freewheel

Because I like necro'ing threads... The Canadian "for Atari VCS" label - is it worth trying to sell separately? I can't find nearly any information on this, other than someone in Italy asking 140 Euros for it!

So wait.. red Space Armada, and French bilingual Vectron and Mission X gatefolds are all vaguely rare? If I had all 3 on my desk right now, are they worth more than the shipping?

Very cool! I've recently discovered that I made a bit of an assumption with FW Diagnostics, that being that most/all controller issues, would still result in SOME controller functionality. Well, there are failure modes in controllers, where most stuff actually works, but you just can't navigate any menus or do much of anything. I ran into a specific case where some wires were constantly firing and overriding any input. A controller diagnostic that just goes into things immediately, would make this more obvious. I probably figured at the time that MTE-201 would cover off this rare situation. Well, turns out I forgot about it and spent quite some time trying to figure out what the heck was wrong with a console! We all benefit from more and more diagnostic utilities, because odds are, there's some console out there with a unique problem that no developer thought up yet. This hardware is really starting to show its age, so I think it's very cool to see people coming up with different ways to diagnose problems.

THANK YOU!! Mystery solved! Yes, that is indeed my label, with just "MEI 1983" on it, no Singapore - it never occurred to me to post pics of the label itself. I've never seen one of these in person, so it just stuck out to me. Sadly I have neither the box nor overlays from Digiplay, but ah well. I have no idea how I stumbled upon this, but cool nonetheless.

Sadly this is my only MOTU cart, so I can't compare in person - but pictures from Ebay and other places sure look black to me. Here it is next to some other carts. You can see just how much blacker the Imagic plastic is. I've never seen a Mattel cart in brown though - I have around 300 loose carts and nothing like this.

Digging through loose carts the other day, I noticed that my MOTU cart is made out of brown plastic. It's almost, but not quite, the same color brown as the 2609/Intellivoice. I don't have any other copies of MOTU but every picture online looks black to me. No other cart that I have looks like this, there are definitely shades of black due to fading and other environmental exposure, but absolutely nothing with this pure brown. Does anyone know what's up with this? I don't remember anyone ever discussing different color shells, I know that Coleco/PB/Imagic used a darker black plastic than Mattel, but that's about it.

So like.. remember those Flashback supplemental overlay packs? Does anyone even care about them anymore? I've had a set sitting in plastic for a decade now - is it worth putting these up for auction? I'm likely gonna list my CGE Flashback soonish - a real one, not these empty sleeves that have stamped numbers on them. I was at CGE, all of the sleeves I saw had hand-written numbers on them. What's up with this?

Methinks it's time for someone to release more of those diagnostic carts... Anyone still manufacturing homebrew carts?

I don't see them on Ebay very often these days - anyone have any idea what a boxed LTO Flash would sell for, nowadays?

Anything is possible, but unfortunately I don't have the time nor brainpower to set up another production run. I'm always willing to talk, if anyone wants to help out! I suspect a cart-only run would sell fairly well, given the comments and requests I've had over the years.

I don't... I just.... I ... I... I kinda dropped away from a lot of online life about 5 years ago. Not a ton on forums, I've never been big on social media. I really learned to dislike arguing with strangers that have literally no impact on my life. I missed most of the Amico shenanigans and have slowly caught up. This may be the stupidest thing I've read in a month. I don't even know which side of the "debate" Pat and Ian were on, but I bet it was hilarious, regardless.

Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Hang on. Wait. I'm actually dead serious with my question here: does the new Diablo game require you to own a cellphone or something? Please someone fill me in as tersely as possible. I don't want to hear about the whining, or how evil/heroic Pat and Ian are. I just need to understand the joke itself, before my kids make fun of me again.

Another random new Youtuber trying to make sense of this. Folks, it's simple: check out hbomberguy's stuff and stop talking about this as if there's anything unknown or surprising. Pathological liars aren't likely to create legit companies and actual hardware. I do like how he points out that the BEST Amico video just makes it look like Wii Sports. In 2021.

I really REALLY have avoided commenting on almost all of this, but... there's this really strange trend in recent years that seems to be accelerating: 1. Someone or some group (let's call them A) says a bunch of terrible things. Or obnoxious things. Or flat out lies. Or any combination of the above. 2. People (call them B) call A out on their BS/nonsense/bad behaviour. 3. A, and a bunch of A's defenders, go into histrionics about "free speech!". 4. Shortly thereafter - and often at the same time - A and A's defenders start complaining that B shouldn't even be saying these things in the first place. Am I the only one that notices the irony? It astounds me how little this is ever mentioned. Free speech is either absolute or it isn't. If there's any claim to Tommy's posts here being "free speech", then literally everything Pat and Ian have ever said should and MUST be allowed, and hell, encouraged. Anything else is pure hypocrisy. Sorry, but this supposed free speech absolutism from people who want to stifle other speech really grinds my gears. Free speech is not about protecting and encouraging things you agree with. It's about tolerating and accepting that which you do not.

So in 2018, right around the time the Amico was first announced, my personal life got very very busy and I had to take a fairly large step back from this entire community. I was gonna sign on as an early dev but I just had to basically abandon hobby stuff for a while. WHAT THE CRAP JUST HAPPENED? I thought COVID broke the world, but that seems to be nothing compared to this. Thank god I had thread notifications etc turned off, because did I see a 1200+ page thread on this?? Can someone catch me up? PS: I learned today that hbomberguy is ridiculously funny.

Yikes, I had no idea these were going for so much. I'd definitely like to see a few more on the market. Ironically, I still have a bunch of unfolded boxes in storage somewhere. Just no more carts, or the other bits!

As mentioned, the ROM and instructions are available - that reminds me, I may let that domain retire soon, so if someone would like to provide a place to host my handful of ROMs, please reach out. I have no plans to create any more carts but in the same vein, if someone wants to pick that up, I'd be happy to lend a hand. I just don't have a lot of time to dedicate to dev/manufacture these days, but I definitely see some recurring interest in some more of the diagnostic carts. I naively assumed that everyone would have an LTO Flash by now

The cartridges are long since sold out, unfortunately. If you've got a multicart, you can try the ROM which is freely available here: http://fwgames.ca/roms_new/ It's always possible that someone has a spare one for sale (sadly, I do not). They don't come up on Ebay very often, if ever. You might be able to pry one from someone here though!

Before I throw them outgarage sale them for 50 cents... is anyone dying to get their hands on some of the old 25-in-1 plug and play units? Ebay prices for these are basically nil, and I need to make space. I have a CIB and 2 loose. And they're kinda superfluous when you have 8 original consoles and lots of real carts + multicarts.

He sure did We all love him so much, that Zombie George agreed to a one-time promotional spot. Only cost me a bucket of brains.

And a special AtariAge-only ROM variant: Desert Bus, Cascadia Edition! This was whipped up in a mad frenzy about a year and a half ago, for a charity event. Enjoy! Variant collectors, do you want this on a cart? desertbus_cascadia.zip

Hey folks! I've not been around a lot this past year, and I've REALLY not been around a lot for the past month or two. Now that we're all stuck indoors for the foreseeable future, and the physical copies are long since sold out, I figured it's time to unleash the hounds ROMS! I'm attaching the ROMS for Desert Bus, Goatnom, and FW Diagnostics. For free. To anyone who wants them. You guys have been such a source of support and encouragement and I've had a blast making Intellivision software over the years. It's not much, but if I can help at least one person stave off 8 hours of boredom through all of this... then good I'll also make them available for free download at fwgames.ca/roms_new As an aside, I discovered someone who posted a full 8 hour INTV Desert Bus session on Youtube. Amazing! desertbus_release.zip fwdiagnostics_release.zip goatnom_release.zip

Breaking News! OK, not really. BUT - we have enough leftover materials to produce a small number of "extra" boxed copies, for those that want the functionality of the cart, but didn't get one originally, or don't care so much about serial numbers. See here for details: http://fwgames.ca/fw-diagnostics-ordering-unnumbered-copies/ $40 plus shipping (a $14.95 savings!) - the only things lacking are the serial number stickers, and overlays. And the overlays weren't actually used to guide the diagnostic utilities anyway, they were more of a fun feelie.

Desert Bus is officially sold out! Stay tuned for exciting ROM details soon

2 copies left. It's practically sold out! Grab a copy now, or they're back into the Vault!