AussieAtari

I still get my 99/4A out for the occasional bout of Parsec and Hunt The Wumpus and will usually play TI Invaders and Munch man whilst the unit is out. I kept all of my carts but my tapes have gone by the way over the years which I now regret as those Scott Adams text games were good. The speech was the best at the time but the expansion box was HUGE and took up too much space and was way too expensive for an empty box.

River Raid, Pitfall, Enduro, Centipede, Space Invaders, Breakout, Ms PacMan and Pole Position plus a Xonox Double-Header (can't remember which one) and some Spectravision titles. By the mid-80's I was more into computer games with a far bigger collection of Vic-20, C64, TI99/4A carts and tapes and a bigger collection of PC disks.

I want to start experimenting with the emulators available for the Dreamcast and would like to know if I need to have my console modded in any way for it to read CD-R's.

First I've ever seen of that, may be made in Australia but not available here. "Real Yeast Extract In Every Bite" - sounds so appealing - not!

You can probably hear my sobbing from the other side of the globe!

Now, that six-pack would have to be Guinness as that is pretty close to molten Vegemite! Trivia for you - Vegemite is based on yeast extract and is sourced from the breweries here as it is a by-product of the brewing process. Unfortunately I cannot view the General Mills picture of the "infamous" spread. I reckon we'll need a slab of VB with every Wii to guarantee results - for those that don't know, a "slab" is a box of 24 375ml cans or bottles ("stubbies") and VB is Victoria Bitter, brewed by the same company who own Fosters and now the most popular beer in Oz. That could be marketed as the ultimate party pack!!

Now the Big Red Car DVD would be a winner!!!

That could be at the detriment to sales as very, very few people here in Oz drink Foster's, it is no longer widely available here (just like Nintendo) and is mostly brewed under license overseas. I'll go with the micro-brew option .

At the time of release in Australia, the Spectrum was cheaper, an alternative to the Commodore juggernaut and we had a lot of locally developed (the great Melbourne House) software and magazines from the UK to support it and it seemed to promote home programming fun by it's design. Whereas the C64 was like the PC of today - buy a program and load it. The BASIC was unique and buyers did not seem to purchase a C64 for home programming (I used to sell all of the home computers in the early '80's so am talking from experience). The Atari computers were all available here but a bit too expensive and did not enjoy the software range and user support of the other two popular machines (the TI99/4A and TRS-80 sold better, especially the latter, plus Apple had a very big presence). As for now, I enjoy both units just as much, the Spectrum for the "British" games (Dizzy, Skool Daze, head Over Heels etc) and the Atari which I like to play around with connecting it to my home network and mucking around with it's peripherals. They are all different and all great, and judging from this forum, stir up a bit of emotion in us all .

From an Australian perspective, Nintendo was once the biggest here and now is fading away to almost nothing with only a few of the major retailers carrying Nintendo products. Everyone supports Xbox 360 and PS2/PSP and the 360 is out first and therefore grabs the market share. Unfortunately, it will take a huge launch and a truly "Revolutionary" product for Nintendo to get back in the race here, even with the PS3's price tag. The market here is really only big enough for two players plus PC's (which are big, if not the biggest, game machines here in Oz).

Another vote for Joust. Overall I have more patience with the driving games now than when they first came out, so I am giving Pole Position a bit of a workout whereas it was never in the console for more than 5 minutes in the '70's.

There are PAL FB2's sitting around and Atari/Infogrames have simply not commissioned them for release? Oh, cruel world!!

Was there any mention of the Flashback 3 (or any hardware for that matter) by Atari at E3?

I did not know you could get KLAX on the Game Gear as it was an Atari release. I would regard Columns as a must to lose 15 minutes when you have time to fill. How does the screen re-surfacing work? I would not mind getting the minor swirl scratches out of my GG and Lynx screens. Game Traders here in Oz offer CD resurfacing and I've got some terrible Saturn CDs but I have never been sure how successful the resurfacing can be or the risks.

Do what I did and get your wife hooked on Tetris, mind you then you might find (as I have) that it is no longer "your" DS and the dusting never gets done. Toddlers of today are the gamers of tomorrow! My 7 year-old loves her Nintendo Dogs and my 1 year-old loves watching the movement and colours of Mario 64.

I don't suppose you can get the game from one of the Abandonware sites?

It is great to have it back (although it still takes alomost four months to get to Oz!) and the coverdisc is not missed as you can get everyting off the web. The price went down without the coverdisc. They do seem to be going away from computer hardware reviews though and cencentrating on games which I find a bit of a shame, covering one old system an issue was great. The "definitive hardware list" in each issue appears to be simply filler as well.

I just want to say that this was a great fun topic, I certainly enjoyed looking at all the lists and have already added some games to my wish list as a result of seeing them on the post. Well done 8th Lutz!

Just like keeping my album & CD collection in alphabetical order, my wife just cannot seem to understand that sitting down and cleaning & maintaining my carts and systems is a relaxing pastime and an integral part of my retro gaming hobby!

Excellent, thanks for that Jess. Now all I have to do is locate a cartridge, the VIC-20 hardware is the easy bit.

My mum loved Video Vermin (a Centipede copy) in the mid-80's and I want to try to get her another copy and the hardware to go with it for her 70th birthday as a great retro present - yep, she is a pensioner who loves video games and PC's and always has since I was sellng them in the early 80's. Does anyone know what platform it was on? I think it was a Vic-20 cartridge but am not sure.

Atari Dedicated Systems: Atari 2600: River Raid Atari 8-Bit: The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy Atari 5200: Ballblazer Atari ST: Impossible Mission Atari 7800: Motor Phsyco Atari Lynx: Klax Atari Jaguar: Doom

Ah, but the ability hack the DTV, which is really a 128Kb C64 on a board, is appealling to this geek at least which is why I bought two of them. If you are into modding, you should check out some of the sites on hacking C64 DTV's.

Surely they would have had to present a business plan in order to re-negotiate the debt, that would make for compelling reading. It would be interesting to see what they view as their target markets and therefore what products they are going to concentrate on to pull them out of their current, dire, position.

Oh yes, I'd forgotten about Combat as the original pack in for the 2600, I was thinking Space Invaders. Super breakout.................surely the old day equal to Tetris (lol).