hepcat

January 12, 2013

1,279,870, Round 104. The alternate controller really helped on certain levels. My all time high score is somewhere between 1.5 and 1.6 million, but getting those last few 100K is really tough when the game stops giving out free men. I have no idea how someone managed to break 5 million on this game with only 256 boards to work with.

I took two screenshots, one just before I rolled it and a second one with the final score.

January 10, 2013

588,310. I need to dig out another controller, forgot how much a standard 2600 controller sucks for this game.

June 12, 2012

Hey Weston, I just saw your recent update. My wife and I wound up not doing the New England trip last year, but we are planning to go for 2 weeks this fall, likely the first 2 weeks in October. If Trotter is available then, and if you're still interested, we'll take him.

March 29, 2012

Bump.

Price is negotiable, as I said I really have no idea how much something like this is worth.

If you're in the Washinton, DC area, a local pick up could be arranged to eliminate the shipping costs.

March 26, 2012

I won the Trak-ball pictured below in a contest 7 or 8 years ago, possibly longer. It is really nice but I never use it and we’re spring cleaning so...

I’ve tested the trak-ball and it works fine in Mame. However, potential buyers should be aware that it will have to be calibrated a bit to perform properly.

Since I won it in a contest, I really not sure how much this thing is worth. As you can see in the second picture, it was manufactured by a company called Game Cabinets, Inc. They appear to still be in business but they are no longer selling this particular item.

I’ll hold an auction for 5 days for this item until Friday, March 30, at 11:00pm EST. The minimum bid will be $30.00 plus shipping, which could be substantial since the controller weighs at least 5 pounds.

Good luck!

March 14, 2012

Update: I got an offer of $20.00 shipped earlier this evening.

To clarify my original post, I will be keeping this open for a full week or until next Monday night at 10:30pm EST.

March 13, 2012

Will this device allow you to use paddles in Mame for games like Arkanoid?

Sorry if this question is repetitive, but the post earlier in the thread was asking about driving controllers and Mame. I'm not sure how much different driving controllers are from paddles, or if there's any difference at all.

Would it make a difference if you used the paddle with the original 2600-daptor or if you turned a paddle directly into a USB controller as requested by user maiki yesterday?

March 13, 2012

Please read the following carefully.

My Krokodile Cartridge worked when I first purchased it, but when I tried to use it about 3 years ago in the Summer of 2009, it would no longer function. I contacted Kroko about this and while he tried to help me, I have not been able to get the cart to work again.

I'm posting this thread to see if there's anyone interested in taking it off my hands. It may be a simple problem that one of the many people in this community with more expertise than I can easily fix, or it may really be a brick now that's never going to work again. But I just can't bring myself to throw away a fairly rare Atari item like this without at least checking to see if someone wants it.

To give a slightly more detailed description of the problem here's some of the messages I sent to Kroko in June of 2009:

I have a Krokodile Cart from the first batch (Revision 1.0.)

At first I could not get a .bin file to download at all using Krokodile Commander version 1.08. But, after switching to Krok Commander version 1.00, .bin files seem to be downloading successfully.

However, I cannot get any of the files I download to verify. I always get the error "Verify Error at Sector 0."

When I use Krok Commander 1.08, I get "Download aborted. Transmission error." This happened with several different .bin files.

Attached are a couple pictures of the Crok Cart and everything I got with it.

If anyone is interested after reading the above, please make me an offer for the Cart. Given the circumstances, “free” will be counted as a serious offer as long as you're willing to send me $5.00 to ship it.

I'll leave this open for a week and if no one responds in that time, I'll be throwing it away.

One final thing, I don't intend this to be a tech support thread. I just ordered a Harmony cart so I don't need the Crok Cart anymore and I do not want to spend any time trying to fix it. The only purpose of this thread is to see if anyone else wants this Crokodile Cartridge.

December 21, 2010

I wish I'd seen this sooner because my wife and I did a cross country trip earlier this year and we would have visited 4 of the states on your list. We're talking about a tour of New England next summer or fall, but if you're down to the last Trotter, I'd hate for anything to happen to him. It has been extraordinary run, Weston, and regardless of whether you decide to keep Trotter going for another year or retire him now, you should be proud of how well this project worked out.

October 13, 2009

I just sent my pre-order e-mail. This looks awesome and sounds like it will be easier to use than my CC2 was. I can't wait to get it!

June 19, 2009

U.S. Games (Entombed) also comes to mind.

Hmmm, I would say that one is under debate. I would say U.S. Games had something more like ZERO good games

Eggomania was a great game! It seems like Eggomania is always dismissed as a Kaboom! ripoff, but it's a very good game in it's own right.

June 19, 2009

Chalk me up as one of the people who really doesn’t want to do this, but the money will be going toward a good cause (i.e., engagement ring... )

After reading some old threads, I’ve decided to try selling my Cuttle Cart 2 here first. I’m going to run this as a 3 day auction. I’ll take bids via PM from now until noon (EDIT: i.e., noon eastern standard time) on Monday, June 22. The person who makes the highest bid during that time will win. I’ll keep the identity of the winning bidder and the final price confidential at the winner’s request.

Please note that the minimum bid I’ll accept is $200. After checking old threads here and Ebay, I know that’s a very reasonable starting price. If no one bids at least $200, then I’ll take my chances on Ebay.

I’ve attached a picture to this post. You’ll get the Cuttle Cart 2, obviously, the serial cord for developers, a 128MB MMC card and the USB adapter I bought to go with the card. I used the CC2 a few times when I first got it, and I tested it again last weekend. It works fine.

The only thing I can’t seem to find is the CD that came with the CC2, but you should be able to download everything that was on it from the CC2 website.

If you have any questions, I’ll get back to you as quickly as I can. It may take a little longer than usual because I’m going out of town for the weekend. I should respond more quickly on Saturday and Sunday than I will be able to this afternoon.

Good luck!

February 2, 2007

I don't know if DSLites are starting to show up again at brick and mortar stores, but I can now vouch for Pokemon Center. I ordered the DS last Friday and got it Wednesday afternoon.

My inital impression of the DS is that it's fucking awesome. I should have jumped on this bandwagon long ago. The screen is so much brighter than my old GBA that I may have to turn it down a bit. I was very skeptical about the touch screen but it works well. One issue I do have is that the styus is quite short. Are there any third party styluses (styli?) that are a little longer?

Also, I've got one stuck pixel, is there any thing I can do about that? I'd rather not return it over one stuck pixel, but if it's a sign of a larger problem, maybe I should try to exchange it sooner rather than later.

For games, I bought 3 so far. First, I have original Phoenix Wright game which is hilarious and a lot of fun. Then there's Final Fantasy 3 which looks and sounds incredible but I haven't played it too much yet. Finally I picked up the River City Ransom remake for GBA on eBay. RCR is OK, but it seems a tag sluggish compared to the original. No matter, I picked up my Slot 1 flash card this morning and will be trying out many more games, including the NES emulator this weekend.

So far, I am not at all surprised that Nintendo is having a hard time keeping up with demand for this device.

January 26, 2007

OK, if you're looking for a DSlite, try this link. They only have the white DSLite model, but it's $129.99. I was hoping to find a black one, and they do have them at Play-Asia, but they're asking $199.99.

http://www.pokemoncenter.com/invt/4499

Be careful at that site however, or you may be blinded by pokemon jumping out at you. :ponder:

January 25, 2007

My GP32 still works, but it’s obsolete at this point. The GP2X is really cool in theory, but the controller sucked so bad that I hardly ever used it and I sold it recently. So, I’ve decided to get a Nintendo DS because I’ve heard a lot of good things about it, including the possibility of NES emulation. I’m already planning to get New Super Mario Brothers, Final Fantasy III, and a kanji game for it, and I was wondering if people here could suggest other cool games for the DS.

I don’t really like sports games, but I’m open to suggestions from any other genre.

Also, if anyone has heard when the damn things are going to be available again in the US, that would be helpful. I tried ordering a DS from a Canadian website last week, but they’re giving me the bureaucratic run around. Games are fine, but I’d rather not use Ebay to buy the system itself.

Thanks!

–Jason

Edit: :roll: Sorry, I should not have posted this so quickly. I'm looking at several other threads now that are basically asking the same thing... :ponder:

October 25, 2006

A little more on topic, and I promise to reply to this thread and not to talk about kittens no matter how cute they are.

So how is it anyways?

I hear those x-port emu's are the shiznit!

[email protected]

http://www.atariage.com/forums/index.php?s...148&hl=xbox

September 10, 2006

I just scored 365,010 and made it to Level 30.

I'll post the recording as soon as I watch it to make sure it worked. It will probably be tomorrow sometime.

Edit: Ok, I reviewed the file and it works, so here it is. To play this back, you’ll need Wolfmame .101. This is a special version of Mame32 that’s used by Twin Galaxies and MARP to help verify recordings sent for inclusion in their high score lists. Other than that, it’s not significantly different from regular Mame32.

You can get Wolfmame at this link:

http://wolfmame.marpirc.net/

You’ll have to scroll down a bit, the exact file name is: wolfmameplus-0101.exe

Now for a brief description of the game.

First of all I got 266 out of 268 possible ghosts. One of those misses is on Level 6, which is really embarrassing. The other miss was on Level 12.

Watch for amazing escapes on Levels 16 and 23!

I lost my first life at 277,440 points.

I missed three fruits after Level 20. Especially on Levels 21 and 26-29, getting the second fruit can be tough because you’re just trying to survive the level.

One other thing: remember Mame’s fast forward option during .inp playbacks! In this version of Wolfmame, just hit f10 once and the playback will speed up to around 10x normal speed. When I get to a board you want to watch, just hit F10 again and it will slow down to normal speed. This game is around 2.5 hours, so people may want to speed things up.

That’s all for now. Next stop: 400,000!

Jason

Mspacman365010.zip

September 7, 2006

I just played a game where I used rack advance to start on Level 21. The game ended on Level 27. The result of my efforts? A whopping 28,300. :_(

(Sorry, I didn't think to record it.)

This is kind of depressing. I'm not having too much trouble with Levels 22-25, but Level 21 is a bitch. I've been watching a video of a guy who clears it every time and I swear I'm playing it exactly the same as he does, but I always get caught with about 10 dots left.

--Jason

August 21, 2006

I think from now on I’m just going to start the game on level 21 and keep practicing.

How do you do that? I thought MAME games were just emulations of the actual game. I have no idea how to start a game at a certain level.

As far as playing Ms.Pac on MAME, it is not quite the same as the coin-op, I find that what I remember happening when standing in the arcade is not quite the same, perhaps is it because of holding a joystick that is not rigidly attached to anything. Dunno.

See my post above about controllers. If anything, a Slik Stik will probably be better than the joysticks you find on arcade machines these days.

You need to use the "rack advance" setting in Mame32 to skip boards. You can use it to start on any board you like. This was a setting on the original machine, I think. In fact, I believe the Bozeman Think Tank used it back it in the 80's to start on higher levels while working on their grouping techniques.

Any way, you need to start Ms. pacman, then hit the tab button. Go to Dip Switches and set Rack Test to "On." The game will start cycling through the boards, taking 3 or 4 seconds for each one. When you get to the board you want, I'd hit Pause, then turn off Rack Test. This will give you time to scroll back out of the Dip Switches area and back to the game.

August 21, 2006

Jason congrats on your score.I have tried to view your latest game but must be doing something wrong.This is a stupid question but where do I put the ms pacman rom ? .As a matter of interest my highest score is 133000 using up down left right keys I have decided to get a joystick which should improve my score thanks john p

You should use mame32 to playback my .inp files. You need the correct version of Mame 32, which I believe I have specified in each of my posts. When you install Mame32, it should create a directory structure for you including a folder called "roms." Put the Ms. Pacman rom in there.

The keyboard is NOT the best way to play any of the Pacman games. I might be able to get 150,000 using the keyboard, but there's no way I could be accurate enough to use the grouping techniques.

The solution I've been using for several years now is to hook up an Atari 2600 controller to my computer. The best way to do this is to get a Stelladaptor in the Atari Age store. Then go on Epay to get a joystick, unless you already have one. I recommend getting a Slik Stik, a small, durable and extremely accurate joystick. It has a very short throw, which is crucial for all the Pacman games. There's always a few of them on Ebay, but look out, I've bought a few that did not work properly. Sometimes they can be fixed, but not always.

--Jason

July 30, 2006

Here it is folks, my best score ever: 323,070.

After my last post, I kind of took a break from the game for a while. When I started playing again in June, my timing was off. I almost stopped playing again because it was getting so frustrating, but everything fell into place today. I killed 265 out of 268 monsters, and one of those misses was a freak accident on the 4th board. I was pissed, but thank goodness I wasn’t pissed enough to hit the reset button.

I hit an amazing streak of luck on levels 14-17, getting 4 bananas and 3 pears out of 8 fruits. Also, I did not lose a life until level 16. I was perfect on Level 18, which is probably the hardest board in the game to kill every monster. If you let them chase you to the top half of the board before you’re ready, the red monster will speed up and you won’t be able to get them all.

It starts falling apart on Level 19. I missed a banana on that board and lost my second life. Then I lost my third life on level 20 on another bone headed play. I really can’t explain it other than to say the game was 2 hours old by that point and I was getting tired.

I recorded this in Mame32 .90, since I solved the video problem I mentioned earlier in this thread. One thing I don’t think I’ve mentioned is that you can fast forward during a Mame inp playback, so you can skip very quickly through the parts of this video you don’t want to see. In Mame 90, just hit F9 a few times, and the playback speed will keep increasing. I think on the 12th hit, it will return to normal speed.

I’ve decided to post another game when I clear level 25, regardless of my score. (In this recording, the game ends on level 21.) I have no idea how long it will take, but I’m determined to do it eventually. I think from now on I’m just going to start the game on level 21 and keep practicing.

–Jason mspacman323070.zip

June 15, 2006

I completely agree with the OP here, NES Gyruss is a work of pure genius. Other than Intellivision Burgertime, it’s the only game I can think of off the top of my head in which the home version is clearly better than the arcade.

For the people saying it’s too easy, maybe it is for the first few planets, but I always thought the last couple bosses were pretty tough. And it does get a lot harder the second and third time through.