CV Gus

Ever hear the old saying, "where there's smoke, there's fire?" Given the boneheaded things we KNOW Atari (often by order of Warner Communications) did back in those days, why would it be difficult to believe the landfill story? "Out of sight, out of mind," those idiot CEOs likely figured. Look at E.T. They rushed it out in six weeks, so it was a guaranteed failure. They wanted millions more copies than there were known Atari 2600 users! AND... It was late 1982, for crying out loud- when the ColecoVision and their own 5200 were out! Incidently, one of my video game magazines from those days reported this, and even had a photo of a crate of games. There were a number of people there, and security to make sure nobody grabbed anything, although it was more likely people wanted to toss their copies in with the rest...

Couldn't a CV version of Galaga be something like Atarisoft Galaxian? A CV owner would accept single-colored diving enemies. Or would the double-ship cause problems? As for arcade games: this is based on what, back in its time, the CV could've come up with... Wizard of Wor. Satan's Hollow. Snap Jack. I'd say Jump Bug here, but there was a version for the Arcadia 2001, so I don't know if Coleco could've done it legally. Donkey Kong 3. Fitter. Cosmic Alien. Astro Fighter. Space Odyssey. As for Galaga- yes and no. On the one hand, any such game for the CV would be good, but I already have the near-perfect NES version.

Who won (as far as sales went) by generation: First: The Atari VCS/2600. It wasn't even close. The Astrocade, the APX, Odyssey 2, the Telstar Arcade, the Fairchild Channel F, never had a chance. Second: The Intellivision (a one-horse race). In some cases, it matched the third generation. Third: ColecoVision (I'm including the Arcadia 2001 and Vectrex in this group). Fourth: The NES. It beat the SMS and 7800 combined. If Atari and Coleco in the early 1980s was an example of how not to do it, Nintendo in the latter half of that decade was the example of how it should be done. Fifth: As far as I know, the Genesis. Unlike the NES and 2600, though, there didn't seem to be a huge winner here. Sixth and onward: I'm not sure, partially because what made up the "sixth generation" is not entirely clear. You had the CDi and 3DO, and maybe a few others (would the 32X and Sega CD be here?). Did it include the Saturn, N64, Jaguar, and Playstation, or were those last three the seventh generation? What about the Jaguar? The longest-lived: The Atari 2600. From the late 1970s almost into the early 1990s, what other system had that kind of staying power? As for controllers: again, the CV won out, for two reasons: 1) They were digital, as were almost all of the games at the time. 2) They were of the 9-pin design. This made it incredibly easy to find alternatives, especially with the cheap and then-widely available y-plugs. I'd used the 5200 controllers for years, but it wasn't until I'd built a digital controller for the console that I finally broke 20,000 in Berzerk. Likewise, my games of Robotron: 2084 improved greatly. Same with Mario Bros., Qix, Defender, Pac-Man, Ms. Pac-Man...and I was able to finish games of Super Breakout with the paddle controller. Reasons to get a CV: Steamroller, Spy Hunter, Pac-Man Collection, Bump `N Jump, Illusions, Ladybug, Slither, Lord of the Dungeon, Alcazar (1985!)*, Boulder Dash, Fortune Builder, Pepper 2, Gateway to Apshai, Galaxian, Cosmic Avenger, etc... Reasons to get a 5200: Berzerk (one of my favorites), Star Raiders*, Defender, Centipede, Gyruss, Blueprint, Robotron: 2084, Pac-Man (somehow it captures the essence of that game), Ms. Pac-Man, Pengo, Super Pac-Man, Qix, Super Breakout (if you like this 1970's game and you have a paddle controller then it's great), Ballblazer (why bother with the 7800 version?), etc... * The CV won out on RPGs, but the 5200 had it with first-player shooters.

You post a lot of things I don't like! It all comes from the fact that you try to rewrite history, change facts and ignore facts when they are put in front of you. Sorry, amigo, but the only one here ignoring facts is you. It is a FACT that the CV outdid the 5200 in sales. How could the 5200 have possibly won out, when Atari itself dumped it in early 1984- BEFORE the Tramiels ever took over. You seem to conveniently forget that I still have the old video gaming magazines from those days, too, when this was current news. Not Internet copies- the originals. And there was MUCH ANGER from 5200 owners, to put it mildly. In a way, it was worse- the 5200 owners were abandoned; the CV owners lost out because the company itself was going down. As for sales figures- here's yet another place for the "Six Million:" http://classicgames.about.com/od/history/a...VisionHis_3.htm You'll note that I usually still give out the range. The actual number was probably close to 4 1/2 million. But do any of the sales figures for anything consider returns? Maybe in your world anything you don't like is "subjective," but here's reality- take it or leave it. 1) The CV got a head start on the 5200. 2) Atari released the 5200 with an initial batch of games that had a mostly "been there, done that" feel because of the 2600. This did not help. In spite of the Telstar Arcade, the CV did not have a "tough act to follow." 3) Atari, unlike Coleco, was trying to support TWO systems at the same time. It's an ironic fact that a good version of Galaxian for the 2600 took away incentive to get a 5200. Likewise Space Invaders, Super Breakout, and even Missile Command. In a way, the 5200's worst enemy was the 2600. In spite of the module, the 2600 hurt 5200 sales badly. 4) Atari abandoned the 5200 in early 1984. This did little for consumer trust- or 5200 sales. Thus, not only did the CV have a head start, it had more time at the end, too. And didn't someone "take over" for the CV after mid-1984? Stores still had CV stuff right through 1987- I ought to know, since I was still buying from a number of stores, and not in the "clearance" bins. And that lack of trust hurt the 7800 and Jaguar. 5) Except among Atari fanatics, it's universally held that the CV outsold the 5200 easily. This is why they're so much easier to find "in the wild" than 5200s. I know. I've looked for both over the years. (Among all pre-NES systems, though, the 2600 ruled in numbers.) 6) CV controllers weren't great, but they blew 5200 ones out of the water. Then again, what didn't? 7) There never was a FATAL glut. Atari doomed itself with boneheaded spending and poor management; Coleco by that moronic ADAM computer. Both sides believed the hype about "video games are dead, the future is in computers." It's like running a race to win, and then being convinced that someone else has crossed the finish line- you tend to lose steam and give up. Hell, with the Internet of 2009 (e.g. YouTube), computers have something those old computers never did, so why is there an X-Box 360 and Playstation 3? Why did the NES do so well? Because the "glut" is a myth. Marketers and gullible CEOs suicided the industry. How much better the 5200 would have done if it had been released earlier with good controllers and better thought-out games (what if Pac-man had been the..."pac"-in game?), if games like Tempest and Super Pac-Man had been released in early 1984/late 1983, etc...it very likely would have done much better. Likewise, if Coleco had not tinkered around with laserdisc modules, super modules, and the ADAM computer, then who knows? Certainly even better. Quite frankly, both companies in those days are perfect examples of how NOT to do it.

Those stupid controllers were one of the reasons the 5200 never did as well as Atari had hoped. The 5200 was mainly something meant to play arcade games at home with, as was the CV. Those games used regular joysticks, or trak-ball controllers, as a rule. The 5200 joystick didn't work well for anything, with the possible exceptions of Pole Position and Missile Command. Plus, they are so damn hard to repair. Bleah. A pity, because the 5200, had it not been abandoned by Atari in early 1984, would've had some truly nifty games.

Yeah, I mean the 2600 paddles. The Wico cable I'm referring to comes with the Wico 5200 joystick. It has a connector for the 5200 controller and a 9pin DB9 connector that the Wico stick plugs into. Having never seen it, I can only say this: The plug would have to put the 2600 paddle (potentiometer) on the circuit as the one the 5200 uses. Since the two potentiometers in a 5200 ARE "paddles," this is not hard to do, but again, I don't know if this is what the cable does. For a 2600, the joystick and paddles use different circuits. There are two such mini-paddles in each 5200 controller, so it would be easy to have both 2600 paddles take the place of them both (vertical and horizontal). In theory, 8-player paddle games are possible on a 5200. But since no 5200 "paddle" game (like Super Breakout) uses anything but the horizontal one for each port, there'd be little point in hooking both up, except maybe to change gears in Pole Position. Your best bet is to find out where, in a 2600 paddle plug, the wires for the paddles-circuits are, as well as the fire buttons (which correspond to directional controls on a 2600). Then, find out where in your cable they lead. If they lead to the fire buttons and the 5200 potentiometer circuits, then it should work- if not, then it likely won't. But you'll know why, and maybe can do something with it? Good luck!

He does get under my skin a bit with these constant "Coleco vs" threads that he starts up in both the 5200 and 7800 forums. This is only one of many. To me, it's ridiculous that something as subjective as personal preference in gaming should ever be pitched as a "fact". ie. "x system is better than y system". At the end of the day, all it reflects is personal taste and preference. TRANSLATION: I posted something he didn't like. If you don't like the threads, here's an idea- don't read them. And maybe you didn't notice who started this one? Apparently, you did not comprehend the "7800" one- it was a HYPOTHETICAL situation, sort of like "what if Hitler had won the war?" Having BOUGHT (as in "I owned") a 7800 in 1988, and being on the S.S. Atari as it slowly, painfully, sank in those days, I've often wondered if an older system- the CV being the more established and therefore a more logical choice, although (in case you never read it) I've done the same with the 5200- could've done better against the NES. If you look at it objectively, the Atari 2600 was the only gaming system Atari did well with. Their decision to abandon the 5200 after maybe 18 months doomed that one (if it had been doing well against the CV, why would they have done that?), the 7800 (see above) was a disaster, and the Jaguar was even worse. As for the "3-6 million:" At the time, the video game magazines based the figures on company figures, and sales figures from stores. This is why you had such a wide range. Since they couldn't zero in on an exact figure, they simply gave the range they came up with. Keep in mind that back then there were something like 200,000,000 people in America, so even 6 million is only a fraction.

You personally counted them? (By your logic, how can you believe any figure you didn't count, like the number of people killed in WW1? The number of people on the Titanic? Or any other historical figure?) Evil laugh... 3-6 million was the number usually reported in the mid-1980s.

My high score in Pac-Man Plus is 193,850 so far. As for the other two, well...I can usually reach the fourth mazes in Ms. Pac-Man.

Given enough memory, the CV was capable of some pretty impressive games. But could this have been done on a CV, with bank switching? It probably would be GREAT with a combination of this and a "Lord of the Dungeon" type mini-maze games mixed in.

Any chance of adapting a paddle controller and using the Wico y cable? What do you mean by this? Do you mean Atari 2600 paddles? Building an adapter to use 2600 paddle controllers on a 5200 is not difficult. But I've never seen that Y-cable, I'm afraid.

Even if it was possible, from a business point of view, Nolan would have trouble. First of all, who owns the rights to the arcade games now? Secondly, the name Nolan Bushnell only matters to older gamers, for the most part. Younger gamers were raised in the era of Japanese systems. Atari has had such a bad reputation for so long, its name, except for nostalgia, is poison. In order for "Atari 2010" to get anywhere, he'd have to get the rights to games from companies that aren't eager to sell, and offer something none of the current systems can offer- and what, barring ultra-expensive and exotic control schemes, would that be? It would make the effort Nintendo put into selling the NES here back in 1985 look like nothing by comparison. I don't think it'll happen. It should be mentioned that Bushnell was actually not a very good businessman. If he was a realist, he might try a third-party company, and try to release games for various systems- including older ones?- that are not as well known, but might catch on. Snap Jack. Drol. Astro Fighter. Pleiades. etc. Those games aren't making much money now, so whoever owns the rights might want to give it a shot. But a new system, in today's circumstances? Get out the shovels; a funeral's a`comin'. Now, if Jeff Minter tried...

Is there a Pac-Man Plus for the 5200?

Here's a "practical" comparison: GRAPHICS: This has been debated for years, and the only possible answer is this: it depends on what you want to do. Comparing the CV and 5200 is not like comparing a Vic-20 and a C-64; the way they present on-screen images is just too different. Old 5200 ads used to boast how the 5200 had 256 colors and 25% better resolution!...because they knew back in those days most people were unaware that it was not that simple. The 5200 had several modes, and if you used the 200X320 mode, you were stuck with black and white. To access those colors, you were stuck using a lower resolution. This is why the CV Mr. Do!'s Castle looks so much better, even with 16 colors. As far as scrolling goes, it's dead even if you are talking about Defender, Galaga, or Nova Blast...but, if you are talking about Zaxxon, then the 5200 is the clear winner here. The CV can do much more than most realize, but it takes lotsa work and more resources; with the 5200, it's much easier. The single biggest problem with the CV is the 2 colors/line/space rule, and if you try to scroll Zaxxon smoothly, you will violate this rule. Thus, you must settle for less colors overall. It can probably handle a better Desert Falcon than Zaxxon. A 5200 Desert Falcon would have been interesting. A CV Qix would be interesting, too. Likely, each "dot" or move would have to be 4 pixels wide, so as not to violate the 2 color/line/space rule. It would look very good, but the 5200 may have an advantage here. A CV can smoothly scroll Bump `N Jump and Sky Jaguar, but horizontally-scrolling games cannot have the same detail. Again, what do you want to do? As for other things, it's hard to say. 5200 Pac-Man has single-colored characters with smooth motion and no flickering, but Ms. Pac-Man is choppier and has some flickering. CV Burgertime has dreadful flickering at times, but had Opcode programmed it, it would have been much better. Look at Pac-Man Collection. Both systems have one thing in common: neither ever had its fullest abilities used. Overall, CV games looked better, but other times it was the other way: look at Gyruss, Frogger, and Centipede (although the latter could have looked much better for the CV.) It is interesting to note that Atarisoft's Galaxian, Pac-Man, Joust, and Dig Dug looked better for the CV. Why? So- Too many differences; it's like comparing cars to televisions. The CV can handle some games better; the 5200 others. Some would be the same. SOUND: Usually, this is given to the CV. However, the voice synthesis, even though more limited than the arcade, reduces this to almost nothing- it makes Berzerk just so very good. The CV may be better elsewhere, but you'll notice the sound is overall is higher-pitched. For their time, quite frankly, it's dead even. Both did well. GAMES: Ah, here it comes; it's always down to this. Problem is, this is purely a matter of preference. Both systems had fine versions of many games: Berzerk, Centipede, Defender, Qix, Pengo, Ms. Pac-Man, Super Breakout, Robotron: 2084 for the 5200; Ladybug, Frenzy, Spy Hunter, Gateway to Apshai, Venture, Space Panic, Bump `N Jump, Slither for the CV. A number of games for both (e.g. Q*Bert). You decide, although Atari deciding to make superior versions of several popular games (like Joust) is telling. What Super Pac-Man and Tempest would have done for the 5200! What Wizard of Wor and Tunnels and Trolls would have done for the CV! No winners, although the CV had the edge in sheer numbers. It also had the edge with maze games, RPGs, too. The 5200 wins out with first-person shooters, like Star Raiders, and it had ultra-popular games like Pac-Man. Again, no call possible. HOMEBREWS: The CV has greater numbers and variety. It also has notable "rediscovered" games like Steamroller and Lord of the Dungeon. Still, there is Super Pac-Man (my favorite of the four) and Millipede for the 5200, and homebrewers are picking up some steam for it, like Warlords (more on that in a bit...). So come on, 5200 fans, get those homebrews going!!! SALES: The CV, which is why they're easier to find "in the wild" than 5200s. In the Internet age, though, this no longer matters; both are available. Sales numbers also do not reflect superiority (or the lack of it), or the SMS would have exceeded the NES. LOOKS: Are you serious? Oh, all right: the 5200 is easier to dust off, but is so damn ginormous, it's tougher to stash. I prefer the CV, although if I had to choose which to bonk a prowler over the head with, the 5200 wins out. It can also stash a beer. PROCESSING SPEED: This seems to depend on what you want to do. AGH has implied that the CV is twice as fast, but the 5200 can carry twice as much. Problem is, this is only a factor with games that have it as a factor; it doesn't matter that the CV doesn't have built-in scrolling for games like Ladybug. So in some cases, the CV; others, the 5200; overall, too close to call. Both do well. CONTROLS: Ha, the one area I'm skilled at! C`mon, folks, there is no debate here, it's the CV. The single biggest strike against the 5200 were those awful controllers, and with good reason. The CV ones were not exactly the best, but the fact is most games were digital-controlled, and the CV's were digital. This alone wins it. The 5200 controllers are awkward, too difficult to make quick, precise moves with, and are tough to repair, as well as being more easily broken. Video game magazines were in universal agreement on this one. It was only with my digital 5200 controller that I managed to break 21,000 in Berzerk, and only with my paddle controller that I finished games of Super Breakout. Except for Pole Position and Missile Command, the 5200 controllers stink. The fact that the CV uses the common 9-pin set-up allows the use of many other controllers, including the 7800 controllers (which work fine!). With a simple y-plug, you can use such a controller and still have access to the keypad; the CV also allows game selection and start-up with controller #2; with the 5200, it is only controller #1. I can go the the nearby second-hand shop RIGHT NOW and, for 2 dollars, pick up a 9-pin joystick. The Trak/Roller Controllers are about the same in themselves, although the CV one is more versatile and allows you to plug the controllers into it. So- the CV, by a long shot...within their existing spheres.... BUT!!... What about more exotic controllers? Here, it depends. Unlike the 2600, which has both analog AND digital controls, the CV and 5200 only have one: the CV, digital; the 5200, analog. If you want to build a 5200 controller, it will be difficult. Easy to draw, but to actually BUILD it, well! A CV controller is much easier to build. But exotic ones? Trust me on this- it is easier to convert analog to digital than digital to analog! So- for exotic controllers, it's the 5200 that wins out. By quite a bit! I have built a digital controller for the 5200. I have built a paddle controller for it, and a light gun, too! But to build those last two for a CV? Much, MUCH trickier. A paddle controller, for games like Pole Position and Super Breakout, is easy. Each 5200 controller is actually two tiny paddles inside; one for vertical, one for horizontal. The fact that each has two opens up some fascinating possibilities! For example, say someone wanted to program a four-player version of a racing game (Super Sprint?) for the 5200. He asks me if I can build something so he can do it for both the 4 AND 2 port 5200s. My reply? "No problem." Since each controller uses two tiny paddles (potentiometers), even a 2-port 5200 would, in effect, have 2600-like ability to handle four paddles. You could easily use 2600 paddle controllers if you wanted; an adapter to allow use of 2600 paddles on a 5200 is incredibly easy to build! One would be the "master" adapter (it would have a keypad and those 3 buttons), while the other would just allow use of the paddles, so it's even easier than you'd think. In fact, the 5200 could even allow EIGHT-player games if it was a 4-port model. Now, if that same programmer asked me for something for the CV, that would be a problem. There is almost no practical way to adapt 2600 paddles for a system that cannot read analog at all. The Roller Controller uses both ports for the four-direction movement, so, in effect, each can handle one "paddle," which would have to work in a way like the spinners on a Super Action Controller, and building a good quality one is not easy. Practically speaking, 2-player games would be the limit here. A possibility would be a game programmed to read quick directional signals, one after another. For example: *(UP CONTACT)-(RIGHT CONTACT)* When you turn the dial to the right, you activate (much like a SAC spinner) the UP switch, and immediately after the RIGHT. This tells the game to turn the car a bit, or move the paddle a bit to the right, etc. Move it the other way, and it's RIGHT and then UP, so move a bit to the left, etc. For the second player, you'd use the LEFT and DOWN switches. In this way, four-player games may be possible, but the controllers would be awkward to build, and would only work for those particular games. It may be possible to install a switch to they could also work on Turbo, Bump `N Jump, etc., but the 5200 is much easier. As for light guns: just as the NES and the old 1970's pre-programmables, a light gun usually worked by first blacking out the screen, and then replacing a target with a white block. If the game detected a difference, then you were pointing the gun at the target, and it registers a hit. It used a photoresistor, as a rule. Not too hard. But a CV cannot read any difference in resistance. Therefore, you have to use something that will eithr activate or do nothing; no in-between. With a 5200, there only has to be a difference between two readings; with a CV, only on or off will do. It's much trickier to build, believe me (even an op-amp has limits). Incidently, this assumes you do not want to use a battery, or some such thing. So for exotic controllers, the 5200 wins out! So there you have it, a regular guy's guide to the CV and 5200. In 2009, just get them together, and play some Duran Duran, enjoy some Jolt!, Berzerk, Qix, Pengo, Ladybug, Spy Hunter, Fortune Builder, CV Pac-Man Plus, and Robotron: 2084. You'll be glad you did.

The biggest problem with the "glut" theory is that it assumes two things: 1) There were simply too many games out there for the market to support (good or bad games); 2) And this is the key here, very important, central to it all... That consumers will evenly spread their money out among all games. And that's where the glut theory falls flat on its face, friends. If it worked that way, then every business in America would have died out decades ago. It assumes that we were so stupid, that we didn't know a good game from a bad one. Thus, we spread our disposable income out among all of these games, no matter how bad, and thus, NOBODY made a profit. In other words, Generation X was hopelessly stupid. But come on, already. Even in the pre-Internet age, how many bad movies, bad songs, bad television shows, and bad (whatever) were out there? Especially in the 1980s, when the VCR came into its own, did movie theaters go out of business? Did television? Did the music industry crash? No. So what made the 1980s video game industry so different that a glut would cause it to crash? I myself much preferred 2600 Robot Tank or CV Burgertime over Slurpy (CV), I Want My Mommy or Dishaster (2600), and spent my money accordingly. Coleco and Activision got it, not those others. As it usually was. Sure, SOME companies, esp. those with crummy games, would go out of business, but that's how a free market is supposed to work, isn't it? It doesn't mean EVERYONE is going down. If, however, decisions are made without input from the customers, then you're shooting in the dark. Scott Adams described this sort of thing (...if you're talking ABOUT customers instead of to them) as a "one-off activity." What happened was a case of the prophesy fufulling itself. Luckily, thanks to the homebrewers, those old systems have another shot. Thanks to you all.

Unlike you recently? Comment: I think that if the Jaguar was marketed better it would have been a sucsess, it had a lot more potential then say the 5200 and Atari XEGS. Your Reply: "The Jaguar was the most marketed of any of the Tramiel era systems. To give them some credit, they actually listened to customers and the market and fixed a lot of the issues that had plagued the 7800, XEGS and Lynx. They - Spent far more money on advertising - They aggressively recruited third party developers - They tried to get big name licenses (ie. Alien vs. Predator, NBA Jam, Myst etc) - They sent review copies of games to the press - They pushed additional customer support items like the toll-free number, the Jaguar help line, the Jaguar tips book etc. The Jaguar was really sunk by a few key things - The system was really hard to develop for - Games that pushed the system (see above) were few and far between - Due to above, they didn't make the most of the window they had before the Saturn and Playstation arrived. (Most Jaguar games arrived after they were in the marketplace) - Atari had a historically tarnished reputation" And of course, someone who makes 5200 paddle and digital controllers, 2600-5200 console converter/adapter modules, and asks where to get 15-pin plugs to fully repair his own 5200- that he spent hours getting working- AND posts the plans and text explanations for these sort of things, hates 5200s and thinks 5200 owners are full of it, right? Fact is, the CV did do better than the 5200. Even if one assumes the 5200 was superior (which isn't likely), then so what? The SMS was superior to the NES, but which held 80-90% of the market?

The single biggest factor that caused the crash (actually, suicide) of the industry back then was marketing "experts," and the fatheads that belived them. If you were around back then, don't you remember ALWAYS hearing back in 1983 and 1984 that... "VIDEO GAMING IS DEAD, THE FUTURE IS IN COMPUTING!!!!" This is THE reason why Coleco decided on that stupid ADAM computer. This is why the industry gave up on video gaming- after all, "everyone" knew that it was over. Well, here we are, in 2009. Playstation 3. X-Box 360. Generation after generation, 16-bit, 32-bit, whatever-now-bit. 26 years. This was straight out of "Dilbert." Rather than asking the CUSTOMERS (in this case, "Generation X"), they asked each other. And big surprise- they got it wrong again. Nintendo, on the other hand, DID ask the customers, which is why they gambled on the NES in America. They played the capatalist game right, and grew rich, so, of course, the American government harrassed them, right up to their decision being made on December 7th. It was not a crash, it was stupidity and suicide. And they still won't admit that they were wrong. As for a glut- look at how many consoles were available in the mid and late-1990s, and the fact that foreign games (Japan) were more readily available, AND that super-factor that did not count in the 1980s- the Internet. Yet, gaming is still around. So it was not the glut, or it would have happened again in the 1990s.

Overall, if you consider everything in 2009, the CV wins out. For Homebrewing, the CV has the most games, and a good variety. Pac-Man Collection is one of the best. Likewise, the rediscovered games, like Lord of the Dungeon and Steamroller. Since the CV uses the standard 9-pin plug, controllers are easy to find. And with a simple y-plug, you can use the keypad, too. Or just use the second controller to select a game. There are more of them "out in the wild." It has many more games. And a better control scheme. But still, the 5200 has winners, too. There's just something about it that seems "brighter" than the 7800 or Jaguar. And games like Pengo, Robotron: 2084, Blueprint, Space Dungeon, Berzerd, Defender, Qix, and Super Breakout (if you have a paddle controller!) are just so good. So it's not by that much.

I've noticed that in the 5200 version, the first and third mazes have pretty much the same coloring, as do the second and fourth. Why is this? Even so, I still like it somewhat better than the 7800 version, for some reason.

But this is actually a pretty easy repair. Just make sure you get one of those little "solder vacs" that suck up melted solder, so you can effectively remove the solder from the 9-pin you want to remove. Removal is the tricky part, and even if you break a "ring" on the circuit board, a thin wire will fix the works nicely. Also, make sure your soldering iron has one of those thin tips, a good one.

Yup, pin 5, right fire button input. Have to open it up, desolder and remove the old DB9 socket and install a good one it's it's place. Not sure where the cheapest and easiest place would be to get a replacement. I usually take them off dead atari & cbm equipment myself. I guess the easiest and free thing to do for now would be to swap the sockets between player 1 and player 2 till you get a replacement. I would simply wait until you find a replacement. The less you do with electronic equipment, the better. Couldn't you simply, if you want use of both buttons, play the two-player game option as player 2? It's awkward, but it should do until you can get the replacement.

Normally, when playing Xevious, having the difficulty switch flipped one way will make either button fire AND drop bombs; the other position, one fires the lasers, the other drops bombs. For some reason (maybe the cheap way they were printed), this option is not listed in the instructions. If, if I understand you correctly, when the switch is in the position so each button does one thing, one of them does not work, then try the controller with another game, and see if both work. If not, it is a controller problem. (When you say it doesn't work, do you mean it doesn't do anything at all, period? Or that it does work if you have the switch set to the one button drops bombs and shoots setting?) Be a bit more specific.

Just today, at a garage sale, was a complete Genesis set (minus the CD and 32X), with a number of games. All for... $10.00!

Where can one get those 15-Pin ports for an Atari 5200? Mine just has one, so Robotron: 2084 and Space Dungeon are tough to properly play. Thanks.

Funny thing- after all of these years, I still have that issue. Interesting, but not too well written- they mention Desert Falcon, but don't even picture it?