candiru

Speaking of calmness, the end of Frogs and Flies with the pond scene, night sky and intermittent chirping is pretty nice.

I've only made a couple of eBay purchases as I usually prefer to look for things in the wild. I place a few bids from time to time and I too carefully consider the shipping charges when bidding. I pretty much always lose because I am a cheap bastard and I'm not willing to pay more for something with shipping added in than I would if I saw it on the shelf in a regular store. I don't see a problem with paying a little extra to know that an item will be shipped securely, but many of the fees I see when I'm looking at auctions seem a lot higher than they should be. Too many people seem to think that shipping should be at least $5.00 no matter how small the item is. Everybody's probably seen examples of this before but I was less than impressed with a seller's integrity when I saw a bunch of super common carts with BINs of 1 cent and shipping prices of $6 per cart with no combined shipping.

If you can get your hands on some of the unsulation type of foam, it might work pretty well. The kind I saw used most often when I took sculpture was light blue. It carves nicely and you can get it pretty smooth. You can also prime it and sand it if you're careful. Be careful about what kind of paint or glue you use though, test it first. You could also use illustration board, it comes in several thicknesses. You can score it on one side and bend it to make curves or sharp angles. Use something like 5-minute epoxy and glue it all together then use some light sandpaper to clean up any rough edges, spray paint and you're done. It can be time consuming to make it look nice, but you can create some really cool 3-dimensional stuff this way. Good luck on your project.

This guys enthusiasm is quite infectious. Must have been Math Gran Prix that made you the "mannliest"

Just so I don't screw this thing up more than I have, will this component work properly? Radio Shack part #276-1604

You may be right yodan. The plug I bought is the 2 part type where you buy the tip and it has 2 little prongs on the back side. Then you insert the prongs into another piece with wire leads that you attach to the power supply. (am I making any sense?) Upon closer inspection it seems that the tip is (+) or (-) depending on which direction you plug it in. I disconnected it earlier so I don't know which way I had it hooked up when it smoked. Must be more observant from now on. Oh well, hopefully it will be set right with the new piece. @CPUWIZ, that's weird I guess not all of them were 300 ohm input equipped. It also appears that part of my circuitry more closely resembles a log of bologna than yours.

I recently acquired a 4-port 5200. I knew these things were big, but I was simply not prepared for the sheer bulk of this monster. It is complete except that the plug that should go from the power supply to the switchbox has been neatly snipped off. I bought the necessary plug from Radio Shack and wired it in. Unfortunately that's were my progress has stopped. Smoke began curling out of the switchbox as soon as I hooked the system up and ran power through it. I've attached a photo of the circuit board and circled the component that burned. It doesn't appear to have damaged anything else. I'm not too experienced with repairing electronics so I was wondering if replacing this component will likely solve my problem or if there is an underlying fault that caused this piece to get hot. Thanks in advance for any advice you can give.

She may be heavy but she's got a great personality. (Just rounding out the obligatory heavy sister jokes)

It's odd, I've only seen E.T. in the wild once. Same goes for Casino. Those rarity 1 games seem a little scarcer around these parts. I can see your point though sku_u, anything that can be bought on a regular basis for $25 or less, in the grand scheme of things is not a particularly rare commodity.

I've never used any of this stuff, can I find it at Wal-Mart? I was wondering if anyone has any experience removing the "China Marker" writing from carts and cardboard boxes without damaging them. Most people seem to call them China markers, I usually call them grease pencils, but the thrift stores around here are really fond of scrawling all over everything in the store with them.

My newest system is an N64 but I waited to buy it until it dropped to $99 at Wal-Mart. I'm definitely not an early adopter. Everything else I've bought used or brought with me when I moved away from home. Is Ogre Battle 64 that good/rare? I've seen it a few times but passed on it since I'm not usually a fan of RPGs.

I was always impressed by the gameplay and different screens in Pete Rose Baseball.

Still got my original Vader from '82 or '83. It works great except that one time I loaned it to my cousin for a couple weeks and it came back with the black-and-white/color switch broken off. Now he's buried somewhere in the New Mexico desert. j/k

There's always 8-man football. That's what I played in High School. And just so I'm on topic, I've never really seen the appeal of sports games either. I do like a lot of the Atari 2600 sports titles though. *Peeks under 2600 rock and asks Room 34 to move over a little bit*

You guys shouldn't make so much fun. This game is much rarer than you all think. Everybody keeps saying how they wish they had a one player version of Combat.

Welcome Dinogamer. I think I read somewhere here on AA that once you pass the 100 game mark you can no longer consider yourself a casual collector. I think that's true for most of the people here, except for me. I can quit anytime I want.

One of my sources sent me this top secret mock-up of the new Atari console. Rumor has it that it will include an amazing new Pac-Man game by Tod Frye. We will definitely see these by Christmas.

I have the most fond memories of Atari 2600 and it will always be number 1 for me. N64 is also up there because of the great multiplayer, and since it's a cartridge based system, hopefully I will be able to enjoy it for years to come.

I saw a stack of Playboy magazines over a foot tall in a display case at one of the local thrifts. Sort of funny though since it was a "Missouri Council for the Blind" store.

I don't know what kind of software or hardware you have access to, but this is what I do when I recreate my labels and don't have the right typeface. I scan in what I have or use one of the AtariAge photos, and open it in Adobe Illustrator. You could use any program with a vector pen tool. I then simply "trace" over the letters with the pen tool. Then delete the photo from the background when I'm done. This can be time consuming but it will give the best results.

Maybe I'm not very good with sensitive control because that little S.O.B. Frogger is always taking an extra jump into the path of an oncoming truck or off a log.

Last weekend at a flea market I passed on a $20 NES that had a cracked case, 10 years worth of dust, and a sticker on it that said "works good." Yeah, I bet.

So far I've traded with/bought from: badbrad homerwannabee Jacob Keir kevin242 MegaManFan mert moycon oesii PaulMcCraneFan rsiddall SpendTooMuchOnAtari superomni I think that's everyone. All good traders.

Seems like there was some Nintendo world Competition cart or something like that which is super rare. That's the main reason I mentioned exceptions. To ask another question, would an "A-" NES cart be equivalent to a 6 or 7 rated Atari 2600 cart? That's the kind of comparison I was hoping someone could help me out with.

Ok, maybe this is a silly question, but how do the A,B,C ratings for NES carts compare to the 1-10 ratings used on AtariAge? I've gotten pretty familiar with the AA rating system and it gives me a pretty good feel for how rare the game is. With a few exceptions I don't really think an A+ NES game is as rare as a 10 on AtariAge. I've found a fair amount of A,A-,and B+ NES games but nothing above an Atari 6 in the wild. Maybe this is just because the NES is newer and there are still more carts in circulation? Anybody got any thoughts or opinions?