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I'm sorry you feel this way, but there's quite a bit of flexibility in the activity streams (as they are called) to fine tune what you're looking for you. You can name and save new streams, and you can even set one of them as your default. What is it you want to see? I can help you see what you want to see. Simply saying "this new forum sucks" isn't particularly helpful. I had no choice but to update the forum software, it was four years out of date and this was causing a multitude of problems. Overall I think it's significantly better than the old software, but as this version was completely rewritten from scratch, there is a fair bit that's different. There are certainly some thing I don't like about it (such as the messenger), but there's unquestionably many improvements as well. My choices were to upgrade the forum, move it to some other software (which would have been a nightmare), or take it down entirely. ..Al

Finished getting everything ready to ship out last night, will be doing so later today.

I shipped the RetroN 77 the other day. It's winding its way to the winner even now. I didn't recognize the person's name, but I hope they post here if they get it okay. (The should... I packed it well enough that you could drop it off a building and it'd be fine.) I included this with it, printed out on some nice card stock:

You slept with Brad? Dirty boy...

I am sure the guys who can and are willing to get stuff from Best Electronic can also make a business in dealing with the owner of BE. Just kidding, but that is another option: "Hey, please order this and this from BE, I will pay you a fee!"

Not trying to make things worse, but... Here's something I have yet to disclose, since my last ad-hoc pilgrimage to Borregas Avenue (on my last vacation trip to the Bay area). I actually decided to go down to the San Jose area, and search for Best Electronics' place. After ending up in a tiny sh_t hole (to my continuous disbelief), I decided to venture inside of it, just hoping to buy two (expensive) items they had in-stock. After coming in, a rather short / skinny figure (with an Atari-emblem buckle on his belt, with Asian / Oriental facial features) emerges out of a TON of rubble and crap sitting all over the place. Filthy as hell, it was horrific to the eyes, but hey (I said to myself) "this is a bygone-era business, so don't expect anything fancy out of it..." Guess what? After almost not being able to breath in there, I was told I COULD NOT ORDER anything there, nothing could be delivered to me there, on the spot, and I better go back to on-line email for ordering.... I was like WTF (!?) I came here to spend almost $100 in obsolete technology and you still have the balls to tell me you can't sell me anything there? Fortunately, I already had bought quite a good # of parts and spares, so... sadly, that day was R.I.P. "Best" Electronics, for me...

Lol. I'm confused by this discussion. The only thing that matters is what each person considers to be needed/wanted in their collection. Sure there were 125 games released during the commercial life of the Inty and for many that's a goal they've chosen to try to achieve, whether with variants or not. Really though, who cares? If it's fun for each of us to try to search out whatever games we would like to "complete" our collection, however we have defined it, then shouldn't that be all that matters? It's not like we receive a medal or official designation upon doing so. ? As someone who was fortunately able to complete the Original 125 CIB, for me that is merely one part of my collection and probably not the most interesting at that. I've recently embarked on the most intense and ambitious project relating to collecting for the Inty yet and I'm enjoying it every bit as much as when I was making my way towards 125. This should be fun, and while debating the merits of different versions of a collection is a good thing, arguing about it on the other hand doesn't make sense to me. Do whatever works for you folks. ?

I've ordered from Best many times over the years, and I got the same "please cut down your order" response from Brad the last time I sent him a longish list of items. So, I learned to cut my lists down to my top 4-6 each time, and since then everything's been fine. Maybe I'm more tolerant than most, but I've learned to play along with all of these dealers. If their preferred ways of doing business seem strange to me, so be it: they've long since established their bona fides, having been in the Atari business for 30+ years, and I'm grateful that they're still there and still doing what they do. After all, how many people in the world other than Brad would be willing to jump through all those hoops to design and manufacture new/improved 2600 joystick cables, or gold-plated 5200 button assemblies, or 7800 power supplies and gamepad upgrade kits? Sometimes, doing business with somebody means being able to meet them halfway and being willing to accommodate their needs and preferences, which is something that too many of today's demanding customers have never learned to do. Think of the way it used to be, if you're old enough to remember: placing a long-distance call or mailing in a self-addressed stamped envelope, and waiting 6-8 weeks for delivery. Compared to that, having to sort through a "catalog" consisting of a 40-column text file or a disorderly pile of static HTML, and having to occasionally compose a diplomatically-worded e-mail, isn't really all that bad. True, some of these guys can be a little eccentric and old-fashioned, but that's to be expected when you're in the business of selling for classic computers and games that are now closing in on 40 years old. (I have a theory that they deliberately keep their online presence as arcane as possible as a way of chasing away the normies and noobs.)

@Gunstar - First off, bravo. Second, edit your post (or ask @Albert if you're past your Edit time window) to remove your personal name and address. (One of my day jobs is protecting personally identifiable info from documents).

Yeah, his response is ridiculous. "Matt you will have cut down your Atari want list down to 3 to 4 items max. Our very very busy (7 days a week, 14 to 16 hour days here) Atari shipping will simply not quote or ship Atari orders over those amounts. They already have more placed Atari than they can ship out to the end of this month." I find it incredibly hard to believe he is actually getting this much business. And if he does have people working for him (which I suspect is greatly exaggerated), then this seems even more ludicrous than if he was doing this himself. I have never had a business tell me to pare down my order to "3 or 4 items max." Not to mention changing prices on me while trying to place an order. You're not the first person to complain about this, nor will you be the last. There are quite a few threads describing behavior like this on AtariAge. And it's too bad about B&C basically abandoning their website in lieu of eBay. Also too bad that neither of these guys ever brought their websites into the modern age. Both sites hark back to the dawn of the internet, but a reasonable amount of effort they could be upgraded to use a modern shopping cart. They would just need an accurate inventory of what they have. They wouldn't even need to take photos of items if they didn't want to, just keep it simple with the item, model number, price, and weight (if you want to calculate shipping automatically). And assign appropriate categories to the items (2600, 5200, 7800, Atari 800, Atari ST, etc.) Any extra information (photos, description) would be icing on the cake, and the sort of thing that could easily be added over time. Being able to search their large inventories and add items to a cart, get a shipping quote, and pay, without having to deal with emails or phone calls sure would be nice. ..Al

Status: To date, no problems reported by BETA Testers. Final tweaks to board layout are nearly completed, still waiting on the decision on whether additional signals need to be broken out for possible cheap 65816 acceleration board, which will have its first prototype test in about 1-2 weeks (dependent upon PCB delivery).

I'll have to chime in here. I've ordered from Brad so many times I've lost count over the years. Have always treated his website and the fairytales as just that, some good ones, some not so much. Entertaining most of the time though. It's always been a roll of the dice with orders, sometimes I'd get stuff shipped out the same day, sometimes not even a response for a week, price changes, etc. but in the end I'd always get what I needed, and most of the time, for better price than anywhere else. I've learned to deal with it, because let's be honest - dealing with retro computers is learning how to deal with quirky people. You can either get pissed off and lose a source of impossible to find items, or navigate the personalities, pay the price in losing a little bit of sanity, and get what you want.

I just joined the new Facebook group for VCS Supports also. I am so excited.

How could it not? To list a few ways: -Manufactured in the USA; setting precedent for all subsequent gaming consoles to be manufactured in North America -First 64 bit system; gave Nintendo the idea for the Nintendo 64 -VR is very popular right now; why?---the Jaguar's early forays into Virtual Reality -Pioneered the karting style game with the genre defining Atari Karts; later done by Nintendo with mediocre "Mario Kart" clone series -Kasumi Ninja and Ultra Vortek popularized the ultra-violent fighting genre; leading to the success of the Mortal Kombat series -Only console on which you could play Myst, Wolfenstein, and Doom in the early 90's -23 button pro controller inspired current "pro" level controllers such as Scuf, Xbone Elite controllers -Pioneered online gaming with the Jaguar Voice Modem; leading to success of Xbox Live -Checkered Flag ushered in groundbreaking polygon graphics inspiring many copycats such as Virtua Racing by Sega The list goes on (i jest of course.) Jaguar was an American business story. If you are going to go for it; go big; go all in; and either succeed or fail HARD. And that they did. God bless em' for trying. To me the Jaguar has always had curb appeal. I've wanted one for as long as i can remember and still do. The home-brew scene is awesome; which is why i'd argue the system has a bigger impact on gaming and specifically retro gaming now than it ever did before.

I suppose I should at least say *something.* Right? http://www.whimsey.com/z26/ It's up to 4.02 by now. But I guess the main feature of this series is I ported the TIA engine from the original assembly language sources. So as far as I can tell, most things, like "early" HMOVE and the multi-sprite trick seem to be working reasonably OK. The sound is reasonably OK too. So there you go. You can leave a comment if you like. Thanks!

He acts like he is so busy but spends a ton of time on ebay worrying about what items sell for that he carries. He also has no clue how to pack orders when it comes to systems. He squeezes them into boxes that barely fit. I also wonder that he only uses flat rate boxes which could be why he does not want to pack up bigger orders. The whole site being a train wreck only shows that he is probably a madman himself since he refuses to change it. He could make things so much easier on himself if people could order on his site instead of emailing and talking on the phone all day. The whole idea of keeping your orders to small quantities only makes him busier since you will email him or call him again with the other items you want. And the way he treats quite a few of his customers is just wrong.

Today I learned I can do shit IRL w/o having to post about it on Facebook

Wow, that's just sad. Every post is him, or him pretending to be a friend of his. Maybe some of you should create sock puppet accounts on his forems under the names Harvey, Tyler, Frank and Captain Howdy just to make him feel better.

My God, he still spells it "forem." So I guess he felt the need to take another shot at creating the "un-AtariAge" by opening yet another free "forem." Perhaps he's forgotten that he already has one. Of course, it's seen almost no activity or interest over the past year, and no regular posters except for Biff himself, whose posts are mostly about conventions that he later discovered wouldn't let him in and the many name changes to his IP-infringing games. Maybe that's a bad look for somebody trying to present themselves to "Atari" as a competent and productive indie developer. That must be why he removed the link to it from his homepage a month or two ago, and why he made the new "forem" inaccessible without an account (which must be approved by Biff himself, of course).

That's really awesome how you put that RetroN 77 sheet together! I love the illustration you created! I'm sure the system's new owner will greatly enjoy the system and all the games loaded onto it. Thanks for putting that package together! ..Al

Yeah, this is nothing new, really, it's been going on for some time. In the end of the day this really isn't a big deal, except for those who are trying to give him money an he refuses it for one reason or another. If he's the only source of a particular part or parts, that sucks for those who have to go through this frustration. It's really a shame, as I'm sure he still has an incredible inventory of Atari hardware and software, just wish his site was easier to deal with and place orders through. I can't imagine how much time he has to personally spend responding to order emails and telephone calls. ..Al

Brad is a canny old sod, he KNOWS he has stuff that people want and likes playing god with it. That itself leaves people almost HAVING to play by his rules and again, he knows this and its some sort of kick for him. If I'd turned up with an order at his shack and he politely said he wasn't set up for callers then I'd be fine but to get the bums rush from Mr Koda is just infuriating and he seems to enjoy that side of it, either that or he's a blooming psycho. So we have an issue, scour for other places and grab what you can from more courteous folk or use Best while he has the stuff, I wish Brad would just sell up to a more interested party, he's not getting younger and all this BS about his employee's working 300 hours a day is just BS as I said, its clearly him and maybe his wife sifting through the boxes as best they can and at their own pace. He must be pretty old by now, I met him once at one of the old PCW shows (I think) where he was selling the catalogue and I got a button thing from him but he was fairly old then (compared to me), I just would hate to see him pass on AND the shack get bulldozed. He should just sell up and properly retire.. And don't get me started on ignorant sales people, if my staff were arrogant or rude to a customer even if the customer was pushing it then they got a stern talking to. I'd get "but he was being rude to me" which was then explained that by replying in the same tone sets a bad example to other customers who may not understand the situation and we can't afford to lose customers, if you get a rude one, come and get me. Staff attitude is almost as important as the sales. Brad's horrendous customer relationship is only negated by the fact he has the gear....Without the dependency of his gear most folk would have walked away.

Thank you everybody for your interest. They are all sold and I will not be making anymore. Thank you.

Human interactions are tough. But when someone has what I want and makes me dance a bit to get it...I dance. I even make a game of it; and if I have to play a certain way to win, then I play that way. To paraphrase Jane Austen, "My vanity is in such good order, that I seem to be quite free from it." ?

And people can let everyone else know about his extremely customer unfriendly ways too. Honestly, I would urge everyone not to patronize someone who chooses those "ways." Then, he would need to change his "ways" to sell a damn thing. What? He's the only source for something? How bad does anyone really need something to put up with that shit? I'm sure the answer varies, but I know I wouldn't.

Well .. 4 colors is too few. But 6 ? Enough for many cases. I'm using 6 color mode in my PuyoPuyo remake: Full thread here: https://atariage.com/forums/topic/284327-puyo-puyo-wip It's character mode with something like c64 color map. I have black and white in every character. Then red and blue, which can be swapped for every character. Blue can be swapped for yellow with inversion, and red can be swapped for green with PMG. It also uses DLI to load the PMG data, instead of DMA. It takes some extra time, but the data manipulation is way faster that way, as I only use 1 byte height-wise per character row (DMA would need 4). And you can achieve more colors with patterns and PAL mixing. Especially the purple comes out very nice.

The very first Phoenix exclusive game is in development and should be available at the end of the year! STORY In the year 3017 , the Videoway Corp., your employer sends you to study on the last ice age , which ended about 10,000 BC. During this long journey through space and time, your ship is experiencing some technical problems while you fly to Egypt 1300 BC. You have to land your ship for repairs . The only accessible place is the truncated top of a huge pyramid. You’re almost done, the only thing left is to replace the diamond (wich is used for space-time generator), when the Pharaoh Seti 1st’ soldiers find you … You woke up inside the pyramid with a huge bump on your head… More Phoenix Exclusive titles coming up! The best is yet to come! Get your Phoenix console now! https://collectorvision.com/shop/colecovision/collectorvision-phoenix/

Hi, I'm working on my first game ever done for Colecovision. Thanks to Alek Maul and Amy for the help In this little video, you'll see the goal of the game : find a 3x3 square in a big one. If you find 10 "FindIt"s, you'll access to a challenge stage and then until you reach the 9th level. It's not finished but still in progress. If you have some comments, don't hesitate to write back To see the video, please, click on this link > Still WIP : Where Is It ? Thank you Eric M.

I saw that. Amazing. If that is the future, I'm cashing in my IRA and building a fortified concrete bunker in the deep woods.

I imagine him responding to anyone who corrects his spelling with "Well, that's just your opinion."

That was quick.

Sometimes your tiny brain scares me and makes we wonder how you get through the day.

Your line: CALL VCHAR(4,3,97,20)::CALL VCHAR(4,28,96,20) In RXB can be CALL VCHAR(4,3,97,20,4,28,96,20) Would save you some bytes used in token buffer. (Thus not using :: or CALL or VCHAR again.

You all beat me to it. All I have to add is that it looks like even "Atari" wants nothing to do with Biff and his "forems." Popeye has really big forearms, maybe that's what he meant. I like this gross parody cartoon and I hope you do, too. NSF anyone with taste. Y'all should be fine.

Working intensive on my entry. Lost some time because of a one-week sickness. In case you try to squeeze every byte into your lines, you are able to figure out how many bytes are free in each line by adding as many "!" characters as the line will still fit without throwing "* Line Too Long". This will show you how many tokenized bytes are still available in each of your lines. And if you have space in one line but are low on bytes in another, you can replace a hardcoded number by a numeric variable. 2 CALL CLEAR :: CALL CHAR(100,"1234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456789012345678901234",R,"1234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456789012345678901234") --> * LINE TOO LONG But this fits: 1 Q=100 :: R=Q+4 2 CALL CLEAR :: CALL CHAR(Q,"1234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456789012345678901234",R,"1234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456789012345678901234") Also you can skip remaining zeros on Character Definitions like this 1 CALL CHAR(33,"0") defines the Character 33 as completely empty.

Hi guys, Allan D‏ @aduffy65 3h3 hours ago Hey Anthony thanks for sending me the totally awesome #Neogeo fridge magnet much appreciated bro it will be pride of place! Anthony...

I share a keyboard and mouse with a PC, Amiga, MSX, 4A, (and the keyboard with the Geneve) But I use super non-intelligent USB switch boxes, so the devices can re-detect things like ps/2 vs USB protocol. My keyboard is actually all USB so it can be wireless, but for some connections it is in HIDBOOT mode, which doesn't support extra features on the keyboard that a modern OS supports. I used to use an active KVM, but by contrast, the KVM becomes the keyboard and mouse, presenting only common functions to the device hosts. This is what works for me. But it has grown into daisy-chained switch boxes and they are mounted close at hand. -M@

I don't think he's a bad dude, I think he's just a tired old man who doesn't want to be doing this anymore. His customer service skills are non existent. I stopped ordering from him years ago. It's like dealing with the Atari version of Seinfeld's Soup nazi.

Odd ... I’ve had nothing but pleasant email exchanges with Brad. He’s even helped me out with a tech support question or two. I send him a list of what I want kind of like @mytek showed but not as elaborate. Brad responds with a total that includes shipping. I send him payment through PayPal and reply to his invoice email with the PayPal transaction number. A day or two later he tells me the package has shipped. Then a few days s after that I receive the package. The box is 100% covered in Atari branded packaging tape. Not a single seam is visible. The box is also stuffed right with packing peanuts. I’m serious when I say this box could survive nuclear fallout. Yeah, Brad seems like a quirky guy with an outdated website. Whatever. Compared to my exwife Brad is a pleasure to deal with. He’s never lied to me, tricked me, or betrayed my trust in his promise to deliver.

"Spin-off" LiteDOS-XS, great for 600XL users, uses 1k less. ? More limitations, but does the trick. Reads DOS 2 and compatibles, SD/MD floppy only, 1 buffer. DUP only for loading and DIR. Available on request.

I'm sorry to say that but to me this is like discussing about the sex of angels. 123? 125? 127? There are many ways to collect and all of them are good and noble. This is the free Republic of Intellivision, there's no king, no president, no parliament. Collect as you like and live happy.

Thank you very much for your comments! The features I am using from the flash cart are: -extra ROM storage (up to 200Kb aprox) -a few extra bytes of ram (but with some optimization I would not even need that) The cartridge has also multiplication and division enhancements, but if I disable them the game runs at the same speed because I never use multiplications or divisions in the main game routine. So, basically, extra ROM space (like all consoles do as soon as rom becomes less expensive), so I can fit more graphics, code, musics in order to give more variety. All you see is 100% intellivision hardware. No tricks.

I don't know what's real anymore and I'm freaking out ?

I think I've got the Zaxxon keypad Underlay design: The field is blue as the keypad buttons in Zaxxon are only used for the selection of players/skill level at the start of game, and the arcade cabinet's P1/P2 start buttons were blue. I chose grey (silver simulate) for the numbers which are in a Zaxxon font, and I used the SEGA logo on a 45 degree angle like the ship flying in the game for the "*" key. As all 4 buttons (2 on joystick and 2 on base) in Zaxxon act as the same "fire" button, I'll dye them all red, like the fire buttons on the arcade cabinet. I'll keep the joystick black like the arcade cabinet's counterpart, and I'm thinking about dying the top half of the joystick base silver like the CPO of the cabinet, and probably leave the lower half black. I got the marquee designed too:

Yes - professional business when ordering from him. Always fast and courteous.

Gunstar I feel your pain . FACT: At this point in time, both Bruce Carso (B&C) and Bradley Koda (BEST) are flying solo, unless something recently changed. Here's the format I use with Brad that seems to work each and every time for me, and I have yet to be told "no soup for you". ----------------------------- Hi Brad I hope this Christmas season is treating you well. Here's my shopping list... I looked up those last two items using an old pdf catalog I found online, so the pricing could have very well changed by now. Please update anything I got wrong and then send me the corrected total for a PayPal purchase. Thanks a bunch, Michael ----------------------------- I learned that I really have to verify everything in advance, check his recent addendum's and update where needed, all the while keeping the shopping list a reasonable length (reasonable for Brad that is). In the past Bruce has been very receptive to email parts orders, and has usually gotten back to me within a day or two. One time he even dropped the parts off at my house personally, and my house is a 45 minute round trip from his. He also stayed for a while and we chatted, and I soon got the sense that his business was starting to take a back seat to other things in his life. Keep in mind that these guys are in their seventies. Yes it's a pain, but where else are we going to get some of these items? Sounds like good news with the possible acquisition of B&C by Songbird. I hope that goes through.