joesmooth

Heh heh. I've been trying for the whole season to somehow play Atari on the show and I finally got to! We put tape over the name of the cartridge to prevent any lawsuits from overzealous corporations trying to protect their trademarks. The show was a lot of fun but a LOT of work - it took about 18 months to film all 13 episodes for the season and it was a real challenge to not only handle the engineering side of things, but also the TV production side. The final cuts only show a small snippet of what actually went on with the build (we filmed about 100 hours of tape per build and the final show is only 44 minutes), but I think the editors did a pretty good job capturing most of the key engineering process and still made it pretty cool. My favorite episodes so far are the Robotic Firefighter Assistant (the PyroPack in particular), the Waterslide Simulator, and the Virtual Sea Adventure (I got to kiss a dolphin and got SCUBA certified!) Joe

That guy was me I did it a few years ago, but IIRC, I just used the stock 5200 Video Mod from 8bitdomain. I don't think I had to make any changes. Joe

I believe those boxed Telegames games are PAL, since they came from the U.K. I can confirm that later in the week, but we just had a baby and I'm still in the hospital -Joe

I'm charging actual shipping costs for USPS Priority International Mail. The shipping charges are calculated automatically by eBay based on weight and destination. I think it sucks that the international USPS prices have gone up so much, but that's the way it is and Priority International is the only method I use (I've had too many problems with other delivery methods). Joe

Hello again! Lots more stuff put up this weekend. There are a few rare homebrew/repro releases that are the real goodies: Atari 2600 Bugs Bunny CIB Signed PhillyClassic 2002 http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewI...em=290265780410 Atari 2600 Combat II NIB CGE2K1 CGE 2001 http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewI...em=290265780422 Atari 2600 Warring Worms Rare Homebrew Limited Edition Release #40 2002 from Billy Eno (in Israeli Army ammo pack) http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewI...em=290265780934 And, of course, some more 2600 import/pirate/non-US cartridges and CIB stuff: http://shop.ebay.com/merchant/joesm00th Enjoy Joe

Refund received. Thanks! Joe

It doesn't help that all Panda end labels look like they're fake. Quality wasn't exactly their number one priority... Tempest Yeah, but this was pretty obvious. See attached pic. @zach1845: Thanks for the quick response. I'll send it back today. Joe

That's good to know. I noticed he has a 7 day return policy on items, so we'll see if he honors that. He sells a lot of video games and it's clear that the label was fake, so it definitely should have been noted in the auction. Maybe he didn't do it intentionally, but it's sure annoying. Joe

So, last week I did a Buy-It-Now on a Panda Scuba Diver (http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=230293477217) because I really wanted the game. The game showed up today with a fake end-label. Obviously scanned from an original, re-printed, and sloppily glued onto the cartridge. The PCB is correct, though, and the game works. I've written the seller, zach18451, with the following: "I just received the Atari 2600 Scuba Diver from you. The end label is a reproduction and just glued on. This should have been noted in the auction, as it's completely obvious that it isn't the original label from 1983 and I feel slighted for that. I'd like some sort of remediation for this, otherwise I'll have to leave neutral or negative feedback." From the picture in the auction, it looks to me like the original, since there is some wear on it, and it never crossed my mind to ask the seller if the label was real. Now that I have the physical cart in front of me, I can see that the picture also has the fake end label (which was printed to include the wear marks). I've been buying/selling/trading for long enough and have never had this happen to me. I wonder if he'll respond. Joe

OK, here's a little more spam. I just put up 68 import/Quelle/Taiwan/non-U.S. Atari 2600 carts here: http://shop.ebay.com/merchant/joesm00th More stuff next week! Joe

I'm back for a little more spring cleaning. I just put up 28 items - boxed O2 and Intellivision (Sears) stuff. Check it out: http://shop.ebay.com/merchant/joesm00th Over the next few weeks, I'll be putting up lots of Atari 2600 import carts, some rare homebrew releases, etc. so stay tuned Joe

A friend of mine just showed me this site this morning: http://www.pagetable.com/ If you haven't seen it before, it's definitely worth a look. Mostly assembly hacks, tricks, old school 6502 stuff, etc. Joe

Yep. All of the other ROMs are for the Colecovision. Joe

The game could have been rigged with an 'unlimited lives' cheat or some such thing which would have to be removed for production. Replacing code with NOPs is often safer than simply removing it, though my preference would have been to simply replace the STA with a BIT so as to avoid disturbing cycle timings. I just loaded both games back and forth in Stella and it looks like the only difference is the "1" at the top of the title screen. Maybe designating 1 player? Anyway, I think it's removed in the second version. Joe

Looks correct. The last two are dated the same, but I believe are different binaries (I haven't confirmed that). Could be that they burned one earlier in the day, made changes, and burned another. Or, maybe there was a rumor that the project was getting killed and someone wanted to burn a final revision before getting escorted out of the building? Rev. 2.1 didn't have a date on it. The filenames contain the exact contents of what was written on the EPROM labels. Joe

While we were dumping them, we were wondering about those... cbpark2-atari-7-3-AD79-rev3.bin cbpark3-atari-6-29-AD79.bin Seeing that the checksum is the same, the game is likely 100% exact (hence the same checksum). I think the naming convention changed, since the revisions started with cbpark0 being rev 1, which was confusing. I don't remember what the labels looked like (Von Guard?) but they might just be the same ROM burned by two different people. Joe

Actually, I believe the order is: cbpark0-atari-5-24-65EC-rev1.bin cbpark1-atari-6-14-A64D-rev2.bin cpkadv-rev2-1-2600-a527.bin (this is rev 2.1, the label was written by someone else, hence the name difference) cbpark2-atari-7-3-AD79-rev3.bin cbpark3-atari-6-29-AD79.bin I just ran the first one (cbpark0, which is rev1) and it seems to cycle through the various playfields/level while playing music and counting down the timer. It's so rad to see the step-by-step progression of the development of this game. Joe

That's a professional programmer with socket module support, definitely no cheapie. (you're lucky to find those for under $500 used) Anyone who owns one should know what he's doing. These 2716 and 2732 chips will be no sweat for it. Thanks. That was my programmer. FWIW, the Intel 2763 EPROMs were apparently just 2764s factory-programmed by Intel with the customer's code. They read fine as 2764s. Thanks, too, to Von Guard for releasing these to the community. It was a fun time today. Nervous and excited, hoping that every time I pressed "Read" my programmer wouldn't explode in some unfortunate stroke of bad luck. I was honestly surprised that all of them read fine and matched checksums that were written on some of the labels. Maybe "bit rot" is slightly over-rated... Joe

Continuing my rounds of spring cleaning. I just posted 50 games (most of the CIB) for INTV, RCA Studio II, and O2. Check them out! http://search.ebay.com/_W0QQsassZjoesm00th Joe

More Spring cleaning! I just put up some more stuff on eBay: http://search.ebay.com/_W0QQsassZjoesm00th The interesting stuff includes: Radio Shack Tandyvision One Console Intellivision INTV Sears Super Video Arcade Console Intellivision INTV Vintage RCA Studio II Console complete! 1977 Rare Magnavox Odyssey 2 System Console w/ Controllers+PS O2 Konami Dance Dance Revolution Ultramix 2 & Pad DDR Xbox Microsoft Xbox Console w/ Accessories & Playboy skin So, be sure to take a look! Joe PS - Now that the big items are out of the way, I'll be putting up a bunch of Atari 2600, 2600 import, O2, RCA Studio II, and Intellivision games over the next few weeks. Stay tuned

The continuing saga of the paring down of my collection... This week contains my entire Game & Watch collection (each one up individually), some Xbox & PS2 games, and other random classic videogame stuff! http://search.ebay.com/_W0QQsassZjoesm00th Joe

OK, as promised, I've started to sell off major portions of my collection so I can focus on my true love of Atari. Over the next few months, I'll be putting up 20-30 items a week until I'm done. This will include some Atari 2600 imports, Intellivision, O2, Game & Watch, and tons of other random classic videogame stuff (and maybe some more recent systems, too). Some goodies this week include Chad Schell's Intellicart & Cuttle Cart 2, Intellivision Computer & Keyboard Modules, Atari Video Pinball standalone, O2 Power Lords, Sean Kelly's Vectrex MultiCart, and some rare Channel F. http://search.ebay.com/_W0QQsassZjoesm00th Joe

One more bump before the stuff goes on eBay. Feel free to make me offers on anything - no reasonable offer refused! Also, if you want to see pictures of anything, let me know and I can take one. Joe

List updated again. There's still a *ton* of stuff left, so feel free to make some offers! Joe

PM sent!