Lord Thag

Sad to hear. Berzerk is one of my favorites, I play the Atari 8-bit conversion and the 7800 ones constantly. Think maybe I'll play a few rounds this evening as a tip of the hat, so to speak.

I'd say in general, yes. Older PCs required a lot more effort for people to understand, and remember, tech was MUCH less available back then so you didn't pick up the basics just by being alive like you would with, say, a phone or an iPad these days. The OSs, having to run in tiny amounts of space, were much close to the computer's native language than a nice GUI interface with online/real time help too. The old stuff wasn't really all that hard to learn, but it did require a lot of effort and time to do so... something most people were not willing to do until computers became a job requirement. As an IT person, I still deal with this daily. Some people just flat out refuse to learn how to use a computer.

I'm guessing the serial connections were for some kind of proprietary connection, probably to a ship systems console of some kind.

I have to say, I'm very impressed with what Hello games has done with this. I've never seen a developer stand by a game so panned at launch before. And it's totally worked. The game they have now lives up to the promises, and in many ways, has surpassed what they originally promised, particularly with base building. It's truly about exploration now, with some major Minecraft vibes with all of the base building. A lot of space games have a very samey feel to them, but NMS has, over the last couple of years, really become this very unique (and fun, finally) space sim thing that's really not like anything else I've played. My only gripe these days is that the dogfighting AI is a bit underwhelming, but that's pretty small potatoes compared to all they have done.

Heh, yeah, same. I *finally* made myself sit back down and play through and beat it. But the first day was like Gandalf in the lotr movies: "I have no memory of this place...." My next project was all the dark souls games. I've gotten to the end of all of them and (outside demon souls) never beat them due to a ps3 hardware failure.

Yeah, same here. I loved these games. Best thing at the moment is to go buy Tie Fighter/X-Wing Alliance from gog.com for $10 and install the modern graphics update from moddb. While the menu screens, being bitmaps, are lower res, the in-flight graphics are scaled up to 1920x1080 and they look and play amazing. The best part is, they'll run on a potato, so chances are you can throw this on your laptop and play anywhere too. If you like wing commander, there is wing commander saga, a TC of the Freespace 2 engine that's been overhauled for modern systems: https://www.wcsaga.com/

This and Xevious get the most play out of the original set for me. It's like Roguelike Zaxxon with an egyptian theme. Hard as nails too. This was the reason I got a 7800 back in the day, and it's the reason (until all the awesome homebrews came out) that I kept one around.

The key with Apshai is to be patient. It's not super well known, and if you wait, and are vigilant, you can get some great deals. For example, I picked up Curse of Ra and Keys of Acheron sealed for about $30 each. Gateway and Upper Reaches were both $50 each at conventions. Plan on it taking several years and you'll get there. Well worth it for such a historic (and often forgotten) series. That said... if you just want to play them, Atarimania has manual scans and there's a ton of info in this very thread. I'd recommend making a solid attempt on your own first and then look at the maps though. There's a lot to discover. Some of the later dungeons employ all kinds of mind bending tricks.

Some are on floppy as well as on tape. Some are only on tape. Gateway is the only cart, but not really the same game. It's more of an action rpg a la Gemstone Warrior. Everything else comes in the black-box Epyx style. Physical is really required on this series too as all the room/item/monster descriptions are in the manuals. The first couple games are fairly easy to find. The expansions can be very hard/pricey to get. Some, like Morloc's Tower, are almost unicorns.

If memory serves, some of the scrapbooking/crafting boxes at Michaels work well

Yeah, I'm still waiting for this one too. Had a line on an original disk but it didn't pan out, ended up being the Apple II version. Yes, and the key here is that something is left to the player's imaginiation. Like the old Infocom ads used to say, the best graphics are between your ears. The only modern games I've played that seem to get this are the demob/dark souls games. Much of the story, characters and plot must be painstakingly teased out of item descriptions, conversations etc. The world is vast and strange, and much of the truth is left up to the player to decide in the end, as are the goals. Apshai actually benefited from the tech being so new in this case. The manuals and descriptions painted a picture, but it was up to the player to fill in the gaps as to why things were the way they were. This is what makes DnD so good. The DM comes up with a story, but the characters ultimately alter it by playing. The result, in my experience, is much better than something that either the players or the DM would have come up with on their own. Hah, yeah, same. I really need to dive into Hellfire Warrior. It's the last boxed game I need for the main set, and I'm trying to wait until I get a physical copy. So maybe I'll try some of the spinoff/standalone games this week. Haven't tried Drinidisti yet.

Affordability is the main case. They're cheaper, but upgrading them is often cheap. Once upgraded, there's no real practical difference, outside the 400s membrane keyboard.

Yeah, I can remember when the software chains, toys r us etc. carried Neo Geo. The staff always told me only the local rich kids ever bought them. Shame they were so expensive. It's a great console.

If you can find the 320xe ram expansion, it works great, adds a much more accessible cart slot, and replaces the onboard (and prone to fail) RAM. Otherwise, Ultimate 1mb and Side 2 if you want to do everything otherwise an Sdrive-Max for .atr files and/or and Ultimate cart for .xex, and .bin files.

Neat! Gonna try this later. Though for a second there, I thought we got an actual port of the Interplay's Wasteland , and I kinda freaked out.

This. I never got the tribalism. We're all a bunch of nerds who love what we grew up with, there is no 'best' system. Dropping those artificial walls is good for everyone, and in my case, introduced me to several consoles I disliked at one point but love now.

No surprise nintendo shut them down, they're legendary for that crap. I've seen quite a few people get away with making games like this over the years, but they have to be pretty under the radar. If a game hits the mainline game sites, it's game over.

If you're making DK2, I'll buy it in a flat second. I absolutely LOVE that game.

Or maybe we can just stop drawing artificial lines between retro computing fandoms and just all enjoy these old machines for the classics they are? That said, I'd love to see an Atari port of this. Sometimes it takes one person doing this to inspire other computer groups to do the same.

I'm not picky. I'll buy anything that plugs into a 7800 and plays Baby Pac

Over the years, I have acquired most of these devices for my Ataris. The best, hands down, is the SIDE2/Ultimate 1mb combo, which lets you do everything. But the combined price and install make this the most expensive and hardest to install. Of the rest, an Ultimate Cart is the best for general arcade gaming (i.e. .bin and .xex files) In terms of .ATR files, if you don't want to spring for the best setup, SIO2SD and SDRIVE-MAX are both equal, in my mind. Both allow a 'front end' atr to be loaded so you can populate your disk drives via the TV screen to boot software. The S-Drive has a better interface if you want to select files on the device, and the .TAP compatibility is really cool. SIO2USB is great if you have a pc next to your atari, and want to mess around with BBS/PLATO, printing, or editing files with something like Last Word and printing or storing them easily on the PC. That said, you cannot go wrong with any of these. All of them will give you access to tens of thousands of games and programs.

I was also beta testing for him, the app and the game went dark awhile ago.

Replacing power supplies is the #1 thing you can do to prolong your systems, well that and getting a cap kit installed. GOOD power supplies, usually the ones lovingly made by the fan community. Some consoles (Colecovision, c64, some 800xl power supplies etc) have really badly designed power bricks that WILL fry your system when they go out. Used to think c64s were really poorly made until I swapped out the power supply with a modern one. Now I know better. Keeping them plugged in, in a temperature contolled room is key too. Prevents the caps from decomposing quite as fast, and the hot/cold seasonal temperatures can crack solder joints and break fragile ribbon cables. Garages and moisture are not a retro consoles best friend.

Actually, no, I never have. I got my original 800 late in high school in a trade for a Gameboy (my folks hated computers and wouldn't buy me one). I was instantly hooked on the games, learning basic etc. I have had an 8 bit hooked up and useable since 1990. The 800 (which I still have) for about 10 years, followed by a modded 800XL and 1200XL. Rare is the month where I'm not at least playing a game of Donkey Kong or Berzerk once a week. Usually, I play a few games daily. I've always liked what I've liked, and I *really* like my 8-bit.

Avalon Hill While fairly uncommon, all of their games are good to great, and most of them are highly original too.