jdrose

gb, The actual binary isn't all that collectible. It can be re-cloned indefinitely. I.E. We can buy all kinds of prints of "Starry Night" and "Mona Lisa" for cheap but the real thing is priceless. It's the physical that is important. The cartridge, the original factory ROM chip, the PCB, the manuals, the box, etc. They are what is important and will last for many cycles if taken care of. Worry not.

I would like to see some confirmation that someone developed a professional game for the VCS on a KIM-1 back in the day. That would have been a tedious, yet awesome accomplishment. My understanding is that Atari had in house PDP-11 minicomputers for developing VCS code and "state of the art" 8001 color computers for designing graphics. (I suppose the other cartridge developers would have had similar minicomputers.)

$1000 for a 556 powered "Atari Punk Console" in an old box? Talk about going for blue sky. Interesting piece but I think he is going to sit on that one for a while. Perhaps the artist listed it to drive interest to his less expensive works.

Thanks for everyone's help. Got myself a 7800 now.

Excellent.

I would love to see Galaga for the 2600.

Is there a way to tell if this is authentic or not? eBay Auction -- Item Number: 300649611643

Looking to buy a 7800 console. Would want the power supply, TV connector and the two controllers too. Thanks.

Sign me up. I definitely want to get one of these 7800 Expansion Modules. Very cool.

http://www.etsy.com/search/handmade?search_submit=&q=atari&view_type=gallery&ship_to=US

eBay Auction -- Item Number: 300649143922

Yeah, sorry, my old eyes are giving me problems. I misread the published date as 1982 instead of 1992. Thanks for the correction.

The ideas are obviously similar. Acid Drop is quite fun to play. Probably one of the more playable titles on the VCS.

Hello, I made a short program to illustrate the sprite. It is my very first program for the Atari 2600 so it is not too impressive. I think the sprite is what is important. It's pretty close to your picture. And it only takes 8x8 of space. .byte %01000100 .byte %01000100 .byte %00101100 .byte %01111100 .byte %00000100 .byte %00001010 .byte %00001010 .byte %00010001 Use arrows to go back and forth. SPACE to jump. Deer2600.bin

Thanks for the tip! I looked up the TI 36x Solar. Unfortunately, it has the exact same computer math functions as my TI Programmer. Tempted to download the HP16C emulator for Android. It's $4.99 but if it is an exact emulation it may well be money well spent.

The 2600 only supports two missiles, two sprites (players), playfield and a ball. However, many games seem to suggest that a good number of (non-blinking) sprites can be displayed at the same time. Having trouble doing that myself without inducing serious blink. I am trying to get 15 examples of the same round object to display on the screen at once: Org $FF00 SpriteData .binary %00111100 .binary %01111110 .binary %11111111 .binary %11111111 .binary %11111111 .binary %11111111 .binary %01111110 .binary %00111100 I can do it but the blinking is terrible. What are some of the programming concepts that allow more than two sprites to be cleanly displayed at once? Thanks.

Yikes. I got soundly outbid. I guess I'll be keeping my TI programmer for a while.

That sounds cool. I've got a few SN76477 chips laying around. Would be interesting to see an Atari 7800 game driving THE original arcade SndFX generator.

I've got an ancient RCA 19" CRT TV I've had since 1993. Also have a Philips 24" CRT TV I've had since 1999. Probably use the Philips mostly. I can't afford the new fangled televisions they are offering today. Can you even still buy CRT TVs today? Regarding the 7800: Until a couple of weeks ago I had never heard of an Atari 7800. Sounds like an interesting console. Full 6502, more program space, 2600 hardware and traditional DMA video hardware as well. Sounds like programming the 7800 in it's native mode is more like traditional computer video game programming. Not ready to go to go there yet, have my hands full learning the 2600 but it is interesting to know the 7800 exists. Couple of question regarding the 7800. Are the sound effects really as bad as they seem or is that a defect of the emulator? What is the estimated installed base of Atari 7800 consoles?

eBay Auction -- Item Number: 180788811108 I am using an old LED TI-Programmer but I am bummed that it does not support direct binary arithmetic or bit shifts/rotates. (I know about the Windows calculator but I find a real calculator more handy at times.) Do you recommend the CM-100 or HP-16C or something else?

Thank you. I sorta figured the Harmony was a given. Good tip on the six switch consoles. I am bidding on a 7800 on eBay and keeping my eye out for a six switch VCS on craigslist. I am not really interested in learning MARIA at this time but like the phaxda said it's good to have in case I do develop an interest.

Thank you. Never thought of it that way.

Love the elastic leash. It threw me off until I understood what it was about. The SndFX are very nice too. Moody. Not annoying. $20 is probably too inexpensive for a cart. Think $24.99 or $29.99 to make it worthwile.

I've just started developing code for the Atari 2600. It's an exciting and complicated programming environment, however, so far, I can only test my code on emulators because I do not have an actual console. Ultimately, I would like to have an actual 2600 console to "acid" test my code. Been shopping at eBay and I am a bit confused by all the varieties of the VCS 2600 console offered. Darth Vader, 2600 Jr, Sunnyvale Promo, 7800, Telegames, Six Switch, 2600 Woodie, Sears, Heavy Sixer, etc. My question, is there any particular console that I should be looking for that is the "one"? Thanks

Is that console using a ARM processor or similar? Probably hard to modify if it does.