mgas

I tried it on a FB9 Gold. It didn't work for me but I tend to be computer challenged. I hope someone gets it working. Its my go-to platform for Atari 2600 games.

I bought several thru the pandemic to relive the 'good ole days'. I'm happiest with the 9 Gold. I did the software mods to make my own menu with the games I want on it. I ended up with a wired joystick with the select buttons on it and prefer that over the wireless. They kept disconnecting and eating batteries. But it should be fine for what you want. I tend to be a bit computer challenged and didn't like fussing with them. The X can also be customized but they tend to be more expensive since they are the 'newest'. Find a used 9 or 9 Gold. Then follow the thread here to modify the firmware and you won't be disappointed

I'm mid 50's. I was a teenager in the 2600 heyday. I didn't have one but my friends did. Oh the hours....In the summer of '82, I was bored waiting to go off to college. I found a 2600 at a yard sale and picked it up. I committed to Starmaster and played it about 24/7 for a month! My Mom got rid of it after I went to college In the early 2000's, one of my coworkers heard me talking about it and bought me one off eBay as a bit of a gag. It also came with a small collection of about 10 games. I bought a few of my favorite Activision titles, played with it for a week or so, and stashed it away. Right after the pandemic started, I pulled it put of the closet. It still worked! Then the obsession really began. I bought several more, lots of games, and did a few video mods. I discovered the Flashbacks and bought several of those. They got more playing time because the picture was so much better on HDMI. I found a FB Portable and got that. I learned the simple 'hack' to add games to them and got the Flashbacks and Portable loaded with my choice list. I had a Commodore VIC-20 in 1983. So I went looking on eBay, Offerup, Craiglsist, etc and picked up a few 64's, VIC's and Atari computers. Now that has grown to about a dozen commodores of all flavors with all the goodies. I finally started slowing down. I avoid looking except for about once a week and resist buying more. I have duplicates of EVERYTHING I own and convince myself I don't need more, for now Lately I've been thinking I need a 5200 and 7800. I have a few Raspberry Pi's laying around so maybe I should just set up an ultimate Atari Emulator instead. So yeah, its an obsession and you are not the only one. Please don't tell my wife what I've spent over the last year on vintage computers and video games...

My parents taught me about doing the 'right thing' more than they taught me all the US laws. In this case, it seems clear to me that the right thing its to send it back or at least contact them and see what they want done. But different strokes for different folks.... Looking forward to Collector 400ish shipping notice.

But wouldn't the honest thing to do be to send it back? That would be cool, right?

Thank you for the reply Alex. I've been meaning to go back and give Retro Pi another look. Maybe this is a good excuse I'm having fun with the game. I keep getting stumped and my old patience are not what they used to be. I think I need to go back thru the ZPH interview again

I'm having a ball playing in Stella. However, my favorite platforms are FB9 and the FB Portable. I have all the Activision games and my favorite Atari titles loaded. When at home, I like the HDMI on my modern monitor from the FB9. The portable lives in my backpack and I find grabbing it to kill time when I'm out traveling sure beats internet surfing. CC won't run on them. I guess its the memory size. If anyone smarter than me figures out how to get it to run on those platforms, I sure would be appreciative. Scott

I just downloaded my digital copy. In Stella 6.2.1 it says Type: SB (128-256K SUPERbank) The file name is adgm_circ_SNXXXXXX[SB]. I don't know if that's part of the serial number so I didn't want to post it. It seems to run fine and is awesome! Less Grumpy Old Guy Scott

OMG. Quit whining! If you don't want to see a play through, DON'T CLICK ON IT!!! I LOVED James livestream. I can't wait to see his play through. I'm a grumpy old guy and don't really care for puzzles. I just like the adventure of doing it and seeing all the visuals. I actually programmed in the early 80's so I totally appreciate what guys like David and Dan did, then and now. I was totally excited to play the Pitfalls again when I found spoilers and walk throughs. PLEASE put it back up I can't wait for my Collector Edition to ship so I can download and play along. James, PLEASE put it back up (or at least invite me for the private version;)

That there was funny I'm a morning guy so I wonder which one I'll prefer? Collector edition ordered (a few days ago actually).

These are just awesome! I don't know what I would do with them but I think I need to order a few to support the project

There seems to be something wrong with the switch logic in post 1, or I'm just getting too old. Lets say we follow the OP suggestion and wire 1 and 2 to a new button and the other side to pin 8. Fine. That brings up the Menu. But moving the joystick up during normal game play will also ground pin 2 since they are wired together. The computer (VCS) will thing we are pushing up and down at the same time and give us the menu. There needs to be some kind of logic involved electronically to discern when we just want one direction, i.e. Up. Of course a DPST push button would work because it would keep pins 1 and 2 separate until its pushed. Hmmm....

I'm new here but super interested in the Stella teams work. I just reached out to them about a donation I have a few of these and wouldn't live without them now. I use them in front of EVERYTHING that uses 5V or USB power. Totally worth the $10 on Amazon. There are fancy one with logging and such but I find myself using these simple ones most. Scott https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00J3JSEG6/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Doah! I found the thread searching and didn't notice where I was. Total rookie move

I recently picked this up from a local seller. It was in a box of 2600 stuff. I bought the lot to practice repair of the consoles. I realized it was 'Very Rare+' on AtariAge. I'm not really into collecting or investing. Looking on eBay its hard to get an idea what its worth as boxed ones for the 2600 are not there or on completed listings. I realize its the US version and not Canada. Any thoughts, ideas, value, offers? Scott

It was the summer of '82 and I was bored waiting to start college in January. I found Starmaster and thought it was a good excuse to break out the 2600. I fell in love. I was/is a BIG Space and SciFi enthusiast and it was just awesome. I dissected every rule and feature of the game to optimize the score. I hacked the console to bring the extra switches to the joystick to save those precious few seconds going to the map and back. I don't remember what joystick it was but it was some small one about half the size of the Atari one that I really liked. I remember telling my Mom to come look at the scores I had achieved. She asked if I wanted the patches but I just didn't think it was a big deal. Once I mastered the highest scores possible thru my analysis, I put it away and never really went back. 38 years later and the pandemic got me into collecting a few consoles and restoring C64 stuff. I occasionally break out Starmaster but don't have the patience to play thru an entire game at the highest level. It doesn't take long to realize my reflexes are just not the same and I'll never get those scores again, but what great memories

"with just a little bit of DIY spirit" says it all! You can buy awesome Arcade style joysticks. You can order giant stickers to match any artwork you can download. Your neighbor has a garage full of wood tools and would love to help you build a cabinet if you don't have the skills. And there are a TON of online videos how to build and set-up RetroPie. For a weeks worth of part time effort, you can build a beautiful arcade style cabinet with tons of video games at your fingertips. And you get to tell everyone that sees it you BUILT it!

Something that may be missed here is the 'Love' for the business. It seems like Shaggy loves his. I'll get to that in a minute. I started and ran a very successful Hobby Shop in the greater Phoenix area from 1998 to 2007. In that time, I saw 9 others Hobby stores close within 15 minutes of me. To me, it was easy to see. I got IT. The others clearly didn't. Restaurants fail every day. Yet many others thrive and make lots of money. Many came and went in the plaza I was in. Yet the one next door thrived, grew, and made LOTS of money. The owner and I talked about it several times. She clearly got IT. I traveled around the country visiting Hobby Shops as a part of my hobby . Walking in the door spoke volumes. In a glance I could tell if they got IT. For a few years owning the Hobby Shop, I had 2 EM games in a local 50's style Diner. I bought them for a few hundred dollars, cleaned them up and made sure everything worked on them. They each had about 50,000 plays on the internal meter, which we often bragged about. Every week I would take $400-500 dollars from those two machines. Eventually, I had good offers to sell that I couldn't refuse and I wanted to do other things with that time. Also, the restaurant owner didn't get IT and I could see his downslide long before he did. Back to IT. What is IT? Its hard to describe. First you have to be flexible to match the market. Many small business owners are stuck in their ways and it drives them out of business. They clearly don't get IT. Its a destination business. For specialized business like Arcades or Hobby Shops, people will come to you no matter where you are. It seems so simple but the very basics like Inventory and Customer service are EVERYTHING! Yet, many small business owners don't get IT. Being in the fancy plaza, big signs, advertising, etc don't get IT done. They might for an Ice Cream parlor but not a specialized business. Robert Irvine and John Taffer clearly get IT. And they have successful TV shows because so many small businesses owners don't. Is a great example of IT. I don't know Shaggy but I see a lot in his photos he posted. Its a bright store. Mirrors reflect light, make it appear bigger, and generally brighten the place. He has a variety of machines including Pinball, stand up classic arcade, sit down, climb in. Look at the mother sitting with the kid at the Pac Man table or whatever it is. He has targeted as many demographics as he could. The T shirt says he has a reception desk with merch to sell. This rounds out the store and gives him an opportunity to grab a little more money while people are excited and their adrenaline is up. But mostly, it adds to the whole image reinforcing he gets IT. Does this have anything to do with home video games killing the Arcade market? I don't know, but I grew up in the 70's-80's and visited LOTS of Arcades. Knowing what I know now, its easy to think back and see that most owners were trying to cash in on the market growth and just didn't get IT. They were destined to fail from the beginning. The big crash is regularly documented. To me, its easy to see they just didn't Love their business and didn't get IT. Its a mute point to argue because people that argue the point, don't get IT Hey Shaggy, I can't wait to come visit your business. I love meeting people that have a passion and get IT. Scott

BackBit.

I'm a big fan of Paper Models, mostly Space ones. I saw this and the Pitfall ones and got excited. I started re-drawing the Pitfall one in a CAD program with plans to try to Laser cut it on my new Machine. I thought I would modify it slightly and put a spot for a cartridge on it for sort of a display. I'll share the files when I get it done if it comes out descent. I would like to try the Chopper and maybe the Barnstormer airplane seen above if I get around to them. I also have a few other favorite games I would like the display for. We'll see.... Scott

I'm not sure which model it is. I left it at work. I made one for my 800XL from a Raspberry Pi wall wart. It was a 5v 2A one I had. I was going to just order another one from Amazon and change the plug since the Atari only needs the 5V. I trust the modern switching one more than the old brick. I've modified 3 Commodore bricks to have the power monitor/protector inline (Ray Carlsen design). I like seeing the current and voltage at a glance so I may make one for the XE but doubt it will get enough use to really justify it. I'm out of the old Futaba chargers I made the others from so I'll have to model and 3D print one if I do. More work....

First post on Atari Age I had a 2600 and a VIC20 back in the day but got rid of them in the late 80's as I graduated college. I've had another 2600 for about 15 years stashed in a closet and bring it out every few years to see if it still works. I started playing with vintage Computers when the Pandemic hit. I got several Commodore variants and have been enjoying cleaning and restoring them. I also ended up with a working 800XL and a 1050 drive and have only mildly tinkered with it as most of my time as been on the Commodores. I took my kids by a Video Game store over the weekend and spotted an XEGS in a cabinet for sale. It was complete with Keyboard, Lightgun, Grey Joystick, and both original cartridges. I did't know what it was. I researched the crap out of it when I got home and decided I 'needed' it I went back and tested it in the store and it worked. Its in good shape but very dirty. I need to take it apart and clean it. I also need to build another power supply as I won't trust the brick-of-death. I'll get an SD based storage device. I also want S-Video as it is SO good on the Commodores compared to Composite. The light Gun also needs some repro stickers made. Here it is currently in my office. I'll post back when I get it all cleaned up and working properly Scott