The Night Phantom

To be fair, some kids do appreciate older gaming systems. Nearly a year ago in a topic on this same issue I posted the following: These two boys have played on my Atari systems many times since, still enjoy it, and still ask to play again. In addition, AtariAge itself has a number of classical gamers from the younger set.

You could try searching the Atari 2600 Rarity Guide to find out.

The Sears Tele-Games version is called Pong Sports. Whatever name it goes by, it’s fun (with one or three other players...).

Hmmm...that reminds me: in Lock ’n’ Chase, you play a museum robber. (Perhaps Squeeze Box is the sequel!) Or maybe just switch the villain and heroine graphics to make Babysitter’s Revenge!

In Halloween, you play the heroine, a babysitter beset by a homicidal bad guy. In Star Voyager, game 2 allows the right-hand player to control the enemy ships. But as Inky points out, it’s a matter of perspective.

Not a bastard in the literal sense: Pac-Man and Ms. Pac-Man were married in the Mr. and Mrs. Pac-Man pinball game.

Ooh, that’s a nifty idea. Something similar has already been done (for the 2600) with the triggers on the Space Age joystick and the Mindscape Power Player. Still, something like a CX40 with a button on the underside (maybe at the 12:00 position, relative to a normal view of the topside) might be nifty. One could adapt the idea for the 7800’s dual buttons as well. Or one could go Atarius Maximus’ route, even for a single-button stick, by placing the button on the far side. (Hmm, a Far Side joystick...)

Lhfreak, do you want another button on the lower left? or do you just want a 2600-compatible joystick that has a lower-left button (regardless of any other buttons the stick might have)? I have a couple of “southpaw” adaptor cables I bought from Best Electronics sometime back. When you plug a joystick into the cable and then plug the cable into the 2600, you can rotate the stick 90° so that the stock CX40’s button in the upper right, and what was joystick-left is now joystick-up, what was joystick-up is now joystick-right, etc. Presumably you could daisy-chain three of these cables and get the CX40’s button in the lower left.

That’s 2600 Pac-Man for ya. No argument!

The big Atari 2600 myth I recall was that the cartridges were “tapes”. Aside from the Supercharger games, they are not: they’re chip-based. I recognize that some people habitually refer to chip-based cartridges plus CDs and DVDs as “tapes” in spite of knowing full well that these are not tape-based media. But sloppy words, sloppy thinking: some people do get the facts confused. I remember my father haranguing about the high cost of VCS games, the crux of his argument being that magnetic tape was cheap. This logic perplexed me since I already owned some Parker Brothers and Activision games where the chip was exposed. Nonetheless, I felt it best not to argue.

Bienvenue à nouveau ! —Le Fantôme Nocturne

Well, one problem with using AtariAge’s list of 2600 programmers to identify female programmers (I assume women and girls both count) is that the list does not identify gender. Obviously you can use some cultural knowledge to figure out gender from the programmers’ first names, but there are a number of gender-ambiguous names on the list: “Alex”, “Carol”, “Chris”, “E.F.”, “Shirley”...

Maybe so, maybe not. Ten dollars (especially Canadian ) might be a bargain of an impulse purchase for people who aren’t in the hobby but suddenly spot the item and are overcome by an onrush of warm nostalgia...or who think it might be a neat curio gift for Dad.

Especially when you consider that “Kabul” and “kaboom” hardly sound alike.

You might try posting in the Off-Topic forum, perhaps under September 11 or Sympathy Going Too Far?.

Stella grows on trees.

Cool! Thanks, Paul! By the way, the two links you posted are identical. I think you meant one of them to be http://www.mindspring.com/~paul-slocum/testcart.html.

You have to be careful with this type of cartridge. Not only might it not work on your system, but under some circumstances there is a real danger of a short circuit that could damage your system and even electrocute you. Even if you never plug them in, the cartridges have little appeal for collectors. I recommend throwing them in the garbage. Oh...you meant the letter P.

I have a Le Stick. My impression is that the lack of resistance makes it hard to use, since it’s harder to realize that you are leaning the stick in some direction or other, and it’s rather responsive. It could be just a matter of taking the time to train oneself, which I have not done.

I’ve been noticing that the “View newest post” icon-link doesn’t always pull up the correct post. I’m not yet certain of the pattern, but it seems that if I posted a reply using the “quote” icon-link, then the post I quoted becomes the “newest” post, even if I have already read posts following it. Just an annoying quirk, not a crippling setback.

When I branched into Atari 8-bi gaming from VCS/7800, Qix was a prime motivation. Other faves are Beamrider and Ms. Pac-Man. Not sure about least favorites...I usually don’t invest much energy in dislike. I just move on.

I have an XEVGS and second what Jlnsctt said, except that I remain primarily a VCS fan and continue to acquire for it and other systems too.

I’m a little rusty on IMG and OBJECT tags, but it seems you could try forcing inline images to conform to a maximum width. Larger images would be either cut off or not displayed, which would address the formatting problem. (I don’t remember what the HTML specs say about this, plus since when do browsers conform to standards?)

Alligator People vs. Planet of the Apes Now, that could be one cool movie.

Collecting what you like: excellent plan!