Derek

Just as you can fix a tv or vcr remote, rubbing alcohol on a q-tip is the best that I have found. The goo that you are getting rid of is just oxidization. The rubbing alcohol safely removes it. Electronic contact cleaner from Radio Shack works well too, without damaging anything. The q-tip will turn black with the goo, the contact will return to its metallic look and all will work fine again. This stuff can be used with any electrical contact, your home stereo, read head on your cassette player, etc. Best of luck, Derek.

Radio Shack's TV/Game adapter. Get it. Hook them up to your TV. Never mind that commodore screen. If that still doesn't work, treat the carts like an NES cart. clean it with rubbing alcohol, light sandpaper on the contacts, wiggle it in the slot to different positions while turning the power off and on,... slowly! IF the cart is good, then it will come on. Clean contacts are imperative, since we are dealing with things that have been subjected to 20 plus years of oxidization! Best of luck, Derek.

Hi, Derek here. You don't want one. Unless it is the only cart missing to complete an Atari collection, there is no reason to have it. Coleco put the same amount of effort into this disaster as they did for any of the other carts compatible with the 2600, which were designed to make you want to get a Coleco system for which they put actual effort into the games. Missing levels, poor joystick response, washed out colors, and of course, since there were never less than five things moving, TONS of flicker. The only cart from Coleco for the 2600 that was more annoying was Venture. Impossible to steer, headache inducing flicker. That got drifted across the room till it broke apart. Man, I was irritated! I'm done venting now

The best Atari emulator I found is called "Stella". Google it. You will get many good matches. The roms are no longer copyright protected, so they are usually on the same sites. Most of the games worked, though a few of the games did not respond to the keyboard or joystick. These were the one referred commonly as "third party" cartridges, and typically weren't games that were worth playing anyway! As for the NES, I found that none of them work very well. They all seem to be extreme memory hogs, and run slow or crash, so I played some a few times and then got frustrated with crashes and freeze ups, and went back to playing the actual NES in my room. "NESten061b1.exe" is quite user friendly. Some roms did not boot up for whatever reason. That is the best one that I could get to work. Best of luck, Derek.

Hi, "stuck in the 80's". It's a good place to be, great games, fab music. Anyhoo, I will try to come up with some sensible questions. Since no one else had offered their help, I kind of just pushed it aside. I have the bios roms, MESS on the desktop as instructed in the FAQ, followed the instructions and can't get it to tell me anything except that it can't find the bios roms. It is all in the same damn folder, so I don't know how much simpler I can make it for the bloody program. I can't move all the game roms there too as there are other emulators on my system that will play them and this would lead to a lot of redirecting and adjusting, and there just isn't time to screw with it all. Things need to work, reliably without all this crap. Every emulator I have tried, with the exception of MAME has been a nightmare to get to run. Thanks in advance for any help you might be on this Tifany. On another note, what kind of summer are you getting there? Here in Saint Joh, New Brunswick, July was mainly overcast with below average temps. So far there has been rain every day of August. This sucks! Fall and cold and snow will be back at the same time whether we get a summer or not. Geez, I thought last summer's weather couldn't have sucked harder. I have never been to Oklahome, thus why I ask. Hope to hear from you. All the best, Derek.

Here in Canada we have a nifty store called Value Village. It is a chain store of donated second hand records, tapes, clothes CD's, kids toys, stereos, game consoles, books, etc. They price all things the same, all cassettes are 99 cents, magazines are 29 cents, atari carts are 49 cents, NES are 1.99, Atari 2600's are $5, Nintendo NES go for $5 as well, spare joysticks are $2,...and so on. My entire Atari 2600, 7800, Intellivision, and NES collection has come from this store. No cart has ever cost more than the standard 49 cents as they have neither the time nor inclination to research rarity, value, etc. Works out good for me! Sorry to upset some of you 'mericans paying $100 a cart. Guess it is just better here in Canada! Tongue firmly in cheek, Derek.

I had an Odyssey 2 when I was young, and K.C. Munchkin was #1 with me...I remember getting my first Atari 2600 at the ripe old age of 26, five summers ago, when these consoles started appearing at yard sales and second hand stores and this first one had Ms. Pac Man (and six others) included with it. I nearly fell over, my all time favorite coin-op with working everything and six other carts for $7 CDN! It is not the best Atari 2600 cart, but getting to remember how it felt to have a girls arm around me at age 11 when standing in the arcade playing the coin-op, far outplaying anyone else...ahh how uncomplicated youth was. Gravitar and Moon Patrol deserve recognition for their playability and diversity within the small confines of 8 or 16K!!

Hi, Derek here. No one seems to have any advice on getting MESS to run. I read the FAQ, MESS.txt, and everything else that came with it. I put the bios roms, unzipped in a subfolder with MESS (like the instructions said to do), it still tells me that it can't find them. This is getting frustrating. Any clarifying ideas...anyone??! Getting this emulator to run would mean that I could delete all the others that don't want to cooperate, such as the atari800, put the game roms in a some folders, back up the whole thing onto a CD and just enjoy the games, and share the fun with others, some of whom were born when these games came out but are nevertheless interested in this time period, 80's tunes, and the games! Thanks, Derek.

Regarding selling, trading, I somehow managed not to see the Marketplace section. Duh. This site has so much to offer, I will have to look it over closer before asking any more questions! I'll post my stuff there, as there is lots of duplicate systems and carts that could have a better home than collecting dust in my closet! Best regards, Derek.

Hi, Derek here. Firstly, what do the little joysticks under our names stand for? I have none and others have all of them. Secondly, I haven't looked at much besides my own questions, but have seen a few vague references in other queries to having stuff to get rid of, trade, whatever. Is this ok here or shunned as in: go away and use e-bay. Thanks.

Hi! Derek here. The only way that I found (after experimenting with three units) to keep a NES working was: 1. Take it apart and use 220 or so sandpaper to clean the contacts, same with the games. 2. Leave the top half of the plastic cabinet unscrewed so that when you get the flashing colors screen you can lift off the top and wiggle the cartridge SLOWLY as you will be waiting to see the start up screen float up the tv screen. When it does give you this you have found the spot that that cartridge is happy to work at. Each game will be different, so there is no point in ever screwing the unit back together as you cannot get your fingers in the hole to wiggle it with the top on. Don't worry about electric shock, there is only 12 volts going through this. 3. If it still doesn't work, then breathe several breaths onto the end of the cartridge. The official manual says that moisture across the contacts will result in fried games, but in reality it fixes the problem, though sometimes if that is what made it work, then the game will often freeze up after a while. A big deal if you are playing Mario Bros 3 and a couple of hours have passed!!! Hope this helps! Derek.

Hi! Derek here. The only way that I found (after experimenting with three units) to keep a NES working was: 1. Take it apart and use 220 or so sandpaper to clean the contacts, same with the games. 2. Leave the top half of the plastic cabinet unscrewed so that when you get the flashing colors screen you can lift off the top and wiggle the cartridge SLOWLY as you will be waiting to see the start up screen float up the tv screen. When it does give you this you have found the spot that that cartridge is happy to work at. Each game will be different, so there is no point in ever screwing the unit back together as you cannot get your fingers in the hole to wiggle it with the top on. Don't worry about electric shock, there is only 12 volts going through this. 3. If it still doesn't work, then breathe several breaths onto the end of the cartridge. The official manual says that moisture across the contacts will result in fried games, but in reality it fixes the problem, though sometimes if that is what made it work, then the game will often freeze up after a while. A big deal if you are playing Mario Bros 3 and a couple of hours have passed!!! Hope this helps! Derek.

Hi! Derek's thots on the super controllers: They are easier on the hands, but with Mr. Do, you might say, press up, but your hand is even slightly off center and it thinks that you hit a diagonal so you might go left or right instead. Same with Mouse Trap. Very frustrating to steer. Lady Bug is horrid no matter what joystick you use as you have to be right at the point where the game thinks you should command it to turn, otherwise you simply stop. All this foolishness can be reduced by taking it apart and snipping off the contacts for the diagonals. No more confusion. Up is up as the left and right are now much further away than the up/left or up/right ever were. Leave your second joystick with all eight contacts to play games like subroc or time pilot where there are no corners to navigate! I found that anything with corners (all maze games) did not work well without getting rid of the diagonals.

Various people have been offering advice to my posts trying to get the Atari800Win emulator for the 5200 to run. Are there any non-DOS versions that you can get running without massive frustration on guessing where files go and having endless unhelpful error messages to deal with? If it was something that I could hold in my hand the Atari800Win would have made the trip to the basement to meet Mr. Hammer as some cartridges have: Intellivision's Commando, Miner 2049er with its ultra picky tendancy to plunge to your death, and the 7800 game Tower Toppler. That got crushed good. Whoever thought that having your man coast after you let up on the joystick, and delayed reaction to button presses would be fun? They needed their head examined. God, what an annoying game! Ditto for Scrapyard Dog with its coasting, delayed reaction, and those impossible to make jumps in the sewer worlds. Now that I've vented, thanks for any help with the initial question! Derek.

I would like to get farther on the Intellivision cartridges Commando, which I have drifted across the room on several occasions, it is just too easy to die and slow to steer with that damn thumbpad even though I used JB Weld to attach a small dowel to it which helps its inaccurate steering on other games. Is there a hidden continue feature for it or for the MAME version? Also, the same query for Intellivision's cart for Bump n' Jump. There are apparently 32 levels, according to the box, and with only one bonus car and having to start over to get to the point where you waste all your men to figure out the timing on a new jump, it is monotonous to start over and go through several seasons to see new territory. You would think that when they were putting these games through "test group" studies the people would have pointed out these obvious irritations! Thanks, Derek.

Hi. I'm trying to get Atari800win:800os-b NTSC Full speed SIO to run. I followed previous advice and got it to at least display in screensaver mode, changing colors every few seconds. It is running as it says "Stopped" in the status window.How do you get it to accept the games? The only place they show up is in the load exe/com area. Here I get a could not read Atari executable, check log message. The log just says "start log." That's real helpful. Calling the game files .com or .exe does not help. They show up as .bin files when you download them. Same error message all three ways. Everything is in the same file folder, roms, game files, the emulator, all those little files you need atariob, etc. What goes in the eight different disc drives? It accidentally got to the state it is in when I put the Dos_25.atr file in there. What else is to go here? One person replied that I should press Alt-R and would have to browse over to the roms and and each one seperately. What? Alt-R does nothing. There is no "Roms" under the "Atari" button. I would just give up, but I have screwed with this for many hours, and would like to not just delete it, though it is getting mighty tempting. Thanks, Derek. If you really want to be helpful, e-mail me! [email protected]

Hi. I downloaded Mess, followed the skimpy and confusing instructions about extracting it to the mame folder, why? Anyway, nothing happens except a message that messlib.dll is missing, um it is right there next to the mess.exe that you are supposed to click on to use the damn thing. 1,794,560 bytes worth of file and it can't find it? (This is the latest .71 version massively improved, bugs removed!! umhmm- that I got the other day.) Any ideas? Thanks. Derek. feeling this:? wanting to do this :wink:

I have had many people try, including someone who lives off programs he has written and sells on the internet! It is this emulator: Atari800Win An Atari 800/800XL/130XL/5200 emulator for Win32 No one can figure out where the little atariosb.rom and others needed go in the settings under "Atari" then "cartridges" and "hardware". I have moved these "disk image" files, the little 1k file needed, moved the Rom's around. Nothing gets the damn thing running beyond it saying "Stopped". Can someone tell me where to put these damn files so it works. We all have wasted so many hours on this that it is nutty to delete it all now and give up. (Yes, I read the text files that come with it, as well as the instructions from Back in time.net...not particularly helpful as they only tell you what you need, not where to place the files once your wild goose chase is completed.) Thank you in advance, Derek. If there is another emulator that is simply easier to use (non-DOS) tell me and I will not bother with this confusing mess!

I have Ballblazer, sealed. It is not on your list, but since I don't have a light gun it is no use to me and I would send it to you or anyone else, for just the price of the postage as it is just collecting dust here.