JB

That's because it isn't an out-of-the-box advantage for the 5200. VCSes are cheap if you're just getting one for games instead of it's mint-condition factory-sealed un-fingerprinted packaging. Heck, one of mine was picked up off a pile of trash on the side of the road(some people jsut don't respect the classics). The 7800 being backwards compatible was a big deal back then, but it isn't now. I thought I saw a crumbled heap of wired, but then I realized that it was my 5200 after my 7800 was done kicking the snot out of it! I thought I'd lost my (insert system here), but then I realized I'd set my 5200 on top of it.

As I understand it, the Master System's biggest success outside of Japan was Brazil.

YES! Share the love!

Damn... sounds like I only have the command module, and not the interface... Oh well, not like it was going to get used anyways... Thanks for all the information guys! --Zero Except command modules plug into the front, not the right side.I suppose it COULD be described as the right side, though that tends to imply the peripheral bus location. ... Well, I assumed you mant the peripheral bus and not the cart slot anyways.

If I recall, the Donkey Kong in DKCountry was supposed to actually be DKJr only all grown up, and Cranky Kong was the original Kong.

"This game sux cuz there's no FMV and the grafix are blocky."

Well, I was downloading random ROM image sets, and I found this game called Asteroids, by this company called Atari... Why doesn't anyone know about this game? It rules! ... Seriously? Probably Cinematronics' Freeze. Why I'll never know.

Because it's a full-fledged RF modulator. The 99 series didn't have an internal RF modulator. Yes. One of TI's wonderful ideas was be non-standard to keep you using THEIR monitors. Not that it worked. Dunno. I'd have to see. I know TI had multiple vraiants of the AC adapter. Yes, that's a tape cable. You can have 2 tape decks connected at once. The 3-tail one(device name of CS1 if I recall) can record, the 2-tail one(CS2) is read-only. And yes, they plug into the back 9-pin connector. I don't recall the color-coding of the connectors off-hand. Odd. If it IS RS-232, it's a 3rd-party one. TI's was a large black box with chrome trim on top, to match the systems. One would think they'd use the then-standard 25-pin connector for serial, though. ... Do not insert or remove cartridges? I'm tempted to say it's a cartridge copier, but that's just a random guess that might or might not have any bearing on reality. Again, odd. I've had my TI act rude when the contacts were dirty, but never do anything that seemed out of the ordinary for any other system(black screen, rude noise).

TI 99/4a. My first computer, my first gaming machine, and my first experience with digitized speech. Thanks to the Speech Synthesizer, most of my games talked. Parsec complimented me on my shooting, Moon Mine's villain taunted me when I died, and Spock welcomed me aboard the Enterprise in Sega's Star Trek game. ... It's really amazing how much diffrence a few low-quality digitized speech clips make to the experience.

That happened to me on Blaster Master. Beat the boss, set the controller down to stretch, and he reforms! If I'd been using a gamepad instead of a joystick, I wouldn't have survived. As it was, I lunged at the stick and barely pulled my butt back out of the fire.

Just a thought... Try turning the Atari on THEN flipping the TV to the appropriate channel. Some auto-tuning sets won't "center" themselves in the channel if there's no signal, so if you tune the TV then turn on the Atari you'll get a crappy mis-tuned signal.

I think you mean composite video. S-video has a wierd 4-pin connector.

I had a chance to get a UForce once.I didn't. *kicks self repeatedly*

I REALLY recommend you get Space Dungeon, especially if you find a 5200 controller coupler. Just because it was totally forgotten doesn't mean it's a bad game.

Yah. No raster screen can properly capture the look of a vector tube.

I see it as being Space Dungeon VS Ninja Golf, personally. ... Though the 5200 also has one of hte few Qix ports in existence, I play that more on my GameBoy.

Well I use MESS because DVE doesn't run on XP. I have a second computer made out of old hardware just for MS-DOS compatibilty. Hardware's not good enough for an XP machine, but quite adequate for most DOS gaming purposes.

I love my vectrex. ... Random tangent: Why are there no DECENT Vectrex emulators? DVE is the only one I'd even consider close to reasonable.

Yes, but the LOOK of the 5200 sitting in the middle of your living room, dwarfing your television... Say what you will about, but it was a very impressive machine from an aesthetic standpoint.

40 US$ currently equals about 59 Australian $, according to http://www.xe.com/ucc/convert.cgi

I was gonna nominate the Bushnell. Surely when one creates a kingdom, they get to be the king, right? But moycon nominated me.

I was just saying it wasn't unprecedented, and in fact US copyright law has a long and healthy tradition of allowing archival copies, so the odds are that the backup laws would be exactly the same had we started with software on optical disks. True. ... Random thought: Under what freakish definition is the DreamCast a classic system?

Backup != bootleg. Sheesh... that term's almost as corrupted as ROM now. Not to mention backup laws are outdated. They where designed for Magnetic media that was very easily corrupted, not for Optical media which lasts over 500 years Because NO ONE scratches CDs, right? And you DO know US copyright law also allows for backup copies of phonograph records, which predate magnetic media, right? *chuckles* Yes, the famous off-site backup for a friend that doesn't know you backed it up.

Backup != bootleg. Sheesh... that term's almost as corrupted as ROM now.