5-11under

I'm waiting for the 8th sequel for this game.

I went to an art gallery. One or more of the pictures offended me. Did it offend you, too? Sorry, I can't tell you which picture(s), but at least one of them has some strange history about it. I'm not going to tell you the history of it, but trust me, there's something strange. /clear as mud

I think we have different definitions of "games out so far"... .

As an FYI, the supplier is still looking into the contrast range issue. There was some delay because I had to do some investigating and voltage measuring. Hopefully that will be resolved soon. When resolved, I'll set a future date (1-2 weeks) for any final pre-orders before ordering the production run. At the same time, I'll publish a closer estimate on the final prices. That will give everyone 1-2 weeks to update their request, in case the lower price changes things.

Not yet, I don't think, but likely to be number 3 or 4 out of the gate.

So, basically, so far for 2018, we have 1) Beat Em & Eat Em (IntellivisionRevolution), unless 2) Astro Invaders (Collectorvision) has started shipping.

This is all low voltage you're dealing with, right? Do what many companies do... use an approved AC/DC adapter, with no high voltage within your device.

Many boards are cleaned in water (or solutions with water). However, some components that are on boards may not be compatible.

See pictures above. If all goes well, and the supplier can fix the contrast range, then no soldering is required. If they can't fix it, then one resistor (I would supply) would need to be installed in parallel with one of the existing resistors. This could be done by soldering ideally, or optionally with a couple of drops of conductive epoxy.

Below are some pictures of the disassembly of a Microvision, as well as the other 4 samples I received. As mentioned, the new screens have the top polarizer and bottom polarizing reflector attached to the glass, so re-assembly reverses all the steps, except you don't need the front polarizer. I did use the polarizing reflector, only because it helps keep the side Zebra connector in the correct place. Re-installation with the new LCD took about 5 minutes (although I've put these together a few times before).

There's a comic strip in there somewhere... .

You just did (get on the list)!

Yep, pre-orders are still open. I'll give at least one week official notice, after getting the contrast figured out.

It's tough to get a good picture, but here's what the prototype looks like: It looks and works great. Besides the scratches that are on the game I'm playing, the LCD looks pristine. There's one thing, however, that I'll need to contact the supplier about. The range of the contrast isn't wide enough. Even with the contrast as low as it will go, the pixels that are off are still showing somewhat dark. It looked barely/almost good enough. I had to solder in a resistor in parallel with one of the existing resistors to get the contrast in a good range. Hopefully the supplier will be able to fix this. I'll keep you posted. One cool thing is that the front and rear polarizers are fixed onto the glass of the LCD. No extra parts to install incorrectly.

The samples are set to arrive by tomorrow.

The cat's out of the bag, I guess?

Just remember it's not your fault... it's the slimy Coleco guy, and one or two others trying to take advantage of people.

Except he's selling stolen and/or freely available games, where someone soldered an EPROM into a cheap overstock Activision board and shell, which is worth about $5 maximum, added a 5 cent label, and says they're potentially valuable and/or prototypes, and trying to sell them for $50 US.

I just pre-paid the shipping cost for these... hopefully they'll arrive within about a week.

The '18 outputs composite. Anything with a '28 would likely work, I think.

I'm not too worried about the flux (but I'm not sure what kind it is), but many of the solder connections don't look good to me. If I'm wrong, and they are okay, then life's good!

Sorry, but I'm not buying that. I think you might run into trouble as it gets more complicated.

The current pre-order count is an impressive 143. That's a bit past the break-even point, so that means the price of each unit starts to go down. Right now it's down about $1 per unit. The exact price will depend on a number of unknown factors such as shipping and customs/taxes costs for both the prototype and production runs (but the maximum price is the number listed in the first post). Pre-orders can still continue, at least through early May, when the prototypes are set to arrive (I'll give official advanced notice for when pre-orders will end).

That's the 15th block on the screen, so you'll need to add up to 15. For instance, press and hold 8 on keypad #2 (like a shift key), then press and release 7 on keypad #1, then release keypad #2.

It's an old program... you'll have to make your own if you want it fancier. I found the original instructions from another thread. The colors are in order for the top half of the screen, so you can compare to an emulator's color chart (if they're showing the colors in order, that is). Note that there's sometimes some little blocks that don't change color, for some reason. It is what it is...: The main screen shows all 16 colours in blocks in two ways. The top half shows the colours in order, from 1 to 15, then 0. The bottom half also shows all of the colours (except one of the blacks), but with similar colours beside each other, to better highlight the differences (or similarities) between each, for instance, showing all three "green" colours in a row. A cursor also flashes on the screen. The joystick can be used to move the cursor around the screen. Pressing the main fire button cycles the colours up, and pressing the secondary fire button cycles the colours down. The colour of the whole screen will change if a number is pressed on the keypad. Only numbers 1 through 9 are accepted, but if you press and hold a key on the second keypad (1 through 8 ), then press a number key on the first keypad, the numbers will be added (to access colours 10 through 15). If you don't want to use the second keypad, you can of course manipulate the blocks individually. There is a little bonus added. The program uses mode 3, which is a 64 x 48 grid (of 4x4 pixels). Press the 9 key on the second keypad to access it. Now that I think about it, the control scheme is fairly non-user-friendly. Anyway, using the first keypad, the colours of each 4x4 pixel can be changed the same way as described in the previous paragraph (sorry, the wholesale colour change is not available). There you have it - a brute-force pixelated drawing program.