rennervision

Thanks. I'm thinking about opening it back up and replacing the battery. If anyone has attempted such a mission and would like to share their experience, I would appreciate it as I have been known to occasionally screw up things like this. 🙂 Regardless, I don't regret buying it. I just don't want to get myself in a situation where after finding it in the wild I accidentally break it and then have to replace it with another that someone thinks is worth twice as much because it's so "VERY RARE! [email protected]@K!!"

I have a question for any fellow Centipede owners. A couple of months ago I was lucky to find one of these new at my local Best Buy. After trying to play it from time to time since then and always discovering the battery had died, I did some searching online to discover a firmware upgrade fixed a phantom battery leak issue. (It needs a special cable to install from your PC which New Wave Toys ships for free.) So I fully charged the unit, then installed the firmware. (Curiously it failed at first. Then I tried again and it showed a success.) By the next day, my battery was showing half charged after no play. On day two it was showing no charge, but I could still power it on and from there I played two games. After three days, it shut down in the middle of booting up since it couldn't run any longer. I've got to ask - does that seem right? I was most certainly expecting more battery life than that. I thought the firmware update went through. Is there any way to be sure?

I'm thinking about getting the FBX. (My first Flashback!) Has anyone tried it with driving controllers?

In light of the EMR II release and Christmas right around the corner, any chance another run is happening? If so, can I get on a wait list?

I assumed I would find one somewhere for the Atari 5200 Atarimax but all I've found is a big bunch of nothing. Would someone happen to have one in existence they could share?

Thank you. What you describe certainly seems to fit the situation that's happening.

Thanks - yes, it is a 4 port. Haven't done anything to further troubleshoot it yet, but last night it still seemed to be working without giving me any fuss.

Would anyone know if there is a flat domestic shipping charge for Best to mail two upgraded CX78s? (The ones he's selling for $59.95 each.) Having never ordered from Brad before and based on some other threads I've seen, I kind of what to be sure I phrase my order correctly but - unfortunately - I can't make heads or tails out of that website.

That's reassuring and I hope that's all it is! I'll give it a shot.

Thanks Moonsweeper. I actually will do that just to have two quality joysticks, but I also highly doubt the problem I'm having is with my repaired controllers. When one joystick can't start a game, I swap it out with the other and it doesn't work either. And then none of the buttons on either one are recognized by Galaxian when the problem starts. But after a magical cartridge wiggle/power toggle, the problem goes away. All buttons and controls then work fine for both. That's why I was suspecting something internal to the console was causing my issues since the odds of all controls failing on both controllers at the same time is too coincidental. Edit - I just got back from playing a few different games, and now the startup issue seems to have gone away. (For now.) But I'm sure it's only temporary.

I could use some help on what to do at this point. This summer I've gotten back into collecting Atari stuff for a new room my wife graciously allowed me to clean up and turn into an Atari Lounge. One thing I've always wanted was to own all of Atari's four consoles, so I was off to eBay. Well, trying to play any game on an Atari 5200 has been a very disheartening experience. When the 5200 I purchased arrived, I quickly hooked it up and got ready for a test drive. Except for one thing - both controllers barely worked. Start and left/right movement with the joystick was all I could do with no other functioning controls. OK, I thought. I knew these controllers were a little infamous so this wasn't unexpected. I'm just going to have to get these fixed and I'll be back in business. Shipped them off to another guy on eBay who charged $100 to fix. When they returned, every button worked on both. So for a moment - a very brief moment - I had a pleased look on my face. And then suddenly, neither controller could start a game. OK, I thought. Based on some other threads I've read around here it sounds like my next step is to replace port 1's 4052 multiplexer chip as it no longer recognizes any start commands. Except something didn't seem right with that theory. If I tried to start up Galaxian, which uses all the keypad buttons to select your game, none of them were recognized either. Well, while goofing around I found a trick that worked enough times that I can't dismiss it as being voodoo. What I do is I wiggle the cartridge a little bit (without removing it) and the game always freezes when I do this with a corrupted-looking screen. I then quickly power off/on the unit again and suddenly - lo and behold - all buttons are now recognized on my controller and I can start a game. Except, going back to my Galaxian example, I might play a game fine - but now when the game is over my controller suddenly loses all functionality again. Mind you, I have not yet shut off the console or unplugged/plugged the controller. But I still have to do that crazy cartridge wiggle/power toggle trick and maybe out of 3-10 attempts I'm back to playing again. Does this sound like the 4052 multiplexer chip? Is it something else? What can I do to get my Atari Karma in good standing?

OK - thx for confirming. Got another one and it's nice and loose. Finally playing Indy 500 for the first time and it's a neat game. I'm returning the one that causes a wrist injury after two minutes of use and looking for another one now to complete the set.

My driving controller I bought off eBay just came in the mail. I haven't plugged it in yet, but man it feels tight. Is that the way it should be? I expected it to feel loose like a paddle, but it takes some effort to rotate this thing.

OK - for some reason I thought the joystick part could twist around a full 360 degrees and provided a way to play 2600 paddle games. 😊 Apparently not. May be time to look for a nice set on eBay.

I assume the answer to this question is no, or else I would have already seen it mentioned somewhere. But can the 7800 controller be used as a Driving controller?

So I realize in the amount of time this question was first asked, a baby was born and will now be celebrating adulthood in a few days. But I always loved this hoax and was just looking for this ad online. I can't seem to find it anywhere - links to it are either dead or blocked by my antivirus. Would anyone happen to have a good quality photo of this?

I'm going to have to go with the 2018 model...

Just wondering what ever happened to this project? (And then I realized I bumped this thread last year inquiring about it and it's been actually one year to the day of Byte Knight's last response! Springtime must put me in the mood for Adventure. )

My CX-22 version arrived today and it plays great. I have just one more question - the AtariAge Store mentions different Trak-Ball speeds are available with the game. Does anyone know how I go about changing it between normal/fast/kid? EDIT: Never mind. Just realized the original manual actually tells you which games use which speeds. I may have been overthinking this.

Sorry for the bump. Was just wondering if this is still being delayed due to the Melody board issue?

I just ordered Missile Command TB from AtariAge (the CX-80 version). I realize some CX-80 Trak-Balls are really CX-22s inside - and I wasn't entirely sure which one I had so I thought I would take a chance with this one. When my cartridge finally arrived to try out, I thought if I had the wrong version there would be no movement with the Trak-Ball. Instead what happened was in TB mode (or JS for that matter) there was minimal movement allowed with the Trak-Ball, but it was in no way as responsive as I thought it would be. I'm wondering if anyone else has tried a CX-80 version of the game with a CX-22 Trak-Ball and experienced the same thing? Should there still be movement - just not very smooth/responsive movement? I'm asking because before I order the CX-22 version, I want to be sure this sounds like I do, in fact, have a CX-22 Trak-Ball and it's not a situation where the TB mode on my controller is just defective.

So was there ever an updated Yar's Return made available in some form or another?

I just tried the paddles with Breakout and they seem to work fine. So it looks like the only real problem may be with Night Driver. (And that is definitely a paddle game as well.) For some reason, I can only get the mouse to work with that game - even if I change the mouse/paddle options before starting the game. Oh well, I'm still pretty pleased with this handly little device. I did find out that Stella supports two controllers if necessary, so I just ordered another Stelladaptor.

I would like to add a two more questions to this thread. I just got my Stelladaptor today and love being able to use the old-school Atari joysticks with both MAME and my Stella emulators. Now... (1) When playing Atari games with the newest version of Stella, will it recognize TWO Stelladaptors if I want to play a competitive game (like Combat) or a game that requires two joysticks (like Raiders of the Lost Ark)? (2) I'm having some trouble with other controllers and was wondering if it's me or if there is a work-around for this. For instance, the Trak-Ball works, but it doesn't allow very smooth control in games like Centipede, so I had to go back to using a joystick. But my biggest concern is with the paddle controls. It doesn't seem to work right at all with these. I was trying Night Driver, and I just kept crashing off the side of the road without any ability to steer. (However, going into "Properties" for my game controllers does show the Stelladaptor responds correctly to the paddle even though, in the actual game, it no longer seems to function correctly.)

Yeah - that was me! Believe it or not, the person who bought it later e-mailed me to say he had received two offers of over $1,000 for it. But this guy was so thrilled to own it, he said he would never part with it no matter what.