bcostin

The little ship that escapes in the end of Atlantis looks like the one you use to beam up the various critters in Cosmic Ark. I always figured the Cosmic Ark dropped in to rescue a couple of inhabitants when Atlantis was destroyed.

Wow, great start. I've got one arcade game, an old Atari Video Pinball complete with disco-era styling. I'd love add a few more but I simply have no room. Thank goodness for MAME.

Hmm, I think it was the Star Trek arcade game, where Spock's voice says "Welcome aboard, Captain." The first actual synthesized speech I experienced (as opposed to replaying prerecorded sound) was with my C64 and SAM, the "Software Automatic Mouth".

Darn it. Wonder what's up? Whatever it is, I hope he'll be back.

Nice site. Well written reviews, and lots of nice screenshots. (So many review sites skimp on the screenshots.) Good job!

Hmm. I've never found 2000/XP to be "emulator unfriendly". I often run MAME, Z26, COLEM, and lots of others. WinXP has additional options to better support older Windows and DOS programs, but 2000 does OK for most things I've tried. I'd never go back to Win98 on any machine where I need to do actual work, but on an older system that's intended mostly for games then it is the path of least resistance. I have a Win98 box next to my TV for just that sort of thing.

I'm not sure if adapters can be repaired or not. In this case you have a pretty common power supply with a standard tip, so it's not really worth trying. From a post by Paul Slocum on the main 2600 forum: What is the 2600's power supply rating? Officially, 9v, 500ma, tip positive. Any supply with a positive tip that's 9v-12v with at least 500ma should work. If you don't happen to have a suitable unit around already you can get a cheap universal adapter at Radio Shack or Walmart that should work just fine. -Bryan

Sadly there aren't many good screenshot archives of VIC games, and some of the sites that I had previously bookmarked have since disappeared. Here are a couple of links that are still around: PCVIC emulator screengrabs, showing number of popular games: http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/Alley...583/Vgrabs.html War Shrake's Digital Archaeology site, featuring Cartzilla, a huge reference with short reviews of many cartridges (no screenshots though): http://home.att.net/~wards.game.history/vic20/ The Creative Computing archives have contemporary reviews for quite a few VIC games from back in the day: http://www.atarimagazines.com/creative/index/ The VIC was my very first computer, and despite the system's limitations I've always liked it. True, many games aren't all that great, but the system definitely has some good original titles and some decent versions of the classics. The Atarisoft arcade titles, in particular, are surprisingly faithtful translations. And even when they aren't so successful it's kind of fun to see how the developers managed to make the most of what they had.

It's been a while since I purchased anything from them, but they always seemed like nice folks to me.

I have a brown-and-gold one, myself. I do kinda like the looks of both Intellivision units, but I think the Sears "Super Video Arcade" model is probably my favorite variation. I'm hopelessly lost in the early 80's.

I was also surprised to see Manuel write what he did, but I'm not particularly upset by his post. I must admit that I am also underwhelmed by those screenshots. (And if the screenshots are messed up, then it's GDG that deserves a good talking to.) I agree that Manuel should have been more tactful in expressing his opinion, but he raises a legitimate point. Hardly a week goes by that we don't see 10 threads about how much some game does/doesn't suck. Sure, most of those games are old titles rather than homebrews, but why should homebrews get special treatment?

Groovy! Everything looks fantastic. I've just downloaded Z26 and the ROMs to see how they play. And don't be piling up on Brian R., guys. I'm sure other people were wondering the same thing. It's much better to ask and give everyone involved a chance to explain the true costs involved.

I have a terrible memory. I use a database program on my PocketPC (HanDBase) with fields for the information I'm likely to need. (I previously used a JFile database on my Palm, which worked just fine, too.) It's handy to be able to add items to the database without dragging my collection upstairs to my main PC, and useful for reference when I'm out thrifting or at yard sales.

Speaking as a late-comer to the Atari 8-bit scene, there's no denying that hardware was amazing for its time. Incremental improvements, repackaging, and a good software library let them sell basically the same hardware for nearly 10 years. That's pretty impressive by any standard. The C64 was an excellent machine, as well. One big advantage at the time, easy to forget now, was price. Atari couldn't really compete aggressively on price until the cost-reduced XL line of machines came out. And I personally think Atari begain to confuse the market by offering similar machines without clearly explaining the differences between them or the potential advantages of upgrading. It's really hard to compare the C64 and 8-bit line head-to-head; a lot of the specs are close enough to argue about forever but different enough to defy direct comparison. And both systems have been pushed into doing things their original designers probably would never have tried, so tossing out straight spec and feature lists doesn't really accomplish much. It's a little like arguing whether the 1955 Chervolet was better than the 1955 Studebaker. "Better" doesn't really mean much without more context. Better for whom, at what, and under what circumstances? The C64 and its logical sucessor the C128 have a special place for me because I used them every day for years. The Atari systems are less familiar to me, but I'm now finding out now how much fun they are. I'll take some of both, please.

I still have my original six-switch 2600. Unfortunately it no longer works, but I still keep it around for sentimental reasons.

I see why you might be annoyed, but I don't think two dollars is really that bad. The local Goodwill usually sells Atari games for $1 each, boxed or unboxed. Unfortunately I haven't seen anything Atari-related for months now, just dusty Genesis sports games and NES Duck Hunt cartridges.

Nice idea. Sounds similar to the Atari 8-bit version (is the 5200 version the same?), but addition of the second missile base would be great. The 2600 version is always fun on its own, of course, but after playing the arcade game or the 8-bit version I do kinda miss the multiple bases, bombers, satellites, splitting missiles, and other little touches that added to the complexity of the original.

I'm sure someone makes a pre-assembled extension cable. Another simple alternative is a phono jack coupler, also know as an RCA barrel connector. Radio Shack definitely sells those. Use the coupler to patch in another standard phono cable of sufficient length and you should be fine. In theory an extension cable would be a little better, since there'd be less chance of interfererence or signal degredation with the coupling. In practice I doubt there'd be any noticable difference.

Are you guys referring to the Atari800DC emulator? I tried it a while back and had some trouble with it; I see that there's been a new release since then. I think I'll give it another try.

In my early teens I actually gave away some handheld games when my family moved, or traded them for other junk that I've forgotten about since. This was in that dangerous period between when I sort of got bored with them and when I remembered how much fun they were. Oh, and I sold off some of my father's old tube-based stereo equipment at a flea market for practically nothing before I realized anyone wanted the stuff. Live and learn.

I'm gradually moving from my patented "random cardboard box" storage system to those liddled plastic storage crates they sell everywhere. I doubt they'd be much help in a real flood, but for occasional basement dampness or leaks they do fine. A couple packets of silica gel (be sure not to eat it ) will help prevent problems with condensation forming inside the boxes. My previous basement could get a few inches of water on the floor in heavy storms. My current one is halfway above ground and unlikely to flood, but I did have a water pipe break in the laundry room next to where I have my collection. Yikes! Fortunately I was home at the time.

Yep, the Genesis extension cables work fine for the 2600 (and anything else I've tried that uses the same type of connectors.) I picked up a couple sets of them on clearance when the Genesis was fading from the stores. The wireless Genesis controllers sound like an interesting idea; I'd enjoy using a modern set of wireless controllers that's less bulky. Or perhaps a sending unit(s) into which one could plug any standard controller, with a matching recieving unit(s) that could attach to the 2600.

Nice buy. It doesn't get as much attention as some of Imagic's other titles, but Laser Gates is one of my favorite games.

Thanks everyone, I got it working. Geez, not exactly Bryan's shining moment. Maybe next time I should wait until I'm actually awake to try these things. I'm not sure how I got it into my head that the XEGS keyboard needed the SIO port, but thanks for setting me straight, Jetboot Jack. Anyway, I apparently had two problems. First, the darn serial ports were reversed on this secondhand PC. (I thought of that earlier and tried swapping ports in the SIO2PC config, but I think I was been doing something else wrong at the time.) Second, the DOS ATR image I was trying to boot from was apparently corrupt. I dowloaded another image, started over, and there it went. Yay! For good measure I also sucessfully used APE under Windows (with the jumper in the DSR position.) Again, thanks, all. Now, back to playing Bandits!

Thanks everyone, I got it working. Geez, not exactly Bryan's shining moment. Maybe next time I should wait until I'm actually awake to try these things. I'm not sure how I got it into my head that the XEGS keyboard needed the SIO port, but thanks for setting me straight, Jetboot Jack. Anyway, I apparently had two problems. First, the darn serial ports were reversed on this secondhand PC. (I thought of that earlier and tried swapping ports in the SIO2PC config, but I think I was been doing something else wrong at the time.) Second, the DOS ATR image I was trying to boot from was apparently corrupt. I dowloaded another image, started over, and there it went. Yay! For good measure I also sucessfully used APE under Windows (with the jumper in the DSR position.) Again, thanks, all. Now, back to playing Bandits!