Cassidy Nolen

Ok, I have not had a chance to play it yet, but I just got Waterworld in the mail. I am now one game away from having a complete collection CX2601-CX2699. I can't wait. It is also hard to believe the one I am missing: Road Runner If you have one in the box that you would sell, please drop me a line. Currently, I am working on making all the protos to complete the list (not just the production games). Hoping the Airworld project is going well, that is the only true "missing" link out there. Thanks again to everyone who has helped me pull this together. If there is interest, I could bring the collection to Philly for the show (not for sale, though!) Cassidy

You guys rock. As always, you all were there to help. Just ordered 25 of them, a bunch of 2764 and 27128's. F8 switching, here I come! Cassidy Thanks again to everybody for help on the game projects. I will hopefully have some goodies to share at the Philly show.

quote Stop by for a brew, and we will fire it up! Of course, you would have to be somewhere near DC! (I do plan on bringing it to the Philly Classic this year......) Cassidy

Hi all, Ok, I finally understand (I think) what I have to wire for F8 bankswitching. Now, I need to find a supplier for 74133's. Nobody seems to have ever heard of these chips. Found them on line in a pinout, but not for sale. If you know of some source, please lemme know. I am excited about making a Tempest and Garfield (I know they are F6). Thanks, Cassidy

Right now its Kaboom. Before that was Warlords with 4 paddles on Saturday night. In the last week, I have played (thanks to my burner!)Knight on the town, Chase the Chuckwagon, and Polo. Waterworld is in the mail, looking forward to all the 8 bit frustration. Cassidy

Hmm, Got a 77 as well. Ick. Missed the SI question; I have owned three of these machines, you would think I would know that! Missed the George down question; assumed it was a reference to Jungle King and falling off the vine. Never heard it used about a quarter. Cassidy

Personally, I kinda like the version. I am going to make the cartridge (if I can ever get time) and it will probably see some play time. Cassidy (Of course, I still like playing Computer Space)

Hey Junie! I work with a guy who bought one, the exact same box and all. It plays ripoffs of the NES games. For example, Contra is called about 10 different things, and the letters for KONAMI have been change ti KO A I, spaces and all on the title screen. Pipe World is Super Mario, you get the point. Neat system, think he paid like 60 for it. Interestingly, it takes batteries or power plug, and takes cartridges. We have not been able to figure out what kind of carts (I have tried about 20, none have the same board finger layout). Gun games are pretty neat on it, too. Not a single manufacturing address, name, etc on the ENTIRE system or box. Wierd Cassidy

I guess the same could be said for owning stand up arcades. I have a Computer Space that is worth a ton, but it does not see a tenth of the play that Neo Geo does. As for the rare carts in my 2600 collection, probably the same could be said. Its all about why you collect; bragging rights maybe? I think if you collect for playability, getting the grails should not be important. If you collect for completeness or oddities, then that would require you spending the bucks. I would say a third of the games I own I have simply to complete a part of my collection. The others are ones I love and do play. Have you ever tried to play Rubiks Cube? Really sucks. Cassidy

The larger track balls tended to wear the bearing shafts deeply after years of arcade abuse. I had an Atari Football table about two years ago that was really worn (aka, broken in if you are on ebay language!). Man, that thing was a monster. It would get so much play, and we all hated it. Ah, the joys of games. I had my college ring on one time, and it grabbed in between that and my finger. EEEWWWW was the blister. Good thing I am left handed. Cassidy

I found mine at Target (if you have one nearby). They were 25 bucks each, and I have two stacked on top of each other. Picture of them on my site, if you are interested. Took me forever to find ones tall enough to stand the carts up. I keep 2600, Coleco, 5200, 7800, SMS, SNES, basically any non CD game in these (little too short for those). HTH, Cassidy

If every 2600 cart went up to 5 bucks a piece, who cares? I just paid 50 for SSX Tricky a month ago for GameCube, and I still regularly pay 10 bucks for TG16 stuff at the local game shop. Atari is still a bargain at a few bukcs a piece. I do not mind the hobby getting publicity for two reasons: 1. Stuff that is sitting in closets, packed away in storage can now be brought into the marketplace. Although it is at a higher price, at least there might be more to have. 2. It keeps them out of landfills. Think about the Adventurevision? How many of those were made vs. how many are left? If someone has a broken one and does not know classic games are being collected by some of us nut cases, you know what they will do with it. How about the possibility of there being a Cosmos in someone's basement and then the story; "yeah, my neighbor's kid used to live in Sunnyvale...", you get the point. I wore my Atari shirts proudly in the 80's and I wear them more proudly today. I don't care whether its in or not, but as long as it is, thats great. Cassidy

I am going to try to show some pics; first time, here goes..... http://www.atarionline.com/deciursm.jpg>]http://www.atarionline.com/deciursm.jpg>[/url] This is a shot of me and Joe at CGE this last year http://www.atarionline.com/fulopsm.jpg>]http://www.atarionline.com/fulopsm.jpg>[/url] This is a shot of Rob Fulop signing my Night Driver cart. Neato AND NO COMMENTS ON THE BALD SPOTS!! The hair is just "resting" on those parts of my head... Cassidy [ 01-22-2002: Message edited by: Cassidy ]

The most meaningful item I have is a picture of myself and Joe Deciur in Vegas this last year. He signed my Combat box, and then used it in his "how to program the 2600" lecture. That was one of those "I could not have felt cooler" moments in my life. I think I am more amazed by the Atari phenomena than the games. I spend most of my collecting time learning about the history, the design, the limits, the buyouts, the drugs, the big plans, etc. I spend very little actual time playing, although with the addition of a 2600 JR it is much easier to hook up and play for a minute or two. I will try to post the picture (wife has it with the vacation photos.... I cannot be expected to know where those are, right?) Cassidy

I would be glad to pay a compensation for the chance to build my own 2600 titles. I can see it is going to get old fast doing someone else's work onto carts. I have an idea for a game already that the 2600 could do no problem, but I would have to be led by the hand through every step of writing it. Count me it for sure !) (love the bologna and robot comment! Ha. They probably like the Fairchild Channel F, too! No offense to (both) fans of the system. Cassidy

thelen, Thanks for that program! Worked great. I saved the file to a floppy (so it would have a short filename) and then copied it back over. Thanks for that a bunch. Now for the bankswitching and I will be doing all right.... Handy with a solder gun, no good with design of a chip.....

I possibly am the least knowledgeable person on this group about this stuff. I am assuming that the F8 bankswitching is done in addition to the use of an additional 7404 on the board (what you normally modify-jump a few terminals, ground one and use the hex inverter)? Thanks to everyone's advice, I know that every game I want to make uses F8 (8K) and F6 (16K) switching. Now all I need is a model to work from. The ascii picture is coming up wierd and I do not know what to solder to where. Does someone have a real picture or step by step for dummies? That is what worked great for me on the 2K. Last thing, what shareware editor could I use to double the 2K codes for a 4K chip? Right now, I am using some very old 2K chips I am currently using, I know I will be running out soon. Thanks in advance for everything. I am trying to figure out who owns the POLO game rights so I might be able to produce that one for everybody. Cassidy

Hi all, After last week's events, I am up and running with 2K and 4K games. Next is to challenge myself to do the 8 and 16. I know I need bigger EPROMS, so I got some 2764's. The trouble is, there are too many legs. They do not line up with the 2600 cart legs. What do I have to do to configure the cart/chip to work. Thanks for the info, you guys have been great. Cassidy

Well done! I am always amazed that the Austrailian carts dont fall off the bottom of the planet! Ha. I kill me... Nice find. Cassidy

Toughie: For single play: by far, Kaboom For cool graphics: Quadrun For multi player: Warlords For Adventure: Adventure Best overall (for graphics and overall playability-single and double), still have to go with Kaboom. Just paid way too much for a boxed copy, if that gives any idea. Cassidy

You mean you can eat while you play? For me, Guiness is the meal/food of choice during game nights/Atari gaming. Thursday nights is game night. My best friend, a really close friend and my fiancee usually start out eating dinner somewhere, but the night ends up in front of the big screen playing Warlords or Crystal Castles. Cassidy

By gosh, he has got it! Turns out, I had to open the binary in an editor, save it as a copy, and then load that into my bufer. Otherwise, it cannot see the bin file. I copied all of them over from a MAC, probably part of the trouble. As it is now, I have a spare Jungle King board loaded with 2732's. Now I am going to go scavenge all of my spare boards for chips in the garage. This kicks so much butt. Thanks to everybody for the help. I will make it up to the community, not sure how yet, but I will... Cassidy

Hi all, Thanks so very much to Randy, Alan and Chuck for replying to my post and putting in the effort to help me out. I talked to Alan for over and hour on the phone, and found the problem was in loading the file into the buffer. I was burning blank games. For all of you would be burners: It really is not that hard, esp. with all the talent floating around this group. As a reward for my efforts, today in the snowy DC area, I played Chase the Chuckwagon, Knight on the Town, and a burned Adventure. This rocks. Later on, I think there might be some Lost Luggage (bomb free, of course!) in my system. This is awesome. Thanks again to everybody for their help. Now to get good enough to help other people..... Cassidy

Christmas 82, playing Freeway and seeing the 2600 in my house for the very first time. All the other gifts were dwarfed, and it would set the holiday standard in Mom's house forever. There have been other Christmas mornings, with goodies, NES, TG16, SNES, tons of others, but none could ever equal that dumb chicken getting squished on I95! Cassidy

Ok, So I think I have a start. If the eprom image cannot be saved and played on an emulator, then there is a chance I have bad eproms or at least they did not take the burn. The compare program lets me compare the image on the eprom to the buffer image. Bottom line, the computer says they are the same, but saved, they are not. Here are my thoughts, tell me if I am close. 1. My eproms are off of ebay. I do not know where they have been or how many times they have been erased. I have erased them at least three times myself. 2. I am assuming the burn voltage is 25 Volts. There is documentation that talks about a 2732A that burns at 21 Volts. Maybe I have been burning too hot? 3. Is there a need to burn the image more than once? I have tried programming the chip once, that did not work, so I programmed it again. Finally, if I get the 2532's, will I still need a hex inverter or do I just wire it in? I cannot thank you all enough for the time to reply to me on this. I am really wanting to be of service to the community, and think this might be the way (just as soon as I dig out of this messy stuff here!). Cassidy