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bobstoned

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    Male
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    Staffordshire - England
  • Currently Playing
    PC Engine - R Type
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    Gradius

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  1. As someone who has tried and failed to get hold of a SGM, even waiting at 2am to get one, it really hurts that someone who posts regularly in this community is profiteering off the back of a really niche product which is solely designed for enthusiasts by someone who probably hasn't made a bean of profit out of it yet. At least 14 for sale on eBay!, disgraceful.... Trying to make out that by re-selling it's doing a service to us all... so the price is raised even further to pay for ebay/Paypal's ridiculous fees ... words fail me.
  2. Well said, couldn't agree more with this. Exactly my position. It's very sad that CH have driven a wedge in the community, but it's not something that can be undone so easily, particularly for people who have invested so much effort in nurturing the whole scene into life. People will just have to decide with their conscience who to support. Honesty and integrity count. If Collectorvision think they can so easily brush away what they've done, then I think they're deluding themselves (as can be seen in the result of this poll). Much of my interest in buying new retro stuff is driven by the warm glow of nostalgia mixed with seeing what could have been done with hindsight and more time. It fascinates me, I buy hardware upgrades for the Commodore 64 (reloaded MK2), BBC micro (video upgrade), PC Engine (CD FPGA) and more. This is an expensive hobby, and I won't tolerate contributing to a large wedge of cash for anyone actively attempting to undermine the community.
  3. In terms of the full experience it looks increasingly like we'll have to hold on to our old crusty original consoles. Myself, as an arcade kid from the early eighties, I was always drawn to the special controllers on machines, most notably the flight yoke on Star Wars cabinets and the twist ratchet knob on Ikari Warriors (shooting backwards at an angle while moving forwards and vice versa). As a young kid, it was the steering wheel in the Colecovision ads that really caught my attention as I'd never seen any company pushing that kind of arcade authenticity before ( and the screen shots of Zaxxon and Donkey Kong, I thought they were fake! , I couldn't believe it was possible to acheive in a home console). My mum used to run a home catalogue ("Great Universal" in England I think) . We always got cool new electronics late, but this was a US based company so I got to see previews of them much earlier than most kids in the UK. This is how I pre-ordered the Lynx back in the day (wow that was expensive!). My mum thought I was mad, but she also had one eye on the commission
  4. Personally, I'd prefer you to do yourself. I'll take two also
  5. The fact that CollectorVision is paying CH will mean there's zero possibility I'll buy any more of their games in the future, never mind buying their console. It'll be OpCode all the way from now on. Integrity and fair play matters in a small community like this, and Eduardo made the right call.
  6. Very handy, thanks Vectrexer. By sheer coincidence I was wondering a few days ago where I'd stored this utility, hence why I ended up here, I haven't reflashed it in years! Brilliant device, Richard just sent it out to me when I asked about it (12 years ago!), bit surprised, sent him back a cheque. Trust! Got his VecRam as well, serial port ( old school! )
  7. This is exactly what's happening now with the the new Atari console. They're simply trading on it's name and history. I hope I'm wrong and it turns out to be a great success and provide some kind of unique experience, but going by the history of projects funded on Indiegogo I find it highly unlikely, more likely there will be a great number of very disappointed customers receiving a very late and underwhelming donkey. Look at the similarities with the Chameleon, a non-working box but with a fake wooden fascia effect.
  8. I couldn't agree more with this. If I was interested in a system with cutting edge specs I'd just buy an XBox/PS4. Only the big companies can hit the limits with the current console specs. Having more restrictive limits keeps the scope of the game in check, and focuses more on good game mechanics and gameplay. I've bought and played computers/consoles since 1981 to 2018 and I'm totally bored with the obsession with 3D graphics. I still get more satisfaction out of playing Defender, Galaxian, Q*bert Gradius etc now because they're expertly designed and quick pick up and play. Even today you see people squeezing the last ounce of power out of the Commodore 64, because it's a challenge.
  9. I almost pre-ordered the Pandora... . I silently stalked that forum for years. I did get burned on the iControlPad 2, however, when Craig ran off with the money! I remember how valiantly you fought to clear your Pandora pre-order list and even try to help out the customer's that Craig deserted, even though you had no obligation to do so. People remember that kind of stuff and I'm sure it helped with the Pyra pre-orders. I'm curious to know why you persisted in making the Pyra, was it to exorcise the demons, to prove it can be done right or plain can't help yourself because you love doing it? The modular nature of it, the upgradeable CPU is truly something special and unique. It's how stuff should be made, by honest people, not this irrepairable glued together crap you get from Apple etc.
  10. Never owned one of these myself, but I was aged around 10 when these were released, so I was the target audience. I had the Entex Space Invaders (crap) and PacMan 2 (great). PacMan 2 had a two player mode to control the ghost, head to head. I've still got the PacMan 2 from 1981, it works, but cosmetically challenged! A few of my friends did have Coleco PacMan, Frogger and Donkey Kong, so i did get to play them at that time as well. There's no way they can enforce a take down on a replacement part for anything, unless it has the trademarked logo on there, which they seem to have obtained by fraudulent means in the first place. They don't own that product, like they don't own any of the games and peripherals created 30 years ago (although they're trying their best to deceive everyone, not in the know, into believing they do). I own two Colecovision consoles, a roller controller, super action controller, expansion modules 1 and 2, multi-cart and 40+ carts, many boxed, so you'd say I'm quite a fan. I've read through this entire thread this week, it's like a super addictive sauce, and a great tragedy. I'm really appalled at both how Eduardo (OpCode) has been treated by these leeches and how they've seemingly obtained the rights by citing, falsely, commercial usage on Ben Heck's one off custom Colecovision portable (he said so himself). Ben's post: http://atariage.com/forums/topic/265739-coleco-strong-arming-homebrew-publishers-and-fan-sites/?p=3778557 I know it's not easy, but there must be some way of challenging this decision, considering there's hard documented evidence out there. Coleco Expo with no Colecovison console, what a joke! The sad thing is that I'd probably have been interested in owning a new reproduction of the originals, but certainly not the game choice on the Kickstarter and now that I've seen what they've been up to, there's no way I'd give them anything, however good it is.
  11. I'm obviously quite late to the party with this one, but I only randomly found out about this device, whilst coming across, again late, to the sh*tstorm that blew up between the Coleco/Colecovision trademark trolls and the Colecovision retro community, namely OpCode games, CollectorVision, the Facebook fan site and others. That thread, here on AtariAge, is some addictive sauce, I can tell you. I just read through most of it over the last week, can't believe what I've been reading, those Coleco trolls just alienated literally everyone in the home brew community and the largest Colecovision fan site on the web. And not long after that Coleco Chameleon debacle.... The most disturbing fact I came across, is that they seemed to have claimed ownership of the trademarks by citing Ben Heck's one-off Colecovision portable as evidence of commercial use of the trademark. Apparently they contacted Ben and seemed to have duped him into believing they already held the trademark and he even gave them the vector file to his custom logo used on the device. What's tragic about this is that once these people get hold of these rights, legal recourse to right the wrong is heavily weighted against the little man and companies with more financial resources (namely lawyers). I've been appalled at how OpCode games have been treated, Eduardo's Super Game Module and the ported games are a legendary feat for someone doing this in their spare time for little to no financial reward. I don't blame him for refusing to pay them anything. Everyone has just being removing the Colecovision logo off their boxes and web sites.... good on you, don't feed the troll. Ben Heck himself actually commented in the thread about the deception here: http://atariage.com/forums/topic/265739-coleco-strong-arming-homebrew-publishers-and-fan-sites/?p=3778557
  12. Fantastic news Michael, I don't know how you make the time for this, your job, the Pyra and your shop! I'd definitely like to purchase 2 of these, both of my original Colecovision PSUs are suffering. (usual video display issues) I still use the original iControlPad gamepad, which I modified to use with a HTC desire (I believe I posted a photo of it to the forum many years ago) I have been silently following the Pyra project for some time as well. I heartily recommend anyone who's not familiar with the Pyra handheld computer, to go check out the news updates in the Pyra forum. It shows a fascinating history of what it takes for a group of enthusiasts to undertake the immense challenge of creating a cutting edge hardware product without the backing of a major company. It's also a prime example of what open communication is all about and they are not shy about reporting any bad news as well. Be honest, keep people regularly informed and most people are very tolerant of setbacks and delays.
  13. @LX.Net You may be right, wasn't aware there was one, although this is specifically about the Lynx which is this forum. Both would fit I think, but thanks for pointing it out. Just trying to help people out, I'm not the seller...
  14. New Robotron: Considering these don't come too often, not in the UK anyway, this is a steal, get one now while you can before the dealers hoover them up. 8 available as of 13:45 Sunday 19th Feb. A bare cartridge sold for £16.50 on Friday! ? ( frustrating if you're collecting, I know, but that's the state of eBay now).
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