Zambaku

I came across this story about a haunted Atari 2600 game. It kind of creeped me out. Anyone know if this might be some strange homebrew or unreleased prototype or something? I will never try out a mystery cart again The story goes as following - "Please, listen carefully to what I have to say. If you are like me, a collector of Atari 2600 games and happens to encounter a so called "Mystery Cartridge" Do not, I repeat do not play and find out what game it might be. For you that do not know what a Mystery Cart is. It is a cartridge without a label, so you can't know what game is on it. The label can be lost for many reasons, but that's irrelevant. It all started 5 days ago when I stumbled upon a garage sale. An old lady was selling some old stuff and she had a box of old Atari 2600 games that I quickly dived into. I had most of the games in it - Berzerk, Pitfall and ugh, E.T. But I found a mystery cart. I always liked mystery carts, the excitement of not knowing what game it is. So I asked the lady how much she wanted for it, and she wanted 50 cents and so I payed for it and asked if she had any more old games. - They are not mine, the old lady replied. They where my sons. The old lady looked quite sad and I wondered what happened. - He was acting so strange. I remember that Christmas. He wished for new games for his Atari, he loved that thing. So I got him a few games and he was so happy. He played for hours and hours. But, he started acting strange after a few days. Saying things like "they're gonna get me", "I'm a good boy, right?" and "you'd never let anything happen to me, promise?" - I didn't think much of it at first, but he got worse and worse, he began talking to himself, saying things like "be quiet" and "I've had enough". He began having violent outbursts, he tried to stab the television with a knife. I always knew videogames where no good. And one day, he had just dissapeared. I looked everywhere but I couldn't find him. I didn't know what to say. I thought to myself that the kid must've had some psychological issues due to talking to himself and having strange outbursts. I thanked her for her time and began walking home, and as I walked I examined the cartridge, wondering what treasure it might be. "I sure hope it's not another E.T" I thought to myself. I already had 3 of them. The cart itself was nothing fancy, the standard block shaped cart with a few scratches. I made it home and popped it in and was greeted by 2 characters, completely white with a black background and a red outline of a box surrounding the playfield. Nothing fancy, nothing out of the ordinary really. Graphics where pretty limited back then. I controlled one of the characters and all he could do was walk around in the box. The other character sat against the right wall, looking like it was wrapping its arms around its legs and rocking back and forward. "Okay" I thought to myself. That was a bit strange. Oh well. I moved my character over the sitting character and a message appeared saying "help". I quickly figured this was an adventure game. "Finaly, we're getting somewhere" I thought to myself. But what is it he wants help with, there is nothing in this area and there are no doors. He must want me to help him escape or something. So I walked over to him again and once again he just said "help". I did this 3 more times and all I got was this help message. I started to get tired of the game. Thinking it was an unpublished prototype of some kind. I left the game on and headed to the computer to see if I could find something about it, I looked at a list of known prototypes but this one wasn't mentioned anywhere. "Neat, not everyday you discoverer something new" I thought to myself. so I went back to the game to explore every inch of it before reporting it. And I realised you could do nothing but talk to this strange sitting man, but finaly he said something different. It said "Don't play" I got goosebumps on my arms and a chill down my back and I remembered the old lady talking about her missing son that began showing strange behaviours and then went missing. This couldn't be it, right? I've heard of haunted games before but I never believed it. But I do have an active imagination and I told myself that no, this is just an adventure game prototype, there's nothing wrong with it. So I kept playing and when I talked to the man once again the screen went black and it began playing gibberish, it sounded like a hundred sound effects being played at the same time. I was about to reset the game but I stopped myself and wondered what would happen if I pressed the fire button. And by doing so I knew. . . The gibberish sound still played and an upside down cross was shown flashing in a manner that would give sensitive people a seizure and on the cross sat the that person again. Completely still. And after a while he began rocking at an insanse speed. I quickly turned the game off. "I'm screwed, I'm screwed, I'm screwed" I said to myself over and over again. I didn't know what to do. Haunted game are real! What's gonna happen to me? Am I going to go insane and then get sucked into the game like that poor kid? Should I continue to play or just forget about the game? No, I must know what I'm dealing with here, so I went back to the old lady with the cartridge in hand and told her. She began crying and told me that she knew of the game. She had seen glimpses of it when her son had played and it was a white man in a red room. Her son liked it a lot, it was a puzzle game where you solve puzzles that gets harder and harder. And when her son had gone he had left the game on and she saw another white man on the game sitting against a wall, looking as if he was crying. She thought she would see what happened when she moved the character over to him. Then messages began to appear saying things like "Sorry, Mom", "In Hell", "Help" She didn't know what to do. She was scared out of her mind, and knowing nobody would believe her she put everything in a box and there it was left for 20 years. Now I had played it too. If nothing happened to her, maybe I would be okay too. I had so many questions but she refused to talk to me anymore so I was forced to leave. It was getting late and I hurried home. I did not want to be outside in the darkness after this event. I'm getting increasingly anxious that something bad is going to happen. This was torture, I had to keep playing, I had to know. I had to help! I picked up the controller once again. I muted the sound but it didn't help. The sound from Hell was still there. I pressed the fire button when the crucifix was shown and this is when all Hell broke loose. The sitting character went berzerk, he flickered all over the screen and began screaming in a very loud pitch. I pressed the fire button again and I got a message saying "help" once again and I was back in the boxed in room with the kid, rocking back and forth against the wall. I talked to him again and this time he said "I'm sorry" followed by "you are next". After that a horrible face was shown and in shock I pressed the fire button to get rid of the face and the sound started again. Then it all went black. That's it. Nothing more. I should've stopped as soon as I suspected something was wrong, maybe then I would've been spared. I slept with the lights on that night and from time to time I could swear I heard those horrible sounds. Just before I fell asleep I felt my body get very heavy, so heavy that I couldn't move, and it felt like my body was melting away like candlewax, all the sensations of the body just began to vanish little by little and I couldn't open my eyes, and I could no longer see the light from the lamps, everything was pitch black and out from that darkness I saw the most horrifying face I have ever seen. It was a skinny looking face with a pink complection mixed with grey. It had lifeless, empty eyes, a very small nose and a huge grinning mouth filled with long sharp teeth. It came closer and closer and then I noticed that beside me sat a boy in a golden light, and the golden light repelled the hideous face back into the darkness. The boy looked at me with sorrowfull eyes and said. "spread the story, stop this thing from spreading, let people know or they too will be tricked in the darkness, I must go back to the darkness now. . . " Then he vanished and I was free to move once again. Now I write this to warn all of you of this danger. The horror does not stop here, there are rom images on the net of this horror. Do not download this, I repeat do not download this! Beware the screenshot of the 2 white men in a red box or you might not be as lucky as I was. I burned the cartridge so that particular copy wouldn't be able to hurt anyone else again. But who knows how many copies exist out there, and who knows how many times the rom image has been downloaded. I will not tell you the name of the rom, just heed my warning. Beware the 2 white men in the red box." I did some searches and I came across this image:

I was just wondering if there is any other windows based graphical hacking software besides Bit Hacker out there? It's a bit tedious not being able to copy and paste images =)

I'm attempting to write my first extremely basic game for the Atari 2600 using Batari. I'm getting a compiling error that says that my line containing: player0x = 50 : player0y = 50 Has a syntax error. Yet I do not see it. I'm following a basic tutorial on youtube and I've done just like the person shows and he dosn't get any error. My code so far: rem Generated 2010-11-01 20:16:27 by Visual bB Version 1.0.0.554 rem ********************************** rem *<filename> * rem *<description> * rem *<author> * rem *<contact info> * rem *<license> * rem ********************************** playfield: XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX ................................ ................................ ................................ ................................ ................................ ................................ ................................ ................................ ................................ XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX end COLUBK = $20 COLUPF = 212 player0x=50:player0y=50 player1x=20:player1y=20 player0: 100100 100100 %01011010 %01011010 111100 000000 011000 011000 end player1: 100100 100100 011000 011000 %01111110 000000 011000 011000 end draw_loop drawscreen goto draw_loop

I believe I need a new RF cable for my Atari 2600. I get alot of snow and weird lines on the screen when I play. Anyway, I was wondering: Can any RF cable be used, or does it have to be a specific brand or so?

Okay! I finaly got the Atari 2600jr to work! I had to see a friend who collects junk and I was informed my T.V was 25 years old, and that he actually had the original remote laying around so I was able to borrow it, and behold I was able to find the signal for my Atari! I've spent all day playing Pac-Man, Berzerk and Yars' Revenge =D However, there is something weird with the image, there are lines scrolling up and down, no hard lines, just fuzzy soft ones...Hard to explain...Hm, any way I can clear it up to get a sharper image? Also, one of my games: Space Invaders dosn't work, all I get when I plug it in is a black screen with scrolling lines, and a little blue dot blinking in the lower right corner.

x_x This is getting complicated. I don't have a manual for my tv, got it of a friend =/ Is there not a way to do this through a remote or something? Some highly special one that could auto-find or something?

I give up. I talked with another swedish Atari 2600 owner and he said he simply plugged it into the back and went to the channel and it worked straight of the bat. Guess mine must be broken or something...It's so annoying since I payed 120 dollars for it -_-

Yeah, I've heard the new tellies can be troublesome with old consoles, that's why I'm going to stick with old tellies =) My current is a fat Phillips that's about 5 years old

Cheers for all the help, guys =) I'm gonna go and pick up some items tomorrow and hopefully something will work. I'll update my situation then =)

I checked and it says CABLE next to it, with a few lines, and underneath the connector there is a sign that looks like a split T.

Hm, a converter box. Does it have to be any special brand, or have any special properties or do any ol' converter box work?

I switch between channel 2 and 3, as indicated by the switch back on the atari, I even checked all the other channels to be safe but I get nothing. I plugged the RF cable directly into the RF connector back on the TV. When that didn't work I used a male to female RF adaptor but it didn't work either. I even looked on my satelite box and used the same methods on it in desperation but to no avail.

Ah, I see. I'll be sure to only change when I absolutely need to =) And any tips on getting a channel? All I get is static, even with a male/female silver thingy.

The ports are really tight, not lose at all. I had to push very hard to get the controller to go in, I was a bit afraid of breaking anything but it went okay =) Another issue: I can't get an image. I've tried using a male & female silver thingy but still nothing. Do I have to do anything special to find the channel?

I just recieved my Atari 2600jr, and the controller that came with it is that God awful thing for the 7800, I tred plugging it in but met massive resistans. Is it not compatible with the 2600jr?