Room 34

quote: Originally posted by Chris Federico: Stampede Good one! I never wanted it when I was a kid. I hated anything cowboy-related. I guess it's the effect of growing up in a small town that is just big enough that there's a city-kid/country-kid division and I wanted nothing to do with anything rural. Since growing up I've only lived in very large metro areas, and now I have a lot more appreciation for the rural, especially the West! Anyway... I digress. I just got Stampede recently and I was nothing less than shocked at how fun and addictive it is! (And frustrating, too!)

Here's another in my series of efforts to start threads... This question arises from my personal experience, as a die-hard Atari 2600-loving youth in the early '80s, to a passive collector throughout the '90s, to a more serious collector only in the past few months. I am a player/collector, that is, while I am mainly collecting to get a complete collection, I also still like playing the games, and I am having fun playing games I never had as a kid. Therefore, the question: What is your favorite Atari 2600 game to play NOW that you never owned and had never played back THEN? Mine is a bit of a surprise... to me as well as probably to most of you... Circus Atari! It's the same kind of insanely addictive paddle game as Kaboom! and I just can't get enough of either of them! Another recent favorite that I never had before is Stargate. I was very excited about it when I read about it in Atari Age magazine, but I never saw it for sale anywhere in the '80s. OK... let's hear yours!

I am using a Mac so I can't say what emulator is best for the PC, but I would just say, I think you should support Intellivision Lives! because it is made by the guys who were actually Intellivision programmers back in the day!

quote: Originally posted by Eckhard Stolberg: But since the PAL version of Sapce Shuttle uses Activisions FE bankswitching I'm pretty sure, that a NTSC version like this must also exist. I can confirm that an NTSC version exists, because I have it! That was what started this whole thread!

quote: Originally posted by Russ Perry Jr: But Atari type haven't shown many problems with the label staying on. Actually, I have a bunch of Atari-made games where the end label is curled back or very loose (and of course, a few where it is completely GONE, who-knows-where). But yes, even in my short time of collecting I have gotten two "mystery cartridges" which both turned out to be Frogger!

These were part of various "PAK" (sic) collections of multiple games that Atari put together to sell some of the less-popular games at reduced prices. I believe there was an "Action Pak" and I KNOW there was a "Back-to-School Pak" that featured Brain Games, Basic Programming, and keyboard controllers, because I just lost a bid on a mint copy of this on eBay! Basically, the "Pak" was a large box in color that contained these B&W simplified boxes for the individual games in the "Pak." These "Paks" are in the rarity guide on this site. Word is that the individual games from them were also sold in the late '80s for pennies at Federated Electronics. [ 05-17-2002: Message edited by: room34 ]

A few years back, when my Atari collection was just beginning, a couple of my friends went to a pawn shop that had a ton of Atari cartridges and they bought me 5 carts as a gift! All of them were Combat.

THE CRADLE = RED CHALET = THREE CLAD = ELDER CHAT Hmm... I may never figure out this puzzle but at least it's improving my ability to work anagrams (and to convert binary numbers to base-10)! [ 05-17-2002: Message edited by: room34 ]

quote: Originally posted by Krytol: Then there was the time I found this: (Tempest) Yes! I always thought that game should use the driving controllers! (Especially considering the same programmer was responsible for Indy 500!) It just gets me back on my rant over the stupidity of coming out with the Video Touch Pad and the Kid's Controller when they were functionally identical to the keyboards. Inconsistent strategy was the first nail in Atari's coffin! [ 05-17-2002: Message edited by: room34 ]

I think Ben is going to have to up the ante from the current prizes to my annual salary, because I think I am going to need to quit my job and devote the rest of the year to figuring this out!!!

All right... I'll share it! It is not KG, it is LOG. "A log is a dot, a trio is not." I am thinking it has to do with the number sequence... all of the numbers are under 256, so they could represent screens. But I made a chart of the number of logs in each screen in the sequence, and couldn't get anything out of that either! I guess I've had a head start on everyone else, but so far we're all up to about the same point in figuring this out. I haven't gotten the boxes, but I hadn't tried ASCII. By the time I discovered them it was 4 AM and I had been working on it all night, so I was mired in trying to find some kind of Morse Code pattern in it. I got the Braille but I can't figure out what it's supposed to mean. I tried rearranging the words AND anagramming it, and I'm still stuck. Number sequence... found it, but haven't deciphered it. Found the ring and the key above 82. Not sure what to do with that either. ARRGH! I swore after that insane night I would not think about this any more but now I am obsessed all over again!!! [ 05-17-2002: Message edited by: room34 ]

Ugh... *sigh* I was the person who found the contest on my own (about 3 or 4 weeks ago), and I stayed up ALL NIGHT that night trying to figure it out. I got the Braille stuff and the inscrutible stuff in the border of the picture, but I couldn't get anywhere else with it. Now I am just finally looking at this thread and all hope is lost! [ 05-17-2002: Message edited by: room34 ]

quote: Originally posted by Atariken64: dude i dont knwo you and im sorry you lost but i gota say your website is BAD! (in the 80's breakin 2 sense and not the one most people use!) Ha! At first I thought, HEY! F*** YOU! Then I read the parenthetical note. Thanks! And just a note to dwh I WILL GET YOU BACK! Actually, I probably won't. Lucky bastard! The second was for a friend from high school I've been corresponding with a lot lately about Atari. He was mad that I lost this auction too! [ 05-16-2002: Message edited by: room34 ]

quote: Originally posted by Big Player: My theory is it must be caused by exposure to light. I don't think it's light... my guess is it's exposure to humidity. My Activision carts survived with almost no actiplaque until last summer, when I was away for a month and my basement got humid. A lot of cloth-bound books had mildew all over them, and the dreaded actiplaque had overtaken my Activision games! (Oh yeah, and the inside of the bell of my saxophone corroded severely! Definitely the most frustrating and financially-devastating impact of all of this!) None of my (original) Atari carts (or any other mfr's games, for that matter) have actiplaque, but some of the Atari-made games I've gotten on eBay have it. Of course, the colors of their labels make it less noticeable! [ 05-16-2002: Message edited by: room34 ] [ 05-16-2002: Message edited by: room34 ]

I have similar motivations for my collection... I'm interested in getting all of the pre-silver label Atari-released cartridges, and I'm almost there! (I have about 4 or 5 left to go.) Likewise my reasoning is based on my childhood dreams of owning every cartridge in the catalog. I've determined that two particular catalogs, taken together, cover every game in this subset: The last blue cover "narrow" cartoon catalog from 1980 (with 38 games), and the last red cover non-cartoon catalog from 1982 (49 games). A handful of games had been discontinued by the 1982 catalog, and this 1980 one is the last in which they all appear. (Star Ship, Slot Machine, Flag Capture, Surround, Fun With Numbers/Basic Math... I think that's all of them!) I am trying to resist the temptation now to get all of the label variations (or at least one each of text and picture labels) and the Sears versions! Can someone verify for me that the red 49-game catalog contained all of the last black picture label games? I believe it was right after this catalog that the SwordQuest games game out and the silver labels were introduced. [ 05-16-2002: Message edited by: room34 ]

quote: Originally posted by -^Cro§Bow^-: Hmm...you wouldn't happen to be using a 7800 to play this one would you? Actually, I would happen to be using a 7800. Is that the problem? My 2600 is in a box in the closet because I don't have a power adapter for it. But I just got a mint 6-switcher Sears Video Arcade that I haven't hooked up yet. Maybe I should give that a try.

I just got a copy of Activision "Space Shuttle" complete in box with the cardboard overlays and everything on eBay. I was very excited! However, when I plugged the cart in, I got the rapid "rolling" problem, like the horizontal hold is out-of-whack. (However, I am playing the Atari on a TV made in 1985, one of the first with electronic tuning, so there's no horizontal hold knob.) I have NEVER had this happen on another cartridge, and I don't know what else could cause it other than this possibly being a PAL cartridge that my NTSC TV doesn't like. I e-mailed the seller and she claimed the game had been tested and worked, and was definitely NTSC. She suggested that I should clean the cartridge, but I really don't see how this could be the problem. The picture is perfectly clear, and I don't get the vertical lines (in place of the game) that are common on a dirty or loosely-plugged-in cart. It is JUST the rapid vertical rolling. Does anyone have an explanation for this OTHER than a PAL/NTSC incompatibility?

Hi all... this is just a vent of frustration over losing two rather rare items I was bidding on on eBay. I had winning bids on these items for several days, only to lose because I was out of town when the auctions closed! The items were both in excellent condition, complete with instructions and boxes. They were "Submarine Commander" and the "Back-to-School Pak" featuring "Brain Games," "Basic Programming," and two keyboard controllers! I just wanted to see if the lucky buyer of these items was reading this discussion group so I could express to them my deep frustration over losing these items! Oh well... congratulations, whoever you are!

Well, I criticized Pac-Man earlier, a criticism that is based on the past 20 years of experience. But I must confess my origins... I got my Atari 2600 in May 1982, when I was 8. I had NEVER played an arcade game before (too short). I had HEARD of Pac-Man, but I had never played it. The reason we GOT the Atari was to get Pac-Man. At the time, I LOVED Atari Pac-Man, but it was only because I didn't know any better! A couple years later, I finally got tall enough to play arcade games, and I was shocked when I played the real Pac-Man how much better it was than what I was used to. Of course, by then about 1984 even Ms. Pac-Man was already ancient history!

Thanks for the great tips! As for removing the labels, in this particular case I have NO reason to salvage them because they were already fairly destroyed. The carts themselves were really dirty, so I disassembled them and soaked all of the plastic pieces overnight in a mild soap-and-water solution. That of course ruined the already-ruined labels even more, but didn't make them any easier to remove! I think I'll use the glue spray approach to also apply my new replacement labels I made for a couple games (including Raiders of the Lost Ark) that came to me in broken cartridges. (Thank God for a stack of extra Combats with the easy-peel plastic labels!) [ 05-10-2002: Message edited by: room34 ]

I'd have to go with Q*Bert. I just got it recently, so maybe I haven't given it enough time, but am I not mistaken that you can't actually move the joystick diagonally in it? It seems like there's some arcane process of up-down-left-right that somehow determines which diagonal direction Q*Bert jumps. Incredibly lame! This now beats out my previous whipping boy for lamest arcade conversion, Pac-Man. (At least that game's playable.)

Now that I am close to completing my "basic" (i.e. one of each game, not all label variations) collection of the pre-silver-label-era Atari-made 2600 games (to me, the core collection to get!), I am beginning to focus on the condition of the cartridges, to preserve and, in some cases, restore them. The most common issue I have is loose end labels, particularly on the text label carts. Almost all of the end labels are curling back a little, and some are barely hanging on. Does anyone have any recommendations for the best way to reattach these, i.e. the best kind of glue to use, and techniques to get the label completely and securely attached without leaving visible glue residue? And as a follow-up question, I also have several duplicate carts that apparently were in a flood... the labels showed severe water damage. I decided to take these carts apart to perform some devious Frankensteinian experiments on (which I haven't really started), but I am finding the labels on many of them exceedingly difficult to remove completely. So, the other end of the spectrum -- what's the best technique to completely remove labels? Thanks! [ 05-10-2002: Message edited by: room34 ]

quote: Originally posted by Gunstar: But I do have a regular manual tv switch box hooked up to the 4port rf and have all my rf systems hooked up that way. So what you're saying is that a 4-port 5200 CAN use a regular manual RF switchbox? I am currently bidding on a 5200 on eBay that looks to be a 4-port that's missing the switchbox, because the seller says they couldn't figure out how to hook it up. Am I going to need to get a special cable, or does the 5200 have a built-in cable like the 2600, that I could just connect to one of my existing RF switchboxes?

OK, well I don't believe it's an NTSC/PAL issue... my 7800 system and carts are all NTSC, and I am having the problem. I think there must be something about the way carts for certain systems including Atari 7800, Colecovision, and NES were made that causes this sort of thing to happen. Does anyone else know more about this than I do (that is, anything)?

Are they actually characters, or just a bunch of scrambled graphics? I play all of my carts exclusively on my 7800 (why bother hooking up the 2600?)... All of my 2600 carts play with no problem (except some Activision ones that need a "jiggle" but then work), but I have some problems with certain 7800 carts. For instance, my Pole Position II cartridge always gets screwy about halfway through the "race" round. Some of the other 7800 games also go garbled after a while. I remember back in the early '80s, my best friend had a Colecovision that did this, and I had some friends with NES systems in the late '80s that also had these kinds of problems. What exactly is it about carts on these systems that causes them to malfunction like this? And how come it never EVER happens with 2600 carts? Anyone...?