Lady Jaye

Or you could always use a Coleco Gemini joystick, if you can find one. They're not the best joystick out there, but there is a paddle integrated on the controller, aside from the joystick.

The thing with the Gemini is that I didn't buy it new. It used to belong to one of my friends and I bought it off her back in 87. I must have been too rough with the joystick jacks at one point cuz I slowly started to lose control of the joysticks (must've twisted one of the metal pins in the gemini). *sigh* I need to find a used 2600/Gemini that works. I still have all my games, my joysticks (well, what's left of them), even the TV switch box (bought a new one when I thought I had found a good 2600 at a garage sale only to realize that it didn't work anymore)... One of these days, I'll tour the Montreal thrift shops to try to find one of these working beauties! Stella is a good emulator but it's just not the same as plugging in the game system!

I don't know if anyone working on emulators posts in this board, but I wonder if there would be a 5200 emulator in the works for the Mac. Right now, the only available option is MacMESS, which is a far-from-perfect solution. Just wondering... Of course, it can never beat using the real thing, but then again, there isn't the whole issue with the controllers in emulation.

I don't know if anyone working on emulators posts in this board, but I wonder if there would be a 5200 emulator in the works for the Mac. Right now, the only available option is MacMESS, which is a far-from-perfect solution. Just wondering... Of course, it can never beat using the real thing, but then again, there isn't the whole issue with the controllers in emulation.

Does anyone remember the Coleco Gemini? It was an all-black standalone clone of the 2600 made by Coleco. I heard that it was more common in Canada than in the US (of course, I could be wrong...). It came with Donkey Kong and joysticks that consisted in a short stick (shorter than the standard 2600 joystick), a fire button on the left side and a paddle on the bottom; it was rectangular in shape. Boy, those joysticks were really bad!!! I pinched my hand many times with the fire button, and this isn't a good thing. No wonder I switched to the Atari pro-joystick in the late 80s!

I like Nintendo too. Maybe it's because most of my Atari memories date from the late 80s (I did use to play back in 84-85, but I only got my own console in 87). So me and my best friend used to alternate between the NES and the 2600. And my other best friend had a Sega Master System...

Thanks, Chad!

Thanks Alex, Maybe trying to contact Doug Neubauer would do the trick. (I once received an email from Steve Wozniak about how he made Breakout) Any clues as to where I could find his email address? (ie. contact list of Atari programmers, etc.)

Okay, we've all read about (or experienced) the Pacman and the ET disappointing carts. However, there is one game that, curiously, never gets blasted for the quality of its port, even though it is far inferior in quality than other console versions. And I name... Donkey Kong! I spent hours when I was about 12, doing marathon DK sessions with my best friend. We tried to see how far we could go in the game and our high score was around 1,000,000 points. Anyway, there are only 2 levels in this versions, as opposed to 3 in most consoles and 4 in the original (and later console ports). Also, all the challenge that could be found in other versions (ie. fireballs) were gone. And, by the way, has anyone ever figure out whether the things in level 2 were ghosts or cats, or cat ghosts, or what? I never could myself. Since I think of both ghosts and cats when I see them, I suppose that's what they are!

And to think that I only have 2 boxed games (for keeps, sorry!): Phoenix (silver label) and F-14 Tomcat (IMO, a very hard game to play)! Even though I no longer have a working 2600, I have kept all my (handful of) games and my controllers. It's not a question of collecting, but perhaps of clinging to good childhood/adolescence memories...

Does anybody know whether there's a working emulator of the 7800 for the Mac, aside from MESS? So far, I'm not too impressed with MESS and would rather find an individual emulator (kinda like Stella, but for the 7800). Thank yew!

Hey there people! I played Solaris back in the late 80s and recently rediscovered this game. One thing that boggles me is: how did Doug Neubauer (Solaris' programmer) manage to make such a graphically advanced game for the 2600? Obviously he must have used some kind of trick to move around the technical limitations of the system, but what could it be? I've tried to find an answer to my question thru the web but have yet to find it. For some reason (perhaps because of its late release date?), Solaris is a little-known game for which not many people have written about online. Thanks to anyone who can provide me with an answer!