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Anyone can make a "VCS" that's comparable in retro game compatibility with little more than a Raspberry Pi 4 or similarly spec'd single board computers, micro SD card loaded with RetroPie or Lakka, and one of several options for Atari 2600 Pi cases that can be bought premade/pre-printed or be 3D printed yourself. Also, assuming Rob here is speaking to us directly on this thread as well as responding to criticism on Facebook: we literally have a number of industry veterans who have been observing the hilarious shitshow Atari's been putting on for us, as well as our snark at their expense, or are directly contributing to the peanut gallery chatter. We even have a few people who have worked on/are currently working on hardware, including Tommy Tallarico, leader of Intellivision Entertainment and leading the development of the Intellivision Amico, and Curt Vendel, who designed, among other things, the Atari Flashback 2 (the only Atari PNP console that's a true hardware clone of the 2600) under contract by another era of Atari that actually gave a damn about their heritage. Some of us trolls have actually made hardware that can run games a helluva lot better than Atari's smoke and mirrors, one way or another. But, no, no, Atari will certainly blow all of us away with their Tacobox running a modified version of Debian, or one of its forked distros, that's far less optimized for gaming or feature rich than Steam OS or even Ubuntu. That's even assuming the console will launch at all. Don't worry... We'll wait.

If you make a console, they'll move the goalposts. "Ohh. Nice console, but it's not a success like the VCS will be!" That's how cultists work. I once got into an argument with a user here who said that the arcade game Tempest wasn't a success. His argument? There was no arcade sequel. I provided stat after stat on units shipped, money made, critical consensus, but nope, this one held onto his belief that "No sequel, it's not a success."

Exactly how is "Let's see you make a console!" a great comeback if the key criticism is that literally any moron can make an identical unit with $50 in parts?

all made while this thread has been active (well to be fair the coleco chamelon was a started a bit before this thread, but wasnt finished until this thread started) PS all 3 machines came in at a total of around 1000 dollars if I include labor, and the nintendo has about the same horsepower as the slated VCS, who wants to chip in 3 mil? bet I could make a few of those for that kind of money

Actually, that's from the spinoff, The Brak Show

OK, I just thought of this.

Lets see... Rasberry Pi - Well it depends on what model you get - Zero can be as low as $5.00 Case for the Pi - $8.00 - well, unless you want it to look like an olde skool 2600, that might cost a little bit more SD mini / micro card - $20.00 - This might cost less depending on MB / GB size you want Mini Keyboard - $15.00 Small LED screen - if you don't want to plug it into a TV or whatever have you - $7.00 All slightly over $50.00 Still a hella lot cheaper then the VCS, even if you toss in things like an OS for the Pi & RetroPi to play olde skool games, you still aren't paying a whole lot Well, not as much as for the VCS itself that's for certain, and anyone who's ever put together a computer can do this, there's your 'console' VCS fanbois Put that in yer pipe & smoke it P.S. ( as long as we're using STYX videos )

(* Not showing the full photo out of respect *) @Flojomojo You forgot one Flo! Mull, we actually cellebrate on Sundays mate. Why you ask? The Taco Time Zone map courtesy of @Flojomojo some time ago.

7800basic is such as great language - hopefully we'll see more people joining the fun and creating new games and your contributions to both 7800basic and Arkanoid have been tremendous. I've said it a lot, such a great community here - very thankful for all contributors!

Nice street taco kit from Costco for tonight. We eat. ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?

Others already did months ago.

This is why I don't bother with instructions or tutorials. There's always some loud mouth know-it-all that comes in and tells everyone what is wrong and why his way is better.

Alright, a screenshot - well - cell phone photo. It's a shot of the short scripted sequence when leaving the hangar. Originally, I designed the engine to not have to handle clipping against top screen edge, as tracks aren't supposed to be built like that for maximum frame rate. My second engine that will be used in the mini game handles all cases of clipping, but I figured it would be nice if the primary game had some generic meshes even if it's just in scripted scenes. Because the fallback codepath for top edge clipping is now processing all invisible scanlines, fps drops but I will implement that when I come back from PRGE. I don't now have time to do the script of approaching the hangar , so for PRGE, this will have to do. Here's the photo:

I LOVE Space Ghost Coast 2 Coast. ?

Figured as much, we are talking about a hardcore, die hard AtacoBox believer, after all. It's kinda funny he's attempting to support "Atari" when he doesn't want to acknowledge the original company's success, but anything to keep convincing himself that he didn't potentially throw hundreds of dollars of his hard earned money into a furnace, right?

1088XLD I/O System Mod in Action: 1088XLD I/O System Mod

The Verge did a write-up on Wyatt's Gameboard-1. Inside is an interesting reminder box: Lessons learned? Or brief moment of lucidity?

"Atari"- In a nutshell.

Arcade Block Out (102 min) Galaga (8 min) Gauntlet (18 min) Hat Trick (22 min) NES Gauntlet (21 min) Visiting family for the long weekend, so my brother and I got some gaming in. Hat Trick is one of our go-to head-to-head games. Despite having the lead for both 7-game series we played, he won both 4-3. Block Out is another one we play a lot, first to 15 wins. We played two of those he won both of those too, 15-14, and 15-7 (ouch). And he beat me in Galaga and outlasted me in Gauntlet. I'm glad I can have fun while losing, lol. We played some Gauntlet on his NES to compare it to the arcade. My elf outlasted his warrior there, but Gauntlet isn't all that competitive.

Someone tell Robert his argument is ignorant. Atari isn't making a console. It's a generic Linux PC. AND I think this 'dude' already out did them in a more timely manner. Unless of course this is the prototype.

Let’s face it, it’s Tuesday somewhere. 1UP!

https://binged.it/2J8fSy3 Space Ghost: In the heat of conversation, Zorak, I may have said certain things that I don't believe to be true... Zorak: So... You lied. Space Ghost: The alleged lie that you might have heard.. me saying.. allegedly moments ago.. That's a parasite that lives in my neck. Adult Swim predicting the Atacobox?

Oooh! THey have one of my favorites, Kentucky Nightmare! " So now there's a liquor store involved!" Actually, that would explain a LOT about the Atacobox

It's not too late!!

Fantastic work. I'm in awe of this. *Googles last minute trans-Atlantic flights to Portland*

Here's the summary for Week 41, running from October 7 - 13. We logged 3268 minutes of eligible play, playing 75 games on a total of 14 systems. Top 10: 1. Tetris 2 (NES/Famicom) - 741 min. 2. Doom II (PC (DOS)) - 435 min. 3. Phantasy Star II (Genesis) - 300 min. 4. Dragon Quest V (SNES) - 160 min. 5. Dig Dug (Arcade) - 124 min. 6. Solar Fox (Atari 2600) - 114 min. 7. Block Out (Arcade) - 102 min. 8. Sonic Adventure (Dreamcast) - 77 min. 9. Bonk's Adventure (TG-16/PC Engine) - 75 min. 10. Cosmic Fantasy 2 (TG-CD/PC Engine CD) - 72 min Pre-NES top 10: 1. Dig Dug (Arcade) - 124 min. 2. Solar Fox (Atari 2600) - 114 min. 3. Front Line (Atari 2600) - 71 min. 4. Lode Runner (C64) - 67 min. 5. Planet Smashers (Atari 7800) - 62 min. 6. H.E.R.O. (Atari 2600) - 50 min. 7. Pac-Man Collection (Atari 7800) - 43 min. 8. Pac-Man (Arcade) - 38 min. 9. Pitfall! (Atari 2600) - 32 min. 10. Boulder Dash (demo) (Atari 2600) - 30 min. 10. Galagon (demo) (Atari 2600) - 30 min. 10. Mario Bros. (Atari 2600) - 30 min. 10. Princess Rescue (Atari 2600) - 30 min. Top 10 systems: 1. NES/Famicom (762) 2. Atari 2600 (584) 3. PC (DOS) (435) 4. Arcade (360) 5. Genesis (300) 6. SNES (160) 7. Atari 5200 (159) 8. Atari 7800 (105) 9. Dreamcast (99) 10. TG-16/PC Engine (95) In terms of number of games played, this was the 8th most busy week this year, but going by number of minutes only the 26th most busy. Nevertheless, Tetris 2 on the NES becomes the most played game this week, and with a little help from Gauntlet secures the systems title. The pre-NES games are further down the list, Dig Dug on the arcade version just barely takes the title in front of Solar Fox. Despite so many candidate games, none breaks the 1000 or 5000 minute barriers this week. As always, late additions are welcome and will be included in week 42 together with what you play this current week.

Week 41 Top games 1. Dragon Quest XI S: Echoes of an Elusive Age (Switch) - 1863 min. 2. PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds (Xbox One) - 675 min. 3. Wolf Among Us, The (PC) - 429 min. 4. Divinity: Original Sin 2 (PC) - 371 min. 5. God of War: Chains of Olympus (PS3) - 273 min. 6. Microsoft Solitaire Collection (iOS) - 230 min. 7. Control (Xbox One) - 180 min. 8. Incredible Hulk, The: Ultimate Destruction (Xbox) - 145 min. 9. Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story (3DS) - 120 min. 10. Alien: Isolation (Xbox One) - 118 min. 10. Gauntlet Dark Legacy (Gamecube) - 118 min. Top systems 1. Switch - 2027 min. 2. Xbox One - 973 min. 3. PC - 848 min. 4. Xbox - 285 min. 5. PS3 - 273 min. 6. iOS - 230 min. 7. 3DS - 120 min. 8. Gamecube - 118 min. 9. Xbox 360 - 50 min. Total 4924 minutes and 18 different games on 9 different systems. For the third week in a row, the title goes to Dragon Quest XI, this time with almost three times as many minutes as #2 PUBG which never really leaved the tracker, only went on a short vacation. A nice variation of systems with 9 different ones is again headed by the Switch, which as noted several times before, barely was seen in this tracker a year ago but now usually is among the top two with the Xbox One. As always, late additions welcome and will be included for next week.

Nice! I actually haven't heard that song by Styx before. For some reason, the face on the cover reminds me of this at first glance:

You know... if I have a daughter. You know what would be a great name to give her to show off my love for Atari? What's that name her Atari? Hell no that's a dumb idea. I actually love my kids and don't want to be the reason they hate life. How about the name Stella? You know that is actually a good girls name and not something someone who hates their kids came up with.

INTERVIEW WITH DAN KITCHEN! Just in time for PRGE 2019, here's ZeroPage Homebrew's interview with Dan Kitchen (@TikiDan) from last year's Portland Retro Gaming Expo! Dan is the designer of such classic Atari 2600 Activision games as Crackpots (1983), Ghostbusters (1985), Kung-Fu Master (1987), F-14 Tomcat (1988), Crossbow (1988), River Raid 2 (1989), Double Dragon (1989) and Ikari Warriors (1989)! We talk with Dan about his upcoming Atari 2600 homebrew games Gold Rush, Bon Voyage and more!

Well it's Tuesday here in Straya and i'm having Tacos tonight, soft shell Old El Paso boxed variety.

So, just to poke my head up over the trenches for a brief moment, the project isn't abandoned... I just got the impression that it was going to turn out to be too expensive for any significant take-up. To that end, I've been (off and on, it's been a busy year) rejigging it with cost in mind from the get-go, as opposed to thinking about that at the end It's now a 4-layer (not a 6 or 8-layer) board, and the parts are significantly cheaper. There are of course different trade-offs that have had to be made, so read on I've just run the latest incarnation through the cost estimator at PCBway (preferred over Seeed for cost), and got per-board prices of $99 (quantity:5), $65 (quantity:50) and $55 (quantity:100). This is for all the SMT work assembled, and includes the cost of the SMT parts. There's a fair few optional through-hole parts on the board (figure another $10 or so per board), and to keep the costs down I've been assuming that kits with the SMD done, but the thru-hole parts being left for the buyer to do would be acceptable. If you're not into soldering at all, I'm sure enterprising individuals would be willing to step into the gap Closer to the time, I'll get costs for a full assembly, and we can take a view then. For now the P.o.R is to only do SMT assembly (anything with red pads on the diagram below). There's a lot of green-holed through-hole parts, but they're not all necessary - most people will only want the slots, the power-in, and maybe the 3 R-Pi connectors.One benefit is that if you just want the slots and memory capabilities, you're pretty much done once you've added the slots and (probably) a case. The board currently looks like the below, and the basic design is to have a cable (I'm using a mini-SAS cable) from the back of the XL/XE to this motherboard. We can put the cartridge connector into that back-of-the-computer module, so there's no need to duplicate it on the motherboard. There's a CPLD to manage the fast turnaround times for the /MPD and /EXTSEL signals, and an STM32 handles the slots. Each slot has a dedicated UART with which it can talk to the STM32 whenever it wants, and the STM32 will schedule all the traffic into an ordered sequence of instructions to the host Atari. It seems to me that using a UART (which can be set to run at 115,200 or 1 Mbaud or 4 Mbaud by pulling pins low on the slot connector) is pretty much foolproof - every MCU under the sun has a UART facility There are a few mentions of the R-Pi4 on the annotated image below, that's because there's an optional R-Pi holder on the underneath of the board on the left-hand side. You can see the extent of the Pi where the dashed/dotted line is. The Pi is connected to the STM32 via the built-in 480 Mbit/sec USB link, which the STM will use to send the video signal (that the CPLD decoded from the Atari's bus activity) down. The R-Pi4 has enough grunt (I think ) to take the video data coming in over USB and zoom it up using the GPU/OpenGL to give a full-screen HDMI interface to the XL. Oh, and you get all the facilities that Linux offers too... The drawback is that a Raspberry Pi takes longer to boot (about 8 seconds on my Pi) than the XL/XE do, so you'll have to switch on the expansion board before you switch on the computer. To be honest, I seem to remember having to do that with anything I plugged into my old ST back in the day... I think this is a reasonable trade-off for more than halving the price of the expansion kit. You pays your money, and ... To set expectations, I'm hoping that the all-in price (including a 1GB R-Pi4, the cables to connect it in, and SMT assembly) will come to ~$130 assuming there's sufficient interest for the quantity-50 price. I'm also hoping to get myself a rather nice 3D printer this month (it's bonus week, so the yearly toy gets bought...) and I'm definitely keeping an eye on being able to print the case - this printer can do 27x15cm prints... Anyway, that's the update. Updates are not going to be anywhere near as frequent as at the start of this thread, but the project has certainly not been forgotten

We've got carts! Thanks to Al, I've got a couple I showed at IndieCade last weekend, and they should be for sale at Portland for the Portland Retro Gaming Expo this coming weekend (October 18-20) and available online some time after that! Box and instruction manual included!

That makes me a rival. I am a piano teacher.

They could have just said "No, fuck off!"

Since the topic has become wildfire, it could just as easily be that someone not under NDA and not knowing the real 'facts' somehow spread speculations that are indeed factual tidbits and the reaction from Atari only seems to confirm it as such, though no specifics were given. That could mean literally anything. It's none other than Atari's fault in the end for giving the bare minimum in regards to updates and leaving everyone else to guess wtaf is going on. How is it not their duty to communicate any major setbacks? I would think something like that would be covered in the IG terms and bind them into a mandated statement or update regarding the fact of such a thing. Everything else seems to quickly point to "we can't be held liable, etc. etc. etc." instead.

Came across this picture today on a How To Geek article. It reminded me of those old "How many mistakes can you spot in this picture" puzzles....

G.I. Joe - 6,490

This doesn't have to be an "either/or" situation, at least among Atari models. Just be patient and collect all the ones you love.

PC Divinity: Original Sin 2 (371 min) The Jackbox Party Pack 5 (48 min) Switch Super Smash Bros. Ultimate (67 min) I was away visiting relatives for the long weekend last week, so not much time to continue my D:OS2 game, but I played a bit of Jackbox at a party om Friday and played some Smash with my brother.

Have you been looking at your own games again? Or are you actually just trying to appear relevant to jaguar development instead of the punchline to a joke? (Asking for a friend)

Yeah you seen to be missing something as well. Several years of condescending, backhanded jabs at others in multiple forums and threads, including outside of AA, all the while producing sweet fuck all. But go ahead and judge.

The basics at first. If they like classical, then I teach them that. If they like rock, I'll teach that to them. No sense in teaching something if they don't like it.

Have an awesome time everyone!! I hope to go one year.

The people behind the Amiga computer started by making Joysticks and games for the Atari 2600. It worked for them.

Yea I had been saying from very early on, forget the stupid console, I have a billion ways to play netflix and pac-man I want the controller. But of course recent event's show us its just a thumbstick in a box so now I don't, but they had an idea and entered a quagmire

GI JOE - 6250

Early on this one, I'll improve this, I like this game, tho I've never played it really. G.I. Joe Cobra Strike-22,570 Go Joe!!!