Laner

Thanks - how does one go about doing that?

I kind of jumped head-first into the whole 5200 thing, and have ended up with a lot of great stuff... unfortunately, a couple of them have minor glitches that I'm hoping you guys can help me out with. First off - Trackball The 5200 trackball I have is very nice, and works well for the most part. Though there two issues I need to resolve: 1) The primary fire button is "worn out" (for lack of a better term) - it requires a lot of pressure to trigger (moreso than the other three) and will occasionally not respond at all. What do I need to do to fix this? 2) When playing Millipede, I notice my charater moving steadily upward, even when the ball isn't being moved. This doesn't occur when using a joystick, or on any other game. Any idea what's causing this? OK, on to the Wico Stick - Again, I am largely satisfied with it. But when connection a regular 5200 controller via the Y cable, I can't use the bottom three buttons on the keypad - *, 0, # - they simply do not respond. The rest of the keys work fine, and I've tested multiple (fully working) CX52 sticks with the same result. Is there a fix for this, or do I simply have a bad Wico stick/Y cable? Thanks in advance -

Sorry, I just realized there's a dedicated hardware forum - I'll repost there.

I kind of jumped head-first into the whole 5200 thing, and have ended up with a lot of great stuff... unfortunately, a couple of them have minor glitches that I'm hoping you guys can help me out with. First off - Trackball The 5200 trackball I have is very nice, and works well for the most part. Though there two issues I need to resolve: 1) The primary fire button is "worn out" (for lack of a better term) - it requires a lot of pressure to trigger (moreso than the other three) and will occasionally not respond at all. What do I need to do to fix this? 2) When playing Millipede, I notice my charater moving steadily upward, even when the ball isn't being moved. This doesn't occur when using a joystick, or on any other game. Any idea what's causing this? OK, on to the Wico Stick - Again, I am largely satisfied with it. But when connection a regular 5200 controller via the Y cable, I can't use the bottom three buttons on the keypad - *, 0, # - they simply do not respond. The rest of the keys work fine, and I've tested multiple (fully working) CX52 sticks with the same result. Is there a fix for this, or do I simply have a bad Wico stick/Y cable? Thanks in advance -

It's not much of a rip-off... RCA cables with a splitter for L/R audio built in. For $8, that's not too terrible.

I purchased a heavy sixer from 4jays last week... received it today and started trying out a couple of cartridges. After a few minutes of play, the colors started "shifting" (for lack of a better term). Tried another cartridge - same thing. Works for a few minutes, then the colors start going wacky. Also, I noticed in Defender, the sound when one of the humans is abducted is not there - instead of the normal sound, a dull buzz is audible. Any ideas what this is, and is it something I can fix, or should I just return it? Thanks...

Winamp 5 has a built-in AAC decoder which should work fine on anything from Win98 on up.

I pulled my box of 2600 games out of the closet, and compared them to the rarity guide here at AA. The most "rare" cartridge I have is Submarine Commander, which ranks a 5. I looked it up on ebay to see what it was going for, and some guy was trying to sell one for $50. Which seemed excessively high, IMO: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewI...me=STRK:MEWA:IT How much is this cart *realistically* worth? I don't intend to sell it, just curious.

Thanks folks... Classic hooked me up with a multicart, and the svideo mod looks interesting. Found a coupler on ebay - unfortunately it was part of a whole system, and I really don't need two 5200s at this point in time I'll keep looking though.

The Time: Early o'Clock; December 25, 1982 The Place: Living Room, 929 Camellia Drive A young Laner rushes into the room to see what Ol' Saint Nick left for him under the tree. He knew what he wanted more than anything else. He knew that waiting for him in the living room would be a sleek new black and silver Atari 5200. Oh! The games looked so spectacular compared to his aging woodgrain 2600. Woodgrain - how 70s. With eager anticipation he looks around... and looks again. And again. Yet there is no new game system to be found. Well, there was one of those little Pac-Man games that were made to look like the arcade machines, but it paled in comparison to the Pac-Man he played on the 5200 demo at the local Sears department store. Crestfallen, he said nothing to his parents (not yet aware that they were to blame!), and over the years forgot about what might have been. Fast forward 20+ years... Laner is now working on transferring old video to Final Cut Pro at the office, and runs across a few reels of Super8 film - home movies from the early 80s. One of which document the excitement of that Christmas Eve in 1982 (and subsequent disappointment) A 5200? Yeah, I remember that! Man, I really wanted one of those back in the day. I wonder if they are still around. A quick look around eBay shows that yes, there are indeed quite a number of 5200 hardware and software items for sale. After being sniped at the last second for two different auctions, I managed to win quite a nice collection... a working 5200, two working controllers (a rarity, from what I understand), the trackball (mmmm... arcade quality), the 2600 adapter, and a dozen games, some still shrinkwrapped. So, when I haven't been working, I've spent a lot of time on the 'net looking for different 5200 resources. There are two items that have particularly piqued my interest. The Multicart, which I have only found for purchase at 4jays ($145!!!) , and the joystick coupler, which I can't find anywhere. Do any of you fine folks know where I can find either? Also, I ran across the Best Electronics website, advertising the gold contact replacements. Is this just a gimmick, or does it actually work? As I said, my controllers work now, but if the gold doohickeys really work as advertised, I plan on upgrading those as well. Thanks folks...