oky2000

Couldn't get the generic ones to work sadly.

I can't get my STs to access this drive because the original boot disk is corrupt. Anybody else use one of these external large hard drives?

I don't think it was on purpose at all but sadly the great Atarisoft VIC games I like to collect (and play on real hardware) were never done justice in cart form on the C64. Defender vs Alligata Software's Guardian being another example, Eagle Empire vs Phoenix etc. As a kid with a VCS I went out of my way to find my VCS games done justice on the home computers I was bought as a kid But hey like I said in those days everyone was ripping off arcade games without acquiring licenses so it was no big deal, someone somewhere usually had a nice copy of the game. However DK turned out on Coleco those terrible controllers would never make the experience enjoyable IMO, luckily you can just plug in a Zipstick and mate it to the regular controller using a joystick port splitter cable

Thanks, will have a search If I could use the blitter at least it could be run on regular Mega's not just STE's

....because VIC20 Galaxians is superior to C64 conversion. You missed the whole point of the post. So not for C64 owners, almost every Atarisoft C64 arcade conversion is well below the capabilities of the machine and underwhelming as my example of Galaxian on the C64 vs the less powerful VIC-20. I can forgive Atarisoft Galaxian being significantly worse conversion than Commodore Japan's Star Battle carbon copy of Galaxian but Star Battle on VIC-20 from Japanese Commodore engineers was so far in advance of C64 Atarisoft it's not even funny. Not saying they did it on purpose but they sure were shit at programming the C64 IMO. Luckily though there are many many unnofficial arcade copycat conversions from small software houses on tape for 1/4 the price of an Atarisoft cart

Don't libraries (well central/state ones) have to keep a copy of ALL this stuff or archive of them? They do here in the UK. It's not uncommon to lose magazines like this, even the awesome PC Attack from the 90s for DOS gaming in the style of ZZAP64 is lost forever probably, which is a real shame as it is the ONLY DOS gaming magazine worth reading from the era of the Sega/Nintendo 16bit gaming frenzy before PSX ripped them both a new one

Nah after 28 years of using Amigas never blown an IC via D9 ports. The printer/serial ports however can easily fry logic ICs yes. I ALWAYS have problems using Sega 16bit joypads on my STs, bloody annoying. Still I have 4 decent joysticks (Zipstick/Competition Pro) so it's all good (especially as I mainly use Megas or STMs so the ports are not under the machine).

1, yes if people who have the mags have the time and equipment and are prepared to scan them nicely this is the best possible option Even if it is just the content and not the adverts this is better than nothing (plus if you just make a note of the adverts on each page you will find no need to scan the same advert more than once anyway). 2. archive.org is indeed awesome, I check there fairly often but also they have lots of retro TV to stream/download.

Umm wasn't Space Invaders the first licensed arcade conversion owned by a third party? Wasn't the VCS machine first to have arcade ports at all given the Atari arcade side of the business etc? Also wasn't the VCS host to the first killer app' for a home video console/computer game? First console to have a black and white/colour switch which is software controlled? First home console to have proper joysticks (as opposed to those potentiometer joysticks on the pong style consoles or things like the Videopac/Odyssey 1 etc) Certainly the first machine with 128 colour palette and certainly the first home machine to have EPIC sound effects too Not the first to have woodgrain effect though! Because Atari pretty much invented the home gaming industry by themselves then really they will have many more first than copycats like the putrid babyfied rubbish like the Nintendo concrete block-a-like console

Oh man only have a small amount of games to still get (but each for many many different systems) and the prices are getting really stupid lately. Yeah starting a collection now for anything of this vintage would be an expensive hobby except maybe a VIC-20 with fag burns on the case

I don't like the NES, SNES, Amstrad, SMS pads at all to be honest. Even the 3 button Sega ones are only just acceptable (Jap ones are the best) but I was going to mod a Super Street Fighter II 6 button Sega pad because they are really the only joypads I actually like because they are the most accurate and comfortable on the D-pad of all the joypads I've ever used. I'm going to get a multimeter and do some measurements on the two buttons of the 7800 pad and reverse engineer a mod, it probably is a resistive thing rather than hard wired to obscure pins on D9 connector (how Amigas end up with extra independent button via Mouse functionality) but even that is possible to overcome probably.

Haha yes THIS Is there any point chastising the VCS chipset from the dark dank mid 70s era of clockwork toys (ie the machine is a miracle way ahead of its time) like this saying blah blah version is better? The truth is it is an awesome game in its own right. I have VCS, A8 and ST versions. IMO the keypad is genius, the sound is awesome and the graphics although blocky are smooth and fast and give the same atmosphere and are at least not monochromatic. Actually is there a hack of the A8 version that will use the VCS touchpad?

Whilst the NES was the biggest joke in the world technically, and Mario and Zelda games make me ill, it did have a nice version of DK and Galaxian. Although an £8.99 copy of Donkey Kong on tape for Amstrad CPC/C64 looked/sounded great and more importantly played much better thanks to the ability to use a humble competition Pro/Zipstick joystick as god intended I think it is an OK game, the 7800 joypads I am forced to use are more of an issue for me though than any differences between the arcade original and the 7800 port.

Thanks everyone I'm in the UK so not sure Best is going to work out even if they ship outside the USA. I suppose I could take apart an existing one and see how it's wired up and compare it to a Sega 16bit pad. I think I tried the 7800 controller on my SMS and it didn't work (SMS has terrible joypads too as does the NES...real killer trying to enjoy games like Donkey Kong with them).

Is it possible to use/modify a Sega pad to use both fire buttons of the 7800?

Depends how nice the code looks too, was the source ever released?

Or take out the sound and video specific machine code from Apple II so you just get x,y,colour info and just the basic note,voice being generated (pick your own screen mode and just add volume,waveform from Atari chipset and code those 2 routines)

That makes a lot of sense then, they obviously looked at the CP/M looking PCW and probably thought a motherboard with 80 column adaptor on board or soldered directly to joy port as a daughterboard would be good enough with an updated version of Atari Writer on a 130XE based system. Maybe a monochrome SM124 tube with electronics to drive the 15khz CVBS/YC of the XE range and an XEGS keyboard. I can't see an ST being used as it is overkill to compete with a cheap green screened Amstrad machine, this is more likely.

So if it is brand new.........why does the box look like it's been auditioning to be the stunt double for Indy in Raiders of the Lost Ark when he is being dragged along the dirt road at 50mph by the truck?

It's not really as well structured as Starfox in that you can feel 'lost' at times with the free roaming aspect whereas Starfox is pretty much a road to a purpose and you have a loosely defined path in a single direction (but Argonaut Software implemented that at Nintendo's request prior to that I believe it was a free roaming style game idea they were working on) but I do find even with the more simple gameplay it is still fun. Nay not become your favourite game and it sounds a bit weedy on the C64 on emulators but I found it impressive looking compared to games released in the same year. Maybe watching an episode of Buck Rogers prior to playing will help too Obviously there is the rose tinted element for me because I played it as a kid but then again I played Nebulus as a kid and now find that really frustrating and no fun at all. Skyfox.....a time when the EA logo on a game box was a good sign

I'm sure the Apple is vastly different to the C64 screen mode used, and the A8 is probably different to all 3 but they all use more or less the same CPU so at least the basic framework of the engine would be useable and then you just tack on the different display and audio engine for Pokey and Antic/GTIA etc ? That's not to say it's easy at all, but probably less difficult that conversion of Rescue on Fractalus to Sinclair and Amstrad Z80 based machines with completely different memory maps and screen display characteristics

Wasn't there an 80 column adaptor for the Atari 8 bit series? It could be that they thought about a 130XE based system with an 80 column upgrade too, didn't think of that actually. It's not like 128kb is not enough for a dedicated WP system.

You have to take the two games in context IMO, for the year of release Skyfox was very very impressive, it may even be technically one of the best 2.5D flight sim sort of games for the C64. Skyfox together with Rescue on Fractalus is really what separated C64 gaming and Coleco gaming for me quite distinctly, dawn of a new era of ever more complex game engines.

Apart from palette I couldn't see a huge difference between C64 and Apple II version so I always assumed that the reason it wasn't ported to the A8 family was down to the lone programmer who did all versions (except ST and Amiga IIRC) not being experienced enough with the A8 chipset? I don't think sprites vs player/missile differences would affect this game looking at the Apple II version (I presume the Apple doesn't have sprites or anything like it) so probably the best place to start would be to disassemble the Apple 2 code and take it from there?