RamrodHare

Just throwing my two cents in again about the multicarts. (I really wish someone had convinced me to go this route before I bought as many 7800 carts as I did.) You can get one multicart that you can load 16 games on. You play those 16 games until you get tired of them, then you can load 16 DIFFERENT games on it. You can do it for less than it would cost to just buy 16 decent games. If you want to collect carts, then that's cool, but if you are just interested in playing them, the multicart is the way to go. I know I'm repeating my earlier post and I apologize, I just want to make sure you know there's always this option. It will save you time and money, if you are just interested in playing the games. you can also use the multicart to try out the games, before you decide to buy the actual cart. That way you don't spend money on a game you won't ever play. The multicart is just a really good investment.

How do you intend to sell it? Were you going to offer it to people on these forums or put it on eBay? If you find a buyer on the forums, I'm sure they will offer you a fair price. If it's going on eBay, it's value is whatever someone is willing to pay. Start the auction at $20 with free shipping and see what happens. That's the best advice I can give.

I tried changing the diver (seemed simple enough), but I wasn't able to locate where the color was coming from. I know the value is "86" and I was going to change it to "00", so from dark blue, to black. (Or at least I think "00" is black.) The water (Background) changes color from screen to screen, so I would probably have to do a little more work, if I could even find it.. I've asked for a bit of help in the hacking forum, so hopefully someone will fill me in on where the player color is located in the code, since I don't seem to have enough smarts to find it on my own. Why couldn't it have been "Save Our Ship", instead of "Aquaventure". ​

I'm sure it is. I've seen nothing but good reviews. I just wish I had the money to go ahead and order it, but I've got too many things to pay for this coming week. The pharmacy keeps changing the prices on my medications, so I never know what it's going to cost from one month to the next and I'll be refilling them Monday. After that, I have to renew my tags and get car insurance. Life tends to have a way of ruining all my fun.

I 'm trying to help out another forum member, using what I learned here to change the player color on Aquaventure. Unfortunately, I'm a horrible student, because I can't find the player color location. I know the color is 86 and I want to change it to 00, but I can't track it down. Any tips on what I'm not doing correctly? Also, is there any kind of manual that I can use to learn this stuff without having to bug other members here all the time?

I noticed this post a few days ago and thought about offering to help, but I didn't have time right then. I thought someone else might beat me to it anyway. I can't make any promises, since I'm really new to hacking these games. I'll see how it looks on my TVs first and if it needs some color adjustments, I'll see if I can do it. EDIT. OK, I see what you mean. I'm not sure if I can do anything with the fish, but I think I can fix the diver. I'll give it a try.

I bought the Gemini Rapid Fire. I had "eBay Bucks" to use, so I asked the seller to add a buy it now within my price range and he was nice enough to do so. I should have it by the middle of next week (or sooner). I wasn't going to waste my actual money, since I'm trying to save up for a UAV board and still manage to survive the rest of this month.. The ebay Bucks are only good on eBay and there weren't many things I needed that were cheap enough to get without adding actual cash. I played some "Joust type" games today and realized that the adjustable auto fire might be a way to get a decent advantage on games like that. If not, I got it VERY cheap and can probably trade or sell it later on if I don't need it.

Go Fish! is my go to game almost every time I power up my Atari.

I tried the plastic tub thing. It worked until I got a few more than would fit in the tub, but not enough to require a second tub. So, I switched to stacking them in the upper shelf on my desk, at least until I sell them all. Once I bought the Harmony Encore, then carts became display items, which I don't have room for. I'm more interested in playing than collecting, plus, I can use the money from selling them to buy other Atari items.

If you want cheap fun, grab Food Fight and Robotron. If you want to spend a lot more, get Commando and Alien Brigade. There are a lot of games between there, as other's have mentioned. "THE BEST" recommendation, get some kind of multicart (the Mateos is great). Then you have access to the entire library of original games, plus some of the homebrews. You can only load 8 or 16 games at a time, depending on the rom size, but for the price, you can't beat it. This is something ALL new 7800 owners should consider. Commando alone runs $50 or so. Just add $30 more to that and you have the Mateos Multicart. If you aren't a collector and haven't bought any 7800 games yet, this is the cheapest and easiest way to get a decent amount of games for the money. For those who don't know, a multicart allows you to use downloaded roms. You load them onto the cart with your computer and away you go!

I won't go into all the hassles I've ran into, both buying and selling, but it's been a nightmare. I'd stay FAR away from eBay, if there were other options, but where I live, there aren't any. I live in a shitty town. I've only found one other guy within 30 miles, who was interested in Atari stuff and I found him on eBay, because he was selling off his collection! There's one Comic/collectables store here and I got all their Atari stuff when I worked there. If you go to the Greeneville Walmart, it's like going back in time about 8 months. We get things about a year after the other Walmarts in East TN. People drive to Johnson City or Kingsport because you can't find it here, then when it does get here, it just sits on the shelves, because people already HAVE it. Walmart has a distribution center here, IN GREENEVILLE, but they still can't stock current items! What the HELL? OK, sorry, I'm getting off topic. Yeah, I've had my fair share of bad sellers and buyers. eBay does seem to keep updating their rules to screw everyone, but if you don't have any other options....

I'm going to give the UAV a try. I have no doubt that it will be much better than the cheap mod board, but it's probably gonna take me a week to dig up enough extra money to afford it. Once I've got the UAV installed in the Vader, I'll probably try the cheap board in the Jr and see if it works well enough, if it doesn't, I'll have to dig up more money to get another UAV board. I have a feeling I'll be eating Ramen Noodles for a month.

I'm guessing that one is great for Wall Jump Ninja. I've done some modding on the "ACE" joystick to tighten it up a bit. It's actually not that bad at all... I did a little research and it seems these were made by Kraft, even though they don't say it anywhere. The inner handle on it is a lot better than the CX-40s, but sadly, it's not interchangable. I had some "conveyor belt" patching tape and I cut some small squares of it and put two layers on each dome switch on the PCB. The stuff won't come off no matter what and it's just the right combination of solid and flexible. The Ace stick is now as responsive or better than a factory CX-40! It's also very ergonomic, due to the smaller base with really rounded edges. I'm ready to build a nice joystick now, but I've got to take care of some more pressing matters before I can spend any more money. I've got to save up enough for a UAV board for my 2600 and after that, I've got meds and bills due. Once I get that taken care of, I'll be shopping for joystick components.

Thanks to everyone for the responses, but I'm not sure I worded my initial post correctly. Also, it seems that I really need answers from people who have modded Jr.s and revision 12 4-switchers, since that's what I'm working with and what works on other board revisions and 7800's, may not apply to my current situation. My 7800, with the cheap mod board (similar to the ones mentioned) is working fine. It has a great picture, there's no reason for me to change it. I just mention it as a reference to the fact that the cheap mod works fine. Here's the important part..The same mod on my 4-switch (revision 12 board in a Vader shell), doesn't work as well. The colors are bleeding badly and it doesn't make a difference what TV I connect it to. I even swapped the mod boards to be sure it wasn't a problem there. I've read that the Jr and the 7800, both have better picture with the cheap mod, than the 4-switchers do. ( I don't know why, I just guessed it was something to do with the 4050 chip, but I guess that's not the case.) What I'm trying to determine, without doing a bunch of desoldering and resoldering, is, A. Does anyone know if the cheap mod does work better on the Jr. than on my rev. 12 4-switcher? and B. What's a good mod to use on the rev. 12 4-switcher to get a clear picture from composite, without the color bleeding? (I know from experience now, that the cheap mod doesn't work very well.) I'm thinking the revision 12 board has something to do with the cheap mod not working as well. I know the revision 12 is missing a lot of components when compared to a revision 16 board. So I'm not sure if mods that work well on newer revisions will have the same picture quality on mine. Of course, I'm no expert at all, that's why I'm asking for help. I also need to point out that I'm on a very small, fixed income, so I have to really be careful where I spend my money and how much I spend . I'm hoping to draw from the knowledge of the members here, to keep from doing any expensive trial and error modding. I can usually spend about $50 a month on my hobbies and still pay the bills. Any more than that and I'll be deciding if I want to have running water, food, or my medicines. The UAV mod is within my price range, but I'd like to hear from someone as to it's effectiveness when connected to a revision 12 board before I sink any money into it. To better my chance, I'll ask that in the UAV thread also. I just decided to send Bryan a PM instead.

I used a couple of the cheap AV mods a while back on my 2600 Vader and my 7800. The mod worked out great on the 7800. The picture is very clear and there is no color bleeding. On my Vader (4-switch, revision 12 board), the picture is, well, terrible. There is quite a bit of color bleeding and it makes most of the text or scores, unreadable and some games are so much of a mess that they hurt my eyes. I recently bought a 2600 Jr. that I intended to use the RF on, since the picture is fine. The issue is, I'm running into a lot of compatibility issues with different TVs. I bought the Jr. because I wanted an Atari that was easier to transport to friends homes and such, but a lot of new TVs just won't work with the RF signal and carrying a VCR around is worse than just carrying my 7800. Now here's what I'm wondering.. Isn't the Jr similar to the 7800, as far as how the video output is handled? If so, shouldn't the cheap mod work just as well on it as id does on my 7800? I know that the 7800 uses a 4050 chip and I'm guessing that has something to do with the cheap AV mod working and the Jr. has the same chip, right? I also know that the Vader doesn't have this chip and the cheap mod doesn't work as well. So..... (I hope I'm making sense and not just rambling. ) If I'm right, I'm thinking about pulling the mod board from the 4-switcher and using it in the Jr. Then buying a mod kit that is better suited for the 4-switcher. If my thinking is correct and the cheap mod will work fine on the Jr, What mod should I install in the Vader/4-switcher? I have heard nothing but good reviews on the UAV mod and it's the only one that people have been talking about lately. I also read a post from a few years ago about a mod that uses the 4050 chip, but the circuit was really complicated to build and I'm not the best at soldering.. So, what's the recommendation?

So, is the autofire adapter more of a novelty than a necessity? Somehow I was under the impression that a fair amount of people used them. So far, I haven't felt the need to have one, but the more I play, the more it seems like something that would be handy for some of the shooters. I know that some games dictate the speed at which you can shoot, but others allow you to shoot as fast as your thumb will allow. I'll give the thread a little time to get some more replies, but so far it's looking like these aren't really that important of an accessory.

I can't comment on the value, but it does look like you have a VERY nice system there. Some parts do look like they are heavy sixer parts, so I agree this is probably a transitional console. Those are CX-10 joysticks and the paint on the bezel around the switches looks like it matches them. It really is a nice looking system, I hope you get lots of enjoyment from it.

Just finished trying it out. It's working fine on the Harmony Encore on my Vader, my 7800, and my Jr. I ended up playing it longer than I realized. It's great!

So I've been thinking about getting an autofire adapter for the 2600. I've found 3 different ones, all in the same price range. I thought I'd see if anyone here has experience with any (or all) of them. The 3 I've found are- PointMaster Fire Control Gemini Rapid Fire Lazer Quick Fire The Gemini and the Lazer both have adjustable fire rates via a dial, the PointMaster does not. The Lazer also has a length of cable, so it doesn't stress the ports on the 2600. Considering that, Those two already have the advantage over the PointMaster, but if anyone has a PointMaster Fire Control, and likes it, I'd still like to hear about it. If there are any others, that are easily found for a reasonable price, I'm open to hearing about them too. I know there are homebrew adapters out there, but I don't figure I can get one of them any cheaper than I can get these for.

USPS tracking is prone to errors, sometimes it updates regularly and sometimes it doesn't. I wouldn't worry about it yet. give it a few more days and if the tracking doesn't update, send an email to USPS and ask them if they can give you an update on where your package is.

It varies for me. I have a modded Vader and 7800, which get used on a 32 inch Magnavox floor model CRT, with JBL soundsystem built in, a 42 inch Vizio HDTV, a 47 inch Vizio Smart HDTV, with a ZVOX soundbar, a Sanyo 32 inch CRT, or a Durabrand 13 inch CRT. The modded 7800 has great picture quality with all of them. The Vader is a different story, it needs a better mod, since the color bleed is horrible with the cheap AV mod. I just got a 2600 Jr. the other day and with the standard RF, it works great with every TV, except the 47 inch Vizio Smart TV, for some reason, they just don't agree on some games. Most games work fine, but some don't. Come to think of it, the Smart TV has issues with some games even on the modded systems. I'll never buy another Smart TV. This thing is constantly trying to connect to the internet. There's no way to make it stop trying. Every time it tries to connect, it turns off and the LED "VIZIO" emblem flashes orange and white for around a minute before it comes back "on" so you can watch tv or continue playing a game. It used to make me extremely angry when it did that in the middle of a show or game. Not to mention that NONE of the apps on the TV are worth having. By far, my favorite TV for playing games on, is the 42 inch VIZIO, the picture looks good and it has options to adjust the vertical and horizontal size and position. I also use it with my laptop, my tablet and my PS3. I have been watching Craigslist for some cheap or free CRTs in my area. I figure as long as I have some space to store them, I'll get all the working ones I can, just in case.

I'm noticing that a lot of people use different joysticks/controllers, based on the game they play. I can understand how that works in theory, but I haven't been able to tell a difference personally. The 8-way vs 4-way, Yeah. I get that, of course. However, If I play one game fine with a CX40, chances are the next game I play, I'll do good with the CX40 again. I've never found a situation where I wanted to use the Wico bat on one game and a CX40 on the next. Maybe I need to try different combinations and see if I find a game where I feel a different joystick just works better. I'm not doubting that it happens, it's just never happened to me. I just have to stay focused when it comes to how much I spend on Atari related stuff. I'm trying not to get caught up in "collecting" joysticks. I already have quite a few that I don't use, but I think I'll give them all another shot on a few different games before I decide to sell them, just in case one of them does somehow improve my abilities on a certain game.. I'm still going to keep looking for a few others to try out (Tac-2, Comp. Pro, Slik Stik, etc.) and at some point, I'll probably end up building a custom setup, that I'll rarely use..

I "JUST" found out about this game. It's easily in my top 3 homebrews now! I really hope you have more games planned after this one, you did an amazing job with this one..

I hooked up my Windows laptop and got it working. It's just been so many years since I used the command line that I had forgotten how to do anything.

OK. if I'm using Android, this doesn't help. Even if I were using my Windows laptop, I haven't used the command line in probably 15 years, so.... I'm guessing if I try this on Windows, I would need to replace "/b" with the drive letter where the file was located? OK, I tried it, first time I tried I used "/b" and got "The system cannot find the file specified." I tried again using "/c" and got " The syntax of the command is incorrect." I have the file on my desktop, now what? Nevermind. I got it. It's just been so long since I used the command line that I had forgotten how to use it correctly. Thanks!