DrThielegood

wow...good call. I liked the first one so much that I pre-ordered the second. What a let down.

How did we avoid these games back in the pre-internet, even pre-gaming magazine, days? I clearly remember buying Swordquest: Earthworld with my Dad( with money earned from lawns and other odd jobs btw) and reading through the documentation before playing it. It really hyped me up for what was a splendidly awful experience. What a disappointment. Years later....after nearly an hour of debating and deciding, the boxart was the deciding factor that led me to buy....Deadly Towers. Blechhhh....what a p.o.s. It seemed to be worse at the time. Maybe since, as I mentioned, I worked hard to earn the cash to buy these games. That was a alot of lawns to buy Deadly Towers.

bump for edit

I bought a bunch of 2600, CV, and 7800 carts from him. The transaction went super smoothly and the games shipped quickly and carefully. I would definitely do business with TheGhost again. Cheers Bob

FYI, Here's my cab playing DK. You can kinda make out the edges of the horizontal monitor if you look closely. See...definitely playable. This pic was taken shortly after I had finished the cab. I have since picked up and restored an actual DK (there's nothing like the real thing...for better or worse). Sorry for the "2 screen showing at once" ghosting...it must have been something with the camera. Bob

Just found this thread and figured I'd give my 2 cents. When I started my MAME cab project I had aspirations of doing the swapable CP/rotating Monitor thing, but I found that once I had the 19 inch crt horizontally mounted, with 2 3-buttons setups with 8 ways I decided to leave it as-is. I play alot of vertical games on the cab but MAME simply shrinks it to fit. Sounds lousy, but I have found the screen size to be no smaller than a cabaret style monitor (13in) so its definitely playable. To each their own but I found that the time and cost savings in leaving it as-is allowed me more time and money to buy, and restore more dedicated URs and, of course, consoles. Cheers Bob

Actually wasn't obvious to me either. I figured that for the price it didn't much matter if it was for CV or 2600.

Oh man....now I am definately getting a Harmony 2. Cheers, Bob

Looks great. Scramble is a terrific game and this looks to be a great port of it. I too am waiting anxiously for news of a cart.

100% sure...It arrived yesterday and, after some cleaning, it booted right up on the 2600.

Got a little lucky. No it wasn't a r8 /r9 etc, but not bad for a dime. Lister thought it was for Coleco, and I would have taken it if it was, but as you can see from the pic it is definately Star Wars Arcade for the 2600. Again, not the biggest score ever.... but not bad either. I'll link the auction for informational purposes only (Hope this doesn't violate policy but I didn't know where else to post this). eBay Auction -- Item Number: 120833933363 Not bad eh... Bob

Hey look...repeat customer here. Galaxian for CV shipped quickly and looks/plays great.

Arrived today and looks/plays great. Thanks Yurkie. Bob

Did you get the purchase on tape? I'd love to see it on your show. Bob

Well said Agent X. Revamped Atari Classics on iOS or Android is probably their best shot at survival. Its just hard to believe that they would can Vector tanks instead of simply bringing it into the Atari Family, so to speak. Perhaps it has something to do with Black Powder acquiring the rights from Peter. Maybe we don't know the whole story. We know that Peter was more than willing to program Vector Tanks with Atari's blessing, and maybe even their label. 3 years ago when the portable market space was not nearly as lucrative they declined. Fast forward to now and Atari has jumped into the iOS pool and Peter no longer calls the shots with Vector Tanks. Could the issue be between Atari (who fairly has a claim) and Black Powder (who wants to continue to profit from their game without sharing with Atari)? Hard to tell. I was pleased to here that Peter was clear of this mess when it blew up. All that said, Agent X hit it on the head when he stated that BOTH sides are now handling things the wrong way. Atari should want their brand associated with Vector Tanks...hell, rebrand it Battlezone and Black Powder is in a lose-lose situation where they are currrently doing no business with the game. We shall see.

Looking for power base converter. PM me. Bob

Here in the USA, the only thing we like seeing more than the underdog win....is to see a roided-out, name dropping, pushy, unapologetic, type-A, bully, douchebag LOSE!!!(Especially amongst the gaming community...I mean let's face it....this guy is the embodiment of a gamer's ultimate nemesis) What seals the awesome deal is that he's a "customer service" type. Who among us has not dealt with the modern day version (read..bastardization) of customer service? Its as if the definition of the phrase has actually changed to mean the exact opposite of what it used to. burn baby burn. Bob

To make matters worse, Vector Tanks was programmed by Peter Hirshberg. For those how have never heard of, or met, Peter, he was the owner of one of the greatest home arcades I have ever seen. His love of classic games and gaming actually reignited my love of the classics. He created retroarcaderadio, and ran it before handing it over to SoCal Mike (aka Parrothead..who has done a fine job with it btw). He was also involved in the production of the film "Chasing Ghosts". A google search of his name or "Luna City Arcade" will give you an idea of who we're dealing with here. Truly a gentleman in the industry who opened his home arcade up to strangers, news reporters, and charity benefits before some personal events forced him to sell much of his stuff and close down Luna City. Now this. This really sucks. Shame on atari and Apple. Shame on atari for using what money they seem to have left to pay lawyers, in an effort to clear the decks of actual, and better, ios competition so they can continue to release lousy and ill-conceived reboots of their once groundbreaking IPs. I mean has anyone actually seen the remakes of Yars and Haunted House? Nuff' said. As for their "Free" ios offerings, which I admittedly have not purchased (and will not), I hear that they are micortransaction driven. This leads me to Apple. Before we get into a conspiracy about Jobs and Woz and their time at Atari lets just put that to bed right out. As we all know, the atari of today is NOTHING, repeat...NOTHING like the Atari of old and, if what we have read about Jobs is true, this is the kind of BS that he might have put the kibosh on. What this comes down to is money, pure and simple. Pulling Pete's game(or 2 since Extreme was pulled also), even though it was popular and well reviewed, will ultimately lead to more "atari" business coming to Apple in the way of more crappy ports and microtransactions, all things that apple gets a piece of. Sorry for the rant here but as a huge fan or classic Atari, and the owner of an Apple IIe, I am so disappointed that these companies that I held in such high regard would do such a thing. And before the logical, ecomically-minded, realists take all this and justfy these companies' combined actions with some rationale consistant with our capitalist principals let me just say in advance.....legal or illegal, justified or not...it was a SHITTY thing to do. Stay Strong Peter... Bob

Thanks for these links. Just converted the vid feed to mp3 and added them to my arcade/video game playlist. cheers, Bob

Got to agree on Missile Command. I still find that there is an uncomfortable pressure associated with that game that just creeps me out. I had an upright in my gameroom and i found that the arcade version created even more uneasy tension. Still (and sorry if this is off topic) the retro game that freaked me out the most was Karateka. My experience was with the port to the Apple 2 but I assume its the same game for the 7800. The slow motion fighting, the "die and your done", the feeling of progress only to lose because of that damn bird, and the overwhelmingly lopsided health bars later in the game....damn. My parents still tell stories of a time when I had a high fever and was hallucinating about that game...which, in retrospect...is pretty awesome. Anyway..... Bob

I don't remember feeling that ripped off because...let's face it....neither the VCS or the arcade could stand up to the visuals of the Pac-man animated cartoon show. Seriously though I feel like we have to take Atari 2600 arcade ports for what they were. I was lucky enough to play most of these games in the arcade, and luckier still to own a few of them in my home arcade (Pac, Defender, Asteroids etc) but that never minimized the experiences that I have had with the Atari ports. Truth is, whether its Pac-Man, Asteroids, Defender, or whatever.... I remember feeling like the experience that I was getting at home was different enough to be cool, while similar enough to still bear the title of Defender or Space Invaders or ...dare I say it...Pac-Man. Everything thats been said about the Pac-Man port has been true (graphics, gameplay, colors, etc) but that will never take away the great memories of playing it with my Dad when I was 8.....well for a few games anyway....then we played a wayyyy better game. Cheers, Bob

pm sent

I think you guys are onto something with the auction/storage/pawn shows on TV these days. Folks see things sell for big money on their favorite show and it inspires them to ransack the attic and throws a few hooks in the water. I suppose that, especially these days, the prospect of a bit of cash in the attic is welcome and I have been floored by some of the prices those shows throw around. As an arcade collector as well, CL has always been full of big money "dreamers" who look to score big with beaters, lousy conversions or hellcades.....but.....I just watched one of those storage locker shows sell a beat up Ms.-Pac for nearly a grand. If thats really what those guys are clearing its no wonder that people think that they can ask $250 for their Atari Jr. and a bunch of r1 and r2 games.

I remember coming to Demons to Diamonds later in the 2600 era, but once I played it I could not put the paddle down. It was, and still is, a 2600 favorite. Kaboom is a very worthy second place for me.

Just for the record....the bump came from the post before mine. Just sayin'