Albert

Not until next month, anyway. Please stop right now with the political discussion and stick to the topic at hand. Thank you, ..Al

I'm hard at work again on getting the forum upgraded. Here are two teaser screenshots I just captured from within Firefox: The first image shows the topic preview popup and the second shot shows how you can easily search different areas of the board. The search is context sensitive--you can see in this shot that it defaults to searching the current forum you're viewing. When you're reading a specific topic, the search defaults to "This Topic", but you can still choose from all the other options (including "This Forum"). When you're viewing specific blogs, you can also search within a specific blog and even within the blog comments for a specific entry. The magnifying icon performs the search (and of course you can just hit "enter" as well), and the gear icon brings you to the advanced search options page. One thing you may notice is I moved the "member box" that was in the upper-right corner down into a horizontal bar below the breadcrumb. This row is also shared with the search field, which allows for more application "Tabs" (Forums, Members, Gallery, Blogs, etc.) Moving the member box allowed me to restore the normal AtariAge header that has a unique graphic for each section of the site (2600, 5200, etc.) when you move your mouse over the links, as well as the Atari 830 modem for the Forum graphic. I'll have more screenshots tomorrow. ..Al

Great, glad to hear that's all it was! ..Al

This is a known issue with the forum software and there's at least one long thread on Invision's support forum about it. I don't remember now why this happens, but I do believe they have "fixed" the issue with a newer version of the software that I will be upgrading the software to soon (hopefully in the next week). ..Al

Do you have Javascript disabled? If so, this will cause the menu to always be displayed, which is obviously not particularly helpful. Can you take a screenshot for me? Thanks, ..Al

Just got back from Houston. I took quite a few photos, and I'll sort through them this week and post them up when I can. The classic consoles saw quite a bit of use, including by many young attendees who were surely playing these games for the first time. I had a mix of original games and homebrews set out for the 2600, 5200 and 7800. Also had two ColecoVision systems setup, an XEGS, and others brought a CDTV and a Genesis. In total there were 14 systems setup in the classic gaming area (5 2600, 2 5200, 2 7800, 1 XEGS, 1 CDTV, 1 Genesis). There were also some classic gaming tournaments, using an NES, Genesis and 2600, but those were setup in the tournament area and I was not involved with them. Great show, had a chance to play plenty of pinball and video arcade games, including several pins I'd never played before (old and new). Saw two pinball machines with smoke coming out the top, an old electromechanical machine and a Williams Flash (which I ran over to and unplugged as smoke was pouring out the top and left a strong electrical burning smell in the room for a while). I like the new location as it was fairly spacious inside (which may partially account for while it may not have seemed quite as crowded) and it's not a five mile walk to your hotel room as was the case with the previous location. ..Al

I would not want dust covers for any new cartridge design. The dust cover mechanism adds unnecessary complexity to the cartridge and is a problem that never really needed solving, in my opinion. A good design for me would be one that keeps the board seated firmly in in place and is not "open" beyond what is necessary for the edge of the circuit board to insert into the edge connector on the console circuit board (this way the electronics on the cartridge board are not exposed). The problem with Atari's later 2600 cartridge design (the one without the dust cover, also used for 7800 carts) are the two holes under the main label. The label can easily become depressed in these holes. So not having holes on this surface would also be important (beyond a screw hole, which is fine). ..Al

I can't really help too much if you're using a really old machine, and especially if you're using an old browser that has a slow Javascript engines. But there are alternatives for newer phones: There is a very nice mobile skin for the iPhone, iPod Touch, Android and other similar devices, and there's a Tapatalk app which allows you to browse and post in the forum very quickly (since it transfers a minimal amount of data compared to using a web browser). The mobile skin will be nicely improved with the forum upgrade as well. ..Al

Including the blogs? Yes, I don't have any choice in the matter. ..Al

Just arrived in Houston. ..Al

I appreciate your rescanning and sending it to me. I'll get it posted, but I'm focusing on getting the forums updated (which I will be spending a great deal of time on next week) and the I need to spend time fixing and improving various elements of the main site. The Retromags site is using the same forum software as we are, and they are using the Downloads module to post files such as this, which is very easy to do. For me, I generate thumbnails and post the files so they can be viewed online, and update various other pages and database entries as well (for instance, links from each catalog page to the games listed on those pages), so it's a fair bit of work for me to add a catalog. ..Al

Circuit boards are not a problem, just the plastic shells. At the moment there is not a source for brand new shells, so original carts must be sacrificed. ..Al

The October 2010 episode of the RetroGaming RoundUp podcast is now online for your listening pleasure. The RetroGaming RoundUp is a monthly podcast that features a wide variety of classic gaming news, opinions and views from around the world. This month's podcast features a two hour interview with Ted Dabney, one of Atari's two co-founders, and is full of new information as it pertains to the birth of Atari and the Computer Space arcade game. Highlights in this month's podcast include: Editorial Breaking News! Hardware Flashback Guinness Gaming Records Mike'd Up Ted Dabney Interview Atar Rewind The Desert Dump Top Ten Atari Arcade Games Gaming Trivia News And Mailbag URLS And Emails You can download the October 2010 podcast as well as listen to any RetroGaming Roundups you may have missed in their archive.

You definitely don't want to use a switchbox if you can avoid it. They pick up a lot of RF noise. Coaxial to RCA adapters work pretty well and I've used them with many systems. You can buy them directly in the AtariAge Store as well: http://atariage.com/store/index.php?l=product_detail&p=42 ..Al

Good luck with your sale! Hope you can raise the $2K quickly. ..Al

No. ..Al

Well, if you split the file again and send me one of the individual files, I'd like to see it. I bet it's not a normal zip file. ..Al

I spent some time yesterday at Invision's site looking over various mods for the forum and found lots of great stuff to install once I get the forum updated. ..Al

Yes. ..Al

Just in time for the next upgrade that will be incompatible with all of the work you had to do for this upgrade. You might want to save time and create your own forum software. It might end up being less work. The big problem with the upgrades is the forum skin, which is a royal pain in the neck to update. They do have a new tool that lets you "merge" changes in the skin, but I tried it out and it failed abysmally. However, it should work properly when going to newer versions in the future. The next "significant" version will be 3.2, which they are currently working on and will probably be out before the end of the year. That should be less painful to upgrade to, though. I hope. As time goes on, modifications to the actual software are getting easier to work with, as most new modifications are in the form of "hooks" or "applications" that are installed in the software, as opposed to directly modifying source code. Depending on the changes that take place between versions, these hooks and applications sometimes work, and if not, you can easily disable them until they are updated. Sometimes Invision adds new features to the forum that cancel out existing mods, which is going to be the case with the "My Posts", which is a mod I wrote some time ago. That's one less thing for me to have to worry about "merging" in the future. Once the upgrade is complete, I plan on writing some nice mods myself, and making them available publicly to other forum owners. ..Al

Thanks. How about sometime in November? ..Al

Sadly I have not had a lot of time to work on forum upgrade in the last two weeks. But I do have a plan to get back to it starting early next week, and I should be able to get it wrapped up in a week's time once I do so. I'm really eager to get the forum over to the latest version. ..Al

Have fun! I've never been to ACL, but drove by Zilker a few days ago and saw the huge stage they were setting up.. ..Al

Sorry for not responding sooner. I upload ZIP files all the time, what application are you using to create the ZIP files? I haven't had anyone else state that zip files are not working for them. If you're still having this problem, email me one of the files you're having problems uploading so I can examine it. Thanks, ..Al

I have five copies of Sinistar 5200, complete with a beautiful box, for $50 each plus shipping ($6 US/Canada, $10 elsewhere). The original box and label artwork were hand painted by David Exton, who's created a plethora of outstanding labels, manuals and boxes for us in the past. The boxes include an insert to keep the Sinistar cartridge in place. Here's a picture: Boxes will be shipped via Priority Mail in the US, in a strong, sturdy box (not the crappy Priority Mail boxes the USPS gives away these days), and the Sinistar box itself will be inside a thick, polyethylene bag. Packages outside the US will be shipped via First Class International Mail, unless you want to pay for Priority Mail (which will add about $20 to the price). PM me if you'd like a copy. Thanks! ..Al