VectorGamer

http://www.wired.com/gamelife/2009/08/weekend-thrifting/

ColecoVision Pac-Man Plus 75 mins Ms. Pac-Man 10 mins Pac-Man 10 mins Pepper II 75 mins Popeye 5 mins Q*Bert 2 mins Mouse Trap 45 mins Mr. Do! 10 mins Miner 2049er 2 mins Space Panic 5 mins Galaxian 10 mins Cabbage Patch Adv In Park 2 mins Smurf Rescue 5 mins Jungle Hunt 5 mins 7800 Jr. Pac-Man 45 mins 2600 Crystal Castles 5 mins Circus 10 mins Medieval Mayhem 15 mins Breakout 5 mins Kaboom! 2 mins Kangaroo 5 mins Moon Patrol 10 mins

Arcade Galaga 15 mins ColecoVision Mr. Do! 45 mins Popeye 10 mins LadyBug 10 mins Pac-Man Plus 55 mins Ms. Pac-Man 15 mins Pac-Man 5 mins Space Panic 15 mins Cabbage Patch Adv In Park 5 mins Donkey Kong 5 mins Buck Rogers 5 mins 2600 BerZerk 10 mins Buck Rogers 5 mins Crystal Castles 5 mins 7800 Jr. Pac-Man 75 mins

I need the side art stencils for a full-size Make Trax cabinet.

Yep, same here. There's a bar I go to on Saturday mornings now that has a cocktail Galaga/Ms.Pac... this place also has a classic juke loaded with good 80's stuff, a pool table and giant water glasses full of vodka and ice-tea for $5. It's pretty much heaven on Earth. I think the truly "hard" games are the ones where average play time is under a minute because of poor controls, steep curves and/or cheap cheating cheater mechanics. I think you would have to have pretty poor reflexes to last under a minute at Galaga. Don't take me as arrogant, but I was at an arcade recently that had two Class of 81 cocktails next to each other and had to laugh at the other old timer playing every time I heard the ominous "boom" of his fighter dying which was quite often... That was a long sentence! : ]

Not an arcade either but did I previously mention Pong and Space Fury in the back of Two Guys department store in Lancaster, PA? Complete with wood paneling on the wall behind the cabinets to make you folks drool! Pong was actually sitting in the middle of the store in a wide aisle before they moved it to the back.

The kiosks are cool, especially the 2600. But for me I just couldn't see playing these standing up. It probably doesn't make sense since I play arcade games standing up but maybe it's because the home consoles were intended to be played from your living room chair.

Galaga is the best of the classics. It started out easy to get the player acclimated to the game, had the challenge stages and many variations to keep the player's interest and increased with difficulty along the way. I don't think it's a difficult game, at least for me, since I play it all the time and know all the strategies. I always score 100,000 when I play and it's common that I score between 250 and 400K.

Different time as well - classic games were HOT at the time Pac-Man was released and the timing was such that it HAD to go out the door whether it was good or not. It's unfortunate that it played out that way. There's nothing that was going on that all of the programmers didn't have to deal with. It's difficult to imagine this day when we have unlimited access to computers thousands of times more powerful than mainframes from 1980...that can turn a text file into code as fast as pushing the button. The text files that we work with alone could be too large for their computer to handle Pac-Man and ET being mediocre games has one positive aspect...they could have been much better programs that Atari was forced to dump in the landfill As Coleco found out, even Mario couldn't prevent the market crash...so if they would have been more advanced at the time, it wouldn't have mattered in the least.

Well, the other people that show up at my parties have no interest in collecting classic carts - I can tell ya that. They come over for the nostalgia, pizza, snacks and the bragging rights tournament. But, it is a great time and there are some MILFs to look at : ] However, if members from AtariAge show up then yeah - it becomes a platform for game trading and the like... The parties start at 5 and last until whenever...no alcohol since there are kids there and I've been at kids birthday parties where the adults get 5h1tfaced and start throwing F bombs all over the place. Not cool. Usually the kids will go off and play with other stuff and one of the moms will take a break from gaming and supervise. I'm looking at possibly September 19 or 26. This will be 1-2 weeks after the Game Core expo which means new toys for the party. Also, I'm renovating the basement with a 12x12 arcade which I hope to have complete by then. So, the place is trashed at this time.

Quite a few books I have read say 6 weeks. And it's believable when you look at the product. I would like to know where those books are getting their information from. I have the video of Tod Frye saying that he worked on it for 6 months. He should have stuck with saying six weeks - at least he could use that as an excuse as to why it sucked so bad.

Yeah, but this is the 5200 forum. I naturally assumed that the original post was in regard to the home console market. Yeah, that makes a whole lot of sense...

I agree and I don't know that any of the "so-called experts" ever blamed it on one single company, game title, or event. I consider several factors making it "the perfect storm" (I feel like I'm missing some off the top of my head so someone can add to the list): Lousy carts like Defender, Pac-Man and ET (I'm picking on Atari because they were high profile) The "been there, done that" factor with games being "same wine, different bottle" Personal computers play games and run other software packages This early? Even though Coleco sold 500,000 CVs in its inital prod run and 6 million in two years?

Quite a few books I have read say 6 weeks. And it's believable when you look at the product.

They made a dual controller holder for it

$30

Well, that's one so far...and it only took like 28 years or so... : ]

Cool...make sure I'm on the list...

Cool - it's like another "CV vs. 5200" thread destined to be locked! : ] I suppose the point of the thread was asking for opinions regarding an Atari downward spiral since the release of the 2600. So.... I think the 5200 and 7800 consoles were underachievers. Maybe not from a machine (e.g. CPU) standpoint but otherwise the 5200 design could have been better (simply put that the gamer's experience is what is on the screen, the controls, the carts and the shell of the console). Some will argue that the majority of us that complain about the stock controllers are simply "no good at video games." When in reality the developers at Atari petitioned against it. The carts were larger than they needed to be (and have no end labels), the switch box and power supply were not well received and it was the largest console at the time of its release. My opinion - the 5200 does not do much for me. Most of the titles released for the 5200 are better on the ColecoVision and even the 2600 (BerZerk, Space Invaders and Galaxian). I really like the 7800 - the problem is the meager library and it suffers from schizophrenia. Most of the arcade ports "rock" and then you pop in a game like Hat Trick and you're like "what the heck is this garbage?" It seems like Atari always screwed up golden opportunities. Pac-Man, Defender and ET on the 2600...then the controllers for the 5200...then shelving the 7800 and then releasing it when no one cared...they had a golden opportunity to port Galaga to the 7800 and what they released was desecration. So yeah, I think they went downhill but in the same sense they had their peaks and valleys on the way down...

Anyone that plays Mouse Trap knows that you can trap yourself and in effect pause the game. What I did was email the referee ahead of time and explained that I only used a Mouse Trap pause in order to switch tapes since the VCR I had did not come with a remote and would only tape in SP mode. I also reiterated this in the notes for the submission just to CMA.

First of all, congrats on breaking the record! Re: the woman - she won't care either way. It's not a selling point or deal breaker. What would be a concern is that you spent 3000 minutes at most per week trying to break the record. She would wonder if you would do it again all the while the grass needs cut, trash taken out, the gutters fixed etc... For me this summer has flown by and has made me anxious in that I feel I haven't accomplished as much as I wanted with the kids. There's only a few weeks until they go back to school. There's no way I'd be able to spend that much time in front of a game console and it would be selfish to do so. That's right. I could have crushed the ColecoVision Mouse Trap record but I didn't have any more time. With a pace of one million points per hour, I would've needed another hour to break the record and then another four to crush it. But, I settled for second because, of all things, I had to take the kids out to dinner. It's cool that I have two records, even if they aren't at the top. But, no one in my own family gives a crap about it and that doesn't bother me. But, it's definitely cool to see your own name up on the scoreboard. The thing is that within the classic gaming community it is an accomplishment and the fact is people outside the community aren't going to care and why should we even care about that? Take my prior criticism of your methods of documenting your record as only a kick in the pants to make sure you get credit for your efforts.

We played the heck out of this game this past weekend. It's really fun...

I just want to stress that with the gutted cabinets I purchased for the most part it was patching the damaged wood. On the Galaga cabinet, I had to create a monitor shelf out of 2x2 piece of plywood that you can get from Home Depot, cut out the middle by drilling eight holes (three on the left and right, one on the top and bottom) and then using a hand held jigsaw to cut it out. The 1x2 I used as a filler panel was simply cut to width, 1/4-inch holes drilled in and angle brackets to mount to the cabinet. Actually, the hardest part was wiring up the control panel, but that was my fault for not reading the instructions carefully for the keyboard encoder. The Make Trax cabinet for the most part has been patching damaged wood which I have completed at this point. I had to make a new speaker shelf because the stock shelf only had one speaker. I may have to make a new shelf (if I cannot hide the imperfection) cuz the first one I made looks like crap. But, these are the things you learn and it improves your skills. If you can find a decent cab that requires minimal repair, you're in good shape.

I have had problems with the last two packages I received that were ship via UPS being damaged. Would you provide a telephone number on the receipt in the event I need to contact you? I will get a receipt, yes? Could you upload a jpeg of the Make Trax stencils that you have for the Mini Cabinet so I can see for myself if there's anything doable with them? And take a measurement of the width of the words "Make Trax" so I can get an idea? This would be much appreciated. Otherwise, I'm looking at a plain orange cabinet. I have looked at paint swatches from Home Depot and the yellow I have is a very close match and the orange is close. Green is the toughest one to match, believe it or not.

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