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The system has only been out for 4 months, and it's had 4 different updates released already. You will see it, but they are working to make sure the next update includes big things, not just one thing here or there like the previous ones.

That must have really been eating away at you!

Just watched the show. Thank you for including my game. Awesome watching you both play, really a great feeling watching people enjoying a game you made. I have to say though, my favorite part was when your cat was sitting propped up against the wall. I laughed out loud at that. Thanks again.

I have the Unijoysticle too. I use it with my PS4 controllers. Really fun with Robotron and Space Dungeon!

Another bluetooth dongle that works is the Unijoysticle. I've been using it with an xbox one controller and even with the Atari VCS controllers. Neat thing is you can use one xbox controller as 2 joysticks.. so that playing Robotron is easy. There's a list of what wireless controllers will work with it. https://github.com/ricardoquesada/unijoysticle2/blob/main/docs/user_guide.md

Little update, been working hard on the last pieces- Got River Raid 2 today(already had the faux-patch), and got Pitfall 2 and the patch for it a week or so ago! Only missing Beamrider, Cosmic Commuter, and Ghostbusters CIB, plus a handful of patches-a couple here are repro's, Private Eye, Space Shuttle, but 99% is real deal.

I thought about you today. I was working on a design of a revised IO PCB (the board that has the cart socket and levers on it) and thought I need someone to test it, you up for trying it out?

Glad you came here to share that. Was there anything you did like about the Jaguar?

Absolutely not. In fact I've been quiet recently on AA cause I've got confidence it whats happining with software and generally with product pipeline for the 2600+. Its just that at launch and shortly thereafter I was hectic in posting on AA cause there was so many fires to put out. But now taking stock, its been a success and all parties involved are planning software updates and new products. Think about it, my bosses want me to outperform the 2600+ launch in FY23 next year, and only way to do that is to present product to market that you guys actually want to buy. All of your three bullets points are things we have been working on. As soon as the software devs are comfortable with a software build I'll release it. Same with new product, soon as the deals are done and the assets are made, we'll announce. I wish I could do it all tomorrow but it rarely works out like that.

(Responding to the title because I'm not going to try to read that.) Because they weren't thinking about collectors 40 years in the future? 🤷‍♂️ The thought must have been that the box/packaging would suffice in telling consumers which version to buy for their system. I guess I don't know what else to suggest, other than to educate yourself. The differences are on the subtle side, but easily recognizable when you're familiar: Atari 2600 - Silver-ish label Atari 5200 - Blue-ish label; cart is more square-shaped than rectangular Intellivision - Narrow/elongated dimensions; squared/rectangular gold label (vs. usual trapezoid cut); end of cart is angled sharply Coleco - Gold-ish label; cart sides are angled along entire edge (vs. only halfway); trapezoidal profile; back of cart has a bracketed relief for storing controller overlays Atari 400/800 - End of cart is flat (vs. angled); cutaway on front bottom edge of cart shell; gold-ish label Commodore 64 - End of cart is angled; no cutaway; label only extends about halfway down the face of the cart; Silver-gray label Commodore VIC-20 - Very wide dimensions; gold label; title on end label is left-justified (vs. centered) TI-99/4a - Wide dimension; shallow teal label with title only; blocky protrusion around sides and face of cartridge; no title on end label; easily distinct from every other Parker Bros. cart Odyssey 2 (Brazil, Europe) - If you can't tell it's an Odyssey/Videopac game, that's on you 😜 Full disclosure: early in my collecting days, I made the rookie mistake of buying a Parker Bros. cartridge (Star Wars: The Arcade Game) for my Atari 2600, becoming very confused about why it wouldn't fit in my system, and later figuring out that it was the Coleco version. 🙃

Going live with retail listings for pre-order this week / next week. Launching May 24th

Pac-Line 2600 This is my first homebrew game and what better system to make it for than my favourite, the Atari 2600! My game is a port of Pac-Line for the Pico-8 by Sizescape, which in turn is a port of Paku Paku by Kenta Cho. When I ran across the game on my Pico-8 handheld I knew that this was the perfect game to game for my first homebrew, it's both fun and perfectly suited for the system. Please let me know what you think and if you encounter any bugs that aren't listed below! 🙂 For more detailed information on how the game is progressing you can check out my development thread in the ZPH club section of the forums. - James Download Newest Version (WIP): 20240410-Pac-Line 2600.bin OLDER VERSIONS: Top 5 Scores (20240408/20240410 Build): 7290 @e1will [ref] 7052 @ZeroPage Homebrew (James) [ref] 3995 @ZeroPage Homebrew (Tanya) [ref] 3066 @Dalton [ref] 2968 The New Retro Show [ref] Objective: Get the high score by eating dots, power ups, fruit (PENDING) and scared ghosts! Points: Dot & Power Pellet - 1 Point x Level Ghost - 10 Points x Level Fruit - 20 Points x Level (PENDING) Gameplay: You can wrap around the edges of the maze, but the ghosts can't Collect the power up so you can eat the ghost Get to the next level by eating all the dots. Every level increases the ghosts speed and decreases the length of time they're scared Every eight levels you'll progress through the ghosts (Blinky, Pinky, Inky, Clyde) Tips: As the levels gets higher be sure to eat the middle dots as soon as you can Sometimes it's quicker to eat the scared ghost by wrapping around the level Known Bugs To Fix: NONE! To Do: High Score (with AtariVox and PlusCart support) Flicker Code for the Fruit Fruit Bonus Items (Possibly Multicoloured) Two-Player Mode Implement attract screen, possibly with AI player Flash "Fire To Start" message Update sounds, and possibly music, closer to arcade Level Number On Screen PAL Version Credits: James Earl O'Brien: Code, Graphics, Sound Thank You To: Philip Blackman @splendidnut: 48px score kernel Andrew Davie @Andrew Davie & Darrell Spice Jr. @SpiceWare: Programming Tutorials Stella Team: Stella The amazing Atari Homebrew Community! Reviews of Pac-Line 2600: 20240331 - John Hancock @swlovinist 20240402 - Tiny Tim's Arcade @Tim Landis 20240405 - The New Retro Show 20240412 - Robin Gravel @Serguei2 20240416 - Retro Bliss Gaming

PinHead Nice game "and some of the best music ever" - music so good you can turn it off with S or something but then the game is a bit hollow Practice moving L/R into the balloon and then kicking it back up and please "Don't Kick the Bucket" as you are all needed here https://a8.fandal.cz/detail.php?files_id=2600 atarimania has COM file and instructions plus a nice write up on the game fandal has XEX atarionline.pl has XEX and ATRs Round closes 10am Sunday 5th May - we can wrap it up sooner if we have all had enough after a week or so HAVE FUN!

2600 Space Invaders VR: https://videogamecritic.com/2600snr.htm?e=64337#rev5897

Yes, that's exactly what happened! Okay, I get it now. I didn't understand the rule that the ghost will appear on the same side that the eyes went to. Thank you!

89 Colours - DubaAtNight Stephen_DubaiAtNight.xex

Note that if you have just one 1N34A in there, it will be installed with the band opposite the direction of the D9Ks. . .I usually run the D9Ks through an ohmmeter to verify the polarity, as that way I'm not forgetting what I'm doing during the installation.

Welcome to the dark side little man. That's the thing about Atari, especially 2600, most games are pick up and play. Kind of reminds me of modern cellphone stuff, there's a reason its popular.

This is exactly it. With Atari and most games you can just pick up and run with it. Good for both young folk and old folk.

This would make a great title screen - the 1991 Psygnosis logo, in 52 colours. Stephen_Psygnosis1991.xex

Pink Floyd Dark side of the Moon Colors: 42 The Dark Side of the Moon is the eighth studio album by the English rock band Pink Floyd, released on 1 March 1973 by Harvest Records in the UK and Capitol Records in the US. Developed during live performances before recording began, it was conceived as a concept album that would focus on the pressures faced by the band during their arduous lifestyle, and also deal with the mental health problems of the former band member Syd Barrett, who departed the group in 1968. New material was recorded in two sessions in 1972 and 1973 at EMI Studios (now Abbey Road Studios) in London. Atari8man_Dark_Side_of_the_Moon.xex

Can't win them all. 😜

I didn't either but I read your reply. And you utterly failed on answering the question: "who didn't parker bros tell?" It's obviously J-mu but I'm also hearing Ludwig, Herbert and Victor were left clueless on the situation. It's a mirecle that Parker Bors had did not told.

After a quick joystick service... 12,285 then 76,070 Many happy times playing this one with my siblings

@r_chase Whoa thanks for mentioning Power Pill Fist. I'm a big fan of Black Moth Super Rainbow and Tobacco yet somehow wasn't aware of PPF. Right up my alley. You can definitely get crunchy noisy beats with vcsbeatbox and all kinds of janky sounds out of the synth part. I plan to make a demo video soon...

55 Colours Stephen_DSOTM1.xex

48 Colours Stephen_DSOTM.xex

I know what is causing this, and how to fix it. The section of the manual on pfheights says there's a known issue if the first row in pfheights isn't set to 8. When I set it to 8 myself, I got a stable picture when I set it to 8 in your code. However, the other issue is that the numbers already added up to 92 instead of 88, and up to 92 after making that change. It still works like this, but it expands the size of your visible screen, so takes processing time away from your game. This is less of an issue if you don't use the score or a minikernel, however. Anyway, I suggest that you set the first pfheights entry to 8, then subtract 1 from 8 of the other lines to make the total equal 88.

Garfield, Beware of Dog...What the?!

Quite impressive I have to say. Your compiler has been a boon to program development in XB on the TI as demonstrated by the sheer number and quality of new games developed with it by the likes of @Retrospect and @Cheung among others.

It took me a few moments to digest this news I am truly sorry for your loss, Kevin. It is a great loss to the whole community as well. I used to exchange messages with your dad from time to time because he was always doing and writing very interesting things, he had a great archive of things that he was able to share by enhancing them and that's what I like to do so much too, that's why I used to follow him closely. In these last months, I hoped and prayed that I could see one of his posts appear on this board again, to know that cancer has won the fight is a strong sorrow instead. I will pray for him and also want to believe, like you, that your dad is now in peace and achieved eternal serenity. I also like to think that he has met with the other 99ers enthusiasts and they are regrouping as best they can with their TI-99/4As among the stars. A big hug. Ciro

It sounds nuts, especially since 30+ games = lots of $$$. Thanks again for providing the community with this opportunity.🙂

That's what happens when you remove so many games from the store at once... I'm just glad people had an opportunity to buy them, but, damn, the number of games sold was just nuts, far exceeding what I was expecting! I'll go into some details soon about the various things I'm actively working on to greatly reduce the amount of time it takes me to get orders out. That's not really going to help with the Last Chance orderes, but as I mentioned above, the goal by this time next year (or earlier, really) is to ship 95% of orders within a week's time. ..Al

I haven't sent out a new update yet, as others have surmised, I have my head down and furiously building games. Built another 250 Last Chance games over the weekend, and will get several hundred more done over the next few days. This work will result in shipping another large batch of orders next week, then it's time to rinse and repeat, and I can start on the next big batch of games. I'm shipping 100-200 orders in each batch. The orders vary quite a bit in size, some have just one game, and other orders can have 30 or more games. ..Al

I am going to leave this thread pinned for a week to make sure people see it and can pay their respects should they wish*. The FP will be updated to include a link to the thread. * Not having done so in the past, I feel, is an oversight and I wish to do this going forward for our comrades when we lose them. Preferably, not frequently.

Pinhead: 7675 pts Cool game, apparently based on Kick-Man by Midway but with some small differences. It is cute that Robert Jaeger even included Pac-Man in the interlude, except unlike Midway he probably didn't have any rights to the character.

@Atari2600PAL I have backed up about 7000-8000 floppies of both formats, 5.25 and 3.5, and about 1500 cassette tapes. for the Floppy disks, if you have the possibility, I can only suggest using the TI99 + PEB + Gotek (or similar) solution. I have also tried firsthand other newer peripherals such as Greaseweasel or previously even Kryoflux and have not had the same results with the certainty of operation. These cards pass over any read errors often creating backups that may not work, maybe you see the files in the disk images but then, you could discover they are to be corrupted (all or partially). This also happens because the floppies are often old and dirty and after a few reads (but if the floppy is very dirty even one read is enough) the heads get dirty and the reads give more errors all the time, the heads need to be cleaned often. By making the copy using the actual PEB with a Gotek or HxC SD instead, indeed, it takes longer but in the end, you are sure that if the disk was copied it means that the read was successful and therefore the copy is working. By the way, when the floppies give errors and I can't back up I have procedures that I follow. First of all, I use a head cleaning kit right away at the first errors and then I try the reading again. In some cases, the head may also have become very dirty, and the drive may no longer read any disk and the cleaning disk may not be sufficient. At that point, I act directly on the floppy drive head using a cotton swab (gently). If it still doesn't go I put the floppy disk aside because then I will try it on other drives floppy models (I have about ten different ones) because often the mechanics and the alignment of the head or the different stepper motor can also give different results. If even this last try fails, before I give up at all on the floppy with error, just as a last resort, I use a special floppy drive (built by a friend of mine), which allows me to clean the magnetic surface of the disk as it spins. With all these steps I have recovered quite a few floppies, and only by making the copy with the actual hardware do I have the confidence that everything works. I also checked other backups released over the years by other users who had used Kryoflux and half of the images, often were corrupted Just my two cents to explain my experience of doing this kind of thing. Then everyone does as they can

32,130 for me on Columns if we are playing on easy.

Perhaps I am getting slightly better 44,460

This... but, what we did when kids was - team up against the computer ninja guy, to make Bruce's life easier ... or more often than not in my case, make the Green Yamo stand there making that noise constantly

So... Cartridge release? Probably not through AA since the characters aren't Atari IP, but maybe a DIY release???

Thanks so much, more features to come! I'm hoping to try to recreate the Arcade sounds as close as I can in coming iterations to replace the temp sounds. Maybe I can put in the 2600 bong-bong wafer eating and pok-wah ghost eating sounds as an Easter Egg. 😉 - James

Well that's certainly something! 🙂 Thank you @Tod frye for checking out my Pac-Line 2600 game! - James

Hello. I've been at this for a decade and just realized my name isn't on this thread for repairs. Could you please add ruggerscustoms.net and orders@ruggerscustoms.com for repairs? Thank you.

Thanks for continuing to support boxed copies as well. For some of us it's a huge part of the nostalgia, and the package for keystone Koppers is just so perfect I'd hate to see those go away. I'm glad for everybody who wants / needs digital copies as well. Hell I'll probably buy them just to have the digital back ups.

Wow😳

Can you please add Lundy Electronics to the list in post #1. https://lundyelectronics.com/shop Thanks.

Interesting... the 1050 is noticeably lower pitched than the XF551. Looking at the waveforms in the spectrogram it looks like the 1050 is transmitting bytes significantly slower, about ~1860 bytes/sec vs. the XF551's ~1930 bytes/sec. Ideal speed should be 1920 bytes/sec (8 data bits + start and stop bits at 19200 baud). The spectrum is too smeared at the high end for me to tell if there's a difference in baud rate. Anyone got a recording of an 810?