MrBlackCat

Here is kind how things went for me... Early 80's Dad got us a Commodore Vic-20 and three game cartridges. We wanted an Atari of course, but this thing was great. I wasn't collecting as I was an unemployed teenager in school. I was still living at home when I was 19, and had started picking up C-64's (even an SX) and other Commodore games and systems at pawn shops and yard sales. Then PC's happened. I wasn't a console person, but I did have a Genesis an Atari and something else I got out and played occasionally, but I was a PC Network game guy at the time. I was using PC's at my job, learned networking, then DooM came out supporting IPX over LAN. By the mid 90's I had several PC's with every Network based PC game I could find. I had DooM, HerEtic, HeXen, TekWar, Corridor 7, etc. All of them, in multiples for however many machines I was running them on. Then Quake Came out. In a year or less I had three modems and phone lines in the Quake dedicated server, which ran 24-7 until 2001. The Quake era was huge, but Duke Nukem 3D is what REALLY started the broad "collecting"... I started looking at other ways to play Duke Nukem games while waiting on the next expansion and later waiting for Duke Nukem Forever to come out. Someone had given me a PS1 as I wasn't into consoles when they came out, so I got the third Person Duke Nukem games for PS1, as well as the semi-port of Duke Nukem 3D. Time to Kill, Planet of the Babes and Total Meltdown. Great times. Further down the rabbit hole... I got way into Duke Nukem games and decided to get Duke Nukem for every system it was put on, in every form. This lead to merchandise. I got every Duke Nukem game/add-on, shirt, memory card, book/manual/guide, store display available, from around the world. This has left me with the largest collection of Duke Nukem items in the world. My game room is Duke Nukem themed. I built this 8ft Nukem symbol in the floor. Ok... getting excessive, I will summarize more. I eventually obtained most every mainstream game console and handheld made, and still do minus a few years. (I don't have an xBox 1, but I do have a PS4.) They are all hooked up and accessible at all times, so it takes up lots of space. Backtracking a little... when I started "collecting" it was only First Person Shooters or "DooM-a-Likes", and their add-ons/expansions/shovelware. By the end of the 90's it got to be too many, so in my effort to "control" this expansion, I realized how much I enjoyed the box art of the 90's, so I stopped collecting any DOS FPS that wasn't boxed. I just rotated my game boxes from storage to sit on the computers and shelves every once in a while. It looked like this back then... In the early 2000's I moved to another house and had space. I thought I had plenty of space until I got EVERYTHING I had collected in one space. I am building shelves on the ceiling, racks on the ceiling, and the seating in the room are custom built for storage. So now... Now I am watching people (like Bill L) end up backing off. I am not sure where to go from here... My DOS FPS collection is at around 400 Unique Boxed games, so it is mostly done, no issue there. Console cartridges and disk based systems I only buy specific games I want to play, and I do I keep wanted lists for console games and have budgets for these things. Right now I only buy special editions or collectors editions of specific games like DooM, Red Dead Redemption II and such... so it is slowed down, but still excessive with over 1000 games. I won't live long enough to play them all at this point. I do track them in a spread sheet and play them mood-based. I few years ago I picked up all the Halo series as I had not played them... great games, I see why they were so popular. Anyway, I have mostly controlled expansion by limiting purchase to game-room decor' based editions... Edit: Forgot this section... Plug-N-Play and Modern Mini's... These are an issue as there are so many now and I generally buy all of them. I call this "The Retro Tower of Shame", which has now reached the ceiling. Most of the units are in place in a cabinet for instant access, but still. There are just too many, and I really never had "a plan" on a control point for them. I want them all, but that has become impractical. I didn't get all versions of the Flashback consoles and handhelds, which is a start, but still, this is a point of issue. This is an older image, and now the stack is literally to the ceiling with spares... Then I saw the post about the Homebrew for Galaga 2600... this will be my first Homebrew purchase. Am I catering to nostalgia, or I am starting down a road I am already resisting? We shall see. MrBlackCat

Hmm... I wonder if anyone else checks this thread EVERY day... I really want to see what comes of this. I am so glad I didn't pull the trigger on the 1-UP consoles. I don't have time to custom build a Pi machine right now, so this COULD be great. We shall see... unlike the AtariBox, which we shall not see. MrBlackCat

That is a great idea in my opinion... I would not care how "deep" it was if it had the look and feel of the full size arcade cabinet. Lord knows I'm out of space in the game room. Even the 1-Up cabinets at WalMart didn't really bother me with their 3/4 sizing or so. I am 6'2, so the height is of course and issue, but sitting was no problem. After a few minutes of Galaga, I occurred to me that the screen was full size though the cabinet was not... excellent. Then I thought about all those dimly lit arcades I played in over the years, and how great this screen looked even in the bright conditions of the store lighting. Other than the sound being a bit fast, the emulation was excellent for the short time I played. I intend to buy this product unless something extreme pops up about it I don't care for. Not having the time to build my own, I have "almost" bought a full size arcade machine for years now. Can't wait to see where this goes. MrBlackCat

I wear gaming related clothing almost all the time. In the 90's, I made my own t-shirts from printer-transfers which you sealed. They did not hold up well, so I was constantly re-making them. Later, as custom printed shirts became more common, I started having custom shirts made which are worn once of twice a month and last for many years with that rate of laundering. I own about 20 different shirts with game box art, screen shots, and logos from arcade classics like Galaga, Pac Man, Atari, Nintendo etc. In addition to custom shirts, I also have many official shirts from video games like Duke Nukem 3D (several types), Duke Nukem Manhattan Project, Duke Nukem Forever, Daikatana, Super Noahs Ark 3D, Dangerous Dave, DooM 1 2 3 and Final DooM, Quake 1, 2, & 4, and modern stuff up to Red Dead Redemption II and several others I can't think of. In addition to shirts, I have/wear four belt buckles... Duke Nukems nuke symbol, Packman screenshot, Nintendo chrome/enamel controller, and color enameled Atari logo. I did get the Nintendo controller pattern Vans high-tops. I see a lot of socially based comments about appropriateness... but I don't concern myself too much with preferences of society and its trends, or concerns with advertising for others etc... I see this as fitting for myself as this is a fair representation of one of my greater interests. Not just relative to clothing, I do WAY more of what I am comfortable with vs what is appropriate for persons I don't know to feel comfortable with. I have almost no level of trend compliance I suppose. I am also non-social, so this isn't an issue. I had to select Yep, I sure do because there wasn't a "oh HELL yeah, I wear video game related clothing!" option. Oh, and I have a Duke Nukem door mat and pillow case both in use... lets not forget those. MrBlackCat

Mine always does this also... I thought about reporting it, but figured it was specific to my unit and never mentioned it. MrBlackCat

Just a quick post to note that I bought several SanDisk SDHC 8GB cards and they worked without issue. If someone doesn't have any of the less common 2GB or less cards, these are fairly expensive and readily available, but large enough to use with some other devices should you wish to. I won't post a link here in public, but I got these from eBay for a touch over $5 each including shipping. That was the least expensive I found. They work in all of my AtGames devices in their out of the package format. I am posting this because I suspect there are cards which are not compatible for reasons other than formatting, so at least if you are able to get these, there will be a good chance the card itself works. If you have issues with these cards, it is most likely a formatting issue and not a physical card issue. Good luck! : ) MrBlackCat

I have been searching for the differences between the FB9 standard, and FB9 Gold... 1. So far it looks like the FB9 Gold comes with an HDMI cable... 2. FB9 Gold shares all games (but two listed below) with the standard edition except FB9 Gold has these... Atari Video Cube Burger Time Burnin’ Rubber Chase It! Chopper Command Escape It! Freeway Lock ‘n Chase Miss It! Pitfall II: Lost Caverns Shield Shifter Space Raid Strip Off 3. FB9 Standard Edition has Fishing Derby and Oink! that FB9 Gold does not. 4. FB9 Standard Edition has wired controllers. (I prefer wired controllers) Did I miss anything? I am just not seeing the Gold being worth that much more unless I am missing something. Any guidance would be appreciated. MrBlackCat

Maybe with the realization of product failure, the legal situation is a setup between the two to keep more of the money (use it for the legal payoff) and then have a more acceptable excuse to not be able to finish the project and just have to keep the remaining money due to insufficient funds to complete and deliver. "Oh well, sorry backers, the legal battles exhausted too much of your money... we will try again soon. Don't give up. Stay tuned. Keep your wallets handy as we have learned SO much from this and the AtariBand. We will get it right next time." Just speculation... MrBlackCat

I will have to go a little off topic here as I don't have a lot of knowledge of Tacos... but I will keep it brief. ( ) Not likely... probably twice that. It needs as many as it takes to get the point across that this is going to end badly for everyone without rose colored glasses. Not much I can say that hasn't already been said, but for kicks, describe this whole situation to someone rational, like a grandparent with wisdom etc... of course the wise will not try to sway a fool, but not everyone invested in this is a fool, but it probably isn't wise. Everyone should spend their money or even give it away blindly, as they wish... and many here are giving away their wisdom and time, as they wish. I am not sure if that is the purpose of an internet forum, but it is the way that most work. I think half the animosity is toward those who support, therefore perpetuate these kind of business practices... which are pretty easy to prove as unreasonably high risk. There isn't even a known return on the investment, as it doesn't exist as a prototype yet. As long as no one is gambling more than they can afford to lose (monetarily, or emotionally) then no harm done. I am glad to see so many people putting SO much effort into sharing wisdom, even if some people are tired of hearing/seeing it... rose colored earmuffs might be needed with those rose colored glasses. MrBlackCat

We finally just ordered and HD Sega Genesis and an HD Activision Gold. So far so good... but one thing I noticed this year, at least in our area (southern US), there was almost no market saturation. Normally I have seen Flashbacks of all kinds in Family Dollar, Dollar General, WalGreens, and Kroger (grocery store)... like in most, if not all of them. So far, we have not seen a single one in any of these stores. Between Thanksgiving and Christmas there was a display in WalMart but this was the Atari Handheld and regular type (not HD) Flashbacks. We just ordered them finally from WalMart online and the other from Target. First year/time we have ever not seen them from November to January in all of the above stores. Anyone else experience this? CatNapDreams

Yes... it was done by the time we got ours. Like weeks ago. CatNapDreams Edit: MBC said it was done in the update from September 30th, but doesn't remember the version. He also said, update your controller too, and you will reduce the pairing time. I have used it since the day we got our SNES (after it didn't work, then he updated it/them)

Can we get a Flashback in one of these cabinets yet? How about a Wishlist! I saw Galaga and Joust earlier... good ones. I would want Tron, Zaxxon, Q-Bert and Donkey Kong. Based on this set of four games, does anyone who knows about licenses and who owns them have any prediction as to what a second series of these might contain? If they sell well, more will surely be made... but I have learned from this site how messed up getting game rights can be. CatNapDreams

We got them all from one Cracker Barrel locally. They are so tiny. MBC has a number of little arcade units already, but these tiny ones are more for the 4" figures than the 6" figures. CatNapDreams

At the two WalMarts we went to, they said they do not put them out... you can only get them by asking. They are locked up in the back due to theft (employee theft)... but we live in Mississippi... is to be expected. (rolls eyes) CatNapDreams

We finally got one Thursday! BrickSeek showed six here... just went and asked for it. Starfox is too hard. Hehehe I've been playing mostly MarioCart, Street Fighter II and Punchout. We have the 8BitDo controllers for the NES Classic, (everything else too) but it didn't work right past the menu. Like the button functions were scrambled... BUT they already fixed it. MBC just updated the controllers and the receiver thingy and it works fine. It also connects faster also. This has always been an issue when I used them on the NES and SNES in the past. CatNapDreams

Sometimes I play Wolfenstein 3D, DooM, Heretic, HeXen, Quake, Duke Nukem 3D, and several others, with my husband on a LAN. These games look terrible on a big monitor, but on the small ones (14, 15) they look fine. The gameplay is still fun to me. As far as anything that I actually notice that hasn't aged well... the objects in the environment. Wolfenstein is noticeably bare, and DooM has much better textures on everything, but there just isn't much in the rooms other than health, ammo, and barrels. Really other than that I don't mind the aging of all these. MrBlackCat

I have played it... I had to basically... but I didn't get very far. I had some help. I like the original Duke Nukem 3D ok, but FPS's aren't my thing at all. I am more like Sims, Little Big Planet, and then old console arcade type games. My husband (MBC) has the largest collection of Duke Nukem stuff in the world. He made an 8ft Nuke Symbol in the flooring in here (game room). He said he doesn't have everything there is to own, but has all the stuff he likes, cause I just asked. The room is primarily themed Duke Nukem. But he says there isn't really a good compilation of all the Duke Nukem Forever media material that he is aware of... at least not in presentation. He followed Duke Nukem since the DOS Side-Scroller days (early 90's, before I knew him) and was active on the forums until a couple of years ago maybe. I know he has typed with people that worked on Duke Nukem 3D and Forever for years. He said the best place for information is a forum called Duke4.net, which we both used to be on, then got burned out... it is kind of wild-west like there. The game wasn't that bad, for a game that should have been released quite a few years earlier than it was. It had dumb parts, but I just played as a fighting guy and ignored the teenage bathroom humor stuff. There are some books about Duke Nukem development and history that he has here. One large and one small. I looked at them a little... they show some of the evolution which is interesting. Oh... and Thanatos, don't worry about hording... we have every magazine printed in English that featured Duke Nukem, like from all time periods... and everything else related to Duke Nukem... games, shirts, action figures, guides, memory cards, posters, store displays, Photo-Op Standees, statues, music CD's, etc... then there is all the custom stuff he made, weapons, RC truck (I think), and I don't even know all of it. MrBlackCat

<bleah> So metaphorically speaking, this thing is kind of like an El Camino of systems... worst of both worlds. "Weak, yet overpriced" Sounds like it will have tons of features, compared to a pet rock... As a non-technical gamer with an interest in plug & play type systems and zero desire to tinker with OS's, this is of no interest at this point. I would say "wait for the bargain bin" but this will not make it to production... anyone care to bet against it? This is NOTHING like a Nintendo Mini market-wise... even the Flashback stuff caught my attention way back (I think I saw a Flashback 2 first, at WalGreens) but for $30, that was interesting. But like Bill L said in the past... Flashbacks are "toys"... My point is that no homework is required or inspired on a retro toy at $30. But when you start talking over maybe $100, that is no longer reaction buy stuff. A person that is going to buy this AtariBox, at that price, is going to research it some… and this far, from what others have said, there is nothing to find that justifies the price, if said research was to occur. MrBlackCat

It isn't just free downloads from the PS Plus account, it is any game that was discounted or otherwise related to the PS Plus account. There are a LOT of games that do this... MBC bought a RockStar Bundle of some kind, so all of them do it. But again, this isn't just the free stuff (which we paid for anyway, just not directly) but any game sale price associated with the PS Plus account. No corruption or anything like that though. MrBlackCat

Not sure what version it was, but this was my favorite operating system... Hehehe... sorry, sorry... <closes the door behind me as I leave the thread> MrBlackCat

They look great... not looking for any new ones, but we have like 20 of the regular ones for pretty much everything made. If anyone is new to these covers, they are great quality and look great. MrBlackCat

Did you change anything on the card? My spouse says never to hot-swap cards even though they are made to do so... so I don't and have not killed a single card since then. I have three different cards (different game types on them), if you have another card, maybe you could check with it and make sure it isn't the Atari Portable itself. We don't have any issues with ours that so many people had, and I know he tried several types of cards in it, which all worked, when he got it. MrBlacKCat

I have a lot of compassion for people that need things... but I don't like entitlement attitudes. Maybe you have some kind of problem... Maybe you actually DO need some kind of help with OCD or something... endless maybe... I can't help with building a ROM dumping thingy, and I don't have the game either... and if I did have the game, I would not likely enjoy it or do very good at it anyway. Not my kind of game really... I was trying to help a bit by offering the only help I am fairly certain about, and that would be relative to obsessions. It doesn't even seem fun to you... I prefer to have fun playing games, although I must admit I have rage quit a cried a few times over the years. Anyway... I will ask my spouse about ROM Dumpers when he comes back in, but I am sure there are threads about it and people that know what it takes to do all of this. I found this when I Googled it real quick... https://www.atarimax.com/flashcart/documentation/index.html Just a suggestion... MrBlackCat

Cool! Honesty! I don't think we have played ours but maybe like 10 times, though a few of those times was for quite a while. I have played the knockoff one (550 game one) we got (not the cheap copy, but the cheap knockoff)... this is because of where it is hooked up. The knockoff hooks up in the main "flashback cabinet" he built, but that TV doesn't have HDMI, so the NES Classic Edition is hooked to the larger TV (WEGA) that is the only HDMI TV in the game room. MrBlackCat

There should be deadlines imposed on how long someone obsesses about some things also... like after 1 year, no one can look for it. Rules can work both ways you know. Two way street. You don't have to wait 20 years for someone to find it... you can stop waiting at any time. If you can't stop, then seek help maybe. it IS a choice, I promise. Stress from this is a choice... wants and needs are different things. Maybe you can practice doing without something else less obsessive and then work your way up to bigger and bigger things until you are able to choose what is important and what is not. Flashy aviators? I don't have any aviators, and I have not used a report button... just sayin'. (avatars maybe?) The game is still for sale... why would the ROM be available? Build a ROM dumpy thing and dump it for personal use if it is that important to you... that would take a lot less effort than all this stress. Just curious, why do you need to play it on the handheld? Do you have limited time on the console or something? MrBlackCat