Toucan

Fully complete and playable. However, as Sometimes99er pointed out, there is a clause in the contract where it can't be distributed

I'd personally like to see an RPG like Final Fantasy made for the TI. Something like that would be neat. Maybe a sequel to Tunnels of Doom that takes place above ground and is similar to a Final Fantasy type of game.

Munchman looked like 2600 Pac Man? No. Much better. TI Invaders looked like 2600 Space Invaders? No. Much better. I could go down a list if I had one handy. Yes, some were not so great - especially the early ones. But I can't agree with your statement. Well, just check out www.videogamehouse.net. Nothing to be ashamed of there (at least in my opinion)

[Double Post Removed]

Not saying that the two games you mentioned aren't total crap (I actually kinda like Hustle, but The Attack is a piece of garbage). But consider that when those were being made, you had clueless TI people who treated all software development, especially games, as an afterthought. In retrospect, it seems pretty obvious you'd want to dazzle people right off the bat with the capabilities of your machine, and that it might make some sense to hire a graphic designer or two to wow the folks with your software, and make the hardware a must-have that way. But in 1979-1980, they were inventing the home computer industry as they went. They had no idea. By the time the machine's user base got too big to ignore, we started seeing games like Fathom, Microsurgeon, TI's Q*Bert port - hell, Parsec's a nice-looking game. If there'd been one or two more years of active development in the games field, by full-time game coders, we'd have really seen some amazing things, and a lot of great programming knowledge would have been learned. Also, like mentioned above, much of the energy of the TI community that remained loyal has been focused on hardware, utility software, etc. I think people that were way into gaming over all else probably defected to Spectrum or Commodore pretty quickly once TI went under and the third-party houses dropped what little support they'd started to show. Also don't forget that Hustle, The Attack, and Blasto were programmed by Milton Bradley for the oringinal TI-99/4 which does not have bitmap capabilities (TI-99/4A did). Therefore, it is a more limited chip than the MSX. In my experience the TI games just got better and better as time went on, as the games got more and more advanced. Almost anything from 1983 from TI looked good, such as Slymoids. All I know is that I enjoy Hustle even with its graphics not being very hot, it kind of gives it a charm since it makes it feel like an early title which it is.

Hey all, The latest issue of Retrogaming Times Monthly was posted on October 1, it's the Halloween edition. Al was going to annouce it early this month but must be bogged down with other things, so I figured I might as well post this note for those that are interested in reading the latest issue. After hearing from some people here on AtariAge, the RTM Idiocy column has been discontinued as can be read in its farewell piece in this issue. Anyway, I hope everyone has a good Halloween and enjoys this issue of Retrogaming Times Monthly! http://www.retrogamingtimes.com/rtm65/ CONTENTS: 01. Press Fire To Begin 02. Retrogaming News 03. High Score Monthly! 04. The International Video Game Museum And Hall Of Fame Party 05. Movies With A Byte: Mortal Kombat 06. Modern Retro - Metal Gear Solid 07. Dual Perspective - Ninja Gaiden II: The Dark Sword Of Chaos 08. All Eyes On Mega Man: The Wily Wars 09. Apple II Incider - Uninvited 10. Vectrexenstein - Armor Attack 11. The Thrill Of Defeat: Plodding Back To School With The ZX81 12. RTM Idiocy: A Final Farewell 13. Video Game Tattler 14. Gaming Advertisements 15. Game Over

Now there's an idea! A series of articles on how the classic gaming world has changed through the years. That would be a fun read. Hearing about how things have changed, where the hangouts on-line and in real life used to be, etc. It would be kind of fun to read about someone's journey in the classic gaming world since it is probably similar to our's and we could relate. Such as remembering when a major find was made only to have it turn out to be a hoax or something. Anyone here game for writing such as article? I'll have to search around to see if I can find someone to take up this challenge. It sure would be fun to read every month the journey's of a classic gaming collector

Check here for a complete listing: http://www.videogamehouse.net/speech.txt

If it's a fake game, then how can you play it? Can't play something that is not real Actually, I know what you are getting at. I once bought a cartridge thinking it was an original, but it turned out to be a copy. Was very upset in the end

I can confirm that now that they have paid for their sponsorship. Contest news coming soon Acuatually, the contests will be detailed in the June issue of RTM, but will be promoted outside of RTM this month without details, just telling people to watch for details in the June issue There will be two contests: 1. For a free general admissions ticket to the show, which gets you in a 9:00AM (which is the time Paul Zimmerman will be going for the record Phoenix score) 2. For 2 tables at the show

Issue # 58 of the Retrogaming Times Monthly! is now online. We have a NEW FORMAT and a NEW WEBSITE dedicated to our online magazine. Come see us at Retrogamingtimes.com Highlights from our March 2009 issue include: Falling Arcade Prices RTM Idiocy - Part 3 Apple ][ Incider - Wheel of Fortune The Thrill Of Defeat - Games for the 2K Timex Sinclair 1000 Old Wine New Bottles - The Activision Anthology National Center for the History of Electronic Games Videological Dig - Christmas 1975 You can find all these inside the Retrogaming Times Monthly! 138 months in a row - the longest-running online free retro-gaming newsletter ever! www.retrogamingtimes.com and our old site is still there at: http://my.stratos.net/~hewston95/RTM/RTM_Home.htm Special thanks to our very enthusiastic new editor, Bryan Roppolo for getting us revamped and underway on our new site. He can be reached at: [email protected] -- Alan "Pitfall Harry" Hewston reply to [email protected]

Hey all, Now that Retrogaming Times Monthly has its own domain at www.retrogamingtimes.com and the latest issue (March 2009) has just been posted, I was wondering if anyone out there either knows of sites or runs sites that would be willing to help promote the magazine? Figured with the new look and domain it would be nice to try and push this free magazine so we can not only get more people reading, but also hopefully more contribitors. My goal is to help RTM become the best free retrogaming magazine out there, and helping it get recognized would help achieve that goal. Thought I would pass this to Atariage to see what sites people out there could think of. If you are interested in helping promote the magazine on your site, send an e-mail to me at [email protected] Thanks a ton! Sincerely, Bryan Roppolo

Someone's working on that as we speak. Will let you know the progress of it.

Roklan went out of business. That's one of the problems with contracting out software.

Well, I made them myself using Apple boxes and a C64 manual. So it's how it would have looked. I cut and pasted the TI text from the front and back of a TI Donkey Kong box, getting rid of the Apple references and making it look like a true TI box. Hey, this is how it would have looked, no more having to imagine it in your head

I have just came across a Robotron: 2084 prototype by Atarisoft which I got from the programmer of the game himself, Bill Parod. I posted a website with screen shots and will be taking pictures of the prototype soon as well. This is a new game find in the TI community, one that was lost back in 1983. Also, the ROM has been dumped. Check out the links below to see more: Main TI Robotron Page: www.videogamehouse.net/gamemain/cartsnr/robotron ROM: www.videogamehouse.net/gamemain/cartsnr/robotron/robotron.zip

Tursi has done it again for the TI. Creating a program that can take NES music and convert them for the TI-99/4A. If anyone is interested in seeing how well the TI can handle NES tunes, check out his Mega Man II music conversion on YouTube: I especially like the part around 4:00. Thought I would share with others to see what they think. With all of Tusi's tools (graphics and now music), porting something from the NES to the TI should be easier now.

I Second that Emotion!

If I remember correctly, Coleco had the rights to the cartridge format, while AtariSoft had the rights to the magnetic media formats, no??? and then Coleco lost the cart rights after they violated the terms of their contract or something, which is why Atari did Mario Brothers for the 2600....maybe that all has something to do with the VIC-20 version???? I think Atarisoft had the computer rights to Donkey Kong and Coleco the Video Game console rights. Both Atarisoft and Coleco released their games on cartridge for their systems.

Well, if that $244 for an empty box takes the prize, this one takes the whole cake: http://cgi.ebay.com/1983-Mattel-Electonics...p3286.m20.l1116 At least the shipping is free though! I have always been a fan of old styrofoam. Maybe I'll have to start getting someone to make styrofoam molds to look like old Aquarius packaging

And then stumbles P.S. I'm just playing with you. The Aquarius has always been an interesting system to me mainly since nobody seems to know much about it and it comes from Mattel, the makers of the Intellivision. That Intellivision connection always made me interested in learning more on the computer.

Exactly, and the prevailing rumor was that Coleco intentionally sabotaged the other versions of the game to make the one on their own system look far superior. Seriously, the Intellivision is capable of WAY better than that. Just off the top of my head, here's a few games with multi-colored sprites. He-Man Thin Ice (I think the penguin had, what, 3 total colors?) Ok, well, those are two games anyway. The 2600 version is decent enough, as the limitations of the system really prevented any sort of true conversion. Well that rumor should be laid to rest since Coleco didn't program the games, they were all outsourced to 3rd party companies to be programed for Coleco. DK was done by Gary Kitchen when he was with James Wickstead Design I believe. I also know Wickstead Design did stuff for Parker Brothers too, such as 2600 "Star Wars: ROTJ Death Star Battle".

Well, I'm going to make sure this year has a twist. I'm going to make sure the TI gets in on the action here so we have an Atari, TI, C64 thing going. A threesome is better than a twosome!

Here's an article from Time Magazine from 1982 that says the percent of the market share each computer company had in the low-end computer market. Not sure if this is helpful or not. But it is something. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/...,950786,00.html All I know is that the TI-99/4A had sold 2.5 million computers by early 1984.