OldAtarian

Since the 2800 was only sold in Japan and didn't do well because of the Nintendo, and they rarely come up for sale ANYWHERE in the world, you're not likely to get many responses. The Sears ones are probably the ones that most people have that uses that plastic shell, so you should probably count them as 2800's for purposes of this thread if you want more replies. sure - but there is definately more than 6 never-the-less I'm not interested in the Sears versions. The only difference is one says Atari 2800 on top and the other says Sears Video Arcade II, other than that they are the same. You're a labelist!

What?!? You mean all these years I've been getting up to change the channel when I didn't have to?

And those would be...? Sears Superman pic and Flag Capture pic (1978 copyright) spring to mind off the top of my head. Then there are Dino's Funvision T-handle Karate and Condor Attack. I guess that is 4 right there. For only $5000 AUD it can be yours eBay Auction -- Item Number: 120632673628

Also monogrammed spacechase I've seen box variations of Spacechase but the carts inside were always the same. Is that what you mean?

And those would be...? Sears Superman pic and Flag Capture pic (1978 copyright) spring to mind off the top of my head. Then there are Dino's Funvision T-handle Karate and Condor Attack. I guess that is 4 right there. I've seen flag capture with red text and green text. Are they both the same rarity?

Marco Polo

You may notice some moves they make are just plain stupid, especially towards the end of the game. I used the superb tools at this site to create both the transcript and the animation: Caissa's Web Online Chess Tools. If there's any interest I will do other matchups, using different settings... Can video chess capture en passant? I seem to remember always getting the illegal move raspberry every time I ever tried it.

I always wanted a Fidelity Chess Phantom but could never afford it.

I just had a thought Nolan Bushnell = Steve Jobs Ted Dabney = Steve Wozniak

I think I paid $16 shipped for my boxed one, and thought that was a lot. $49 seems out of line.

Heh, would a DVI mod be possible?

Just wondered if anyone has ever tried using the floppy drives from the Mac that auto eject in an ST. If it's not possible, then what prevents it from working?

I hate those guys who do retro game reviews in blogs or on YT and the first thing they complain about, even before the rotten controllers, is how big it is. Well, duh! Of course it's big. It has a compartment for storing the controllers in when you're done playing. That's almost half the size of the unit by itself. Those same reviewers will praise the Colecovision or Intellivision for having built in controller storage yet slam the 5200 for having the same feature. The only people who complain about the switchbox are those who bought a bare console and had to piece together all the parts they needed to get it to run. Those boxes are $40 by themselves, when you can get them. Fire hazard? Please. We have a thing in this country called the UL listing that prevents things like that. The 5200 would never have been allowed on the market without one and would not have gotten one if it was a fire hazard. What's a fire hazard is when these idiots have 6 TV's and 6 game systems and other audio/video components plugged into a 2 outlet wall jack through the use of multiple power strips daisy chained together. So yeah, the lights are going to flicker and the outlet is going to start smoking when you have all that crap powered on at the same time.

Yea, the 4 port models with a star (*) in the serial number are compatible with the VCS Adapter. Those without it are not. And I agree, a TrakBall controller is great for an arcade feel of the Centipede and Missile Command games. It also works with other games which I can't remember which ones off the top of my head. BTW, love the picture...it's bigger than an XBOX. Take THAT Microsoft! How can that be? It was supposed to be their intent to release the 2600 adapter all along. Why would they make a model that it doesn't work with it? That would be suicide for them to release the 2600 adapter then have a large part of their customer base not be able to use it.

As for the controllers, it depends on your budget. Both kits will rebuild the controllers to better than normal but the one with the gold contacts will be a LOT more expensive than the standard rebuild kit. The gold kit is supposed to last a lot longer, so might be worth it if you never want to worry about rebuilding the controllers again. With the price of gold rising, there is a surcharge based on the price of gold now for those kits so they will get more expensive over time. If you were thinking of buying a bare console and then buying all the accessories later, it's probably not a good idea. It seems cheaper to pay $30 or $40 for the bare console, but by the time you factor in the cost of the switchbox, power supply, cables, controllers, and a few games it can easily exceed what you would have paid if you had just bough a complete setup with all those things included.

I think two controllers is almost a must for complex RPGs, but in my opinion two joysticks are too hard to deal with. I was planning on making a large RPG (that may never get made), and I was thinking of a joystick for the left controller, plus a keypad for the right controller, and possibly with one or more of the console switches being used to flip a controller's function. Michael I forgot about the keypad/keyboard controller. I approve, FWIW. What about the big, blue kid's controller? Or the Star Raiders controller?

Hmmm...I'm not going to go all the way to 100, maybe to 10 at the most and in no particular order but among the ones I liked Keystone Kapers Dodge Em Indy 500 Pitfall Dolphin Stampede Zaxxon Othello Dragonfire Yar's Revenge there were a lot more that I liked equally as well as these but it would just take too much time and space for me to list them all.

I wish I could find one of the Columbia House 2600's. Actually, it looks more like a Coleco Gemini, which I think it probably is, but still. It would be a nice 2600 variation for the Atari shelf. I think AX found one recently but yes the Columbia House 2600 is a rebranded gemini. I have a gemini but the joystick ports need to be resoldered. Seems to be a common problem. I replaced the motherboard in my Colecovision because one of the joystick ports was snapped off. It just seemed a whole lot easier than soldering a new one on. And here's a tip. Use joystick extension cables. You never have to worry about breaking off the joystick ports if you're plugging into the end of the extension cable instead of to the port itself. That's a good idea OldAtarian, I'll have to look into finding some of those extention cords. And if you can find a y-splitter cable it's even better. You can leave your joystick and paddles plugged in at the same time.

sounds interesting BUT what about keypad buttons, pause, start etc? How are these all mapped to the PC controller? i thank tz for the shout on my gen 3 i just use a pass through that you have to plug a 5200 controller in for the pause,reset and keypad(becuase i provide a start button on my gen 3.5 i used a plug to use a touchpad or kidscontroller or the basic keypad but it required unscrewing screws and cutting a resistor (too much skill technical still required for end user so i abandoned) then my rev 5 i said what the hell and made buttons for each button but its kind of ugly its very complex and probably not soldered to the best of my ability so its not for sale check my post http://www.atariage.com/forums/topic/169301-more-pc-joys-adapted-to-5200/ out of those my favorite 2 are the lower right white one and the upper middle suncom fx2000 i also made a custom for someone that has individual buttons for #,* and pause i just glue everything up with a hot glue gun Wouldn't it be easier to adapt a Jaguar controller? It has all the buttons. A Colecovision controller might even be an option.

And then there's this one eBay Auction -- Item Number: 140462837803 Used with a $35 BIN and an opening bid of $10.

...and that's just for a basic cart shell with 2 halves that snap together. There would also have to be a separate mold for both of the dust cover pieces and one would also have to create some way to make those dust cover springs, which would require custom wire fabrication if you wanted an authentic 2600 cart reproduction for homebrews. All-in-all it's at least 5 figures to make cart shells, and as you say, even then it's not going to last forever and you're definitely not going to get your investment back at all. Right now it's just cost-benefit analysis. The cost to manufacture new shells is significantly more for the benefit vs. using the millions of Pac-Men and friendly little aliens out there to make games. It's just infinitely easier to process carts for homebrew instead of making new ones. I believe in the extended future (VERY extended future) it may become an option to make new ones, but it's going to very doubtfully be in any of our lifetimes. You wouldn't bother with the dust cover and springs. Even Atari stopped using them with the XEGS carts and many 3rd party cart makers never used them because of the added cost.

Not that rare but not that common either. I grab them when I can simply because it's a good way of organizing the carts that I want to keep. Unfortunately, these days the people selling them seem to think they are worth a $30-$50 price premium over the price of the common carts that are usually included with them, which they're not.

I used to have a 66 Impala 283 with a Powerglide! Great tranny for dragging because only 1 shift point to slow you down.

Could this be the dawn of the discovery of something really, REALLY big? I hope you have a way of dumping the ROMS of whatever you find.

Since the 2800 was only sold in Japan and didn't do well because of the Nintendo, and they rarely come up for sale ANYWHERE in the world, you're not likely to get many responses. The Sears ones are probably the ones that most people have that uses that plastic shell, so you should probably count them as 2800's for purposes of this thread if you want more replies.