gulag picture radio

I think that this continues to prove my "two system" rule. Once a system is two consoles behind whatever is current, it becomes cheap. This doesn't apply to chain stores, just to mom & pops and thrifts. With the N64, I thinkt that enough parents still remember how much they spent on those carts and systems that they're unwilling to let their kids part with the systems for cheap. It wasn't until Game Boy COlor came out that original Game Boy became worthless, NES didn't become super cheap 'til N64 hit the market etc. This is jsut my experience, and it amuses me to try to make a rule out of a bunch of more-or-less random circumstances. While N64 isn't two systems away yet, I think that this summer people will be ditching them like crazy. The cartridge as as medium is long gone, and I think that parents like the neatness of the DVD style cases of today's games. So as not to clutter up their lives with scattered carts, I think that they'll be getting rid of them. Of course I have no proof to back this up, but I've got to think that with the piles of N64 games at various game shops I've been to, they can't be buying these games anymore which should plunge their value in the eyes of parents & kids. I just found a couple of N64 consoles and controllers and 2 James Bond games for less than 15 bucks. I'm definitely looking forward to finding some N64 stuff in the future - I'll bet your local Blockbusters and Hollywood video rental places will be selling out their stock pretty cheap pretty soon. I also really like the Saturn, but it's so rare that the games turn up anyplace. Too bad as I thikn that graphically it does a much better job than N64. Original PlayStation should also be nigh worthless soon as you can can get a new PSone for $25. This summer should be good for garage sales featuring these newer systems! I'd give it all up if I could just find a Vectrex tho...

This is the game I'm dying to play on the Game Cube! I got into Caution Seaman on the Dreamcast in a big way, as I enjoyed the stress-free play and the unusual game concept. I'd like to pick up Animal Crossing, but even used the game is a bit much for me right now... This is my first time since the Atari that I've had a console while it's actually popular, but man are those games expensive! Even used copies are only a few bucks less than a new one. A couple of you have said that you're sick of the game. If you feel like trading it to me , feel free to PM or email me. I've got dupes of a lot of classic stuff. I gotta get me one of those e-readers too...

I'm at the same point when I last saved my game about a year ago. It's just supposed to be like you have a friend you can go visit from time to time - I don't think that the game progresses to any other environs. Though Seaman has hinted at clues to the mystery of his past. I have two of them out there. they get into slapfights an awful lot. I gotta turn the clock back in my DC so I can see what action I've missed in the last year. Man, did my girlfriend and I just love Seaman! Wasn't a sequel supposed to come out for PS2? I saw some screenshots, but I don't the game ever hit America. Vivarium,'s website was all in Japanese last time I checked, and they were hawking a PC version that worked via e-mail somehow... like Seaman was going to send you mails, and I htink that he lived on your desktop. I'd love to get that... I also would liked to have gotten the exclusive Seaman branded DC (it was red with the logo on it) and they even had a Seaman explorers jacket and a bunch of other explorer-themed schwag. None of that stuff ever made it over here...

Today was good to me. 40 cents netted me River Raid II. I also scored a second N64 console for $2.50 - I got my first one last week with two controllers and a bunch of other attachments for $4. Everything works and I even picked up two James Bond games for $4 each. Also found Sega CD for Genesis II for $2.50 and a Genesis III (tiny one) for $4 - if only I could find a Genesis CDX I'd have every model of Genesis available. The thrift is sitting on two Game Gear sets in the cordura carry bags, each with a ton of games. $45 get you the system with about 20 games, and $80 gets you around 60 games (roughly speaking). I just dont' want to spend real money on games I know nothing about. But if they went half price, I might reconsider...

I've got Nanoloop, but haven't done anything meaningful wth it yet. I did re-create a bunch of Dr. Who sound effects with it though! I'd also like to pick up Little Sound DJ, the other Game Boy music app, I just haven't gotten around to it. I"m also not really familiar with tracker software so it's a little daunting. As far as the music that I make, it's a bit on the weird side I guess. I can't really characterize it very well, but I hope to release some of it in the coming months. I've got an apartment full of strange instruments, so I should finally put it all to use! Most of the music that I've done has been as background to the odd spoken word work that I've done. If you're interested in hearing some things that I've done for the radio, you can search for "Gulag Picture Radio" on mp3.com. If any of you guys want me to put you on my little mailing list, PM or email me. Thanks for asking!

That's what I was referring to... I just didn't know what to callit. I would be majorly bummed to learn that it's actually not happening - especially after seeing all the quality work that went into the project.

Just wondering whether those fab "pre-fab" audio and video mod boards were in fact unveiled at Philly. Thanks!

These myths abound about only keeping ROM images for 24 hours or a week - same as the "Fair use" myth that means that you can sample up to 8 bars of a song or X number of seconds without having to pay etc. etc. You'd think that these sorts of laws would be simple - either what you're doing is illegal or it's not. The limits of these digital-era laws are being tested every day, and ain't nothing free. Few companies are willing to entirely let go of even creaky old product that they'll never make a dime on. In some cases it's because there are still rights issues (like any use of licensed characters like Pac-Man or Mario), but mostly because it's not worth having their very expensive lawyers spending time on an issue that doesn't ostensibly make them any money. I should mention that just because you're unlikely to get prosecuted doesn't make the activity less an infraction. I agree that really nobody cares enough and we should just continue to have fun with our emulators. We should also be aware that we are enjoying works created and owned by others and if they get mad at us, they're entitled to. There's a lot to be said for the idea that emu's keep classic games alive in the minds of players. Nintendo has really seized the idea of repackaging their old classics as games for the e-reader peripheral (a fascinating item I might add), and in new games like Metroid and Animal Crossing you can unlock fully emulated classic Nintendo games. It was pretty amazing to play unlocked classic NES Metroid on an HDTV at a Nintendo event...

When you say that you accompanied on Sega sounds, how did you do that? Does Sega have a music-type cart? SNES has a music seauencer of sorts built into Mario Paint, but you can't play in real-time. Besides SYnthcart and the Intellivision keyboard attachment (and a couple other C64 things) I can't think of any other real-time music stuff on any of the classic systems. I'd be very interested to learn of this Sega thing that you mention.

The $150 mark rings a bell. I can recall a mom and pop video store having a sign up in their window when the price dropped. There were also selling Star Raiders when it was new for $168 because of the "valuable" controller that came with it. I can't imainge that they sold a whole lot at that price... I held out 'til I picked mine up at Zayre for .99.

What it seems to come down to is that the emulator isn't the offending technology - it's the ROM's that are a source of contention. Creating an emulator of the 2600 isn't going to be illegal in that it didn't contain any proprietary technology - all of the chips were just off-the-shelf components - that's why there were unlicensed Atari clones back then. It's when you use ROM's for games that you don't physically own that things get touchy. More recent systems like NES and Playstation and whatever have lots of proprietary technolgy, meaning that even if you reverse engineer or emulate the chip, you are potentially breaking the law. That's why there aren't clones of these systems around (legal ones anyway). Sony made a HUGE fuss over a product called Bleem that let you play PS games on a PC. They claimed that they feared that this would proliferate game piracy, but I think that they also didn't like the idea of losing console sales. Bleem also created a product for Dreamcast that could run Sony games much better than an actual Playstation. That got quashed right quick. I think that most companies really don't care about emulating old stuff - especially since in the scheme of things it's not like there's a massive movement to play old games in leiu of buying new ones. There are also cases of copyright owners actually using emulators for development, reissues, etc. All in all, I'd say don't worry too much about it.

Trivial Pursuit on the SMS? That's gotta be a little nutty... I didn't even know that Klax came out for that system. Interesting that you mention finding a lot of of SMS stuff - the same is true here in Chicago. I've assembled a pretty nice little collection, but the prices vary wildly. Because they mostly come in those tidy boxes with full documentation, sometimes the thrifts want as much as $6. Fortunately it is more often just a buck or maybe two. Recently I found Ghostbusters, Rambo, and some other movie tie in carts for prices that low. Too bad that they didn't do more with the 3D stuff... but I guess that's just me.

That's my guess. The thrifts that I go to are part of a chain. Often when you find games for a system in one store, the system is another. When I hit a different shop today, they had the Lynx I in its pouch with a ComLynx cable for $35. A ridiculous price, I think, though I'd really like to get the pouch and cable someday.

Today was a bit weird. I found Saturn Hockey and College Basketball for $2 each (I'm not big into sports games, but anything Saturn is pretty hard to find around here). Then I found a Mac color classic that was marked half off at $5. When I picked it up, it was rattling pretty badly. Since there was no back cover on the ports I looked inside, and four Atari Lynx games tipped out! $5 for four Lynx games and a Mac to carry them around in seemed like a deal, so I got: California Games STUN Runner Electrocop Blue Lightning (old style Lynx card) I also picked up Jurassic Park for Game Gear for $4 - and I can't tell you why... Now I've just got to see if I have an old Mac keyboard and mouse around here.

It's my performing name. I hesitate to say that it's my band, since there are no other regulars. Mostly I do these spoken-word Firesign Theatre satire pieces, but I've ben working on some music too. My last piece had a lot of Paul Slocum's Synthcart in it. Man, Synthcart is brilliant...

Heyas Doron. Fanastic take on the Moon Patrol theme. I think that this is more like what the world needs - instead of just adding a heavy backbreat to weedy vidogame music, I admire your really taking the song to heart and making something great out of it. (Though I do really enjoy the weedy videogame music I just mentioned... don't get me wrong! ) Kudos to you and your band. Have you played this live yet? I wonder how few people would really know what it is, just enjoying the familiar echoes.

I remember finding a few more on mp3.com. They've recently changed their policies so artists can only have three songs up (unless they pay a membership fee), so it's hard to say whether those songs will still be up. I don't remember any standout tunes that I found. I must admit that while I'm not a fan of the R&B genre, the "for the children" is pretty excellent. What intrigues me most is that if you were going to do a parody of R&B earnestness, this is what it would sound like. I find myself going back and forth a lot as to whether these guys are serious or not in this 2600 love song.

There is a really fantastic handheld website out there. It's called something like Plastic Museum or something like that (now watch... it won't be anything like that at all...). Perhaps they have a forum over there? Of course I'd love to see that kind of thing here since the Al's know how to run a railroad. But I guess they can't cover all of classic gaming's flickering LED bases, can they?

So, does everyone tell you that the joystick coffee table is simply brilliant? Since I moved into a new place, I'm not so into displaying my stuff. I keep small representative collections of things around, and if enyone wants to play it's a matter of a few moments to get everything ready. I have also recently secreted my DVD's, because I don't like the look of them for some reason - maybe because the spines are shiny... hell knows what goes on in my mind.

I also like the Atari Jr. a lot, even though I mostly play a 4 switch. It's unfortunate that in many of the cost-reduced versions of NES era consoles, they remove things like stereo sound and composite outputs. The toploader NES that people pay _so_ much money for only has RF out. Genesis 3 only features mono audio. I think that Genesis 2 is also mono ouput (if it's not, then I can't find the right cable anywhere), but supports stereo through the Sega CD add-on. Does anyone know if the PSone throw out any of these kinds of features?

I found my "straight six" (my own term... I don't really like "big sexy" for some reason) recently. I have other six switch units, but had no idea that this was _so_ much heavier than the rest. I think that you could probably build a balancing scale with the heavy six outweighing a four switch, vader and junior on the other side! Mine also doesn't have the channel selector, and my SN is 67972F.

Is the jacket a size that an adult can wear? IO find it funny that all the jackets that show up on Ebay are Youth XL sizes. I figure that there were probably very few of those coats made for adults. Congrats on the find. Wish that I had a garage at all, let alone one packed to the rafters with treasures! Oh, and I'd love to see a scan of your Atari bucks... never seen that before.

I have a 27" TV in the living room with sound running through a Carver amp with some huge speakers from a recording studio. Needless to say that games with great tunes are outstanding on these speakers - especially modern games like Jet Grind Radio and Rez on the DC. I pretty much switch out systems on the living room TV. I've also got a better quality 27" in my office with a 2600 more or less permanently hooked up, but it's got lots of AV inputs for swapping various systems. When we had our epoch-making Atari party (geez, I can't believe that I'm still talking about this) I had a buttload of 19" TV's that I'd scavanged from various alleys. I painted them all with fluorescent paint, and glued on various strange things. There were a half-dozen of those which served well, but I must tell you about the best TV's for the party. I found a Zenith 25" TV who's cabinet is curved. It is SO 70's and was brilliant for Atari. It even had a "zoom" function. Sadly it was destroyed in a flood. At our party, one of the TV's burned out so I quickly replaced it with a 9 inch B/W. That became very popular, with people lining up just to play on the teeny screen. All of those cool TV's were destroyed in the aforementioned flood, but I did recently pick up a cool TV for future gaming parties. It's a 13" Memorex TV that sold through Target. It's a red ball with a red transparent shield that covers the screen when you're not using it. It resembles the old JVC black and white VideoSphere that a lot of TV collectors are into, but it's color. You can't get the TV anymore unfortunately, unless your Target has leftovers. it's still on their website if you want to see it - search for "videoball". I should also mention that Target's Hello Kitty 13" TV is on sale pretty cheap if you like that sort of thing. Kmart has some novelty TV's too if you want to pick up something crazy for your Atari needs. Look for teh PHilips TV that has a nightlight and clock built in! I've written too much here again, haven't I...

Nathan, those pics are awesome! Since I work in film & TV, I have some movie lights around but I usually find myself using halogen desk lamps etc. The're easy to mess around with, and a darn sight more convenient. You also found out one of the things that I discovered too, that when you photo something reflective you can control what it is that it's reflecting. The other slight modification that I have is that I found an old underlit drawing table at a garage sale for $5. It's big and I take all my Ebay pictures this way. It looks very pro, and makes taking those pics just a little easier. It never would have ocurred to me if I hadn't found the drawing table tho... Very nice work... I just had to tell you.

If your ultimate goal is to display on a web page or remain in the computer domain, a cheap camera that does at least 640x400 resolution will do the trick. There's even a kid's "toy" camera called the "JamCam" that takes okay pictures that costs next to nothing and handles this kind of resolution. I also have the Polaroid I-zone digitial cam, and the two share many of the same problems - the most glaring of which (pun) is the overpowering flash. It took a lot of experimenting to figure out how much to cover the flash to get it to not ruin pictures. Also, cheaper camera's don't have that snazzy LCD viewfinder that shows you exactly what you're shooting. They usually have a parallax viewfinder (read: hole) that you look through, and alignment isn't very accurate through that. If your ultimate goal is to be able to print pictures, you'll want to grab a megapixel camera. What I do now is I use my very nice miniDV camcorder on a tripod to video stuff that I want. Then I just capture it into the computer - that gives me the 640x480 resolution that I like, and uses the great optics of my camera for high quality pictures. Having said that, I hope to pick up a mega-pixel camera in the near future just so I can go out to print with my pictures. "Til then, it's still me and my beat up 35mm Minolta.