SteveW

Y'know, I was born there, and i've got some relatives there that I like to visit, but I really don't want to live in Louisiana. The people are stupid, and they're damn proud to be stupid. It's really aggravating to me. This is a state that has one of it's former Governors in prison. You can't expect much from the place.

The 600's an AGA model, I believe. An Amiga 500's using the original chipset. Nice little machine you've got there, especially considering the price (free!).

Enthusiastic PM sent!

I passed up an Atari 5200, bare console, at a thrift for $3.93 earlier this week. Places like that are a good location. If you don't want to do the footwork, try here: http://www.shopgoodwill.com/viewItem.asp?ItemID=2018972 They list it as an Atari 2600, which obviously it isn't. But at least it has a power supply and 4 games with it. Strange thing is, it's got a Ms. Pac-Man cart in it, but that's not one of the included games. The trick is finding a console with working joysticks. That's next to impossible. I managed to find some, the sticks turned out to be the last revision of the design, so they work fine. Got the console with two sticks and a dozen games scotch-taped to it, all for $7.05! And it was half-off day, too! Sweet! No matter what happens, you're going to have to rebuild a joystick. Plain and simple. If you're going to enjoy the system at all, you'll have to really put some effort into it. The 5200 joystick is a high-maintenance controller. Either that, or you can cough up $50 for a Redemption controller adapter, to use an Atari 2600 joystick on it.

Maybe I should have said single hot chicks.

I wouldn't trust any of the info they have on those pages. They seem to have no idea what consoles they're selling. "Sega Saturn games" was a bunch of Dreamcast games and controllers. "Atari CX2600" turned out to be an Atari 5200. They don't seem to know what they've got, even though the name of the consoles are right on the front of them.

3 or 4 assorted Atari 2600 consoles 3 5200 consoles 5 7800 consoles (two bought just this week, on the same day!) 3 Atari Lynx units 2 Odyssey 2 consoles 3 or 4 assorted Atari 8-bit computers 2 Sega Master System units 4 Sega Genesis consoles, all models 2 Telegames DINA consoles 2 NES consoles (only 1 working) 3 Colecovision consoles (only 1 working) 2 Intellivisions (a model 1, and an INTV II) 6 TI-99/4A consoles 3 Timex Sinclair 1000 computers 2 Game Gear units 3 TRS-80 Co-Co computers (a model 1, a model 2, and a Teletext console) 3 Sega Dreamcast units (two white, one Sega Sports black) 2 Sega Saturns I'm not too bad about picking up duplicate consoles. I've started passing on a lot of consoles when I come across them in the wild. I've only got so much room, after all.

besides the whole snes/playstation thing what are you talking about... i think nintendo is one of the few companies over the years that actually cares about gaming and its customers and not just trying to make a buck any means possible with no care in the world on how they effect the industry. I feel the same way about sega...and only recently .. very little.. microsoft. I was put off of them for Nintendo's bullying tactics with stores to force them to stop carrying Sega and Atari consoles. They used to threaten to cut back shipments of the newest games to stores who carried the SMS and Atari 7800, to get them out of retail. The straw that broke the camel's back was the price gouging they were doing with SMB3. Nintendo had announced a chip shortage would make the game difficult to produce in numbers, so they were charging more for the games. Some places had it around $70, if I recall. A US Senator was trying to locate a copy of the game for his daughter, and he started doing some research. It turned out Nintendo had warehouses filled with millions of US copies, ready to go, they were using the guise of a chip shortage to price gouge the American public. There was a Senate investigation, and they managed to get out of it by sending out $10 off coupons to Nintendo owners (the ones who sent in their warranty cards). Which meant that people would go out, use the coupons, and Nintendo would make even more money. That was the first time I developed a dislike of a company due to moral reasons. Atari used to do bad things too, it's just I was too young to realise it. I also don't collect for the PS1 either. I've only got around a dozen games for it, bought back when I first got my PS2 (my first Sony console). I really don't bother collecting for the Xbox either, it just seems that a lot of Xbox games are dirt cheap right now, so I end up with them. I'm not all that enthusiastic about Microsoft, either. Right now i've got around 7 or 8 still shrinkwrapped games for the Xbox that i've bought here and there for next to nothing, I just haven't bothered playing any of them yet. Like someone said earlier, i'm also a passive collector. I don't have complete collections for any console I own (other than the US releases for the Nuon), and I don't really want completion. Not all games are good. I don't care for sports games, so I don't bother. Kids games or movie licenses, I don't touch. I only buy games that I really want to play. And I won't spend a fortune to get a bunch of games that I might not enjoy just to fill out a collection. When I say that i'm a collector, I really mean collector, not reseller. It seems that people just collect a few games for a console, then sell if all off on eBay. They get the urge to get another one later on, so they buy it all back, and sell if off again when they get bored. I've never done that, and I don't think I ever will. I generally don't sell anything out of my collection. It seems that a lot of people think that videogames are a commodity to make money off of rather than a hobby to have fun with. I've only sold a couple DC games off before, mainly because I was injured at work and needed the money. I also sold the Samba De Amigo Maracas I bought to MegaManFan, because I have no rhythm whatsoever, so they were wasted on me.

Yeah, bring 'em with you! OVGE could always use more hot chicks! Or any hot chicks, for that matter....

I've always wanted a CDTV. I've always liked the way it looked, I liked the cool CD-ROM based graphics demos put together by Psygnosis that were always running at my local Amiga store, and that Nolan Bushnell had a hand in it's design. I'd like one to put into my entertainment center, to use as a 'home convergence' box like all the computer companies want to put out nowadays. Commodore got there first, but they were too far ahead of their time as usual.

I think the only systems that I don't actively collect for are the SNES, Virtual Boy, and N64 (I'm not a huge fan of Nintendo, from the NES era - their shady business practices put me off them until the GameCube). I'll collect anything I can get my hands on, from obscure junky '80s consoles like the Action Max, to the CD-ROM based consoles like the CD-i and the Memorex VIS, all the way up to today with modern tech like the Xavix GamePort, the Nokia N-Gage, and the Gizmondo. I haven't been putting much effort into collecting for '80s computer consoles like the Commodore 64 or Tandy Co-Co, but i'm happy to snap up something interesting when I catch it in the wild, like the big box of VIC-20 cartridges I recently found in a thrift. Other than Nintendo hardware, there's no game console that i'd be against picking up if I stumbled across it in a flea market or resale shop. I'd be happy to find an RCA Studio II or an Emerson Arcadia 2001, and those are considered as some of the lamest consoles of the '70s and '80s! Shoot, i'd love to even find a Mattel Aquarius!

I can't think of a bad Atari console, personally. I have them all, and I like all of them. To be honest, the 5200 would have to be my least played because of the joystick. Other than that, all Atari hardware is fine in my book.

If you're just getting a 7800 now, you should really drop by this area. I've been finding Atari 7800 consoles in thrift stores all over the place. I bought two of them today, in two different locations. I have no idea why the 7800's so plentiful around here. I just wish I could find games and power supplies to go with them. Try to pick up Midnight Mutants. My absolute favorite 7800 game. You've got to love any game that had Al Lewis (a.k.a. Grampa Munster) in it! Especially when it's such a good, replayable adventure game.

What on Earth is going on with Atari 7800 consoles around here? I've been coming across a whole lot of 7800 consoles in flea markets and thrifts lately. I've already got three (only my original has a power cord, unfortunately) and i've passed on a couple or three in the past few weeks. Today, I went into my favorite thrift, and tucked away in a dark recessed shelf was a bare 7800 and a 5200. No power supplies anywhere for either one, and no joysticks either. I picked up the 7800, because I felt sorry for it, and it only cost $3.93. Also bought a blue label River Raid for $4.94, oddly enough. Why a game cart would cost more than the console it's played on, I don't know. Strangely enough, on the bottom of the 7800, is a sticker for B & C Computervisions in California. Anyway, after stopping at a grocery store in Irving to pick up some Dublin Dr Pepper to bring with me for MegaManFan to OVGE , I stopped at a Goodwill, where I found yet another 7800, this time the 1984 version, and with the power supply! The console cost $9.99, the power supply (which is differently shaped from the one from my original 1987 model) was $1.99, a Proline controller was $2.99 (although after looking at it closer, the right fire button is worn out), and I even found an Atari 2600 power supply there too! Also $1.99. I asked them about games, and they told me they must have all been bought up. Lately, i'm finding almost as many Atari 7800 consoles as I am Sega Genesis consoles. Too bad I can't seem to find any 7800 games in the wild. I don't have anywhere close to a complete collection, but there are a few titles i'd like to get before I feel like I have all the worthwhile games for it.

Why does Jack Thompson not rage against the stupid parents who actually buy these games for their kids? Each game has a rating on the front of it. If a parent won't bother reading the clearly marked age warning, they don't need kids. He needs to focus on the incompetent parents that keep screwing up their kids by purchasing them violent games and then not supervising them to give the kids the proper context for the game. But then, your average fat brainless housewife doesn't want to hear that she's a bad parent, so all these bad parents would raise a stink, and Thompson would be shut down pretty quickly. Instead, he goes against the game companies, because his name will end up on TV and in the papers. But game companies are not where the faults with the current generation of kids lie. As long as there are bad parents, you're going to have problems with kids growing up bad.

I've found 5200 games out at my local flea market. But the booth that has them wants $8 to $10 for commons. Luckily, there's another guy out at my local flea that's got almost every console ever released in the US, along with heaps of games, including the 5200....

I haven't heard of anything in Texas. Since VGXpo in Dallas was such a dud last year, there's not going to be another one this year or for several years after. There's an annual pinball and arcade show in Irving, TX (a suburb of Dallas) every year, but i'm not sure when the next one is. I've managed to miss the last two years. It's going to be a bit longer of a drive, but you might consider going to Tulsa for the Oklahoma Videogame Expo. I've gone to it the past two years, and it's been a lot of fun.

Slot Racers is pretty cool looking. A lot of Imagic releases, like Riddle of the Sphinx, Cosmic Ark, Moonsweeper, Sky Patrol, and Solar Storm, were great looking. And i'm not sure if any will agree with me, but Data Age's covers all looked great (maybe not Airlock as much). Crash Dive, Worm War 1 and Crypts of Chaos from 20th Century Fox were cool. Fast Food is a good looking one. Most of the Starpath games have great cover art. My nominees for bad game boxes, across all their releases: Froggo and US Games. Froggo's look terrible with their white simplistic covers. US Games look so childish and boring, they wouldn't inspire me to buy one when I was a kid.

I have those every once in a while. I usually find all sorts of insanely rare stuff that i'd never find in real life, then i'd wake up and feel kind of cheated that I couldn't take the stuff with me into the real world.

I hit a new flea market today, but didn't find anything much. Passed on an Action Max with three tapes for $15, and what looked like an abandoned View-Master Interactivevision console in a box that looked like it was left out in the rain for a year. And some overpriced NES games. The temperature was 104 degrees Fahrenheit, so I couldn't spend much time outside without wanting to pass out. I'm going to go back in the autumn when it's a lot cooler. And hopefully the live Mexican band won't be there, trying to make my ears bleed. Just like Spinal Tap, it sounded like their amps went up to 11.

I really wish I could get a few bits out of that collection instead of the whole lot. I'd love to get some of the cassette programs and floppies (especially the Colecovision games disk and the Tomy Tutor Disk), the GRAM Kracker, and the Super Sketch graphics tablet. You don't have it listed, but i'd absolutely love to get my hands on some MBX games too!

I've come across a Turbo Express two or three times in the wild, but I never had enough cash to buy it. I've always wanted one, but can't justify the expense when I have a perfectly functional TurboGraphx-16 and a currently not working Turbo Duo. And since the TE can only play HUcards, that limits the amount of games it can play. The US didn't get a whole lot of HUcard games.

Funware was based in Richardson, TX, which might be why you found those around Dallas too. Richardson's a stone's throw away from TI headquarters, where the creator of Funware used to work. As far as Funware games go, I only have St. Nick. Interesting game, although it won't win any awards for flashy graphics. Looks very 'Extended-BASIC-type-in-magazine-program" like.

They're idiots whose bias shows with everything they say. The thing is, the Jaguar controller just looks large and bulky in pictures. In use, it's easy to use and comfortable. But then, they never had any intention of trying out one, they're just jumping on the 'bash the Jaguar' bandwagon. Everyone else says it's bad, so pass judgement on it without trying it out themselves. These writers need to be screened before they're hired, to get people intelligent enough to realise that all game consoles, companies, and software has it's good side and bad side.

I think I might start a new thread about the MBX, see how many people have one! I went thrifting today, and found some Atari 2600 games. The first store, Thrift Town, had around 20 in their locked shelf in the back. When the sales guy was opening it for me, he told me that they had ten times the amount of Atari games last weekend, but sold nearly all of them off because of their big Memorial Day half-off sale. Bummer. I had all the titles leftover already, so I passed. Next store didn't have anything. I went to a thrift that normally never has anything I want, and they had a bunch of Atari games too. The weird thing is, nearly every end label on the carts was missing. That's fine for a lot of games with front labels, but not for M-Network games. Anyway, I bought Infiltrate, Pole Position, Blackjack, and two unlabeled M-Network carts. The only reason I bought them was because the M-Network insignia is shaped into the plastic of the bottom piece, which i've never seen before on any of them that I own. They were all $2.98 each. It was nice to see a decent amount of Atari stuff on my rounds, but it would have been nicer to see the "10 times the amount" shelves last Sunday and Monday. Who knows, I might have missed out on some nice rares.