at the mercy of a mercurial corporation that at the end of the day only cares about the bottom line. The future of AtariAge now depends on whether there are people in charge at Atari who think it's worth the money to maintain. If they get a new person in charge who decides it needs to be monetized or changed or shut down to save money, we could see all of this poofing away Into the Ether. A resource that has been incredibly valuable in maintaining the legacy of the Atari platforms will be gone forever. We saw this happen to NintendoAge and other sites. I'm trying to be optimistic but I've been around long enough to have seen how these things generally play out. I would love a written commitment from Atari that they will make an effort to archive this website and its forums so that if at any point they choose to ditch it and pull it down, the information contained within will not be lost to posterity. Again, congratulations to Albert. This must have been a difficult decision and I really truly hope this works out for the best for all involved.
  5. I happened to come on AA to look for a newer version of Pac-man. It's been a while since I've paid much attention tot he Atari homebrew scene. I've long liked and played the 4K version. Playing this version was a revelation. It's fantastic. I was stunned at the almost complete lack of flicker on original hardware. The controls are so tight, the music is surprisingly great for original hardware and the addition of the intermissions blew me away. If this had been released back in the day it would have been a killer app. Fantastic job!
  6. I have a 37" Sony Trinitron from 1990. It weighs 180 lbs. It was fun watching the movers try to get it into the basement the last time we moved. My wife thinks I'm nuts for keeping the beast, but it really has a great picture for retro gaming. It also has svideo inputs for use with SNES, N64 and Playstation.
  7. The printer paper is just thermal paper. Alternatives are available.
  8. I think the lesson to be learned here is that if you're going to do a project of this nature, it's best you have most of the development already done and ready to go. You see this happen with Kickstarter projects as well. Somebody has a grandiose plan to make some awesome product but they don't have the groundwork in place. So they get loads of interest and money, but then it fizzles out because the project ends up being more than they could chew. It doesn't necessarily mean that it was a scam, it just means said the people proposing the project we're poorly organized and had not explored all of the challenges related to the project. In the case of this project, I pre-ordered. I believe Curt meant well but that life and some considerable challenges got in the way. Add an unreliable project partner and the fact that a lot of the initial groundwork hadn't been put in place when pre-orders were taken, and you had a recipe for disaster. I also believe that Curt knows fully well how badly he messed this up. I expect I will get my XM eventually, because I believe Curt fully intended from the start to complete it. Plus, as sparse as the updates are, there has been progress... to the point now that various community programmers have test units and we know it works reliably. It's very easy for us to all gripe and complain about how long it's taking. And I fully understand everybody's frustration over the situation. At the same time, all of these complaints and irritation and anger have been hashed over and over and over again on these Forums. None of that has made project go any faster, or helped it towards completion. Frankly, I don't see the point of complaining at this point. It might make the person complaining feel better to vent, but it doesn't really have any purpose beyond that. We all know this thing is a mess. OK. Got it. Now what? So I'm going to continue to wait quietly and occasionally ask for updates. Because I don't see any point in being part of the other options.
  9. I have downsized a couple times. First was when I got my Harmony cart. I kept only my favorite 2600 games and got rid of two consoles including my Heavy sixer (wish I'd kept it). I kept some games including all of my Imagic games (so glad I kept Subterranea) but I'm down to about 25 instead of over 150. I still have a Vader 2600 gathering dust, but the 7800 is used if I play 2600 games these days. I also got rid of my Intellivision collection. I had 50 or so games and a boxed Intellivoice. I never liked the intellivision and after owning one for a while and never touching it, I decided I was just wasting space and sold it. No regrets. I do regret selling my Turbogrfx 16 though. I had about 8 games for it. I sold it about the time I hot married thinking I needed to downsize.. Now, though I have a working one that I found at a Goodwill for cheap, I do not have any games and cannot afford to buy them at current prices. I used to collect everything, but I've gotten more discerning over the years, focusing on things that actually interest me and passing on stuff that doesn't. It comes down to space and the simple fact that I dont gave time to play most of what I own. Is having stuff just to have it really what I find value in? Not really... so I've been debating downsizing more of my collection for the same reason I did the intellivision. As for throwing stuff out... if you don't have time to sell things individually, just sell big mixed lots of stuff. Less packing and less sorting. You could even require local pickup. Or do a yard sale! Or give it away for free. If you were going to throw it out anyway, it'll be worth it. Throwing away vintage limited quantity items just feels wasteful for the same reason our whole consumerist society does. It all goes to landfills and pollutes the environment.
  10. Got it working after a month and a half hiatus. Cut a wrong trace. Bridged it and cut the correct one and it's working great now.
  11. Definitely seen an uptick on price for games. I use a price aggregator to catalog my collection. The value as a whole has gone up about 2 grand over the past 3 months. I have a couple gamecube games that have gone up by a third since the beginning of the year. It's anyone's guess if the trend will continue after things open up again.
  12. I'm older and wiser about electronics and revisited this. I did the mod almost 10 years ago and my device never worked after that. Turns out i missed the cut traces. So I went and did that and it started working again... on the first two slots. Not sure the issue on the last four. Maybe I'll revisit in another 10 years. Ha.
  13. Can I just say that the Ataria track is pretty damn impressive? While I am not a composer or remotely musical, I have made the observation that having limited tools can sometimes force a composer to find new and innovative ways to approach a musical problem. The limitations of the TIA are what make the great compositions stand out.
  14. That mod looks really nice. Definitely a better option to cutting into your brittle console. I have the Longhorn AV mod on mine. I did drill holes in mine, though in my case, I used Forstner bits which are a bit better option for cutting holes in plastic than regular drill bits due to how they work.
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