Dripfree

I It was not a port of the game boy game. It was more like a hacked NES Metroid with new maps that I think resembled Metroid 2. That's actually what all of this venders games were. They looked very good he had demos rolling but I did not buy any they were very pricy. They did look sweet though he had them in real cartridge cases and glossy custom labels that looked legit.

Yea Im the same way. I made my own cables for my 800xl and my 99/4a. When I did it I simply soldered a right and left channel to the audio pin and the ground pin. Its not true stereo because there is no channel separation but you get audio from both speakers. Ironically I plug them into my commodore 1702 monitor with only 1 speaker so I leave the red cable unplugged. Kinda silly but if I was going to take the time to make a cable I wanted the cable to have 2 audio outputs.

That is awesome. It reminds me anyone ever see this one

Often bootlegs are pretty good. At the gaming classic here there was a vendor selling all kinds of custom bootleg NES carts. Metroid 2, Zelda 2, or my fave Super Mario 3 2. The quality was amazing. If I didnt know better I would have thought that they were real.

Texas chainsaw massacre for is a highly collectable game. But your correct these prices are insane. My theory that someone is actually just bragging about what they got and just posting the price that it would take for them to part with the holy grail of their collection knowing all well that no one is going to pay that price. Check out this Craigslist post in my town. I told him if he thinks its worth that much then he can buy mine for $1000 and make a profit selling it. http://milwaukee.craigslist.org/clt/3718352725.html I bought mine on clearance a Target for about $4.95 just cuz I wanted the joysticks. and my box is in better shape than his so maybe mines worth $3000

I am very fond of cartridge games. Not because I hate load screens or for any real technical reason. I just like them. They're like trading cards to me. Even games I don't really even play I just like to look at them for the art or in some cases lack there of. I mean Ironsword has freakin Fabio on the cartridge how weird is that!! The cartridge looks like the cover of a cheap romance novel with Fabio all shirtless and sweaty wielding a giant sword (a little homoerotic even). In the game your a knight in armor. It's like I was lied too. Not that I really wanted to see an 8bit shirtless Fabio. Another classic in my mind is the 2600 super breakout with the guy in the 70's looking spacesuit holding a rod or something that he is apparently using to hit a ball at a fricken rainbow!! That's so cool!! No but I really do just love looking through my collection of cartridges and just looking at the cover art. I also love the original carts for the Atari 8 bit computers the ones that are brown with the aluminum backs. They got some weight to them. With the metal backs I feel like they could almost take a bullet. Also like the 2600 I love the little spring loaded door on the bottom that only opens when pressed into the computer. But my favorite part of these cartridges is that there is no art. Just the name, what controller you use, and a model # like CXL4012. These carts seem to tell me "This aint a toy man. This is an important piece of computer equipment!". There are many carts that suck for obvious reasons. Like no spine labels (N64, 32x), labels where the glue seems to turn into oil and the labels eventually peel or fall off (Atari 2600, Genesis), or game that just don't stack well (Game gear, TI 99/4a). Even with these fails they still got cool art and that makes me to want to collect them. Anyway at the end of the day the Atari 8 carts are my favorite. However I am fickle and my tastes often change back and forth. I want to hear you opinion what system had the best carts for whatever reason. Or what cartridge had the best art either because it was so cool, or because it was so stupid.

Apollo is correct the 1802 only supports mono. You just plug in the audio to whichever one coincides with the video setup your using but you cant use both because they go to the same speaker. Congrats on the monitor though I really want an 1802 I think they're slick looking!

I really enjoyed Steve Jobs biography. I felt an excitement as I read it. He was a tyrant who never even learned to code. He got to where he was by working with the Woz who was a the true technical genius of the two. But it was truly his artistic vision that shaped the way we interact with even the most modern computer.

My bet is that its the caps like Osgeld said look for puffyness and leaking. I have never seen this on a c64 but I have had the same problem on a game gear and a sega genesis. Sega was known for using bad caps. In both circumstances changing out a few caps solved the problem. It was cheap and easy if you got basic soldering skills. Good luck.

Oh god did you say they grind up apples. I hate real apple sauce now I'm really sick!

I recently made a similar post in the Atari pc section and I got a great response so I'm now looking for some help from the Vic community. A few weeks ago I tried installing an audio jack into my Atari 410 datasette so that I could play audio files from my Ipod into my Atari and load cassette games that way. With a whole lot of trial and error and info from others I did get it to work. The answer was simple. I connected the left, right, and ground wires to the points on the circuit board where the left, right, and ground from the tape head connected. It was simple and it works great. I am now attempting to do the same to the datasette for my Vic 20. Thinking it would be just as simple I connected it the same way...... Nope! I then found out that the C2N is mono so I connected just the right channel.... Nope! Its weird cuz the wires from the tape head connect to the circuit board with black white and red wires just like most stereo tape heads. They then go into grey insulation and when the come out at the end by the tape head just the red an white wires are there. This has been much more confusing for me then it was on my Atari. I would love any help I could get on this project. I love the results I got with my Atari and it would be great to be able to do this on my Vic also. Here is a link to the thread I started when I needed help for my Atari. It may give some ideas to someone with more knowledge of the C2N then myself. http://atariage.com/...te#entry2730286 Thanks Dripfree

The 99/4a is a neat little machine I've stumbled across 2 myself (the steel and the grey) with a bunch of games and I like them very much. They came stock with an rf coax adapter so yours must have gotten misplaced over the years. If you can get one they can use the same composite adapter as the vic 20 or c64. I use my vic 20 composite for my TI and its much nicer than the coax was. If you got soldering skills make your own there are pin outs online and its very easy. The joystick is going to be a the bigger problem for you. Not all games need it but many do. TI uses there own joysticks. They are two odd uncomfortable joysticks linked into 1 db 9 connector (similar to the atari paddle's if your familiar) . You can use a standard atari stick if you build or buy a splitter. Honestly Ti 99's are cheap. Even on Ebay you can probably buy a whole new system with games and joysticks for about the same price as just the joysticks. Good luck Its a fun little computer and if your good you can build an adapter to hook up any cassette player with a mic and speaker jack. this will make it alot more useful to you.

I know your not supposed to ask a persons age but I was curious as to what the average age of an atari enthusiast is at this point in time. I myself am 29 and grew up in the glory days of the nes. About 7 years ago I got nostalgic and decided to get an nes once again. From there my interests expanded but seemed to go backwards. I got myself a colecovision, vic-20, a 2600 and much more but my biggest fascination of all has become my 800xl. I seem to keep hearing from people older than me that they're surprised someone as young as me is into these old machines. I'm surprised to hear that and I hope that people younger than me are still discovering these great machines. Most of the machines that interest me are before my time. Maybe not before my time, but by the time I was playing with computers these would have been considered very outdated. I always argue that over the years video games have not gotten better only better looking cuz at the end of the day whether your playing Mario or Halo your still just pushing buttons. That being said I cant understand why younger folks wouldn't be discovering and enjoying these games all the time. So id like to hear some ages and find out if I am at the low end of the age group in this community. Dripfree

Yea I should have had my coffee before I typed that. It is a 410 I've fixed the post. Thanks for the file!

Hey every one I have finally achieved success. Oddly enough the thing that was failing me was the newest piece of tech I was using. It was the Ipod mini that was glitching. I switched to my 5th gen Ipod touch and now its perfect. I wanted to share the line in mod I did to my 410. It works great to load games from my Ipod or my laptop. An unanticipated benefit is that I can also send the audio in press record on my 410 and save the audio to a real cassette. For this to work I have to make My 800 try to load the audio so that it sends the signal to my 410 to turn the motor. However it will not load while recording. I've attached some pics if anyone else wanted to give this a try. It was extremely simple and since I didn't see any instructions on the web I thought I'd make my own. Big thanks to Kr0tki and ProWizard for all your help. I was also hoping someone could send me or direct me to a working NTSC cassette image of Ballblazer and Rescue on Fractalus. I found that my Ballblazer doesn't work for me cuz its PAL and my Rescue on Fractalus is just a bad cas image. Thanks again Dripfree

Well I've continued playing with this. Thanks Kr0tki for letting me know that the 410 does the data conversion before it hits the computer. I'm used too the Ti 99/4a for that I use a regular cassette recorder and the computer plugs into the mic. and speaker jack so I'm pretty sure that does all the data conversion at the computer. I was assuming the atari was doing the same. Anyway I did install a line in to the circuit board of my 410 and that is working.... A least as good as the cassette adapter was. I just didn't trust the adapter cuz I do notice a sound quality loss when I use it for music so I assumed this meant data loss on my atari. But my line in seems to have the same success rate. Dig dug seems to have a near 100% success rate while other games are sketchy and some work at all. All do show a load screen but fails at some point durring the load. I have been using the emulator to verify that the .cas files work but can't figure out how to get the emulator to run .wav files. The .wav always gets a boot error on the emu. I also can't figure out how to get the emu to tell me if its an NTSC or PAL file. Do PAL files sometimes work and sometimes not work on a NTSC 800xl? I was under the assumption that if the file was a PAL I would have a 100% failure rate. Does the atari in anyway sync the data transfer by detecting the speed of the 410? I'm just not sure why some files have about a 50/50 success rate. Any Ideas would be great. I feel like i'm just about to crack this and that my ipod should have at least the same success rate as a real cassette if not better. Perhaps just an eq adjustment could do it. Thanks again, Dripfree

Hey guys thanks for all the good advice. I have continued my experimenting and I have had better luck using Kr0tki's sofware (now im playing Tapper very nice!) Many programs still do not load it seems to be the longer ones IE Ballblazer, Rescue on fractalus. They seem to fail at different points each time I try, usualy after 8 min into the load. My thought is that these are failing mainly because they are longer therefore the chance for an error is greater. Im guessing that every so often my cassette adapter glitches sending a few bad bits. I must admit over the last few years its spent alot of time on the floor of my car.... Athough it and my 410 have had their heads cleaned I know neither are in tip top shape. I was going to begin experimenting with installing a line in to the SIO of my 800xl.... Unless I get reponses saying that I'm way off it seems that the 410 to SIO is just a primitive audio in for the atari. Then I would be able to just plug my ipod right into the atari and there would be no chance for a glitch between my cassete adapter and my 410. I was wondering also if anyone new of any sites that would have a tune up guide for the 410. A quick google only showed belt replacement and that I can figure out myself. I was hoping there might be a few simple mods that might improve it. At the end of the day what I realy want is to get these programs on a real cassette. Even though I like to experiment I'm also kind of a purest. I like ProWizard's idea of cutting the the tape. That actualy crossed my mind when I was splitting a .wav file that had a collection of about 20 basic programs. Im glad to hear it's actualy been done. Thanks again for all the good advice, love this community! Dripfree

Hey guys I wanted to start a discussion on cassettes and see if I can get some help with a few issues. First off im running an 800xl a 1050 and a 410. The 410 does not work cuz it runs the tapes a varying speeds. It's just a bad belt but I havent replaced it yet. I don't have an sio2pc so I had no way of getting games from my pc to my atari. In my car I use a cassette adapter to hook my ipod to my stereo and that got me thinking. If I used that in my 410 the varying speed wont be an issue cuz that tape doesn't actualy get turned. I downloaded "brucelee.cas" and used cas2wav so that I could put it on an old Ipod mini I had laying around. I put my cassette tape adapter into my 410 pluged in my Ipod and was actualy shocked to see the game load! I then went game crazy and downloaded all the best cassete games I could find. While some work many don't. All will start to load but will then either just hang and never get past the load screen or have a load error. I had a lot more luck finding UK cassette files then I did US files. Could it be an NTSC vs PAL issue? Is there sometimes data loss In the conversion process from .cas to .wav (I should specify even though Im using an ipod I am using .wav not .mp3.) I was realy excited, this seemed like an option for transfering games from the internet to my atari. This might sound stupid but my next project was going to be to see if I could transfer data from my 410 and save it to disks on my 1050. Is that even possible? I know Im gona hear that i should just by an sio2pc and im gona some day but Im just too broke now not to mention these experiments are what I realy enjoy about my atari (seeing bruce lee load from my Ipod was more fun for me then playing it). Anyway I'd apreciate any help I can get I'm sure i'm not the first one to try this so I figure somone here has got some answers. Thanks much, Dripfree.

Thanks alot for all the good info. I did search the web before I posted here and felt kinda lost there are so many different ways to build and different options to buy that I wasn't sure what would suit me best. Ive decided that Im going to attempt a build with the 1489 chip. This seems well within my abilities, and should suit my needs nicely. It will also realy open up the atari 8 world for me (thus far I got about 12 carts but all I can use my 1050 for is saving basic programs). Once Ive gathered my parts I'll let you all know how it goes. This is a great commuinity while browsing the forums I could see everyone is very eager to help. I'm very excited to become an active member myself. Thanks again. Drip

Hey everyone. I got my first atari 8 bit (800xl) a few months back. Since then I've become obsessed and now I've been looking into an sio2pc cable and I have been weighing my options. Ive been extremely impressed with this community and would like too propose a few questions. Idealy id actualy like a sio to serial. This is because i have an old laptop mid to early 90's with no usb. It does have a serial and parrallel connection and ive already installed the APE software and it seems fully capable of running it. I would like to be able to leave this as a permanent part of my atari setup. Are there any downfalls to using serial opposed to usb? I would also like to use it as 1050 to serial. Am I understanding correctly that the most basic diy cable is not capable of this function? I am fairly skilled with a soldering iron and have built quite a few different cables mods and circuits for different machines. I admit I have very little knowledge of electronics. I was only able to make the circuits that I did because I found very detailed instructions with lots of pics (schematics may as well be hieroglyphics). Even though I may not know how or why the circuit works I can probably copy what someone else did if I get detailed enough instructions. I realy enjoy doing these things myself and would prefer to build one rather than buy one. Can someone please post a link to what might be the most easy and most detailed instructions on the web? Finaly have I been overthingking this thing? Would I just be better off to go and buy an atarimax usb sio2pc, because in the end ill have the most options with the least amount of headache's? I look foreward too your response and appreciate your time.

Hey got what may be a silly question. I was looking into making an sio2serial interface for my newly accqired 800xl . I happen to have an atari 850 interface. I was wondering if there is anyway to use the 850 interface to connect through the serial port of a pc and perform the tasks of a built or purchased sio2serial of sio2usb interface? Not only would it be cheeper but it would be pretty cool too if it is att all possible. I assume if people had been doing this it would have been easier for me to find out how to do it so I have begun to think this can not be done, but figured Id put the question out here.