Herbarius
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Posts posted by Herbarius
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They propably found the games in the attic or basement of some relative... But the 2600 which they discovered along with it didn't work or they didn't bother to hook it up.
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"Some good games like Asteroids, Pac-Man, ..."
That guy propably didn't ever play Pac-Man 2600
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I always think why could'nt they have made the controllers just like the 2600???? Or at least compatible with 2600 controllers.They wanted to one-up the competition (some of them boasting about having more axes than the Atari 2600) using full analog sticks (i.e. having infinite axes). That they are not self-centering was propably just a bad design decision.
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Also to play Doom on Windows XP/Vista, you should download the Shareware version of Doom95 (just google for it). If you own the original DOS version of Doom, you can just copy the DOOM.WAD into your Doom95 directory so you can play the full game using the windows client (be sure to select the correct WAD in the Doom95 frontend. DOOM.WAD means the full version, DOOM1.WAD is the Shareware episode).
If you own the DOS version of Doom 2 you can also copy its DOOM2.WAD into the Doom95 directory and play it using the windows client, too.
The only problems I've encountered with this setup is a graphical glitch concerning Invisibility (the invisibility pickup and invisible enemies). This apparently varies form one machine to the other.
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A lot of false information in these couple a paragraphs but the biggest mistake was 'It failed very hard'. No it did not. It was not as successful as Atari wanted but it still did not 'fail very hard'.Sorry, I think it's a matter of perspective. Me living in Europe and seeing that a console was released in the US, wasn't very successful, so they didn't even bother to make a PAL version led me to that conclusion.
I already thought I had already done a lot of research in that respect (I've some friends who believe I learn Wikipedia Articles word-by-word
), but I'll go back and double-check. 
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Yeah, I downloaded the new version. My old version was still from 2007
However I've a minor complaint, it's the first thing I checked after downloading the new version, but it's still not fixed:
If you enable Mouse as Paddles in the Controller Configuration menu, it won't save this settings for the next emulator start - even if you switch to the Emulator Configuration menu and save the configuration file there. Bug or feature?
:DEDIT: I forgot to mention I'm using the DirectX-Version, just if that is relevant.
EDIT2: Also a little request: Would it be possible to include a feature to swap the axes/buttons assigned to each player on the mouse?
Like if you would play Super Breakout with two players, first player loses his ball, now second player is up, gets the mouse and now he has to move it in a counterintuitive way to control his paddle... Would be nice if you could just hit a hotkey and second player would uses left-right movement too...
Yeah it doesn't help for games with two simultaneous players, but in fact unless you mod an USB mouse into two paddles it won't anyway...
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The controllers were unreliable, not very comfortable and not self-centering. The machine was pretty expensive, and it was very large/heavy. Also there was the game market crash and people buying home computers instead of game consoles, especially if words got through the 5200 was in fact a "disguised" Atari 400.
Propably the marketing wasn't good, either, this wasn't really Atari's best times...
It failed very hard, AFAIK it was never released in Europe, and as a result the library of games is pretty small.
Aftermarket popularity is propably quite low, too, because of the way better 7800, because it's virtually impossible to find working controllers today (without letting them be repaired) and because of the small library of games (and you cant play 2600 games on it). Also the original model uses a propietary switchbox which also includes the power supply for the 5200, so if that switchbox dies, you are left with a non-functional 5200, good luck finding a replacement.
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Of course we got a universal remote to replace it, but that TV was unique in that it had "menu" and also "settings" (or something like that), and in order to program the channels you'd need to go into *settings*, but every universal remote in the world only had "menu," so we had to keep the POS remote around as well for every time the power went off and it forgot what the channels were.In my experience universal remotes are working less well than they should... Even for TVs that are officially supported by it, there are some buttons that are left out or something... Also what is written on the buttons and what they do often doesn't match up (except for the very simplest stuff, like the numbers), so you have to learn what is what... They propably should give the user the possibility to reprogram it himself (not just selecting one of several dozens profiles), so he can fix some stuff up... but as 99% of the people buying it wouldn't even begin to understand what's that about this propably isn't going to happen.
My TV originally had a remote, too, but that was dead even when it was still my parents' TV... I once tried an universal remote my sister bought for her TV on my TV and it worked, later I bought one myself (unfortunately not the same model) and it refused to work with my TV. (I could have switched with my sister, but at that point her universal remote wasn't at all in "mint condition" anymore... yeah that cheap stuff, falling apart if you look funny at it)
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Students make Atari games look like Atari again
and again: the S-video output mod does nothing about any of the effects mentioned (except "RF-engendered signal noise" which propably is optional anyway). It can't because it's the technology in the TV that produces these effects.
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This is completely redundant. The SNES was only 16-Bit, the Game Boy Advance was 32-Bit, there's no way an adapter could be made for it.Huh? Well, you always learn something new
For some reason all the time I thought the GBA is more or less a portable SNES hardware-wise...
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I guess it's because they know I know how to fix them, and that keeps them in their place. Those young wippersnappers just like to act up for the attention. icon_smile.gifAlso, people tend to give me their broken TV's, because I fix them - so I wind up with more than the usual share of broken sets. And, I pick up free TV's when I find them at the curb. The funny thing is, that the older the set, the more likely it has been that it works just fine.
Yeah I thought about whether I could repair my TV, after all it propably is just the control pad that needs some fixing, some new microswitches (or maybe some tinfoil is enought
), a new potentiometer for the brightness I guess... About the AFT I don't know, but that's not that much of a problem.However I don't dare to take the TV apart... I fear it would never work again if I even try to fix it.
You see, I'm a "technical person" when it comes to theory, but if I have to do something myself, such as soldering, I usually suck... -
Nothing quite like that terrible feeling when you realize you just lost hours and hours worth of your game progress. Playing RPGs, especially back in the day when there was no such thing as auto save. I had been there many times.I just had that again... I played some Morrowind again and was just exploring some area I hadn't been before for the purpose of level grinding.
When I had nearly finished to explore the area I that I had planned to explore I got into a fight with some creature I hadn't fought before, but I decided to try it and in fact I wasn't doing too bad, but with some bad luck I managed to get myself killed, in the same moment realizing that I never saved in the entire session (and never rested, so no autosaves as well). But too top it all off, while I was watching the death animation the message "you should rest and meditate about what youve learned" - indicating a levelup - was still on the screen. 
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So, I've a old TV set, it's from the late 80s I think, so I think some of you have even older ones, but it sure is old enough...
First thing, it already has all kinds of buttons instead of wheels, for tuning, switching channels, and even volume... The only wheels on it are for saturation, contrast and brightness (I'll get to that later again)... As you may have already guessed, the channel select and volume buttons are extremely worn out... It's a good thing you don't have to switch channels when you play games
but if I try to adjust the volume I have to press really hard, trying multiple times before it actually works, and when it finally works, I may not realize quickly enough, so I've to repeat all that with the opposite button...Now to the tuning, thankfully this works okay... Sometimes it doesn't seem to get the signal very clear, but it's acceptable for something analog. But the strange thing is one little button called "AFT"... took me a while this propably means "Automatic Fine Tuning", so yeah... I remember it worked properly way back, like 10 or even 15 years ago... But now, first it seems to work, you activate it and you'll get a better picture (except for some weird TV stations, that even get worse if you activate it, but that's the same thing it were back then), then you sit down and watch your movie, or play some game and like 15 or 20 minutes later suddenly... the picture is gone, just some "funny colors", sound is gone too, the only thing you can do is turn AFT off and on again... or better don't turn it on again, because another 15 to 20 minutes later it will happen again.
The controls to adjust the picture work okay too, at least at first glance... The TV seems to have a problem over-saturating some colors - and hence causing massive color bleed - but with some experience you figure out how to adjust them properly, although this means to have the saturation slightly lower you would want to - somehow there seems to be no middle ground for it, either you have slightly pale people or people with their faces being covered in pink flames...
But the major annoyance is the brightness control. Yes, it works, you can turn it clockwise and it gets brighter or counter-clockwise and it gets darker, until you have arrived at your preferred level of brightness... Then you sit down, and some time after the screen suddenly gets a lot darker... or a lot brighter... What seems to happen is, the TV somehow alternates between a "brighter state" and a "darker state" on its own (sometimes that happens 2 or 3 times in 15 minutes, sometimes it stays at a constant brightness for hours)... So depending on whether it is on the bright level or dark level when you adjust your darkness, the picture will end up either much too dark or much too bright the next time it changes... I think I should be thankful that the TV does still work and you could ask why I hesitate to buy a new one, but I don't have a lot of money and I think for what I need it works good enough (I don't watch TV very often, use it more often for games or DVDs - I've connected the DVD player to a VCR which is connected to the TV - at least as long the 2600 isn't connected). Also the TV had some more serious issues a while back, but somehow those went again on their own (at the bottom right area everything was tainted slightly purple-blueish... even if you turned the saturation way down so the picture is completely greyscale it would remain tainted that way... however, after a few weeks this problem disappeared completely and it never came back since; and yes, I am sure that no magnetic field was even remotely in the vicinity).
In my childhood I've been taught not to throw away stuff just because it's old, and I think thats a good approach and I can't understand how many people just throw away their less than 5 years old TV or something like that, which is working 100% properly, just "because it's old". I'll propably keep the TV until it breaks down completely or these issues become so much worse I can't stand them anymore...
But what I really want is YOUR stories with your TVs. Did you ever have your TVs "being rude to you"?
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Let me get this straight... you WANT RF interference in your video games? I modified an Atari 2600 to add S-video, just to get away from all that ugliness. It didn't work too well, and I went straight back to playing 26K games on emulators.No, not the RF interference. The S-video mod should get rid of RF interference COMPLETELY. However you seem to confuse the normal byproducts of CRT displays as being RF interference, too. I'd suggest next time you see anything on a CRT television (your favourite TV show maybe, or hey, an Xbox 360 game played on a CRT) move very close to the screen and examine closely what you see (I recommend a still image), this will propably eliminate your confusion.
In fact, the games were designed with the limitations of CRT televisions in mind, sometimes even exploiting these limitations: e.g. when you have those "flickering" sprites to have multiple sprites at once (Pac-Man being an infamous exapmle), on a CRT the flickering will appear less violent than in the emulator. Also the CRT gives large single-colored areas some fake texture.
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Isn't there a "me too" 2600 "nes like" controller?Yes, I already mentioned the Atari 7800 Joypad Controller, it's also compatible with the 2600, although naturally only one of the two buttons will work.
However, if you are from America you'll have a hard time finding those, because they're quite rare. In Europe and Australia those were the standard controllers that came with the 7800 so they're easier to find.
Also the Sega Master System Controller is very similar to the NES controller and also works with the Atari 2600.
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A lot of her trouble is with classic games punishing her for failure -- that is the arcade coin-op play model most of the older games were built on.Yes, but especially the original NES had a lot of VERY hard games in its library, rivalling the Atari games more than easily in terms of difficulty.
However maybe the difference is that most Atari games were "open ended", so you could never "beat the game" like on the Nintendo, but are playing against your own or your friends' or family members' highscores...
That's of course directly transported from the Arcade model. It is even supposed to frustrate the player, but just enough to get the "Oh yeah?? We'll see about that!" type of reaction from the player, so he'll try again and again. However, that often doesn't work with ever player, and its especially hard to get it to work for players of varying skills. Also I think it especially works worse for women than men (Disclaimer: this sentence is independent from the last one, i.e. NOT implying women have less skill at games than men). So this COULD be the problem, perhaps try some Atari games you actually CAN beat.
But I wouldn't give up on the rest of the library either, I'd try the theory about the controller; a modded NES gamepad, a Sega Master System controller or an Atari 7800 Joypad (which is hard to get in America I think, but it was the standard pack-in controller of the 7800 in the rest of the world) could help.
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Atari had a great version of Pacman on the 800, as did the C64.Yes, those were nearly Arcade perfect clones (virtually identical to each other btw)!
Also I don't hate the 2600 Pac-Man. Yesterday I played it quite excessively on my VCS. However it helps if you don't think about it as a "version of Pac-Man" but more as a "game similar to Pac-Man"
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So it had Speech Recognition and all, costing 2000 Dollars and the name was referring to Hal 9000 and what do you do with it?
Play low-interactive so-called "games" on it...
The video also illustrates well the early "CD hype" and the overly optimistic prognosis for this new medium that a lot of people had... In fact it took at least 10 years longer until it became really suitable for games.
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Sometimes I'll get some comments about me playing old games too, however for the moment I don't seem to remember any statement in particular. Most of my friends who know of my appreciation of old games, but don't share it, have given up saying anything and just give me eyerolls or grins...
However, what really frustrated me sometimes if I tried to show someone an old game and try them to understand whats so special about it, they sit down, play it for one or two minutes and then say something like "I cant stand those crappy graphics anymore", I say it's not about the graphics but the gameplay and they reply "well, but it hurts my eyes"...
Come on, of course there are very unpleasant colors in SOME old games, but usually those I use to show already has "well aged" graphics to my understanding... So, are they lying? Propably not, why should they? Then are my eyes different in some way? 
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Essentially the Flashback 2 is a bit like an Atari 2600 clone. You can't play cartridges normally, however it can be modded to play cartridge games as well. Also it supports the same controllers.
Also, there have been some VCS clones back in the 80s, Coleco did 2 (kinda), as well as some others, especially outside the US.
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I heard there are people who like Morrowind, but they don't like Oblivion, while there are also people that like Oblivion, but not Morrowind. However, there are only few people who like both.
I have Morrowind and I like it, however I never played Oblivion, only know it from Screenshots.
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Oh yes, that reminds me of something...
Once I played Serious Sam on my PC and I nearly beat the game, there was only one level left... The whole game I only used the quick save feature, but that was perfectly fine - why bother to call up the menus if you can just press one button...
However, I was going somewhere, but my brother asked, if he could play Serious Sam on my computer and I said "Sure, why not." I started a new game and explained to him, how the quicksave feature worked...
Later when I came back and wanted to finish the last level, I suddenly realized the number of quicksave slots was limited and my brother had saved often enough to overwrite any of my saves!
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and the infamous Atari 2600!infamous?
Whatever, I like chiptunes!
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Yes...
seems to be a nice thread to boost your post count...
EDIT: Nooo, that's not how I meant it...
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damaged games
in Classic Console Discussion
Posted · Edited by Herbarius
I've had some of my games ruined by my little brothers...
One day, my uncle gave me his original version of the PC game Star Wars: X-Wing for free. No box, but the original disks. I installed the game and played awhile, keeping the stack of disks around because I was too lazy to put them somewhere...
Only 2 or 3 days after, I come home from school, then I notice that one of my little brothers hat been in my room and had CUT THROUGH ONE OF THE X-WING DISKS with a pair of scissors! I couldn't believe it... I mean, why couldn't he have done that to ANY of the propably dozens of disks around my room that were NOT original game disks...
At another time I had a game on CD-ROM, and played it often, but one day I couldn't find the disc anywhere. I searched everywhere, I asked my little brothers what they've done with it, but of couse they said they had nothing to do about it, as always...
Eventually I gave up. You've got to know, at that time I had a 5,25 inch floppy drive in my PC, along with a normal 3,5 inch drive and a CD-ROM, and one day I discovered that there's something shiny in there... after I got the CD out, it was the game I had lost, it was completely ruined, no CD drive would read it anymore. It seems my brother didn't only insert the CD into the floppy drive but also tried by force to lock the handle!