Herbarius

The key is education, my friends. I've told this story in a previous thread, but I'm an elementary school teacher. One of my courses is on pop culture from the 50s-80s. When I get into the 70s, I bring in my Atari and set it up on the projection screen. At first, the kids laugh at the graphics and sounds. But then I let them get into pairs and play Combat. They can't get enough of it. I have yet to hear a single student say that it sucks. Some kids have even gone home and asked their parents if they have an Atari and could they pull it out so they can play it. Get 'em when they're young...they'll learn to respect the classics. Yeah, that's nice. Keep it up! However, did you ever face criticism from parents or your colleaques? Especially as Combat is a game of shooting?

I'm afraid this is a misconception. In fact, emulated in DOSbox, games need lots more horsepower than they would in a native DOS environment. While 2D games normally do just fine and run well in DOSbox, even if your PC is a few years old, but for 3D games you need a much faster PC.

Isn't the Nintendo switchbox an automatic one? If that's the case it's a miracle you get a picture at all, as the Atari 2600 video signal isn't strong enough to trigger the switchbox... Maybe it only triggers it "halfway" and that's why you get a fuzzy picture? But make sure you PC has a high-end graphics adapter that supports OpenGL 2.0, or you won't get the CRT emulation, which is really bad. It looks like shit, some games (like Pac-Man) are virtually unplayable due to flicker (without the CRT after-image effect fading in and out the sprites smoothly).

That's shocking... To be honest, I don't know ALL of the title listed, to be specific Crusader and Road Rash, however at least I've HEARD from them somewhere... Ey come on, how can you not know Wing Commander, which even had a movie (okay, it was horrible, as it's normal for game movies, but it HAD A MOVIE), was a very long running series of games and DEFINED THE WHOLE GENRE? (Before you start nitpicking, I don't say it was the first of it's genre, however it raised the bar considerably). Ultima, very long running series, and it spawned Ultima Online, the first popular... okay, nobody knows about that anymore since World of Warcraft, and to be fair, in comparison Ultima Online was a very little bleep on the radar. However, I don't think there would be World of Warcraft now if it hadn't been for Ultima Online to pave the way. About System Shock I'm not sooo surprised, I guess because I learned to live with it over the years, that nobody seems to know that game... However I would hoped the release of BioShock would bring it back into memory... Theme Park doesn't surprise me that much, either, even if it is sad. Primarily because the more recent Rollercoaster Tycoon steals the show. Again, similar to what I said about WoW, without Theme Park there propably would be no Rollercoaster Tycoon... I won't say much about Populous, I don't really like the series, I didn't really like Black&White either... However I can see they had some impact, even if it is a niché genre. Now you may tear me apart because I didn't know Road Rash All in all, I'd say I could understand it if someone never heard of some of those games. Maybe even if someone just knows 1 or 2 of them, although even that is almost unbelievable to me... But never to have heard of ANY of those games, that's shocking.

So, we all know the 2600 controller cords are a little short, I want to know from you, how you deal with this problem, or if it isn't a problem for you at all. I used the cords from broken controllers to extend the cables of the working ones to approx. twice the size, so now I can sit back on the couch and have the console next to the TV. Disadvantage is if you have to put the Reset Switch or games like StarMaster, where you even have to use the console switches during gameplay. So what I do for games like that is sit directly in front of the TV with the 2600 besides me, where it always is... I call that "homecomputer style"...

Oh, thanks! I worried about that in my 2600, too. Nice to hear it's not dangerous

I don't think it's fake. Because it's actually too weird to be fake ^^

Mhhh... 38.3% claim to have and primarily use Six-Switchers, more than half of them Heavy Sixers... Somehow I don't really buy it, AFAIK there should be like 10 times as much 4-switchers than 6-switchers...

That would make a nice little pong console with builtin monitor... Don't you see it?

The cart has the title in all-caps. It's completely normal to replace ß with double S in all-caps font, as there's no upper-case ß. (Yes they invented the captial ß a few years ago, but it's not commonly accepted yet and it definitely didn't exist back when the game was made)

but there's no way you could "save to tape" like you did on early 8-bit computers?

Is it possible if they had done Basic Programming specifically for the SuperCharger, that you could even save your programs with it?

I'm afraid not. And our retro-gaming session got delayed AGAIN. Yes, I'm suspecting he just made that up, he's a big "storyteller" and I will only be sure when I see it with my own eyes. Especially as he delayed our meeting again. And he didn't yet react to my request for a cartridge scan and screenshots. (Yes he did react, but just said "I'll send it to you tomorrow or the day after" when it's now a week ago...) However, I'll post in this thread as soon as I learn anything about it.

What are the little switches on some of the cartridges? Do they have two different games? Or do they have both PAL and NTSC versions? Or what are the switches for?

I'd say all games that fit those criteria are good for joystick testing: * being able to move in all directions on the first screen * your character stops moving if you release the joystick (unlike Pac-Man) * being able to use the fire button with a visible effect on the first screen Centipede and E.T. are good examples IMO.

AFAIK the primary Atari factory for Europe was in Ireland. Perhaps in Scottland you were close enough to get some "vibrations" I've dreamt of Atari stuff too, but nothing as weird as that so far. Once I dreamt getting another 2600, or to be more specific a 2600jr...

I just found out, it is NOT Quest for Quintana Roo... I hope to get cartridge scans and maybe screenshots (only via camera from the TV screen though) ASAP.

Thank you, that really could be it.

A friend of mine told me yesterday about that 2600 game. I haven't seen it yet, but he's gonna show me next week when we meet for a retro-gaming session. I tried to search both AtariAge and AtariMania for that game, didn't find anything. He described it as some kind of mix or middle ground between "Pitfall" and "Raiders of the Lost Ark". One of the puzzles involves killing a snake (the player has to count them and kill one particular snake). Has anybody ever heard of that? Maybe it's some kind of pirate version, so the original title may be different...? Any ideas?

That would be 3D Tic Tac Toe, I guess...

I don't think it's fair you listed 3D Tic Tac Toe... Okay, I could understand if you list it, but then you'd have to list Video Checkers, Activision's Checkers, Reversi/Othello and Video Chess too. At least 3D Tic Tac Toe is something... different. The other games are just adaptations of commonly known board games, but 3D Tic Tac Toe, yes it's loosely based on Tic Tac Toe, but can you really compare it? It's like taking the idea of Tic-Tac-Toe but making a real game out of it.

Yeah that's what I heard and read up until now... The picture is messed up (fast scrolling screen), unless your TV set can somehow cope (as I said some models auto-detect PAL/NTSC). In that case you still have wrong colors (maybe? could be that the TV copes for that aswell) and the games run too fast/slow (obviously the TV can't do anything about that). Whatever, if you say it, I trust it. I'm just a Newbie, you're the creator of batari basic

The NTSC and PAL TIA clock inputs are significantly different. The NTSC is 3.58 Mhz while the PAL is 4.43 MHz. They have different RF circuitry and other differences in the motherboard. You are better off just getting two consoles. OK, if that's the case I take back my previous post. Are you sure, batari, that the NTSC TIA won't go to 4.43 MHz with a PAL game inserted and vice versa?

Which it did, in Europe. (and South America) Errr.... No? At least not here in Germany. Maybe the SMS was stronger here than in America, but the NES was more popular nevertheless.