gulag picture radio

Electronic Boutique is running a deal that if you buy $75 of Dreamcast stuff, they'll give you a free used Dreamcast. Wierd, eh?

Have you thought about setting up cheap bundles of the Lynx units? I don't have any Lynx stuff, and would appreciate the chance at a "starter set" for cheap. Perhaps you could have a bundle with two Lynx units and whatever head-to-head games might be available to you? That might be a bit of administrative hassle, but seem like a way to make it attractive to collectors jsut starting out. Either that or you could see if the nice folks at Songbird wouldn't be interested?

Cool! My copy of that record is in the mail to me right now. I can hardly wait. I'm not a DJ, but I figure that it's a cool enough object to just own... I'm looking forward to it coming soon! I'll have to see what the music looks like run through an Atari Video Music unit.

There is another guy- Spike The Percussionist. He built a rackmount Atari that he uses with SynthCart and regular ol' games too. There are some example songs that you can grab from his website that use the Atari. http://www.manipulate.net/skan/index.html As for doing cover songs, it's pretty hard with SynthCart since it can play all the notes in a major scale or a minor scale, but not both at the same time. That means that cover songs are confined to hits like "Three Blind Mice" and "Jingle Bells". Not that I'm complaining.

In the late 80's in the Chicago suburb that I grew up in, there was Mitch's Coin Shop that had Atari carts in the window. They were $2.85 each. Neighborhood kids sold the games to Mitch for him to put in the window. I got a couple games there, but the one that I remember best is Ghostbusters. He also started brokering toys too- really weird seeing a MIllennium Falcon hanging in the window of a coin shop for $25.

Can any of you recommend software to use that would run on a Palm? I'd rather not stroll to the flea market with a big binder if possible.

Hi there. I've done the audio and video mods on my Atari 6-switch. There is still a buzz on the audio lines after double checking my work, and I wonder if it isn't interference from the RF circuitry on board. Since I'm not going to ever use the RF again, can I just disconnect that section? Could it actually be causing the problem that I'm talking about? Thanks.

The DreamCast was my entry into modern consoles. I had an Atari in the early 80's (still got it) and I played that from time to time through high school and even college. I wasn't terribly interested in the 80's/90's era systems... not knocking them- just that contemporary gaming was off my radar. Though I did play games on my Amiga from time to time. Over the last few years is when I started collecting other systems and the prices on NES and Genesis systems was too good to pass up. As of last Christmas, the most modern system that I had in the house (not counting my CarnEvil cabinet) was an SNES that I found for $15. A couple of my friends thought that I should have a taste of the modern gaming world, so they got me a DreamCast. It was exhillarating. What makes DC interesting for me is that Sega is not afraid to experiment in new types of gaming. My favorite games are the unusual ones like "Caution Seaman", "Samba De Amigo", "Jet Grind Radio". While they may not make good marketing sense, that's not my job... my job is to enloy these new directions in gaming. Of course there are a lot of other great titles- and I really like the homebrews and emulation packs that have come out for it. It's a shame that the console is gone, but I still really like it. It's been a good introduction into a world of gaming that has more than 32 on-screen colors.

DO you still have the storage units? Are they the kinds with teh woodgrain fronts? How much are they? Thanks!

Here in America of course we celebrated our patriotism by blowing a lot of stuff up (I did too, and I went a little too far this year... set off a few car alarms), but a long weekend also means garage sales and extra trips to the thrift store! Garage sales were a bust (I guess that everyone was still sleeping it off), but the thrifts were very good to me. Check it out: Sega CD @2.62 ea: Power Factory w/ c&c music factory Bill Walsh College Football Ground Zero Prize Fighter Supreme Warrior Power Rangers ($1.99) Sega Master System @$1.50 ea. My Hero Ghost House Reggie Jackson Baseball Great Soccer Great Football Great Baseball Pro Wrestling Alex Kidd in Miracle World World Grand Prix Hang On & Safari Hunt Choplifter Shinobi Carmen Sandiego Great Golf Out Run TI99/4a with speech synth & joysticks- $6 oh, and I also found a couple of Speak & Spells. More with my fascination with speech synthesis. So it's been a classic Sega weekend for me. What did everybody else find?

I don't know if it's a web thing, but the GameStop chain is is offering $25-35 trade-in on old consoles. NES actually gets more than SNES oddly. Maybe that's what you're thikning of?

I just found one of these TI computers today for $6 with joysticks and the voice synthesizer. Anyone know of any programs that will speak whatever I type? I'd love to find something like SpeechToy on the Amiga. I guess that I could try to find a copy of Parsec, eh? Thanks for help!

Jim, you had an incredible haul this week- congrats! I got some scores today I think, nothing ground shaking but pretty good... Sega Genesis official smoked plastic storage case MIB $8 TI99/4A with sound module and joysticks, etc. $6 NES power pad unused $3 5x SMS games $3 ea. (Shinobi, Out Run, Carmen Sandiego, Choplifter, Great Golf... any of these games any good?) Casio RapMan keyboard $8 (yep, I collect Casio keyboards... kinda dumb, I know) Not too bad in this part of the world. So I got the TI99 because I want to hear it swear. Anyone know of any programs to make the sound chip talk as I type?

Nice to see a couple of Odyssey enthusiasts here. I just posted a list of some goodies that I scored at a garage sale today. http://www.atariage.com/forums/viewtopic.p...p=102873#102873 I've had a system kicking around for awhile with a couple games, but today's find will make me definitely fire up the thing soon. I'm not big into sports games which is most of what I've found. If any of you want to swap for space games, let me know!

I've been really lucky with classic gaming stuff lately. I found a box full of Odyssey 2 games- all in boxes: Casino Slot Machine! Take The Money and Run! Pocket Billiards! Hockey! / Soccer! Football! Bowling!/Basketball! (no box) Computer Golf! Volleyball! Baseball! K.C. Munchkin! K.C.'s Krazy Chase! (voice game) P.T. Barnum's Acrobats! (voice game) 50 cents a piece... not so bad, eh? Before today, I've only had three games and a couple of consoles that I haven't fired up yet. It's been a million years or so since I've played Odyssey 2, it's about time I tried. I never noticed before that all of the game titles end in exclamation points. Sort of like the titles of musicals... Or the one disaster story in every issue of Reader's Digest. "Tornado!" "Narwhal!" If only I had also found the voice module for Odyssey now that I have games for it. I've got a thing for voice synthesis and would love to play around with Magnavox's take on it. You could just type stuff on the Odyssey keyboard and hear the computer croak it out, right?

Hi there. I was at a performance in February of several electronic groups who use video games for their sound. They had a video running in the background of all kinds of video game era detritus (including the abominable Pac-Man Christmas special). One item that they showed was a tutorial video for getting better scores on 2600 games. It was everything that you'd expect an 80's direct-to-video production would be, bad sweaters, big hair, cheesy mustaches... and the guys looked just as bad! I talked to the owner of the tape. It was a dupe that he'd swapped for and he really wanted to swap me something for it. He hasn't answered my emails, so I guess that I don't have anything of interest to him. I figured that someone out there must have this tape. I remember it giving scoring tips on Atlantis, Missile Command, Space Invaders, and Demon Atack among others. I'd love to see this tape again. Here's what I can offer. I'm a video editor/producer by trade. Even if you have an original VHS, it's probably deterioriating. I can dupe it onto a digital format and even do some restoration work to it. If someone would like to lend me their copy, I'll fix it up and mail back a new and improved copy along with your original. Any takers? Anyone even know the tape that I'm talking about?

Ah yes, Mark was way cool. Clever too... or did I already say that? Does he have pics of his hacks online someplace? I gotta see that Vectrex thing again.

BTW does anyone know where I can download the "Golden Shower" video? I'm on a modem and don't stream all that well. It's always better when I can download.

THe reason why you hear those same old Atari 2600 sound effects is that they were released on one of the major collections of sound effects used in the TV industry. Valentino published it if I remember correctly. Those sounds have been repackaged and resold a million times since then... I have them on some old FX records as well as on some more recent CD's. Lots of stuff from 2600 Pac-Man and 2600 Donkey Kong. As a video editor I would feel that the bleepiness of those sounds is editing shorthand for "videogame" since current video games sound so lifelike and cinematic, it might be hard to establish that the people in the commercial aren't just watching a movie. Especially when you only have a few seconds to get across what they're doing. It reminds me of when I was working on a film in college. The filmmakers shot a couple scenes of kids playing video games, even including gameplay as part of their dialog. The kids were playing a Nintendo game. Unfortunately the filmmakers didn't think to ask permission from Nintendo to show the game onscreen until after the film was shot. Nintendo insisted on seeing the script, and after weeks of tying things up they said that they didnt like the script (I remember their rejection letter saying that the film was too downbeat and didn't maintain Nintendo's fun-loving outlook... or words to that effect). In the end, I got in touch with a guy who wrote a game for the Amiga. He was thrilled to have us use his videogame in the film. We simply shot some footage of the Amiga game and edited it where we had previously shown the Nintendo. I think that I added a few of those Atari sound effects more as an "in" joke that anything else. I can't be the only guy in the TV industry who think that those sounds are cool.

So where can I learn about the Battlezone circuit? I might want to kick that into my pimped out Atari, eh? As for the Palm, I don't have any experience with that, but how about just burning some CDR's with your stuff? perhaps CDRW's with your favorites of the moment? Then you can just use a discman in your rumpus room. Even cheaper, you could probably find an old laptop at a thrift for $10. I've found two at such prices, but with Win 3.1 installed... do the approrpiate programs also run on the old OS? Would either of those work for you?

I've thought a little about selling modded Atari's. I have been pimping out my Atari pretty well, and doing little things like putting all the parts on a little circuitboard rather than having components rattling around, etc. There are a few other things that I plan on adding, like a blue power LED, flip-up LCD TV etc. to make it truly portable and modern... but time is not on my side. Hopefully it won't be long before I have a couple evenings again to do some of this work.

Okay- it looks like we both did the same thing. I need to go check my work and see what I did wrong. I think that I may have the pair of signals sharing a ground somewhere, so maybe that's bridging things someplace. BTW it's interesting that a couple of the audio mods that I've read suggest bending the pins out and soldering right onto them. I've broken the legs off of a couple of TIA chips that way. Why not just solder to the underside? It seems easier to use an xacto to cut any traces rather than soldering onto very fragile legs of an IC. Or is there just something that I'm not seeing?

Oh yeah, Paul kicks some tall ass if you asked me. Even with my audio mod still being a bit wonky, the bass that an Atari can kick out is beyond incredible. I actually have a pair of the carts, but I broke the first one. The little cap in there busted off, and I just haven't gotten up enough gumption to put an order into Jameco for a 5 cent part. I'll prolly pick up the parts necessary to do a copule more more mods on backup systems. I've also used a homebrew cart for GameBoy to do music. That also has some incredible sounds. None of my stuff is up yet, but the guy that I play music with has a bunch of mp3's up if you want to hear. Just search for "Bud Melvin" on mp3.com. He also has two synthcarts.

Hi Rob, I did the two audio output and video output mods to my six switch to use it with the 2600 Synthcart. I haven't worked on it for a while, but I seem to still have a bit of grounding hum- and also a bit of bleedthrough between the two oscillators. I need to go back and check my work obviously, but are your outputs totally separate or can you hear some bleedthrough as well? Thanks- I'd love to get this project finished finally. BTW I did the video mod a la the VCSp instructions and the two oscillator mod is one that was published in The 2600 Connection zine.

SNES systems are pretty rare here in Chicago for some reason. I've only ever found three of them, and they were mostly too much money. Last year I finally found one at a garage sale with a bunch of Intellivision carts (!) for $20. Not too bad. Turned out to be a great "investment" as later that day I found MarioPaint for .99 and the mouse for 1.99 at the local Funcoland. I'm a musician and my primary interest was in playing with the cheesy music sequencer inside MarioPaint. I also use a homebrew music cart for GameBoy, but it's a pig doing all the work on the GB itself, so it's really nice being able to do work using the Super Game Boy adaptor. Oh, and I hope that no one thinks that I'm evil for keeping both of the Atari's that are part of this exceedingly generous offer. I've got a couple friends who are getting married, and I already bought them wedding gifts... you know, stuff that a couple would want. I don't have any more dough to spend on them, so am happy to be able to give them each an Atari and some games out of my collection. I've also got some busted Atari's, so I'm hoping to cobble together enough pieces to get a few more to work. I've also had a pretty crappy couple of months with work, so I don't mind saying that this has really helped perk me up! Thanks, Skywalker. Oh and as for recent finds in the wild, I recently found a complete Sega Master System in its box. It's the giant assortment that includes the gun and the 3D specs and a 3D game. It doesn't look like it was played much as the clear protective stickers are still on the game unit. I played it today for the first time. It was pretty fun, especially at $25. I also found an old Magnavox Oddyssey Pong for $5. Oh yeah- and at the Midwest Classic I bought a few little things- like I found the little tripod for a Virtual Boy for $3. I had found the VB controller six months ago at a thrift in a bag of other junk for $1. Couple weeks later found the main unit for another $3. So I've got a working VB for less than $10! I can't believe it, especially piecemeal like this. What was really great was hitting a local thrift store in Milwaukee. I found a KC Munchman (that had been for sale at the show out of its packaging for $30) for $2 in box. I also found one of those Atari joysticks (I think that they're made by Champ) that coils its cord into its own base. That cost $1, and we also got a C64 for $4. Oh, and a TI99 (in beige-odd) for $1. I haven't had such a haul in a long time, so it looks like might be on the road to recovery! Thanks again Skywalker! If there's ever anything that I can do for you, just let me know.