wiseguyusa

That is funny, I will check out the attachments when things slow down. I still haven't sent my audition video to the reality show show producers. Well done by the way!

If what I have seen of Star Castle is real, than just about anything that I have dreamed up would work on a 2600!. How does it save high scores? How does writing a program for a Supercharged 2600 differ? Does a SC enhanced 2600 have a character set?

posted in wrong thread. Sorry

Goggling "EPROM Burner" doesn't bring up anything about specifically making Atari carts. Googling "EPROM Burner Atari 2600" brings me back here to AA.

The proposal was hypothetical, Jill has been happily married for 20 years. The question was not about how to propose, but rather to understand batari BASIC better. and as I thought, it was "not that simple"

This seems like a good starting point of trying to wrap my head around batari BASIC: take the most simple basic program..... 10 print "I love you Jill, Will you marry me?" 20 goto 10 Now in theory, I could write this program, burn it to cart and use it to propose to my girlfriend. I am willing to bet that it is nowhere near that easy.

So thanks to my friends in the other forums, my memory was jogged of the Xante kiosks that we had here in Tulsa in the early 1980's. My estimation is that there had to be at least 6 machines, and that assumes that only 1 K-Mart store had one. It seems to me that if one of these old machines could be found, or maybe just the schematics that it could significantly reduce the cost of producing homebrews. What does AA use to burn carts?

$20K was a number that someone in here said "might interest" them and it is not outside of the realm of possibility that someone whose favorite childhood memory was the day that 2600 was under the tree, made a fortune in junk bonds, and was outbid for the LA Clippers and now wants to make that game he dreamed up in middle school. It was a hypothetical, I could be off, but I would think that someone that has an interest in making a homebrew, would be a potential customer of buying existing titles. and yes, there is a lot involved that most people don't understand, that should kind of be the starting point of the conversation "I don't think you realize what goes in to it" might bridge the gap a little better.

The "Ticket Terror" was a game that I started on a TI-99A in a summer BASIC class. It was funny at the time, and never really intended to be anything other than a passing grade. I am much more passionate about amping up "Night Driver" I think that is a much more manageable project with wider potential appeal, and by making the packaging look like a Bally product and naming it "280ZZZAP" it would be an inside joke for those that get it, and something different as far as its physical appearance. I will work on a mock up of 280ZZZAP and post a link here..... eventually!

Just an observation, people go to lawyers because they don't have a law degree, people go to doctors because they don't have a medical degree. When people talk to programmers (about programming not to imply that you can't have a normal conversation) it is because they do not know how to do what you do. I don't know anyone my age that had a 2600 that didn't fantasize about creating their own game. Some day some rich Gen-X'r is going to want to throw $20K at making his dream come true, and you are just going to piss him/her off when they try to find help. Its not good for the hobby, and is makes all retrogamers look snotty and aloof. Try to improve your "people protocol" a bit, I'm not big into stereotypes, but they get reinforced when you snot off a newbie for being curious and enthusiastic about a 40 year old platform. ....and with that I move back in to the #1 most hated non-programmer slot.

and with that, I become the 2nd most hated "non-programmer"

XANTE!!! The company was called Xante and they were BASED here out of Tulsa. My memory failed, But Jesse Hardesty of OVGE solved the puzzle! "I learned about 10 years ago that a grocery store here in Tulsa that used to be near 26th and Memorial did provide a similar service where you bought the carts blank and then could have any game burned to it from a selection that was available. Most of the games available were Imagic titles. The carts were blue shells with what looked like a floppy disk label applied to them with the title of the game you had chosen to have burned to it. Those carts were by the company Xante and they were based here in Tulsa back in the early 80s. Their carts are considered rarity 10 holy grails and command 4 digit amounts when they show up on Ebay." Jesse Hardesty Founder/Organizer Oklahoma Video Game Exhibition www.ovge.com Again, what I remember was their hilarious commercials that ran on KMOD, it was when he said "Imagic" that I knew he was right. My recollection was ONLY Imagic titles were available. http://atariage.com/company_page.html?CompanyID=94 The holy grail of collecting was made here in TULSA?!?!

The only thin I can think of is to try to find the radio commercials that ran on KMOD in Tulsa, they save all of them on a "master reel" (probably harddrive now) but it is going to be hard to find without the name of the company, which may come to me, I can still remember the funny commercials that they had, right up until the part where they mention the company name. Maybe a former TG&Y employee can help?

Is that sarcasm? They were very real, they had hilarious radio spots (The other store) "No, we don't have that game to fit your 2600 system, but you bring that sucker in here my boy Leroy will MAKE it fit, aint that right Leroy?!?!" Leroy "Uh-huh" They were in "TG&Y" stores, and were going to change the world! TG&Y also carried "Gameline" and more than a few titles from small labels that I never heard from before or since. Games out of it were $30-40 and not worth the extra price for the novelty. Maybe Oklahoma was a test market?

But we are obsessed nerds... aren't we?

What happened to the vending machine that burned carts on demand? They were once in TG&Y stores here in the Midwest. It seems like repurposing one of those machines would make the process significantly easier, cheaper, and more accessible to the more casual fan.

If anyone else would like to take over, you are welcome to invest the funds in travel and lodging expenses. > Respect and credibility? Not sure how that would be measured. I can only attest to my passion for the hobby. I don't think anyone has ever won a Nobel prize for playing or collecting video games. > Are you someone who has spent lots of time, possibly decades, investing in the hobby and helping others? Sadly yes, which may be why there is no Mrs WiseguyUSA. > Do you understand the people involved and why they collect and/or program games for the machine? As much as anyone really understands retrogamers I guess. I guess the only real variable is when retro game gear became "collectible" and no longer "cutting edge technology"

I am auditioning to be in a "reality" show in which I would be discussing the "Atari Force" comic books and related games. I hope to make AA'ers proud of me as I represent a hobby that doesn't get enough love in the nerd word: Retrogaming, and Retro Game Collecting & Restoration! Any trivia about the comics, or useful info to make me look well informed on the subject would be greatly appreciated!

IT manager? No, 90% of what I do all day is tell morons to turn their stuff off, then turn it back on again. It is low stress and there are lots of gamers and programmers at the office when I have to go to the "brick and mortar" office.

I was just wondering what Retrogame programmers did for a living. I assume programming or IT, but that begs the question if someone writes code all day for a living, why would they want to do it for a hobby? The one guy that I knew that could program a 2600 game started, but lost interest before it was finished because that is just how he is wired. The only other Homebrewers that I "Know" are in here. No need to get defensive, I realize that making a homebrew is a lot of work, and I am not implying otherwise. I just know that no-one makes a living writing Atari games in 2014, and I am curious what their actual vocation is. Now I will see if my sensitivity training paid off, or if I still managed to piss someone off LOL

He got off to a better star than I did in here LOL!

Hey guys I just wanted to post this because I have been absent from the forums for a while. My mom had surgery, my harddrive crashed, and I got overwhelmed. Somewhere in all of the family drama I was invited to be on a reality show to talk about some Atari collectables. I have to produce a 5 min audition video and get accepted first, but the producers have been very encouraging. I just wanted to square things with karma, and you guys before I made this announcement in another thread. I didn't want my fellow retrogamers to think that I came in here to stir the sh!t, left after I pissed everyone off, and then came back to the forum to brag about the show. #1 I didn't set out to piss anyone off, I just used the usual amount of "Snark" that I have to use with the programmers that I work with. Different type of programmers, different protocol, lesson learned. The programmers that I work with HATE writing and patching cell phone network software all day, homebrew game programmers LOVE what they do. #2 My personal life got dramatic, and my harddrive crashed, otherwise I would have been in here every day like usual. I didn't make a choice to quit posting in here, I got distracted by family drama. #3 If I get to be on the show, I take my roll as "ambassador" of our hobby very seriously, again, why I wanted to come in here first and smooth things over. I want to show our hobby in the best light possible with the 90 seconds or so of national coverage I will have on the show. So... we cool?

I think if I waited longer than 2 weeks I would lose everything that I absorbed.

Again, I am used to working with programmers that don't even acknowledge a question unless it is encoded in SNARK 2.0 It wasn't an insult, just a poorly coded port of Convergys Nerdspeak. I haven't really done any programming since Atari 8bit BASIC, and I wasn't even too good at that. But after I get my Amateur Radio (FCC) License, then learn piano & Spanish, I might take a stab at learning batari. I have a few irons in the fire at the moment, and want to finish what I started before starting in a new direction.

That was what I was thinking, and I think a URL, for instance, would be minimally intrusive and would get a high percentage of "clicks" even if it were just one time out of curiosity. Maybe an 1980's themed online store or the like.