Mitkraft

I had an old top loading VCR with the setup you describe with the multiple small tuning knobs which correspond to each of several preset buttons. I don't recall ever seeing it on a TV though. Great description on the dual knob setup btw. That was a perfect explanation.

You should put down the shovel.

I did you the courtesy of not flagging your ad since I saw it via this post and don't live in your area, but FYI, I regularly flag CL ads with $1 as a price when they aren't selling anything for a dollar. You should refrain from listing any price in the price field of the ad unless it is a legitimate price. I'm pretty sure those are CL rules as well. Doing anything else simply seems as if you are trying to deliberately thwart peoples attempts to create meaningful searches that only show results pertinent to what they are searching for. That being said, GLWTS.

I thought that was an old PC gameport extension cable. I wonder if they are the same.

One thing I've read about is the Atari's weak RF signal not registering on some modern TV's. Some people have resolved this by using a VCRs tuner to receive the Atari signal. Alternatively you could find an older CRT TV to test it on. If you don't have one a drive around your area on trash day would have a high likelihood of yielding a free one.

I still have those laying around. I also have a more complicated version that has separate UHF, VHF, and FM out. It works great for getting antenna to the receiver in the entertainment center. Bet many of the youngins around here don't even know about the separation of UHF and VHF. Anybody else remember the VHF knob with stops for each specific channel along with the UHF knob with no specific stops? turn...turn..turn..turn.....too far! lol.

I wonder if getting an SVHS vcr would yield any better final picture over a standard VHS since SVHS vcr's have svideo out? I have a pretty good JVC SVHS VCR but its in my A/V rack which is in a different room from my console setup. Plus I'm not using RF on any of mine since the Atari is AV modded.

Holy crap I can't believe I missed this! That's what I get for not staying on top of AA like I do KLOV. If for some reason this sales doesn't go through I want it!

Yesterday was my first purchase from Fuji. I live on the opposite side of town and he readily offered to meet me at the Best Buy not too far from him. Bought a large lot of Atari, Sega, and TI stuff. Everything was as described and a very good price for it all. I would buy or sell from him again in a heartbeat! Great person to deal with.

I'm not giving up on garage sales. While searching for that rare game or arcade find, I've gotten this recently: Broken laptop (windows 7 vintage) = free, fixed it all except touch pad. 23" LCD monitor = $10 Ryobi 18v One+ cordless hedge trimmers and hybrid string trimmer = $10 Micro projector = $3 That stuff alone is worth $300 easy and that just some of my loot. At least while looking for games I can find other needs or Ebay fodder to fund my game purchases.

That really is a cool story but I'm not sure what exactly it tells us except to maybe prove that we really have stopped hitting the garage sales and thrift stores for lack of success. I seriously can't believe you didn't even sell one. Well, I take that back, I think people interested in and looking for vintage games are a minority at garage sales. I think the two major groups hitting the garage sales are people with little money and people into vintage/antique stuff like clothes, furniture and housewares. I also think your rare games might have suffered by being not only sprinkled in with commons, but with the low price people just assumed they were crap games. I've seen it a lot where something valuable is seriously under priced and never sells but when it gets priced at a more appropriate level suddenly people recognize it as valuable.

All of these are hardly played if at all. Box conditions range from great to mint. I've had all of them since they were brand new. Several of them were promo copies I got when I used to work at a talk radio show about computers in the late nineties. Tomb Raider II is probably the only one I played very much and even that wasn't very much by most standards. Star Wars Jedi Knight Dark Forces (No box, just disc, case and manual) - $5 Star Wars Jedi Knight Mysteries of the Sith (jewel case unopened and still shrink-wrapped, No box, just disc, case and manual) - $7 Evolution (unopened and still in shrink wrap) - $5 Outpost 2 Divided Destiny - $8 Lighthouse The Dark Being - $5 $23 takes all 5! SOLD - Tomb Raider II (probably played a handfull of times) - $15 SOLD - Tomb Raider The Last Revelation (Not sure if its been played at all) - $15 SOLD - Command & Conquer Red Alert (Still has shrinkwrap which was only opened at the top. Played maybe once or twice) - $15 SOLD - Command & Conquer Red Alert Counterstrike (unopened) - $15

That's funny. I've had the opposite experience. So far every "make an offer" seller I've contacted on eBay has refused my offer.

Whats the story with the Joysticks like those (with the orange box around the fire button and the orange directional arrows) as opposed to both of my sets that are all black except for the fire button? I've seen that before and keep meaning to look into the difference. This thread is a bad influence btw. If I were a fish then shiny TI hardware would make a perfect lure!

FYI, not sure if the price fluctuates or what but I got the pair a few weeks ago for $8.95+$4.39shipping.

I have a pair I bought for my Atari 2600. Same seller sold them by the pair. I'll try to remember and try them out on the TI and report back. I only have the standard TI joysticks to test with though.

Your method seems like a pretty round-about way to go. It would be dependent on finding a TV tuner card that worked in your computer AND had an NTSC tuner. Most of the ones that work in modern computers are going to be ATSC (digital). Alternatively you could also use a capture card with composite video input and either buy a composite cable for the TI or cut the cable off the RF modulator and make your own. Unless you are using an older OS you might also have trouble finding drivers for it. But if you can satisfy all those, it should work but the picture quality may not be great. I'd second the suggestion for an F18A and a VGA switcher which should be super easy to find. the F18A picture quality is a hundred times better than the quality on a TV using RF input. If for some reason a PC TV tuner solution is the best solution for you, let me know and I might be able to help you. I used to tinker tuner/capture cards a lot back in the day and may have some laying around. It would just be a matter of whether the tuner card/dongles I had worked with your system.

While picking up a TV from a local selling on CL I told him I was going to use it for retro-gaming and talked to him briefly about my TI 99/4A and he told me he had a Commodore set I might be interested in. So he emailed me pictures of it and it turns out its a VIC20 collection with console, joysticks and games. I just expected some misc. hardware but these games all look nice and boxed! I never had my hands on one of these systems BITD but the first computer I begged for (and never got) was a C64 so I'm sorta interested but I have no idea what to offer or what this collection is worth. Any guidance is appreciated.

I started watching this auction when it was cheap and I really wanted it but the price went way out of my range. Its a really cool bit of history. Was it any of you that got it? http://www.ebay.com/itm/151677117555

Looks like we posted at almost the same time and with totally opposite opinions. I'm curious, have you done any comparison of RF VS Composite VS S-video on the Atari? Because I'd never in a million years call composite "excellent" and RF on the Atari is weak at best unless you have a Heavy Sixer which as I understand it had a better modulator.

I don't know about the converter or your end result of displaying on what I assume is an HD-display since the Atari is so low-res to begin with, but I can attest to the composite and s-video differences in the electronic sentimentalities board. I installed that same board in mine and originally had it displaying on a 27" CRT that only had composite input. I tried feeding it both the direct composite signal as well as the s-video signal via a passive svideo to composite adapter. Even then the s-video was slightly better. But then I got a 27" TV with a proper s-video input the different was pretty noticeable. Less color bleeding was the most notable improvement. Even though there is still some, its pretty minimal now. Since you've already got the mod board all you have to do is solder in the s-video jack and the resistor. Its surely worth that simple step.

I want to add my voice to this and say that I'm pretty new here but I have found this to be an awesome resource. When I first decided to pull out my old TI and realized I didn't have all my uncle's old software and cartridges, I thought I would be pretty limited and toying with the TI would be a short lived novelty. But after stumbling on this forum and seeing all the enthusiasm and things that not only the TI can do but that you guys have developed for it, I find myself more and more drawn to being a TI "hobbyist". I've already purchased an F18A, an XB 2.7 cart, and a Navarone expander. I'm also planning an HDX DSR mod to my serial card and some other goodies. In short, my return to the 99/4A is a thousand times more fun and rewarding thanks to this forum and the hard work of its members.

Thank you. I need to go do some information absorbing so that I can better grasp some of the terms and concepts like Grom, Ubergrom, Gram..etc. I only loosely grasp them at the moment. I should have previously but I didn't fully understand that the XB cart was/contained an Ubergrom.

Can you point me to "that" thread? I did a search and found some vague references to something about the expander not working with certain carts but not a thread dedicated to it or specific to the XB 2.7. Thanks!

So I got my Navarone Cartridge Expander from eBay yesterday, tried it out and discovered it behaved strangely. First, the 3 carts I have didn't really lock in place all that well. It seems they don't snap down completely against the expander and they seem to have a significant bit of "wiggle". 1 of the carts is standard TI and the other two are Atarisoft. Also the XB 2.7 suite cart seems to play havoc on the expander. It seems to take over and if its in the expander then the XB 2.7 menu loads regardless of which cart is selected. On several attempts the XB 2.7 initial menu would load but when I hit the space bar to see the games sub-menu it would go to a blue screen and hang there. Are these things normal? Are there known repairs or mods to the expander that I might need to do? If XB 2.7 won't behave with the expander than that kinda makes the expander useless since I'm guessing XB will be my most used cart. My hope was that I could leave it in place and only change carts 2&3 when desired. Thanks!