jaybird3rd

Different people will have different opinions, but I don't have a problem with bumping old threads, especially if they're not time sensitive. The new information might be helpful to others, if not the original poster.

I'm torn on the subject of Pat and Ian. I used to enjoy their podcast regularly, and I remember that they were very helpful to us during the whole RetroVGS and Coleco Chameleon debacle; they spread the word about the investigations into Mike Kennedy and Friends that we were spearheading here on AtariAge at the time, when most of the gaming media was content to re-print Kennedy's press releases. I was also a backer of Pat's NES Guidebook, and I still think it's a pretty good book. I haven't really followed their podcast in a while, so I don't know what kind of numbers it's doing now, but I notice that their YouTube subscribers have been stalled at about 250K for a long time. At their age, and especially after profiles like this one from two years ago, I can't help but wonder how actively happy they are to still be doing this kind of thing. At a certain point, it must seem less like a passion project and more like a dreary job, and that's the point at which you often see these channels going out of their way to stir up drama as a way of getting attention and boosting their views and subs. That certainly seems to be what's happening here; if so, that's very unfortunate. I still think the best thing for us to do is to ignore their negativity instead of amplifying and encouraging it; hopefully they'll realize that it isn't getting them what they want.

Good call. I don't follow drama queens on YouTube—mainly because I've never been bored enough in my life to make any time for the likes of them—but to whatever extent they are using Amico developments as fuel for their videos, I think the best thing we can possibly do in response is to ignore them. Don't post their videos, don't post pictures or memes poking fun at them ... don't pay them any attention whatsoever, because that's what they thrive on, and it will only encourage more of the same. (We certainly don't need any of that drama in here, either.)

I wrapped the video links in a spoiler tag so they don't take up the entire page. And to clarify: I don't think anyone here made anything resembling a "joke" about suicide or hanging. We don't permit such "jokes" here. The only post which even comes close is this one from a few pages back which, when viewed in context, looks like nothing more than an allusion to the old expression "giving him enough rope to hang himself," or variants thereof. Seeing someone evoke that expression and concluding that it must have been intended as a "suicide joke" is a bit of a stretch. This is a more general observation, but certain people here seem to have a habit of reading posts that were obviously written in an aphoristic or rhetorical way, blowing them completely out of proportion, and getting into a gigantic righteous snit about them. It's one of the things that has made these threads so volatile, and it's getting tiresome. This applies to the "rope" comment, and also to Tommy's comment about how easy it is to make unfair criticisms while hiding behind a screen name, which still seems to have some peoples' panties in a bunch months after the fact. One of the characteristics of grownups is that they can choose not to assume the worst of intentions in others, and they can also choose to walk away from disagreements or differences of opinion instead of bearing petulant, months-long grudges about them. It would be very helpful if we could see more of that here.

Let's resist the temptation to discuss politics and current events in this thread. Discussions of these topics in other threads have been most unproductive recently, and I have no reason to believe things will be different here, so let's keep this thread on topic.

If their commercials are any indication, the company intended it to be pronounced "wick-oh":

Better late than never, I guess! Here are some quick pictures of some of my boxed Aquarius cartridges, clad in Starwander's excellent box protectors: Here are some close-up pictures which will hopefully show how nicely these protectors fit the Aquarius cartridge boxes: They even work great for sealed games—like my sealed copy of Aquarius BurgerTime, one of the jewels of my collection that I'm very happy to have a protector for: Suffice it to say, if you have any Aquarius boxes at all, at least in the standard size, you need these protectors!

There's definitely something special about "Shark! Shark!". A quick story: at my university, I decided to kick off this semester with a retro gaming party, hosted through our Computer Science Club. One of the systems in the exhibit (all from my own collection) was an Intellivision, complete with a full ECS setup. The Music Synthesizer keyboard and Melody Blaster definitely got the most attention, since the students had never seen anything like them, but I also wanted to find something less intimidating that non-gamers could enjoy. There was one Chinese student in particular who had never played anything other than Pokémon, so I showed her "Shark! Shark!" and explained the rules in the form of the proverb that the game was based on: "big fish eat little fish." She got the idea right away and was excited to try it, and a short explanation of the controls (less than a minute) was all that she needed; we took turns playing it for the next twenty minutes and she got a really good score! If that experience is any indication, I'm sure that a new version on the Amico would do very well.

There are a few bagged copies of Super Breakout and Pac-Man on eBay right now: https://www.ebay.com/itm/Super-Breakout-For-Atari-5200/182197584157 https://www.ebay.com/itm/Pac-man-For-The-Atari-5200/183175482304 (I've bought a few of these from the same seller, and they're legit.)

Is this the one?

I moved this thread from "TI 99/4A Development" into the main 99/4A subforum.

If so, I've got a permanent cure for that. All it would take is a few button clicks.

This thread seems to have become needlessly antagonistic lately, which is contrary to its purpose as an "independent" discussion thread where "all participants are free to express their own perspectives and their own points of view" ... "whether they are positive or negative, critical or supportive." Going out of one's way to say provocative things and claiming afterward that it was just harmless "ball-busting," or getting picayune over trivia, does not serve that purpose. Using this thread as a place to ask direct questions which should be asked in the Q&A thread, as is clearly stated in the thread rules, or posting passive-aggressive post reactions to the answers that are given, does not serve that purpose either. Let's try to put an end to this kind of behavior. I haven't had to block anyone from this thread in a while, but I may not have a choice if this behavior persists.

I have a 1987 joystick box, too. When Atari Corp. acquired Atari from Warner in 1984, they inherited lots of excess 5200 inventory, which they gradually liquidated over the next few years. They built 5200 systems and games using the (sometimes mismatched) leftover parts that they had on hand, printing new labels and boxes as needed. That's why you'll sometimes see two-port 5200 motherboards installed in four-port consoles, and cartridges with 1986/1987 labels and overlays packaged in 1982/1983 boxes, or vice-versa. Apparently, they even bundled new 5200 cartridges in plastic bags with photocopied instruction sheets for closeout stores like Odd Lots and Boscov's; I've picked up copies of Super Breakout, Pac-Man, Pole Position, Countermeasure, and Star Raiders that were bundled in this way for Boscov's. Great for variant collectors!

Do you mean which post was the 10,000th post? This one:

In case anyone is interested, this thread has just crossed 10,000 posts! (It's now 10,003, actually.) That number includes hidden posts, however, so the total will appear to be smaller to most readers.

Welcome, and thank you for sharing your thoughts! Your post wasn't posted twice, although I did reformat it a bit to make it easier to read.

I agree. I haven't watched the CUPodcast video, but from the critical comments I've seen about the trailer so far, people seem to be forgetting that the games shown in the trailer are still very much works in progress. I can only imagine how frustrating it must be for IE to invest this much time and effort into the games so far, and to show their work in this trailer, only to see it receive such an offhand dismissal from critics whose imagination stops at saying "bah, these are nothing but mobile games!" Nevertheless, I hope that the criticisms are useful, either as corrective feedback, or at least as a "preview" of the kinds of counterarguments they are likely to hear from others as they expand their marketing to broader audiences.

It has been suggested that this post is not a correction of any misinformation and is therefore a violation of Rule #1 of this thread. For whatever it's worth, I disagree. The "misinformation" in this case is the indirect assertion—made here and elsewhere—that the Evel Knievel game mentioned is a direct port from an existing mobile game, the implication being that this is somehow a contradiction of previous statements about ports on the Amico. As I see it, Tommy is simply stating his reasons why this isn't so. If someone finds his explanation unsatisfactory, that's another issue, but that does not mean that the explanation itself is a violation of the rule. Just wanted to post this clarification for anyone who might be wondering.

I'm sure somebody has already posted this, but from now on, I think I'm just going to pronounce it the way Jordan Mechner pronounces it ...

Enough.

No politics, please, neither here nor anywhere else on AtariAge.

I finally had the chance to try my Aquarius box protectors, and both the look and the fit are absolutely perfect. I certainly plan on ordering more, and I'll post some pictures in the next day or two. Perhaps listing them on eBay would help to make more collectors aware of them?

Don't worry, we won't be seeing any more malarkey from "Guy" in this thread.

No politics, please, neither here nor anywhere else on AtariAge.