Stephen

You have pirated software. You are an annoying ***hole. You've been asked multiple times to stop pestering people. Why do you continue to engage in such anti-nice behaviour?

For $400? I don't think so. A $40 Pi, yeah, that's a decent little computer.

Wow - you mean I can't spend $400 on a literal piece of shit, and then flog it in EBay for $600. Wow. No wonder I have to work a real job rather than trying to turn every lump of feces I produce into a sellable piece of feces.

None of these are worse than $03DODEAD

I know - when I read the datasheet on the controller, and realized what we actually got, it was a very sad moment indeed.

$400 to emulate a VCS - I say that is poor.

My family in Florida finally got their christmas cards (and gift cards) we mailed down to them 4 weeks ago. It's a 17 hour drive for me to get from my place to theirs. Cards took 4 weeks. Absolute bullshit - and we all know the reason, but best to not post it.

Soon now! Sending my payment

You don't sue - only Atari sues! No refunds either.

Sophia2 is also around the $100 price point and it doesn't give 80 columns. I understand there's some issues with connectivity, but if almost no software exists for VBXE after a decade, and less exists for XEP-80 after 3 decades, I don't understand why people keep trying to create more and more devices for 80 columns rather than making what we have work, or at least writing software for what we have. If we don't have software for 2 devices, having 5 different devices is not going to help the situation.

Yeah - the difference between VBXE's true 80 col mode and the software 80 column font is incredible. VBXE gives true 640 pixel resolution so we get a proper 8X8 font, not the 3*5 when cramming everything in 320 pixel mode. The 80 column mode is also full colour, and text and background cells can be different. @Gunstar - here's a little video of some proof of concept code for a project I'm doing:

How cool would it be if they made it TACO, or TACOBOX?

Been using G6 Utilities since the late 90s. Still works in Windows 10. Been free for almost 20 years I think. P.S. Sorry for the off-topic. not sure why I needed to mention this, but it may be useful to someone.

Well when you have no less than 8 different machines essentially all using the same chip set, but all built with no standardization across those machines for expansion other than SIO or re-utilization of joy stick ports. Here's where the C-64 wins. Because you can pretty much count on stuff being in the same relative location, and having the same expansion port from a physical and pin out aspect. Yes we saw a lot of different models of our A8 line, but with the way that was executed it simply promoted mass non-standardization. Expansion port aside, we can't even count on the main IC chips being in the same places or orientation on the individual motherboards, which makes it very difficult to design a drop-in piggyback upgrade board to tie into those chips. Case in point, I had an Osborne 1 which normally had a built-in display that allowed scrolling around within a 52 character wide window to view an 80 column screen. A 3rd party produced an 80 column drop-in (no soldering) piggy-back board that was a fairly simple install that allowed for an external 80 column text monitor to be used. It worked with all Osborne 1 systems because they all had an identical motherboard layout. I think you misunderstood what I meant. Regardless of how many models of the A8 we have, with the exception of the 400/800 line, every mod works in every machine and fits in one way or another. This greatly expands the available userbase for all mods. It's the community / public - not the machine I mean is resistant to upgrades. I've never seen a more capable upgrade with such vitriol (or at least complete irrelevance / avoidance) directed towards it than the VBXE. I wanted 80 columns on my machine back in 82 because even the shitty Apple 2 had it. Even today, there's no less than 8 topics I can think of discussing 80 column mods or upgrades for the machine. Most of them are pie in the sky threads about creating more new hardware. Well we've had hardware than can do 80 columns and a shit ton more for over a DECADE now. People say "ohh - it's making the machine too modern, it's not original, etc.". But 1MB even 4MB of RAM is seen as awesome. 65816 processors - oh yeah, that's also cool. Stereo, quad pokey, great. SID, MIDI, S2 WaveBlaster for sound, check. Mention VBXE though and it's like you have leprosy. I just wish I understood why this one mod elicits this response, and every other single mod, even ones that are just dreams or people asking someone to "just make it" all seem to be super awesome, yeah, let's do it.

Poor snowflakes. The truth burns with the intensity of a thousand suns for them!

I should make a video showing a similar chip removal using just a plunger and solder wick. I got really quick at doing them that way before having the Hakko.

Wow. I knew it would never be able to do 4k in any games, but the fact that it can't even do 4k video is hilarious. Maybe they should have just advertised the woodgrain on the front was in glorious 4k.

Multiple amazing upgrade paths for the Atari have been under utilized for decades. I don't know why - it's like the Atari methodology of shooting for the lowest common denominator (48kB) machine stuck. PBI - nah, don't use it. ECI - definitely not. VBXE - why the hell would we use that mod. Far easier to speculate about 20 different ways to get 80 columns on the machine, while we already have it and more! I find it SO strange, that a machine clearly designed from day one in 1978 to be upgradable in both software and hardware, has more resistance to upgrades than any other platform I know of. All I wanted to do in 1985 was upgrade it. It's in 2020 and some people almost deem it sacrilegious to go above 16kB, CTIA and cassette. Very strange.

That's dedication to the true arcade experience!

Probably best to just search https://atariage.com/forums/forum/19-dedicated-systems/ There's at least 5 threads for Portfolio there. I have one, but it's packed away. Hope it still works - been at least 6 years since I last powered it on.

Ive seen stranger things sold. Such as, a high dollar tube based pre-amp and amp, that then feeds in a compressed bluetooth audio signal. To me, that's like spending crazy ass money on an 8k TV and then using a VHS as your video source.

Keep in mind, it's not just about speed either. With SIO storage and serial modems, you cannot be receiving data and saving it to disk like you can with a PBI solution.

2 of the 3 new systems I built (1088XEL and 1088XLD) I went PAL. Since I would estimate 99% of all new demos, and most new software comes from PAL land, I decided to go that route.

Yeah - as Dr mentioned, the FR-301 is their replacement for the 808. I am not familiar with any other makes or models. The Hakko line is expensive, it's definitely a professional model. If you are only going to do one or two replacements, I'd probably find something cheaper, but for regular/continual work, they can't be beat.

Better keep some distance between that Jag and 3D0. Don't want that old hardware fighting each other and getting damaged @JagChris - IDE is an Optical Drive Emulator. Some sort of so.id state replacement for the cd mechanism.