SteveW

I've read that the RCA Studio II's European clones are in color, and all American game carts will play in color on them. The reason the US RCA Studio II is in black and white was because of cheap video output components. Yep, the RCA sucks. The only good thing I can think about the Studio II is that it shares the same type of CPU as the Voyager space probes.

Aaaaahhhh! The Tiger R-Zone! What a total piece of crap. Those $3 LCD games you can buy out at a flea market with the 'interchangeable' games are about equivalent to the R-Zone, except with Tiger's device, you have to have it right next to your eye. Quality is total garbage, the little reflector in front of the eye is so cheaply made that it turns whatever graphics you can see into a sludgy mess, and sound effects that would make a Pong machine blush. The R-Zone dethrones all other pretenders, it's truly the worst console of all time.

http://www.videogamehouse.net/mbx.html Toucan's site, one of the only sources of information about the MBX on the web. The games came on cartridges. I don't know of anyone other than Milton Bradley designing any software for it. It's a shame that MB didn't release some kind of programming information so bedroom programmers could utilise it. Would have been nice to see a special version of Extended Basic with MBX commands in it.

Amen.

Which games do you have, and would you be interested in parting with any of them? I've only got Bigfoot, Sewermania, and Superfly. I'd like to get Space Bandits and maybe Meteor Belt. The Triton Catalog, where I bought all my TI stuff back in the '80s, sold off their TI stock to someone in Dallas if I recall. The guy was running it out of his home for a while, but i'm not sure if he still does that. Or if he happens to have any MBX software left. I've got a very old digitized catalog from him somewhere tucked away on a backup CD-R. Maybe I need to track it down and see if it's got a phone number.

I've ended up with three Myst Demo CDs for some reason. I know how I got two of them, but i'm not sure how I ended up with the third. My first Jag CD didn't work out of the box, so I had to send it to Atari for replacement (bare component, kept the software). They sent me a bare Jaguar. So I sent that back, and they finally sent me a replacement Jag CD, full package, including a duplicate set of software. But for some reason, I have three sets of Jag CD pack-in software, and I can't remember how exactly I ended up with them. Ah well, if MegaManFan can use one, i'll be happy to help fill in his collection.

That room looks to be the size of a basement. That collection needs a real showcase location, but i'm guessing that you're married, so it'll end up staying in the basement.

I bought an Intellicart, and I hate how difficult it is to use. I used the classic Mac OS software to make it work, which wouldn't work with some homebrew ROMs I got off the 'net. I had to use a PC serial to Mac serial converter to hook it up to my ancient Powerbook 180C, and a lot of the time, I couldn't get files to load. A memory card would be the most effective way for Mac users to use the CC3. As long as I can drop files on a memory card and it'll load up on the CC3 without some kind of software interface or serial hookup, i'll be happy.

Yep, the VIS had a decent looking black controller pad that was wireless and was shaped a lot like a SNES pad. I believe that the type of wireless that would only register one button press at a time, so no button combos or anything. Like there was something in the VIS library that you could use a button combo on anyway.

I think one reason that Nintendo hardware is considered more valuable than Sega's is that Nintendo is still putting out new consoles and portables, whereas Sega hasn't. Nintendo's consoles have stayed in people's minds and in their living rooms, and a lot of the regular public have forgotten about Sega's consoles.

The Memorex/Radio Shack VIS: as far as non-videotape game consoles go, the VIS is definitely far worse than CD-i. The CD-i had a decent amount of games on it. Sure, a lot of them weren't all that great, but still, it had a small library of decent titles. The VIS didn't have anywhere close to that amount. I've bought something like 30 to 35 VIS titles over time, and only one or two could be considered games. The rest are all 'edutainment' titles.

I was wondering when someone was going to mention the Action Max. I'd agree in part, but there's a videotape based console that's slightly worse, the View-Master Interactive Vision console. It's got a really cool looking case and a great looking joystick, but unfortunately the games as far as I know were all children's edutainment. I've got one, and a Sesame Street Big Bird tape for it, but i've never mustered up the enthusiasm to try it out. At least the Action Max had some fun action style videos, not just some lame muppets.

Atari CX-40. The best, most natural game controller ever designed. They got it right, first try.

Best. Flea. Market. Find. Of. My. Life. I went out to Trader's Village in Arlington, TX today. I didn't find a whole lot of classic games. Bought Cyborg Hunter, Bomber Raid, Shinobi, and California Games for the SMS, Williams Arcade's Greatest Hits for the Genesis, a Capcom Pad Soldier GS game controller (I think it's for the 3DO, but i'm not positive), and Ren & Stimpy, Ninja Gaiden, G-Loc, Battleship, and Monster Truck Wars for the Game Gear. There seemed to be an abundance of SMS and Game Gear stuff out there today. When i've finished my rounds out there, I like to pass by the collector at the back who's got just about every console ever put out, and see if anything catches my eye. I'm a regular at his booth! I was just about to leave without buying anything, and then I caught sight of something that made my eyes damn near shoot out of my head. He had a boxed and complete Milton Bradley MBX System. One web site says that there might only have been 300 of these ever made, so they're insanely rare. They're a peripheral for the Texas Instruments 99/4A Home Computer that adds speech recognition and enhanced speech synthesis to the TI, along with a big ol' membrane keypad and a sweet analog joystick (that also acts as a paddle). I have a few games for the MBX, but i've never been lucky enough to own one until now. When I pulled it off one of his racks, the owner of the booth got a big smile on his face and said, "I was wondering when someone was going to find that one!" He's never seen one before in all his years collecting these types of things. He decided to sell it to me for $30.

If it's possible, try to test the system out first. Like it's been said, reliability for them isn't anywhere near the Atari 2600's level. The 2600 could be buried in molten magma, pass through an elephant's digestive tract, or sit on the bottom of the ocean for a year, and there's a pretty good chance that it'll still work. A Colecovision will act up if you sneeze within a mile of it. I picked up three over the last year and a half, and until recently (when I got a decent power supply) I didn't have one that worked. But there's a really good selection of interesting games for it, so I say you should (cautiously) go for it.

Wow, the game looks like a higher res version of the Intellivision's Auto Racing. I've always loved Auto Racing, but it's controls were a bit hard to pull off. I'm wondering.... how does this game control with the 5200's analog stick?

Nice collection, but the harder part is still waiting. You've got to start collecting the homebrews and conversions. Seeing that these seem to pop up every other day, you've still got a long road ahead of you!

If the owner would let you plug the console in and try it out to see if the controllers really have been rebuilt, that would be the best option. $60 is a lot of cash, so allowing you to test the merchandise is the least she can do.

My two copies never worked on my good ol' 7800, although i've yet to try out my recently bought 7800 to see if they work on it.

Is that Romox game for the TI Home Computer?

Man, that is a good haul! Especially with Safecracker and Microsurgeon boxed. Good price too!

I've got copies of a couple prototypes that Toucan sent me. Contact him at his site, and i'm sure he'll be happy to help you out, or send you some floppies! Here's his site: http://www.videogamehouse.net/

And the Genesis was king of the sports games. I find that people who play only sports titles on their game consoles tend not to have much loyalty to a console after it's had it's day. They play it while it's popular, and since they have no attachment to it, it goes in a box in the attic until it gets donated or thrown away. One of my favorite thrifts just recently had three Genesis models in the shelf, along with a yellowed SNES, for just a few bucks. One Genesis was even attached to a Sega CD, and it was only marked $6.98 for the whole thing (of course, the controllers and power supplies are priced separately). Up at the front counter of the store, they had a SNES with controllers and cables bagged up and priced.... get this.... for $149.99! Holy crap! It didn't even come with any games! This is what happens when little old ladies who don't know anything about videogames try to price these things.

One annoying thing about the Amiga 1000 is that every time you start the machine, it needs a Kickstart floppy disk to get the machine to work. If you don't have a Kickstart floppy, the machine is pretty much useless. Later Amiga models didn't need a bootdisk, so i'd consider one of those.

I'm just wondering if having a computer add-on device would make it legal for Atari to be able to port games like Donkey Kong to the 5200, as long as it was only playable with the computer peripheral attached.