Skippy B. Coyote

One of these two systems had Resident Evil and Tomb Raider, the other didn't. I find the answer here to be fairly obvious.

I'm sure you'll see me around, though unfortunately I haven't gotten a Jaguar yet. There was one on eBay recently that was in really nice shape for a pretty reasonable price, so I was hoping to sell this New 3DS bundle to get some money to buy it with, but the New 3DS hasn't sold yet so I ended up missing out on it. I still definitely plan to get a Jag and some good games for it by the end of the year, it'll just be a matter of finding a new home for this New 3DS first to get the funds for it then hunting around for another good condition Jaguar system at a fair price if no one offers me a trade. I've had my eye on a Jag for a few years now but never got one up to this point because I kept thinking about how expensive it was going to be to get a system and a copies of the games I wanted to play on it the most (Alien vs Predator and Towers II mainly), but after mulling it over for a couple years I came to the conclusion that at the end of the day it's not really about the money. As long as you can afford it without compromising your ability to take care of life's essentials then the money doesn't really matter. What does matter is getting to enjoy and appreciate something you think is really cool and having fun playing the games, and I think there's a whole lot of fun to be had on the Jag.

Whew! I just finished watching all 6 episodes thus far on YouTube and I have to say I'm really impressed with this series you're doing. I've been interested in the Jag for the past couple years but don't own a system yet (mostly due to the problem of trying to find one in good condition for a reasonable price these days), so while I continue to hunt for a system I've been watching lots of videos on Jaguar games and yours are definitely some the best out there. You've got a very pleasant voice that reminds me a lot of Josh Gates and I've really appreciated the in-depth coverage you've given every game, good or bad. When I compiled a list of good Jaguar games to keep an out for earlier this year I didn't have Evolution: Dino Dudes on the list, but your video changed my mind and really made it look like a lot of fun. There's only so much you can learn about a game from seeing screenshots and reading reviews, and your videos do a great job of giving someone who has never played any of these games before a solid idea of what to expect if they were to sit down and play them for the first time. Great stuff!

Whoops! The misses had a friend over this weekend and I forgot to add the times for a couple of the games they played: Atari 8-Bit Computer (Emulated on Nintendo Wii) Blue Max - 10 minutes ColecoVision (Emulated on Nintendo Wii) Montezuma's Revenge - 20 minutes Zaxxon - 7 minutes

Not something I bought personally, but a gift from a friend for setting the HighScore.com world record high scores in Centipede for the Atari 7800 on every difficulty level, Centipede TB for the Atari 2600, Centipede for the Game Boy Advance in the Atari Anniversary Advance compilation, and Centipede for the Game Boy Color. I loves me some Centipede!

My sincere apologies for being so late with this week's post! Yesterday morning I suffered a total hardware failure of my Android tablet, which is my only modern computing device, and ended up losing almost everything on it since I didn't have cloud backups enabled. With that in mind this week's play times are mostly estimations from memory but they should be pretty close to what was played around my house this week. A proper writeup and picture will be coming tomorrow or the next day when I can get my computing hardware situation sorted out, but for now I'm posting from an ancient laptop: Ineligible Cursed Mountain (Nintendo Wii) - 692 minutes Atari 2600 Adventure - 22 minutes Warlords - 17 minutes Atari 7800 Asteroids - 25 minutes Centipede - 32 minutes Choplifter! - 6 minutes Dig Dug - 23 minutes Food Fight - 30 minutes Robotron 2084 (Emulated on Nintendo Wii) - 13 minutes Scramble (Emulated on Nintendo Wii) - 19 minutes Atari 8-Bit Computer Missile Command - 94 minutes Pac-Man - 121 minutes Pole Position - 9 minutes PC-DOS The Ultimate Doom - 106 minutes PlayStation Silent Hill - 47 minutes

Bumpity bump! The New 3DS system and games are still available for trade or sale.

Aww, thank you Oyamafamily! Congratulations on your sweeping victory in the Atari 2600 HSC Season 6! You played amazingly well all year and I hope that I can give you some good friendly competition next season.

Thank you Oyamafamily! I haven't been able to break my previous Normal record of 120,680 yet but I'm still trying. Making it to the 5th mission again is really tough, but I'm having a lot of fun trying.

That's great news! I missed out on the last half of this year's season due to some post-surgery complications (don't you hate it when real life happens?), but I'm doing pretty well these days and am hoping to see the 2018 season through to the very end.

I've got a friend from out of state coming to visit this weekend and could use some cash to spend while he's here, so from now through Monday all items for sale in this thread are 20% off and I'm offering free shipping within the continental United States on all purchases over $50.

Two dollars each isn't bad at all, and I have been meaning to order a few other things from them as well so I'll have to pick up some switches on my next order. By chance do you know if the 800XL uses the same console button switches on the motherboard as the XEGS? If it does then I'll pick up a good half a dozen or so switches, since I'll probably end up adding an 800XL to my lineup at some point just for the better keyboard and easier lap typing. The XEGS is very cool as a console for the game center, but it does leave a lot to be desired when it comes to the keyboard and I've always fancied the aesthetic design of the 800XL. So if the console button switches are compatible with both then I'd definitely want to pick up some extras.

Alright! I finally got it figured out! I opened up the non-working start switch by prying off the plunger on top and took a look inside. It turned out that one of the two metal contact points that the silicone rubber contact pad presses down on to complete the circuit when the switch is pushed has come out of alignment. I tried wiggling it back into place but no luck, it was just too loose to make consistent contact with the pad. With that in mind I desoldered the Start switch from the board and decided to swap in one of the switches that I knew was working properly in it's place. So I went to desolder the Select switch from the board to put it where the Start switch used to be... and promptly broke the Select switch by tugging on it too hard while desoldering it. >_< After that experience I decided that the Option switch was the next most expendable switch so I very carefully desoldered it then slowly and gently removed it from the board. From there I soldered the now removed Option switch back in where the Start switch used to be and voila! It worked! So I now have an XEGS with working Start and Reset switches, I'll just need to order some replacement switches from Best Electronics to fill in the empty spaces on the board where the Select and Option switches used to be. Then I'll finally have a fully functional XEGS again. I think I'll order a few extra switches just in case, since they don't seem to be built terribly well.

Ahh, gotcha. It's quite odd because Select did not work last night when I tested it, nor did Reset for a while. Reset suddenly started working late last night and Select started working today. I stripped the computer down to the bare PCB again and checked the console switches out and they all seem very securely soldered in place. No wobble to any of them and the connections all look good. Edit: Further weirdness! After wiggling the physical switch back and forth a bit the Option switch started working again, so now the only console switch that doesn't work is Start. It's looking like whatever happened is probably a mechanical issue with the switches rather than a problem with any chips.

I'm not sure exactly what it means but the resulting number is 7. It changes to 5 if Select is held, Start and Option do nothing. Reset goes back to BASIC.

If the GTIA was going bad would the system still be able to load and run games properly minus the console switch functions? I ask because my XEGS will still load and run games just fine. I did play a bit of Pac-Man last night since it could be started with the joystick button rather than the Start switch and didn't have any issues with running the game. I tried that last night as well, stripping the system down to just the PCB and powering it on. The Reset switch did start working at that point and continued to work fine once I put the system back together, but the Start, Option, and Select switches are still non-functional. Personally I'm wondering if it was applying a small amount of Deoxit D5 on a q-tip to each switch as soon as I got the Start switch unstuck that killed them. I figured as long as I had the system apart I'd lube the switches before I put it back together, then once it was back together and I went to test it out none of the switches worked. When I checked it again a few hours later the Reset switch started working again (it didn't work when I first put it back together) but the Start, Select, and Option switches are still not working.

Uh oh, looks like I spoke too soon. Now that the system seemed to be working again I went to play a game of Missile Command and discovered that none of the console buttons are responding at all. Start, Select, Option, and Reset are all non-functioning at this point. The system is booting up cartridge games properly and will boot to BASIC as normal if the keyboard is plugged in and no cartridge inserted, but those console buttons aren't working at all. I did disassemble the system again so I could try pushing the console button switches directly (thinking that the physical buttons on the case might have been misaligned) but that didn't make any difference. Any ideas what could be going on now?

Success! After opening the case and examining the mechanical switches for the console buttons it quickly became apparent that the Start button switch was stuck down. A little poking and prodding of the switch top liberated it and the system is now starting up and loading games normally. Now the only thing I'm wondering is what to lubricate the Start button switch with to keep it from getting stuck down again? I've got DeoxIT D5, both light and heavy pure silicone oils made especially for lubricating plastic parts, silicone grease, and the usual WD-40 and assortment of petroleum oils. My gut says DeoxIT since I get the feeling that there may be silicone membrane contacts under the plastic switches that silicone oil could degrade, but I'm certainly open to advice from those more knowledgeable than myself about maintaining these computers.

That is good news! I'll get out my handy dandy screwdriver, open up the case, and see if there's any mechanical issues with the Start button or other system buttons then report back. On a side note, is there any real danger of static discharge damaging components from using an A-8 computer on the carpet? I've always used my 2600 and 7800 systems on the carpet and never had any trouble, but it was something that had crossed my mind.

Thanks for the quick replies guys! I first checked the power supply and it appears to be safe since it's one of these and doesn't feel unusually warm after leaving it on for a while: Next I tried powering on the XEGS while holding down Start but that yielded no change, nor did powering it on normally and pressing Return right after the beep. Sadly I do not have a copy of Star Raiders to try out. As requested I have made a short mp3 audio recording of the beep that occurs on startup and attached it at the bottom of this post. Thanks again for helping me troubleshoot this guys! XEGS Power On.mp3

Hello there everyone! I recently decided to get into 8-bit computing for the first time and purchased a lovely condition complete in box XEGS set with keyboard, joystick, and light gun that a fellow AtariAge member had been keeping in storage for a long time. I was enjoying it very much for the first two hours or so of ownership, playing Pac-Man and Missile Command, when all of a sudden something very odd happened. I went to start a new game of Missile Command (being played from a cartridge, which I know is rather redundant since the XEGS has Missile Command built in) and nothing happened when I pressed the start button. When that didn't work I tried the Reset button, and what I was met with was this: A loud beep followed by a blank blue screen with no "READY" prompt and a solid non-flashing cursor. None of the buttons other than Power and Reset would do anything, and putting in a different cartridge or powering the system down then turning it on again just brought me to the same blank blue screen. Connecting the keyboard made no difference either, the system would not boot into BASIC with no cartridge inserted and the keyboard plugged in. Just that same loud beep followed by a blank blue screen, and none of the keyboard keys did anything. Attempting to boot the system into self-diagnostic mode by powering it on while holding down Option had no effect either and just took me to the blue screen. At this point I'm rather certain that the seller will not take a return, since the system did work properly when I received it, but for all the money I spent on it I'd sure like to get more than 2 hours of use out of the thing; so I was wondering if anyone here might know what's wrong and how to fix it? I am fairly handy with a soldering iron and have no problem desoldering parts and soldering in new ones if need be, though I don't own a multimeter so testing continuity is not something I'm capable of doing at the moment. Worst case scenario I can always go out and buy a multimeter and learn how to use it if necessary though, since it would be a heck of a lot cheaper than trying to buy a new XEGS and hope that one doesn't die on me too. In any case, my first foray into 8-bit computing isn't going terribly well and I could sure use some advice on how to fix this XEGS. Any guidance would be greatly appreciated!

For me it's Super Breakout by a mile. Some time around the age of 6 or so, which would have been in 1991, I remember sitting on a barstool in a pool hall playing a Super Breakout arcade machine for the first time. At the time I didn't realize that it was a black and white game since the screen had an overlay that gave the illusion of color, but those one or two minutes of playing kicked off a life long love of brick breaking games for me. I've since made it a point to buy every Breakout style game available for every system I've ever owned, and I still love the classic Super Breakout arcade game just as much as I did when I was 6 years old.

I'm not worried about it personally, food and medicine would be my top priority in that situation. I do live about 5 feet underground though (in a garden level apartment) so who knows, maybe my games would survive? Maybe? Okay, probably not, but it never hurts to stay positive.