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AlwaysOnPlanetPatrol

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  • Gender
    Male
  • Location
    Markham. Ontario. Canada.
  • Interests
    Soccer. Golf. Retro Games. Suburbia.
  • Currently Playing
    1942 - 7800 version
    Keystone Kapers - 2600
    Ace of Aces - 800XL
  • Playing Next
    Bruce Lee - 800XL
    Decathlon - 2600
    Pitfall II - 2600

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  1. Got the email alert and went on the web site where it became available shortly after noon EST. When I saw the price ($300 CDN) it gave me pause; I'd love to have a cart like this, but significantly more than I was prepared to pay for it. I'm sure the carts found alternate appreciative buyers.
  2. Sad news. He created a couple of games that I played a lot in my youth. RIP.
  3. Interesting, just tried it with 0.96 firmware. Doesn't work. Been playing it on the emulator, haven't opened the box yet to try the actual cart. I don't have a Harmony cart handy, I'll try it next.
  4. Checked my emails today and received the info as well. Placed my order; thank you @batari!
  5. Thank you both for the response. That makes sense; I don't believe I put myself in any reservation list. I bought the carts as available (one a couple years back and then on EOY sale that batari had). Yeah, no crazy rush either, I was just wondering. I waited this long for the HOKEY I can wait a few more weeks/months. batari's got a life as well.
  6. Just curious, have any of the pre-prod Concerto owners received an email in how to buy a HOKEY? I've got two Concertos I got from @batari that need one. Nothing in my inbox (or spam folder) thus far.
  7. You are right. It's been quite a bit of work. One thing that I got out of this is that I feel that the carts are "clean" now. It's not like I'm a germophope or a clean-freak, but I like the fact that I know that these carts have been cleaned properly inside and out. I have another batch on the way, so other than finding a better condition Double Dragon cartridge, that will be it. Question for you @dwh, it sounds like you have quite the collection. Do you have any display cases, if so can you share what you have? I think that's what I'll look for next.
  8. Got my last three carts from eBay vendors. Robot Tank, Starmaster and Megamania. Don't have natural light to take a picture of Megamania, so I'll provide it some other time. Opening the Robot Tank cartridge, I found a surprise. It uses a new blob-type ROM chip with all epoxy. Of all the cartridges I opened in this project, this is the only one. So most likely this was a latter run of Activision cartridges. All the other ones had the larger chip. Here is the new one on the left, and my original cart on the right. I ended up deciding that my original cart was going to be relabeled. The folding looked worse and the end label was ripped. Here is Starmaster and Robot Tank with the new labels. Here is the comparison with the original labels. Starmaster looks "off" with the new label. The blue is a lot brighter and some of the stars in the screenshot are missing. I noticed that there are a couple more cartridges were things were a tad off. I will make a more detailed comparison in the near future. Finally, here's a screenshot of the carts that I will most likely not relabel (except for Commando which I used my original cart to be relabeled, pictured here is the new one I got last week). My Double Dragon cartridge is in really poor shape; I'll make it my next task to find a better cartridge considering it's one of my favourite games. I only wish I had my original collection from the early 90s!!! A few more lessons learned: - Some cartridges are absolutely filthy. Over the 25 or so cartridges I opened to clean, I found dead bugs, substances I don't want to know about, rusty springs in the plastic prongs, and many times strong tobacco smell. - If you place the new labels incorrectly, then there's not way to adjust it. I put my Megamania one slightly off and tried to re-apply it. It started to rip. No do-overs with these labels - Many of the cartridges on eBay claimed to be "tested" didn't work without a proper clean or scrub. Megamania, River Raid, Kaboom, and Dolphin took ages to get working - Surprisingly, my 7800 can play Robot Tank and Decathlon with no problems!
  9. I'm just going through this exercise right now for my Activision set of 2600 carts. Although the labels on Beamrider, Cosmic Commuter, Double Dragon and Rampage are in pretty bad shape I won't be touching those. What I have been doing is getting the more common titles for cheaper prices and leaving my existing collection with the original labels. For the more rarer titles unless I stumble upon a cheap and pretty crappy copy, I won't be replacing the labels. In my case I plan on using these carts with the replacement labels and have them in display, so the cosmetic look is important for me in that case. I doubt I will ever sell them and truth be told, I wouldn't buy someone else's cart with the replaced/reproduction labels.
  10. So over the last few days, quite a few cartridges started making their way into my collection. I did one major batch/rush over a couple of days to get as many as I could. Just because I'm basically doing reproductions by adding these new labels, I decided to keep the costs reasonable as an additional challenge. Basically keep each cartridge under $10 (Canadian). I was able to do this with the only exception being Robot Tank which ended up being $14. Everything else was from $2 to $10. With eBay I was trying to keep shipping free where possible but tax added a couple of bucks. Overall I got some good deals especially a copy of Frostbite for $2, even though the label was in rough shape. I ended up getting a couple of duplicates, one of Freeway and one Sky Jinks, as in a couple of cases I bought batches. Facebook Marketplace was a great especially since I came across somewhere further south in the province that was shipped at a very reasonable price. That was 7 cartridges there. Found another one in FB for Spider Fighter. On my way to my place up north came across a person selling a bunch for $5 each and picked up 8 carts via Kijiji. Kaboom at a retro video game store for $10+tax. About half a dozen from eBay. I'm still waiting for Megamania, Robot Tank and Starmaster to arrive from a couple separate orders. Weird because these two were from Ontario and I received orders from British Columbia last week; they should have arrived quicker. Interestingly enough, there were 3 carts that were in better shape than the ones I had in my collection, so I swapped those: Commando, Decathlon, and Boxing. Here is the Spider Fighter from last weekend compared to my original copy on the left. Colours are fairly similar. Here is a picture of an immaculate circuit board for Commando (this was my original copy): Here are Enduro, Grand Prix, Seaquest, Pitfall, Hockey and Plaque Attack. Six titles I picked up for $5 each. I got Commando as well, but did it in a separate batch after wanting to compare with my original copy since it was in stellar condition. Here they are again with originals (in the left). Colours as before are not perfect matches, probably because of fading over the years (UV or just oxidation?). Ice Hockey probably glows in the dark. Here are the other 15 I picked up before I removed the labels. Decathlon, Commando and Boxing were my original copies. Some of them were pretty shoddy. Chopper Command must have something spilled into it since I took ages to clean it up without any brown stuff getting wiped (blergh!). River Raid was a mess. Couldn't get the label out after 4 days of having sitting in Goo Gone. I ended taking a Sky Jinks extra cart and re-purposing it (AG-019 for Sky Jinks, AG-020 for River Raid). Strangely enough, the RR had springs, why SJ did not. Here are they with all the new labels. This took 3 days in doing them in batches. And here are all the cartridges done so far. They all work, although some needed some extra cleaning with the contacts with three of them actually needing to be sanded slightly. At this point Megamania, Robot Tank and Starmaster should be done in a few days. I'll keep looking for copies of Barnstorming, Bridge, Checkers, Dragster, Fishing Derby, Skiing and perhaps Pitfall II. I will most likely need to spend more than $10 on some of those titles.
  11. So after some more cleaning, I ended taking another look at the Stampede cartridge and getting its new label attached. The big issue is that the game would not play. I remember that one of the two cartridges wasn't working and simply never got to it. Tried it on my usual 7800 and took out my 2600 as well. It would not work. I tried another alcohol-based clean on the contacts with Q-tips and it wouldn't work. So I gave in and opened the case. The contacts did look very corroded and no amount of alcohol-scrubbing was getting it off. So I took the finest sandpaper I could find and did a gentle scrub of the contacts and cleaned with with alcohol afterwards. I inserted the bare circuit board into the 7800 and the game came up! I wish I had taken a picture, but the interesting thing is that the shielding around the ROM chip (I presume) had "11" written on it on permanent marker. I suspect that this was for the manufacturing line to keep the mystery board clear that it was assigned to Stampede (serial AG-011). The other thing I noticed is that the Goo Gone did also make it into the cartridge. Mostly around the parts where the two halves joined. So what I'll do from now on is to open the cartridges and do a nice clean. Based on my lesson learned before, this time I applied the label from the front first (instead of starting at the top). And here is the comparison with my other cart still with its original label on. It's interesting to see that the hazelnut-brown of the original label which looks better IMHO. The picture makes it look the new label purplish, but it is brown. Here's another picture in different (more natural) light and different background. This picture shows the true tone of brown. So these are all my Activision duplicates relabeled. I will probably have a few more by EOD Monday since I have a couple of purchases scheduled and a few more should trickle in from my eBay orders.
  12. So I did receive the labels yesterday afternoon, which was a great coincidence, since I was just going to prep four cartridges for the eventual arrival of the new labels. I received about 40-50 of them. All the Activision ones and ordered one single Spectravideo cart for Planet Patrol. So I'll start with my dupes: Keystone Kapers, Planet Patrol, Space Shuttle and Stampede. I did do more of a clean, scrapping some of the residue of the Keystone Kapers and Planet Patrol cartridges a bit more. The Spectravideo cart has the infamous hole in the front where a bunch of Goo Gone ended up seeping in, so that took a while to clean up properly. Here are the Space Shuttle, Keystone Kapers and Planet Patrol carts all cleaned up. The Stampede one still has a lot of residue on the end label, so I will let soak a bit more in the Goo Gone and do a clean later today. I ended up using rubbing alcohol (weird, how during the pandemic this was so hard to find), a screen cleaning cloth, compressed air and q-tips. The Spectravideo cart is especially a dust magnet. I ended up cleaning it like 4-5 times to get all the specks of dust away. Adding the labels was easy. They do feel thicker and harder than the original labels. I started at the top label for the Activision carts (more on that below). So here's the Keystone Kapers cart with the new label. And here's a side-by-side comparison with the other one in my collection still with the original label on. The richness of the colours come through, although the green on the department store walls is significantly lighter. And here is the Space Shuttle cartridge with the new label. And here's a comparison of my other with the original label. I'd say that this is one of the carts with the best condition label I have in my collection. And now here is the Planet Patrol cart with the new labels on it. Note the bits of dust still there. I was trying to get the top label dead-centre, which is easier said than done. And here's a side-by-side comparison with the other in my collection, which is in great condition (this is from a CIB copy I have). The scuffs are certainly more noticeable in the original and the colours have lost some of their shine. A couple lessons learned: - I should have started applying the new Activision labels from the front section rather than the top label. Looking at the originals, the edge is lined up more with the front - The soak method wasn't great for the Spectravideo cart with its hole. Even though the old label was on, the Goo Gone seeped in and was a hassle to clean out completely - In case of the Planet Patrol cart, I wish I had disassembled it and given it a cleansing bath. Would have quicker and more thorough. I will probably do Stampede later.
  13. So a couple weeks ago I stumbled upon this post from pboland where he's selling replacement labels for cartridges. I was intrigued because I have a full set of Activision cartridges, but the labels on the majority of them are in a poor state. After doing the math and needing some new distraction, I decided to order a full replacement set. Now, I think I will probably not touch the more rarer carts like Cosmic Commuter, Ghostbusters, Rampage, etc but will do the more common one. I already had some duplicates, so I decided to get started. I got some Goo Gone from Home Depot and a plastic scrapper that I ordered from Amazon. I had a metal one that I use for glass, but didn't want to use something that could scratch it. I did read the post about removing the labels and decided considering that I used Goo Gone before that I would have slightly adjust my approach. I decided to dump half the bottle in a plastic container and let the cartridges soak in it for a couple of hours. The fluid level is low enough so that it's very unlikely to touch the circuitry inside since I didn't want to open it. Other than leaving the top section soaked for a few minutes, the labels came off super-easy with the scrapper and was able to clean up any residue with a rag. One still had a pricing tag and that came off no problem as well. Space Shuttle, Keystone Kapers and Stampede are ready! I'm currently hunting for some bargains in getting some Activision carts from FB Marketplace, eBay and Kijiji. Based on a couple of appointments I should have about 30 or so cartridges in the next few days. Surprised how hard it is to find reasonably-priced carts of Skiing and Tennis!
  14. After getting my 800XL a few days ago, I decided that I wasn't going to start a new cartridge collection for my new 8bit computer. I have too many things that I rarely use and to be honest, between my 2600 and 7800 games, I also just don't have the time. So enter the AVGCart! Received it two days ago and was just waiting for my work schedule to clear up so that I can have a nice couple of hours to set it up and play with it. I also ordered the SIO cable in case I came across any floppy/cassette images that I wanted to play, especially since I remember Bruce Lee being a disk-based game. After getting a memory card and just finding some roms, the process was easy. Of course for me, the first rom file I loaded was Bruce Lee. I did a quick cursory look for 1942 and Double Dragon, which I didn't find. Looking at the "D" folder I picked the Donkey Kong games and one of my favs on the 2600, Decathlon. Man oh man. Turning the computer on and seeing the menu was pretty cool. What I didn't expect was the excitement of actually seeing the BL game pop up on my screen and its music playing. When I started playing BL, all these memories started to come back. It didn't take me too long to figure out how to play the game, especially the jumping. After clearing the first 3 screens, I jumped into the underground level where I ended getting fried a few times by the electrical-looking fields. I also loaded up Decathlon. I have to admit, I like this version better than the 2600 and the C64 that I used to have. I played the first nine events, got 1000+ points in many of the events, although I got a nice zero on Pole Vault and didn't have the courage to tackle the final event, the 1500m race. I'm very impressed with the AVGCart so far. It works just like Concerto and Harmony carts that I have by providing me with a menu.
  15. @playsoft, @TIX and @Trebor I can't stop playing this game. Amazing work and thank you for sharing this.
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