kennetzel

I did it in Corel Draw. I had to draw it all by hand. I traced over the actual art matching line thickness and trying to get as close to color as possible. But between the different scanners, box age, and various files out there, it's tough to nail that down. So I came close.

Does this help? I was bored and put it in Corel Draw where I traced it out. I now have a vector drawing of this. If acceptable, I can send you the EMF file.

I found this one on line and it was scanned HUGE. I tried to clean up the pic in Photoshop the best I could. But here is the link. This will be the best you are going to get. All anyone can do is scan the box they have which is what this guy did already...unless someone has the original preproduction art. http://www.atarimani..._hes_cart_2.jpg RiverRaidArt.bmp

I put it into Photoshop and it looks just as bad when enlarged probably because I saved it as a jpg. sorry...best I can do.

I had he box, it got ruined in a flood. But before it bit the dust, I scanned the box art and though it is the same size, I saved it at 300 dpi.

I haven't tried it with the old system yet. I still have a good set of originals. I thought the new paddles were supposed to work better with the Flashback, but they don't. No better than the original paddles. But I will try them with my Darth Vader and see how they work. But they don't help the Flashback at all.

I ordered the paddles when I ordered my Flash Back. They didn't show up till after Christmas. And they suck, for the flashback anyway. They still lagged when used. You don't have the accuracy. You turn the paddle, and a split second later the cursor moves. Not good at all when playing Kaboom or breakout. It's because of the paddles I shelved my flashback. I didn't like the infrared sticks, and hoped the paddles would give me a better play on those games, and they were worse. That whole flashback was a waste of my hard earned money and the paddles contributed to that.

My favorte is Phoenix. In fact I took my Atari out of mothballs in order to play it. I found almost all of my favorite games in one form or another on the web, but could never find a good version of Phoenix. That's when you start getting nostalgia and remember the fun you had playing it on the Atari Console. So I dug it out of mothballs, put in Phoenix and it played like the day I bought it, as did all the other of my favorite games...space invaders, missile command, adventure, berzerk, defender, moon patrol, circus, breakout...you name it, if I had it, I played it. THe unit was failing though in some reguards, so I purchased a nearly prestine Darth Vader and have been playing River Raid for weeks now...my new baine.

I am just surprised with the interest in the Flashbacks, and the NES clones that have come out, nobody has taken it seriously that there is a huge Atari audience out there that would sap up something like this. Why is the NES so special. Atari started it all, and there are plenty of the old carts floating around, or are they relying on the durability of the original system. You would think that some company would come out with one.

Is this a real possibility, or are we dreaming? I feel like the home brews, someone should be able to put together a decent clone for the Atari console. with the ones for the nes out, I am surprised someone has yet to put one out. I would definitely support that. The Flashback sucks big time. I wasted my money on it and would have liked a new console better.. I got the nes one and it works well...an Atari one would be better.

Thanks guys. I don't remember the thread exactly, all I know is it had a link to a video on Youtube that showed how to do it and the guy in the video saying "all you have to do is this and that..." like it was all standard, but I found out otherwise. File down makes sense, but I put a dremel to the tip to lop off a bit, and the whole tip came off. Must have been a cheap part...I couldn't put any pressure on it without ruining it. I'll try again...the guy in the video had an ELL shapped adapter which would work better, but I have yet to find one of them.

All these people doing this modification, and no one has run into this before? Is that screw in the bottom of the plug unique to the darth vader? I can't believe no one has come across this issue themselves if things are the same on all consoles.

I read with great interest the thread about how to modify your 2600 by getting an RCA adapter with a RF cable converter on it...plugging into the board of the Atari and atttaching the cable to it. I got all the parts needed, took the thing apart, and noticed the nipple on the adapter was too long to fit into the plug on the board. It wouldn't let the adapter fit all the way on the plug...it stuck out about 16th of an inch. I tried cutting it down, but busted the adapter when I put my dremel to it. So now the question...is there a different adapter out there some have used that fits? If someone got it on line, can they post a link to where they got theirs? From what I saw at Radio Shack, all of them seem about the same length and will give me the same trouble. Oh, it's a darth vader if that makes a difference. I looked in the hole and there is a screw at the bottom of the hole stopping it from going deeper.

I had the same problem with my Sears light sixer. I bought a brand new version of Galaxian off the web and it would not go into the Sears at all. Well, not at all. A good push got it to finally go in, but it was an argument getting it out then. But once I got the "new" Darth Vader, it slid right in. It's almost like the older sets have smaller cart slots than the later ones. I don't get it...I assume that was all universal, but yet there are some carts that won't find in the older models.

I never liked the sound effects of the ships when they got hit in Starship. Not really a "destructive" sound.

I have used my thumb on the top of the stick since I first got my game back in the day. I found it easier to controll that way. However in some intense games where you find yourself putting a lot of pressure on the joy stick, I end up with a sore thumb alot. The pad on the thung feels bruised, then I can't play for a few days just to find myself doing it all over again.

Missile Command

Centipede

I would be glad to participate. What drove me to the system was Space Invaders. I was hooked on the game when it first hit the arcades. I am 54, so I remember when the arcades had the one obligatory Pong machine, a Space Invaders game, and the rest were pinball machines. Oh, there were some arcades that had Lunar Lander and Space war too...but as I said, mostly pinball. Every chance I had I would go to the Space Port at our local Thruway Mall and play Space Invaders. I would hit an amusement park, find the arcade just to play space invaders. Forget the rides...Space Invaders was why I went. I did have a Pong machine...It was not THE Pong, but one of those cheap replica's...it was cheaper. Played it for hours. As time went by, I heard Atari was going to have a Space Invaders cartridge come out. I decided right then that I would HAVE to have an Atari VCS. My wife and I just got married and got our first credit card. And the first charge on the card was the Atari VCS my wife bought me for my birthday that year (1980) and included was the Space Invaders cartridge she picked up extra. Back in the day, that was a pretty hefty investment, but we took the plunge. I was hooked playing Space Invaders all hours of my free time. And Combat was a lot of fun too. I had a good friend back then and him and I would play Atari all day on a weekend. Even my wife got into it. As time went by, I picked up a pretty good library of games...Asteroids, Missile Command, Phoenix, Centipede, Raiders, Adventure...etc. I had three trays filled with games. We would run Atari parties...get a crowd over and play Atari while eating pizza. Mini tournaments and endurance sessions. My brother in law broke one million on Missile command during one of those. It was like movies of today...they hit the theater, and then the DVD comes out...well a new arcade game came out then, and you waited with baited breath for the home version to come out, which was usually for the Atari. It was an exciting time. As far as Atari's competition...as far as I was concerned there was none. I would get angry over Intellevision commercials...trying to convince me that they were better than Atari because they had and exploding planet. Big woop...Atari HAD Asteroids. Atari was king, and there was no competition. There was the time the game broke. The left fire controll kept firing, joystick plugged in or not. Had to take it in to get repaired. Sears, who took it to fix, lost it and about ten other games sent out for repair. It took six months to settle that displute, all that time I was without it. Talk about withdrawel. No more parties, no something to do when garbage was on TV, nothing to do on those nights I couldn't sleep...I went nuts until Sears finally replaced the game. My interest started to wane when Pac Man hit the shelves. I was getting into computers, and Pac Man was so poor, I started feeling Atari's time was comming to an end. Slowly, but surely, it ended up in the bottom of the closet with my wife asking me over the years "Are you ever going to get rid of this thing?" and I always answered with an adament NO. Good thing too...my daughter and her fiance play all the latest games. .They keep trying to get me to play them. These new controllers confuse the heck out of me, I can't figure them out and the end result is I screw up big time and I leave it. What happened to the simple stick or paddle controll. So about six months ago, I pulled out the Atari...cleaned it up, plugged it into an old TV set and it worked like the day I got it. And I have been playing it daily ever since...getting new games on Ebay and elsewhere. I have it, I play it, I enoy it till this day...2013. Yes, graphics improve...but the play remains a challenge and I am enjoying it all over again. Long live the 2600.

I'll go into the basement and fire up the old Atari and start playing as my wife makes her comments "playing those old games again..." But put Toyshop Troublt in front of her, and she is sitting there playing for hours. She loves that game as do I.

I just started collecting some Atari around the end of 2012...simply because I pulled out my old game and got interested in it all over again. I realized there were games I didn't have and wanted, and they were cheap enough at auction to buy. So I spent the last six months rebuilding a library of games I never had on top of the good ones I already had. I wouldn't say I am a passionate collector, but I collect so many other things, there is room for one more thing to collect I suppose. Since then I bought a Darth Vader which works better than my original (it had some difficulty switch issues) and now have a well functioning system and I keep buying old games for.

It was a Kaufman's department store in 1980, and it was a light sixer. However, after the story I told on other posts, I ended up with a Sears Telegame light sixer. I now have that same old Sears, with issues unfortunately, and a very functional Darth Vader.

Seeing that you are getting just the TV snow, and not even a click or disruption in the static when you throw the power switch, it sounds to me like the unit is getting no power. Are you sure the AC adapter is working? Is it gettig juice? Usually when these things show nothing, they at least get a black screen or some reaction...but being that you are getting just the static, I think it is getting no power. I have had adapters that work fine on one thing, and not on another...usually it tends to be a problem with making contact in the adapter plug on the unit. Dirt, carbon, corosion...anything on those fine contacts that may be blocking the power.

Hoarders keep things. They don't usually collect. They don't throw stuff away. They get a newspaper, and it stays in the house. They get a box from UPS, they keep the item, and the box. They keep the cans from the food they eat, the wrappers, the boxes. They throw nothing out. Collectors get stuff. They go out of their way to get something that usually pertains to their collection. An Atari collector gets Atari stuff, nothing else. Now if they are video game collectors, then it's whide open, but it is still video game oriented. If they collect robots, like I do, I get robots. They don't just show up and I decided not to toss them out. I have to get them. That is the difference between a collector and a hoarder.

I agree with you in a lot of ways, jknu80sfan...I too have been collecting tons of other things before I got back into Atari...mostly toy robots, but lots of other pop culture items fill my home. SO I suppose anything I have more than two of is seriously collected.