Rob Mitchell

Lunar Lander (graphics) (supposidly being programmed) John Dondzila is interested in making this one happen ... Rob Mitchell, Atlanta, GA

Well .. Thrust .. Gravitar .. and Codebreaker .. Rob Mitchell, Atlanta, GA

Hey .. I would like to see this Vectrex BIN .. and load it up on my VecRAM cart and see what it looks like on a real Vectrex! I've been dabbling in Vectrex programming off/on .. and have actually written a real program for the Vectrex: The Proof of the Pythagorian Theorem .. and it works! There are two excellent Vectrex programming tutorials .. makes it easy! Now it is time to check out the 2600 programming info .. and see what I can play with .. Rob Mitchell, Atlanta, GA (full of programming dreams)

For others .. I use a black plastic denum laptop bag .. I stuff the side pocket with adapters, cables, cuttle cart and a SMS controller pad. Not everything .. but much more portable .. Rob Mitchell, Atlanta, GA

Here's more ideas for 2600 games: Smithereens (Odyssey 2) (2 catapults behind castles versus eachother) Joysticks. Dogpatch (Bally Astrocade) (two guys with shotguns shoot the can over opponent with buckshot) fast and furious (paddle controls angle of gun) Hearts & Bones (Hewlett Packard 200LX palmtop) (Better than MS: Minesweeper) Keyboard Crossfire (C64, Atari 8bit) (classic move and shoot through grid of city blocks while others shoot at you) One or two joysticks (Robotron style)? Killer Bees (Odyssey 2) (avoid the bees to score) Joystick Lunar Lander (text game) (pre Atari) Keyboard Lunar Lander (graphics) (supposidly being programmed) I have drawings of the top three of this list if anyone is interested. Paul?, Thomas? Others? Rob Mitchell, Atlanta, GA

2600 Gravitar is an excellent game .. and well done .. I enjoy it immensely as there is so much to do and so many planets and levels to complete. I get so engrossed in it .. and forget I am playing a (lowres) 2600 game. I use the Starplex 5 button controller ( this thing is set up like arcade Asteroids control) (Left, Right, Tractor/hyperspace, Thrust, Fire). It makes for a great Gravitar experience. I also use it for 2600 Thrust and Vectrex Minestorm and Vectrex Gravitrex. Red label Gravitar is common .. pay $1 for it, play in your 7800 and enjoy! Rob Mitchell, Atlanta, GA

Space Treat is getting better and better! Thanks Rasty! Rob Mitchell, Atlanta, GA

No big deal .. Just replace the RF cord .. or hack a RCA out on the back and connect from the RF box via coaxial cable. Rob Mitchell, Atlanta, GA (I don't like external cables.)

Just a small reply about controllers: You need two sets of paired paddles (4 total). You need one pair of driving controllers You need one pair of Keyboard Controllers You need many joysticks of various types to get the feel of what you like. If you see a trakball, pick it up (Atari, Wico) If you see an Atari Light Gun, grab it. Get some rare carts for trading with others. Have fun! I was in your shoes about 1997. I started with an initial purchase of 60 carts and console with controllers for $20. Rob Mitchell, Atlanta, GA

Donno .. But I remember seeing the US patent with circuits for this thing .. I wonder if it has Lumina 0,1,2,3 plus Chroma that can be run through the standard 2600 Lumina/Chroma mod ...?? Rob Mitchell, Atlanta, GA

I'll do some print screens and see if they can be scanned. .. I might have to get your address and send via slow mail. I think the text Lunar Lander would be cool! I'm gonna go get my old Basic games book and look it up .. for anyone who may want to program it ... I wonder if it is on the net ... Rob Mitchell, Atlanta, GA

BTW: If you look at the top deck of an original 1977 Sunnyvale Heavy Sixer, you can see through slits which were to be the openings for two speakers that were to be built inside! That's why the top deck looks like a speaker grill. Way back when, the disk from the top of my Sears joystick fell through the slits into the console and rattled around inside until I opened it up and retrieved it. Atari changed the design .. But the TIA chip still has two pins for the two sound channels. Rob Mitchell, Atlanta, GA

Atari 2600: Indy 500, Surround, Space Invaders, Codebreaker :wink: Arcade: Stunt Cycle (jumped 32 busses), Death Race. Vectrex: Minestorm, Gravitrex, Repulse (second highest score ever!). Bally Astrocade: Dogpatch (no looses yet!). Rob Mitchell, Atlanta, GA

I have two AVMs .. Both off eBay .. One was in a freak auction that the guy tried to kill at the last minute because he didn't think he was getting enough $$ for it .. Got it for $145. The second one off eBay was "broken" because someone had cut part of the hardwired AC adapter cord .. Got it for $45 .. and spliced the cord back together in a nice way .. and it works! A problem with the AVM is that the plastic colored inserts that cover the buttons do fall out. I am missing two colored inserts .. and when I showed it off in Cinciclassic last fall, I noticed that one was about to fall out .. So I made a point of pressing each one well to hopefully seat it well in place. I will probably auction off the better of the two AVM on eBay ..and keep the one I repaired (which is missing the two inserts). I need to get a photocopy of the manual .. if anyone would mind running off a copy .. preferably color copy. Someone had an AVM for auction some months ago that is modified to put out Lumina/ Chroma/ or Composite video instead of Ch2/3 RF. Rob Mitchell, Atlanta, GA

Well .. nothing Atari game related in some time .. But I did find an electric monorail train set complete in box for $2.99 with AC powerpack, monorail locomotive and three cars. This thing is soooo cool! I had to repair the locomotive .. and I need one new part .. which I expect to find .. and I'm up and running! Enough track to make a figure 8. Made by Remco 1970. Rob Mitchell, Atlanta, GA

Does anyone know what I am talking about? There is/was an overlay that goes over the console .. and specifies what every switch is for in SS. If anyone has one for the four switch, I would like a photocopy for my personal use. Rob Mitchell, Atlanta, GA

What does this look like? Brushed aluminum. It was glued to the top of the shaft of the 1977 joysticks .. Mine says Atari .. and I once had two of the Sears disks that were once attached to the pack-in sticks that came with our 1977 Sears Video Arcade. The Diagnostic Test Cart that I have has a typed label taped to the outside of a common 2600 cart. I have seen two others of these DTCs and both have the identical typed label. This is not the printed cart label seen in the Atariage database. ... a label variation? The DTC came with two blue controller port plugs that are wired to test the port functions .. according to the Atari Service Manual. My cart is loose .. I found it in a bag at a LA flea with a bunch of loose commons. I may type up the label and send to Atariage. Rob Mitchell, Atlanta, GA

Well there is a friend at work who swears that she has 150 games (complete pristine in box) with the console (complete pristine in box) since she bought the VCS. I'm not sure what year she purchased it. I am still trying to get a list of games from her and find out what she has. She won't sell .. and I'm not interested in buying from her. I'm just curious. My story is .. I read the Consumers' Report mag in fall 1977 which concluded that the Atari VCS was the best. So Dad and I went on the hunt .. and found the Sears Video Arcade in Oct1977. I recognized it right away as the Atari with the Sears name (I knew it from the picture in the mag). Dad had to ask the Sears sports salesman who made it. We bought it that same evening. It was the last one in stock. Pack-in game was: Target Fun. So we paid $20 for Tank Plus. Games came out one at a time until just before Christmas. Picked them up one-by-one as they came in stock. Every cart ( except Math. The early heavy sixers were tuned to broadcast on one channel only! Sears (Atari) made the error of sending Ch3 machines to Chattanooga where a TVCh3 is broadcasting .. So we returned our console within 2 weeks to exchange for a Ch4 one (too much interference from TVCh3). We eventually acquired a second set of paddles, keyboard controllers (1978) for Codebreaker... and a total of 20 carts. I kept the manuals .. but eventually trashed the Sears Telegames book boxes .. Later I got the Atari 800 with cassette recorder and some carts. In 1983 I sold the Sears VA w/carts& controllers for $300. At the same time I sold the Atari 800 for $300. Then I got serious about college and grad school. So I failed your criteria. Rob Mitchell, Atlanta, GA

My three: Diagnostic Test Cart (found at a flea in LA for $2) Thunderground Picnic Other: 1977 Joystick hexagonal disk Atari Video Music Atari Controller test platform Rob Mitchell, Atlanta, GA

the SMS gun has different wiring at the plug .. so this has to be cut off and another placed with the correct wiring to work with the Atari's .. Alternatively an adapter with correcting wiring and a small circuit to invert the output of the trigger will make it compatible. The SMS gun works better than the XEGS gun. Rob Mitchell, Atlanta, GA

Hearts & Bones Game Name: Hearts & Bones Description: MS:Minesweeper clone. Game type: Puzzle Board Screen: 9 Vertical Squares by 15 horizontal squares. Each level starts with 8 visible hearts. Control: Atari Keyboard Controller Number of players: 1 Scoring: GAME HIGH (score based on level), HEARTS (Score), BONUS (Mines), MARKS (your marks). Exerpt from instructions: "The goal of this game is to reach all of the Hearts without stepping upon any bones. You get one point for each Heart that you reach, and once you have gotten all eight Hearts on the board, a new board is set up, and play continues. When the last Heart on a board is reached, you will receive a BONUS of an additional eight Hearts if all non- Bone (safe) squares have been explored or if all Bones have been correctly marked. A square is considered 'explored' if it shows a number. Each time you move to a new square a number is displayed in that square. The number represents how many of the eight adjacent squares contain Bones. The squares at the sides of the board have less than eight adjacent squares. Your starting position is always in the upper left corner of the board, and is indicated by the square cursor. As you move about the board, if you step on a square that has no adjacent Bones, the game automatically looks out from that point revealing all adjoining '0' squares and neighbors. You can specify how many bones you wish to have on the starting board. Default is 20 bones to start. Movement is controlled by pressing a number on the number pad. Directional movement keys are 1 through 9 with the exception of 5. 5 is the default MARK key. You can MARK and un-MARK squares that you suspect of having BONES by pressing the MARK key followed by a direction key (1-9). Once you have MARKed a square you will not be able to move onto that square accidentally. If you decide that it doesn't really contain Bones it can be un-MARKed in the same way that it was MARKed, and then you can move onto it. When you complete a board, the number of Bones is increased by one on the next board. The game ends when you step on Bones." Very Addictive gameplay! This game is built into the HP95LX and HP 200LX palmtops. It is better and more challenging than MS:Minesweeper because the player must march across the board rather than randomly with mouse placement. It would be unique on the Atari 2600 because it would be the first homebrew game to use the keyboard controllers. (Yes I know about the SynthCart that uses both keyboards). If anyone who wants to take this challenge and program this game on the 2600, I can send screenshots of the game working on my palmtop. Rob Mitchell, Atlanta, GA

Cool! That's what is called quadrature encoding/decoding! Rob Mitchell, Atlanta, GA

The XEGS light gun is/was a pack-in controller with the XEGS game system (1987). This is/was the last version of the 8-bit computer released. It works with a variety of 8-bit carts as well as the two 2600 carts mentioned. Q: Why did Atari and another company produce Light gun games when there was not a light gun made available for purchase? Only those who bought the XEGS got the gun, right? Rob Mitchell, Atlanta, GA

I've played SS a couple of times .. But I need to get one of those custom console overlays so I can remember the switch control functions. anyone have a spare? Rob Mitchell, Atlanta, GA