Derek

Recently Carnival and Zaxxon stopped working. I cleaned the contacts. Looked at them with flashlight and magnifying glass. They look no different than the games that still work. I get either a black screen, or most like likely the turn console off, etc. one. Can they be recycled if then can't be revived? Thanks!

First of all, Why are the roms and emulators, which are such tiny files, zipped? If this was 1996 with 56k modems, ok. There is no need to zip anything anymore. That said, is there an alternative to winzip? I am using Windows 7 and even if you download winzip for a free 21 day trial period, it doesn't work tomorrow. the trial period is always over, then it takes about ?? reinstallations before it stops telling you congratulations! you have installed winzip, but surprise, you haven't. When you go to use it you get the message that the trial period is over. Downloaded and installed and removed from control panel, add/remove programs about 8 times tonight, still doesn't work. Just the message that the trial period is over. God bless the actual 7800 machine sitting in front of my old crt television. Just flip it on and play. Too much to ask to get to try the games listed here as roms that I don't have actual cartridges of, I guess.

I have one that works perfectly. It is blue, Sony model mz-n707 and I have five discs with it. I haven't been able to change the songs on the discs since switching from xp to Windows 7 way back when. The program which you put on your computer to transfer songs just tells me there is a missing file that Sony's website no longer offers. So how do you get songs onto yours? I could send you this one, but your location is obviously fake, and shipping wherever you really are is probably more than it is worth to do. So perhaps you could just tell me what you are running or provide a link to a version of openmgjukebox that actually works? If you do that and I still can't get things working, I'd send it to you for shipping costs covered by you.

I offered up two working consoles with a dozen games for each, for free, just pay the shipping, and got zero serious replies. I did this twice and gave up, so you probably won't sell any Intellivision stuff here.

As a winter project I have been trying out all my backup consoles, and one that is being a bitch is the 7800, particularly the power button, actually, only the power button. I had to take the top off and press on the 3 or 9 o'clock position with a pencil tip, rather softly as pressing hard with my finger does nothing, pressing with the eraser end does nothing, only with something pointy will it come on. Can one replace the button? Would squirting some contact cleaner on it and pressing it a bunch of times help? It is pretty easy to leave the screws out and just take the top off if I need to use the backup machine, but it would be nice if it could be fixed and screwed back together and have the power button work as it should. Thanks for any thoughts!

I finally have the vector games working that stopped when I upgraded to Windows 7 from xp, and have found a site (emuparadise)to get roms that so far seem to be working. Some still don't work, (Dig Dug, Galaga and Major Havoc, for three examples. I downloaded every possible file, no versions work) and I am wondering if the the MAMEBIOS file that one of the first few rom pages said I needed to download to make that rom work is why some still don't work. According to the main MAMEdev page I need to "leave the bios file zipped and put it in the roms folder." Ok. It is called MAMEBIOS in my downloads folder. Is it that simple or do I need one specific to the version of MAME that I am using? There didn't seem to be any choices. If it specific to versions, how would I find the one I need to go with MAME UI64 0.172 which was the latest version, when I gave up (for a while) trying to get the vector games working again, and the others 60 or so that stopped working when forced to switch from xp to Windows 7. Things are working pretty good so far, so I'd like to know what this file will do or if I even have the right one before I put it in with the roms and audit the games to maybe find out I have the wrong file and now a boatload of games don't work again. Thanks!

I have noticed that many dip switch settings you can change the # of men to a number above the typical max of 5, yet you still get 5 men. Taito games don't seem to respond to changing any settings of difficulty. Which is the easiest? One or 99? I can't discern any difference. Qix seems no different on difficulty 1 versus 99. It is still too hard. You can select 99 men, you still get a maximum of 5. Stern games sometimes have several options for difficulty. Lost Tomb has an easiest setting in a so called 'easy' rom, and is still impossible to enjoy. You still die almost immediately with the gazillion enemies and their one pixel microscopic firings at you. Some games you can tell the difference between selection of difficulty, but I can't tell any difference with Taito or Stern games. I know jack shit about writing code, but I wonder, could someone who does go into a game rom and change things so that say, Qix slowed down to a speed that you could get beyond three boards, or take out whatever makes your man stop moving when you fire that in my opinion ruins Frenzy, a sequel to Berzerk and the one thing that made Berzerk too hard was carried over into its sequel. Both of those games would be fun if you could move as you fire. The time limit in Frenzy is too small to get anywhere having to stop to fire before the # of enemies is just too ridiculous. Then again, I think most Stern games are too F'ing hard. The one pixel enemy fire being my biggest frustration. Could someone find the line of code that stops your man moving when the fire button is pressed, remove that, and release a version of Berzerk and Frenzy that are fun to play or are roms not changeable in this way? I have tried Lost Tomb and others on the 'infinite lives' setting, and it really makes no difference, there is just too much difficulty involved, no one would ever get good at the game. You just get to die a hundred times instead of your quarter back in the day buying you 90 seconds of frustration.

Back in March I switched versions of MAME trying to get the vector games to play after switching from xp to WIndows 7. MAMEIU64 0172 is the version. The vector games still don't work, but a whole bunch of games must come along with this version as I didn't download them and have no recollection of them being on the list on the previous computer which had xp and all the games working. When I try out these new to me titles the odds are 50/50 that while playing the game will freeze, the sound will repeat a half second loop, the x to close doesn't work, neither does closing it at the bottom of the screen. I either have to turn the computer off with the power bar, which can cause hard drive issues, I know, or sometimes the task manager will open and I can close it from there. So my question is wtf is going on? A couple of times it froze and turned the screen orientation 90 degrees making it just about impossible to even try to close anything as holding the computer monitor sideways so I can try to move the mouse around is rather difficult. This shit doesn't happen with any of the games that I had before, just the ones that must have come with this version as. like I said, I didn't download them. Markham, Sun Electronics, 1983, just caused it to happen. What crappy graphics, game play, dying for no apparent reason. I was just about to hit the escape key on this poopfest when it froze. Any thoughts? Thanks!

MAME is unnecessarily frustrating with the endless updates that make files that worked fine before now suddenly wrong. I am running MAMEUI64 0.172 and it runs almost all the games, though Galaga does not work, and all the vector games that worked with Windows XP don't work. Not a single one. I can't figure out why and nobody here had any idea why either. Conversely, some games that I didn't even realize I had now work and appear in the list of games so I think that you'll never get all your roms to work on one version of MAME but this one is close, albeit minus all the vector games. Are you using a front end? I couldn't get it to do anything via the command line version of MAME. Way too difficult for me!

Coin op has not died, though there are not a lot of arcades. Funspot in New Hampshire is one place that I'd just blow a gasket to get to go to. Locally there is an arcade: leveluplasertag.ca just ten minutes from my house. It has been renovated, yet they haven't updated the pictures, as now the classic games are all at the back and set on free play, and you go back there for $5 tax included an hour. There were 18 games the other day. The stuff out front is still on quarter play, the stuff from the 90's, pinball. Out back was Mortal Kombat II, NBA Jams, a couple games using a light gun that I had never seen before, The Simpsons, Super Sprint, Frogger, Pac-Man, Toobin, Galaxian, Space Invaders, a couple of others that I was unfamiliar with, and IMHO, an absolute necessity in an 80's arcade, Ms. Pac-Man. #1 video game ever as voted by me Also, there are pinball games, prize games, air hockey, that red and white domed two player hockey game that was everywhere around 1984. That's all I can remember besides the coleco tabletop games and consoles and cartridges on display on the wall. There was also 80's tunes on, so they really have it all covered. I have no affiliation with this place, no idea who started it, but it has been in the mall for two years so obviously arcades are not dead as this is not a big city.

I have two Intellivision consoles each with about a dozen games, some of which work with one console and not the other, thus why they are separated. I see here via a 316 page thread regarding ebay, that people are buying them. I'd rather not bother with ebay, and I got no interest via Kijiji. I posted a similar query here a couple years ago and got no interest, and the two consoles have been hanging in the porch ever since, untouched. I was going to donate them to Value Village, but they are no longer interested in the "old" stuff. I like the games that I kept but the crappy controllers just frustrate me too much, especially the fire buttons. Aching hands is not the goal for me when playing games, but I digress. If there is interest here I will post pictures of the carts and consoles, if not, I don't know what to do with them as I am not interested in paying an electronics recycling company to take them and am not cold hearted enough to just put them in the garbage barrel on garbage day.

I haven't posted in a while so I went into "my content" to refresh my memory of what I have posted about over the years, and there are only six with the list cutting out exactly a year ago. I see that there are many older threads that people continue to resurrect, so could somebody tell me why I can only see a years' worth? No great relevance to the older ones, but it would prevent one from asking a repeat question if the issue came up again, say all the trouble I had with MAME, I could go back and review what people replied before, but none of that stuff is in "my content." Thanks!

A local mall has created an arcade with modern crap, and an 80's pay hourly section at the back. All of the games seem to be functioning just like they did 30+ years ago which in itself is amazing. (Their Space Invaders looks like it just rolled off the assembly line!) So neat to go in and play, anyway, I am wondering about Frogger, as it has some screen problems, but not really screen problems, more like something is going wrong with the program. The high score still says 'high score' but the actual score is a constantly changing assortment of letters and numbers, same with the player one score and other words that appear on the screen such as press 1 player start after inserting a quarter. They all are mainly comprised of a backward capital letter R. This is the only game that looks tinkered with as it has a different joystick, and no cardboard around the screen with the tire track that Frogger had, but it is still in the same Sega wood grain that I remember Frogger being in. I know that I can't fix it, but I think if I could pass on a useful suggestion to the people who run this arcade, maybe Frogger could continue to function, as every time I go there, there are more backward letter R's on the screen, so it is obviously getting near a meltdown!

Tried your suggestions, goldenegg. The newest version of official MAME plays even fewer of my roms then ever before, plus there is no sound on ones that I know worked fine with sound. The MAME folder that wouldn't let me delete it yesterday, deleted fine today. I think I'll try and get the comctl32.dll file from my sister's computer which is an xp machine and try the thumb drive with the emulator and roms on it on her machine, and if it works then it proves that either the old versions of MAME don't work on Windows 7 or that 32 file is essential to the old versions working, eiither way, since other people seem to be having such ridiculous problems with this, I have my doubts that either thing will help as any time I try to add something new to this machine which should be complete and working, be it MAME, installing the Sony minidisc which should have contained all the files needed, but from xp to 7, nope. dll files missing. It took the same amount of madness to install a logitech joystick which worked fine on xp, again with 7, missing dll files, same installation disc, should have simply installed. Perhaps I should get xp reinstalled on my machine since I don't download porn or visit questionable sites, I should be able to get things working like they did before. How about a MAC? I have no idea. But what I do know is that the newest mame is a mess imho, no list of games, just a confusing mess of trying to find things by spelling them out, instead of scrolling through A into B, into C. Each game that you exit resets the volume back up to full blast, which I keep turning down so that I can have tunes shuffling in the background, the difficulty, the # of lives resets to the lowest # of men and quite often greatest difficulty. Not impressed with this one. Making things more and more frustrating and difficult is not progress, just unnecessary irritation. I bet what will happen is that the MAME's that are on the thumb drive, which are identical to what is on the Windows 7 machine will work, but if I recopy them and get that mysterious 32.dll file off her computer and bring it here, I bet I will just get another error message, or simply have things still not work, as the newest MAME should not need an xp file yet still does not recognize all the games that the lack of that file seems to be preventing from working. Again, time for bed before I take a hammer to the computer,

I'd like to try goldeneggs suggestion, but there is no results when searching this computer for the COMCTL32.DLL file, so maybe that is why nothing about MAME from the other computer works, it is not here on this Windows 7 machine at all...? So I decided to remove all traces of MAME from my computer with the exception of the rom's file (which I'll obviously need) and start over with his suggestions. Nope, can't do that as I get an error message that I need administrator permission from IBM-TC-675TG-PC-IBM to remove the various versions of MAME that are still in the downloads folder. Who the F is the administrator? This is a home computer, I don't sign on when I power it up. Time to go to bed before I take Mr Hammer to the computer.