JamesD

I'm sorry, I didn't realize people *owned* threads here. Guess I must not have read the board rules close enough.

I think I paid $12 + shipping for mine months ago and it was under $20 total. BTW, it's exactly like the one pictured. Free shipping... hah!

Atari was making money because arcades were making money. Once the Arcades hit the skids the poor organization of the company almost killed it. Warner had a terrible mess to clean up. There were branches of Atari all over the place with each branch doing their own thing and one branch turned out to be a single programmer that liked where he lived and didn't want to move. Nolan was too busy partying to manage the company. Check the video on the web that tells the story. If the company had been well managed I don't think there would have ever been a problem. BTW... remember Chuck E Cheese? He started that and it was booming until he screwed up and the company had to file for bankruptcy. He is an idea guy but he has a habit of ignoring the numbers while he goes out and has fun. Well, you have the speculators that are buying them just to resell them, early adopters that just want the latest thing and hard core gamers. The first half million to a million are easy... after that you have to sell to mom n pop getting the kids a game system for Christmas and that's a lot of money. Not going to argue with that. I think the games are what's important. If Microsoft can score some killer titles from new developers that aren't available anywhere else it could tip the scales in their favor. So far the Final Fantasy, Mario and similar unique titles have kept interest in Sony and Nintendo. The more Microsoft can chip away at the unique franchises the more they will gain market share. One problem with that is that the market in Japan will always favor Japanese systems.

I thought Ultima didn't have music until III.

I think most carriers require at least 2" of packing material around whatever is being shipped. I purchased an MSX system from Europe and the idiot didn't have any foam around the computer at all and it could slide around in the box. Yup... it broke and there was nothing I could do. Shipping was over $40 too!

The first game I tried cracking had 3 loaders... at least that's how far I got. One loaded and decrypted the next loader, which loaded and decrypted the next and so on. I was using a basic disassembler and creating a custom loader to replace each loader. The first two were pretty easy since I just used the code as part of another program but the last one was a nightmare. It used the program counter and the loader itself as data. I figured out what it was doing but I said the heck with it since I could copy the disk with a utility anyway. If I could have single stepped through it and snapshotted the data it wouldn't have been bad but I didn't have the tools to do that.

You mean something like this? Looks neat. Just remember that if you have something like that in a basement and it floods the bottom drawers may fill with water. I try to keep stuff at least 1 shelf up and use the bottom shelf for stuff that's easier to replace. One nice think about the big Zip Lock storage bags (the ones for clothes and such) is that they are large enough to even hold a lot of the boxed computers/games which also keeps them dust free. One other thing I've done with my disk software is transfered the contents to 3.5" disks (TRS-80 and Apple) and place all the disks in zip lock sandwich bags. I'd still like to run a program on the disks that reads and rewrites data on the disks to refresh the data.

And I haven't seen *any* of those versions but you didn't include an none of the above option.

I don't have a 2600 but I've been moving all my game/computer stuff to plastic storage boxes. It gets expensive but it's worth it. I am using some CD and DVD containers and they work great for carts and disks. I keep boxes and directions in larger plastic file boxes since I don't use them often. For the computers that aren't boxed I put them in those large Zip lock storage bags and place a moisture absorbant pack in each bag.

I thought that was the description of most 2600 games.

With the roll eyes I thought you were cracking on it. Someone posted on these forums looking for one just a few days back. Link

Yeah, but do you do anything but play games? Did you have a disk drive? OS-9? I'm guessing no. BTW, did you even buy any Coco 3 games?

Yes. It is used for memory management. Due to this and the fact that Atari did not care if you went for C64 you got more then you paid for (64KB main memory + 1KB of color ram) and if you went for Atari you, practically, got less (64KB-2KB, missing 2KB it is there just not available without hardware mod) Just to clarify for other people, the C64 used the port on the 6510 to control the memory management. It is not an MMU... just a port. How much memory a machine has isn't the only factor here. Memory layout can have a huge impact on how easy it is to write software that takes advantage of that memory. The plus/4 has a better memory layout (IMHO) than the C64 so it's probably easier to use. Since there isn't more than 64K it's still pretty simple to deal with either way. A comparison that would demonstrate this better would be to compare an Apple IIe and a Tandy Coco 3. A 128K IIe has pieces of memory that can be switched in and out all over the memory map and shuffling between them requires some thought and it's really obnoxious to program for. As a result, many of the banks of RAM are commonly used just for data. The Coco 3 uses an MMU and blocks of RAM can be swapped at the same location which simplifies the bank switching code. You could easily use them for data, separate programs or both. I'd have to object to that. Games perhaps but overall... no. The Tandy Coco 3 had a better CPU, a powerfull multi-tasking os (OS-9) for professional applications, an 80 column text display, a much better BASIC, 16 color screen modes with a selectable palette that can be modified on the fly to display more on screen at a time, dot addressable graphics, 128K expandable to 2MB, an MMU and a few other nice video features. Even though it didn't have sprites the 6809 was fast enough to move quite a few on screen objects in software. I'd say sound was it's only downfall and the Sound n Speech pack could fix that. Too bad Tandy didn't push them more and it didn't have broader support from game developers. Still, the CoCo series was Tandy's top selling machine.

Don't forget Sinistar!

The 6510 is a 6502 with a built in port. I think it also had one other feature but I don't remember what it is. Possibly something to do with halting the CPU? It's pretty much just to cut down on parts in the machine. The plus/4 and C128 had pretty much the same CPU but in different speeds. A 65c02 and some circuitry can replace the 6510 and you can even run it at double clock speed part of the time with the proper circuit.

I though Star Trek 3.5 was BASIC with assembly language. I think that was a good game in any language.

FYI, ALL tarantulas and scorpions are poisonous. Not all are aggressive or dangerous.

Free Coco 3 in or near Providence, RI on Craig's List.

Shhhh... don't let reality interfere with nostalgia. BTW, I don't think that was all that was wrong with his letter but he's entitled to his opinion.

I think people that spent a lot of time playing it in the arcade are the ones that don't like the conversion. If you didn't spend that much time learning the arcade ins and outs then it's probably good enough.

I vote we have too many FB3 threads going.

When translated means: Coated in ArmorAll and 20 on ebay at any given moment. Cleaned = Washed off 10 year old coke but didn't touch the oxidized connectors rare = common vary rare = fairly common ultra rare = only a couple on ebay holy grail = rare like new = honest seller and in good condition or blatant liar new, never used = like new but seller is a blatant liar sealed in box = new or seller has a small shrink wrap machine Look = PITA seller Must See = PITA seller Untested = It didn't work for me and I'm dumping it on someone else No way to test = paid 2 cents for it and I don't want to know a few marks = looks like it was dropped from the roof of a 40 story building 100% positive feedback = holds feedback for ransom Money orders only = you'll never get your money back Paypal only = a seller that hasn't been burned yet Shipping: See auction = trying to hide excessive shipping

I think one of the best things Atari could have done is switched from manufacturing hardware to writing software. One of their biggest mistakes in the ST era was going the other way.

The problem with most arcade ports is that the programmers didn't have access to the original game source code and they didn't consult fans of the game to duplicate game play. The games may have much of the look and feel but key elements of the arcade gameplay are almost always missing. On top of everything else you have a screen with different dimensions and some games like Donkey Kong end up missing portions of a screen.

The ST and Amiga were doomed do to lack of continuation of the 680x0 series by Motorola.