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OldAtarian

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Posts posted by OldAtarian

  1. Posted

    Got an Apple Cat 300 baud acoustic modem last week - which is atari related because the atari 830 IS an apple cat.

     

    Got an Atari 830 modem today.

     

    I've wanted the 830 for some time, so today's find was nice.. The Atari branded one was the one I had truly wanted, but I was glad to pick up the original Apple Cat version last week as well. Was it worth my money? Maybe the Atari, but I could have done without the Apple in combination with the Atari...

     

    Ohwell...

     

    Are you serious? i was told once that AppleCats could upload and download at the same time. Can you do that with an 830?

  2. Posted · Edited by OldAtarian

    Hmmm..I got an ATR8000,

     

    it's you, buy this one ?

    http://rhodblog.wordpress.com/2010/09/25/atr-8000/

     

    no money this week :x

     

    damn i really need to get off my lazy arse and put my ATR-8000 up on feepay...

     

    but then i would probly get .99 for it :'(

     

    also got a 800XL parts machine, and two carts Computer War and Math Encounter...

    (also bought a third, but the guy emailed me he couldnt find the manual (it was in the pic), and i am not gonna shell out $10 for a common cart only...)

     

    sloopy.

     

     

    Nah. Do what my seller did and make the first bid the lowest amount you would be willing to accept or you can place a reserve. You can also use the BIN only option and not take bids or offers at all. Trying to save on your ebay fees by placing pure auctions starting at a penny because they're the cheapest can sometimes bite you hard if you don't get enough determined bidders. It's sometimes worth it to pay a little more in fees to get the best possible price.

  5. Posted · Edited by OldAtarian

    Yes, it is hard enough to find MFM and RLL interface boards. It will be almost impossible to get an actual SASI. IIRC SASI is very close to SCSI tho.

     

    I have an actual Shugart (brand name) 10-meg MFM drive sitting here.. The model number is SA712

     

    Both the Adaptec ACB-4000A (MFM-SCSI BRIDGE) and ACB-4070 (RLL-SCSI BRIDGE) will work with SCSI or SASI. Just install a jumper on the "I-J" position on J5. You would normally leave this jumper off in a standard SCSI system, but if your interface is SASI, you install this jumper and the Adaptec board will recognize the addtional commands from the SASI command set that were different in SCSI.

     

    Also, in addition to the XEBEC 1410 MFM-SCSI bridge, there was a later model called the XEBEC 11410A. Not sure what the difference/improvements were between these two models.

     

    Also, evidently Phillip Price did not think much of XEBEC.. Maybe his blew up or something, while he was working on Alternate Reality: The City. He named it "The City of XEBEC's demise."

     

    The difference is the 1410 can only use one bus ID which would be 0. The 1410A can be jumpered to select other bus ID's.

  6. Posted

    I have found a vintage computer guy locally who agreed to sell me two Xebec controllers he had lying around but they are a little bit different from each other. Not really sure which one will work best but they both seem to have the important pins and ports for hooking up to. Does anyone have a specific part number of Xebec controller that is known to work in an ATR8000? I also managed to source a Tandon TM100 cheap so I hope that works with it.

  7. Posted

    STacy would be worth a fair bit - even Portfolios fetch upward of $175 here, so I'd imagine $250 as a bare minimum.

     

    STBook http://www.atarimuseum.com/computers/16bits/stbook.html

     

    I'd imagine that to be very rare, as the article states it never sold and only around 1,000 units were shipped for evaluation.

     

    Agreed. The last Stacy on ebay went for around $250-ish. The one before that went for closer to $400 if I remember correctly.

  10. Posted · Edited by OldAtarian

    Space Invaders (2600) IMO was quite possibly the best licenced conversion to any platform.

     

    Super Breakout is also better on the 2600. They did a great job with the sound effects given the platform.

     

    Galaxian on the A8 is kinda crap. Haven't played the 2600 one properly but the A8 version has totally rubbish sound and the gameplay is nowhere near the arcade. The graphics are fairly good but good graphics don't mean good game.

     

    Centipede, haven't really played the 2600 version but I reckon the computer version is pretty good. But then Millipede came along - much faster gameplay and a better overall package.

     

    Donkey Kong on the 2600 is a bit of a joke. But given the machine's capabilities you couldn't expect much more. They probably could have done the sound a bit better. The A8 computer version is in some ways better than the arcade,.

     

    Asteroids is a bit of a disappointment on both systems - at least with the 2600 version they bothered to give them different colours, the computer version would have been better if done in hires line-art. But I'm fairly sure Asteroids was one of those early carts that were compromised because it was made to run on an 8K RAM system. No doubt it also could have been made better if they used a 16K ROM.

     

    Pacman, there's no comparison. No need to repeat almost 30 years worth of disappointment about the 2600 version but it's clear from later Pac variations as well as hacks and homebrews of the genre that what was released is just a botched rush job compared to what could have been.

     

    Haven't played Space Invaders on SNES have you? It's arcade perfect.

     

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXG8Fluw6HA

     

     

    2600 Space Invaders doesn't even come close

     

     

    This version for the 7800 is probably the best one on any Atari system

     

  11. Posted

    @carmel_andrews: - Although the SIO port is there in hardware the XM's BIOS will not communicate with any external SIO devices at boot-up. That will be left to homebrew games/application writers.

     

    @OldAtarian: - There will be no USB port. The resources required to act as a host device (and thus communicate to keyboards/mice etc.) are huge with simple PC style hardware and would add unnecessary cost to the device if another support chip is added to reduce the burden on Sally.

     

    So which keyboards would be compatible with it then?

  13. Posted

    The only reason more games weren't available is because Nintendo locked up all the developers into exclusivity agreements. That's the point I was trying to make. If developers had been allowed to make games for the SMS, it would have killed the NES. The NES didn't win because it was better, it won because nobody could make games for the competition.

     

    Sorry, but I'd consider that baseless speculation. There were many factors in the NES's success beyond third party exclusivity, including an earlier release date and several pivotal first party titles like Super Mario Bros. and The Legend of Zelda, something Sega would have never had for their console under any circumstances. That's also presuming that the SMS's library was lacking in something. It really wasn't, only volume. It's actually a quite respectable library, particularly if you consider the releases from outside the US, which lasted well into the 1990's. It's also important to remember that the Game Gear was essentially a portable Sega Master System, so you have to consider that library in the equation as well. Contrast that with a system like the Jaguar, which was not able to showcase its full technical prowess, had a library with some notable holes (particularly at a time when having Japanese developers on your side was important), and was on the market a fairly short amount of time, and you'll see the obvious differences.

     

     

    Nintendo was sued over it's licensing agreement and lost. It's a documented FACT not speculation. If you wanted to make games for NES, you couldn't make games for anyone else.

  14. Posted · Edited by OldAtarian

    Wouldn't it be something if there was a warehouse filled with Crazy Climbers, Quadruns, and Swordquest Waterworlds out there somewhere waiting to be found? There would be a lot of angry people out there who paid hundreds or thousands for those "super rare" carts when their "investment" collapses overnight.

    IMO that wouldn't even compare to what already happened with Motorodeo. Motorodeo used to be one of the top money games and quite a bit more rare than those three. There are a few people on these forums that shelled out over $1k for that one.

     

    That being said, I wouldn't doubt the existence of a few pallets of those laying around somewhere.

     

    Whoever found those Motorodeos screwed up. They should have been quietly selling them one piece at a time for huge money instead of bringing them all to market at once. It would have taken some time for people to figure out that they weren't that rare anymore.

     

    Heh, here's some clown telling everyone it's an R9 but selling a boxed copy for only $45 BIN. An R9 new in box would go for a lot more than a BIN of $45, don't you think?

     

    Link removed

     

    And in the time it took me to post it, the listing was removed. Someone got royally screwed on that one.

  15. Posted · Edited by OldAtarian

    Hmmm..I got an ATR8000,

     

    it's you, buy this one ?

    http://rhodblog.wordpress.com/2010/09/25/atr-8000/

     

    no money this week :x

     

    :D

     

     

    Would you be willing to scan the manuals and post them here? Please!

     

    I'm sure I've seen pdf's of the manuals online somewhere. I'll have to do a little searching to see if I can locate them again.

     

    Ok here it is

     

    http://home.centurytel.net/turbobird/8bit/ATR8000Manual.htm

     

    Download your own copy because it may not be online forever.

  17. Posted · Edited by OldAtarian

    Ummm can I ask if there's a USB port included? It doesn't make much sense to me to try to use XEGS or Mega ST keyboard with it because you can't really get them without buying a whole system anymore. USB keyboards are much more accessible or are we going to be locked in to buying a proprietary keyboard from you later?:sad:

  18. Posted

    Get some Coleco Gemini Gemsticks. They are the best joysticks. I remember buying about 10 of them from Kaybee toys years ago when they were liquidating them for $2 each. I still have most of them.

    What do you like about them, OA?

     

    Even though they are very similar in appearance, I think they are a little more rugged. I've had a few Atari sticks break off in my hands after some intense play but never had a Gemstick break on me. I also like the feel of the button better than the Atari one. It's bigger and it's domed instead of dished. I've never liked the sticks that have a button on top of the stick or stubby controllers like the Slik Stick. I also like the NES style gamepads that are out there. I think they were sold with the Australian 7800 or something. I also use my Sega Genesis gamepad sometimes.

  19. Posted · Edited by OldAtarian

    $43 shipped with 13 carts, 2 sticks (one a coleco gemstick), all hookups and one of those 70's phonograph style cases that hold the unit with the smoked plastic dust cover.

     

    I always liked the Sears faux walnut front panel better than the Atari one, though I HATE the silver surround they put on the control panel.

  20. Posted

    I can see if he'd at least taken the trouble to burn it to a cart and made up a nice label for it he should get something for his trouble but selling a downloadable file that you can easily get anywhere makes me throw up in my mouth a little.

  21. Posted · Edited by OldAtarian

    Wouldn't it be something if there was a warehouse filled with Crazy Climbers, Quadruns, and Swordquest Waterworlds out there somewhere waiting to be found? There would be a lot of angry people out there who paid hundreds or thousands for those "super rare" carts when their "investment" collapses overnight.

  22. Posted · Edited by OldAtarian

    Get some Coleco Gemini Gemsticks. They are the best joysticks. I remember buying about 10 of them from Kaybee toys years ago when they were liquidating them for $2 each. I still have most of them.

     

    ATA26CON0047LX.gif

  24. Posted · Edited by OldAtarian

    Commodore Monitors...

     

    Commodore monitors? Come on - I used to think you guys were cool...

    While I'm at it, maybe I should go buy a Chevy so I can go out and stick some Ford parts on it!

     

     

    :) Okay just just kidding! :)

     

     

    I do have a lot of Commodore, Amiga, and other monitors (see - there's one now!) with composite or Y/C input, but I'm looking for a perfect match for the Atari 130XE. I really want that prototype XE composite monitor, but I don't think anyone's selling or trading at this time... Barring that, I'd like to use an Atari SC1224, since the style is the same. I suppose I could gut one and install some other monitor's internals...

    Alternately, I could divest my XE stuff and just stick with an origianl 800. At least I do have the "matching" monitor for it, since they were noramally mated with Amdek color 1 displays.

     

     

    Since the thread's been necro'd already, I might as well address this.

     

    One of the few things Atari guys were ever willing to admit that Commodore did right (back when the war was still a real, shooting war) was that they sourced some very good monitors. There were a lot of Atari guys who used Commodore monitors back then and still do. I still have my 1702 from long ago and a few years back I got my hands on my first C64 and guess what? It's a very similar experience overall to using an Atari 8 bit with the added advantage of more mainstream support. I honestly don't see what all the fuss was about now.

  25. Posted

    Apparantly he was one scary mo-fo if you got on the wrong side of him, but he did not hold grudges.

     

    Actually, I talked to a guy that worked with Jack at Commodore a couple of years ago. He did the conversion of Satan's Hollow for the C-64, and knew Jack personally. He said he would hold a grudge till hell froze over, over the slightest thing (apparently he sunk a lot of projects at Commodore just to get back at certain individuals). Again, take it for what it's worth. I personally don't give a flying shit about him one way or the other, I just mentioned that he is a hated individual, so there's really nothing to get over, since I don't care in the least. I do think, though, that if he has the Swordquest items, they should be put into a museum. Those are some of the most impressive pieces of gaming history ever made.

     

     

    Actually, we should all act like we just don't care about the Swordquest items. Things have value only because people become fanatical about having them. If nobody cares, then JT can't profit in any way from those items because nobody will buy them.

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