kencrisis

I ordered a few things from them when I first started getting into the 2600 about 6 months ago -- and before I learned just how horribly overpriced all their stuff was. The were bad about the emails, but I did receive my items. I had to return a joystick that wasn't working properly and they exchanged it no problem.

I'd hold on to some of those carts. You're going to need something to do at 4 am when you can't sleep because of all the screaming and crying. Um, I mean, congratulations!

I just got this about two hours ago. Looking forward to getting better at it, but I can see how it can be pretty addicting. Funny, never heard of or saw this when I was a kid.

Thanks. I know there's no hard rules about this kind of stuff. Just wanted to get a general idea of how much they generally sell for on Ebay. I didn't do too bad on the price when you factor in that I really wanted these titles. Desire is priceless.

So, I've been collecting for about 6 months and have been very happy with the most common commons so far. This week, I just started to delve into the world of rarer carts and don't really have an idea of value for a few R4 and R5 carts I just probably paid too much money for. How much, in general are R4/5 carts worth? How much would you pay for: Defender II (boxed, manual, opened) Loose carts: Off the Wall Crackpots Frostbite Midnight Magic Keep in mind that I don't really have access to swap meets or other magic sources of cheap finds. Online ordering is pretty much it for me.

Starfire

OK, I just read the long Ebivision thread that explains all this. Ignore my previous ignorant statment!

No ROMs for the games? I want to check them out to see if I want to buy them!

the '80 has better buttons. Best Electronics has them NIB for pretty cheap

In elementary and junior high school we played plenty of finger-tip-on-pencil combat games. When I was in 5th grade I was in MGM/GATE -- which basically gave us on period a day to have the opportunity to propose any project and work on it for as long as we want. I created a 3-D space-themed board game. It was basically a square spiral track that slowly rose about 12 inches off the base. Some of the spaces you would land on had black holes -- little tubes that would send your game piece down the chute back to a lower level. Some of the spaces had a hyperspace function -- a little platform/string/pulley system that would (manually) lift your game piece further up the board to a space above it (with a hole cut in it for the platform to arrive), putting you closer to the finish at the top of the spiral. The whole thing was made out of cardboard and construction paper and included question cards that required a correct answer to advance. The questions on the cards were about space science, Star Wars, and space-themed video games (which games, I can't remember). That thing took me so long to build, wish I had it today. It survived until about '84 or '85 when I was in high school ... but pretty banged up, I decided to ditch it.

Argh, I promised myself I wouldn't buy anymore carts until I put some extensive time in with all the ones I got over the holidays. But all this talk of Defender II got me itching to get it on Ebay today (it's been high on my want list for a while). At least I also got it in the box w/manual.

Yes, games 9 and 10 are the Co-Op versions in Demon Attack. I highly recommend them used in conjuction with copious amounts of beer. Good fun, and a guarantee that you get the lowest scores of any Demon Attack game. (One nice touch: if you get killed, the other player gets 500 points.) Another two-player wierdo (and another IMAGIC title) is Star Voyager. It offers two different two-player games. In one, you team up as pilot and "Weapons Officer" -- one persone flies, while the other person shoots. In the other version, the left joystick controls the Star Voyager and the right joystick controls the enemy ships and the pulsar bomb fire.

Here ya go. I got Grand Prix and Kaboom today and have to say, although I think a fast food Atari-themed prize is pretty cool and has gets a lot of nostalgia points for me, the games are pretty much just for kids or the collector. I collect to play, not to store. For adults, the two games I have are fun for a few minutes, great to look at, but don't have much long-term playability value. Both games were easliy mastered in short order. Not really a criticism, since these things really are meant for young kids. That said, I thought they did a good job with the design of the casings, colors, stickers, etc. One nice touch I'd like to point out that no one has so far: I really appreciate the fact that they took the extra step of providing a plastic sleeve for the little brochure that comes with the games. I'll be filing these with my manuals for posterity.

My wife and I love battling it out with Ice Hockey, Boxing, and Tennis. Armor Ambush is fun too. And we occaisionally pull out Pong Sports and whip through a number of the different games. I love playing the "Special Co-Op" games in Demon Attack (where every four seconds the game automatically switches players) because it's hectic and stupid fun, but my wife gets frustrated with it ... she plays to win.

That's too bad. For me the whole allure of Barnstorming is going through the barns. Guess I won't be getting that one. Don't mean to be mean, but really, if they had a clue at all, they wouldn't be working at BK, right? I worked at BK for 35 days when I was 16 and figured out pretty quickly that escape was the ONLY option.

I had a number of these when I was a kid in the late '70s/early '80s, but none had the Atari brand on them. They worked pretty well, but inevitably, I would always over-pump and break them.

Seems like almost everyone just has Grand Prix. Any opinions on how enjoyable it (or any of the other games) is/are for adults?

According to digitpress.com: At 1 million points, the game ends and the score counter displays "!!!!!!!!".

The day after Xmas, 1978, my rich and popular neighbor (and a real bastard) invited me over to check out his 2600. It was the first one I'd seen in "real life," and I remember how I thought it looked so big, fancy and hi-tech. My neighbor wouldn't let me touch it -- I had to just sit there and watch him switch joysticks as he played rounds of Combat against himself! To be honest, although I was a little annoyed and really wanted to play, I was pretty dang happy to just be watching it -- it looked so cool. My parents would never buy us a 2600, but sometime in the early '80s, a family friend gave us their VCS and around 20 games when they upgraded to something else. My big brother (also a real bastard at the time) claimed ownership and wouldn't let me play it. Once again, I would mostly have to be content with watching and reading the manuals. (To this day, I have a strong affection for the manuals; I read them over and over.) My brother would often take the power supply with him when he wasn't playing it so that I couldn't "mess up the Atari." When I did get to play, I was terrible because I could never put any time into learning the games. But I still had fun. I have strong memories of summer vacation days in the early '80s: wake up at 10am to watch a Love Boat rerun and eat Lucky Charms. Play Atari (or watch it being played) from 11am to noon. Watch 2 episodes of Twighlight Zone from noon to 1pm. Go out and play until late afternoon and come back for more Atari, a few cartoons and more sugary food. Good times.

Ahh yes, I remember seeing this before. I was just confused by the novice seller of this advertising it as "Classic Atari with Stand."

Hi, I've never seen one of these VCS stands pictured here. Were they an Atari item or aftermarket. How common are they?

In know the patch contest is over, but thought I'd post my score anyway. I'm proud, 'cos although I love playing video games, I generally suck at them. Count me elite. And I'd be very interested in paying for a patch (as suggested earlier in this thread) if that ever happens! (BTW, I had to put the white paper in the screen to get enough light for the camera to activate.)

Thanks for all the input -- really appreaciate it. I'll look into replacing the power supply this week, and see where that gets me. Hopefully I can fit it in between work and being totally sick.

Well, I just had another opportunity to try this again tonight and ran into the same problems. I played about 6 games without incident, then things went all buggy as described before. Unfortunately, I don't have another console to try this out on (I'm using a Vader), and all my other games work perfectly on it. Gateway, what type of console were you using when you saw this problem? If anyone has any other ideas, I'd really appreciate it. But at this point, I think I'll have to live with playing a few games and then calling it quits. I don't think I could justify to my wife buying another console just to see if one game works better on it. A real bummer too, because this is one of the games that I'd really like to put some time into.

My new Starfire cart just started acting oddly tonight. After playing about 10 games, I hit level 3 on a game and my shots became wide bars. Then the enemy shots became squares, then the enemies became big squares. Has anyone had a problem like this? I made sure the cart was inserted firmly, I tried out other carts (no problems), I let my 2600 rest for about an hour, and still I have this problem. It seems pretty erratic ... suddenly my shots will return to normal for a little while then go back to being bars. Sometimes I can play to level 3 or 4 with no problems, but sometimes the weird graphics show up right away on level one. Sometimes there are normal looking enemies in the same screen with ones that are just squares.