CatPix

I discovered HERO very recently (the Atari 2600 is quite ignored here) and... It's just amazing. This game is simple. Simple story, simple graphisms, simple gameplay Yet, it's excellent, and fun. Everytime I play this game, I'm sucked in for hours, and I can't stop thinking "the 2600 is so good at making simple action game, why so much of the gamotheque is made of crappy shooters?" This remake looks amazing. I like the fuzzy looking of the ground, and the score board totally reminds me of my first hours of gaming on many MS-DOs games.

really? A french announce?

It's very handy because it allow you to have only one of those cheap MP3 player and a cable instead of dragging your computer around. For the games, I was more asking if some homebrews were made on sound format, that's all. Well I supposed, if there is Astrocade games on tape form, there can be ECS games on tape format as well...

It is? as in, do you have the sales figure for Europe? I am in Europe, so, this is the only ECS we got; the Intelli II was never released here, so Mattel made the ECS brown to match the classic Intelli we have. For MP3, I successfully loaded games on my Amstrad CPC from MP3 files. Despite the fact that the CPC have the fastest data tape of any computer of the 80's. So unless you compressi it really low, I suppose you're fine. And I just meant "sound files", if one uses Ogg, WAV or FLAC, it works either way. I don't plan to do BASIC programming on this system, I only really want to play games on it, either Mattel ones or homebrew ones, so I look for the possibilities. Thanks for the tip on League Baseball. I may buy it, for the added capabilities and Intellivoice, even if I'm not a fan of sports games nor baseball But heh, I have an Intellivoice... better use it good, too.

I like collecting systems and accessories for them. So when I heard about the Intellivision ESC, I started to look for one, and.. I may be able to get one. Tho, I try to collect things I can enjoy and play, and not having "dust catcher" pieces of hardware that would make the joy of someone else. I heard there is 6 games that use the ECS; of these, were all 6 released in Europe? Just wondering. And more important; since the ECS got a standard "tape data" interface, is there homebrew games using the ECS capabilities? Or maybe, homebrew games for regular Intellivision available in MP3 format to feed to the ECS? If not, does some community or developer plan to make some ECS games? If not, what do you consider being a fair price for an ECS with the keyboard (not the music one) and boxed?

really? I'm gonna try and see if I have any color oddity with that one (the older one doesn't work, but I think it's because all the switches are busted). This would be verry interesting. All the VCS I have and see have the upper channel switch mentionning "Channel 2-3" even the black and the JR. And at least for the French models, those are never used, so it's probably either for US models, or PAL units? For the antenna plug, it's not really an RCA plug, but it looks like it. It looks like the FM plugs on some radio sets (but I don't know if this connector is used in the USa even for FM : For the A/V mod, it looks easy on this model, but it's nearly impossible to do on later French models (and it doesn't have great interest with the shitty colors, the PAL 2600 Jr with SCARt output and the 7800 with SCART RVB output and PAL 2600 colors : this is the reason why the 7800 in France is more looked after than the original VCS).

Sure! What do you want? game pictures? Or motherboard pictures with removed shield? I have one black VCS open. There is a strange thing with the SECAM unit, in that they seems to use the PAL TIA chip. So I suppose that Atari use an equivalent of the AY colorizing chip (not the one with games inside, the ones used to display 8 colours out of the B&W AY chips).

I think you're wrong? All documents and articles I can find on the AY Pong chipsay that the first ones were released on 1976. The PC-50* cannot be older than the chip itself... As for the Telstar, it defenitively house a microcontroller and a ROM, so it's a bit more evolved... but still, many websites mention 1977 as the release date.

Recently, I bought a lot of two woody VCS+ joystick controllers+ a pair of paddles and 2 games (with boxes in poor condition) for a whooping 10€ price, which is a good bargain, even here where the 2600 systems aren't much looked after. While testing the units, I started to notice some differences between the 2 systems. Keep in mind that the Atari 2600 was released in France in 1981, the last year of the woody model. So I was wondering if those differences were leftovers from the US variant, or if they might come from an early run of PAL/SECAM adaptations that were discarded. Here are some pictures of the machines : The newer on the left, the oldest on the right (by number production) The oldest one feature the double HP vents. Were those also on US 4 switches models? I though they were only on 6 switches unit? The back feature more screw holes, smaller holes near the stamps. What is it for? A channel selector "A" and "B". Note that the channel selector option is also on his usual place on top of the unit, with the "channel 2-3 " marking (and it's left unused, at least on the SECAM version. It make sense since the woody SECAM unit uses UHF channel 36 ). As far as I know, A and B aren't used in the European CCIR TV systems (we use channel numbers), so I really don't know what kind of channel it was meant to select (there is no switch so it choose nothing anyway). On the back, holes have beel hidden with a thick adhesive piece of plastic. From the size and shape, it was probably meant to house joysticks connectors and a power connector in the middle. Does this exist on US Atari too? Just a view on the stamps : This first one is the standard Atari sticker, or I suppose so. The second mention that the system is certified to be used in France and mention the fact you have to plug it on the back of your TV (and not using a T shaped plug to connect both antenna and system at the same time). Europe use a RCA-like connector for antenna so swapping between antenna and video games systems isn't as annoying as the double fork or F plus used in the USA And manual switchboxes were allowed too. For your eyes's pleasure : This board is very different from the later SECAM boards found in black VCS. The most interesting feature is that UHF transmitter that seems to pick up video and audio, calling for a very easy A/V mod. I gotta try it! So... Is that "old" VCS an oddity, or is it perfectly normal to find those feature on it? Thanks for taking a look and answering