Lynxpro

Yes, but I'm sure BigO has a guide available or video on how to do it.

I haven't had a chance to try them out. Do they feel like Flashback joysticks, CX40s, or their own unique type? I wonder if adding microswitches would be possible...

BigO has re-joined the discussion in here but I wanted to mention that he also successfully modded a CX22 lacking the Toggle Switch to now include that functionality...

What's the best custom firmware to use on a PSP for emulating the Lynx? Funny this thread just became active again... I bought a replacement battery for my PSP2000 [Vader] from the local retro gaming shop last week and have been playing the arcade Klax off Midway's - damn I hate referring it to Midway instead of Atari Games - Greatest Hits disc. What all of these emulators need to be modded to do is support [mini] USB-to-ComLynx so we could ComLynx it up on-the-cheap. PSPs are dirt cheap [Vitas are not though], especially compared to Lynxes with or without the McWill screens. I would love to be able to do 4 and 8 player ComLynx matches with a mixed assortment of PSPs and real Lynxes. Seriously, you haven't really experienced the Lynx environment until you've played 4-player Warbirds, and 8-player Todd's Adventure in Slime World. Gawd, I loved dropping MegaBombs in the caverns and nuking everyone. Even California Games kicks serious posterior in 4-player mode. Man, it's been like 23 years since experiencing that fun...

That would be tough. Any Falcon030 game would be rough due to the downgrade from the 68030 to the 68000, not to mention having to rework all that the Motorola 56K DSP did. But then again, the Jag's graphics capabilities are beefier...

I hope she eventually starts offering the service again. I have her 30th Anniversary Atari 7800 dust cover and it's sweet. Would love to get more of her work for my other consoles and computers. She even made some for the Vectrex.

Are you missing the screw-in thumbstick or did you opt not to use it? And have you confirmed the 2nd Fire Button is working? The reason why I ask is because apparently Atari Corp - at least in Europe - modded some of them to only use 1 Fire Button when they packed them with the 2600jr over there in the waning days...

A8 Yars is only 2K??? Jars' Revenge on the C64 looks better... It is 16K... https://www.rgcd.co.uk/2012/02/jars-revenge-c64-2011.html

But is there anything else missing from the 7800 version? None of that would explain the 128K difference between the two...

Now *that's* how to support Multi-Player game action on the ST platform! Especially with the MIDI ports... Now, can you do 4 JagPads on a single STe/Falcon if you use a Jaguar TeamTap? That appears to be the only thing not spelled out in your description. Regardless, awesome work!

Did Krewat ever retrieve the source code to his 7800 games? I didn't play the C64 original version enough to notice the differences between it and the 7800 Impossible Mission versions other than the titles, the lack of the voice, the rather atrocious recycled TIA sound effects [many lifted from 2600 Jedi Arena], and, of course, it not being possible to beat [the non-European release]...

I hear ya. Although Bentley Bear's movements are more complicated than your character in Tempest, except in the case of speed. Although I do recall people flinging Bentley Bear around in the arcade by letting the Trak-Ball spin, either out of frustration or just to see what would happen even if sacrificing a quarter to do it...

Hmmm.... do we have a thread on painted CX40s to better match the various systems they're paired up with? Say like an XL style where the top of the joystick case remains black but then the base of it is painted in XL cream, or say, in the uniform gray color of the XEGS/XE/ST? I think DrVenkman has praised Curt's joysticks elsewhere for appearing to match the 400/800 coloring scheme better than any other version...

How do you figure? The Cheetah and Marpes guns were available back when the Commodore 64 and the Atari 7800 were still in production. If I'm not mistaken, Best Electronics didn't carry such light guns until after the 7800 was long discontinued. If anything, Best Electronics bought up the remaining stock of the Marpes and re-branded it as *their* light gun. As for the PCBs, Atari Corp probably sold them to those companies back then. As I stated before, I "discovered" for myself the OEM version of the Atari XG-1 at a local Commodore dealer [Putt's - The Commodore Store]. Since the owner wouldn't guarantee it would work on the 7800, even though it appeared to be the very same Atari light gun, I didn't buy it. Had it been carried at, say, ComputerTime!, which had a decent return policy, I would've taken the chance and bought it back then [circa 1988].

The Wico trackball can be modded to be compatible with the Atari CX80 Trak-Ball in native Trak-Ball mode. User BigO has done it. Although the other downside to the Wico trackball is that it draws more power from the 2600's power supply. Dan Kramer's write-up evaluation on the Wico back when he was at Atari Inc is floating around the net somewhere.

No, but I bet Area 51 and Maximum Force use them for the light gun input on the CoJag arcade PCBs...

From the 2015 party we had, there are pics of the programmer Keithen Hayenga in attendance: http://www.newbreedsoftware.com/atariparty/2015/photos/ Not to mention ex-Atari Inc engineers such as Dan Kramer, Jerry Jessop, and Mike Albaugh...

Back-in-the-day, when Leonard [Tramiel] would make those claims about the 7800 basically being a "2600 with a MARIA" or a "souped-up 2600", it used to cheese me off because it seemed like he was diminishing the hardware and its capabilities and it kinda felt like a slap-in-the-face to stuff designed by Atari Inc, or designed for Atari Inc. In retrospect, I think he was just trying to be "economical" about the hardware's description and capabilities and/or trying to express it in how he considered it would sound like in laymen's terms. It just really seemed odd back then especially when folks at Electronic Gaming Monthly and others claimed the MARIA was insanely powerful but that Atari Corp wouldn't spend the money to get spectacular results out of it. I don't recall the [North American] gaming press publishing his comments but they'd make their way to GEnie and Compuserve and then would end up repeated on Atari themed BBSes and Atari computer users group publications of the times. Leonard is brilliant, IMHO. I don't know if that carried over into graphics chip development and programming but he knows his stuff about operating systems. He's given high praise to the Atari AMY in recent times on Facebook and lamented how it didn't get fixed and released, mostly due to Sight+Sound's shenanigans [which is a view Curt Vendel shares]. Although in old interviews, Sam Tramiel also said similarly, and even stated the AMY was about the only thing he was impressed with in terms of ongoing projects Atari inc was involved with when TTL bought the assets of Atari inc's Consumer Division and renamed it all "Atari Corporation". Maybe the MindLink project really distorted their perceptions of their former competitor [Atari inc] and how "foolish" they were in how they "wasted" their fortunes. [the inference being how well the Tramiels could've used those mountains of cash back at Commodore]. To me, the 7800 is its own system that throws in the TIA - and RIOT - for backwards-compatibility. Something that the Atari 8-bits and the 5200 could've also done before had Atari Inc's/Warner's execs had been concerned with the subject...

Dang. Considering how much two of those folks are requesting for shipping, I think I'd rather rummage around Best Electronics' website to find a price on a NOS edition. Or get their rather ugly 3rd Party one. And yes, the Atari XG-1 Light Gun is compatible with the 2600/7800 as well as the XE Game System and the rest of the Atari 8-bit computers. [but not the 5200]. I've seen pics posted to Facebook of a light gun adapter for the Atari ST that connects to its Parallel Printer Port but the XG-1 won't work on the standard DB9s reserved for Joysticks and ST Mice. One may also find XG-1 light guns that have all Atari branding stripped from them except for the Fuji logo on the connector housing itself. Atari Corp sold them via OEM sales to a company that made light gun games for the Commodore 64 and they came in plain brown cardboard boxes when they were sold to Commodore dealers. I saw this with my own eyes and I kick myself for not having bought one back in 1988 when I wanted to get a light gun for 7800 Crossbow but I didn't want to have to buy an XEGS to get it and Atari Corp wasn't selling the light gun on its own through Atari Explorer/The Atarian magazines, it wasn't being sold at any local independent Atari dealer [ComputerTime in Citrus Heights, Computer Warehouse in Sac, or Safari Computers in Woodland], in Atari Corp owned Federated Group stores, at none of the retailers like Toys R Us or Kay Bee Toys who were selling Atari consoles and games, etc. [same with the Atari EuroPads, and the later ST Power Pads, I might add]. But the local Commodore dealer had them but he wouldn't guarantee they'd work on the 7800 so I didn't buy one with my precious money and opted to continue playing the game in joystick mode. Alas... Interestingly enough, this website mentions the "Marpes" light gun which appears to be the same design as the one Best Electronics sells. The person who wrote this entry on the webpage mentions when he opened up the light gun, Atari was written on the PCB. So maybe at some point, Atari XG-1 PCBs were being crammed into this particular light gun... http://home.kpn.nl/bderogee1980/projects/lightgun/Magnum_light_phaser.html

Can you post a pic of the patch? You could upload it into your AtariAge account in your Photos section and then paste any pic from there into any post you make in the Forums...

B&C Computervisions seems to be wholly operating on eBay under the MyAtari name. At least you can see their current inventory that way.

Get Best Electronics onto IRATA Online since he [best] seems to be allergic to anything beyond Web 1.5... hmmm... strike that. Correction: Web 1.0.

Someone should get it to work with a Mac and see if InkWell in MacOS [formerly Mac OS X!] would support it. Hell, it's too bad the ST didn't support it [i know, I know, differences in how the DB9s are read and pin configuration, etc]; it would've made drawing with NEOchrome much more pleasant than with the ST Mouse. Come to think of it, the Enhanced Joystick Ports of the STe/Falcon030/Jaguar supported light pens and graphics tablets... hmmm...

Sega of Japan was cheesed off with Tonka who handled North American distribution of the Sega Master System and Atari Corp outsold the SMS 2-to-1 with the 7800 here. So when the Mega Drive was in development, they approached Atari Corp to market it in North America. Michael Katz, formerly of Coleco, was heading Atari Corp's video game division, called "Atari Entertainment Electronics", and was trying to revive "Atari" in gaming with as few of resources he was given. He wanted the Mega Drive. Jack Tramiel insisted on also getting the European rights to the Mega Drive and wouldn't budge on it with Sega. Tramiel supposedly told Sega he would walk away if he didn't get his way and he'd outsell the Mega Drive with the XE Game System. Sega then decided that Sega of America would market it themselves in North America without Tonka and Michael Katz "retired" from Atari Corp and sold his maturing shares in the company. He stayed retired for one month and then became the President of Sega of America and coined the "Genesis does what Nintendont" marketing catch-phrase. There is debate as to who actually came up with the Genesis name. Ex-Sega people claim they did but ex-Atari people claimed someone in the Atari Corp Chicago area operations named it and stated it was better than Sega's own "stupid" backup name for the console which they were referring to as "Tomahawk" at the time. Katz was also pissed off at Tramiel because Katz had negotiated with Midway - he said [bally] Midway but it might've actually been Williams at the time - for a LazerTag and Photon competitor their engineers had designed and that Tramiel promised he'd authorize for Katz to release. Once the system was acquired, Tramiel refused to allow Katz to release it. This was why the division was called "Atari Entertainment Electronics" because Katz wanted to do more than just video game consoles. And who knows what this did to relations between Atari Corp and Williams/Midway at the time. Michael Katz was the real deal. He helped Colecovision hammer away at the Atari 2600/5200 and the Intellivision back in the day and he's mostly responsible for making the 7800 into a modest success almost in spite of Jack - and especially while dealing with Nintendo's shadow - and then laid the foundations for Sega of America kicking butt in the 16-bit wars.

Hey, plug a Harmony cart into the 2600 Adapter and then into the 5200!