Nebulon

I love how there's a Big Trak in there too. That and the ColecoVision were two big highlights of my childhood.

Are you sure you wouldn't want to go for an adapter? This one's pretty awesome (and even acts as a switch so that you can change to game controller when you need to without having to unplug-plug cables): https://www.ebay.com/itm/TOM-USB-Mouse-Joystick-Adapter-for-Commodore-C-64-C-128-AMIGA-ATARI-ST-TT/172314579823?hash=item281ebfd36f:g:wiUAAOSwYIxX~Al- http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=88711

Too fast for my reflexes too. I just don't have the Jedi skills on Spy Hunter. Could it be that breaking the pedal could result in speeds that are "unreasonably fast"? https://youtu.be/AmMHtkVwUj8?t=50

The previous book is available here: https://www.amazon.com/Commodore-Amiga-Years-Brian-Bagnall/dp/0994031025

That actually sounds a lot like what Jay Miner wanted in the first place: https://youtu.be/daQNJMZblZ8?t=718

Well, it does kill on return in the 1982 film. Based on the movie, I'm guessing that: 1) You can't be killed by your own identity disc and 2) You can program it before you throw it

I see we're down to the last 12 hours for this one. Looks like it's all stretch goals now: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1462758959/commodore-the-final-years-book?ref=a5znrq

The day you throw it away is the day you find out that it unlocks the software that allows you to shut down the super-destructo-matic.

Wow! In the circuit that I played, they would not allow a person to place multiple quarters on a header. Anyone who tried that would get bumped off the game. You could only start another game if there was no one wanting to get a turn (kind of like a pay phone). Trying to put a quarter in front of someone else's is something that I never saw anyone even consider (for the reason you mentioned). And I definitely recall the snap of the coins against the glass that Keatah mentioned. There was no issue with putting a quarter on a machine that already had a quarter on it though. It actually was pretty amazing how people really did keep track of the sequence; they'd even yell "Hey man, you're up!" at the next person in 'line' if they weren't paying attention when it was their turn. Something I should add to my recollection post is that all of the arcades (including five others that I didn't mention) contained only coin-ops or pinball machines. No redemption or other kinds of games. Just pure arcade video games and pinball. That's another thing I miss. They were more like dark classic-rock labyrinths than the arcades that followed.

I recall that my parents used to let my brother and I run around downtown while they took care of whatever errands or appointments they had. Not a lot of parents these days would let a couple kids (8 and 14) spend the whole day in a busy urban core without supervision. We'd first stop at one two-floor arcade, play Tailgunner and then head over to the main shopping avenue and hit two more arcades (one which was also arranged on two floors and another that was a bit sketchy and on one level). My favorite was the two-floor arcade on the main shopping avenue. It had glass banisters, tons of blue neon, mirrors, and black walls. All three arcades were packed with games and lit by the screens. It was also conveniently close to plenty of fast food, book shops, music shops, and theaters. 1980 through the end of 1984 was magic.

So another thread got me thinking about drivers and their important role in keeping retro hardware useful in the current age (and how a lot of manufacturers drop the ball pretty early and leave some really great peripherals without support). Then I started searching around and found this stuff (I'm sure there's a lot more out there): http://read.pudn.com/downloads151/ebook/655187/Windriver.pdf https://bootlin.com/doc/books/ldd3.pdf

Based on what I've seen people do in the past, I think it's possible too. I can see video cards being difficult. However, things like audio interfaces, input devices, printers, scanners, etc... should be doable. I still recall a printer driver I needed when the color Deskjet printers first arrived on the scene. Some dude in Germany wrote one and posted it on an FTP server. It worked flawlessly.

- Notepad - irfanView - An old version of WinAmp (with the Geiss visualization plugin) - A DOS utility for saving and loading instruments for my Korg M1 synthesizer. - An old version of DirOpus for Windows - SoundBlaster Live! with the original drivers. - Painter Classic - MS GIF Animator (from around 2001?) - CoolEdit96 - A DOS utility called Frag - An old-skool version of BASIC for the PC called BLASSIC. And I'd actually still use Photoshop 3.0 if only it didn't freak out as soon as the PC's RAM is expanded to 1GB. Just for fun, I managed to get AutoCAD's 1988 competitor CADKey running on a Pentium II machine.

I wonder if a start-up could make a living at making drivers for popular PC add-ons (in cases in which the original equipment manufacturer refuses to). Back in the day, some people would make their own device drivers on an as-need basis... It would be a cool way to escape the manipulation of the market through driver availability (or lack thereof).

I think releasing Pac-Man for the 400 as a console instead of the 2600 would have really helped the image of the home port of Pac-Man and video game quality at the time. Seeing Pac-Man running on the 400 and 800 machines back in the day was pretty mind-blowing. Apparently Star Raiders was one of the reasons that Atari decided to build a keyboard into the 400. Of course, both were in the same year, so if that was the decision -- it was cutting things pretty close.

I agree. They could have made quite the dent if they'd arrived in North America early on. I seem to recall something about Jack Tremiel consciously trying to shut out Japanese computers from the U.S. market. In my case, I also got a Sony HitBit MSX2. My problem now is finding cartridges for an affordable price. Not easy... Anyone know if plugging that machine into a U.S. power outlet is bad for it? It works, but I'm not sure if I should be leaving it powered on like that for extended periods.

NOS - New Old Stock. So I took it apart. It turns out that for this particular external drive, the power and data connectors are totally different than 'standard'. So it looks like the solution would be to just get a totally new drive and enclosure as you mentioned.

Well, we know that it executes 32-bit code fine, seeing as AmigaDOS is a 32-bit O/S. I wonder how the 68012 deals with the missing bit... (and I wonder who decided on 31 bits).

And that step of combining the two 16-bit words is the only distinction that I can see between the two chips in terms of bit rating. Almost sounds like a technicality to me.

And the 80386SX also is 32-bit internal, 16-bit data bus, and 24-bit address bus. Same numbers.

Why is the 68000 referred to as a 16-bit CPU when the 80386sx is referred to as a 32-bit CPU? Both are 32-bit internal and 16-bit external to the data bus.

Ah yes, but I have a NOS DS/DD internal Chinon drive just sitting here, waiting to be put to use...

Atari would have had to get Adobe, Claris, and Microsoft on their side. Without those, it's tough to compete with the Mac. And actually the Mac was a little backwards.

Here's a question: What happens if you open the case on an external single-sided Atari diskette drive and replace the innards with a double-sided drive? Would it actually work as a double-sided drive or is there a chip that needs to be changed too?

I've seen this kind of thing happen on an external diskette drive. It just kind of loses connection randomly. So I'm also curious about how to trouble-shoot disk drive issues on the ST.