Herbarius

I'm afraid no. Each unit is manufactured by highly trained professionals with love and care. That does take some time. Also, every unit is inspected after completion, and even if it has the slightest imperfection, it doesn't pass. However, price calculations aren't finished, so no numbers yet.

The thread title reminded me of something I thought about, but not as some kind of realistic project, just letting my imagination run wild. It's about an Atari 2600 "Collector's Edition", based on the heavy sixer (or maybe light sixer) with following features: * Real wood for the woodgrain part. * platinum switches * big Atari logo across the ridges * VIDEO COMPUTER SYSTEM in gold letters, the logo on the woodgrain as well * extra strong shielding * built-in AV mod * additional dustcover doors on the cartridge slot * comes with high quality joystick controllers, which look like the CX-40s, but are microswitched * Paddles and Joypads also included; all controllers extra-sturdy and have at least twice the usual cord length. * also features an external control panel, the size of a joypad, which can be plugged into its own port and has all the switches that are on the console (except Power and channel select). The inbuilt harmony cart is another good idea, maybe combined with a possibility to connect the Atari to your PC via USB and dump the ROM of whatever cartridge is inserted. Further ideas for this imaginative "Deluxe Atari"?

Last week a bunch of Imagic games arrived, that I've got from ebay for 7EUR total (plus shipping). Any comments on those games? I already played Dragonfire, Atlantis and Moonsweeper, they're all great. Nice challenging gameplay, although Moonsweeper is a bit tough. I'll try the other ones as well in the next couple of days, Riddle of the Sphinx may be interesting, being an action adventure game. I've already got Activision's StarMaster, which one do you think is better, this or Star Voyager? Fire Fighter might as well be the new black sheep of my collection

Google for "FreePDF XP", it's a little tool that installs as a Windows printer driver. You can then create PDFs from any application that can print, like Word. Just select the Print... command from the menu, then choose the FreePDF XP printer instead of your actual printer (if you have one) and there you go. There are other freeware programs that do the same, however FreePDF XP is the one I know and use. It's from Germany, but don't worry you can select your language.

That reminds me of something: Just a few days ago I saw a soccer match on television (or at least part of it), it was a match in the Netherlands... I don't care a lot about soccer, but what got my attention was one of the advertisments at the side of the court. I couldn't believe my eyes: "Playstation 2" What's up, Sony? Giving up on your PS3 completely and advertising the PS2 again? Another thing: I think that's the same kind of attitude like when you go into a computer store and the employee talks about how a one year old machine would be "enough for word-processing"... Yeah, really?

Wow - I totally overlooked this. Check out my version of Warlords, Medieval Mayhem, available at the Atari Age store(and yes, there's a PAL version). You can download the ROM or check out a few videos from my website, as well as play it online. Yes, I know, I know... Sooner or later I'll also get into the whole Homebrew thing... and then, propably Medieval Mayhem would be the first game I'd get. But to be honest, 25$ is a lot of cash for an Atari game (and that doesn't include the shipping), I agree it's totally worth the effort you put into creating it, but for my budget (I am studying computer science) it's just too much. That's why I am more after original Commons or other cheap deals. Also my complaints about Warlords not being fun in singleplayer apply to Medieval Mayhem as well. Let's face it: If you'd pick 5 people I know (from RL) then there would be 2 who don't know at all what an Atari is, another two would say "You have an Atari? Hey that's cool" but don't mean it, or at least wouldn't play and only 1 would, potentially, be willing to play Atari with me. And that's an optimistic assessment of the situation.

Nintendo should've come to America and try to sell the NES in early 1984, without Super Mario Bros, right in the middle of the game crash... that would have almost guaranteed a complete failure and maybe Atari would have been able to rebuild the North American Video Game market...

I understand that Night Driver is one of the very early Atari games. Also it's an Arcade port and may be the only 2600 Arcade port that actually improves upon the original Arcade game (use of color, upcoming cars, decoration like trees, houses)... I'm thinking about getting it. I tried it in the Emulator, but you can't really tell, using the mouse instead of paddles just doesn't work well... However I think it looks pretty fun. However, reviews differ dramatically. Classic Game Room HD, which is normally very lenient, did a really negative review of Night Driver. I don't think I've ever seen a CGR-Review that negative... On the other hand the Video Game Critic rates it B+, so maybe it isn't that bad after all... I want to get another game using paddle controllers. I tried to get Video Olympics, but as it turns out, the PAL version is hard to find (according to AtariAge it doesn't even exist, according to Atarimania it does.) I already have got Breakout, so Super Breakout is out of the question (playing being my primary motivation, not collecting). I thought about Warlords, but this does seem to be fun especially with 4 players, less with 2 and like not fun at all if you play alone. So I thought I'd opt for the single-player-heavy Night Driver, there'll be plenty of time for Warlords later... However, I just wanted some opinions before I get it, partly because the reviews are so different and because I can't properly try it on the PC, because it's a paddle game. I'm a big fan of Enduro, and I hate Pole Position, maybe that information is useful.

Both movie posters show the twin towers to be ridiculously close to each other

I know what you mean. I don't have many games, but often I find myself thinking about playing one, but can't decide... when I finally decide there's no time left.

Flea markets may have better prices, but there's no guarantee you'll find what you're looking for or even ANYTHING Atari related. Once I bought two joystick controllers, not the original CX-40 but third-party... both the same and both for some reason had a problem moving right (didn't register it well), so that made me think what the previous owner of these joysticks may have played where you're pressing right that much... Maybe Pitfall? ^^

I must say I never understood this. They reworked a Spider-Man movie, too, because of 9/11, so the WTC doesn't appear anymore... Couldn't they have said, the movie "took place" when the towers still stood? Also, Red Alert plays in a parallel universe, so it's conceivable it might have the same WTC but no 9/11...

Yes, I like it too, but I agree $100 is too much. I like how "raw" it looks and like some... like something that belongs in an old submarine Any chance you could try if it works?

Thanks yuppicide and cd-w!

He didn't think it's the WTC, he said it REMINDS him of 9/11.

There's the 1997 TV movie called "Asteroid!"; it's like a cheap-ass version of Armageddon... Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6CFSTjT8cw Look in the trailer at the moment from ~1:00 to ~1:05, that looks like what I'd expect from a movie based on the game Asteroids

Going a little off-topic, do you think it's possible to modify the 2600 board in a way that all big 4 switches (or all 6 on a 6-switcher) are rotated 180 degrees, but work like normal... like you would press the Game Reset switch UP to toggle game reset et cetera... I keep thinking about a major "casemod", or rather a complete new case, building it into a much smaller unit with controller ports on the front... Maybe I'll never do it, but you never know... If I'd find a second working VCS at a flea market for a good price, I'd propably give it a shot, as long as I only have that one console, I wouldn't dare it.

This propably is a very noobish question, but I didn't get myself into homebrewing (and not planning it either), but I'd still like to fool around with that converter... So my question ist: How do I compile the output file, so I get a bin like those examples above?

Nice for sharing that article, I like to read stuff like that However, I hate it when sites don't offer printer-friendly versions, or like this one, half-ass printer-friendly versions... Yeah, that BS to the right disappeared, but still the width of the page isn't utilized properly, also it's two parts that you'd have to print seperately...

I remember hooking up a C64 for a friend quite a while back (I was a child, but being the "computer genius" it's me who has been asked). I could be mistaken, because it's so long ago, but if memory serves we used not a switch-box, but an Y-cable to connect both the TV cable and the C64 to the TV and it worked just fine. Do you think that is possible or must I be mistaken?

That's the difference between "heavy sixer" and "light sixer"... The heavy sixer had extra shielding than the later models. Also color saturation was boosted before output, but I think that was done in both heavy and light sixers.

I did download it and indeed I had fun. The only complaint is that you have to use the joystick to aim the shots forward or backward, but apart from that I don't see what's wrong with it. Of course, it's no masterpiece, but not a "stinker" either. I also kinda like the cover art, nice oldschool sci-fi picture.

My six-switch and four-switch cases are exactly the same size. Oh, if that's true then I apologize. I always thought the six-switchers are considerably wider than the 4-switchers (add circa the width of a game cartridge to the 4-switch-width)... But I am correct to assume that the woodgrain 4-switchers and "Vader" 4-switchers are the same size? Of course that also explains how the size of the 4-switch case is also a result of the plans about including speakers in the console, so my above objection concerning that can be ignored.

Mhh, IIRC, all the 6-switcher does is boost up the color saturation. If I turn up the color saturation on my TV to maximum and play my 4-switcher, the colors are already over-saturated, resulting in massive color bleeding, so even on the 4-switcher I've to turn down the saturation at my TV. At one point the 2600 was going to include speakers built in. You can even sorta see the "grilles" on some cases. This feature was dropped but not before the tooling and physical design were completed. That doesn't explain the size of the 4-switch-model, which most likely wasn't planned until after the 6-switcher came out.

Normally I try the default setting first. If I find it to be too hard, I'll set it to an easier level insted, if it's too easy I pick a harder one. If I've already beaten the game but want to play it again, I'll use a harder mode, if there are just 3 modes usually the hardest. However, I've made the experience some games seem to trick me, especially when you (like most times) can't adjust the difficulty during the game, but only at the beginning... I'll start and play a while, thinking it's too easy, so I restart on a harder setting, after trying it out for a while I think "yeah, that's more like it"... And then after a while you get to a ridiculously hard part of the game and I can't get any further, because my difficulty level is so high... Yes, of course it's normal that the difficulty should increase during the game, but it feels cheap to have such sudden jumps in difficulty, especially if after that incredible hard part it gets easier again... Very similar problems in games with boss battles every other stage. Of course the boss wouldn't be a boss if it wouldn't be hard to defeat. But likewise I feel cheated if the regular enemies are sooo easy that I think "oh, that's a very easy game, better get the difficulty up before it gets too boring" and then the first boss battle comes and it's like impossible. And that's not a fundamental flaw of the stage/boss system, look at the Megaman series, yes it's hard, throughout the stage and against the bosses, but it's in balance and it's fair (no / very low "Fake Difficulty").