Keatah

There's huge potential for ARM games to bring arcade realism to the VCS. It's been done & demonstrated several times already. Totally agree with seeing packages in the mail and opening them up to explore what's inside. Fun even if you know what's coming. But still not as fun as trekking to Sears, K-Mart, or Venture, or TurnStyle. Your typical late 70's & early 80's department stores. The whole ritual of getting a new game on the weekend started with advanced planning in the beginning of the week or mid-week. We had to decide what we wanted, often picked 10 or 15 games, and hoped the store had 1 or 2 of them. It usually began by illustrating how good we were and that we deserved a prize or some toys. On Saturday or Sunday we would get in the car and go "cruising" through town, parking in the store lot, getting out of the car, walking to the door. Opening it up and getting a whiff of VOCs and "store smell". Finding the videogame section. Was usually in the same place, so it was like home more or less. Scanning the boxes and titles for what we saw on TV and anything new that we might have missed. Then convincing the parental units to get it. Then we had to stand in the checkout like for what seemed like hours. Some of us were lucky and could bring our red LED Mattel games to pass the time. Once checked out, we exited the store, and spent 20 MORE minutes trying to find the car that was parked anywhere in a 50,000 acre lot. Sometimes we would get McDonalds on the way home or some other fat-ass-making fast food. The anticipation of new games, new cartridges, new virtual adventures building microsecond upon microsecond. Sometimes we'd even read the instructions while stuck in traffic - inhaling the lead laced exhaust of "regular" gas from de-tuned beaters and 100's of idling cars that took what seemed like hours to move one city block. Eventually we got home. Raced to the living room. Closed the drapes to set the mood and plugged in. Fun times all afternoon and evening! Especially when served Swanson's frozen dinners in those Aluminum trays that always seems to allow some of the "ingredients" to spill over and mix together. There were bonus days when we skipped the department store and detoured to the computer store. And even the regular arcade since they were pretty close. Or even Toys'R'Us to get model rockets and supplies. Or SlotCar setups from AFX, Tycho, or Aurora. Yes folks. Sometimes it really was an all-day affair to get new cartridges. But it was so different and fun! Not like the grind of today. It's an experience I've managed to only partly recapture. Many things are different today, or even missing. But sometimes this cost us. We had to endure that 60's carhop crap they'd play on the radio. Or worse, that narrowband Lo-Fi wartime stuff. God forbid if it was that roaring 20's speakeasy shit. So it was a relief to hear 70's love songs when they played them.

Well.. I can you that after my collection reached huge proportions it became very depressing and time consuming to manage and maintain it. Not to mention how expensive it was. After I acquired the common material, the hard-to-find stuff began taking up a disproportionate amount of time. The ratio kept getting worse and worse. It would take 2-3 hours to make a thrift-store run and come back with maybe 5 carts or other related items. And then spend a whole day and come back empty handed. Till I quit. Gave up on the whole gig. The shit was proliferating everywhere. That was in the early 2000s. The trail end of the dotcom boom. Today and the past 7 or so years I thoroughly enjoy a very small collection of just some PC and Apple II stuff. The material I had as a kid. The fun factor has multiplied manyfold since. Now whether that will happen with you - that's impossible for me to say.

And even if the masses get it wrong, it always turns out being right. The complainers can be reduced to irrelevancy. The inferior product can undergo evolutionary and migratory changes to make it work as expected. The inferior product can simply be adopted as the norm.

First time I saw Doom in any form was in EB or Software Etc. in Stratford Square Mall. This was sometime around early spring 1994. Saw it during one of my weekly treks to all the local area computer stores. It was this unassuming paper jewel-box with two floppies. Distributed by GT Interactive as a "New Virtual Reality" game. (Everything back then was a virtual reality craze.) It was sitting in a rack, on the counter, next to the checkout register. Listed for just under $10 bucks. I bought that and that other renowned shooter, Raptor. Also packaged and priced similarly. This was a casual purchase, an add-on purchase, like candy at the supermarket. I had no preconceptions or expectations about what it would look like, how it would play, or even what genre of game it was. I was pleasantly surprised to find it had smooth animation and that every pixel on the screen was used to represent the 3D world. The sound was complete, the graphics had great attention to detail. And everything worked! No time limits, no missing items. A full Episode of 10 levels. Great replay value. Felt like a complete game. For cheap too! Nothing to make you feel bad or coerced. Wasn't even put-off by the fact that it was really free to download on BBS'es elsewhere. I mean I got a "box" and disks. The distro model fit the times. I would soon go on to purchase the original full three-episode set via mail order. Took about 2-3 weeks to arrive as did most things of the 80's and early 90's. I remember asking myself if I could trust this whole thing. Well it worked out fine. The most impressive thing was that I had what I considered a basic workstation-class PC. 16MB 486 DX2/50, with 200MB HDD. Loaded with Windows 3.1 and various productivity packages. And all of a sudden it became a capable game machine! I had no idea a "serious" computer could play games like so. A standard Cirrus Logic 5422 graphics chip not really known for anything except, maybe, static hi-resolutions and boring "PC stuff" was instantly converted into rapid-fire fun. Something exceeding all the consoles & coin-ops I ever played to date. Guys. Let me tell you. It was magic. Pure unadulterated magic! I quickly got into reading and discovering just how programmable and versatile VGA was. What else was in there? When Heretic, Hexen, and Quake came out I was just as impressed over and over again.

After thinking about it, this makes good sense. VCS version played well - and even has new life in Stella since you can speed-up or slow-down the game action with the 'turbo' feature. Not only that, there is a trackball/mouse version too. MC on the VCS had the simpler mechanics of one base (and it belonged to me). With three there were too many distractions for my infantile intellect. My focus was removed from the targeting action above. Asteroids wasn't that bad on the VCS. It of course wasn't vector graphic. And there were differences in the rock trajectories. But the coin-op was too hard for me. So VCS it was. The 400/800 version just sucked. The graphics were not smooth. The sound was all scratchy. The ballistics felt different, definitely not an improvement. The whole experience was tacky. And VCS SpaceInvaders was just simply better all around. More appealing colors. Bigger targets. Better sounds. Tons of options. The quintessential killer-app! Overall as a kid bitd I preferred many VCS games over their arcade counterparts. And we thoroughly enjoyed the many game variations. Something no con-op really offered Sure we like our VCS consoles. They were genuinely rewarding and fun to play. Especially on rainy days which made BMX'ing to the arcade unpleasant. The amount of fun-per-dollar we had was a good ratio that got better with time. Despite its simplistic graphics, the gameplay was anything but. And consider the VCS was originally designed as a Pong machine with 2-3 year lifespan - tops. It might be. Certainly be fun to see and experience. But I've never taken a long-term liking to many enhanced/remade arcade games. Not a purist or anything. Just that they seem "different" from their progenitors. Especially when the patterns and mechanics are shuffled.

In thinking about the 7800 I got wondering about Missile Command. And I couldn't find it anywhere! Has there been anything in the last two decades of sleuthing history that'd give us a reason why MC hasn't been ported to the 7800? The old lady says it's just a case of port fatigue and wasn't necessary - since the 7800 plays VCS games anyway. How many versions are needed when you have the excellent VCS and 400/800 iterations? I tend to agree because I've not sought out anything beyond those and the actual arcade cab. There's this thread, but it's 20 years out of date and stagnant.

Not even that. It's just post America Online. The time when they let everyone use the internet.

The keyboards never work on these minis..!

Yes. Agree. True enough. Noticed that as the Doom franchise progressed, the levels have become more tight, more tedious, more tactical, and that isn't my style. I love levels like UAC_dead. Huge. Wide. Expansive in scope. These large environments create a sense of exploration, uniqueness, and progression. So much less fatiguing to work through. There's no way I'm going to sit through Sigil. Not right now. I swear it's an overdesigned button-mashing fest. Grinding. Made by someone making something because it needed to be done, yet having a lot of energy to put into it. I mean it's not a bad effort - just not my gig. It's something I've been meaning to get back into. Sooner or later.

Dark and moody. Forlorn.

As kids we were never discerning about controllers. We plugged and played and had fun. Respect indeed. Up to the NES era each console was a unique expression of the new electronic artform of videogaming. Once NES got underway everything started feeling the same. Churn'n'burn. And it hasn't slowed down one iota.

Only issue I see here is the Retron works right out of the box. Everyone knows how to read a quickstart guide and plug things in. The Pi is a little more involved, though there is that Atari kit thing from MicroCenter? or Fry's?

Oh I completely wholeheartedly agree with the dusty cartridges and fuzzy CRT issues. Ever since I got my 1st LCD monitor in the dot-com days, I never wanted anything else. Free from burn-in, dot-addressable perfect geometry being huge huge factors. Other features like refresh rates, brightness, and contrast needed more evolution at that early juncture. I see 2 paths with an FPGA console. Build-in Harmony cartridge compatibility by using a chip that has an ARM on it and is able to access it like a real VCS would. Or just get an HC straight away and consider that as your SD slot. Both eliminate the mound of carts. IDK.. Personally I've been rocking Stella since it was command-line only. The Brad Mott days.

Now unwrap that bad boy! I haven't heard any lag on Frenzy's sound. Perhaps it's a setting or the version/hardware you're using. I don't know all the fine points in Mr. Do! so I can't fairly comment on the subtle patterns or randomness. Thing with MAME, to me and likely most of the people that play it, is that it may not be precisely absolutely 100% perfect. And that is ok. It's a very necessary part of any vintage gamer's arsenal. Ohh what did I buy today? 2 more Apple II manuals. No fear. I'm still in casual accumulation mode. Just that a bunch became available recently. Throughout the rest of the year I'll likely not get more than 10 more. Tops. I swear it!

This hypothetical VCS replicant shouldn't have an SD slot. Because, then, stuff like Draconian would need the ARM/Harmony gig also be replicated. And that's going to add unnecessary complexity for playing something in a way that was not meant to be played. Well. Time will tell.

Well if they ever do I would expect (and demand) many changes and inclusions that are non-existent on other FPGA implementations. The switches on the VCS section need to work correctly so we can play games like SpaceShuttle and others. I would also demand that it play all ARM games and run Harmony carts. AND have correct voltage levels and signaling on the DB9 ports - so that we may use things like AtariVOX, SaveKey, Quadtari, and other future peripherals. And it must be a normal & practical looking console. No "because 80's" boombox style or other circus acts. Not wanted. Not required. No mix of switches in the front and back. Put everything up front. AND NO CARTRIDGE LOADING FAKERY. Of course that's not needed with FPGA.

Hot sweet babycakes!

Today and everyday we are "Arcade Perfect" .. With MAME.

I do NOT want that anywhere near my gaming setup! Did they make it Day-Glo Orange so it's louder and shows up better on e-commerce pages or some shit like that?

Very good. Let's hope that was the problem and that it continues to work. When repairing and restoring vintage boards with sockets of any kind I usually use a bit of DeOxit on all the chips and any contacts/connectors. It's a cleaner, lube, and sealer against further natural oxidation over time. Many techs on AA swear by it.

IIRC motherboards have holes on the bottom directly under Agnus. These allow you to push the chip out with some sorta stick. If you still want/need to do that. I've also used thick paperclips to rock those chips back and forth to get them out without using a correct puller. Takes a good number of tries and gentle nudging to not crack the socket.

Standard hole puncher, scissors, wirecutters, disk notcher tool that you slam, whatever was available to us. In recent times I avoid the notcher tool. It tends to shatter brittle jackets.

Otherwise you have to disassemble the disk and make another timing hole.