Jump to content
Have You Played Atari Today?
2600|5200|7800|Lynx|Jaguar|Forums|Store  

joesmooth

Members
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Content Count

    363

  • Joined

  • Last visited

Posts posted by joesmooth

  1. Posted

    I was in Las Vegas for some business and decided to take a trip around to some of the local videogame stores. At the first one I went to, I was sifting through some of the boxes of junk, and in one of the 2600 boxes pulled out an interesting looking cart with a handwritten label. It was in a 20th Century Fox case and looked nice and clean like it hadn't been touched in years. I set it aside and finished digging through the boxes.

     

    I brought the cart up to the guy at the register and said "Just this.." - the stuff in the 2600 box normally sold for $1 a piece. He looked at the cart and said "This looks interesting" and took it into his back room office. 15 minutes later, after some phone calls and Web searching, no doubt, he comes back and says "Sorry, I can't sell this. It looks to be some sort of prototype and I could probably get $70 for it". I couldn't be sure that it was a prototype without looking at the board and the guy had done this to me in the past with other games (not prototypes, but he bases a lot of his prices on eBay after-the-fact - like, if you look like a "collector"). So I walk out and call Curt Vendel for a second opinion.

     

    After talking with Curt, we realized that it was most definitely a 2600 prototype of Meltdown, which was previously only released for the 7800. I knew the game was a 2600 version, as it didn't have the additional fingers on the PCB for the 7800. So, I went back into the store and asked to look at the cartridge. It turns out that when the guy was in the office, he broke the handwritten white sticker to access the screwhole of the cartridge. He showed me the PCB which was a great looking, flawless EPROM board with an EPROM (I can't remember if it was 2K or 4K) that looked like it came right out of a package - it was totally unscratched and the entire cartridge was in flawless condition. He then said maybe he could sell it for $50 to $70, thinking it was a prototype of the 7800 version.

     

    So, after talking for a while (turns out he is a big collector in Vegas, I guess), I offered to give him cash for it. But then he balked again and said he couldn't sell it at all! He changed his tune now and said he thought it was for the 2600 and could "get $200" for it. Not having that kind of cash, I left. Pissed off and having wasted 30 minutes.

     

    That's the story. Has this ever happened to anyone before? I guess I shouldn't really expect to get bargains at videogame stores, but if the cartridge is in a box of other stuff for sale, it should be for sale, and not have the price jacked up once a customer is interested in the product. The dude says "If I wasn't here and it was just my partner, you would have gotten it for $1" - meaning his partner knew nothing about videogames. The crappy thing is is that I don't think that even Tempest has a copy of this game and it would have been great to image the ROM and preserve it for the community. It was in my hands and then got snapped away. It ruined the rest of my visit to Vegas. I was fuming. :x

     

    Anyway, at least I can positively confirm that I saw a 2600 Meltdown prototype and can provide other visual details if you are curious about it.

     

    Joe

  2. Posted

    I loved those older tvs you could tune the station on. If you got lucky you could turn in the porno channel. Sure it was in b/w with okay sound. But you got it.

     

    You could also tune in on analog cellular phone calls on the upper channels (80s or 90s, if I remember correctly).. :)

     

    Joe

  5. Posted

    OK, this is a long shot, but I am working on a new book entitled "Game Console Hacking" (http://www.syngress.com/catalog/sg_main.cfm?pid=3040) that is a follow-up to the Hardware Hacking: Have Fun While Voiding Your Warranty (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1932266836) book that our beloved Albert Yarusso was a contributor to. The book discusses various hacks and mods you can do to your videogame consoles (totally legal and fun :)

     

    My NES chapter is due today and am in desperate need of an original (e.g., you own it) picture of a Top Loader with one or two dog bone controllers and a picture of the original Famicom console. The pictures will need to be 800 x 600, not blurry, and suitable for publication (hopefully against a white background).

     

    Whoever can provide both pictures to me (JPG, GIF, whatever) or posts them to this topic will get a free copy of the book when it comes out (due August 2004).

     

    So, I think that's it. If you have any questions, please feel free to let me know.

     

    Thanks :)

     

    Joe

  7. Posted

    The Stelladaptors are STILL being sold, but they have been out of stock since Albert returned from Midwest Gaming Expo (I think). He is repleneshing his stock right now.

     

    For some reason, the pages in the store seem to disappear when an item is out ot stock. That's probably not the most user-friendly thing to do.

     

    Anyway, check back at the store link in the next few days.

     

    Joe

  10. Posted

    The July/August 2004 issue of High Times magazine has finally come out with a two-page article about classic games and homebrew development. AtariAge, Digital Press, Ralph Baer, Leonard Herman, and myself (Joe Grand) were mentioned.

     

    You can check out part of the article online: http://www.hightimes.com/mainsite/News/con...p?bid=868&aid=2

     

    Or pick up the physical issue which has other great articles ;)

     

    Joe

  11. Posted

    It sounds like the auto-detect functionality of the Stelladaptor is not properly identifying the controller you have attached as a joystick controller. It's good that it works with your other joysticks (whatever those may be).

     

    Joe

  13. Posted

    That is an excellent label!

     

    I haven't checked out the ROM yet, but if you could add support for the A, B, C, and D tones, that would be cool. IIRC, they aren't really used for anything anymore, but they used to be used on obsucre voicemail systems, to use on the military Autovon phone network, and drop you into the ACD from directory assistance. :)

     

    I can't wait to see someone with their VCSp held up to the phone. How funny.

     

    I'd definitely buy one of these carts, just for nostalgic value.

     

    Joe

  14. Posted

    And you should only notice a delay with the paddle control, not with the driving control or joystick functionality. The paddle delay is due to the fact that there is a long process of performing an analog-to-digital conversion of the paddle's potentiometer value, converting it into the proper USB packet format, sending the USB packet to the PC, having the PC's OS push the packet to whatever application requires it (the emulator), and then having the emulator convert the data into whatever it is being used for. So, it's a hard problem to solve.

     

    Joe

  15. Posted

    Don't get your hopes up for this, the market is far to small for double-ender games for anyone to go through the huge expensive of creating a plastic mold for.

     

    Ballpark figure, how much is "huge expense"?

     

    Anywhere from $3k to $10k for the tool mold and setup, not including the mechanical engineering that needs to go into creating the model and the time spent dealing with it.

     

    Joe

  17. Posted

    I actually don't think this is a custom case. I picked up one of these at the Electronicon videogame show in Philly (the precursor to PhillyClassic) back in 1997 and it worked wonders in my gameroom until I moved across country. I sold it on eBay a few months ago (and it was a PITA to pack and ship).

     

    Yours looks more polished, but other than that they looked exactly the same. And it didn't look like it was hand made or anything custom like that.

     

    Joe

  20. Posted

    Does the Stelladaptor allow programs raw access to the port, so that you can use stuff like the KidVid and keypads and such? Or does it only understand joysticks, paddles, and driving controllers? If that's the case, that's too bad, since it would be a very convenient way to test homebrew I/O devices with Z26.

     

    The Stelladaptor was designed specifically to support Atari 2600-compatible joysticks, paddles, and driving controllers. I wanted to keep it as simple to use as possible for the general user. It has an automatic detection of the three controllers and adding more support would have increased the learning curve tremendously. The goal of this product was to make an easy way for gamers to play ganes, and wasn't really targeted towards homebrew developers.

     

    Joe

  21. Posted

    From what I've heard, the Stelladaptor just works like any other HID device, so as long as there is a proper driver for Windows, I don't see why you couldn't at least use the joysticks in other programs (Paddles, driving controllers, keypads and whatnot might be tricky though).

     

    --Zero

     

    The Stelladaptor is designed as a generic HID-class Gaming Controller. This will allow Windows, Linux, and Mac to recognize it without the need for additional drivers. The joystick will work without a problem with any system that supports USB game controllers. The paddle may work, depending on the program, but the driving controller will need support added to the desired emulator (like z26, which Eckhard did for us).

     

    So, that's why I'm waiting for Noteit to explain what he meant.

     

    Joe

  24. Posted

    Also, make sure you upgrade to the last version of DirectX from www.microsoft.com

     

    I had some problems with z26 on my laptop running Win2K when I used it with an external monitor. The screen would just go blank and the game wouldn't run. But, upgrading to the new Direct X (I think it's 9.0b) solved the problem.

     

    Joe

AtariAge
Forums
Store
General
Follow AtariAge

Copyright ©1998-2021 AtariAge

×
×
  • Create New...