sqoon

I have bought a 4 port model at a yard sale and a 2 port model from Craigslist. Both consoles are solid as a tank. You say you are aware of the controller issues. They are not difficult to refurb in the slightest, and all the replacement parts can be had from Best Electronics' website for relatively cheap. Nothing to look for in buying a system other than asking obvious questions like 'Does the console power up?" and "Are the controllers in working condition?" Those are the two main things I would ask. If the controllers do not work, it is by no means a show-stopper. As for games that do not work with 2-port 5200 consoles, I believe Pitfall is one. Not sure of the others.

I have a small house, but organization is key. No, it looks nothing like hoarders, or my wife would leave. My collection takes up half of a spare bedroom and one end of my family/game room. Lots of wall shelves and component stereo cabinets helps.

Count me in as soon as this is available.

The best I have found for storing loose Genesis cartridges are the wine-crate type cassette tape racks. They hold 40 cartridges and mount nicely on the wall. Be warned though. They go for higher amounts on ebay. I found mine for $3 each at charity thrifts. Genesis cartridges are exactly the size of audio cassette tapes, so the 3-drawer woodgrain tape storage units work well also. My only issue with those is that the games are out of sight and I have to open the drawers to see what I want to play.

Over 40 consoles and 4,000 games and it's all stored in my head. Surprisingly, I rarely buy duplicates.

Dial controller is possible on 5200. Get Bohoki's 15 pin adapter and buy an Ultra racer PC controller off ebay. Works excellent for games like Kaboom, Super Breakout, and Tempest.

Its safe to say it was a marketing ploy by Activision to get kids to feel like they had to complete a set, no matter how good the games in that set actually were. Seeing that games went for around $40 each back then, I am guessing that many kids had 'gaping holes' in their collections.

Not considered rare in my experience. Good to find Sega CD titles in the wild though. Nice find!

MVS, Turboduo, XEGS in no particular order.

Maybe if you lived in the mountains of Montana, but elsewhere, the Atari, intellivision, Colecovision, VHS, laser disc, etc. TV commercials were everywhere. Conan is most likely of Irish descent, so maybe he grew up in Ireland. even so, they had to have VCS over there.

I get the shtick and that he was attempting comedy, but he must be as old as many on these forums. That should mean he has been exposed to VCS and its games at some point when he was younger. Maybe he was just feigning like he had never seen these games before?

^ No, there was a thread where the poster was actually working on the PS2 dual shock mod. Something comes to mind, though: The 'analog' sticks on modern controllers from N64 through XB360 are not actually analog at all. Rather, they work on serial optical encoder technology. This makes me wonder if the PS2 dual shock or any other modern twin-stick controller is modifiable to work with 5200.

I cannot believe Namco is not licensing to outside parties when you look at all the Jakks Pacific plug n play's. Also, besides Atari Age selling Pac Man Collection and Super Pac Man for 7800, someone made a nice Pac Man Collection for Colecovision a few years back. You can't tell me those are officially licensed games. I say just make a game for intellivision and call it Pac Lady or similar. No one is getting sued for selling D2K, are they?

Do you know of anyone who does this controller mod? There was a poster on here some time ago who worked on it as a project, but eventually faded away. I would think that it would have to have two separate cords coming out, one for controller port 1 and another for controller port 2. This is because games like Space Dungeon and Robotron 2084 require use of both those ports. I could also see a controller like this being useful on a true arcade conversion of Battlezone for 5200.

You got one of the better games on the system, Space Dungeon, and with the coupler, nice. Hope you and your friend spent some time on this one. Welcome to the 5200. IMO, the best machine Atari ever released. Years of fun ahead...

Mainly due to the Nintendo propaganda machine at the time. Umm, all the handhelds at that time had A/C adapters available for purchase. So, some kid who played on lunch breaks may burn through a package of batteries in a week's time, but for those multi-hour gaming sessions, anyone with smarts would have used a power brick, backlit screen or not.

I generally dislike handhelds, though I do have a few Gameboy and Gameboy Color's, along with some games in my collection. I prefer to play them on Super Gameboy or Gameboy Player though. Handheld screens are just too small for my eyes and the original GB was not even backlit. What were they thinking?

I got one at Salvation Army a couple years ago but have never really played much with it. Now that you mentioned Battlezone, I am anxious to get my hands on that game. Always loved playing it with two sticks at the arcade. Thanks for the tip.

I agree that INTV consoles are much more dependable than CV consoles. That said, both are enjoyable in their own right and will you cost you about the same to get into. Really, the choice depends on your tastes. 80's arcade gems (CV) versus some original and exclusive games of differing genres on INTV. Just realize that INTV has fewer, and often graphically inferior, arcade ports when compared to CV.

He talks about problems with the thumb stick. I wonder if that has identical plug into the controller's PCB as the original Nintendo thumb sticks. They are sold new on ebay and would be an easy swap out. The other thing I notice is that if you love to use the rumble pak, I would guess it is out of the question with the battery pak being where it would plug into the controller. The point he makes about the center hand grip being cut off on the underside is huge to me. I can tell by looking that I would not be able to get the grip I am accustomed to on that. I wonder what they were thinking in changing that part of the original controller's design? I like the idea of wireless N64 controllers, but this one doesn't look like the one for me.

Had this thought tonight. What if the owner of Best Electronics ever gets tired of sitting on all that old inventory and just wants out of the Atari parts business? Could he possibly go the O'Shea's liquidation/scrap route and potentially leave so many 5200 owners without an option to repair our systems and controllers? Now it might sound far-fetched top some, but is possible. Is it time to stock up on some of his parts just in case?

If they end up doing the documentary, where will it be released? Theatres? Direct to DVD? Maybe a FOX TV special ala Capone's vault?

Tac Scan, Battlezone, and Tempest are three that immediately come to mind for good Vectrex home port possibilities, but SMB? Even games that were not originally vector based lend themselves to the Vectrex' style. I could see Bubbles, Centipede, or even a Breakout port, but SMB just doesn't seem to be a good possibility, at least to me.

Isopropyl is fine and works great only on plastic coated labels, otherwise avoid it. It will remove ink on uncoated labels. As for cleaning the outside casing of cartridges, Windex or similar seems to work well. Generally if a cartridge is especially grungy, I use a toothbrush and isopropyl to get into any crevices or indentations. Goo-Gone is a necessuty for getting off old glue or residue, and a heat gun is recommended for removing old stickers and rental store decals. For the contacts, I always start off with a light scuffing with 600 grit sandpaper, followed by 4-6 swipes with isopropyl on a cotton swab. 91% isopropyl, none of the 70% or 50% as the water content is not good for electronics. As a last resort, I also keep electronic contact cleaner handy for especially stubborn contacts and PCB's.

Microvision 32X 7800 Gamewave