x=usr(1536)

Very true. Having said that, the company in all of its various iterations has been on a downhill slide for the past 20 years. The current management seems to be the worst of the lot, and will (IMHO) likely cause it to finally crash and burn unless someone steps in, buys it, fires everyone, and replaces them with people who are competent and actually willing to run it as a technology company as opposed to an IP holding entity. For the long-term viability of Atari, that would likely be the best possible scenario. As for the likelihood of it happening, well... I'm not holding my breath. Agreed; they really did put out some novel games. Captain Blood was so completely unlike anything else, and absolutely one of my favourites on the ST. I realise it's a love-it-or-hate-it game, but if a company is capable of releasing something that splits opinion to the extent that that game did, they're at least doing things differently. I appreciated that about them at the time.

Both bands are still in use. For an NTSC 2600 (or similar), you'll need to tune to one of channels 2, 3, or 4 which are VHF. 3 is most common, but the others were used in areas where there was a broadcast station on 3. IIRC, the Sears units have a channel switch on them, but I don't recall if they switch between 2 and 3 or 3 and 4. One word of caution re: TVs that claim to be multistandard-capable: they may very well have the ability to display PAL, NTSC, and SECAM video, but only on the non-broadcast inputs (e.g., HDMI, composite, etc.). I have run across a couple of models where the tuners can only tune the channel assignments for the region the TV was sold in - so there is the possibility that while it may be capable of displaying NTSC, it can only tune PAL channels if using the aerial. And since PAL and NTSC don't use the same frequencies or channel width for their tuners, you may or may not be able to get the TV to lock on to the SVA's signal. Unfortunately, this is model-by-model as far as the TVs go, so there's no good way to know if it can tune NTSC channels except by trial and error, or finding someone who is reporting success with a given model. One other possibility is seeing if your TV has a diagnostic menu that will allow enforcing NTSC-compatible channel tuning. Again, some do and some don't, but you've got nothing to lose with some Googling. Good call; even if you do end up AV modding it, that's still worth having around.

It's convoluted. They're ostensibly based out of France, but with offices in New York. Who knows what they really consider to be 'home', not that it really matters. Fair question. For me, the sale to JTS was the finale. Others will almost certainly have their own opinions, but that was when Atari was turned into a commodity rather than a company as far as I'm concerned. Yes, every iteration (Bushnell, Warner, Tramiel) was different to the one that came before or after, but there was at least a common streak of innovation - attempted or actual - taking place. Honourable mention goes to Hasbro. I truly believe that they had the best of intentions when they bought Atari's remains from JTS, and wanted to exploit at least some of the software properties that they'd purchased in the best sense of the word. Atari wasn't the right fit for them, though. Infogrames tried, for a while at least. Then they turned entirely cynical, tried to cash in on the name, and started the events that brought us up to today.

Probably, but it still ended in failure. Fauxtari is now 100% on the hook for whatever the court ruled on. Had they gone with the lawyers they might have been able to weasel their way out of it (or at least reduce financial responsibility), but now there's a judgement against the company. That's not attractive to either investors or creditors.

No sarcasm intended: that's a decent accomplishment. I am legitimately impressed, because I know how much of a cluster it can be to get either OS X or macOS running on non-Apple hardware. So, now that it's doing that... What's the gain for the platform?

Long story short, I can't find either the keyboard or mouse for the Lisa 2 I pulled out of storage last month. For now, I'm working on the assumption that they're completely gone until they turn up. Are there any substitutes that I can use? From what I recall, the Lisa's keyboard is specific to it, but have a vague inkling that the original Mac's mouse may be compatible.

Having lived in a non-climate-controlled top-floor apartment in Los Angeles, I'll concur. June to October, nothing was running with a case on and a number of box fans were doing their best to keep everything from crashing.

Re: stupidity on both sides of the relationship, agreed. But Fauxtari's not anywhere near competent enough to orchestrate something like that, and for as much of a tool as Wyatt appears to be it's nigh-on impossible to imagine even him being willing to have a skydiving accident for his employer's benefit. Yes, but the renders weren't usable for the final product, and, IIRC, Wyatt was out before the revised motherboard that was one-quarter of the size of the development board they had been using was ready. The renders weren't even close to reality when he left because there was nothing to package that was set in stone at that point.

Adding to the above: Both are also working for me as well, and I am seeing the corruption / flickering. However, I noticed something about it that I'll outline further down. Haven't had any problems with the AtariAge jingle in Arkanoid; it's played every time the game has loaded, and seems to be using all four voices. The only POKEY-related issue I've run across was at the end of level seven in Millie & Molly: after finishing the level, the ending tune played as expected. However, one voice seemed to not silence itself correctly - it was still buzzing away until the password screen music started up. Haven't been able to reproduce it on any level after multiple plays, so am calling it a fluke for now. Coming back to the corruption / flickering issue: I've noticed a correlation in both Arkanoid and Millie & Molly when it happens. It never seems to take place during actual gameplay, so elements such as the score won't be affected. However, if you're in a part of the game that isn't an active part of gameplay (e.g., Millie & Molly's level password screens, or Arkanoid's opening sequence with the Vaus escaping), the issue happens. In Arkanoid, once the playfield is drawn and the level start music is playing but before the player can control the ship, the same can be seen in the level number text but also in the players' scores.

And put the sucker on a UPS if at all possible. Surge suppressors don't cut it; the really dirty power generation and transmission we have today can and does play hell with electronics. (Pure sine wave or modified sine wave UPS: your call. If you have the cash, go pure.)

Try this.

Is the SD card formatted as FAT? Are you using the 0.95 (current) firmware? If the answer to either of those questions is 'no', take care of those issues before trying to play anything. FWIW, if your firmware is lower than 0.95, you may need to try different SD cards until you find one that Concerto likes. 0.95 fixed a great many SD card compatibility issues. Also, try booting with no SD card inserted and see if you get the 'we're in beta' screen, followed by the 'no SD card inserted' screen. If you can get that far, Concerto's working and something is likely up with your SD card.

If it was me digging around in there, I'd take a pick / bent paperclip / other similar small implement and try to very gingerly fish it out by the small tab going down into the open battery bay. What I can't tell is how that conductive cover may attach to the PCB. Could be soldered, could be wired, could be a pressure-fit when the battery cover is in place, could be something else. Being careful while figuring this out would be advisable.

They look to be LR44 batteries or similar, which can be found at Wal-Mart, CVS, etc. Wal-Mart has them at the battery islands; CVS / Walgreen's may have them stocked as hearing aid batteries. I can't tell for certain, but is one hiding under the conductive cover on the right-hand battery bay? If so, you may have a reference to work from.

Confirmed - seeing the same thing here.

I'll sell you mine for two million dollars and a monster truck. There's a POKEY in it and I've applied the label to the cartridge, so I know what it's worth.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Atari-POKEY-Chip/293958152418?hash=item44714570e2:g:0-MAAOSwN35f3hhZ I realise that's only one ROM with sound, not ROMs (plural), but it'll solve every problem you're having. Well, perhaps not the reading comprehension ones, but if you can successfully buy that or one very much like it and cram it into a Concerto, you should at least receive an iota of enlightenment.

This is almost the exact same bundle mine came in, right down to Night Stalker being the only included game and the sharpie job done to the number '4'. Only difference is that mine had the 16K memory expansion rather than thee 4K, but it's otherwise identical. Do you know if this system was originally sold / acquired in California, by any chance?

Forgot to mention: Concerto got a POKEY yesterday 😁 The 'POKEY not detected!' message in attract mode is now gone, so that appears to be doing what it should.

IIRC, the 200-point value is awarded if you shoot the flagship without hitting either of the two red ships escorting it; 300 points is given for one escort plus the flagship. I think the next value is 800 points (killing all three ships), which should cover all scenarios. When I have some time later today, I'll fire up MAME and see what it has to say for itself Oh, and glad to see you're back

@Trebor: thank you for this. It's going to make testing much, much more straightforward. In other news, the POKEY for the Concerto arrived today. So far, so good - no discernible problems in either POKEY or TIA games, or Concerto's menus.