JD6502

Step #22 sounds tough. My experience is - the better the deal, the more people complain. If it's free the sky is falling. Go figure.

Most of what you guys are talking about is over my head, but , if it helps, I know that Antic Magazine had a two part article about a hardware/software project which slaved one A8 to another thru The Port A buss. The application was trivial- a printer buffer, but I think the author hinted at other uses. I can't remember the issue numbers , but I could look them up, if anyone is interested.

Just wanted to let you know- there are a number of formulations of contact cleaner, not all of them play nice with plastic. I'm guessing anything from the Shack would be ok, but it wouldn't hurt to check the label.

Ha! Love it. Read "The Great WD 40 Debate" in the previous thread just before coming here - Almost laughed my head off at your last line. Not good, I'm in the library.

At one point I kept my Jag running with the game on pause (when I wasn't playing) for three days to get around that problem.

Sorry, not sure what went wrong there. Just wanted to say that I tried the simple three step procedure posted previously by Faicuai. For me it worked beautifully. In fact I'm not sure how much better an NTSC signal can get. For the record, I modified a Hong Kong made rev C 800XL and ran it on a 35in. CRT HDTV. Is this the best s-video mod? Dunno, "Best" is a loaded term, what are the criteria? It gives you s-video with a minimum of effort.

I'm going to have to vote "Not over rated". Unless you're a button masher, then you'll hate it. Like others, I find it a unique and immersive experience. I agree that it is too bad this style of game play never caught on. I'm a systematic, detail type player and AvP was right up my alley. I'm sure I spent way more than the 40 hours people have mentioned just making complete detailed scale maps in a quad note book(which I still have). The reason I started mapping is also one of the most vivid gaming memories I have. Late at night, tired and bleary-eyed, hopelessly lost in the training maze - sitting in the dark because I was too involved to stop to turn on the lights - bathed in the creepy nerve jangling ambient sound of the station coming from the surround system, I just wanted to get back to the brig to save the game (I had just found a pulse rifle). Suddenly a voice out of nowhere whispers "Any time!" My heart tries to jump out of my throat as I realize I've encountered my first Predator. And they're fracking INVISIBLE. Crap, crap, crap! It was a total red shirt cannon fodder moment of panic. I wasted several seconds of ammo just blasting at nothing, then ran away like a little girl. The most compelling aspect of the game for me emerges when you've played for a while as all three characters. When you play as a marine you start to think like a marine. Watch your six, clear an area carefully, then move on. As an alien you have only melee weapons, you start thinking like an alien. Strike fast, keep moving, use air ducts. The predator hunts. You stalk your prey, wait for a moment of vulnerability. De-cloak, strike, cloak. I didn't find one character more difficult than the others, they just require different tactics. Most run and gun, enemies around every corner FPSes don't have the mind warping nuance that AvP did. When I was playing the first time through I remember turning a corner at work and having a flash of knot in the stomach anticipation of what I might confront. A whiff of PTSD I've never had from any other game.

I don't think those three stripes were ever intended to look like the Atari symbol. It's just a cheap pair of shoes, and somebody has Atari on the brain. Not that there's anything wrong with that- just not at that price.

Oops, sorry about that. Haven't gotten the hang of the quote thing. Just wanted to say that I'm not confused so much as uninformed. Also I wasn't very clear. What I think I read about artifacting was that because adding color was done as a hack, it means that color is "appended" on the tail end of the luma signal. This causes a tiny time delay between the display of luma and chroma. Because the electron gun is still moving, luma and chroma are slightly out of sync, causing the color to bleed slightly into the next pulse. Ordinarily this isn't noticeable, but shows up strongly in tight patterns of white and black. At least that was my impression. What I wonder is - Do the differences in artifacted colors between different G/CTIA chips come from differences in timing between the luminance and color signals, causing either more or less shift? Or am I completely out to lunch?

I'm not exactly a super tech guy, but the story I heard back in the day was that artifacting stems from the fact that the NTSC standard was never intended to include color. It was literally added after the fact, taking advantage of gap between the video and audio carriers, two additional signals were tacked onto the back end, using phase differences to determine the exact hue. This tends to smear the signal, and white areas will have a bluish tint on the left side and reddish on the right. Fine patterns of black and white (like herringbone jackets) could create some eye popping results, so people would turn the color down when watching shows that hadn't made the leap to color. On a computer the tint of an artifacted color would depend on how it combined the chroma and luma - even a slight variation up or down the carrier would move chroma enough to change the tint, I would think. 'Course my knowledge of this stuff is pretty thin, I'm sure I'm over simplifying a complex bit of engineering.

I should have both. The GT manuals are small and easily lost, but know I didn't toss them. The disk and sleeve I have with all my other software, so I know were it is. I'm new to this forum stuff and I don't get on the interweb every day, so you may need a little more patience before we can get together on this - if I can figure out how it all works. If you leave a message I may not be able to respond 'till Monday or Tuesday.

I've never had a credit card. It has been inconvenient at times-less so since the invention of the debit card. I guess it's unusual, but I've been utterly debt free since 1986. I paid off a three thousand dollar car loan.

I made the switch to LCD a few years ago. There were several criteria that influenced the decision. (For the record, I can't say that high pitched whining noises was one of them.) I have an old PC and an A8 on a very small desk, replacing two monitors with one was attractive. That meant a VGA input. S-video was a MUST. I didn't want to spend a lot of money. I kinda wanted something new. (Haven't had very good luck with used electronics.) What I got was a cheap Insignia TV at Best Buy. I'm not 100% satisfied, but I was never 100% satisfied with what I had before. In some ways the picture is better on the LCD. It has good contrast and blacks are really good, compared to the old CRT. The A8 produces a fair amount of interference. On the LCD this shows up as slight changes in contrast, on the CRT this sort of noise was less noticeable. All in all- for me- six of one, half dozen of the other. All other considerations aside, I think a high end CRT with all sorts of filters and signal processors would be best, but there were other considerations, and for me this compromise has worked well.

I'd recommend Iron Soldier II. Oh, and on the off chance you don't know, you'll need a memory cart to save games.

Dad and I went halvesies on a TRS 80 model I level I in '78. We looked at PET's and Apples but at ~$600 80's were cheaper(!). The off the shelf portable casette deck for data/program storage was thrown in for free( a forty dollar value ). As noted earlier customer support was tops. Most home computers in those days were sold by and for hobbyists, the guys behind the counter would spend all day talking computers. I've still got that machine, been a few years but last I checked it still worked. I wonder...