Bloodcat

If my experience with the 5200 is anything to go by, it is possibly one of the most poorly made and unreliable systems of all time even before we count the infamous controllers. Half the chips die. Power supply and switchbox hell. No monitor output much less Svideo or later. Enormous. Tiny library that is usually just as good if not better on the Colecovision, C64, and it's daddy the Atari 800/XL or 130xe. The latter have Yoomp and Ridiculous Reality. (The C64 has all the 80s rpg and Strategy titles you can handle in a decent visual form.) For me the 5200 is basically SUNK COST FALLACY THE GAME CONSOLE and I've only been putting in money and time out of sheer pig headed anger and revenge that the thing never wants to work. I honestly only ever bought the thing to play Gremlins. I mean yay I have it boxed and complete because it was due to X Entertainment (eventually to become Dinosaur Dracula giving y'all an idea how long this thing has tormented me..) but I'm not sure it was worth it. Especially when the A800 exists. It's just been a miserable experience. I've gotten a Colecovision roughly 20 years after the 5200 (800 family in the middle timeframe) and have had almost zero issues with lots of easy to get upgrades and QoL doohickeys. Just play the thing! Sure no Gremlins but Colecovision H.E.R.O. is the definitive version of one of my favorite Crash era titles. (It's boxed too. Except it was obviously just as the retro bubble was blowing up, albeit more Nintendo to now era stuff.) It's just not a good machine. Poorly built and designed with very little exclusive to it.

I saw one at Target today and picked it up. Only one they had. I mostly bought to get some of the games not on other collections. Wired I saw no lag whatsoever with the included controller which is ok but I would have preferred a single one if it could have been a gamepad style with microswitches and a bit larger and looser paddle. Some in system manuals for the games and being able to tweak the control options would be great especially on the paddles. The scan line option is terrible as most are. (Only an Apple ii one long delisted from the Android store did crt simulation good imo.) Overall the emulation is decent but there are some light tearing moving vertically and the vector games are dying for the vector options the Flashback PS4 collections had. Absolutely excellent vector tweaks nothing else seems to use. I've not had time to mess with sideloading files or trying other controllers yet. It's decent so far though.

This list is terrible. Like yeah the newer machines can be argued to be better but some classics are lower than complete failures hardly anyone heard of!

Hell of a lot of great mods to some classics dude!

If it works for you cool. Means slightly better prices for me right? Right?

I always remove those annoying little blighters. I hiss at them.

I'm like in the 70-80 range iirc. Though some games like Buster Douglas Boxing I merely have the Pal Region Heavyweight Champ version. Same exact game. I'm dumb but I'm not that dumb.

I thank you for the kind words! I have still been looking for complete games at reasonable prices and this.. seems to not happen. Even when I am willing to spend a bit more cash the game is missing the manual. ITS A PLASTIC CASE HOW DOES THIS HAPPEN RAAAARG. Needless to say I have irritated sellers at Retroworld Expo as I refuse to buy games without the manual. Add in some of the above and its been a bit rough. Though with that new Analogue SG out there some SMS fun sounds good, doubly so when the Game Gear dongle comes out because lol at playing on a real gg especially given how they love to die.

Well I am trying! Sadly the RAM came in today and didn't work. The screen stayed black and I got THE CHIMES OF DOOM. So I contacted the seller for a refund and I will move towards the 64 megs I saw. Perhaps it is a sign from RAPTOR JESUS (Aka Woz.). I did buy a nice barstool to use with the machine and gave the top of the case a nice scrubbing. Which actually took some paint OFF the case but eh. It was mad dirty and now is just schlubby and the nooks n crannies are still icky. I am debating just spraypainting the whole thing in a nice dark blue or purple when it warms up a little here in New England. The case is in rough and cracked shape (some from the shipping) anyhow so its not like I am destroying a vital artifact of computing.. Hell, even opening the case caused a tab to crack off so might as well make it mine eh? Now do I protect the Apple emblem or just repaint it a solid color at the end? I'm thinking the latter because EFFORT. Just some tape over the vents to keep em open and just get some TUSSIN rubbed up all in it! The battery is due tomorrow, the VGA dongle wednesday. Next week I will probably order the SD2SCSI interface and possibly depending on if the not working RAM gets refunded order the 64 megs this week and have a billy boss system. As is its MUCH better than the Mac Plus but somehow my silly butt is still wasting time on it as it is. Sometimes I think its half the fun.....

Amber looks sweet and is kind of how the turret gun laptops in Aliens were screened. http://devblog.monothetic.com/post/100917702075/interfacing-connection (Scroll down a little bit.) And as an Aliens geek I had to go with that. But the black and white of the Mac is a good second. Green is that of the Apple IIes and is inferior. But we all know the cool people have the 16 colors of the Commodore 64 and its all you really need for low color glory.

You know I probably saw that same machine on the Bay looking to replace my Plus which is just not fast enough for me to play Might and Magic 1-3 on. (Though my physical copy of 3 is the Turbografx one and could be sold for the price of a couple old Macs.) But luck and fate brought me what I have been searching for: http://wargamedork.blogspot.com/2018/03/retrocomputing-why-bother-machalla-iisi.html Its working pretty good so far. But I keep finding MORE STUFF I want for it though hardware wise as opposed to my Atari 8 bits which are just game collecting vacuums that I spend money on every few months when I get a bee in my bonnet or some searches come up. Most old Mac games are either freeware or I have the PC version and can thus play the Mac port with little to no issue because ports are the same thing as legally owning it eh eh eh? (Almost zero old Mac software will ever be put up for even digital purchase. Also see Atari and how they seem to think the company they bought the IP to with that name made nothing besides 2600 and arcade games, leaving the 800 in the dust which is heretical heresy.) I am just Tim the Toolmanning this thing and its FUN TO DO. I WORK ON THIS BABY THE SAME WAY, GOTTA GET MAXIMUM PERFORMANCE THAT CAN PIERCE THE HEAVENS WITH THE FURY OF A THOUSAND SUNS! My goal is to have my rig feature complete by the start of Summer. (Which is around my birthday and the machine itself showed up like the first day of Spring or the last day of Winter.) I won't get everything done because I just now (about 6 hours after ordering 4by4meg SIMMs for 22 shipped) found a place with 16by4s for 12 a stick and a wandering Google showed me there is one existing and one probably soon to happen USB to ADB so I can maybe have nice high grade optical mice or maybe even use a nice mechanical keyboard over the MONSTER Extended Keyboard II even if its pretty solid. I doubt a modern mechanical 2 USB gamer type KB would work with the interfaces but any normal modern USB board would work including the nice KB that came with my currently not working G5 Imac. (Capacitors. The bane of a retro electronics geek's existence. My Turbo Duo is close mocking me until I swap out so many surface mount caps. IM SCURRED OK. I HAVEN'T SOLDERED SINCE 1993. DON'T JUDGE ME.) Like I said ALL THE RAM can be one of the future but not precisely gotta have it things. Same with a NuBus adaptor and an improved video card or at the very least math coprocessor or something silly. Basically though the Clock Crystal, a nice comfy stool to sit on, and a SD2SCSI drive to replace that tiny 40 meg drive are do it ASAP dealies. Ridiculous amounts of RAM and Nubus shenanigans are later and optional.

Glad to see ya back!

You know like the superlative tweaking of Donkey Kong and the like. Why hasn't anyone done this to Spelunker? You know take the gameplay of the A8 version and maybe try fitting in some of the graphic and musical style of the NES version for the best of both worlds? A game that is fun to play and has a good charming look! It just seems like one of those no brainer things though it might be mad hard to do.

I am kind of interested. I just... need to get one of those other thingies to make it work the best? The big Q then becomes will it be then cheaper than just getting a Lotharek?

Well I wouldn't say I have totally stopped but I haven't been active either. I am casually still looking for games at prices I am willing to pay. But the effort I put to my reviews wasn't really giving me a lot of response. Its like why bust my butt on these things when hardly anyone seemed to care and there are tons of games I want to play before even getting into all the newer retro titles I pick up from time to time. It didn't seem to resonate with anyone and it was making me want to put less and less time into it. So for a while its just on a hiatus. Is it done forever? Doubtful as I have at least one more review 70% completed for months and once I get more games to have closer to a complete or as complete as I am willing to pay for collection of US titles. (Like today I drove a good hour to a geek shop for the hell of it because the weather was fantastic and gas was cheaper in the region. I wasn't about to pay 12 bucks for Joe Montana Football, 30 for My Hero, or 55 for Spider Man. At least not at the moment. I was kind of close to getting Joe Montana but I decided to look around the mall and they had some of those TMNT Heroclix blind bags at a store called Newbury Comics so I instead got them and the first comic Rick and Morty trade paperback. They also had some boss ass diecast (I think) Alien/s vehicles that were around 30-50 each and if I am gonna burn 30 on a silly thing the Dropship or APC is MUCH cooler than My Hero.) There are still deals to be had in retro gaming but the whales are pushing lots of stuff up. And its getting to the point where most of my gaming interests (Atari 8 bit micros, PC, SMS) are easier and cheaper to find online than driving all over creation. Time available and my time management skills mean also easier to just buy online as money and my interests dictate.