Thorsten Günther

While I never played it through, this title definitely is playable. Finding out that you can bomb ants over obstacles if they are left or above you helps a lot, though. Thorsten

Really? They seem to have passed me by. Couldn't really think of anything truly awful on the A8 until this frustrating pile of crap was mentioned. The worst thing about Last V8 is that it is technically so impressive (good graphics, music and idea) that I repeatedly tried to play it. And failed. Thorsten

Yup, that one and the Competition Pro Star surely were among the best, in fact they were so good that they were copied under the name "Suzo Prof Competition" and re-released some years ago by Speedlink (as USB versions first). Most models sell for more than 10 Euros at eBay. Thorsten

OK, Here's my nominees: 1) Starglider 2) Oxyd 3) Elite 4) Nebulus aka Tower Toppler 5) Xenon Thorsten

Makes sense to me. After all, the Zylons from the 400/800 cart are a technically advanced race in comparison to the Krylons, e.g. they do have three vessel types and none of them flickers. Krylons... ok, sure enough. So you are flying around in a garbage scow fighting the slave race of the Zylons, the race of Krylons. At the end of the game do you get a 2600 font message saying "You are Promoted, go buy Star Raiders for the Atari 800 and fly a real Star Cruiser" Oh, sorry, that would use up too much 2600 memory to display that message.... Seriously though, I'm SURE from what I've seen in Starfire & Star Master that a game almost of the caliber of 400/800 Star Raiders can be hacked on the 2600 these days. To quote Shun-Look (as it is pronounced in a well-known TV series) Picard: "Make it so." Thorsten

Makes sense to me. After all, the Zylons from the 400/800 cart are a technically advanced race in comparison to the Krylons, e.g. they do have three vessel types and none of them flickers. Thorsten

To me - as an amateur - this mod looks very much like a simplified version of the "CD4050 mod w/o CD4050" as built by alex_79. The luma signals are tapped from behind the on-board CD4050 of the 2600jr. , combined with chroma and then fed into a video cable. Should work quite well (at least some comments on other forums say so). Thorsten

I wonder why noone has mentioned "Rally Speedway" or "Grand Prix Simulator" yet (even BMX SImulator is a racing title). Thorsten

Hello! I recently purchased a cheap 6-switch NTSC console on eBay, but it looks far worse than expected (not just dust-covered, but screws missing etc. - not even sure if it works yet). Thus I am looking for any of the above in good working order (no PSU, joysticks, games, etc., just the console) to try some soldering on the first one and keep the better-looking one. Thorsten

Thank you, that is very helpful indeed. Thorsten

Hello! What isn't quite clear for me (as an even more amateurish amateur :-)) is where exactly - in the schematic, not on the board, the latter is clear - you tapped the signals for color and sound (in contrast to the PAL schematics, the hand-drawn NTSC 4-switch schematic on this site doesn't show the part numbers, and the FAQ only refers to "top of C210/R210" and "bottom of R206/C208" here, just these part numbers don't exist in the Jr.). And, though is pretty obvious that you tapped TIA csyn on top of R51, TIA lum0 on top of R52, TIA lum1 on top of R49, I cannot find a pin labelled "lum2" on this site's PAL VCS Jr. schematics - you tapped the pin labelled "lum3" on top of R53 instead and this gives the same result? I'd like to try this mod on a 6-switch NTSC console and thus cannot get color and audio from the same spots of the mainboard, that's why I'm asking: are there any resistors/capacitors/anything else between the TIA pins and the tapping points? Thorsten

The Atari computers (from the 400/800 to the Falcon030) and the Atari Jaguar have no "NTSC" or "PAL" software - all colour encoding is done in hardware (unless you are using the RGB output - ST and Jag only - which has no colour encoding at all :-)). So except for timing issues in some 8-bit titles ("Numen" demo, e.g., needs the longer interrupts of the 50Hz refresh rate found on PAL systems), forced 50Hz or 60Hz refresh rates in some ST titles (which should only a prob when using a TV set instead of a monitor) or incorrectly coded Jag titles ("Primal Rage" needs the Jag toggled to 60Hz, IIRC), yes, you can run any software on any system worldwide. I personally have bought software for all these three product lines from the U.S. and they all happily run on my PAL machines. Thorsten

Errr... but tjlazer claims the "PAL" version (presumably the Domark release) of this tile lacks colours when played on a US STE - that seems technically impossible, ... It is not impossible at all. The problem is the refresh rate. Many TVs would display on black and white when receiving the "wrong" sync. I've never experienced this effect the other way. A PAL TV set incapable to cope with 60Hz will simply show a rolling picture, but *with* correct colours. but these issues can easily be fixed by using a colour monitor such as the Atari SC1224 or the Commodore 1084. Now that *is* a real problem. Thorsten

A friend, the Webmaster of this site, had no time to list further games. I will ask him, when it continues. I found two more titles with colour issues in PAL releases (as Thomas Jentzsch's hack has proven, this is the programmers' fault, not that of the TV system or the console) by browsing AtariMania: - "Commando Raid" vs. "Landung in der Normandie" (German release) - "Crash Dive" (at least the colours of the PAL release have a washed-out look in comparison). Any further additions to this "list" are, to course, welcome. Thorsten

Errr... but tjlazer claims the "PAL" version (presumably the Domark release) of this tile lacks colours when played on a US STE - that seems technically impossible, since the ST has an internal RGB colour model that is "encoded" to NTSC or PAL by the video hardware. Personally, I bought US releases of some ST titles (e.g. "Time Bandit"), and the colours don't change a bit when played on a PAL TV set. Thorsten

Errr.... there are no "PAL" or "NTSC" version of 99.99% A8 games, they only run somewhat faster on NTSC machines. The remaining 0.01% are titles, programmed with 50Hz screen refresh rate in mind, that need too many CPU cycles during DLI and/or VBI to work properly in 60Hz - e.g. the "Numen" demo or the first version(s) of "Yoomp!". Thorsten

Just those two titles? Thorsten

I do not believe it's a palette issue, since every VCS title had to be rewritten for each TV system anyway due to the totally timing and palette differences (an NTSC title plugged into a PAL console will give an entirely wrong set of colours). My guess is that the programmer of the PAL version simply omitted/"forgot" to program the colour changes of the sky and landscape. Thorsten

Hello! I have noticed that some NTSC titles for the VCS display many more colours on-screen than their PAL counterparts, e.g. Battlezone PAL on Google Video vs. Battlezone NTSC on . Does anyone have a full list of titles that have this issue and thus should be played on an NTSC VCS? Thorsten

I have such a hard time believing Rebellion capable of producing anything 'next generation' when they had to be lockied in a basement to finish CF and then said that was the best they could do. Among other things. CF - like too many Jaguar titles - looks like an unfinished beta with it's screwed-up controls, bad f/x and music, but remember that Rebellion also did AVP and Skyhammer. Personally, I wish some more of Peter Molyneux' games aside from Theme Park were published on the Jag (Magic Carpet and Dungeon Keeper, esp.) or some decent other RTS ("Starcraft" on the Jag would have been a dream). OTOH, some of the most advanced 2D Amiga titles like "Lionheart" or "Deliverance" also would have impressed me on the Jag. Thorsten