Tinman

There are a ton of great carts with arcade ports, like Galaxian, PacMan, Asteroids, Missile Command. But your best option is my all-time favorite video game, the original Star Raiders. I also loved several of the Avalon Hill games, including Galaxy, Nukewar, and Midway.

Not sure. I just pre-ordered one and some paddles from Amazon, but they won't ship for a couple of weeks. The description says it's an AV cable, so I assume that it's like the previous versions, which have a video (RCA) cable and an audio one.

Very cool story. I especially like your distinction between being a gamer and a collector. I'm probably somewhere in between the two myself. Welcome back to the Atari!

I seriously doubt that Microsoft will ever release a patch that bypasses the Start Screen in favor of the desktop. It's called the "Start Screen" for a reason: It's where you start things. And Metro is clearly their idea of the future. But here's a simple trick to make going to the desktop easier: Make sure that the live tile for the desktop is in the top left position on your start screen. Then, to open the desktop from the start screen, all you have to do is press Enter. Also, once you're on the desktop, you can use the Windows key to toggle back and forth between the start screen and the desktop.

I think you're right about some of this. Metro is clearly a mobile environment that Microsoft has grafted onto Windows. But I think it was there only good choice, really, to maintain or grow Windows. They clearly see tablets like iPads cutting into PC sales and that trend is going to continue. In a few years, I would imagine that tablets will have a market share close to traditional PCs and Microsoft obviously wants to be a part of that. With Windows 8, you expose millions of users to the new mobile environment while maintaining backwards compatibility with the old desktop applications (obviously, Windows RT provides much less of this backwards compatibility). As for looking like #$%!, I think metro actually looks pretty slick. I love the live tiles and think they're far better than the static grid of icons you get on iOS and many Android versions. I have a Windows Phone 7 and the live tiles let me see at a glance a lot of information without even opening the app. The metro UI itself, too, is pretty slick and makes for some really nice looking apps. On my desktop I don't use the metro apps as much, I still mostly use the desktop, but I do use the metro apps on occasion and it's not as bad as you think. I was worried about how well I'd like them on my big 23" monitors, but it does work well. My biggest complaint so far is that you cannot run two metro apps side-by-side on multiple monitors. But you can (and I do) run metro apps on one monitor while I have the desktop running on the other.

I disagree. In fact, I believe that Server 2012 does have a Metro interface, along with the desktop, the PowerShell, and even the old DOS prompt. (By the way, Windows RT has all of those, too.) Not only that, but many of the Server web-based interfaces now use a metro-style look and feel as well. I see no reason why the desktop utilities can't be made in Metro, and I expect to see just that. I think this is way off! There is absolutely nothing in metro that requires that an app be "dumbed down" compared to a desktop app. Just because we're mostly used to the simple apps of the type you'd see on an iPad or other tablet doesn't mean that Windows metro apps have to be that simple. Remember, metro and Windows 8 will be running on very powerful modern PCs. The apps running on those PCs can be every bit as powerful and feature-laden as existing desktop apps. I've been using Windows 8 on both of my PCs (tablet and desktop) for many months now. It is NOTHING like America Online and anyone who things so obviously hasn't used it yet.

I have nothing against Silverlight, but it's pretty clear that it's a technology for the Windows desktop only and with "Metro" (now "Modern-UI") and WinRT, Microsoft is moving away from that. No, the desktop won't go away any time soon, and may see some improvements in updates to Win8, but it's definitely not the strategic direction for Microsoft. Silverlight may not be dead, but it and the desktop are on life support. The good news for developers is that their experience with Silverlight should help quite a bit when transitioning to WinRT.

The Surface Pro tablet, which should launch sometime early next year, will run Windows 8 Pro on an Intel chip and will be compatible with the older Windows 7 software, like Silverlight.

Actually, the initial Surface which was announced today runs Windows RT on AIM chips, so it is not fully compatible with "legacy" Windows 7 software. It will run the Office RT that comes with it and couple of desktop utilities like Notepad, but not any other desktop software. The only apps it will run are the Windows 8 apps that are available in the Windows App Store for Windows RT devices. Yes, Silverlight is a Microsoft technology, but it is no longer core. The Silverlight libraries have been deprecated in favor of the WinRT runtime engine. The APIs are somewhat similar, but definitely not the same.

I won't know for certain until I get mine, but from what I understand it does NOT support Silverlight. It does have some limited support for Flash, though.

I pre-ordered a Surface, so I'll be able to say how much the keyboard compares with the Atari 400 in a few days. Although, I have to admit, I haven't used a 400 in a very long time. We bought an 800 way back when, and I have it and an 800XL now.

Heck yeah, I still play it! Also the Atari 800 version (the best video game ever made) as well as Starmaster and Phaser Patrol, and occasionally Space Battle or Star Voyager. My favorite on the 2600 is Star Master, but Star Raiders and Phaser Patrol are right up there. I put up a long review/comparison of the various 2600 first-person space simulators up here in the forums a few months ago.