Curt Vendel

There's that damned MOOT word again, arrghhhhh!!!! I never attacked you, no..... that was you knucklehead.... I'm just making fun of you, cause quite frankly.... is so easy to do such things to a bumpkin like you who has his own little clouded, hidden agenda and can't manage to grow up and stop acting like a baby, so as long as you continue to be a baby, you'll be treated as one and made fun of until you come around and stop it, so nah nah!!! Love and kisses... Curt

Jeff!!!!!!!!!!!!!! You did it, we're at Page 5, Wooo Hooo Curt

Maybe so, but they sure are TASTY! Hmmmmmm, eh, maybe.... but I bet you must get a lot of "Hey! You're that kid who's be cloggy up my toilets aren't you!" Curt

You obviously do not live near any White Castle restaurants! The Rhindle drive-thru pic is actually part of a full scene I did... http://room34.com/svvgr/article_02.html Wait!!! I was just at your site, that graphic is too funny dude, I love the bubble quote ordering the "square" Thats too funny dude!!!..... I don't do White Castle drive thru's though, I'm still convinced that they make their burgers from the scrappings off of the McDonalds & Burger King grills (YIKES!!!) Curt

That avatar is cool.... Rindle at the Drive Thru, what is it, Adventure Diner & Pizza Joint? Grundle is at the Grill, Yordle does sweep-up? :-) You should do a GIF animation on your site with like Mario and Donkey Kong in a car pulling up to the Drive Thru window to pick up their order. Curt

[quote="Scott Stilphen" Vendel: you conveniently avoided answering my questions. Why dictate that the new owner release the ROM if you're going to release it anyway? It doesn't make any sense. And how would you enforce the terms of the auction if the buyer decided not to follow through? Get them banned from Ebay? Publicly bash them? Threaten to sue them? Stilphy.... learn to read dorko, the auction clearly states that the ROM has already been dumped and that atariage.com will be releasing the ROM... sheeez, for someone who is able to locate Easter Eggs, you sure can't read can you, somebody get this poor man some glasses!!! Curt

Oh my God!!! Scott saw right through the auction! He is so smart, it was pure {sob sob} GREED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! FILTHY, STINKING, CAPITALISTIC GREED, oh I am soooooo ashamed {sob sniff sob} You're right Scott, I was actually trying to recoup my costs for buying the game and paperwork, paying for my monthly internet bills, server bills and so forth, trying to.... OH MY GOD............ Make MONEY!!!! Shame on me, shame shame shame....... I'll go stand in the corner now, Scott is punishing me {sniff sniff} and in the midst of all my disgusting GREED, I actually wanted to make sure that EVERYONE benefitted in the end and also, how shameful I am to have forced people to bid on the auction, calling them up in the middle of the night, waking them from their beds and making them go online and bid on the auction, spend their money on an auction, shame shame shame!!!!(SIC) Curt

I guess the idea of "hurting" comes from my reaction. I probably overreacted to Chris' posting. I do get upset when people start talking about prototype collectors as if they're all insane, rich and greedy bastards who do not care about these games. There have been people like that in the past and there are still some around today (the NES community appears to have its fair share of them), but most of them are just good guys who care about the games and this hobby. I, at least, like to think of myself as being a nice guy. Cheers, Marco Marco.... come'on now.... lets all be honest, we ARE INSANE!!! I have my Bently Bear straight-jack all set for the day when the nice men in the white outfits come to take me away Curt

Dude, you didn't hurt anyones feelings.... you're only stating your point of view and also its always a lot of fun to have a passionate thread of topic as it gets everyone involved and so long as everyone stays a little light-hearted and adds in a few jokes inbetween comments we can all share our views, learn a little something, have some fun and interact. Its a message board, not a hate & flame board. Curt b

I'm trying to meet a good balance here for all (yes, including myself - Capatilist pig that I am! Like I said, noone, noone has emailed me that wants to bid or has bid and is complaining about the arrangement and I think anyone who is bidding, just like you said, is a seasoned collector who is cool with the arrangment anyway and would release the rom too, so I think everyone should be and will be happy in the end. Curt

Hi Marco..... thanks for the input.... so you're saying that at the end of the auction the winner should be the one to release the image? Maybe he/she could work out a date with AA to release the rom image perhaps, something within a reasonable time-frame, but knowing that it WILL be release irregardless. Maybe that is the happy median for all Curt b

Wow, I hardly can wait to see this! That stuff seems to be very interesting, especially for programmers like me. Many thanks to Curt and AtariAge BTW: Any chances that the original sourcecode exists too? I've asked Dave and he is looking, that would be wonderful if he does. Curt

That sounds really interesting! Will that be released to the public too? Yes, in fact thats whats being worked on right now, a whole article with copies of the documents online, quotes from the game designer and programmer, photo's of the cart, envelope and any other related materials. Its nice to see a proto released, but we also want to release all of the info and history behind it as well. Curt

Absolutely..... Alex and Albert have been given the programmers email address as they will have contact to him to discuss this further as well as talk about other games that may have been in development. Curt

I vote Chris F. to become the official Proto Auction Standards and Review Board Chairman, all auctions must meet ISO9001 Standards, who will 2nd the vote!? He must submit a 250 page document detailing all guidelines and standards by which we must all follow! Curt

Hi guys.... lets just clear the air here a little bit. Noone is getting screwed as you put it. Noone is twisting the arm of the person who may bid or may win the auction. They do it of their own free will knowing that they will be the owner of the actual original hardware and code, but also allowing people who will never own the actual original to have access to the rom code to examine and try out in an emulator. IMHO I think this is very fair in that everyone will know there is an original prototype out there, and that collectors who want to own the original actual carts also have their chance, but being fair to others who would like to see the ROM code made available and also so that in the event of bit-rot failure that the code is out into the community and not lost for all times. So far 4 people have bid on the game, noone has sent me an email griping over the terms at all, so it seems that the bidders are quite happy with the terms of the auction and the fact that they have a chance to not only own the original, but that they are benefitting the entire classic gaming community by also allowing the release of an image of the code to everyone so they can also enjoy an opportunity to see the code of the game and it isn't some ultra-exclusive that only those with deep pocket-books or secret connections can own. I think you guys are looking at this the totally wrong way in griping about the release of the code. Would you prefer it if the owner wins the game and then thats it, the code NEVER gets released and all anyone ever gets to do is look at screen shots, come on.... everyone gripes over rom code NOT getting released, I can't believe people are griping because its going to be released... if the bidders are content with the terms and are bidding then obviously this is the right thing to do, release the code or not, somebody make up your mind Curt

The map still needs some work, but here are some photo's with some history of various Atari buildings: http://www.atari-history.com/archives/pape...rk/1978map.html Curt

Mark.... nice work on scanning those huge "D" Sized schematics!!! If anyone wants to own an actual set of the large "D" sized schematics, I'm the one who Mark purchased his set from and I still have a few sets remaining from the Atari Museum archives, contact me if you're interested. I will also have some additional schematics available in the coming months and will let people know and make them available and hopefully people like Mark who have access to such large format scanners will scan them in so that people can d/l them for examination and hopefully use in future projects. Curt

Indy 500 is a lot of fun, I like Maze Craze a lot, I always thought that game and Slot Racers were so much fun. Even Atari's very early 2600 released were plain and simple great games. Curt

Nope... Its was always Justin & Chucks. Wasn't my site, just parked at my domain until Justin & Chuck sorted things out with sales & shipments and such and worked out things with my regarding a deal for a batch of my 7800 carts, then they redirected it back to their webspace. Chuck moved on and now Justin is working with 2 other new guys and redid the site from the ground up. Curt

This is a good point and most likely correct insofar as the aluminum name plates are concerned... The original proto name plates just said Atari 7800 (no PROsystem) then the production run had Atari 7800 Prosystem with the thin rainbow stripe across which seems to be more of the 84/86 systems, once that was exhausted, it looks like the final runs were done with the thick rainbow stripe across the console. This also holds true on the 2600jr's which had the small 3" wide stripe in the center of the aluminum name plate.... those systems are more likely to have the 83' copyright on the motherboard, but the real key is removing the clear flex-circuit from the top plastic case for the buttons and checking the copyright on those.... most have the 86' Atari Corp copyright on the flex-circuit.... BUT.... if you can find one that has the 83 or 84 Atari Inc. Copyright on them, then you've found one of the original Atari 2600jr's built under Warner Comm. Atari :wink: Curt

Okay Crossbow.... we've had enough things blown up around lately by terrorists, if you want the Tramiels blown up, then get the terrorists to do it, maybe if they blow them up they'll actually get a medal instead of being hunted down and wiped out.... Now back to our regularly scheduled program already in progress... Brad Saville said that the first 5,000 had rolled off the EP assembly line when he returned to Sunnyvale, the question I am going to ask him is how much materials were already on hand to build how many more so that we can find out the total # of 7800's that were built out using the original 84' order of parts & plastic. As soon as I get word back (if he remembers) I'll let everyone know. Curt