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Andromeda Stardust

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Posts posted by Andromeda Stardust

  1. Posted

    With all the recent hoopla surrounding the Air Raid discovery, I decided to mod my AtariAge Air Raid cart magnet with a "T" handle made out of some some 1/2" PVC pipe and black spray paint. Then I drilled a hole in back of the cart and glued it in!

     

    I also "antiqued" the label a little bit with some application tape to make it look old and rough.

    post-33189-0-50137100-1351354690_thumb.jpg

    post-33189-0-98014800-1351354712_thumb.jpg

    • Like 5

  2. Posted · Edited by stardust4ever

    It's not that surprising that another one suddenly popped up with all the media hoopla the GameGavel one is grabbing. Sadly, it couldn't have come at a worse moment, as it may affect user "Air Raid"s sale if more are shown to exist before the end of the auction. That said, the box is in banged up condition. That still doesn't prove that more than 25 of them were ever produced. Men-a-Vision's "Air Raid" was obviously a commercial failure, otherwise it wouldn't be worth a crapton of money now. The Baby blue cart with the "T" handle only adds to it's unique appeal.

     

    I've got an Air Raid cart magnet from the AtariAge store laying around, but too bad it's not playable. I even added a handle to it!

    post-33189-0-50137100-1351354690_thumb.jpg

    http://www.atariage....aid-magnet-mod/

    • Like 1

  4. Posted

    IS THIS THOERY PSYCHOLOGICALLY PROVEN? OR DO I HAVE TO PROVIDE STATS?

    Yes, and it causes even more seizures than Japanese Pokemon cartoons.

     

    It's great that word is getting out about this. It seems the bids have hit a lul, but all that press can only cause the price to spike higher! Expect last minute sniping!

  5. Posted · Edited by stardust4ever

    I found/got a loose Air Raid this summer. it was a new find never reported. I think mine was #16 reported , so with boxed one that makes 17? Mine was found in Kansas at game store Game Xchange for $1 by one of my customers and he sold it to me.

    I have two Game-X-Changes in my area (Shreveport/Bossier). I find it fascinating that all Atari games, regardless of rarity, are $1.95 and the buyback price is 25 cents. If the poor guy walked in with the "Holy Grail" of Atari games and sold it for a buck, he surely didn't know what he had. I'd bet you gave him that dollar out of your own wallet and pocketed the game, didn't you? That's slick...

  6. Posted

    I just noticed earlier that there are some behavioral issues with the ghosts in the cutscenes ROM not present in the official AA cart release. For starters, when I played the "cutscenes" ROM on my Harmony cart, the ghost do not change direction when a pellet is eaten. Both on the original arcade game and the official AtariAge cart, the ghosts reverse direction when turning Blue. Also, on the cutscenes ROM, occasionally the ghosts will follow me into the tunnels above the ghost cage. In the arcade game, those were one-way tunnels. On my AtariAge Pacman 4k cart, the ghosts can only move up these two tunnels when they are Blue, so IMO the behavior is a little off in the cutscenes ROM.

     

    Just my observations. I would still love to someday play a Ms Pacman based on the 4k engine.

  8. Posted

    If true about the mold, that would mean 25 Air Raids were made..

    So Atari Air Raid is officially on par with the Gold Nintendo World Championships cart (27 of which were made). And due to the nature of the NWC, people who recieved them as prizes knew they had something special. So I'd imagine more of them survived. Also, had any orders been placed for Air Raids, then black carts would have been produced or the orders would have gone unfulfilled. Well, that officially debunks the myth that a large "pallete" of Air Raids exists in a warehouse somewhere. Any official sources for that info (if they exist) will make the story more credible, although it sounds like a perfectly plausible story to me.

  9. Posted · Edited by stardust4ever

    Apparently...the version IN the store already has the music present. Those who bought it do not need to worry.

     

    ** Abandoning project **

    Please don't give up! I was hoping a Ms Pacman version could someday be developed. A 16kb ROM would be more than adequate. Here's a lazy, unoptimized way to do it: you could copy the entire program across all four banks, and just update the maze data once for each bank. That way, you'd only have to worry about bank-switching in between the boards or when the level select switch is toggled. The data for the cut-scenes could even be scrapped in favor of a fruit-bouncing algorithm. Or expand the game to 32k, and the title screen plus each of the three intermissions each get their own private banks! So what if the program is bloated an redundant? These days, a 32k cart is no more expensive to produce than a 4 or 8k one. Audio and sprites should not be difficult to update, and a purple Sue would be awesome!

  10. Posted

    is there a way of testing if it runs ok at 60Hz without actually buying a 60Hz cart?

    I take it you don't have a Harmony flash cart? If you have a DVD player, try messing around in settings and switching the output to NTSC or PAL 60Hz. Most PAL players are capable of playing region-free NTSC discs and many offer the 60Hz/480 option to avoid scaling artifacts. If your TV can handle the signal, you will be fine with PAL60. BTW, most video games were developed in NTSC region (US or Japan) and then converted to PAL. As a result, most VCS, 8-bit, and 16-bit generation games were unoptimized and ran slower in PAL territories. VCS actually controls the number of active scanlines, wheras nearly all other consoles the scanlines were fixed in hardware. Typically on later systems, the audio pitch was corrected but tempo and game speed weren't. I've actually got an NES Mario/Tetris/World Cup multicart from Europe, and the timings were updated for PAL in this release, so it's like playing my favorite games on steriods when I plug it into my lockout-modded NTSC NES! For years, PAL gamers never knew they were getting duped with slower games and just accepted it. Also, if your not that skilled, playing the game at 50Hz may allow you to survive longer. Many tooth-and-nail tough games were probably slightly easier in PAL land as a result. I hope this helps.

  11. Posted · Edited by stardust4ever

    Weren't there also 2600 games that used Pokey sound chips as well? I know Pitfall II had dramatically improved sound. It sounded almost as good as an NES game. That's an accomplishment for any VCS game for sure! Some Famicom games had expansion chips as well. Remember, the Atari 7800 and SMS only had small libraries due to most third parties that were forced to sign exclusive agreements with the NES. Additionally, several would-be Atari/Sega exclusives were released on NES under the black cart Tengen label.

  12. Posted

    I took at stab at transcribing the instruction manual. The items in brackets are my best guesses. Here's what I came up with for page 1:

     

    This is exactly why we need high-quality scans of the documents. People want to view/read this stuff. A cheap point-and shoot camera just doesn't do it justice.

  13. Posted

    Some rom download sites add garbage data to the end of ROMs. I've actually read the text strings in a hex editor before. Usually just a few bytes with the site url, info, or the name of whoever dumped the ROM. You can also try loading the file in Notepad by scrolling to the end to view the last few bytes, but Notepad can't handle binary data and will corrupt the file if you try to edit or save. Most emulators ignore this data, but flash carts such as Powerpak and Harmony sometimes expect an exact file size and apply the wrong mapper or otherwise cause the games to crash or not load properly. Most Atari VCS ROMs are 2048, 4096, 8192, or more rarely 16384 and up to 32768 bytes in filesize, but they are always exact powers of 2 in bytes.

  15. Posted

    I'm not sure whether I need to get pal50 or pal60 version cart for my region, I live in New Zealand, I'm pretty sure its the same pal that Australia uses if that helps

     

    PAL TVs normally run at 50Hz, but many are capable of displaying 60Hz fine. If you want 60Hz without the slowdown associated with PAL releases, then get PAL 60. Otherwise, for maximum compatability with older TVs, you will need PAL 50. But don't buy NTSC games for your PAL Atari. The game will be playable, but the colors will be all wrong.

  16. Posted · Edited by stardust4ever

    I got my first rocket tonight. I swapped out my custom VCS arcade controller for my 3-button Genny (some say it's blasphemy, but the gamepad yields a competitive edge). Made it to 61,000 points, then I started toying with the start level. The blocks pile too fast on level 9, so I downgraded. I landed 117,000 points starting out on level 7 (I was in the zone at one point scorings loads of 4-highs, and I didn't realise I was over 100 grand until I looked up), besting my previous high score of 74,000 (start level 5). Launched my first rocket, but I don't know if I'll make it to 200,000 any time soon. The special surprize at 500 grand sounds epic, though only a tetris grandmaster could acieve that! Maybe someday someone posts a spoiler video on youtube, or better yet, a million point rollover - it's been done on before NES and Game Boy!

  17. Posted · Edited by stardust4ever

    I have found that all of the Pacman/Galaga coin-ops I have deposited quarters in, have the speed-hack permanently enabled, but ironically she moves at normal speed on the demo screen. It plays a wee bit too fast for me. Not like the original Ms Pacman at all, but Galaga plays flawless. Maybe the speed-hack is controlled by dip-switches? Greedy arcade operators...

  21. Posted · Edited by stardust4ever

    THERE'S A WHOLE CASE OF AIR RAIDs IN THE BASEMENT, I AM BUYING MY PLANE TICKET RIGHT NOW.

    No kidding! I've got the Midas touch, well sort of. But instead of gold, everything I touch turns into Air-Raids. :rolling: Then I went to embrace my fiance... :_(

     

    In all seriousness, user Air Raid "Gotsta Get Paid"!

    Sorry couldn't help the ZZ-Top reference. That song popped into my head when I saw the $15800 price tag... :music:

  22. Posted

    The only people getting butthurt over reissues are the danged resellers who flip stuff at stupid high prices. I saw a copy of the original Halo 2600 sell for $420 on eBay back in May. Now I'm happy for the opportunity to finally own one. Collectors are happy to recieve exclusive 1st-run packaging/ label art, and gamers are happy to recieve any version. If the threat of a possible second run is a deterrant for would-be resellers, then that only means more copies in the hands of genuine collectors and gamers. If I had my way, everything would be open edition. ;)

    • Like 2

  23. Posted

    1 grand after just two bids ain't bad. It still tickles me I got the first bid in. Maybe the third bid will be 10 grand? I expect to see a lot of action on this once the reserve is met. I just hope it's legitamate buyers and not a bunch of trolls pushing up the price with no intention of buying.

     

    If it's anything like ebay, expect a lot of sniping in the last few minutes...

    • Like 1

  25. Posted · Edited by stardust4ever

    Isn't that just an urban legend? :grin:

     

    No, it's not an urban ledgend. The arcade rom was different from the NES rom. In the arcade version, you play a round of Duck Hunt, then a round of Clay Shooting, then a bonus stage. During the bonus stage, you get infinite ammo, and you fire repeatedly at the Ducks. Occasionaly, the Dog, will jump into the crossfire, and if you shoot him, then the bonus round will end prematurely and the dog walks across the screen on crutches. It's hilareous! Also in some rounds, you have to shoot 3 ducks instead of two! The VS Arcade games were really just modified NES/Famicom hardware, so the rom has had modifications done to it so that it works properly as an NES cart, dipswitches and all. If you consider yourself a pro at Duck Hunt, or you thought the NES game was too easy, I highly recommend it...

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