OldAtarian

Because I bought it already. eBay Auction -- Item Number: 250704685415 The Indy paddles look newer but I've got a set of older ones of those on the way already, so no big deal.

$15

Are you sure it was a fake cartridge? There were two K-Tel carts on ebay recently, one may still be up there but I know the other ended, and they have T handles on them. They're rare as hell, too. Maybe your dream means a rare cart is coming your way soon. From the way the stuff disappeared while you inquiring about the price, I'd say it was going to be one of those deals that you had better jump on immediately because if you hesitate someone else will have it. There was a Vulture Attack that sold for $162 a few days ago. Crap, I've got two of them (plus a Spider Maze) Yep, that's the one. I was in the thick of that one. There's also a Spider Maze up there now but it has a BIN of $500!

I had to break our old b&w set intentionally before my parents would break down and buy a color one. That set was over 20 years old and they refused to let go of it.

No. That is a decent price. You can't jump to the "cheap" conclusion right off the bat though. I will use myself as an example. I have 4 or 5 heavy sixers right now. I don't need another one, so I would not pay $40 for a loose one. I would however pay $20-25 for one though. If I saw it, I might make a low offer. IMO, the Best Offer button is there to be used. The games and manuals that come with it, even though not rare, you could probably get $20 just for those alone, and that's a conservative guess. There's guys selling the heavy sixer paddles for $75 and the CX-10 joysicks for $40-$60 each now, too. $40 for the lot should be one of those deals that you just jump on without even thinking.

Yeah. When I bought my Vader new, the Pac Man that came with it was marked not for resale.

Are you sure it was a fake cartridge? There were two K-Tel carts on ebay recently, one may still be up there but I know the other ended, and they have T handles on them. They're rare as hell, too. Maybe your dream means a rare cart is coming your way soon. From the way the stuff disappeared while you inquiring about the price, I'd say it was going to be one of those deals that you had better jump on immediately because if you hesitate someone else will have it.

And then burn them all to cartridge and make up nice labels for each of them.

Was just perusing ebay and stumbled on a Sunnyvale heavy with a few games and all the original heavy sixer controllers for $40 BIN and can you believe this...THERE WERE PEOPLE MAKING LOWER OFFERS FOR IT! Is $40 really out of line for something like this? I don't think it is.

Got mine from edintv here and yep, Ed's in Venezuela. If anyone is looking for a reasonable priced Compumate, he should be able to hook you up. Okay, looking at the box, this is what it's all about: *42 key keyboard *Built in 16k Basic Program in ROM, 2k built in RAM *run many existing programs available from Spectravideo (really? Where are these to be found?) *Built in Magic Easel Paint Program *10 different colours (uh-oh... just noticed the European spelling...) *pictures drawn by using keyboard controls (no joystick control as the machine plugs into both joy ports & cartridge port) *up to 6 pics and be stored in memory for animation effect *2 built in demo pics *pics can be saved to cassette *Built in Music Composer Program - 2 channels, 2 octaves *4 built in demo songs *allows writing of songs and playback (duh) *allows editing the song (add or delete notes) *tempo of song stored can be altered *Interface cord do you can save your programs to cassette *user manual included *no additional power supply needed ...membrane keyboard sits on top of the VCS and looks pretty slick. I haven't played around with mine yet, will probably test now though, since I just caught the European spelling. Hopefully the damn thing works with NTSC! lol Just bought it because it's a pretty neat peripheral for the 2600. Okay, just tested it (finally)... and she works perfectly on my vintage 19"! Demo songs are pretty cool as well as the blocky pics of a snowman and world map. Keyboard is good enough for this kind of thing. All around, very cool add-on for the 2600. I bet had it been released back in the day and properly marketed here in the States, it might have appealed to a younger audience that was interested in learning BASIC. Assuming they didn't already have a computer that is. To that end, might have done real well over in Europe. Eastern Block especially. Is there a cartridge port pass through or do you have to disconnect it to play games again?

Plus shipping from S. America and I highly recommend getting EMS shipping instead of standard surface shipping. Surface shipping takes forever and the risk of loss is greater which is why the USPS doesn't do surface shipping overseas anymore. I used to order cartridges for my Asian Super Famiciom from Japan and always used EMS and never regretted it despite the extra cost.

Considering the limitations of the system, I don't think they're that bad. They actually learned how to do a lot with the limited hardware by the time it all came to an end.

Skiing I didn't like and Boxing was too easy to rack up hits once you managed to nail the computer once you could go on hitting it repeatedly without it getting a shot in.

You need to get into "The Zone" with Kaboom. That's the beauty of it. As for worst Activision game, hmmm, the later Activision games (Rampage, Double Dragon, Commando) are up there simply because they tried to emulate current arcade games instead of focusing on the strengths of the 2600. Sure, they did a reasonable job of capturing key gameplay elements (Rampage is admirable), but all they really did was expose the weaknesses of the console. Exactly. If you're not really focused you're going to lose. I also can't believe the number of people who didn't like Keystone Kapers. That was one of my favorite Activision games. Pitfall II I could tolerate up until the point when I died and I got sent back to the last first aid kit and had to listen to that damn death music all the way. It still haunts me whenever I think about it. http://www.digitpress.com/dpsoundz/mid/pitfall2.mid

Is there a difference between Stargate and Defender II?

That Kid Vid Smurf thing with the cassettes. I'm not too eager to get it, though. If one comes along at the right price I'll grab it but I'm not going to pay what some people are asking no matter how rare they are. I know where I can buy home made carts with a nice label for cheap and the cassettes by themselves turn up a lot but they aren't worth much without the cartridge that goes with them so I can still get those cheap.

Will a degaussing ring fix screen burn or are you pretty much screwed once that happens?

LOL hahaha honestly burn out the color? hahaha my god thats funny! i mean no offence we always had a colour tv, i had my first atari at 4, so 1984 everything was colour tv. man i felt old when i was talking to a teenager and he didn't know what a 386 computer was......but black and white tv....man i would feel old. At least you whould know what a cassette tape and an LP is too I have a restored 1962 GE phonograph on my dresser.

I got my 6 switch Sears unit yesterday and it turns out it's a light sixer made by Dimerco. S/N 81298093 Has channel select A-B underneath if that means anything.

Has anyone tried this yet? I know the 6507 can address 8k of RAM, but has anyone actually tried upgrading a 2600 with that much memory? You could probably write some pretty decent games in 8k.

Advice on buying ST? Don't. Get an STe instead. Given you have an Amiga, Atari 8-bit, etc. you may not be missing much with just an ST. Um an STE is an ST. Don't be silly guys. Any ST you can get for a good price is worth it. From a lowly 520ST to a Mega STE. STE is only good for the easy upgrade to TOS 2.06 and 30 pin simms to fully populate to 4MB, but yer gonna pay for it! Expect 2-4X the price of a regular "ST" Don't buy an STE for the "Amiga" qualities, there is very little software avail to make use of this extra capability. (Think AGA vs ECS and hardly any AGA software avail) I personally like the 1040STf. If you can find the "m" get it so you can use a TV, else get a proper RGB monitor for it and be good! Has built in PS. You can get the 1040STf for around $20 to $50 bucks too! It's not a good price when there's a long list of software that won't work with it. A 1040STF or 1040STFM is perfectly fine and cheaper. Even a 520ST or 520STFM will be good for almost everything.

Like, HyperSpeed XL/XE? http://www.digital-force.net/projects/hyperspeed/ "Bad Things... Of course, there are also some nasty things associated with HyperSpeed XL/XE. First, it cannot be simply attached to the Atari XL/XE like a "normal" expansion card. A few changes have to be made on the XL/XE motherboard and several signals that are not available on the expansion slot have to be brought via an extra cable to the HyperSpeed board. Additionally, a connection to the XE models requires an extra adapter board." No. Not at all like that. As you can see there is some internal modding that needs to be done to make it work. With SuperCPU you just needed to plug it in and you were ready to go. If some chips on the motherboard are inaccessible from the cartridge port, then I guess those chips would have to be duplicated in any cartridge port upgrade. Apparently, everything on the motherboard was directly accessible through the cartridge port on the C64.

I wonder if it works with USB gamepads???

The SuperCPU for the C64 was a purely external upgrade. I don't see why something similar couldn't be done in an Atari. Maybe you'd have to reproduce the custom chips onboard the upgrade or something, but it shouldn't be impossible.

So yes the 'shareholders' approve dthe merger to JTS - seems they didnt need to get much buyin outside of the family to get the merger approved. Ive seen this happen before where a minority owns a majority of a business that is not in good health - only to 'sell/merge/buy' the company for a reduced cost to extract the cash. I dont blame the Tramiels for Atari's demise and realize we prob wouldnt have seen the ST or other Atari products if they didnt move in. However - the JTS deal was a cop out. Atari had nothing to give but cash to JTS - and JTS had nothing to give Atari. Yeah, that merger would be like someone running for mayor in a town of 50 people where 23 of them were close relatives. You don't have to win many outside votes to get elected. Realistically, JT probably already had someone else who owned the needed 8%+1 share on board before the shareholders meeting even took place so did the shareholders really approve the merger, or did the shares owned and/or controlled by the Tramiel family approve the merger? The rest of the shareholders could have voted no and the merger would have gone through anyway.