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Mirage

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Posts posted by Mirage

  1. Posted

    Might as well make scans of the box backs too, so I can add them to the database.

     

    8)

     

    Maybe you could host a smaller (like medium-res) version of anything that is scanned, unless you mean an offline database, because the size of the scans I'm talking about you wouldn't be able to host online!

  2. Posted · Edited by Mirage1972

    I only own about 20 boxed games and 40 manuals at this time, but I'd be willing to scan in everything I own to assist in the creation of a high-res collection if there is interest. (I can scan as high as 1200 dpi)

     

    That would be fantastic if it's something you feel like doing! I'm mostly interested in the Atari-brand color boxes/manuals (as opposed to silver/red...), but we should all sort of vote on what's worth doing at this time probably, if there's enough interest.

     

    Remember, these files are going to be large, so that needs to be kept in mind when deciding on dpi. I would like to have 1200dpi scans, but that's not going to be practical to host online, or even to distribute online except as a torrent, maybe.

     

    Ideally, I'd like to get them as TIF files for my purposes (but they're going to be really really big), and any hi-res scans that are saved as jpg for smaller file size should be saved at MAX quality (Photoshop quality 12), otherwise they're not going to be suitable for the purposes I have in mind (high quality prints for various projects). For more casual online distribution, they could be saved with a little more jpg compression to get the file size down a little. The more I think about it, the more I think 900-1200dpi scans would be best, if it's something we could do... so the box text and other linework would reproduce well... I'd hate to have to re-create all that!

     

    So, any other ideas, thoughts, suggestions? How can we do this? Is there demand? If there's just no interest, I'll just start scanning as I get them over time.

     

    Thanks guys. I think we could do some really neat things with some hi-res scans!

     

    BTW, I've been an imaging/print professional for over 10 years, so I can clean up/modify/color correct a large amount of images quickly and to good result.

  3. Posted · Edited by Mirage1972

    Does anyone know if there's high-res scans available anywhere of either the manual art or the box art of all Atari-brand 2600 games? I've been trying to collect every color manual with the intent of making high-res scans of the cover art for projects like wallpaper (and other things). If someone's already done this, it would save me the trouble (and move this project on a lot faster).

     

    By high-res, I mean at least 300dpi high-quality scans at 100% of original size. At least... preferably twice that, or more.

     

    Having these high-res scans of the box art would be great, since the boxes look so nice as a whole, but the box printing quality tends to be of lower quality (due to being printed on cardboard rather than a thinner, higher-quality paper), so ideally, I'd like to get scans of the box art, and the manual art so I could merge from one to the other as necessary, or re-create certain elements with Illustrator, etc.

     

    If anyone has any information on sources of scans like this, please let me know. Thanks.

  7. Posted

    Nice! I've recently wanted to collect all the color boxes, but planning a 1000+ mile move in a few months, it's bad timing. Maybe after that!

     

    Just be careful that no sunlight is shining directly on those boxes, cuz if it is, they'll be faded before you know it. That's the only problem displaying stuff like this. Well, that, and the pretty colors are attractive to children... :ponder:

  8. Posted · Edited by Mirage1972

    If you can find an old "Jam!! Box", it does this. You can get them pretty cheap now. I got mine on Craigslist for about $5.

     

    EDIT: This was supposed to be a reply to "Longhorn Engineer's" "You would need a S-Video to VGA converter to do so." comment.

  10. Posted

    I know it's not funny since you were just trying to get the overlays, but I still find it humorous that Atari screwed you over, but it's like 10 or 15 years too late to call them up and demand your overlays.

     

    If it's any consolation, you'd probably only "play" the thing for a couple minutes anyway before realizing what a waste of time it is. It was one of the first game I really really wanted for the Atari and I got it for my birthday in February right after getting the VCS for Christmas. I had wanted to try programming for a long time after reading about the 800, TRS-80s, playing with the PETs at school etc... what a craptastic disappointment finally getting that cart and seeing how utterly useless it was.

  11. Posted

    Holy cow, you have a lot of hacks/homebrews. Some I've never heard of or seen.

     

    What is "Wizard"? And the Dr. Who one? I don't even have ROMs for those, much less heard of a cart. I'd love to get the Wizard box/cart, that's great. But I'd at least like to know what it is. With that one, my imagination is going like it was when I was 10, seeing a new Atari game, wondering what it plays like.

  12. Posted

    There's no excuse whatsoever for a seller to pack a fragile item (especially a crushable box) in anything other than a box (unless it's in a box, then a bubble mailer like someone above said, that's fine). If they know enough to sell it on ebay, then they should know that the buyer wants the item to be protected. And as for "making a profit on shipping", well, that's inexcusable in itself. If a buyer pays for a certain kind of shipping, that's what they should get. And the seller should be calculating shipping with the correct type of packaging and charging appropriately for the weight, supplies if necessary, etc. What I've always done is not charge anything for packing supplies, I charge exact shipping cost only, BUT, that's not the only way to go. That's only because I've always had a pretty good source of free, good packing material and I use it as a selling point. Still, no one should be skimping to make a profit. Calculate and charge shipping appropriately, then follow through on that.

     

    I've never had boxed games shipped badly, but I always specify to the seller how to do it. I did however once have a boxed system shipped with shipping labels all over the original box. I can kind of see the confusion here, as a non-collector may not realize that this is not a good thing, but it's still sort of a lack of common sense I think. Since then I've always specified to please not do that.

     

    ebay in general, while having a lot of good sellers (and buyers) too, is certainly full of morons. I tend to think of ebay as a place where a lot of sellers go to "oops" leave out important condition information about an item that they can't otherwise sell. I bought a console once that was busted up badly (pic was obviously not of this unit, and damage didn't happen in shipping b/c there were pieces missing) and I once got an electric guitar that was junk and clearly not as the seller described (and they had cleverly taken photos which hid this discrepancy). That one took over a month of fighting before I think the guy finally just gave up and gave me my money back, but it cost me over $50 in shipping to get it back to the scumbag.

     

    Anyway, yeah, it ticks me off too, but the world is full of scumbags, idiots, and ignorant people, so just be careful and hope for the best. Personally, I just avoid ebay anymore for buying.

  13. Posted

    i think i'm gonna check out the target sterilite drawers that Mirage mentioned. i live in a pretty small apartment with my girlfriend and this sounds perfect! i can stack these along the wall and they won't take up much space. plus my girlfriend will stop yelling at me for having my games all over the place in boxes :)

     

    You know, I really think they're the perfect solution for collectors with a large number of loose carts. I can see someone with a smaller collection wanting to keep them on a shelf, but that's just impractical for me, now anyway. I have 7 of these things filled with loose carts (egad, that's almost 700 carts!) and my Intellivision carts aren't even in drawers yet!

     

    And someone mentioned the holes on the front letting dust in. I thought about it, and no, that's really not the case, because once you put the carts in there, they're blocking the holes. So no more dust gets in than with any other drawer solution.

  14. Posted

    Yeah, you can tell by the thickness and shape of the plastic edges too, that it's a heavy sixer. Not too bad of a deal. Looks like it has the older style paddle controllers too, with the "Atari" on them... can't tell about the joysticks from that pic though.

  15. Posted

    Those do look pretty cool but I am not too keen in what looks like airholes which are actually Dustholes that allow dust onto the carts.

     

    All my carts are in separate clear plastic storage bags with a dessicant pack, so it really doesn't matter. But if you were really concerned and/or didn't have your carts bagged, you could easily make an insert, clear even, or white, or whatever, that would cover the holes. It's just the front and back of the drawer that has the holes. The "clear" parts of the drawers are frosted nicely too. The holes are pretty small though, at any rate.

  16. Posted · Edited by Mirage1972

    What the heck is that picture? It looks like some sort of mesh creature made out of a joystick body... or am I seeing that wrong? Can you post a higher-res photo of that thing please? Looks pretty scary!

     

    EDIT: Nevermind, I'm a moron. I see now it's mesh gloves holding a joystick. I should wake up fully before posting :ponder:

  17. Posted · Edited by Mirage1972

    i'm tired of storing my 2600 carts in boxes so i decided to find another solution. so i checked out this thread. somebody talked about the officemax plastic drawers. i just checked their website with the stock number and nothing came up. all i could find from iris was this 6 drawer plastic cabinet on wheels. it's also A LOT cheaper. does anyone own this for their games?

     

    http://www.officemax.com/omax/catalog/sku....ductId=ARS22139

     

    If that's the one I just looked at a few weeks ago, 2600 carts don't fit in there nicely. I ended up getting stackable units from Target that are absolutely perfect. They're made by Sterilite, are $9.99 each separately, so you can buy just as many as you need and no more. I bought 7 so far. The problem with most drawers from Iris or Sterilite is the height isn't right, but these are just perfect. They hold about 96 2600/7800 carts each. Vic-20, C64, Intellivision, 5200 etc all fit perfectly too. (Edit: by perfectly, I mean that there's a little extra space after putting the cart in to make room for the top of the plastic bags that I put all my carts in... not too snug, not too loose).

     

    I can't find the separate drawer on their website, but the below pic is of the 3-drawer unit of them that they sell. You can buy them separately though. For this purpose, you'd want the size of the top 2 on this. Just look on the website for "Sterilite Drawer" and you'll find these, then go to Target and they should have them separately.

     

    Highly recommended for anyone. I looked at all the office and dept. stores for a couple weeks for the right containers, and had almost given up when I found these!

    post-16769-1200239084_thumb.jpg

  20. Posted

    Asteroids.

     

    Which was also the very first VCS game I ever played, in the arcade-cabinet type setup at LaBelle's (a department store in Minnesota).

     

    Kids these days I doubt can have any comprehension of what it was like to see what was basically arcade games in a department store, that you could actually buy and take home. Magical, indeed.

     

    So, I begged, and I waited, and I begged, and I waited... finally, Christmas 1980, I opened a gift from my grandparents -- Asteroids! WOW!

     

    But there was no other box under the tree. That was it. Certainly no large Atari-sized box. Did they understand that just Asteroids didn't do anything on its own? Was there a miscommunication between my parents and my grandparents?! Oh no!

     

    Nope, finally dad brought it out from the bedroom... there it was, in all its glory. My very own VCS!

     

    I don't remember how long it was until we got another game, but for awhile it was just Combat and Asteroids, but it was one of the best days ever!

     

    Fortunately, plenty of other kids at school got VCS's that Christmas, with different games, so plenty of fun was had by all!

  21. Posted

    I know this is about the CC1, so sorry for being semi-OT, but... does the Krokodile Cart have this or a similar issue? I've been using it quite a bit lately and would hate to find that it would eventually die due not to neglect, but due to excessive love :cool:

     

    Looking at the big ol' crates of carts, I've even been pondering the idea of one day getting rid of most of them and just using the Krok (ok, let's be realistic, I probably wouldn't do that), but... ?

  22. Posted

    I had my order all ready, but this week 25% of each department where I work was laid off (permanently). I was spared, but I'm pretty sure it's a matter of 6-12 months for everyone else, so it seems a bit irresponsible to buy these now. It's a major bummer for this to have happened, and a minor bummer (comparatively speaking) to not get the holiday cart. :( Maybe next year once we're back on our feet in a more stable situation. This looks like a fantastic cart. Lots of great new games this year, which is nice to see!

  23. Posted

    It's always difficult to thin down the choices during the Christmas Sale, but this year is going to be particularly hard! I'm glad we have a while to order. Wow. Thanks everyone, this is the best sale and best selection ever. And extra thanks for bringing back Toyshop Trouble for those of us who missed it last year!

  24. Posted

    Last week I checked to see if The Atari Times had any new reviews, but they were down. They're still down today. Anybody know what's up :?

     

    Two weeks ago it was down for a couple days, then it came back up. Now, it's been down for about a week or so. I was reading through all their reviews, and it was a really nice site. I sure hope it's not down for good.

  25. Posted

    Atari without a doubt. The Atari is more fun when playing with someone and they made the best two player games. Some of the most fun head-to-head games are: Combat, Space War, Warlords, Grand Prix, Dodge 'Em, Slot Racers, Maze Craze, Outlaw and Video Olympics. There is no contest.

     

    A far second would be Activision with games like Fishing Derby, Boxing, Ice Hockey, Freeway and Tennis. But in general, Activision's are just good for a quick fix, with the exception of games like Pitfall.

     

    I also dig Imagic.

     

    Grand Prix is Activision.

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