jbanes

The enter and shift keys are your friends. Use them often and with glee. Urk! Wait! Tower Toppler is NOT defective! Mess with the difficulty switches next to the joystick plugs until you find the one that stops the levels from changing! IIRC, you need to change the second player switch. If you've messed with both switches and still can't get it to work, then you should return it. Edit: I see you noticed the problem. *Whew* I was worried I wouldn't catch you in time. Sacreliege! You are now doomed to being strung up by your pinky toe, and forced to play Choplifter until you rescue all 64 of the hostages. Snap to it!

They're actually tough little suckers. Like most gamepads, the lack of protruding parts allows them to withstand quite a bit of abuse. (Granted, the thumbstick protrudes, but it's a small piece of tought plastic.) Generally, fine control tends to be a problem with them. I find that I occasionally press a diagonal when I mean to move in a specific direction. You can unscrew the thumbstick to compensate, but the hole in the middle of the direction indicator is rather annoying. They work just fine. I get all my best scores in Enduro using my joypad.

I don't know about anyone else, but I've never heard of a "John Skieletic". Google doesn't seem to know him either. "Lil Betty's" (or a billion different variations thereof) also comes up with nothing. This is better than the $500 Colecovision that only "a true collector" could appreciate!

Yeah, I noticed your post right after we discussed it here. I think next year we need assurances from PayPal that they will support what you're trying to do rather than flagging everything as "possibly fraudulent". It's always harder to get it corrected after the fact.

I figured that it might be real, but I decided to warn him just in case. I'd feel pretty bad if someone got taken by a phishing scam and I could have warned them. Okay, suggestion for next year's MGS: Find out the IP Range of the conference center, and see if PayPal can relax their flagging procedures on that block.

You might want to verify that it's not phishing spam. If there's a link anywhere in the message, check where it leads. There's a good chance it doesn't lead to paypal.com even if the text says paypal.com.

That is generally better, but that doesn't work in Java unless you use a non-standard pre-processor. Which would mean a runtime conversion and a utlity class of some sort.

A good point. As a matter of personal preference, though, I'd much rather punch in 0xB84370, as I find it much more easy to visually "read" when I'm scanning the source. To me, that stands out as a color packed into an integer. Not so much as coding in decimal, as plugging in decimal values. I "think" the value "32 megs" which I can then convert to "32 * 1024 * 1024 = 34044240" fairly quickly. But when I put it into a program, I start thinking about the byte boundaries, so I convert it to 0x02000000. Again, it's just a personal preference. I find I have a lot fewer bugs if I stick with decimal for manual computations.

True enough. I tend to hit a lot more edge cases and do a lot more hexdumps than most programmers. You know you're out there when your physical calculator regularly overflows from the computations you're putting into it. Eh? What about RGB? The range for each number is between 0-256, which is 8 bits/2 nibbles. It's incredibly difficult to do those conversions in your head. Well, at least it is for me. Others might be much better at decimal -> hex conversion than I. ...or a file system, an emulator, an operating system, a compression/packing algo, an FPGA design... Um. Definite edge cases. Indeed. However, I find it much faster to convert long strings using a calculator. Since I usually keep one handy, it takes me a lot less time to punch in 1100101011010001 and get a decimal or hexidecimal conversion than it does to do it by hand. The really time consuming conversions are in addressing. 0x2000000 just doesn't stand out as 32 megs to me, no matter how long I work with hex. I sleep, eat, and breath hex, but I never really relate hex and decimal in my head. Speaking of which, I've always gotten a kick out of this Blue Sky Ranger tale:

Why should we use a calculator when the assembler (DASM) already knows how to handle e.g. binary numbers? As I said, it's much simpler to use a calcualtor to do a conversion rather than use a lookup table. The ability to correctly handle Hex math alone is very useful. And for large amounts of ROM data, hex can be a lot more compact than writing out tons of binary. Depending on how you program, though, you probably won't need it as much as you would during C or Java development. (Given that they don't have the ability to use binary directly without a runtime conversion.)

It's much simpler to use a Calculator. Under Windows, you can set the Calculator to "Scientific" mode to access Hex and Binary numbering systems. To convert, just enter the number in one system and click the radio button for the other system. The Mac calculator (as of OS X 10.4) works very similar, but is listed under the "Programmer" menu option. As a bonus, you'll be able to do math in the other number bases without fear that you're accidently introducing base-10 errors. (Just the other day I kept trying to figure out why 0x100000 * 32 wasn't equal to 0x32000000. Thank goodness I had a calculator to catch that one.) Under Linux you can use 'dc', but it's not graphical. Generally, you'll want to stick with hex numbering. The one exception is when you're looking to set individual bits rather than obtaining a number. In those cases you can write the binary into the calculator, then convert it to Hex for addition to your files. This should be a lot more concise, and prevent your code from ballooning with useless code. The Mac calculator makes this even easier by allowing you to flip individual bits while you're in Hex mode.

Sorry about that. What I meant to say was, "I don't think PackRat's loose carts were any cheaper than Alberts." (You'd think one of these days I'd learn to proofread.) Thanks for clarifying Albert!

Yeah, they had Wolfenstein. Unfortunetely, they were charging about $19.95 for it loose, and $29.95 for it in a box. I don't remember what Albert was charging, but I don't think it was really any cheaper.

Hey! I'm in that video! (Sort of.) Right before you swing over to the Messiah Entertainment part, my back can be seen (I'm in all black) to the far right, talking to the PackRat guy about the Odyssey2. I was trading him the mint Conquest of the World I had for two of his home brew Odyssey games. My son can be seen playing the Super Nintendo as the camera pans over to the Messiah table. He's the kid with the black shirt and yellow shorts. Cool video!

I think that Cybergoth's point is that the site is well-known around here, and is even listed on AtariAge's 2600 pages. So your post ends up being a bit redundant. Welcome to AtariAge, and you might want to lurk for awhile before you jump fully into it.

I was going to side with AtariJess on this one, but I guess it's working. Sign me up for a unit! Oh, and sending snail-mail letters is still a good idea. This page has a list of international and domestic addresses which you can mail. If you do send them a snail mail, make sure you apply at least high-school writing skills and common courtesy. A polite, well-worded letter will always have more impact than an angry letter that's difficult to understand. Also, there's an Investor webcast on Wednesday, June 14. They will be discussing the Q4 earnings and general status of the business. Archives of the previous quarters can be found here. I know that many of you already know this information, but I hope that posting it will help get even more readers involved.

It's funny that this should pop up again. I just spent an hour yesterday building a GCC cross-compiler. There's an incredibly good tutorial on doing this over on Mega Tokyo's OS Development FAQ. The only changes you should need to make are: 1. Target "m86k-elf" instead of "i586-elf". 2. (Optionally) Use a different path than "/usr/cross". I don't know about anyone else, but I'd rather properly encapsulate such a potentially confusing piece of software. I created a sub-directory of my project called "crosscompiler". I then created a "src" subdirectory, and did the build inside there. Once built, the "crosscompiler" directory showed /bin, /include, /lib, /man, and /info in addition to the "src" directory. All nice and tidy like. The addition of the man and info pages is particularly nice as you can finally read some generic GCC documentation instead of the OS X specific stuff. I understand that you probably don't like the GAS format. However, the use of GCC does afford some nicities. Instead of coding the entire shebang in assembler, you can code only the key sections in assembler and do the rest in C. The OS Development FAQ has info on all of this, including info on either building the standard libc or developing your own library. I hope this helps someone. Good luck!

I wouldn't say that. It's really just an electronic flea market. Some stuff is a really good deal, and some stuff is overpriced junk. (I'll let you decide which category this item falls into. ) For example, I just picked up a lightly used Atari 5200 for $19.99. It was in its original box, and came with Pacman and Frogger. No one bid on it because the seller said that the "controllers don't work well, and should be replaced." Knowing that ALL 5200 controllers are finicky, I picked up the unit. The controllers were indeed in a barely functional state, but they were otherwise like new. The boot still recentered the sticks, the plastic was clean and without marks, etc. So I opened them up, cleaned the switches, recentered the POTS, and now they work perfectly. If only I could find a Colecovision in known working condition that didn't cost $50+, I'd be set.

Which requires the use of encryption software to verify. Now, it's unlikely that Atari placed a generic encryption/decryption routine in the ROM (for space saving purposes, at the very least), but the key checking software would still have been considered munititions. Which would have gotten our Fearless Leaders just as worried as when Saddam Hussien imported a bunch of PS2s because he heard he could make a Beowulf cluster of them. (That obviously worked well. ) Hard to say. However, there was an amusing little workaround to the export restriction laws. Apparently, if you printed it out on paper and physically carried the source to another country, you wouldn't violate US law. My memory is a bit fuzzy on the precise circumstances that needed to take place to use this loophole, but it's possible that Atari did something similar. Or possibly, they simply ignored the laws and never got caught.

Maybe I'm missing something, but I just ran across an amusing eBay offer. For a mere $500 (!), you too can own a "mint" condition Colecovision. And what would you expect to get for this low, low price? Why, not only will you get a Colecovision, but he'll throw in a 2600 adapter and 7 games! (One of them is for the 2600 adapter.) Are you ready to jump on this deal yet? Well, if that doesn't change your mind, just keep reading. Because when the seller was informed that he's "charging $450 too much", he replied that "[the] system is a rare and priceless find to a TRUE COLLECTOR" and that he's "confident of its value". Apparently, this is a "one of a kind" system "in MINT condition". According to him, "You will not find a more perfect Vintage Video game system anywhere." Trust him, he's looked! Why should we trust him? Because, he's "a collector [him]self" and he "wouldn't be selling such a Mint Condition Video Game System if I didn't have too [sic]." (Yes, that "too" is typical of the english used throughout the posting. Apparently he decided not to proofread it.) Seriously, one has to wonder what this guy is smoking. A new in box Colecovision went for only $227 last week. Why does he think that he can get $500 for it? Especially since he seems to sell a lot of Colecovision gear. It's got to be a lark or something. Perhaps he's trying to see if a fool and their money are really so easily parted. Either that, or there's something really special about this system that he isn't telling mere mortals. Anyone have any ideas, or are you just as skeptical? Edit: I must have been tired last night. I seem to have confused the sellers of the NIB Colecovision and the $500 Colecovision. They're not the same. (Thank God. That would have been *really* strange. )

VCS: STEEEEEEEELLLLLAAAAA!!! Cross Platform Built-in Debugger File Management Precise Emulation Fast Definitely Stella. Intellivision: Bliss. Specifically, the Java Version. The latest version is Windows only, but I like the cross-platform ability of the original. (Especially since it works on OS X.) It's too bad that the author ducked out of the Java version before Java Gaming really caught on. He could have updated it to high performance, full screen graphics and quality sound without having to change languages.

The DOD security restrictions were extremely tight up until the mid-to-late 90's. Anything that wasn't easily crackable was considered a "controlled munition" and was illegal to export. For this reason, Netscape shipped with 40-bit encryption, and the author of PGP butt heads with the DOJ. Eventually, the restrictions on encryption were lifted. The key factor was that international banking and trade was becoming increasingly insecure despite the fact that other countries already had the necessary encryption technology. What's interesting is that many European countries retained strict laws on the import of strong crytography, even after the US backed down. So if the European version of the 7800 had been released in the late 90's, it probably still would have shipped without crypto. I haven't kept up on the topic, but I believe that the EU regulations are slowly loosening the controls on European crytography. A breakdown of crypto-law by nation can be found on the Crypto Law Survey website.

1. Those *do* look good. Great work! 2. You let ZylonBane get you riled up? As I can tell you from personal experience, he visits these boards for the sole purpose of getting people worked up. You're probably wasting your time by arguing. He really doesn't care. (Not that it stops me from trying to make a friendly gesture every once in awhile, but I'm starting to think it's a lost cause.)

In any case, a keyboard for the 2600 is a wonky idea that just wouldn't work. Even if you gave the keyboard another processor to offload the poor 6502, the TIA just couldn't generate any significant amount of text. Which means that the result would look something like this: Isn't that exciting? Of course, I suppose you could eliminate the TIA from the equation and have your own video output, but then one has to wonder: If you replace the processor AND the TIA, what is the 2600 used for? The Joysticks?

The Intellvision keyboard component that turned the Intellivision into a computer was released, but was as restricted as Mattel could make it. The problem was that the component was too expensive, and Mattel was losing money on each unit. In an attempt to lose less money, they made it so cheap that nearly every unit shipped was returned. I imagine that they're wonderful collector's items at this point. Luckily for Mattel, a secret order had been given to a separate engineering group to come up with an alternative design that minimally made the Intellivision into a home computer. When the keyboard component failed, this alternative was released as the Entertainment Computer System. The ECS didn't really make the Intellivision into a full computer, but it did get pretty close. (Closer than the Odyssey^2, anyway.) These can still be found, but they're somewhat rare as it was released close to the end of Mattel Electronics' life.