OscarGungan

I tried Demons to Diamonds with the new paddles and that worked completely fine. It does seem like mileage varies depending on game.

I fiddled with getting the 5200 version of Megamania to work and got it almost perfect but it seems to take being a bit more forceful to change directions. I’ve emulated 5200 games on OpenEMU and everything plays perfectly. So, maybe this can be fixed with a future firmware update.

Oh ok. That fixed it.

I couldn’t find any threads about this but if there is one I’m happy to go there. I haven’t been able to get the 400 mini to read game files from the USB. I formatted it as exFat with master boot record and made sure the files had the proper extension. I did all this on a Mac. Is there something I’m doing wrong?

I thought I heard something about how plugging in a VCS classic controller would unlock something. It was in an Atari email and then edited out.

I’ve been rebuying a lot of cartridges I remember having as a kid. There have been a few things I’ve hesitated on because of compatibility like Star Raiders. Is it just a matter of time for keyboard and driving controllers to be compatible with the 2600+ in a future update or is it possible those things would never be addressed and I should not bother trying to buy them at this point?

Mine arrived today. I noticed on Atari.com on the VCS page the link leads to a 404 page now. Makes me wonder if this is discontinued and they are leaving people to do pc-mode as a do it yourself project.

Yep, I’ll probably end up with a better setup on the do it yourself route. I saw they announced Atari branded SSDs will be coming out. Curious what the price and availability will be with those.

I haven't received mine yet either. A while back I looked it up on eBay and I saw 2 completed listings go for crazy amounts. One was around $100 and one for around $300. The listings were old enough I can't find them on eBay anymore but I looked at them multiple times to see if I looked at it wrong. I'm planning on getting a SSD and install Linux on that. If that works out i may not even need it when it does show up.

Hey. Thanks so much. I’m planning to buy an SSD soon and get to work on this. I’ll let you know if I have questions.

Good to know. Are there any tutorials or YouTube videos you recommend?

If I just installed Debian to the SSD once it’s installed and push the escape button when I boot up the VCS won’t it take me to a screen where I pick which drive to boot from?

Yes. I would definitely be interested.

I’m thinking Evercade made an attempt to do Activision and the deal fell through. Not sure the details.

Very cool. Thank you for the breadcrumbs. Totally get the NDA thing. I’ve played with the idea of doing some kind of research project into Imagic. It looks like a challenge because there isn’t a ton of info without doing some deep dives. When I was a kid the Imagic titles got a lot of play and there was certainly a mystique to the art of the packaging and cartridges. Now, I’m geeking out about it. Thanks again.

Interesting. Would you happen to know who the agreement is with?

It would be cool to see reissues of them. I’d always assumed Activision owned them because some of them ended up on compilations or Flashbacks along with Activision titles. I’m just not finding evidence they actually do. Here is another odd thing I’m remembering. During the whole Amico debacle they claimed new versions of Demon Attack, Dracula, Dragonfire and Microsurgeon were coming to the system. No mention of anything Activision. Did they actually have a licensing agreement with someone or were these titles they felt safe to announce because no one had a claim on them and by naming them it looked like they had a lot of stuff in the works.

Thanks! I definitely would like to know about the boot loader. I would like to switch it back and forth from VCS to PC-Mode. When I installed Debian. I downloaded the disc image onto one jump drive and installed it onto another jump drive. So, it doesn’t seem hard to just install it to the new SSD when I install it. But it sounds like that is only part of the process.

I got curious about the Imagic titles and did some research and I’m a bit confused. On Wikipedia, it says Imagic was bought by Activision but they do not have a source for that statement. I dug around on the USPTO website, which is the US government patent and trademark site. Searches for Imagic as a video game company show it as a dead trademark. The same goes for Demon Attack, Cosmic Ark and Riddle of the Sphinx. The listings all said Imagic was the last owner of these trademarks. For the heck of it. I looked up Megamania by Activision and it said that was a dead trademark. I looked up Yar’s Revenge and as you’d expect is live trademark. I went over to the US copyright website and looked up the previously mentioned titles and it just mentions Imagic as the most recent owner. No mention of Activision. So, I’m not sure if I’m looking at something incorrectly but it has me wondering if they are in some kind of trademark and copyright limbo.

I have a question about performance running Steam using Debian 12. I bought the VCS on the most recent Black Friday sale. I also bought the PC-Mode USB but it is still on back order. Not sure when I will see it. I decided to take matters into my own hands and bought a USB drive and installed Debian 12 on it. I installed Steam and started playing the original Qomp. I noticed slow down which I thought was odd because I’ve been playing Akka Arrh and Tempest 4000 in VCS mode and it runs flawlessly. I also saw a video of someone running the Master Chief Collection on Steam and it ran fairly well without hardware upgrades which isn’t what we are seeing on our end. Is this an issue that would be resolved by upgrading RAM and adding the SSD. I’m thinking these games would work better if they weren’t running off a USB thumb drive. Or are there settings in the Bios that would would improve performance? Or is the official USB drive from Atari optimized to run things better? Thank you in advance for any helpful advice.

Doesn’t Activision own all the Imagic titles as well?

Thank you. Do you still have copies of the ZarkStars games available?

Would this work on a 2600+?

When you say reseating, do you mean opening the cart up and making sure the board is seated inside properly?

I did use alcohol with q tips on them and they work a bit better. I’ve been thinking of buying repro labels for them and using that as excuse once the old label is off to open them up and see if anything is going on inside.