almightytodd

Reading these forums gives me the opportunity to do two things: Revisit my joyful memories and experiences regarding 1970's/80's era computer/video technology; and laugh out loud. Thank you for contributing to the latter...

Looking at the photo for game selection; I find it interesting that they chose to list the games in standard binary-counting order rather than use the Gray Code, which would allow you to move from one game to the next moving one switch at a time. Either way, during the 8-bit computer era, learning a little bit about how 32 different choices could be represented by five binary switches was a part of the fun of playing games in the "computer age"...

Thanks! Sounds Great! Yes, I really only have two games. I got rid of my Atari collection in high school, but held on to those two because they were a couple of my favotites. I really did go through all that trouble with only two games on hand that I didn't even confirm would work. I just wanted to see if I could pull it off. I've been meaning to try to do something in this direction and when I found the Flashback 2 for cheap and saw the guide at atarimuseum.com I just went for it. I stand corrected! Wow...

At least he didn't deep-link the images in Javascript and put them in a slide-show. Of course, that would be too obvious. I'm sorry to see that sort of thing happening to you. Your efforts to defend E.T. from its undeserved reputation as such a terrible game are admirable. I've found much joy in playing the game as a result of reading the information on your site.

Much more suitable name indeed. It's not really an egg shape, and it's not so much about using your hands to move the ball (that would be volley ball or basket ball). The sport really needs a more menacing rename like "Gridiron" or "Scrimmage". And International Football needs to be "fixed" by putting a non-goalie defended goal on top of the standard one; making that the "one-point goal" and granting six points for getting one past the goalie. That way the results of global competitions could be decided by something a bit more substantial than bad referee calls and shoot-outs.

I think by "two games left" he must mean there are only two games left in his cart collection that he needs to verify will work with the Flasback 2 mod. I can't possibly see someone going through all the trouble of hacking, cutting, and soldering a Flashback 2 unit just to be able to play two game carts? And then ironically those two don't work?

HEAR,HEAR! x2 sloopy. I concur. I'm age 50 at the time of this posting. Our family Christmas present for 1977 was an original heavy sixer. That same machine is in the closet of the room I'm sitting in as I type this. I've been a career Windows programmer since 1993 and the 8-bit home computer revolution of the late 70's and 80's is a big part of that. I'm so thrilled that I can re-live those exciting times and make new memories, experiencing these classic machines through the magic of emulation.

That all sounds very cool. Thanks for sharing. Looking forward to seeing some pictures.

I'm going to throw in another vote for Jr. Pac-Man; there's too much area to cover, not enough power-pellets, and the ghosts move too fast. I'm lucky if I can clear one screen. But I think the definition of the topic should be expanded to, "Most Difficult, but you still want to play it". With Jr. Pac-Man, I can play the hacked-version in emulation that lets me speed up when I push the fire-button. I can also play it with only one or two ghosts. These additional features give me options to either try to clear many screens, and see what all the different mazes look like, or try to take on all four ghosts and see if I can get through that first screen. Break-out, on the other hand, is hard for me without any similar options. If I am able to survive long enough to clear the first screen, the pay-off of getting to the next screen doesn't seem big enough to justify the struggle to get there. It's pretty rare that I play break-out or any variations.

Bushnell was raised in Riverton Utah (...a suburb of Salt Lake City) in a Latter-day Saint (Mormon) family. I believe he had already abandoned active participation in that faith by the time he was working on Computer Space, but I think the author is probably correct in the assertion that his use of the term "Syzygy" was in reference to the astronomical definition and not the Gnostic one. Coincidentally (or perhaps ironically?) Philo Farnsworth also came from a Latter-day Saint background. It might make sense if we consider that a major component of the LDS faith is the belief in modern-day prophets seeing visions. Television and video games required visionaries to make them reality. Can't really make Ralph Baer fit into this hypothesis though... If there are any Battlestar Galactica fans out there, Glen Larson sneaks some Mormon mythology into some of his stories as well...

The article is here Lists like this are always subject to debate. This one puts "Pong" in the number 3 spot, "Super Mario Bros." is number 2, with the most influential video game of all time going to "Pac Man". One surprise to me is that "Wolfenstein 3D" made the list but "Doom" did not. I'm guessing there are a lot of people like me who only discovered "Wolfenstein" by going backwards, after playing "Doom" and hearing that it had an ancestor. I'm also a bit disappointed that no vector-graphics based game made the list. It's almost as if the author is making the judgment that since vector graphic displays came and went and can no longer be found anywhere, their contribution to the genre is not substantial.

Pong and Space Race. The two machines were side-by-side at a Shakey's Pizza Parlor. I also remember playing a pong-type game on an Odyssey system that a friend had. I'm not sure which I played first. I remember that the Odyssey didn't keep score for you and had no sound. It seemed primitive to me and unfinished. That aspect may have something to do with why Ralph Baer didn't get the credit he deserved for developing the early technology.

Did you play it with other people? Warlords really shines with 4 players, not so much when playing solo. My remake of Warlords, Medieval Mayhem, is quite a bit better at solo play; but like Warlords, it's most fun when played with others. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hR_B857oJo4 Gotta love that stereo sound... That Atari Age logo clip at the end of the video is awesome. Did you make that? Medieval Mayhem is definitely my favorite paddle-based game. For my second favorite I have to go back to the original paddle-sports games in Video Olympics. I wish someone would do a hack/remake that adds solo-play for all of the variations.

The sound is in a swf file, so it kind of uses Flash. There's an article here that talks about how everything but the sound works on an iPad or iPhone...

Star Wars Empire Strikes Back - After you lose, the Snow-speeder skims the surface and zips past the Imperial Walkers...

Check the feedbacks. I think 147 negatives in one year is not that good (even for so many transactions). That doesn't mean one can just try to get the same thing from another place. That device looks almost exactly the same as this one from Sewell Direct, except the Sewell device uses a BNC connector instead of an RCA. I bought a similar Sewell device to convert VGA to NTSC (Composite and S-Video) and I have been very happy with it. I can sit on my couch with a wireless keyboard and mouse and play emulated games on my old standard def TV set, which looks "right", because that's the type of display these games were created for.

Thanks Nathan. PM sent...

I picked up all four today! I got one with a kid's meal and they charged 99 cents each for the other three. What I found out was, there are some Taco Bells that are combined with either a Pizza Hut, or a Kentucky Fried Chicken. Those sites are NOT participating in the promotion. I went to a Taco Bell that is JUST a Taco Bell and they had them. I was able to install no problem on my new computer (2.93GHz Intel Core i3 with 4Gb RAM; 64 bit Windows 7). I have an older computer hooked up to the TV that I was hoping to use, but it only has 256Mb RAM and not enough free for the install with Windows XP running. Is there a work-around for this?

This thread has brought to mind a gripe I have with the consumer electronics industry in general. It seems that whenever some new format/device/system/protocol/industry standard comes out, the assumption is that if you are buying this new technology, everything in your house is within the same generation of technology, and therefore compatible. I think the reality for most people is, that you upgrade one piece of technology at a time, and that your house is filled with a mixture of old and new technology. Retailers seem to have no interest whatsoever in helping you get your new stuff to work with your old stuff. Their "solution" seems to be that you should just buy "all new stuff". Along with not being very realistic for most people economically, this is also not a very "Earth-friendly" attitude to take - yesterday's technology is tomorrows landfill. I'm currently waiting on an online order for a VGA to TV converter from Sewell Direct that I found for less than $40. I would have gladly made the same purchase from my local Best Buy or Radio Shack, but their least expensive solution was $70 more. Their attitude seems to be that I should just use a more modern computer with a video card that feeds S-Video through the VGA output, requiring a simple two-dollar adapter cable like this. That's all well and good, except the computer I'm using to do this is ten years old, making it difficult to find the right card to fit its outdated slot (...is it PCI? AGP? slim profile?). But it cost me 30 bucks. It has a (relatively) small hard drive, and not enough memory to run Vista or Windows 7. I don't need it to do much - I just want to display video games on my TV, and maybe watch some streaming video from You Tube, Hulu and Net Flicks. I just don't want to hear the brick-and-mortar retailers complaining that it's hard for them to compete with the internet sellers. It's not just the big warehouse stores or nation-wide franchises... ...I went into a "Mom and Pop" computer store with the same request and they couldn't help me. It's frustrating...

I don't want to be the one who is a "stickler", but wouldn't that be pretty much... ...um, illegal? I mean for companies like Nintendo and Namco that are still very much in business, these titles; though they are old, are still their intellectual property aren't they? I think some copyright owners (Exidy, Cinematronics) have chosen to release some of their titles to public domain, but there are many games with characters (Mario, Donkey Kong) that are in active use in current games. When I fire up whatever version of MAME and load a ROM into it, there is always a warning given that says if I don't own an actual piece of hardware that has this ROM in it, I'm technically not legally entitled to run it through an emulator. After seeing some of the hyper-reactions from the music and movie industries in defense of their copyrighted materials, I'd hate to see something similar start happening in the videogame world... ...just sayin'

Take a look at the attached screenshot of Atari Fire Truck... The game came out in 1978 - soon after the introduction of the 2600 VCS. It uses gray-scale graphics, but look at the level of detail. The images look much more sharp and well-defined than anything the 2600 can generate. Plus, the entire playfield scrolls smoothly underneath the pivoting fire truck image. Add the fact that this is one of many games of that era that used a portrait-oriented monitor (rotated 90 degrees), and the final result is that any attempt to do a port would likely be disappointing. Ports and hacks of games like "Galaxians" and "Pac Man" are interesting because they show how far the 2600 hardware can be pushed - although no one ever expects the resulting games to ever really duplicate the arcade versions they are inspired by. Doing ports of more primitive games loses the appeal. Personally, I'd like to see something like what the Legacy Engineering guys did for the Taco Bell CD ROMs, but in a plug-n-play unit that could generate a 720p digital signal that you could hook up to your HDTV. Maybe market it as a "Classic Atari Flashback virtual arcade". That would be a way to enjoy the nostalgia of late 70's/early 80's technology, reproduced on a 21st century display. It would be novel and interesting, as I don't think anyone has done a digital plug-and-play unit. There could also be a "retro" and "enhanced" version of each game similar to the Taco Bell games - adding enhanced graphics and sound, but keeping the original game-play. Unfortunately, it probably would not be profitable to sell such a unit for under $50, at which point it probably wouldn't sell; easier to just publish an Atari games CD ROM for XBox, PS3, PC and Mac similar to the Namco Museum.

I visited another Taco Bell in Orlando FL today... ...asked if they had them or had heard anything about the promotion. As before, they looked at me like I'm from Mars. Does anyone know if this is a regional thing? Did it start on the West coast and work its way East? I'm really anxious to get these as they look like they're really well done. At least maybe it's a good sign that they're not saying, "Yeah, we had them for two weeks and now they're all gone...".

You need to hit the "tab" button to open the menu. Select "Game Properties" and change the "Type" to "F6SC (16K Atari + ram)". Hit "Okay" then "Exit Menu". You'll have to exit the game back to the main Stella menu, but then when you select the game and start it, it will work right. This game uses the second controller to deploy the smart bombs - the "F" key. This is one of my favorite hacks - very well done. It has all of the elements of the coin-op version, without the level of "impossibility" where it gets to be mostly frustration. The controls are actually easier in the hack version, because in the arcade, a separate button-press was necessary for thrust; the joystick just changed the direction you pointed. I hope this gets you up and playing...

Notice; in each scene, there is a female walking in from right to left behind the two guys... ...what is the subtle message?

I checked a Taco Bell here in Orlando Florida and they hadn't heard anything about the promotion. I watched the YouTube video though and from what I saw, these appear to be VERY well done and faithful to the originals (when played at the hardest level and allowing for the parameters specified). I like the effect of the "burned in" 1 COIN 1 PLAY on the screen - nice touch! The artwork along the boarders is great too. I don't care what anybody else says - Marty and Curt are AWESOME! Thanks for keeping these classics alive for new generations!