Mirage

So, it would be like playing GameLine games on an Atari, except it would be a java webpage for the games. So, there would be no Atari involved. A Java emulator of the GameLine experience? That sounds cool, I'd like to check that out. EDIT: Wait a sec... I just looked up the GameLine. I misunderstood what it was. It just plays regular Atari games. So, what would your project do? It would just emulate dialing up and downloading the game? Then it would just play in jstella? You'd have to describe more what it would do then. I mean, what would be the difference between this and just seeing a screenshot(s) of the GameLine menus? Sorry, I guess without further explanation, you've lost me.

Could you give a little more info, explanation? I guess I'm not really sure exactly what's going on. I know what the gameline is, but what is the goal/result in more detail? Thanks.

SWEET! Consider my pants pooped!

4th of July Holiday Cart? I doubt Al will be recovered from the last Holiday Cart by then though!

Cool, thanks! Please PM me so I'll have a list altogether of interested parties for when we start this up. I'm sure it will be a month before we get settled in our new place and into our new jobs. I'll start a new thread when the time comes to announce it.

If you're using a newer version of PS and know what you're doing, you can have some vector elements. Most people would take PS and it would all be rasterized though (the fonts and other linework elements won't look as good -- they won't look right), so in a way, to do it very high-quality, Illustrator is the way to go. Just a little bit harder to use at first. If you're happy with the results though, that's all that really matters in the end. It would be nice to get an organized effort going for this to make sure there's a good resource for people to pull high-quality art from, and this will reduce reinventing the wheel by each person, too. Soon, hopefully.

This is why I wanted to start a high-res (and I mean *high-res*, not low or medium) box/manual art scan archive awhile back, but there didn't seem to be much interest at that time. Probably because I admittedly didn't present it properly. I think this community could benefit greatly long-term from that sort of project. I'll soon be in a better position to work on that... I'm moving 1200 miles away on Friday. I'll try a new announcement after we get settled in. In the meantime, if anyone here is interested in helping out with this, send me a PM so we can have a list of interested parties once it gets going.

If you're actually interested in learning either BASIC or batari BASIC, or any other form of programming, skip Atari's Basic Programming cart altogether. It's entirely useless. Collect it if you want to collect it, but with all the resources available to us today, there are much better options for learning! Go check out the programming forums, there are some introductory tutorials and threads there.

mmmmm... Look at the condition of the carts...

Don't encourage sellers to sell high-priced junk by paying for it. Glad you passed on this. May be worth US$10 at the very most, for parts, if that.

I have one of those yellow Star Ship ones too. Always thought it was odd, so if someone had an explanation for it, I'd love to hear it. I suspect it's a late re-release, due to its more modern look, but why different from everything else?

For me, it's 100% (like someone above said) about collecting what I remember as a kid. Atari/Activision/Imagic are priority, since I remember and had those. Other common third-party are second priority. Third are all those oddball US releases, but I don't even care all that much about those (especially since they're usually expensive). Only recently have I become even marginally interested in obtaining any non-US releases. There's just no connection there. Just as in game collecting, you do have gun collectors interested in foreign-made guns. Glock, Beretta, Luger, et al, are very popular in the US with various collectors. But most US collectors will gravitate toward the US standards Winchester, Ruger, Remington, etc. It's what they likely grew up with. It's what their parents and grandparents had. It's most closely related to our history. Don't confuse this with "patriotism", as familiarity is very different from myopia.

According to my database, I have 472 carts for the 2600, with no outright doubles, but that does include some Sears and a few label variation "doubles". I'm thinking it must be over 300 unique titles though. Dang. I wish I hadn't realized that. Now I feel the compulsion to go for 500.

If it's local so you don't have to pay shipping, it's probably not all that bad of a deal. I don't know the value of Australian money though. If $AUS = $US then it may be a little high, but it's the lack of shipping that makes it not so bad. The one dealbreaker for me would be that the 64's keyboard looks to be quite discolored. But, if you can deal with that... I have 2-3 perfectly as-new boxed 64c's though, so I'm pretty picky. Have you tried posting a Wanted posting here in Marketplace? There's some other collectors here in Australia, I think. Maybe one of them could hook you up cheaper?

I've never seen much point to the 5200 (today). I realize some games are a little different, and there is the convenience factor, but being basically just an 8-bit computer, why not just go with that? I have a 5200 and don't see why it's worth my time to get some controllers for it and deal with all that. I'll just hook up my 800 instead, thanks. I'd sell my 5200 and the few carts I have in a heartbeat. Anything after the 7800, console-wise, I have little to no interest in. No disrespect intended. There's just no nostalgia there. It wasn't the "classic" Atari by that point. It was a train wreck, I have no memories of it, and if I want to play newer-style games, there's better options IMHO... Dreamcast, PS2, etc. I do like the 2600 though (ummm... addiction?), and even the 7800 gets some attention once in awhile. It was also pretty easy to get a nearly complete boxed collection for the 7800, which had some appeal.

You've made a strong enough point that I modified my original assertion somewhat. I agree now that it was both. What do you think about this though: so many people moved to computers that it hurt the market, retailers reduced orders, people saw this, panicked, stopped buying console games (or their interest dried up). It seems to me that it was somewhat of a domino effect of consequences. Or, at least, a number of things all happening at once. It sure was a strange time. For me, it was just characterized by the move to computers, and though I agree with your point now completely, I don't think that the move to computers should be minimized. It was definitely a huge influence on the situation.

Every single kid I knew in school switched over to various computers (almost all C64) at about the same time from the Atari, INTV, etc, and I suspect the same would be true all over America. I think you have a point, but I also think that the mass exodus to computers had a huge huge huge impact. After about 1984, no one I knew was into console gaming at all... everyone was into computers. There were a ton of kids into gaming (then computer gaming) back then, and all making the switch at the same time had to hurt the console industry in a big way. So yeah, I guess I'm saying they were both big reasons.

The crappy third-party (and first-party) games helped along the transition to computers, but cheap gaming computers were definitely the primary reason console gaming crashed. Everyone was moving to the Commodore 64 (mostly) by then. And, facts have to be faced -- the rampant piracy scene for computers made them far more appealing for gaming than consoles. Pay a little more for a computer, but then get all the games for free from friends. Plus your parents think you're learning and are more likely to leave you alone. By 1984 I was completely switched over to the C64. By the time the 7800 came out, I was barely aware of it. The connection this article makes is tenuous at best. Shovelware was a side-issue, not the main instigator of the crash.

Yeah, I can't help you, but welcome back to the scene! (or welcome semi-back!) Thanks for all your contributions. Don't think it goes unappreciated.

Could be anyone signing up with that name. yea you are right, i forgot all about his 'im outta here' thing I read long ago. Yeah, I said it with a touch of irony, but you never know.

Holy cow, I thought you were out of the retro scene. Still love your Vic FAQ.

I can't confirm that these are the only ones in the series, but I strongly suspect that they are, especially since they correspond with the poster things shown above. I've always wanted to have "the whole set" of whatever I collect (yeah, so I shouldn't have picked 2600 carts to collect!!!), so I'm pretty sure I would have gotten one of each that I knew of back then. To me, the most interesting one is Tempest. Assuming these were "2600" oriented, it almost seems like having a Tempest proto! Okay, not really.

Yeah, I'll bet for that reason, there aren't too many of these surviving today. Even back then, I was an Atari collector. Unfortunately, the rest of my stuff didn't survive the "great Atari purge" of about 1984 when my attention turned completely to the C64. I think these were just too small and inexpensive to be noticed and languished in the bottom of some junk box until recently.

Sorry, I have no recollection of actually getting them. I probably got them in a trade for a bunch of those football team pencils that everyone had back then, explaining why I don't remember getting them in a store or wherever. (I still have a bunch of the football pencils somewhere, too.) The matching posters must mean those were the core games they were pushing at that time. Interesting. Thanks for pointing that out!

Cool, thanks! I did a search of the forums, but didn't see anything (there's lots of mentions of pencils, but not in the right context!) BTW, I have 2 extra Yars' Revenges and 1 extra Warlords, in case anyone is interested in making a trade. If these aren't particularly rare or desirable, then I'll just keep them. As always though, interesting trade offers would be welcomed The main set pictured isn't up for sale/trade though.