Turbo-Torch
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Posts posted by Turbo-Torch
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I bought a SuperCharger when it first came out and that's the box they used. I definitely remember the 49X more RAM power. Unfortunately that box is long gone.
And NO it's not PAL thing. I bought it at Camelot Music in our local mall and the price was 44.95.
I bought a 7800 in 1990 and it killed that original SuperCharger. A few years later I bought 2 new sealed units off RGVC from someone who found a large stash of them. I was surprised when the boxes arrived as they were totally different.
You were no longer buying a SuperCharger with the free game Phaser Patrol. You were now buying Phaser Patrol which included the SuperCharger. There is very little information about the SuperCharger itself on those boxes.
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Never knew that existed and I've been a huge fan of the SC since it came out.
Shows off the games, shows off the graphics, gives technical information and it's interactive! That's one of the coolest 2600 items I've ever seen.
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There were different power supplies used depending on manufacture date and options installed. Some only have one RIFA cap and that's all you need to replace.
Those power supplies are damn near bullet proof. Even if the RIFA explodes, it'll still continue to work.
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I clicked on one from my company phone yesterday and it took me to a Facebook page that reads "You are going to a link outside of Facebook" and then gives me a choice to Go Back or Follow Link. It also shows a lengthy link containing cococrew.org. Clicking on Follow the Link worked.
Company phone was using data in another town and has never been used for Facebook.
Tried it again on my Windows laptop at home (wifi, vpn off) and it does the same thing. I won't click Follow the Link on my Windows PC as redirects are sketchy as hell...and I probably shouldn't have done it on my phone either.
And those urls above do start off with l.facebook.com followed by the longest list of characters I've ever seen in a url.
Might just be a referral thing, but still sketchy.
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Does media mail have to be in a cardboard box? If not, that looks like a nice sturdy box that can be used to ship a few books. lol
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I built a serial SIO2PC adapter a million years ago. It works fine with an inexpensive USB to Serial dongle.
btw, killer deal on that setup!
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VGA is currently e-waste that you can't throw away without paying a fee. Times are changing quickly and that probably won't be the case 5 years from now. Back in November I found out how difficult it is to find a RGB/TTL (CGA) monitor.
A barely working 1084S is usually a guaranteed $250 on eBay. A nice one with a new flyback, HOT, power switch and chroma mod can set you back $500+.
I got lucky and found a Magnavox 1CM135 locally (holy grail of the 1084S/CM8833 line). Even though it was a low hour unit, the flyback did fail 2 weeks ago. Flyback has become unobtainium and I had to have a new one shipped from Ireland for about $65. Worth every penny and happy to have it running like new again.
I have to laugh at various forum posts from around 2015 where so many people say to throw away the monitor and find another because it's not worth the $30 cost of a new flyback.
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1 hour ago, RJ said:
OMG that's a great idea for a Christmas-themed Centipede game.
Programmers get on it NOW!!!
Don't forget about the reindeer!
I was doing some work at a grade school and walked around a corner to be greeted by this twisted monstrosity...
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On 2/9/2022 at 5:51 PM, 0078265317 said:
He finally changed the description.
Good to know! The world is a better place now. ?
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I think I solved it within an hour of buying it as the hint in the manual pretty much gave you the answer. Still a cool game that had a lot of replay value.
I'd love to see another version on a later system.
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19 hours ago, ColecoGamer said:
My first entertainment title was Thexder by Sierra
That was the first game I put on the CF card.
It plays like it was designed for the 1000. Starflight is another I really enjoyed, took a while to find the version that supports Tandy graphics. Marble Madness and both Arkanoids are really well done too.
19 hours ago, ColecoGamer said:(2) 3.5” Floppy Drives
Did you have the 1000 HX that came with a single 3.5 drive and a blank bay for another next to it? It was cool how they modified the EX case in order to pull that off. I'd still like to know what happens if you hooked up an external drive while having both internals? Would it show the external as C:?
I had both the 5.25 and 3.5 external drives, but of course could only hook one or the other up as drive B.
I bought each on sale. The 5.25 rarely went on sale for $149 marked down from $249. Oddly, the 3.5 was always on sale for $99 with an original cost of $289. I remember finding the store manager's order book in an aisle and noticed $99 was their cost and $289 was the selling price. Every item on all the pages I flipped though seemed to have a 300% or higher markup.
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Added a few more accessories.
Installed an NEC V20 cpu for ~20% performance increase. With shipping it was $8.41 off eBay. And whatever that speedPAK delivery is...holy crap, it made it from China to my mailbox in 5 days!
Checkit shows a nice increase and games like Silpheed don't slow down as much.
Put together a dual port ISA RS232 card. It was difficult to find a card that had the extra set of chips installed to enable the 2nd port. Bought one without the chips and then a 2nd larger card (too big to fit in the EX) that was upgraded. Used those chips and modified the bracket for the smaller card. COM 1 is 25 pin and COM 2 is 9 pin. XTIDE fits nicely above it.
Next is an ArcaneByte WiFi modem. I love the dial up experience, but now wish I bought one these ages ago. It understands the Hayes AT command set. ATDT followed by an address (instead of a phone number) and you're hooked right up. Currently over 1,000 BBSs out there to explore and no more long distance charges!
Works great with my Model III too.
Downright awesome being able to use a real 1000EX, with my original copy of Telix to play TradeWars again!
Just needs the clock/calendar kit to max it out. And maybe the 3.5" external floppy drive.
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I wouldn't consider it a hit as it's quite rare and I believe it was only available as a kit (usually to convert a tmnt).
I had it set up in a dynamo cab about 25 years ago and the wow factor lasted a few hours...a hectic, button mashing game that had little to do with the graphic novel from the early 80s. The completely different NES version is much better imo.
I still have the board set, marquee and new side art that was never applied.
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Look at the side art of an original PacMan that hasn't been restored. Top corner on the left side will always be worn away and the right side will have next to no wear. For some reason people liked to hold onto those corners with their free hand, and since lefties are a minority, no wear on the right side.
I'm right handed, and given the choice, right hand will always use the joystick which requires the most control.
Along came Nintendo with their assbackwards d-pad controllers, but for some reason it seems to work in that form.
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2 hours ago, Asaki said:
How much was it?
Final bid was $162.50
Monitor $100
XT-IDE $39
2 ISA adapters $27
2GB CF $12
Stand $34
If you already have a monitor kicking around, that's a big part of it. Make sure it supports RGB TTL and not just analog. The monitor I bought has been selling in the $300 to $500 range on eBay, I got lucky finding it locally for $100.
An RGB to HDMI converter is another option. texelec just started offering one on their site for $70 which is pretty slick if it works as good as they say.
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A big purchase (up there with my first used car) was a Tandy 1000 EX I bought when in high school. The local BBS scene was all about MSDOS systems, and my Model III wasn't getting much support anymore by 1987.
RS always had great sales and I ended up purchasing mine for $600 along with a serial card for $80 and CM4 monitor on closeout for $100. For less than the normal $800 price, I had a nice IBM compatible setup and was going crazy with downloads.
I soon added the Plus board for full 640K and the 3.5" external disk drive.
One day a REALLY big local BBS showed up and it mirrored Rusty n Edie's BBS out of Ohio. If you don't know the story Google it.
It was at that point I decided I needed a hard drive for all the sweet high end software and games rolling in every night.
Unfortunately, RS didn't offer a hard drive kit for the EX, so I sold it and bought a 1000 SL with a 32mb hardcard. For some reason, I always regretted selling the EX.
Been looking on/off for a few years now and recently noticed one on eBay with the 640K Plus card (rare and necessary) and a 300 baud internal modem. Put a bid in and got it for far less than I thought I would.
Seller was one of those 2 sentence description guys with a few meh pictures, but it ended up being one of those way better than expected eBay experiences.
Big box shows up, remove the brown paper wrap and it's in the original box. Open it up and it was like 1987 again; EX was in the original soft foam, all manuals on top and the disk folder containing the original DOS and DeskMate disks were inside. Pull the EX out and it looks like new!
Boots up and works perfect. Took it apart and it was dust free, including the fan.
The composite output on a TV looked just as bad as I remembered, so off to find a CGA monitor which is pretty much unobtainium these days. Ended up finding a very low hour Magnavox on FB marketplace for $100...more than I wanted to spend, but a really nice monitor that's a deluxe version of the 1084 or cm8833. Stereo speakers, small dot pitch and perfect convergence...far better than anything RS ever offered.
ISA adapters were ordered from Australia. I suspected the EX was ISA pin compatible back in the day but couldn't source the connectors to try and build my own.
Ordered a Blue Lava mini CF XT-IDE card off eBay (the item that makes it all worth it!). Also, after hours of searching, I found a monitor stand that can support a CRT and is similar to the RS original which allows access to the side disk drive.
Just got it all set up. Still plan on replacing the internal modem with a serial card and buying an external wifi modem to give the internet BBS scene a try.
No fugly yellowing here.
ISA to Plus adapter is on the left. Blue Lave XT-IDE on right.
I bought a 2GB Verbatim CF card on Amazon to replace the 64MB one that was included.
640K DMA memory expansion board on bottom, 300 baud modem in center and XT-IDE on top.
Heck yeah! 1,997 MB hard drive on a 1000 EX!
Awesome 16 color TGA graphics and sound.
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15 minutes ago, GoldLeader said:
Yet we were still going (Hell, driving ourselves!) to arcades (Often somewhat bummed by the lack of classic games, which would have been huge if just one place had brought back some old classics (especially vector games))
So true. The variety seemed to vanish by the late 80s to the point it was nothing but cheesy fighters and large cockpit racing games that cost as much as $1 a play. If you walked into a game room and saw a Moon Patrol or Tempest, it was like oh cool! and you'd go right to it. I'm sure a lot of the older games simply wore out and it wasn't worth it for the operators to keep repairing them...especially the vectors.
I think some arcade owners did catch on because of all those bootleg abortions that were turning up everywhere in the late 80s. Janky spray painted black cabinets, CRT burn-in from 10 different games, weird ass controls and ROMs that could range from a bit off to wtf were they thinking? I believe they were getting new boards from China and cobbling together cabinets from whatever they had laying around.
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Like many here, I never knew there was a crash.
The first time I knew something wasn't quite right was when I bought 2600 Popeye at Sears for $10 and got a $10 rebate. The display even had a yellow sign showing it was free after mail in rebate.
Next was 2600 MASH at Camelot Music. $2.50 and that included a nice MASH T-shirt that was shrink wrapped in with the game. That one had a $5 rebate. Free game, shirt and they paid me $2.50.
I figured the 5200 and Colecovision were taking over and that was it. From '84 up I was more into home computers and 2600, 5200, Intellivision and Colecovision games continued to be on store shelves with new titles coming out, so I never gave it a second thought. NES was released and home video games continued on stronger than ever.
I first heard of the term crash in the early 90s when I discovered alt.atari and rec.games.video.collecting.
If cheap games and consoles = crash then the 90s was a total disaster. Jag for $25, Virtual Boy $20, TG16 $20, 7800 with 5 games for $25, Lynx II bundle with like a dozen games and accessories for $70, JVC X'eye $80, 32X $20, Dreamcast $50.
Games for all the above pennies on the dollar. Good times.
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On 12/17/2021 at 2:04 AM, Frozone212 said:
anything on tandy? anyone?
Outside of the Model 2000 (for home environment), there was nothing to hate about Tandy.
My uncle gave me a Model III when I was 12 and it's still going strong after 40 years. I'll never let that one go.
The I, III, 4, CoCo, 100 and 1000 line were amazing systems back in the day for the home user.
I had a decent job while in high school and bought a 1000 EX when things started moving to PC compatibles. Loved that computer. 256K out of the box, 3 voice sound plus another noise channel and TGA graphics which blew away CGA (all the good games back then supported Tandy's better graphics and sound). It was 100% IBM compatible for people who weren't computer illiterate. If you didn't know what a DOS config.sys file was, then not even a real IBM would work well for you. And if you couldn't read a software box that mentioned a certain version of DOS was required, once again, you'll have issues and should have stuck with a computer that used plug in cartridges.
I upgraded the EX rather cheaply to 640K with the Plus expansion board and added the external 3.5" floppy. It did have ISA expansion slots but they were proprietary connectors (called Plus) and unfortunately Tandy never offered a hard drive system for it.
Eventually I wanted a hard drive, so I sold the EX and used that money towards a 1000 SL. That was another kickass computer ahead of the game. 384K out of the box and like $50 bucks to bump it to 640K by simply populating the MB. It had a faster 8086 processor and 8087 math coprocessor socket. Not only did it have the awesome TGA graphics, but Enhanced TGA which allowed 16 colors in hi-res mode and it was also Hercules compatible. Same 3 voice sound but it also had a DAC for high quality sound samples. This wasn't just for sound effects in games, you could input and edit your own sound samples with a patch cord. It also had an enhanced keyboard, which was much nicer and had more keys than the original 1000 line and far better than pretty much any clone on the market. The expansion slots were normal ISA so I was able to add a 32mb hard card and a Creative Labs GameBlaster. For a system that was well under $1,000 in the late 80s and ran any software you threw at it, it was hard to beat. Although, for some reason, I liked my 1000 EX better. As a matter of fact, I just recently bought a pristine boxed EX and will be posting about it in the Tandy section soon.
The biggest disappointment was my Tandy 2000. It was a unique situation where I bought it while I owned the EX.
Radio Shack used the 2000s to run their stores and started to upgrade in the late 80s. My local store offered the whole thing to me for $100. It was the end all be all system with every single item in the catalog installed in it or on it.
Internal HD that allowed both 80 track floppies to remain. Crazy amount of memory. Hi-res color graphics card for CAD, CM-1 color hi-res monitor, 1200 modem and the list went on. It was a $10K system according to the prices in their catalog.
I knew it ran MSDOS and ASSumed it was reasonably IBM compatible due to the way it was advertised for years. When I got it home, I realized it was the worst $100 I ever spent. Yeah, it could run MSDOS and IBM programs...as long as those programs didn't make use graphics.
I ended up letting my best friend take it to his house so we could play TradeWars 2000 on the local BBSs and never got it back. Till this day, he keeps telling me he's going to give it back because it's still at his parent's house. lol
I do want to say, the 2000 was NOT a crap system. It was an 80186 business system with mind blowing specs when it was introduced. There were specific versions of popular business software made for it, and in the right office environment, not much could touch it. I think of it more like the Model II business series machines.
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I'd start off cheap and simple by replacing those two radial capacitors.
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Best game name: Communist Mutants From Space
Company name and logo: Running With Scissors
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Ok figured it out.
In case any Opera users run into this...
Menu
Settings
Site Settings
Click View Permissions and Data Stored Across Sites
Click on atariage.com
Scroll to Insecure Content and change it to Allow. (default is blocked)
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It's working fine under firefox now. ? It just took a while for the link to turn into the photo, as Anders mentioned.
I'll have to dig into Opera settings more. After 15 years of Firefox, I recently switched and don't want to go back.
It plays like it was designed for the 1000. Starflight is another I really enjoyed, took a while to find the version that supports Tandy graphics. Marble Madness and both Arkanoids are really well done too.
Works great with my Model III too.
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Starpath Supercharger 'Large Box' Variation
in Atari 2600
Posted
I can't remember. I think I still have the dead SC, I'll see if I can find it.