Lendorien

It's nice to see that store shelving hasn't changed at all in 30 year. To this day, I remember vividly going into a Toys R Us in Saginaw Michigan in 1994 and wishing I could afford the NES top loader they had on sale for 100 dollars that was sitting next to the Virtual boy...

Most people know LJN because of the pile of rather dubious games they released for the NES (some, imortalized in reviews by the Angry Video Game Nerd). This weekend, I discovered they made a console too. I found one at a Goodwill for fairly cheap with three cartridges included. It wasn't working quite right when I got it, necessitating taking it apart to figure out the issue. Turned out it had carbon dot buttons, much like the Atari 5200. Some aluminum foil later and it works fine again... such as it is. The LJN Video Art is a "edutainment" product released by LJN in 1987. Consisting of a console using interchangeable cartridges and a single specialized joystick, it can not exactly be classified as a game console, since its functionality is that of an electronic coloring book. Cartridges contain uncolored line art images that are displayed on the television screen. The "player" then uses the specialized controller to move a cursor on the the screen to color in the images. Colors may be chosen using a slider on the top end of the controller. Buttons on the console itself allow the player to change the background color, change the cursor to an eraser and change the "page" to a new image. The nine (or more) available cartridges came with a story book to use in conjunction with the Video Art console. I'm going to hook it up for my Video game party this weekend, along side Pong. It'll be fun to see which one of my firends wastes much time on this... thing. Does anyone have one of these? Thoughts? Memories? Head shakings?

Hm. The 3do failed because of the way it was produced. 3do liscenced the technology to manufacturers who made the system. Problem is, unlike modern system makers, the manufacturers couldn't offset the cost of the system from the liscencing fees gained from the games ont he system. They had to recoup the cost of the system from the sale of the system. As a result, it cost 700 dollars upon release in 1992. This was well beyond the cost of comparable systems at the time. Quite simply, it was priced out of the market. By the time the cost had dropped enough, it was already being eclipsed by the Playstation. Is the system craptacular? Hardly. It's a decent system and had a lot of great games that were later ported to the Playstation. It just was built on an idea that was not sustainable.

Today I found a Wiko command control stick at Goodwill for a few dollars. As I have one and love it, I thoyght having two would make two player less of a fight over who gets to use the old CX controllers. Anyway.... The stick itself is fairly loose, but still seems to work ok. I'd like to fix it to get some of the rigidity back. I took the screws out and opened her up. What a mess. Apparently as part of the center assembly of the stick is a square pice of metal with a hole through it. Int he hole is a plastic ring that surrounds a metal grommit. The center plastic bit with the grommit has completly broken off due to age and wear. The plastic looks to have pretty much disintegrated. Some kid must have used that thing HARD. Any suggestions on how to repair or replace it on a budget?

Some of these necrobumped threads are interesting. I'm curious about where people bought their systems too. Probably a lot of places have long since disappeared. My first 2600 is actually sort of boring. I bought it 5 years ago on e-bay. It was a heavy 6er that I later sold. I stall have my Vader, but I use my 7800 and a harmony cart these days.

Twelve years ago, I was finishing college and didn't even really know much about Atari, much less the 2600.

Odd how old threads get revived like this. I think it's because people use the search function to make sure they don't replicate threads, then unknowingly revive ancient ones. In any case. I think the genesis controller is a good option from an ergonomic point of view. Me personally, I have a Wico command stick I got for a steal at goodwill a year ago. I prefer that to my old crappy CX-40's.

One of the first games I got for my 2600 when I started collecting about 5 years ago was Slot Racers. My roommate and I spent a lot of time playing that game. To date, I have yet to hear anyone say a good thing about that game. Me personally, I thought it was fun to play with a buddy.

I paid 6 bucks for my 3DO Fz-10 a couple years ago at Goodwill.

You know, there are a good number of Morrowind prettifying mods out there. While they don't push the graphics to skyrim's level, they do make it much prettier, and even tax my gaming rig's chops on occasion. The nice thing about Morrowwind is that it has been so well loved that the unofficial patches pretty much eliminate all the bugs. On Oblivion, I remember mostly being disappointed. In Morrowwind, all the caves and ruins were hand made. They had some fun epic things in them, like the Ashland caves with their massive waterfalls. Oblivion felt so sterile. Skyrin really does move back towards the Morrowwind standard, and deliberately too, after the complaints people had about the automated level design of oblivion. In Skyrim, I love where there's a lot more signs of history, of the world being LIVED in. As for this collection, seeing as I never played any games before Morrowwind and have all the others, I can't justify the cost.

I use media shelving of the type used for CDs and DVDs. I also have a custom NES rack I picked up at Goodwill. It's made of wood and has slots just the perfect size for NES carts..

I also use RF generation.com. It has an amazingly extensive database, including a lot of variations. It also has an android ap.

This thread just makes me heartsick.

Ah, so is buying a used book piracy? How about a used record or CD? What the heck makes software on a disk any different than any other form of media? People have been buying used books for centuries CENTURIES. No one has ever had a problem with it. Why is software suddenly due an exception?

The whole argument against used games that the game companies use just has never made sense to me. They talk about lost sales due to used games. As a gamer with a limited gaming budget, I can tell you right now that people like me will end up spending the same amount of money on games regardless of whether they can buy used games or not. It might mean that whole budget goes into new games, but as a consumer, it means they buy less games, especially since a good number of people supplement their gaming budget by SELLING games they're done with. So just because the used games market is gone doesn't mean an immediate transfer of all those used game sales dollars to brand new game sales. The simple fact is, a good bit of the dollars spent on new games comes from the used game market. If I buy a new game for 60, sell it for 30, and buy another game for 60, the money I really spent was 90 dollars. My budget was thus stretched. No used games means I spend 60 dollars on exactly one game, with the other 30 dollars of my entertainement budget spent on something else. That 30 dollars I got from my used game no longer exists and is money the game developers lose in sales of new games. In addition, I think that without used games, people are going to be a lot more discerning... I mean, how many of us have bought a marginal title, or a game when it first came out, knowing we could sell it if we didn't like it? With no used market, people will be a lot more careful. Developers, facing less dollars being spent on games all around, will be less likely to take risks for fear of bad reviews killing their sales. As a result, the lack of risk will make games stagnate. Woopie, yet another Call of Duty or EA sports game sequel. And of course some people who simply can't afford to pay for a lot of $60 games will be driven look for entertainment options elsewhere. And where would one place be? Piracy. Yup. Killing off used game sales will encourage piracy. If they think it's bad now, Just wait til they kill all used game sales. Piracy will go through the roof, and the drive of the pirates to break the antipiracy systems will be more intense than ever. The tighter they squeeze their grip, the more star sys... I mean, the more people will look for ways around the normal model.

I just think this is like looking for a needle in a haystack. Landfills are huge mounds. It could be buried dozens of feet down, even if you can find the correct spot, it's not going to be a simple excavation.

I have set of plastic drawer I keep them in. It's becoming too small though. I have dozens of controllers after all.

Man. I remember these being advertised when I was a kid. What a flashback. Come to think of it, I guess the Furby is sort of a take off on this concept. Boy those motors were noisy.

The old Genesis/atari style cable simply has a db9 connector. They're also known as serial cables. Presumably, any old 9 pin serial cable would do, including those used in old computer mice. Most of the ones on the market these days have screws, however. Still, maybe that's an optuion if you're looking for a cheap solution. I see serial cables at thrift stores all the time.

I suggested the adapter as a way to check to see if it works in case the RF modulator was the issue.

You could try plugging it directly into the antenna port of your Tv with an RCA to Coax adapter. I think you can get them at Radio Shack. http://atariage.com/store/index.php?l=product_detail&p=42

Good Grief. This guy is a serious modder. His master controller is a bit iffy to me for playing N64 games. UYsing the keypad for the C-buttons is a bit iffy to me as they're hard to reach easily.

Man Bob, you always outdo yourself. No time to play this one tonight, but in between steps of installing our new Kitchen floor this weekend, it's probably going to be my diversion.

I started a thread about this a few years ago: http://atariage.com/...un#entry2088269 APF made a number of dedicated consoles in the seventies, culminating with with APF MP1000, which was a cartridge based console. The earliest seems to have been the 401, which you and I both have. This was one of the earliest "Pong on a chip" clones to come out in competition to Atari's Pong. Later versions came with external controllers and one even had a light gun. Yours looks pretty much the same as mine, though perhaps in a tad bit better condition. I've always felt that the APF TV Fun is a far better looking pong clone than a lot of the units (or even Atari's Pong itself). I agree with Bass Guitari on that account. Apparently they DID sell an adapter for the thing they called a "battery eliminator". My boxed unit came with a card that you could send in for one. See below for the scan I did of the manual and card. http://atariage.com/...ttach_id=165679 A little research shows that the 401 needs a +9vdc center positive adapter (coaxial plug). I'm not sure a regular AC adapter would work. You have to be sure your polarity is right. I've always have just used batteries.