KAZ

Let's go with Pac-Man. There is no speed up cheat in the Playstation version for one (that isn't a biggie). It plays alot more choppy on the Playstation. The only way for you to actually play it correctly would be for you to pick up your television, and lay it on its side. You switch the mode to horizontal. The bugs ARE intact. Galaga on the Playstation has the "stop the enemies from firing forever" trick on the first stage just like the arcade. So maybe I judged Namco too harshly. I don't think pacman sounds right on Playstation, but I can describe exactly what's wrong. Pole Position on Namco, where the hell is the announcer talking? They don't say anything on Namco, but do in Mame.

It is really the same thing with Activision Classics for the Playstion vs on the REAL THING (an actual Atari 2600), or on an emulator. Playstation plays the game the worst of all. But if you don't have a computer, or an Atari 2600, your best bet is to play on the Playstation. The Playstation is an awesome console, there is no doubt in my mind, but these classic games just aren't emulated right. I'd call Namco Museum classics SIMULATIONS, and not EMULATIONS They look LIKE the real thing, but are NOT. Mame looks and acts like the real thing (except for the way an actual arcade machine has certain controls, marquees, etc.) Playing Burger Time in an actual arcade is a treat. Playing it on mame is pretty good, but you are missing out. Burger Time on Playstation is far away from both.

Play Pac-Man on Mame, and then play Pac-Man on Namco Museum #1. They are totally different, I'm sorry to say. Mame pac-man is absolutely flawlessly like the arcade. Namco is very much NOT. Ms. Pacman the same thing, compare Namco Museum 3 to Mame Ms. Pacman, and it is NOT arcade realistic. Does this mean Namco Museums are worthless, NOWAY. They are what they are, but they are not much like the arcade versions. Play Mame and play all the Namco Museums, and then come back here and tell me if you agree or not!!

I just want to say goodbye to Back to the Future movies 1, 2, or 3 (take your pick) and this great blah blah. Now I am nearly 39 years old and life is more serious now. I decided to leave my childhood favorite movie, because my whole life is a change, and at some point you have to quit watching your favorite movies and have sex all the time with women. Or take them out all the time. Have a good time!

And from age 70 to 80 when time seems to drag on for an eternity, because you are retired, no longer work, and maybe have no one around (deceased family members), what will you do? This is where the first part of life is so critical, in honing your interests. I'm sure you've heard of people who have done great things in literature, music, art, whatever in their later later years. It may take me till I'm 80 to figure out asm programming. By that time, there will be few people left who will remember the great Atari! The point is that you have developed your interest in playing video games, and you can do this when intense boredom stikes at a very old age. Of course, you may have to deal with arthritis or worse conditions, who knows?? For example, my friend mentioned that he knew of a guy who retired, and bought himself a video game system for the first time in his life. It is never too late or too early to have fun playing games. This guy wanted to finally do "something nice" for himself, and bought it.

I've been stuck in the 80's for longer than I can remember Lite Brite, Heman, Transformers, GI Joe!! Oh, you meant collecting? That's where I'm at with Atari 2600 carts also. I've had an intense shortage of money lately, so I haven't done any collecting in about a month. My last big "score" was at The Midwest Classic. That is if you can call buying 6 shrinkwrapped 2600 games a "score". I was satisfied with my haul.

So life is "serious" at age 31? Will it be as serious at retirement age? Just thinking about it a little bit, I think it would be amazingly cool to be like at retirement age (like 65), and grab an Atari 2600 off the shelf, dust it off, and fire it up. Of course by that time (if I'm not dead or something) there will be 1000 bit systems, or virtual reality home systems, or whatever. It will still be nice to know where it all came from. MisterVCS maybe has a woman who is not into Atari, maybe even hates everything associated with Atari or video gaming in general. If I had to choose between Atari or women, I know what I'd pick (after one last game of Pitfall!, I promise!) Maybe MisterVCS has a 60 hour a week job, and is consumed with other "mature" activities like raising a family and stuff. Leaves little time for the VCS. In a year's time, I think you can squeeze in at least a couple hours playing video games, and still have an ultra busy schedule.

Quick question... What other games besides: Super Mario 1,2,3 are supported on the Game Boy Advance? Are there other Nintendo (NES) titles out for it? Like Mike Tyson's Punchout, Mega Man, or games like Contra? It makes a difference in my decision to eventually buy it.

I never did hate the XBOX, I was just "doing a little experiment". It didn't work as I had hoped, and I was just being silly. I know now the error of my ways! Let sleeping dogs lie! Someone had asked me to change the title of my post so that it didn't start a flamewar. Only you can prevent forest fires!

Exactly right Eric! I have the rare priviledge to have been growing up around the time when video games were taking off. I was born in 1975, so I would have been around 7 or 8 when Atari was really taking off with Atari 2600 (1982). I never did own the Atari 2600, but I "vividly" remember going to friends houses playing games like football (those three characters on the screen). Back then, the Atari 5200 was just awesome to me! I have the rare gift to be able to truly appreciate how far video gaming has come. I can like the XBOX and Atari at the exact same time. Another person born in the 90's would not have this opportunity, they would've never seen Atari, and would've missed out on the great video game years. I've never played on an XBOX yet, but I can pretty well imagine how it is.

No it has not StanJr. When it does I will respond to this thread at the appropriate time.

Well I recently applied to a place called "St. Joseph's Group Foster Home" in Minneapolis, working with emotionally disturbed youth, and I've worked with the middle school age category for a year altogether. I expect to be given the job. I've never been in a teaching role however, just in a supervisory/counseling role.

Congrats, that is really cool to have an honor like that. I was looking for two other names: Paul Slocum (maker of Mr. Roboto) Billy Eno (maker of Warring Worms) Perhaps the list is just not far enough up to date yet. Keep making games for the Atari 2600, you will always have fans out there!!

Very fast load times, must be "good html coding" or something. Compare that to a site like Yahoo.com, with popups everywhere, and your computer suffers through downloading 9000 images. Nice section on 7800 emulation!

Omigod, what a statement!! Hilarious and impressive! Can we trade lives please? hehe

As far as sleeping dogs...don't you sometimes just like to go over and nudge them just a little bit, so they let out a really hilarious tiny growl (grr). Then they just go back to sleep anyways. Or they could bite your hand off too, whichever works.

Heated debates are the best kind, when there is a real passion behind statements. A flamewar, however, is different since there is passion behind insulting the other person's statements, and not remaining neutral.

I'm getting sleepy. I expect a flame war when I check this topic tommorrow. I expect to hear arguments for the following: Atari 5200 vs. Sega Dreamcast Gameboy Advance vs. Jaguar CD Pong vs. Intellivision and finally: PS1 vs. NeoGeo btw, I'm just joking around people, I like the Atari 5200 anyway, I grew up with it. I like Atari period.

2001 post counts for you "liveinabin"...that is just cool!

While at the Midwest Classic in Milwaukee, WI I was able to pick up a really cool "packet" of information comparing specifications for all sorts of systems. Lez see here, I'm just taking this from the pamphlet: Atari 2600: Speed: 1.19 mhz Ram: 128 bytes Colors: 4 simultaneous colors out of 128 (16 colors each with 8 levels of intensity Microsoft Xbox: Speed: 733 mhz (faster than the computer I'm using right now) Ram: 64 MB Unified Colors: 32-bit color (32,000 colors?) The problem with Microsoft's operating systems has always been the operating system crashing and having performance issues. Does the Xbox crash alot? Maybe it never does, because users cannot ADD programs that have "bad coding" in them. The operating system is locked out from users. If users didn't add bad programs on the operating systems of computers, would they crash? I would say NO, if you kept the factory specs as they were, and didn't make ANY changes, it would never crash. I love hotdogs!

Do you keep receipts, dates of purchases, people you purchase from, amount spent on items? It is easy for me to fall easily into some sort of "obsessive" trap over organizing. It would be nice to know what a "normal" Atari collector keeps track of. It is impossible for me to have receipts of all the games I've collected, because some simply don't have "receipts", so this is the one thing that I haven't kept track of.

Tomyou, Perhaps you should buy something small from Adrian to prove to yourself whether or not he's a good seller. Maybe like a $5 item? Adrian seems to be very knowledgable about computing in general, as I've read many of his previous posts on all sorts of message boards and topics. Adrian, I sense a subtle hostility in many of your posts, but I can't quite figure out what it is about, or who it is aimed at. This is just a general sense I get when I read your posts. What's up? Have you had bad dealings with people on Ebay, or in the business world in general? I can tell you are generally upset at something?!

I'm leaning a little more towards your side Adrian, but only because you have so much positive feedback. If you have proven yourself time and time again as being a trustworthy seller, using images other than the actual product could be more "tolerated". However, if some hypothetical seller has only like 20 positive feedback, and maybe some negative feedback in there too...and they insist on always using other images for their auctions, this is just not right! I find it very suspicious if I see a seller with a 20 or less feedback selling a rare cart for over $100, and doesn't have an authentic image of it. Buyers should always beware of course, and if I wanted to be extra careful, maybe I'd always bid on products from sellers that have over a 100 positive feedback.

Does anyone know of the Atari 2600 market being "infected" by fake sealed games? Is there any way to know if a game is resealed? I have a bunch of shrinkwrapped games, and I'm positive they are all authentic (for the simple reason that I just don't have alot of them). Maybe some sort of scale to measure weight could be used. If a shrinkwrapped game differs from a value listed on a site like this, then you'd know it is a fake. Like an Atari 2600 game: Ms. Pacman Let's say the official weight could be 4.5 grams You weigh it, and it comes out as 3.5 grams, because inside it is a bogus cartridge and folded paper, which would throw off the weight significantly Is there any way you guys at Atari Age would consider doing this, making a section where you list weights of AUTHENTIC shrinkwrapped games to protect the collecting hobby for people? Just an idea

I must agree with Alex here. It probably doesn't matter for games like ET, Pacman, or Combat. The sellers might as well just save their money, and just use text. If I were buying a Tooth Protectors game from Ebay, I sure as hell would like to know the condition of the item that I'm getting, considering I'd be paying about $100 for it. If you were buying a game from Ebay for this amount of money, wouldn't you like to know the condition of the game you are getting too, Adrian?