gdement

The input cap has a 16v rating, so that's also at risk if you go that high.

I found it so impossible to play that I had little time to remember what the controls were like. I guess it has a joystick then, but like you say it doesn't do very much. I couldn't handle using buttons for so much stuff and decided not to put any more money in it.

The controls definitely aren't as good as the arcade, but it does at least let you strafe if you hold the fire button down. This is something the 7800 version does better than the NES version. (The other advantage is flicker) Might be interesting to see a modded version using the 2nd joystick to change the aiming direction or even using Robotron style controls. That would obviously be a 1 player only mode. With a little trickery, I believe it's also possible to read all 3 buttons from a Genesis controller. Perhaps one button could be held while pushing the D-pad left/right to change angles. That's still less than ideal though. You'd have to stop moving to change your aim.

I don't see or play arcade machines very often. I had my first experience with arcade space invaders just a few years ago, and thought the controls were goofy. Same with Asteroids and Defender. Was there a shortage of joysticks back then?

Output on the original power supply is 9V DC, 1amp. More amperage won't hurt. Slightly higher or lower voltage might also be fine. But unless the console has been modified then only the original will fit anyway. If it has been modified, be very careful that you don't get the polarity backwards. That could do a lot of damage.

I loved the foundation of LORD II, but I thought the quest sucked. It needed a complete rewrite in the scripting. Seemed to me like the game was too much individuals playing by themselves, not enough interaction. Primarily, I wanted to create a market economy in the game, which obviously got complex and would take a lot of time to script. I spent about 2 days writing scripts and planning stuff on notepaper, before deciding I shouldn't spend so much time on it. Also, the game was unpopular on the small BBS I played. I was hoping I could write a compiler that would add some better features to the script language. It would compile them into compatible script code. Semaphores, and some better flow/loop structures had been worked out, but that was just on paper. === TradeWars was cool until I ran into better players. It seemed like it was impossible to make any progress or have any fun with the game, unless you were winning. I even got frustrated enough to basically spend all my money on carbomite and it still only damaged my tormenters, not destroyed them. At least I think it was tradewars... that's the game where you buy ships and build a space station and such, right?

Yeah... I bet the stage select thing is just rumor/misinformation carried over from the NES version, which does have a stage select. A horribly complicated stage select. The kind of thing you'd think was an April Fools joke, except it actually does work.

It seemed kind of cheesy not having an HD tuner, but I don't think I've actually used the built-in tuner on a television in about 15 years anyway. Most service providers (and surely with HD service) require decoder boxes. But you'd miss it if you're picking up HD over the air. The tuner wouldn't need to be anything proprietary, I assume you just hook up any generic tuner to the component inputs. The HDCP thing is a drag though. I wonder if any CRTs ever supported that.

For a dedicated game room setup, I think the absolute ideal TV would be a big HD CRT. You'll get the CRT characteristics such as overscan and zapper compatibility that old systems expect, and you can also hook up modern HD consoles to it. And zero lag. They're kind of awkward for HD television because they're usually 4:3 and most don't have an HDTV tuner in them, but for game systems they're perfect. They never became mainstream, and at the time not many people had HD service. They weren't around too long before Plasma/DLP/LCD took over, so probably not that many were made. Many people are getting rid of them now, and I bet they'll be a pretty rare find in coming years. For something smaller, HD wouldn't matter and a standard CRT is fine. I'm lucky enough to have a good one of those, a flat 14" Toshiba CRT from 2005 that has composite, svideo, and even component inputs. It also doesn't have that annoying blue-screen "feature". It's probably one of the last good brand CRTs made. I never noticed any lag on an LCD until I was playing the bonus game on SMB2. I used to be able to hit cherries on that pretty well, but now it's all in vain. Maybe it's aged reflexes but I think the LCD just ruins my timing. ======= *Remembers what Driver 2 looked like* I really wish that game had been released on the PC, like Driver 1 was. Driver 2 was a fun game, especially the Las Vegas level, but the Playstation just couldn't handle it. Before I had a PS2, I remember getting the wrong impression that it would run smoother on that system, but no it's the same.

I'm amazed a simple question about 1984 vs 1986 turned into a flame dogpile. It's even more amazing than that other thread involving sinistermoon. No misunderstanding can slide. Maybe it is the moon. Yes, we all know Vendel has more resources at hand than anyone and cannot be questioned on anything. He's probably a fine guy but all this sacred cow crap is nauseating.

Sounds like something might be temperature sensitive. One wild guess is the capacitors. I'm assuming the VCS has conventional electrolytic caps, but I don't really know. Those don't last forever. When those start to go bad, they will work better warm vs cold.

They do, but the scoring is useless on most games. They seem to just throw in a scoring system without giving it any thought. You can usually leech the score easily, and even unintentionally. It's not like most earlier games where the score actually meant you had played well. To get a high score in older games, you take risks. In most NES platform games, you do it by not taking any. === Personally, I enjoyed the NES era more than any other. Their more complex adventure games blew me away. Atari was what I played when I was very young, before my gaming prime.

I got mine in Dec 89, and it started doing that sometime in the next 6months-1yr or so. The problem started with just a few vertical lines near the edges, but then it got a lot worse. After getting it back from Nintendo I never had anymore problems with it. It still works fine, but I never use it so that might be why.

I don't know the game, but it's pretty definitely from Odyssey 2, not Atari.

Perhaps I'm going on a tangent, but this is something that always bugs me about the supposed 1985 "release" of the NES. It's inconsistent to make that claim while saying the 7800 wasn't released until 1986. Either test markets count, or they don't. And I think by normal convention they don't. The "1985" NES was just a test market in the last couple weeks of December in a few stores in New York City. ie it hardly existed at all, hardly anybody even saw one then, and it certainly wouldn't qualify as a "release". Further test markets continued in 1986. They didn't finally release the NES on a large scale until about mid-1986. (full disclosure: I read that on wikipedia -5 pts) I'm sort of amused how many people in places like youtube claim to remember getting their NES in 1985. Yeah there's a few people who got one then, but not as many as the people who claim to remember it now. I think people's minds have been twisted because all the accessories say "©Nintendo 1985" on them. It's awesome that AtariAge automatically converts ( c ) to a legally correct © symbol. +10pts to atariage.

Unfortunately, I think 486 boards are pretty hard to find nowadays. I remember looking for those on ebay like ~1yr ago and noticed they were going for steep prices. They've moved beyond junk status and are now treated as collectibles. Pentiums are far more common, and they're also more friendly to modern components. ATX, PCI, Ultra-ATA, etc. 486's are just old enough to be incompatible with pretty much everything. I used to have a junk 486 board, wish I still had it. It was an infamous PCChips model and never stable, but I'd have fun trying to stabilize it knowing what I know now.

I was pretty impressed when I discovered that my brother's F-Zero game actually had battery backup just so it could save the high scores. That's the first game I ever saw that with. That feature makes a racing game much more interesting to play.

I love how they make arcades sound like some mysterious spectacle from ancient Egypt or something.

I've played a bunch of RPGs but finished very few. I just never seem to finish them, especially the larger, more open computer RPGs. My favorite series are the Ultimas, but I only recently started playing Wizardry. The only Ultima I've actually finished is 7. I've put real effort into all the numbered Ultimas except 2 and 5. Came close to finishing Ultima 1 (Apple) many years ago, but don't have the game anymore. I don't think I have much left to do in Ultima 3 (NES), but haven't played it in forever. I finished more of the simple console RPGs, since there isn't much to distract you in those games, they pretty much force you to make progress. The biggest console RPG I finished was Phantasy Star 2. Final Fantasy 2 (4) was I think the last one I finished. After that I couldn't even finish linear console RPGs anymore. I dropped out of FF3, and got stuck in Lunar (seriously wonder if my savegame is broken). Going forward a few more years I made a pathetic attempt at FF7, and basically didn't even try FF8.

Sounds good to me... but I guess it's not getting much reaction. I'm not sure I actually own any games that have an ending.

TaxMan on the Apple II

It sounds to me like the Quickshot only supports 1 button mode on Atari. It wouldn't really surprise me, even in 1991 the generic term "Atari" was usually associated with the 2600. Also, the wiring on 7800 2 button joysticks is unique, not like any other system. I'm actually not sure what happens if you plug a 2600 joystick into Choplifter - I thought fire would still work but I don't have a 2600 stick to test. If a game automatically switches to 2 button mode, without testing the joystick for compatibility, then it will end up with none of the buttons working. I'm pretty sure Xevious tests the joystick for 2 button support, and falls back to 1 button if 2b mode fails. That would explain why it acts the way you describe.

Yes, that is certainly true. However, I can't think of any reason to do this instead of just putting the game in a 2600 cart. It's not like the 7880->2600 game will have any advantages over the 2600 cart game once it's forced the 7800 into 2600 mode. I suppose it could alternate between the two (assuming it could keep the memory maps straight), but again I can't think of any reason to do this. It would be useful for a multicart.

As you said 7800 has much more processor time available. This would make it more practical to walk the TIA through more complex sounds. There probably isn't much time to fiddle with sound registers in a 2600 game.

I think that was it. Thanks for the link, it was fun to read that again. ========= This part was surprising: :!: But that got amended in the next round: Here's the part that in a nutshell shows why the deal fell through: So basically Atari needed to delay for time and Nintendo wanted to move quickly. Based on earlier comments in the memo I don't think the Famicom was finished yet either, but it was apparently further along. If the deal was cheap enough I imagine Atari would have just taken the NES and picked between it vs Maria later. But Nintendo was insisting on minimum order quantities.