Chuck Gill

Hi all, I've been away for awhile due to a catastrophic motherboard failure. Since I'm usually just lurking anyway I'm sure no one noticed mt absence, but it's good to be back. NorbytheRobot - I would be interested in more of Joe's boards, especially if I can help knock the price down for everyone. His boards get an A+ rating from me. Cassidy - They use only a 2732 eprom. That's cool because 2732's are easier to find. (and cheaper) If you need a cheap programmer and you have a vintage computer laying around, I have one I would sell cheap. Email me for details if interested. It won't work on a computer faster than a 386, but it will program most common 24 and 28 pin eproms up to the 27512. Chuck

Chris, Loved the stuff on Zork. My wife and I bought an expensive (at the time) disk drive for our Atari 800 primarily because of a desire to play Zork at home. I may have to drag it out and play them all again. (Or hunt them down for the PC.) -Chuck

I couldn't go, but I only live about 6 miles from the Kane County Fairgrounds. My son had 2 hockey games to play in and that took care of most of the day. Glad you found something there. Usually there isn't much in the way of videogames at the toy show. It's cool living in a county named after a WWF Superstar. -Chuck

Piper, These are cool and a lot of fun especially if you have an eprom burner. Here's a picture of mine, it's on a Froggo board. I may have to try to make an Atari eprom board based one just to use the awesome label Cassidy made. -Chuck

Matthias, The Fishing Derbi and Endurl look like they have the same case and style of label art. I wonder who made them. I have a couple of odd NES games too, Centipecle is one of my favorites. -Chuck

Jahfish, I scanned these beauties for you, I had the spelling a little wrong but here they are. They are the highlight of my Atari Oddities collection. The games on them are Spider Fighter and Seaquest and they appear to be NTSC versions. -Chuck

You are right about the chew toy, over the years I've had hundreds of Atari joysticks. The most common defect is teeth marks, I've seen some with the ends bitten clean off. -Chuck

Great thread! Our best 2600 finds were Marine Wars and Marauder with a garage sale lot and a sears Telegames II (the 2800 one) for $10. My favorite find was Spaidder Fight and Seea Gueeast for 88 cents each. The very best find was a 5200 lot for $35 that included 6 loaner carts and a ton of other stuff, including a 4 port 5200 that actually worked. My wife found it at a garage sale, bought it and drove over to where I work to show me. -Chuck

I played Spiderman a lot when it first came out. It's still a good 2600 game. I never really got into Popeye though. -Chuck

Hey Atarians, Somebody out there has to have tried to hook an Aussie 2600 to an American TV. Any success? -Chuck

Unwieldy is the word. I don't like the space age joystick that much. I usually use the regular Atari joystick or a suncom slik stick. I occasionally use a Sega master system controller, but it just doesn't seem right. You need the stick for the true Atari 2600 experience. -Chuck

I can't compain about Ebay, it has paid for a lot of my video game collection. On occasion I've even gotten some good deals on things I needed from Ebay, even non-video game related stuff too. (I got a pair of rare pontiac cylinder heads I needed for about one third of the price I would have paid anywhere else.) Ebay may have driven some of the game prices up, but if you sell a lot more stuff than you buy that kind of evens it out. A lot of the stuff we've sold (I say we because my wife does most of the Ebay work) arel things we've bought while hunting at garage sales, thrift stores and the like for video games and Pac-man stuff. Angelo is right though, there is nothing like finding a rarity at a garage sale for a bargain price. If your lucky like I was once you'll buy the rare games for next to nothing and the $2 taxidermisized Armadillo, then put the Armadillo on Ebay and watch it sell for a couple of hundred. Ebay rule #1, the stranger the item the more somebody will want it. Happy Easter, -Chuck

Thanks Rick! The lamp is about 14 inches tall and 6 inches across. The animation on it is pretty cool. It took us a long time to find one of these in good shape. -Chuck

Vicki & I took advantage of a little free time during spring break and updated the Virtual Pac-man museum. There are dozens of new items and the pictures have been reorganized for faster loading and navigation. Please give it a look The Virtual Pac-man Museum Our 2600 game collection and trade list is also there for all the world to see. -Chuck

We have two primary gaming areas in the house. The family room with the larger TV has a DreamCast, GameCube, and PS2 hooked up and ready to go. The basement game room has a 27" TV with the oldschool stuff. There's a 2600, 7800, 5200, TG16, NES, SNES, Genesis, SegaCD & a ColecoVision. There is also a Vectrex down there too. We've also got a PS1 and a spare Dreamcast that often find their way into the bedrooms. We still have a wide variety of ST and 8-bit Atari computer hardware. The real old stuff is in storage, Atari pinball, Stunt Cycle, Pong and the like. What no Intellivision?, -Chuck

Eduardo, Thanks for dumping the game, I doubt many of us would have ever seen the game any other way. Are all games from Brazil NTSC like this one? -Chuck

Wow, I just burned the cd for the DC 2600 emulator. It works great except that the sound isn't quite right. The PAL games even run on it without the vertical rolling. I'd like to add a few more roms to it, I guess I need to visit the links King_Asmo provided and see how it's done. Thanks for finding it Gabby. -Chuck

Thomas, Thanks for these PAL -> NTSC conversions. I appreciate your effort. (I'm sure others do too!) -Chuck

It looks just like my Sears Video Arcade II. I have the same controllers and everything. I would imagine that the American Sears version is quite a bit cheaper. -Chuck

Onco, I know how you feel. I tried to come up something good and just couldn't create anything that was worth submitting. I'm glad there were others that could though. The final product is going to be great. Chuck

Junie, MojoFLTR called it. I made the cart after Paul posted the Combat Rock bin. I did find the casette at goodwill on Friday. Then I made the label for it on my trusty (yet inexpensive) lexmark. I guess I'll have to find a balogna graphic. -Chuck

We were out and about today and ran across the Combat Rock gift pack at the Goodwill. It even has the super ultra rare picture label on the Atari game. -Chuck

Sark, No WD-40? But it fixes everything, and it smells so good. Seriously, I've used WD-40 on paddles for years and never had a problem yet. I just squirt a SMALL amount in the opening in the pot under the lugs that the wires are soldered to and work it back and forth. It seems to last longer than contact or TV tuner cleaner. Your connector should be there Friday. -Chuck

Thonas, Thanks, I really appreciate what you've accomplished. I'm sure I speak for a lot of others too. -Chuck

Look what I found, an ultra rare Combat Rock prototype. Amazingly it looks almost new. -Chuck