davidbrit2

You know, I've actually got that Q-Bert book. How much did it finally sell for? I've also got this silly little joke book called "Q-Bert's Qwazy Qwestions," or something very similar to that.

Some of my hardest to find items include Crazy Climber (purchased for an arm and a leg,) and the original expansion port 7800. I've also got some really rare NES stuff, but you probably don't care much about that.

The first time I heard the term "frying" was from the famous/infamous BTECH list. I didn't read the definition, so I had a vague guess that frying the 2600 involved leaving it on until it overheated. Hey, it sounded logical. After I read how to do it, I went to work. He he.

I want Dark Chambers 2! That would rule. It would have to be a little more fast paced, though. A second Secret Quest would be cool, too.

I don't think we'll see another market crash until all the 12 year old white males stop buying anything with Tony Hawk or Pokemon as the main characters. Keep an eye on the market for bandannas and those goofy visors, since its decline should foretell any impending downfall in video game sales. In other words, the video game industry is about as "dead" as it was in the early 80s - it's just that nobody notices. The GBA is the only good game system left.

Activision's Seaquest! It's a really fun high scoring type of game that starts off fairly easy, and eventually elevates to an insane pace. Also try Taz. If you can master that, everything else will seem rather easy. Robot Tank was another good one. I actually think it's better than Battlezone. And finally, try Radar Lock. It has kind of strange dual-joystick controls for selecting weapons, but it's a really fun air plane massacre.

Those are pretty much my thoughts exactly.

Well, boredom set in pretty heavy once again, so I figured it was time to make another fake screen shot. Notice the key word in that previous sentence: fake. This is not from the recently discovered prototype. It's just my artistic rendering of what the game probably would look like on an Atari. If screen shots of the real thing ever get around to the internet, it will be kind of fun to see how accurate I was, though. You can pass this around all you like, but I just ask that you leave my name and e-mail address in tact.

I've been rather impatient waiting for the real thing, so I decided to take matters into my own hands. I had a heck of a time making the guys look like the arcade counterparts, but I figured that was pretty close. Another thing was getting the player's hair to look right, since it normally goes down the back of his head. The Atari wouldn't be able to have the hair color on the same line with his skin color, I believe. I also figured that it wouldn't have been capable of having the lights hanging from the ceiling to shoot at, what with only 128 bytes of RAM, and all. Now I have to decide which game to make a "screen shot" for next. If I could find some good technical info about the Atari's graphics capabilities, I could probably make these look even more accurate.

Ebay is probably your best bet to find a converter to play US cartridges in a Famicom system. I doubt that they would end up costing more than $10, or $20 at the most.

I'll have to order one of those sometime. The easiest way to tell if it's a US or Japanese slot is by counting the pins on the connector. NES cartridges use a 72 pin slot, and Famicom cartridges use 60 pins. In either case, cartridge converters aren't too hard to come by.

Hey, Chad, how much was the deluxe package? I just might have to order one of those if they priced them reasonably. Also, was the cartridge slot intended for US cartridges, or Japanese Famicom games? Not that it matters, I'm just the curious sort. :-)

There's another Famicom "clone" that you can buy at www.garagesale2u.com. I got one from them, and it's pretty cool. It came with a 2nd controller, and a light gun. It's got 128 games built in, plus a Famicom compatible cartridge slot. It runs on batteries, or the included AC adaptor. The best part was the price: only about $40 US! It should be in the "explosive sellers" category of their web site. I'm not sure how many they have in stock, though.

I would be willing to bet that if we accounted for all the carts in that landfill, then ET would be the most common.

Ah, yes. I think you may be correct about color pallets. They might be different on the NTSC and PAL Ataris, but I'm not certain.

It sounds like most of you guys have it easy! If you're ever in the Grand Rapids, MI area, don't bother hunting for Atari stuff. It used to be really abundant a few years back, and I would usually come back from the local flea market with at least a couple new games. Now, I'm lucky if I even see Atari stuff there (but there's TONS of NES stuff.) The thrift stores are getting really sparse with classic gaming equipment as well. I suspect I must have bought everything within about 10 miles of my house. If you saw my stash, you would know that's only a minor exaggeration.

They are usually playable, with a few "buts." You will need a TV with a vertical hold adjustment, or the picture will roll. Also, the image will be taller, and small parts of the top and bottom will be cut off the borders of the TV screen. This is, of course, assuming you've got the Atari connected to an NTSC television. I don't think there's any difference between an NTST and PAL Atari, although I could be wrong. As far as I know, it's dependent on the software.

Those look INCREDIBLY bizarre. Even if they aren't legitimate prototypes, I still think owning a 7800 cartridge with a universal ZIF socket would be pretty darned cool. I'll have to keep an eye on this one.

I know how that feels. As much as I would like to be, I'm not much of an electronics guy. Otherwise I would probably have figured it out by now.

That sounds pretty good, except for one thing: how does the counter keep data without any power from the Atari? And by the way, 32 in One is a pain on the 7800. Especially a really heavily used one, with a worn power switch.

This has been bugging me for such a long time. How does the 32 in One cartridge "remember" which game to start with next? It seems like any RAM in the cartridge would be cleared when power cycling the Atari, and I doubt they would have put in some EPROM or battery back up. I don't want to open mine up so as not to wreck the label. Has anyone seen how it handles game selection?

The first Atari emulator I had really tried was the Activision pack. Of course, this was the first edition, back when we had a 20 MHz 486. Needless to say, it wasn't that spectacular. When we got a new computer, it worked great, and I got the other two packs. Naturally, it wasn't long after when I had figured out how to swap out the roms that the emulator came with. I even made a batch file that would pad the rom to 16 KB, put it in the right place, and then all I had to do was run the emulator. It was pretty cool, but it didn't run a huge number of games. Once PC Atari came out, I was in heaven, and now I use Stella on my Mac(s).

That thing is hilarious! I wish I could find a good collection of weird crap like that. I've got the Chip and Dale's MMORPG, Video Computer System music video, All your base are belong to us music video, some stick person fighting thing, and that's about it. I must find more! :-) Maybe if I can find a few more, I'll set up a small web page with them. [ 06-11-2001: Message edited by: David Britten ]

Ha! That's a great pic! I'm always fascinated by faked Atari screenshots; maybe I should make a few more to go with my Gauntlet fake.

Sneek 'n' Peek is a hilarious game. I remember when my cousin and I played it for the first time a couple of years ago. We were laughing our heads off when we discovered you could hide underneath the sofa, the beds, the house, and even the carpet. I think there were some other weird places as well, but I haven't played it in a while, so I can't remember them all.