Herbarius

If the computer works and you've connected it to your TV/screen, with no cartridge or something like that inserted, you should see a white screen with a light blue border around it and dark blue text that says: CBM BASIC V2 ##### BYTES FREE READY. and a blinking cursor underneath (of course there should be numbers instead of #s ) try giving it a command like PRINT "TEST" and it should answer TEST However, you propably already know how to work BASIC when you own a C64 already. In fact the keyboard and how you operate it is very similar to the C64. Like you have the RUN/STOP + RESTORE keys and so on...

I chose the fourth option (Only as long as certain aspects of the review are clearly marked "Incomplete Due to Lack of Proper Hardware"), because this most closly resembles my opinion in this matter, however I'd like to make some notes. The most important part is, that the reviewer did the research, is fully aware he is shooting the footage or even judging the game on an Emulator and not the real system. He should know what differences there are for the hardware in general (not only including the system in itself but the CRT TV as the intended screen) and know incompatibilities for the game he/she reviews in particular. If possible he should try to at least look at the game on the real hardware, if possible, like when a friend owns the system. In the review he should be honest about using an emulator and also - especially when he uses video - point out differences to the real hardware, regardless of either how slight or how obvious they might seem. How he states it is up to the reviewer, but it should be made clear. In case of youtube videos, just putting it in the video description is not a very good idea, however acceptable if one forgot to mention it in the video itself and wants to clarify it. The best approach is to verbally explain it in the video itself. Example lines: "I've used an emulator to record the footage you are seeing. As far as I know it's an accurate reproduction of the original hardware, but keep it in mind if you spot anything weird." "Unfortunately, I can only record this footage using an emulator, so in the picture the player character seems to disappear and reappear while the fireballs come up around him. Played on the real hardware, the player character and the fireballs do show slight signs of flicker, however they're perfectly visible all the time." Also, it does depend on the platform. If the platform is well emulated it's sure less problematic than when it's poorly emulated. This is especially true if the emulation isn't only used for lack of the recording equipment to capture the footage of the real system, but for lack of the system itself. If there's no good emulator for the system, any attempt of actually judging the game from playing it in the flawed emulator would be futile. So it's important to do the research and to stop attempting to review a game if it turns out it's not gonna work. Because if the reviewer does the review entirely oblivious to the fact that the emulator if flawed, he will come to the conclusion the flaw is inherent in the game, not the emulator, and so his review won't do the game justice, it might even completely pan a good game.

Although harder to find and thus more expensive, the original Nintendo top-loader, or "NES 2", seems to be a wise investment. It plays both NTSC and PAL games, doesn't have the lock-out mechanic - so no trouble with third-party games - but IS a genuine Nintendo product, and also because it's top-loading, you won't have trouble with worn-out contacts like with the original design model.

To watch out for Space Invaders is my guess! It would be cool if an atari was built into the telescope, so you can play the games while looking into the telescope. The background of the games would be transparent. Exactly my thoughts

that actually reminds me of a sports teacher back at my school. He always divided the group into 4 teams and let them play ball games against each other in pairs... After that's he'd would let the two winning teams play against each outher and then finally he'd say "Okay, now the two less successful teams" However, he actually was quite a jerk and I can imagine very well that he would had loved to say "the loser teams", but some regulation wouldn't allow him to say that.

I just looked it up on Youtube, at first I thought "yeah, nothing special at all", but now, several minutes later, I can see your point: It's hopelessly stuck in my head bee ba boo boo... bee ba boo boo.. bee ba boo boo... ...DUH DUH DUH DUH!!

At least cartridges made by Atari have a little P on the end label (if it's a picture label cart) or an "-P" suffix to the CX-number (if it's a text label cart) on the PAL versions. Although, there may be exceptions of this rule. Also, I think Activision PAL carts have the words "International Edition" on them. Again, there may be exceptions. It depends on your TV. Some TVs are very forgiving, others are not. I'd suggest try one PAL game to see if it works, and if it does, other's would propably work as well.

Robot Tank is not a re-release of Battlezone. Robot Tank is by Activision, and while it is similar to Battlezone, you can't even call it a clone, as it has drastically different gameplay.

That's a common misconception. The game that was produced more than systems sold was Pac-Man, not E.T. E.T.'s initial run was 5 million copies. People who claim that 5 million copies were buried are the ones thinking almost every E.T. cartridge has been returned and subsequently buried, which is far from the truth, considering even to this day E.T. is one of the most common 2600 games. They made 12 million Pac-Man cartridges when it came out, at that time approx 10 million 2600s had been sold. They thought people would buy Ataris just to play Pac-Man, propably hoping to repeat their earlier success with the 2600 Space Invaders. E.T. came out after Pac-Man, so those 5 million copies made can't be more than systems. ONTOPIC: Lacking official numbers I'd think 30 million seem to be a good guess, when 1982 there were already 10 million, and considering the 2600 jr. has been sold even into the early 90s, as well as counting clones.

Doesn't add Super Mario Allstars a save function to SMB 1-3? I think I remember something like that...

Both Krokodile cart and CuttleCart are no longe being made, and the chances to get one are minimal, because the few people that actually have them propably will keep it. The Harmony cart isn't out yet, your best shot is to wait for it to come out. I think I read somewhere it will be somewhere in the range of $50 - $150.

Yes, you're right... I somehow got the feeling there is something wrong with this top-100 poll all along, but I never could really put my finger on it. After reading your post and the explanation on that rollercoaster site it became clear.

I wondered... wouldn't it be possible to make a PAL game that could not be ported to NTSC, because you take advantage of the additional CPU time resulting from the bigger overscan? So on PAL there could be actually superior games?

I got told by someone here on the forums that this isn't true. The additional weight is NOT from the RF shielding, but from the actual casing.

Prob so due to the extra shielding but since I got shed of my RF Switch my Vader is crystal clear. Wp I think what they mean is that the heavy sixer has a "saturation booster" in it, so the colors are more intense... However it's propably a matter of taste, on my Vader I'm perfectly satisfied with the colors, depending on the game I still turn down the saturation at my TV, so if I had a heavy sixer it would mean I'd have to turn down the saturation on my TV even more.

Hmm, reading in this thread always make me wanna play Super Mario games

Challenge/My Way/Mein Weg has music that plays continously...

Have you seen the new Star Trek movie? Yes, as a Star Trek fan I don't know where to start complaining, but even if I try to see it just a "Science Fiction movie", not as a Star Trek movie, this still remains: 1. Shaky camera. Almost all the time. And not only in the action scenes. The scene when Captain Pike and the young Kirk are talking in the bar (after Kirk got himself into a fight), and Pike tries to talk Kirk into joining Starfleet, the camera shakes... or rather it wobbles around... What's going on there? The cameraman was drunk, too? 2. Yeah, lens flares. I've read the section on your website about lensflares, and I totally agree. But I've never seen a movie so far that does it so extremely. 3. Camera angles... all the time you feel like "too close to the action". Combined with the lens flares and shaky cam, you never really know what's going on. In fact, many times during the movie I was thinking exactly that "What the hell is going on, PLEASE zoom out, so I can see what's going on, and stop the shaking!" It's especially telling there is not a single shot of the starship Enterprise where you can see the whole ship clearly, without any action going on. If you compare to the other Star Trek movies, EVERY single one of them hat at least one shot like that. It's almost like they're too ashamed of the redesign of the ship to clearly show it. But it's not just the Enterprise, the other ships, too... and everything else. A reviewer said, he felt exhausted after seeing the movie. That's exactly like I felt when leaving the cinema. Exhausted. After being bombarded with flashy colors and loud sounds for 100 minutes (or whatever the runtime of it was). After you finally get to think about the story you realize it is weird and uncreative, and doesn't really fill a full movie at all. However to "compensate" they just resorted to the bombardement with sound and colors. As if nobody was going to notice!

Why is that harsh at all? It's the logical thing to do, and I'm sure it's nothing personal against you. It's just that no-one needs two threads about the same thing. In other forums I know this is very common and nobody complains about it. I don't know anything about you being on moderator preview, but a reason might be that you react pissed off to things like this.

I read here "The successor to the 2600 would have been based off the Atari 800" if Nolan Bushnell would have got his way"... Am I missing something here? What about the 5200? After all if WAS a consolized version of the Atari 8-bit computer line... That's why you can use the Atari 800 emulator to play 5200 games, isn't it? And the reason why it was so easy to port games from the atari 400/800 to the 5200.... So what would have been different? Or do you want to say, they would not have based a console off the A800, but the computer itself would have been the new gaming platform? Oooh, I don't think so, by this logic the Amiga would have kicked Nintendo's ass later, it just isn't the same to market a game console or home computer. Think about children, a 3 year old kid could handle a game console like the 2600, but a computer? If you don't count hyper-intelligent kids, I think the minimal age to access computers, especially back than, would be around 9 years old. (think about fluid reading being a key ability needed to operate computers) But it doesn't end there, lots of teenagers would think a game console is "cool" but a computer is "nerdy"... and so on...

Ah, okay I see.

First: Do you think it would be better if women were not allowed to divorce? What kind of reason do you think would suffice? Issues like that can't be quantifized, no third person can ever judge if a marriage works or not. Second: "take all of his hard earned money" come on... The wife doesn't have any claim on any money. It's the kid who deserves the money, and rightfully so. Of course this means the parent that keeps the kid gets the money, but it's calculated to support the kid's needs (clothes, food, et cetera...) Also, the ex-husband never has to starve in order to give up money (although lots of ex-husbands illegaly like to pretend they're poor, so they don't have to give up any money or not as much money...) However, please correct me if I'm wrong and these things actually are different in the US, as I'm from Europe. The main reason propably is, he wanted to give an explanation why there won't be any more videos. IMO one of the most disturbing annoyances on the Internet is discontinued series, with no explanation given. Why he gave that much detail is another question, that's true.

What does your friend make? Maybe I'm just stupid, but the picture doesn't help me at all... looks like a bunch of controller jacks from different systems...

However, it's not just Atari, and it's even not just games. Sometimes I wonder if some people (or even lots of people) just are not capable of nostalgia. If I were to guess, out of every 10 people I know... 1 understands and appreciates why I have an Atari... 2 understand why I like the Atari, however don't share my feelings 3 just shrug and don't care at all 3 laugh or tease me about it 1 expresses worries I might have mental problems No, I'm not making the last one up, although it was not about game consoles, but once I got into a talk about old hardware in general and said I could actually imagine buying an old table calculator that uses rolls of paper, and even use it, just for the sake for nostalgia, and I got really invested in the conversation, tried everything to somehow invoke the feeling of nostalgia in the others, or just explain it to them, like "think about having a calculator like that on your desk, it's really physically there, when you type on it you hear the click-clacking sounds of the keyboard, the paper roll moving, yadda yadda" but it didn't help at all. But not enough of that, some weeks later, two of those people started to get me into a "serious talk" about that "incident", why did I behave like that, expressed their worries I might have a drug problem or just be mentally ill. I couldn't really believe it and at first though they were joking, but they were dead serious about it! I haven't talked to one of those two ever since (at least if you don't count "Hi there!" if I meet him accidently), and even while I still have quite regular contact with the other one, this topic was never really resolved, and we both just avoid it as we know all it will result in is arguing. Long story short, this might be one of the most irritating experiences, it sure made some impact on me. That's why I think some people just are not capable of nostalgia. If they even think of nostalgia as mental illness, it's clear they don't know the feeling at all.

Spectravision, Cross Force