Toucan

It sounds like a smart idea...Develop a video game for the 2600, if it doesn't sell well then try and have it turned into an arcade game by a well known manufacturer to try and boost sales. Although, the fact that the game is called "Bio-Attack" wouldn't really help "Fantastic Voyage" on the 2600. It is interesting though, since this probably means it's one of those "Consolse -> Arcade" ports.

I was doing a little surfing on the Internet and came across an arcade game called "Bio Attack" by Taito (KLOV Page). According to the game's title screen, it says it was "Licenced by Fox Video Games". Is it possible this arcade game was an adaptation of Fox Video Games "Fantastic Voyage" (done for the Atari 2600), since it seems to be basically the same idea. Or did Fox licence the arcade and release it as "Fantastic Voyage" on home systems? Just thought I'd see if anyone else out there knew anything about this.

Hey, shouldn't that be "Donkey Kong Jr." In the cartridge solt of the Colecovision Jr. instead of "Donkey Kong"?

Well, many times MBX systems can fetch $100 if they have the joysticks, power supply, headset, etc. However, I've seen some on eBay go for as little as $50. The $50 sale came after there was a surge in MBX auctions on eBay, since I think one went for $150 then people started listing MBX systems, and there were about 2-3 in a span of a week. This led to the drop of $50 probably. But as to the guy selling the unit, he never listed a price for it. But I'd guess around $50 since he didn't seem to be a huge collector.

If any of you guys want to try and pick up an MBX, Dave Warren was selling one a while back. If he sold it by now, maybe you could get the person who bought it from him to part with it. It came with the Championship Baseball game, so it's worth going after if the price is right. Dave can be contacted at [email protected] It's the most recent MBX sale that I know of.

Thanks! ... Mildly disappointing, actually. Expected the chrome to come all the way around, like it does on the computer. Is the beige unit slimmer, or is it just the sloped back making it look shorter? 901524[/snapback] I do know there is a better picture of the black/silver MBX in the April "Electronic Games" magazine. Possibly from that picture one could tell which is slimmer. If anyone has that issue, it would be great to get a scan since I know that it is a close up detailed picture.

Found that Black/Silver MBX image (from January 1983 CES): http://www.atariage.com/forums/index.php?a...e=post&id=23373

*saves face by alughing at Wikipedia for saying the 99/4a used the non-A TMS9918* No worries. I figured that some of the info would be shocking to other too, as I was shocked to learn about some of the things And does anyone have any pics of the black+chrome MBX? I've heard about that before, and I'd really like to see what it looked like. As to the Black/Silver MBX, I have the joysticks for it which is how I have those pics on the website. Sadly, I have not run into a black/silver MBX on my travels But I am keeping up hope since there are many leads that I have from MB. They were shown at the January 1983 CES show. I posted a picture of one from a CES on Atariage earlier this year. I'll see if I can find it.

"MB had ... created the graphics chip used inside of the TI system." Ummm, no. That was a TI-designed part. It's funny how microchip manufacturers design a lot more computer parts than toy manufacturers... Such a basic mistake throws the content of the entire page into question. But it reminds me... SuperFly is pretty fun. And does anyone have any pics of the black+chrome MBX? I've heard about that before, and I'd really like to see what it looked like. 901429[/snapback] It's no mistake, I talked with people from MB and got this info first hand on the TMS9918 graphic chip. TI might have manufactured the chip, but according to Paul Ahrens who headed Milton Bradley's Advanced Research and Development he and others at MB were the guys who did the actual design. Hope you don't feel that the pages are still questioable, especially since I put a few months into getting them on-line

HI! You can find the Instructions to the TI-99/4A version of "Hunt The Wumpus" here: http://www.videogamehouse.net/huntwumpus.txt . Let me know if this helps.

Interestingly, those two screws were not on original Atarisoft cartridges. You could have some kind of prototype or a homebrew. But why someone would use an Atarisoft cart for a homebrew is a little weird and I've never seen that before. Let me know what it comes out to be since I am interested in hearing this as well! For other pics of cartridges (in case anyone has others they'd like to check out), check out www.videogamehouse.net since there are some nice 3D images going up on the site as we speak. This includes some Atarisoft carts like Pac-Man. Click on the black cart on the right side of the screen for a big image. We (the Videogame House) are now getting around to taking 3D images of the cartridges, as the 2D ones were too hard to tell the shape of the cart.

Well, after years of people having to take down websites with TI ROMs I am going to have to go another route. Avalibale on request are the ROMs which are listed over on the TI gaming forums. http://tigamebase.lizziebit.com/viewtopic.php?t=37 Check out the list and you can request what you want. Also, you can ask for the whole package but it's a big size

I think his pages are gone now, sadly. I assume you are looking for ROMs, which seem to be hard to come by. I can try and send you some if interested.

HI! Just in case anyone here might be interested, there is a new TI-99/4A Video Game Board (The TI Game Base) over at http://tigamebase.lizziebit.com/index.php . Feel free to take a look, I figured in case anyone had any TI specific questions or just wants to browse around they can do so over on the board. It was just started a few days ago and hopefully things will build up over there. Just thought I would make mention of this in case anyone might be interested in checking it out. Thanks!

Thanks for the comments! I have yet to make a Fathom page, but plan on doing so sometime soon so keep an eye out for it

Here's an eBay auction (not mine) for the rare TI-99/4A "Fathom" cartridge sealed in it's original box. It's worth checking out, since it's not only rare but a fun game to play. http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISA­PI.dll?View...tem=818290762­4

One of the Popeye conversions that seems to fall underneath the radar is the TI-99/4A version. Now while I might be biased to the TI, I truly believe that it was a worthy conversion of the arcade original. If you don't play MESS through emulation and you are looking for any pre-NES versions of the game, be sure to check the TI-99 port out by Parker Brothers (www.videogamehouse.net/popeye.html).

The way I always thought of it was that there were 2 Sega's. There was a U.S. division and also a Japanese division. I talked with Sam Palahnuk who programmed the Star Trek: Strategic Operations Simulator game in the U.S. He mentioned something along the lines that there were some arcades also developed in Japan. Here's something he told me a while back: ---------------------------------------------------- Up ‘n Down was made in Japan, I don’t know the person who made that game. In terms of your list: -Tac-Scan – this was a Mike Hendricks project -Buck Rogers: Planet of Zoom – came from Japan -Congo Bongo – came from Japan -Zaxxon – came from Japan -Super Zaxxon – came from Japan -Up 'n Down – came from Japan Tac-Scan was made in the U.S. though according to him. I'm not completely sure on the Sega setup, but it does seem there was a U.S. and Japanese branch of the company. So I'm not sure if Sega was ever 100% American at any point, since they still seemed to be doing most of the arcade development in Japan in the early 80s.

On the TI-99/4A there were at least Meteor Belt, Blasto, and Hustle that could be played together. And while we're at it, might as well throw in Tunnels of Doom as well. There probably are others too, but these are the ones that came to mind first.

Try e-mailing Larry Conner at [email protected] I got from him all the MBX titles still sealed in their original boxes! So if you do end up getting Bigfoot, remember to ask for an already opened one if avaliable. Otherwise you might get one still sealed and I hate opening up brand new software like that. Hope it works out well. You should have fun playing Bigfoot again! Sincerely, Bryan Roppolo

I'll have to play it and see how far I can get. I remember getting very far and still getting new aliens at the top of the screen. I'll get back to you and let you know, although I can't promise I'll get very far however

As to Tombstone City, I remember it and that catchy tune that would play! I can still hear it now. I used to play that game in my "early" TI days, meaning pre-1983. I used to sit there and actually try to see if I could block myself inside the blue base with cactusus

If I remember right, you had to get all the gifts and the piles of gold before moving on. Yes, the idea was that you first had to get the gifts and then the gold would glow. Once the gold glowed you could then pick one pile up. So you had to be sure to get gift-gold in that order. And that nest back in the background reminds me that there may have been a bird that attacks? In the later levels, there are some birds that will actually take your climbing rope away (even if you are on it!). So this could leave you with no way back down if you need to go that way, or you could be carried away by the birds and eventually dropped to your death. If you have the MBX system, the speech synthesis is much better on it for all the games (it had a more advanced speech chip than TI's own). You've got to love the MBX speech in Bigfoot: Bigfoot growls realistically and also when the guy is being carried away by the birds he says "Put me down!", and of course the birds put him down , then he goes "Whooooa!" (the voice fades as he falls off the screen). But of course you must have the MBX to really get the best speech for this game. Go to eBay and do a search for "MBX ti-99", I know there was a past auction there for a system a a fun games (forget if Bigfoot was one). Maybe you can talk the winner of the auction into selling it to you. It only went for $75 which is cheap considering it was an MBX unit with carts! Usually they go for $150+ on eBay

Here's a screen shot of Bigfoot, it's not from an emulator though so the screen shot is not as clear as it would be from emulation. Thanks to Rob Patton for this screen shot!

Here's some interesting info I never knew of before! Over on Atari HQ they have an ad for a Milton Bradley HD2000 Joystick that was to be put out and marketed by Milton Bradley. http://www.atarihq.com/museum/2678/hardware/hd2000.jpg This joystick eventually became the Space Age Joystick as seen on Atariage: http://www.atariage.com/controller_page.ht...ControllerID=18 Now the really neat thing is that this joystick is pretty much identical to the Milton Bradley TI-99/4A MBX sticks. I never knew about the Space Age sticks until now. A picture of the MBX joystick is provided below (the black/red ones are from 1982). Just thought this was pretty interesting and would pass the info along.