Thorsten Günther

This one doesn't work with the official SCART cable though (black picture, only showing a single frame from time to time). I have read of a solution somewhere (adding a resistor to one/some of the lines) but ... ah, found it: http://atariage.com/forums/topic/222903-using-scart-to-hdmi-on-atari-jaguar/?do=findComment&comment=2943838

I would second the recommendation for Iron Soldier 2 CD. Additionally: Rayman NBA Jam T.E.

Subject says it all... would pay 40 dollars (shipped to Germany) via PayPal.

Strange. Most modern TVs available in Europe should already support NTSC (via AV) out of the box, in fact even my old Panasonic TX-29 back in the 1990s did, and all my current ones also do. The MEOS DVDM-133B portable TV/DVD combo even displays NTSC in color via RF, yet sadly (supposedly due to a firmware issue) without any sound (which reminded me of my time in the navy when we had a perfect terrestrial TV picture of the world cup games with white noise as sound when our mine sweeper squadron had landed in Falmouth and Southampton - our workaround being turning down the TV sound and turning on the radio additionally).

I can recommend these: https://icomp.de/shop-icomp/de/shop/product/competition-pro-retro.html I have heard they are way better than the Speedlink Competition Pro knockoffs - haven't bought any myself since I already own a lot of old ones and a lot of replacement switches.

My problem is that arcade machines were practically banned here in Germany in the mid 1980s, being restricted to locations where persons under 18 were not allowed and/or present (video rental stores, specialized arcades in red light districts - e.g. Vegas World at the Reeperbahn in Hamburg - and slot casinos). So from first-hand experience I only know the machines that were there before the ban (Asteroids, Battlezone, Q*Bert, Amidar, Time Pilot), those illegaly used by me prior to my 18th birthday in a video rental store with "tolerant" employees (Gyruss, Bosconian) and those I was able to play when I was finally 18 years of age (Double Dragon, Starblade, Space Gun, Test Drive, R-Type, Time Traveler (does this even count as a game?), Vampire Night, X-Men (the six-player brawler game) are those I can remember). Making a top 10 list of these few titles seems impossible.

The PAL TIA is wired differently, so if you have the PCB, examine e.g. pin 12 of the TIA. If it is connected to pin 13, it is an NTSC machine (only NTSC TIAs have a separate audio output pins for each channel and can be stereo modded).

There really is no comparison between those machines: - the C=64 is a slow 8-bit computer with a chipset (VIC-II and SID) intended for 2D arcade style gaming with very good (for the time) sound - the Atari ST is a cheaply built, very fast (for it's time and cost) general purpose computer with no stronger emphasize on gaming than on word processing or MIDI controlling The main disadvantage of the ST if you are on the wrong side of the pond it that many games have a default (some even fixed) 50Hz screen refresh rate because the vast majority of them was written in Europe (mainly in the UK, France, Germany and Spain) and the best quality video output for gaming (the only available one on pre-FM models) is RGB, so west of the pond one will need e.g. a NEC 1970VX (that despite its official specifications will display the ST's low resolutions) and an adapter cable while east of it a SCART cable is easily available and good CRTs are a dime a dozen (some cheap modern TVs will have issues with the ST's video signal, though). Depending on what style of games one prefers, either machine will be "better". The ST has it's strenghts in classic text adventures (The Pawn e.g.), early 3D/pseudo 3D games (Starglider, Carrier Command, Vroom), RPGs (Dungeon Master), strategy (Populous) and puzzle games (Oxyd), while it's 2D titles are a mixed bag (there's a ton of lackluster titles and only few good ones, often by the Bitmap Brothers, Gremlin Graphics or Thalion). For 2D titles, the Amiga is clearly the better choice. The C=64 will struggle with even primitive 3D (e.g. Elite C=64 vs. the ST version), but has a ton of excellent arcade style 2D games (Mayhem in Monsterland, Katakis, Pitstop II, Great Giana Sisters, etc.).

Sorry, i just read this. But the 5200 was based on the 8-bit computer hardware, and these computers were continually produced until 1992 (ten years after the 5200 failed), although after 1989 the vast majority AFAIK were sold in former Warsaw pact countries such as Poland and Czechoslovakia. I think the 5200 mainly failed because of a) the non-centering, easily breaking joysticks and b) the intended(!) incompatibility with A8 cartridges and peripherals (esp. joysticks). In this respect, i consider the XEGS to be a 5200 done right, but way too late.

Raumpatrouille! Seriously now, i prefer B5 to both.

I am selling off some of my Jaguar titles incldudng a Barkley Shut Up and Jam! proto/beta plus several (PAL) Dreamcast games and some PS2: http://www.ebay.de/sch/thorsten_guenther2/m.html

IBTD here: 6502 based machines such as the Atari 8-bit and Commodore 64 computers and even the VCS still attract several programmers today, and the resulting games show a lot of prowess. The cost in money to write a program for the Lynx is negligible (buying one FlashCard to test on real hardware), but programming on the Lynx requires studying the graphics and sound hardware and preferrably already having the knowledge to write 6502 assembly, meaning the cost in man-hours may be quite high depending on the complexity of the project, making this platform infeasible for any but hobbyist projects (which - like Zaku - may very well have the quality of commercial ones). Publishing is another issue, but this has been nearly perfected during the last years, usually Lynxman doing the card hardware and some other guys producing the package and manual (Zaku has a professionally made Lynx card, but the rest of them are PCBs with SMD part soldered to them, so these won't fit into the Lynx 1 very good).

The most current DC release I own is this one - you may want to check the release date.

I beg to differ. There are titles that were improved back in the 1980s like the Temple of Apshai Trilogy and benefitted a lot from it. I did never consider the slowdon in Star Raides to be a problem though (just as I don't consider the bullet time scenes in The Matrix to be one), instead, I would prefer the following titles to be improved: Crush, Crumble and Chomp (complete overhaul) Racing Destruction Set (fix the awful scrolling) Pitstop II (should look and feel like the C64 version) Arkanoid (fix the ball and brighten up the colours)

Comparing any Jaguar 3D racing game to Rage Racer/RR4/GT/GT2, any Jaguar 3D FPS to Quake II, etc., reveals the Jaguar is miles behind the PSX - the only area where it even comes close is 2D, so Atari officials' "no 2D" attitude did not exactly support the Jaguar.

I don't know whether the TT touch and RTS/have had identical rubber caps. The RTS rubber caps were dark orange, and the key caps were completely different from the standard ones: http://www.stcarchiv.de/tos1990/images/st_tastaturkappen.jpg I only have one keyboard with this upgrade - I didn't pay the extra amount for the yellow and orange key caps though, so mine is just grey and ivory.

I got a CIB Air Rescue I, a boxed Atari(!) Cavelord (the Ariolasoft/Axis Komputerkunst version is more common) both loose copies Flip and Flop and Boulder Dash.

The Spectrum' CPU is much faster and has a load more of registers to do the 3D arithmetics. Just compare the Domark C64 Star Wars to the Speccy version:

The Return key should only have one rubber cap BTW despite the mold providing space for two of them, but if you try adding a second one, its a lot harder to press this key than any other. This was mentioned in the manual to the (much better) RTS replacement rubber and key caps I once purchased.

I beg to differ. Although the Jaguar was not the big leap forward that the PSX was, its games looked quite good in comparison to what was available back then (Mega Drive/32X, SNES, CD32, CD-I, even 3DO and Neo Geo). Out of the 59 ratings on videogamecritic.net (e.g.) a surprising 29 are in the A and B range (in comparison;: 32X: 13 of 33, Mega Drive: 153 of 317, SNES: 84 of 195, etc.). Nobody could have stopped the PSX juggernaut though, but I believe with better marketing and being more generous with the dev kits and less restrictive in what the games developed should be (I realize 3D was the fad back then, but nonetheless even on the PSX several 2D titles are highly valued collector's items - Castlevania, R-Types, Pang Collection, Legacy of Kain, etc.), the Jag would be appreciated a little more, and its library would be more interesting.

I'd also go for a French title - after all, Der Luchs (like Duranik) finally dare to give games German names (which used to be a Japanese oddity).

Just watched their episode on the Super Grafx/Atari Jaguar and am not impressed. I cannot judge the SuperGrafx as I have never played one (a Turbo Duo was the closest I ever laid my hands on), but the Jaguar review leaves a lot to be desired. They referred to "Iron Soldier" as a "poor man's 'Metal Head'" (32X) - really? - I always thought "Metal Head" had a miserable drawing distance akin to "Cybermorph", poor frame rate and even lacked vertical aiming. They played T2K exceptionally bad and claimed one cannot strafe in AvP (a simple glimpse on either of the three keypad overlays proves them wrong). The choice of reviewed titles is also less than optimal (a Mega Drive review shouldn't include "Rise of the Robots", "Ultraman" and "Awesome Possum", and a Jaguar review for the same reasons should not include "Club Drive", "Fight for Life" and "Checkered Flag").