FastRobPlus

The Puget Sound Commodore Users group is doing this this weekend here in Redmond at the Houghton II Starbucks at 10. http://pscug.org

Sad to think we are now in the last generation of games that will come in any kind of boxes.

When I was a kid I intended to very carefully draw the towns and moon gates onto the cloth map with a black sharpie marker. The instant the tip hit the cloth, it wicked a huge blob of ink out on to the map surface! It was really ugly! I never did that again. Ive actually seen a few maps on ebay wit the same kind of back blobs.

This pic is actually really cool at full screen.

Yeah, I see what you mean. Everybody defines thier collection differently. I tend to go for 'core' and expand from there. I consider Akalabeth 'core' to this franchise, so unless/until I get one, I won't really be hunting for Ultimas. If I wanted to collect early 2600 games, but found out that Air Sea Battle and Combat were nearly impossible to find, that might be enough to deter me. On the other hand, I would not loose any sleep over not owning the rare Frech Combat misprint variant that Nolan Bushnell once tripped over, even if it was one-of-a-kind. (If that makes sense)

Ran out might not be the right phrase. This was 1980, so disks were still expensive (like $2-$5 each) so if a bunch of copies of a game like Phantoms Five had been run off and were lying around, I can see why California Pacific would have opted to write over them with Ultima. As a mail order publisher, they would likely have been surprised by the mass influx of orders.

The reason I don't seriously collect Ultima is Akalabeth. It's just too expensive and rare and I don't like the idea of incomplete collections. That said, I do actually own a nice boxed Ultima I for the Atari 800, but I justify it by saying its part of my all-up A8 RPG collection. I did have the Apple II version of Ultima by California Pacific Software, but sold it since I don't collect Ultima or Apple. Fun fact - the label was loose (dried out glue) and the disk had been reused from the 'factory'. You could lift up the label and peer at one underneath. Aparently, it had started life as a much rarer Apple game by Sirius (Phantom's Five.) I'm guessing that Ultima was such a smash hit for them they elected to reuse poorer selling game disks to help fill orders.

I have a soft spot for Ultima II. I saw it running on an Apple II when I was young and was amazed that there was an entire miniature D&D world running in the computer. But I do admit it isn't a terrific game, especially after UIII came out.

It also sounds fantastic on the C64. Also - if you still like the music, there are wonderful orchestral versions on www.remix64.com

There was a web site that reviewed Ultima on various platforms and ranked the gameplay experience. I wish I could find that sitte, it was really interesting. He did conclude that Ultima III was best on the Atari 8-bit, owing to the Apple II smothness of the Atari's 2Mhz processor and the near C-64 quality audio soundtrack. It is such a shame that Ultima IV didn't get music on the Atari 8-bit.

I think it needs an '030 or above. I do have one of the GB1000 Phoenix '030 boards. It's a modern implementation and as a fast an '030 as has ever been made for the Amiga. I also have an Amiga 500 '040 board that I could force in, but I'd rather not as the case won't close...

Ultima III is my all-time favorite in the series. It was my all time favorite RPG until I played Might and Magic III on Amiga. One retro goal I have is to get Ultima VII running on my Amiga 1000. The Amiga versions only went up to VI, but You can play VII natively on an Amiga using the open-source ultima engine Exult. Unfortunately, it needs a dedicated VGA-color capable video card, which means it also needs a big-box Amiga with Zorro card slots. However, someone has written a hacked 256-color driver for the "Indivision" brand progressive scan-doubler boards that fit onto any Amiga, so now Ultima VII on the Amiga 1000 is theoretically possible.

Thanks for the offer TJ! I ended up selling off just about all my Atari hardware (A8 and ST) at the Seattle Retro Gaming Expo. All I have now is my Atari 800, 810, and my Amdek monitor. I have Incognito now, so no reason to use an XL or XE.

I would also like one.

They should also pause the action every few moments to let you know about another game they have just published, and ask if you want to exit the game and download it now.

There's just one guy bidding on it. There are lots of views, so that’s not the issue. Either the price is too high, or the buyers don’t trust a seller with 0 feedback.

I have not yet done the Incognito install. Does this BIOS update obviate the need to replace the two resistors?

I've been too lazy to sell stuff. I did have an A3K at Seattle Retro playing Deluxe Galaga/Warblade and that was a hit. Also - I had 3 retail copies of Amiga Forever and thay all sold. So those did turn out to be a surprise.

Surprisingly, the Seattle show is still pretty small. The team is growing it little by little. The portland one might be the 2nd largest now next to the Vegas show, but I don't know sor sure.

We were all unhappy about this when the opted to make the Halo green consoles. Also, my wife still glares when she sees one. We had to 'opt in' to get the consoles and pay COGS and taxes, so we got an email describing what were were ordering a few months beforehand. The flyer had the color listed as: Green Crystal. My wife was sure this meant that the 'special edition' console was actually made of green crystal! She was so excited and then so dissapointed when it arrived. The were some very early build boxes that were black and came with the large "duke" controllers. But the dukes had a different name. I can't remember the name, but it was something like "ranger" or "wayne" or something else that sort of meshed with duke. Anyway, these were identical to the dukes but had a geen tin center Xbox logo rather than the paper logo coverd by a plastic lens that we got with the dukes. I have to assume that these were too costly to produce.

Same guy I suspect (Albert and his wife). He sold out utterly at SRGE and was reconsidering PRGE due to no inventory, but he also had a month of vacation saved, so it looks like he used to it re-load his inventory.

What's "baseball"?

Mine have arrived!

I’m planning to be a vendor at the Seattle Retro game show again this year. Now that it’s the new year, it’s time to start planning. Last year, I brought mostly collectible items and vintage computer gear. Of the collectible items, the surprising best-sellers were one-off t-shirts, hats and other items with Halo, Nintendo and Xbox branding. Next to me, someone selling retro game themed bead art was very popular: http://www.beadsprites.com/gallery.php So my question for the Atari-Age luminaries is: What impulsive, game-themed item would you want to pick up at a retro show? What collectible things would you like to see at the retro gaming shows?

eBay Auction -- Item Number: 290836398109 This is the pack-in figure that should have come inside the Fable II collector's edition. There was an issue with the production, so the Limited edition was massively scaled down in scope and price and the figure was forgotten. I see about 4 of these on eBay now. Looks like there was a mass escape.