ZeroPage Homebrew

I'm definitely interested in a clear one with an LED, put me down for one please!

Thanks for the support! I didn't see a vdieo channel dedicated to homebrews out there so I thought it would be a good idea! There's been such a large amount of really high quality homebrew games being put out I wanted to give something back to the community!

To celebrate Atari 2600's 40th birthday yesterday I decided to release a teaser trailer for my upcoming YouTube channel that is dedicated solely to homebrew gaming called ZeroPage Homebrew! It will feature videos on News, Reviews, Let's Plays, Programming, History, Hardware, Interviews and much more and will focus on Atari 2600 homebrew. Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/zeropagehomebrew/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/zeropagehomebre/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/zeropagehomebrew/ Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/zeropagehomebrew/

Wow, this is great. Love the huge colourful characters and the way aiming your weapon is handled. I'll be watching for developments on this one. :-) Love it!

That's awesome!! I'll definitely be keeping a watch on this thread for developments. :-) Keep up the great work!

This is awesome, I would definitely buy this game! I implore you to have support for AtariVox+ so we can hear "Hey AirTaxi!" and "Pad 3 Please", that would be amazing!

Found an minor update for Robot Arena, it will included on a new USB Multicart coming out by the same developer Thomas Sontowski. No information yet on whether this will be the only way to get the game or if there will be a stand alone cart/ROM release of the game.

Just got mine today! Thanks so much Richard for making these, especially these new ones with the SD card accessible!!

Can't wait for this to come out! Thanks so much for all your hard work GroovyBee!!

Just picked one up a couple of days ago at PRGE, great looking machine! NTSC A1791003509 - Cimmerian (Unknown manufacture date, non-modified)

It's an amazingly beautiful book that is worth picking up. I got mine at PRGE at a pre-release price of only $29! So much great artwork inside.

Awesome!! I'll be there!

You bet and I can even do you one better! I filmed the whole modding of the system for a new video series I'll be starting later this year. I'll post in the forums when it's all ready to go. I can tell you that the clarity, sound and colours are GORGEOUS. In the mean time here are some pics of the system hooked up to an inexpensive HDMI upscaler. I'll be getting a Framemeister later for when I'm doing the actual video series.

On a light sixer with the RGB SCART mod through an HDMI upscaler to a 46" LCD TV with 500XJ Epyx joysticks and sometimes through emulation on Stella.

I bought the Harmony Encore Cart about a year ago and it just recently stopped working after powering my 2600 off and then on again to play a different game. I've since tried it on multiple 2600's with no success, it either gives a black screen or vertical grey lines (sometimes squiggly) but never the menu. All other carts work perfect on my machines. When hooking it up to a PC via USB it is recognized in Windows 10 as 'Harmony Encore v1.9a' and is recognized in the Harmony Programming Tool as 'LPC2103, 32 kiB ROM / 8 kiB SRAM' @ 'COM3'. I've tried to flash bios v1.06 on it but it didn't work as I think it needs to successfully boot on a 2600 to start that process. Is there any other troubleshooting I can try to get it back up and going or is the cart DOA?

I'm hoping he does come, their booth last year had an amazing setup and it was great trying out (and buying) all those homebrew games.

Portland Retro Gaming Expo run Oct 21-23 and it looks like they have a great lineup of guest speakers this year! http://www.retrogamingexpo.com/ Does anyone know if AtariAge will have a booth this year? I bought I whole bunch of things from them last year so I'm hoping they'll be back again.

I haven't seen this posted already but there's an amazing looking game in the works for the Vectrex called Robot Arena. It looks like a nice mix between a shooter and Robotron 2084. There's been a gameplay video posted of a beta version and an article written about it (in German, use Google Translate): http://www.vectrex.de/en/robot-arena-packend-schnell-und-anspruchsvoll/ I haven't been able to find any more information about the release date or any information/website for the programmer Thomas Sontowski. If anybody has any more updated information on this game, I can't wait to buy a copy!

Update! I received the AA -> D adapters today for my Zaxxon tabletop game AND THEY WORK! First, I tried rechargeable batteries in them and nothing happened when I turned it on. Not giving up there, I then tried some alkaline AA batteries in the adapter and they worked perfectly, first try! Also, there is plenty of room in the Zaxxon for the AA -> D adapters so I highly recommend getting these. I'm not sure how many tabletops use D batteries but I'm pretty sure all the Coleco are C powered. Armed with this new knowledge of alkaline vs rechargable, I went back to my AA -> C adapters and tried alkaline batteries in my Frogger and THEY WORKED! There is still the issue of the unbelievably tight fit (AA's are 50.5mm long and C's are 50mm long) but at least I know now that it was the type of battery and not the adapter. Looking at the voltage output of the two types of battery: Alkaline: 1.5V x 4 = 6V NiMH: 1.2V x 4 = 4.8V I'm guessing that 4.8V falls well outside of the realm that is needed to power on the game but 6V is what is needed (same as C'd) and works all the way up to 9V with the plug in Coleco Perma Power. Also, I asked my friend, who is more knowledgeable when it comes to electrical things and he says that you could essentially get a equally rated power supply to the Coleco Perma Power, strip it to the bare wires and hook it up to the first and last terminal inside the battery compartment and it will work. I would definitely confirm this with someone else before trying it yourself and potentially frying your game system.

I seem to remember seeing someone post a photo somewhere of a homemade version of Coleco Perma Power using wood doweling. I would LOVE for someone to create a third party substitute for the Perma Power, the official ones can get pricey on EBay and there's been nothing ever created that I know of for sale to replace them. To try and answer your questions: - I don't think there's anything particularly special about the power adapter, if one with a similar voltage output could be found and wired up in the same way I think it would easy to substitute it out. - There might be some minor benefit to have heavy batteries in the bottom of the machine to weigh it down but the official Coleco Perma Power 'batteries' weigh next to nothing and it works fine with those. - I doubt the separation between the 'cells' are necessary and are just there to make it as easy as possible for the consumer to complete the circuit, I don't think there's anything inside except for a wire running internally from the + to the - terminals but please don't trust me about this, I'm not knowledgeable about electrical circuits. Here are the specs for the Coleco Perma Power (as seen in the photos I've attached): Coleco Perma Power Battery Eliminator Model No 2298 Input: 117V AC-60Hz 3W Output: 9V DC 100mA

Just to follow up on this thread. I just tried the battery adapters in my my Frogger machine and after many frustrating minutes of trying to wedge them in without them popping out I was able to get the battery cover closed. I turned on the game and nothing appeared on the screen. After turning it off and on a couple of times, a slight blip of the VFD lit up for a fraction of a second but didn't stay on. I don't think the contacts were lining up correctly and I wasn't about to play with them more. Bottom line, they don't really fit and are hard to line up correctly when they do fit and I'm not sure they even power the game correctly if you do happen to get them lined up. Luckily I was able to buy some Coleco Perma Power adapters and for the rest of my systems, I'll stick with the correct size batteries.

I have a couple of Coleco tabletop games, one that takes C sized batteries and one that takes D sized. I'm not terribly excited about buying a ton of heavy batteries and I haven't been able to track down any perma power adapters yet. 1) Would the adapter shells that hold AA batteries work in these systems without issues? Example: http://www.lenmar.com/lenmar-c-adapter-shell-for-aa-batteries 2) Would using rechargable NiMH batteries in the adapters work and/or cause any damage to the systems? Thanks!

Excellent, thanks so much Al!! Looking forward to the show next weekend!!

Excellent, looks like I'll be getting up several of these new titles along with Marble Craze and a Boxed Stay Frosty 2 if you have them there! Will you also be bringing some AtariVox+ for sale? I'd loved to pick one up while I'm there.

I did most of my collecting for the Atari back in the mid-90's at flea markets when you could run across dozens of bins of loose carts, systems and accessories for next to nothing. I also visited a lot of thrift stores during that decade and was able to find quite a bit. As time went on, I was able to find less and less and now most of my shopping is exclusively online as people are more aware of the collectibility value. I do wander through flea markets once in a while but there are mostly only common cartridges marked for well above online prices with the seller thinking they're sitting on a nostalgia goldmine. Unfortunately by now, everyone's parents from that era have cleared out their attics and basements and most of the games and systems are in the hands of collectors or sellers.