Swami

Sorry, but I'm half expecting another two years of convention appearances and grandstanding with nothing to show for it?

I still see an original with the right combination of original and modern peripherals as infinitely better to VICE in a nice package, but I still bought one just for the hell of it. It's a cool homage.

I think one with an external power source for external ground is more likely to help. Maybe some work without it but it seems to help.

My problem with games written in the 80's being homebrews is that games like Happy Birthday, Extraterrestrials and Red Sea Crossing were made by some guy in his home and sold much like Homebrews are today and in numbers on the same scale. I guess the difference would be they were directed at the public while homebrews began as directed at retro fans; First at conventions, then on websites. I suppose you could say "first as programs in fan magazines in the 80s". The computers vs consoles angle is an interesting one. Some computers were almost hybrids, as computers like the C64 and Atari 400/800 had so many game cartridges, like the consoles did, they differed from Apples and IBMs.

There's this weird semi-comprehensive collection of 10,000 files in archive.com called atari 2600 nongood that has just about everything through the end of 2017. Thing is, it has every posted version of the major and minor homebrews, like all versions of development of a game from version 1 to version 22 or whatever. In the meantime, I have this. It gets a little light in 2020 and 2021...just too many games. If anyone wants to supplement it with stuff from the last year and a half, please do. Prof_Ima_Stud_Atari2600HBs.zip

The one actually used is more accurate for the gameplay. It shows the EM2 being used, which may have been the main reason for the change, and chasing the blue car with you being chased by the white car and generally no actual characters from the show making an in person appearance. Maybe group testing revealed people were confused by the cover vs the gameplay.

Joined

When are these coming? I thought one was done.

Hey there, sent you a PM.

Wow! A lot of enhancement. Looks good, though.

I was just curious. How big did these two ROMs end up being? It sounds like they started at less than 16k and 32 24k and the one in the first post was 32k, but more was done (of course, some of the 32k could be empty code).

Here's one of them:

Yeah, I always saw Pac-man as the addict raiding the monsters' stash or the monsters are a delusion the drugs keep at bay. Although, you could make it a more heroic story, like the monsters have taken humans to another planet as slaves and the pellets are blood oxygenation pellets. Pac-man has broke into their storage facility and is stealing the stashes so the humans can rise up against their oppressors. He finds food sometimes, too.

old VCR - its a $5 or less coax cable to composite adapter. Goodwill or Craigslist

Usb mouse includes trackball mice in my mind, as a few have pool ball size roller balls. Other trackballs are one inch. Others like arcade style are not mice, but can be be USB or PS/2. May not be for the more “cranky.” ?

The TOM+ adapter has both usb mouse to pin 1-4 quadrature and usb mouse to joystick, but, in my experience and from others, it is easy to kill, probably from ESD. Too bad, as it also has a joystick pass through that could be used for a keypad source. Of course, it would have to be part of an overall larger adapter. The Smalleymouse2 is a very good usb mouse to pin 1-4 quadrature adapter, but you would have to add on the usb mouse to joystick adapter and, as far as I know, all of them except the TOM’s are PS/2 only (mostly but not always usb compatible). Such as device that could do both usb mouse to quadrature and joystick could serve for both usb mice and spinners in optical encoder and joystick mode. You would, however, have a brick there for the adapter and a power line piggy backing on the CV power input or wall outlet (or batteries).

I’ve been slowly working on a usb mouse adapter. A couple of kinks to work out and someone else would have to do all the commercial production and distribution cuz I don’t have time for it. Also, trying to combine the joystick and trackball modes could be a hassle.

No offense taken. Let me preface this with a “to the best of my understanding” as I know the broad strokes I discuss below are correct. The Quadrature encoders measure speed and direction, so the faster you move through those 30 degrees of rotation, the more pixels you move per frame. The joystick mode goes through the joystick inputs and you have a 1:1 correspondence between distance the ball moves and pixels moved with a maximum of six pixels per frame, which I believe is the speed that the joystick moves at for constant joystick pressure in a given direction. For instance, in this game, if you move the trackball slowly in trackball mode, it will move about the same number of pixels or less as the joystick for the same 30 degrees of movement. If you move the trackball very fast in trackball mode, it will move 3x the number of pixels as in joystick mode for the 30 degrees of movement. Those are the observable differences. The programming and electronics are beyond my field of knowledge, though.

It is the classic game with just the addition of true roller controller. Only a controller hack. Not a graphical or audio one. It is similar but somewhat the reverse of New Coleco’s controller hacks of several games. I personally like the original, but always wished it had the true trackball compatibility and paid for the programming myself, so, I was limited in that sense to additionally making an alternative graphical/audio hack.

I just realized I decided at the last minute to make the poll single choice for the first poll, but forgot to remove "choose all you like" from the "name choice" question. I fear changing it will erase the poll question due to AA's software, which really dislikes you editing a poll. Sorry about that. We will have another poll, if needed, to sort out any 2nd or 3rd place choices if needed. Also, to clarify "arcade style" vs "console style" Arcade Style is this guy: Console Style is this guy

Also, I just realized I decided at the last minute to make the poll single choice for the first poll, but forgot to remove "choose all you like" from the "name choice" question. I fear changing it will erase the poll question due to AA's software. Sorry about that.

Does this include those that combine the wiimote and nunchuck, like some of the rifles that had the wiimote in the barrel area and nunchuck in the stock area, etc.

If I edit a poll too often, it will automatically get corrupted by AA's software and remove part of the poll, so, just wanted to mention here that if there is enough interest and there is not much variance in choice, I may have a second poll with favorite runner up or least desirable choice for bonus items to get a favorite 2-3 choices. The poll options don't let you choose top two or three easily. One of the other options for the game name was kill-o-pede, but I discovered there was Pokemon character of this name, although it looks suspiciously like an actual photographed centipede.