Keatah

You know it's lame when they start making announcements for announcements. What's it gonna be this time..a $2 million project? --- Yes..lame.. I went there and was shown a RENDERING of a blank cartridge. Wasted two minutes doing that. And even more posting this shit.

I had painted the outline with a yellow/orange paintmarker. Did wonders to restore the looks. You can either be very careful painting, or cover with masking tape to get a straight line and not spill off the bezel sides. Ideally you want .006 spill, which isn't much.

First start assuming dirty heads or a bad disk. Verify with another disk.

Since emulators seem to universally put printing on the back burner, yes, the best way forward is original printers replete with paper and ink and noise "problems"!

Many folks see the R-Pi and MiSTer in this manner. As do we. Most all of my vintage gaming is done on Intel NUCs, but we plan on setting up a MiSTer (or two) in the reading room. They'll complement one another nicely. All these modern minisystems are great for gaming in cozy attic rooms or temporarily setting up in a blanket fort.

I'm sure they made PrintShop for the PC. And Hallmark Greeting Card Maker. There was also Microsoft's Picture-It! Photo Premium 9, also for the PC. Though MS PIPP9 doesn't have a PS-like interface, it does all the same things and so much more in spirit. A very useful 2004'ish XP era program that was a pack-in on many Centrino systems.

MicroM8 (win/linux)- if you can get it to work. Let me know. https://paleotronic.com/software/microm8/download/ And Virtual ][ (mac only) https://www.virtualii.com/ Currently AppleWin is seriously lagging in the printing department. And I hear mame prints, but I never tried it. And that's the state of things as it stands today.

Read through the thread. Since this console was under muddy water and all that the first thing I'd do correctly and thoroughly clean the board. Remove the chips, wash everything with soap and water to dissolve and remove contaminants. Rinse with deionized or purified water and blow-dry with air compressor. Replace old and affected caps. Use Deoxit on all contacts and IC sockets, switches and cartridge connection pins/slot. Perhaps replace IC sockets. Clean and buff each pin on each IC. And all the other trappings of restoring a board like this. There's simply too much residue causing short circuits and partial short circuits.

Very nice. Get some orange/yellow paint and outline the switch area.

The VCS encourages (requires) a kind of programming style, one that keeps the bits close to the hardware. So to speak. This style also enforces a lot of timing requirements. Things have to happen on a schedule - as the transistors and logic gates flip'n'flop. Complete opposite of a PC with APIs and OS. The VCS is simpler hardware and doesn't step all over itself. It doesn't waste time transferring things on a complex bus, or to and from main memory like in a bitmapped system. No significant custom chips to introduce waitstates. Most of VCS is CPU -> TIA -> CRT/display.

The boost strength is fine. The breaking is a little too strong. Very easy to get far enough behind you have no chance of catching up. Arrow density could be longer once in a while. Friction is fine. Minimal speed should be a a bit faster. AI needs to be more random. The grey/white car never wins. The two red ones win nearly all the time. AI should be less perfect. The 6 players I asked to try this never won against AI. Should be adaptive to where it sometimes just lags behind human players (by messing up the timing) and other times where it's spot on and pulls ahead.

That works well for 1 or 2 players, but 8 players? When there's that many players sound isn't a good cue for anything.

Lots of transition possibilities as the rockets leave the launch pad and travel though space.

This would work nice, have it display for a few seconds. Once the race starts it disappears. Or, as mentioned earlier, use colored stickers. Make them a pack-in extra. --- Don't like the new sound mixing. Or whatever happened to it. Sounds disjointed and tedious. Can also do without the braking sound.

Just a thought. The game is good as it stands. And 8 players?!?! Ohh my ohh my! Never would have guessed that possible back in the day. By default, if it's out of the way, it wouldn't do any harm. But do what you think is best and what matches the target audience.

How would you keep score? At the end of the game toggle a difficulty or b/w switch to swap between displaying the track display and distance traveled? Or do it automatically at the end? Maybe include a max & average speed if you care to..

I happy with (the name) VROOM! just as it is. This game should stand for itself without the need for twists on the name or clumsy cliches. It's also a simple name reminiscent of the the early Atari and Activision games.

Absolutely. Having had all the major consoles prior to NES, and several contemporary 8-bit micros like the Apple II, C64, and Atari 400/800, there was indeed always something to play. It was loads fun experiencing the arcade ports and system exclusives. So very true. Good to hear others state this as I often thought myself the odd-one-out when it came to two thumbs. There are a few arcade games that translate well, or acceptably well, to the dual-thumb model. One would be Atari Assault. Each tread needs its own forward and reverse control. You also need to split or sway to lob and roll. But otherwise I prefer a keyboard, mouse, and joystick. Been gaming on the PC like that since the 90's. It's like when I play Descent I'll do pitch, yaw, and fire on the joystick. Roll, throttle, and weapons select on the keyboard. Sliding on either a hat or keyboard. Adapting that layout to a dual-thumb controller would make me all thumbs!

These huge-ass AAA titles with endless side-quests seem to be at odds with themselves. There's too many conflicting styles involved in such games. And that tends to grey-out everything. As if all colors are mixed into one.

I never had that problem, games becoming sloggish, with the original Doom I and II. I didn't want the game to end. And was happy to get new episodes to extend the life of it. I did get a little bored technologically - having seen games like Duke3D, Quake, and Unreal. But that's only a "flavour" the essence of the game is still worth my time today. Not the feverish pitch like back in the 90's, but worth a couple hours now and then. To me finishing a game means pretty much that, finishing it. And then putting it on the shelf. Not returning to it. With Doom I and II, a huge portion was discovering the layout of the maps. How each one worked. Each had a personality and was packed with different sets of challenges - all stemming from layout & arrangement. Figuring out how to complete the map was at least half the game. There wasn't a whole lot to actually do in the early maps, buttons, some switches. The excitement was in the arrangement. And that could be experienced just by running around. No tedium with jumping.

IDK maybe I'm wrong. But I've not seen desirable arcade ports (of many games) on the NES. Seems a games with curved motions and ballistics aren't all that great.

Sometimes I do put the stuff curbside. Whatever goes there is usually gone before the truck comes by. So it's going someplace useful. It just sorta depends on how dirty the stuff is or how much work it needs and what my mood is for the day.

It's eminently playable and it's how I was introduced to the game - on the 2600. We all loved it and would often play it in conjunction with Space Invaders. Back'n'forth. Back'n'forth. All goddamned night!