Ferris

Lee dude what did you do to me ...I couldnt stop thinking about your Colecovision Jr. unit you made (which looks REALLY nice by the way) and I literally ended up dreaming about it last night. Geez. Maybe game mod and homebrew dreams are normal for some of you but this is a first-timer for me.

I use the ProLine Joysticks most of the time just for nostalgia sake but ya know, when I was a kid and first got the 7800 I really disliked those controllers. They were too uncomforatable for my hands when my hands were still small. I ended up getting a joystick from Wico called The Boss. I haven't ever run across one of these again but it was a VERY nice joystick that was fully compatibile with the 7800. Twin fire buttons, comfort grip, the works. If I remember correctly the stick was grey and white. I bought the stick when I was in Ontario and it was like the only joystick around and I never found it again here in this country. Maybe this was only for the Canadian market? I'm not sure. Either way I suppose that would work in your benefit. What type of joystick do you currently use on your 7800?

Seems weird to me.

I prefer the VSX myself

ha

Cousin Vinnie has a really nice review about this game and discusses all of this. You can visit his webpage here: http://www.bigfishusa.com/7800/commandor.html

Lee - Wow man. I had no idea that you were behind all of that stuff. This is the first time I have seen the CVjr, and WOW. For some reason that just totally impresses me beyond belief. I always thought that thing was so haneously large. It's nice to see something like that so well done with all the attention to detail that you gave it. I really like how you recreated the front label. Was that printed on paper or is that actually some sort of aluminum? I'd like to try something like that on a 5200 to make a 5100 style 5200 jr. I did see someone put together a 5200 inside of a 2600 jr with a ton of games built in. It was nifty.

You would think it would work just fine but there are a few titles out there that sort of suck with the paddle and I dont know why.

E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial. You can't forget E.T. ....Halloween was the nite E.T. went out to try to phone home and got lost in that ditch, remember? And Elliot came home all pale and white-faced and almost died. Besides, most people need some sort of nostalgic enthusiasm to get that game going.

I heard a *rumor* once that Impossible Mission was being done on the Lynx. I saw it listed in one of the very early editions of GamePro Magazine in the summer of 1989 when it was brand new. Does anybody know if this was ever thrown around as a title for the Lynx? I would think it would have been under development since the Lynx its self was developed by Epyx and much of the Lynx software was programed at Epyx as well.

Hey - I'm looknig for a mint in the box Super Famicom, SNES to SF converter, and Super Famicom version of Pilot Wings. If anyone is interested in selling one to me, please private message me and I'll get back to you.

THANK YOU Dutchman! v Thank you, thank you, thank you! I have been dying for that game on the 5200 since I was like five years old. Put me down for the first copy of that when it goes on sale. Do me a favor though. I have a Rubio CX52P paddle controller. It would be really nice to see Tempest be 5200 paddle friendly. That would just make my year. *nudge, nudge* Good luck!

That's true. It's definately an oddity and in a way it's nice that someone like Eric is around to provide a nice home for such a thing. I don't mean to rag too much on that 7800, and I sure hope Eric doesn't take personal offense to it. People rag on me alot just because I play Atari in general while everyone else is off playing xBox, and it's not very fun. The point of the matter though is that it seriously rubs me the wrong way when people misrepresent what they are selling, or who they are, etc. and that's what I'm inclined to believe happened with these 7800 decks. Out of everyone here I'm probabally the most inclined to be open-minded about that unit because of all the oddities I have seen in the DeLorean world. It very well could have been some dealership making that in their BIG garage... but I just don't think so. Oh well... it certainly brings a lot of attention to Eric's collection which might I add features a *very cool* copy of Marlboro Man for the Lynx. Quite nifty indeed. As for the John Deere 2600, I'd like to see a link to that one. I haven't seen that in several years as well.

I don't remember my actual high score, I will have to look it up. It's from sometime in 1997. The story tho is that I was in the week approaching my final exam week for like 10th grade or whatever, and had gotten stressed out from all the studying and my brain was fried. The only thing that's really any good at un-frying my brain is a good game of Asteroids or Galaga or some kind of classic Atari shooter where concentration is key and there is no ending to beat the game. I started on the third skill level (the highest one) and started playing. I played for like two hours and for some reason, all that studying had put me in this transe where I was like that kid from D.A.R.Y.L. and I could just handle anything the game threw at me. After a while I had to stop to study again. Instead of turning off the console, I just put it on pause and turned off the tv. This routine continued for the rest of the study week and the rest of the exam week its self. About 2 or 3 hours a day of Galaga. It relieved my stress and I kept working on a high score. I kept that game going until school got out and I had to go to Florida for 3 months during the summer. For those 3 months the 7800 sat on pause waiting for my return. When I got home 3 months later, my game was still sitting there and I picked it back up and played for an entire weekend straight. I finally lost my last ship some three days later. In the end, I think I kept that game going longer than most reasonable people would have. I'm also pretty sure I rolled the score about three times but don't quote me n that just yet, lol. Either way, that's the Atari story that sticks out in my head whenever someone asks me about a high score.

My grandfather worked for Jaguar in England about ten years ago or so, just as he was retiring. I remembering him actually *asking* me about the Jaguar situation. Being a huge Atari freak, I still didn't know what to tell him. From what I remember, Jaguar (the car company) had asked for one Jaguar (the Atari) unit, and Tramiel refused. Jaguar (the car company) had no problem with Atari using the name "Jaguar" on the game system and did not want to persue Atari legally, however the only consideration they asked for was one Jaguar (Atari) unit so they could have an idea as to what it was Atari was marketing. Tramiel declined, and Jaguar (the car company) got pissed. That's just typical Tramiel lore which I guarantee is based in fact. I'm sure most of you are familiar with Jack's business tactics which crossed the ethical line on several occasions. This is one of those times where I wish he would have been a man and not been such a cheapskate. As for the DeLorean Atari thing, I tend to go along with everyone else in thinking this was something more along the lines of a "John Deere 2600 VCS" than some sort of wacky promotion. It just smells like rotten tuna if you ask me. As a DeLorean owner, I am not quick to discount wacky promotions, etc, because there have been so many in the past. One car dealer was offering "60 lbs of Coke" with every DeLorean sold in 1983, including a palate of 6-packs of Coca-Cola when a car was purchased as a gag on John DeLorean's cocaine situation. Stuff like that was normal. But as an avid Atari enthusiast I have to remain skeptical of everything, as I have been burned one-too-many times. When I first heard of that thing it was like five or six years ago when I was still in high school. I saw one on ebay that was going for 10x what it should have. I emailed the seller asking what the deal was and I got the same old story about the dealership in Ohio or whatever. It just didnt seem legit and I never found anything Atari-related or DeLorean-related to confirm that story so I passed on it, with no regrets. I called all the old DeLorean dealerships in Ohio and no one had heard of such a thing. If anyone could confirm the authenticity of something like that it would have been me. The whole thing just seemed silly and the ebay price was ludicrous. I just didn't get it. Like, what was the point? Aside from the black one I saw at a DeLorean get-together in 1997, I haven't heard anything else on those things in like five years. Can't we all just agree to not paint Ataris anymore? (makes me wanna put a foot up somebody's ass) On the topic of bastardized illegitimate Ataris, what ever happened to that John Deere VCS thing anyways? I saw those on line with green cartridges and an entire "John Deere edition" VCS system and joystick. I don't ever remember seeing it on ebay or anything but I couldn't figure out if it was just some sort of humorous webpage just poking fun at the 2600 or if someone was actually out there pushing that thing. Anybody know the story? Okay well I've written so much I have given myself a headache. Time to head to bed. *yawn*

Wow that's really interesting. I never knew that before. Did they work well with the people at Atari? I know that they were basically forced into business with Atari after having lost a civil suit over intellectual property issues. Did the Atari/GCC cultures mesh well or was there a lot of atomicity?

Lol then that sounds promising! Are the fire buttons still some sort of rubber? Do they feel more solid?

Curt - Who developed this development system? Was it GCC, Atari, or a third party?

Are they Christian? I wasnt aware of that. I thought they were just educational. Either way, it's some sort of book publishing and literary resource company up in Toronto. They will allow for these cartridges to be manufactured but money must be raised to pay for all of the legal fees. The company has been pretty cool so far. I'm guessing the guys who did the Starpath Supercharger CD roms had to negotiate with this same company.

I can't remember the exact name off of the top of my head. I think the name of the company is Breckenridge Books or Brickstone Books or something. They are a company based out of Toronto, Ontario that publishes educational text books for Canadian schools. They aren't in the software business at all, so I'm not sure why they bought the rights to Epyx. They also own the rights to Starpath and the Starpath Supercharger.

I got out of 5200 gaming quite a long time ago, basically for this very reason. I was frusterated by the gameplay. My buttons never worked and even if I would have them serviced, they would fall apart again. My question is, are these Best Electronics advancements really so significant as to change the entire feel of gameplay on the 5200 when using the cx52? Does the controller as a whole feel that much more solid? I am about to reinvest in 5200 gaming again because I can't stand to miss out on this classic system. Im really a 2600/7800 kinda guy but the 5200 still holds a very warm place in my heart... just not the joysticks. So...is it worth it?

...Don't you just HATE that??

What I want to know is who is HIRO? On the front of the box, the name HIRO appears in the bottom right of the gameart on the box. It also appears on Centipede, even on the 7800 version. I'm assuming this is the artist's name obviously, but what is the deal with this? Anyone know?

Good luck with that! I enjoy playing around with the 5200 even more than the 2600. Plus it's not too hard to port over to 400/800/XE

I didn't do the fix myself. I was working on one for some time, but back then I didn't understand the 7800 as well as I should have to be working on it. When this fix was presented to me, I just gave up on the one I was working on. It appears to be fairly complicated, but doable. Let me see if I can get permission to get this fix released. I know that there are a lot of people out there anxious for an Impossible Mission fix. Thing is, like I said its not *MY* fix... I just have permission to get it published on a cartridge, and that's only if I can get things cleared up with the people who bought Epyx.