gdement
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Posts posted by gdement
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I ordered several games from the Sears catalog in 1987 - early 88. The cheapest games included Galaga, Xevious, Choplifter, and Dig Dug that I can remember. Games like those were $10. Some games were $15, I remember Impossible Mission was one of them. The most expensive games were $20, those included Winter and Summer Games. This was all before I had a NES, and I remember where I lived at the time, so I'm sure it was no later than early 88. The system itself was also ordered out of that catalog in 1987. I'm not certain of the price progression. It might have been $10, $20, $30 instead of $10, $15, $20. But I remember there were 3 price levels and it started at $10.
I remember the $10 price level very well, I used my allowance money to buy some of those, and I remember looking at that catalog page a lot. The next page had the NES stuff, and it was all 2-3X as expensive. I'm sure that's a big part of why my dad suggested a 7800 when I told him I wanted a NES. The other reason of course was compatibility with our 2600 games.
Given who the customers were, it seems sensible that Tramiel's low-cost approach should have worked. But kids aren't rational about their money. After I got a NES, my parents used to be incredulous that I would save my money for 2 months and blow it all on a game that I'd have beaten in a couple days. The NES just seemed so revolutionary that I couldn't help myself. Adjusting for inflation, and the income level of the customer base, I think the NES must be the most expensive system ever to succeed in the mass-market. Nowadays there's a lot more adults playing video games and prices have actually remained stagnant and even gone down. I won't pay $50-$60 for a game *today*, yet I happily did so when I was younger and poorer.
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Yeah, I had it early, and it was a very solid game.
I'll third that.
I remember finding this game at a record store in the mall. My mom complained about the price but I ended up with it anyway. The graphics and sound were very intense I thought, I went nuts playing this game. It had great visual effects, such as the glowing colors on the energy shield, the warp screen, and the explosion was always exciting. I used to sometimes sit and wait for the death star to finish being built just because I even thought that looked cool. It's still one of my favorite games on the system. The label fell off though.
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I don't remember ever cleaning it, but its been like this on every play ever since it was new. All my other games seem to work fine. Winter Games is the only game that differs from what I get in MESS. However, Winter Games is also the only bankswitched game I own, so maybe that's significant.
That's exactly how my 7800 Winter Games has always been. I was always disappointed that there was such a small amount of sound compared to other versions of the game; a couple of events were completely silent!Agreed. I had played the Epyx games on a friend's C64 and was hoping for something similar. The shortage of sound really bugged me.
So, I don't think this is unique to your cartridge.But, are you saying you're getting much more sound and music on a different ROM image? Are you playing this on an emulator, or a real 7800?
Yes, I'm getting much more sound from a ROM image that I downloaded from the internet, most likely from AA. I'm running it in MESS.
Perhaps there are two different versions of the game (one with full sound, one with limited sound), or perhaps there's just one version that plays differently on different revisions of the 7800.I'm very curious what other 7800 owners have to say about their personal experiences with the sound in Winter Games. For the record, my system is one with the expansion port on the left side.
I wish I had a way to dump my cartridge's ROM, it would be interesting to try it in MESS and see what it does.
I've only played my cartridge on one console, a newer 7800 which does not have an expansion port. The first console I tried it on was an older model with an expansion shell (don't know about the port itself), but that console died on the first try so I don't know what the sound would have been like.
My cartridge uses a "C100339 Rev. A" PCB with 8 jumpers. W2 and W5 are shorted, the rest are open. I noticed that Dan Boris documented a C300565 version of Winter Games in a document he typed up. Maybe these are different.
http://www.atarihq.com/danb/7800cart/7800cart.txt
The back of the board has a 41 87 date code on it. The ROM says
C031231-001
SHARP JAPAN
©1987 ATARI 8737 D
I'm now second guessing my memory, and on further recollection I feel confident that I got the game in December 1988, not 1990. In any case, this is clearly a 1987 version of the game.
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Yeah I guess, I'm not real proud of that story. Wish I had seen it before it went to press. Some of it was not the way I said it, or meant it anyway. The part about Great Britian, Europe and Japan, I said There is a lot of interest here as well as around the world, such as.... the above countries. Also of course no one has 6000 systems, that was suppose to be games, just a bunch of little errors, oh well. Maybe I'll write a story about it soon and send it to the paper. I ordered some of the papers and got them in the mail, I'll take a pic and post it soon.I've learned not to trust newspaper quotations. I've often seen press conferences on TV, then later read about it in the paper and noticed misquotations. I guess reporters aren't as idealistic as I am about quote marks. Quote marks are supposed to contain *exactly* what the person said, but they often don't.
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Many years ago (1990 I think), I received 7800 Winter Games as a birthday present. I hadn't used the console for a long time, so I had to hook it up before I could play the game. I finished setting everything up, plugged the game in, and pushed power. Nothing happened, then a second later I heard a pop, and a bit of smoke rose out of the 7800 near the power connector. That console was thrown out and replaced with a new one. I still have the 1990 unit and the game has always seemed to work fine.
I have recently noticed that the Winter Games ROM download doesn't match my own cartridge. My cartridge seems to have a lot of sounds missing that are present in the ROM. I'm not sure where the ROM came from but it probably came from this site. Here's a list of what the sound is like on my cartridge:
+Theme song at startup is present.
-There is no beep when selecting items on the menu.
-The swoosh sound when you ski in the biathlon is missing.
+The rifle sounds during target shooting are present.
-The jingle during biathlon results doesn't play.
+The starting signal sounds in speed skating are present.
-There are no crowd sounds in speed skating.
-No sound effects or crowd noise in ski jump.
-All sound effects during the bobsled are missing.
-Jingle at the end of a bobsled run is missing.
-The theme might not play at the end of a competition, but don't remember clearly.
I'm guessing my cartridge was damaged and I just never realized it. But I don't see how my cartridge could have been damaged in such a selective way that the game still runs but with merely some sounds missing. Is there a version of the game with less sound, like I described, or is my cartridge damaged? I had thought of eventually fitting this cartridge with an EPROM socket, but if it's been damaged I should find a different one.
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http://gccprinters.com/corporate/history.html
That's their history page, but I don't know if its the same one you remember. The only part that relates to video games is this paragraph:
GCC was founded in 1981 during the onset of the video game craze. C.E.O. Kevin Curran and MIT classmates Doug Macrae, John Tylko, Chris Rode, Steve Golson and Mike Horowitz began by developing an enhancement for Atari's "Missile Command" and went on to create "Ms. Pac Man", still one of the top-selling coin-operated video games in history. Between 1982 and 1984, GCC developed a total of 58 consumer electronics products that generated over $800 million in revenue for Atari and Bally Manufacturing.Aren't they understating the Ms. Pac Man bit? I thought Ms. Pac Man was *the* best selling coin-op, period. They just call it "one of the the top-selling".
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Do you happen to have a really old VCR handy? Some of those have manual tuning adjustments on them, you could manually try to dial in the correct frequency. I suppose old TVs might also have something similar.
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You can definitely just pull it off. I did that when my system was a couple weeks old, as soon as I realized you could. Made everything shiny for a little while.
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FFVIIIA love story with no love
Yeah, and a role-playing game with no game, if Final Fantasy VII was any indication. Stringing a bunch of cut scenes and full-motion video sequences together is NOT a game.
JR
I guess some people still think that stuff is cool, like they've never watched a DVD before. I used to like Final Fantasy on the NES and SNES, but it turned to crap when they got hold of optical discs. This is what ruined the Sega-CD.
The worst ripoff I ever suffered was Genesis Sword of Sodan. I was looking for a fighting game and the box looked cool. So I paid something like $50 for it, took it home, and I was in shock at how horrible the gameplay was. 1 player Combat is more fun than that game. I really felt like it was a fraud, a game whose only design-spec was impressive graphics that look good on the back of a box. I sold it at a garage sale some years later for $4, and I felt like I had conned him.
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I used to have an original model CD. It died within a year or 2, it wouldn't power on at all. I got it repaired (I think it was still under warranty), and it worked for another couple years or so. Then it died again. I replaced it with a model-2 from FuncoLand, that unit still works.
I threw out the model-1 when I moved a few years ago, though I wish I hadn't. It is more impressive looking than the cheaper model-2. Reliability wise, I obviously had better luck with the model-2. Maybe I just had a lemon - any model 1 that still works nowadays might be pretty solid. But the motorized drive may be getting tired by now.
If you have a model-2 Genesis, you need the model-2 CD for it to fit properly. Back in the day, my original Genesis was giving me fits so I got a new one, and I found that the model-2 genesis sits up too high to align with the connector on the model-1 CD. I guess Sega assumed nobody would try that combination. I removed the rubber feet on the genesis but it still was hard to fit. I got it to work but I bent a pin on the female connector at first.
Model-1 is cool, but in my opinion its also more likely to give you trouble.
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You guys can say what you want about the nes having great games and all and i'd probably agree. However i've got to say i almost never play it due to these types of problems. Between flashing screens,claning carts,replacing connectors etc it just doesn't seem worth it. I have two front loading nes' and I have popped up the pins on the 72 pin connector and cleaned the systems. They still give me 5 minutes worth of purple,blue and flashing grey screens before they ever play the game. I also bought a top loader which works better but not much. The games still have to be put in numerous times and wiggled around before they want to work. I very rarely have any of these problems with my sms,snes or even 2600 which is older.I think the NES connector problems are a result of having so many pins, and the amount of tension involved. A lot of people seem to dislike this design, but personally its my favorite since it is easy to restore to like-new condition. The female connectors are isolated on an easy to replace component, making the unit very serviceable. What Nintendo did is about as sensible as building a car with replaceable brake pads. My 7800 and Genesis work okay but can be frustrating sometimes, and they're only going to get worse. The NES will probably be trouble free for life, so long as I hold on to a few extra connectors.
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Its almost a sure thing that the cartridge connector just needs to be replaced. When you push the cartridge down, it causes tension which is supposed to provide good electrical contact. But over the years that tension gets too soft and isn't adequate anymore. Try using your hand to hold the cartridge all the way down and power the system on. If it works better that way, then the connector must be the problem. Fortunately the connector is replaceable, you can buy new replacements on eBay or from MCM Electronics, part number 83-3785. The connector just plugs into another connector on the NES motherboard. No soldering is required, the whole process only involves a screwdriver and maybe 3 pieces. You won't be overwhelmed by it, really.
http://mcm.newark.com/NewarkWebCommerce/mc...SKU=83-3785&N=4
If you're afraid of opening the unit yourself, I'd still order the part and give it to a friend to install. If you have to take it to a shop, having the part in hand might help keep them from overcharging you, and more importantly will help ensure they fix it properly. If they aren't very competent they might expend labor time just trying to clean it and that won't fix it very well. They may also claim the part isn't available if they don't know where to get it. Honestly though, you can do this yourself.
Once you've installed the connector the games should work as good as when the system was new. You should clean the games before using them with your shiny new connector, but considering how easy it is to replace that might not even be worth the trouble (depending how many games you have). The new connector will probably be so tight that you don't even need to push the games down for them to work. If that's the case, don't push them down. There's no reason to wear out the connector by using more tension than necessary. For the same reason, its adviseable to remove the game when you're not using the machine.
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Is it fair to assume that because of the walking on Atari/Infogrames eggshells that goes on here, this game will have to be changed slightly and renamed?Not sure, but someone must own the rights to the Q*bert name (Atari or otherwise), and changing the name of the game is one way to help divert attention away from it. Some research needs to be done to see who presently owns the rights to the game.
..Al
I looked this up a while ago, and according to www.uspto.com the trademark for Q*Bert on a video game cartridge belongs to Columbia Pictures. I have no idea why they have it, they must have a subsidiary in video games or something. I don't know about the copyright, but it would seem logical for the same company to also own the copyright.
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What about "Q" ?
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I think the letter X was just invented to look cool. Other than that its useless.
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While it may be irrelevant, I find it stange that Atari Corp. put into Jinks' intro several sound clips from the arcade version of Atari Games' Gauntlet. So there's a connection there, in a way, to Tengen.Besides, is there any reason why they decided to get those particular sound clips? Other than just the fact that they were probably what sound clips were on hand at the time?
My guess is the author had already written speech code for an unreleased gauntlet port so it was convenient to use it in Jinks to play music. As long as he was doing that, he/they just decided to show off some clips. If there was any further purpose, maybe it was some subtle campaigning to get the fans to start asking about gauntlet.
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I think its a shame that they never released Gauntlet. The guy who programmed Jinks was supposedly working on Gauntlet, and he even threw in some audio clips from it in the Jinks startup screen. The limitation of his technique for playing voices on the 7800 is that it eats up all the CPU time, so you can't really animate the screen while playing the sound. But that fits perfectly with Gauntlet, because that game has some obvious pauses during a lot of the sounds anyway. The high sprite count also would have fit well with the 7800.
I'm not a huge Jinks fan as far as gameplay goes, but I think the programmer was quite talented. My guess is that if he had finished Gauntlet and been given an adequate ROM size to work with, it could have been an outstanding port. Released earlier, it could have even put a dent in the system wars.
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Tower Toppler, Jinks, Meltdown I think, and maybe some others. Lots of games use hires in selected places, but few use it exclusively. It's often used for nicer looking text in the score display.
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First up is an Activision 'Special Edition' from July '82. This must have come out between Activisions volume 3 and 4. Basically it is just a promotion for a Starmaster contest.
Here is the official entry form for that same Starmaster contest.
Damn, I'm not eligible. Too young by a few months. What's with those people at the bottom of the ad? Who are they and why are they looking at me?
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I rented this game a couple times back then. I never really liked it, but I thought it was almost okay. The funky bosses like Spiderman are pretty interesting. It's better than Ninja Gaiden in my opinion, but that's not saying much. It seems martial arts games generally aren't much fun. The only exception I can think of is Kung Fu.
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I always used to play NIght Driver, pretending that your car was a spaceship that had its lasers disabled, and you had to avoid the bombs (fenceposts) and aliens (oncoming cars).That was the great thing about the 2600. It really left a lot to your imagination.
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So the word is that I should go play Scrapyard Dog and forget my idea of ever seeing SMB ported to the 7800 right
? Is there anyone here that thinks if they wanted to that they could do do this port to the 7800 of SMB and just has not got the time or intrest? I am really into getting mario 1 for the 7800 I just think it would be awsome. Hell make SMB 2j then if SMB1 isn't good enough. SMB 2j has got to be worth the while.
There's no doubt in my mind that it could be done. With some efficient use of direct mode graphics, there should be plenty of rendering time for everything. The ROM size might need to be a little larger though, because the 7800 benefits from wider graphics which might include redundant information. The NES stores everything in 8x8 and gets by fine with lots of tiles on screen. NES SMB was only 40KB, so rom size isn't a big issue anyway. Although it'd be nice if it could fit on a Ballblazer cart.
Back in the day, SMB was the first game that got me obsessed with the idea of getting a NES. I was frustrated that my 7800 didn't have games like that. So I'd feel some belated vindication in seeing it done. But nowadays SMB isn't as exciting as it used to be, and since its Nintendo's IP I think its unlikely anyone would want to bother with it, especially considering how much work would be involved. If only the copyright would expire after 20 years - but it doesn't.
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Centipede's title screen impressed me when it was new, it still gets my vote.
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I have an SNES that does not power on. If you shake it, you can hear what sounds like a broken piece of plastic rattling around. I have read elsewhere that this indicates a broken power switch. So I need 2 things: a way to open the machine and whatever replacement part is required to fix the switch.
I already plan to order some things from MCM Electronics, including a screwdriver/bit set that claims to open Nintendo and Sega stuff. But after opening the machine, I'm still going to need to fix it. I can't see it until I open it, so does anybody know what replacement part I will need to fix the power switch? Is the part available at MCM Electronics or elsewhere? I haven't been able to find it.
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Is this pricing list considered accurate?
in Atari 7800
Posted
The CC2 doesn't give you all the games, it just gives you a place to copy them. No seller is going to bother competing with the price of CC2+MMC storage. It would be like comparing the price of an A8 game with the price of a blank floppy disk. If having the real cartridges doesn't matter to you, then naturally the CC2 is more economical, and that would be the best way to go.